Bizarre States: Resurrected

Hello Seekers!

The week on Occulture Shock - Wizard Wars I'm digging into the fracture between Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente: the founder who went public to protect witchcraft and the woman who helped to write it....

....only to then walk away when Gardner's mythology making started outweighing honesty and power plays were rife within the coven.

This is not an episode of blind hero worship. This is a sharp (but hopefully, fair...

Hello Seekers!

Welcome to a new year, a new podcast "season" and out new theme to start of uss: WIZARD WARS!

This month I'm focusing on the hurt egos, sullied reputation and downright bitch-fests between the big names within the occult scene - both past, present & future.

Consider today's episode a bit of an hors d'ouver. little teaser of sorts - A quick overview of some of the most famous fights amongst the self-proclaimed spiritu...

Hello Seekers!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break and a Happy New Year's celebration and...speaking of that.....

Huzzah! Here is the latest episode of the OccultureShock Podcast for 2005! And what better way to close out the year than to talk about a prophet and his accurate predictions for an upcoming disaster in the new year (that "new year" being 1666...so, no worries for us).

As always, thank you for getting weird wi...

BE WARNED - This episode is VERY true crime heavy and thus, involves a lot of dark and distrubing material - CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Seekers!

We are in the "between times" right now - the Rauhnächt - where the veil is thinnest between the world and the dead & The Wild Hunt walk the Earth.

Which makes this the PERFECT time to discuss some infamous true crimes that occured on, and around, Christm...

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You've heard the Christmas carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas," but have you ever asked yourself...

Why? Why twelve days? And what was it about those days that make them such a big deal in the first place?

On today's podcast episode, we look into that VERY thing (and it's both super weird and kinda' MEH (all at the same time).

I break down what is: 

• Historicaly documented
• Folklore
• Theory
• Why the number twelve ...

Hello Seekers!

It's a new month, so a new mini-season of topics!

Since it's December and the holidays are right around the corner, I'\m going to stick with "weird holiday histories and traditions."

First on our list comes straight out of the Alpine regions of Northern Europe - Krampus and Grýla.

In the mountains of Austria and the lava fields of Iceland, the gifts the winter spirits came with were horns, claws and a very clear mess...

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Today we are pulling the curtain back on one of the holiday's most traditional and beloved drinks, Eggnog and its filthu cousin, the Tom & Jerry.

Rife with bacteria, potentially poisoned by disgruntled family members and the cause of one of the largest (and most hilarious) riots in U.S. military history, I present to you, the final installment of our mini-series, Nightcap Noire: The Hidden Crimes Behind Holiday Cockt...

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This week, in our podcast mini-series, Nightcap Noire - The Dark History Behind Your Favorite Cocktails, we are taking a gander at the infamous Ward 8. A drink that somehow managed to survive longer than the political system that created it.

Old-guard Bostonians liked to hole themselves up in Locke-Ober; a formal, male-only dine and drinks establishment that has a reputation for haughty exclusivity. The fact that a d...

Good evening Seekers,

I thought I'd try out a new series theme for the rest of November (and maybe a little into Dec. if it feels right) and that is: Nightcap Noire - A series that explores famous cocktails based on gruesome true crimes and the histories behind them.

Los Angeles, 1947.

A body in a vacant lot. A dark legend in the making. Elizabeth Short, soon to be known as The Black Dahlia, wanted to be seen...

And Hollywood promi...

Seekers!

Here's a true crime story that I've been sitting on for a while: The Mysterious death of Josslyn Hay, the 22nd Earl of Erroll and the scandalous lifestyles of the "Happy Valley Set," a group of British elites in Kenya during the early 20th century.

In 1941, a car was found idiling on a desolate road just outside of Nairobi.

Inside? A British aristocrat with a bullet in his brain.

This week's episode dives into one of the m...

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Well, I'm still rockin' that Shirley Jackson podcast angle this week!

After last week's podcast, I ended up falling into quite a deep Shirley Jackson internet history hole and discovered that Mrs. Jackson is connected (however tenuously) to an infamous and unsolved murder case of one of the most important American heiresses within the U.S.'s Gilded Age "royalty."

Jane Stanford was the wife of prominent robber baron/ ...

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This week, we take a look at the author who inspired modern day horror writers such as Stephen King and Guillermo Del Toro by turning her ordinary suburban American life into quiet horror.

Shirley Jackson lived in a house full of noise - four children, a controlling and flandering husband and a typerwrite on a kitchen table within the middle of it all.

From that chaos she wrote fantastic short stories and novels revo...

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Last week we went into the connections between the top 3 Romantic writers of their era: Mary (Godwin) Shelley, Percy Shelley and Lord Byron.

But that just SCRATCHES at the surface of these lunatics (and their friends).

This week's episode goes more "behind-the-scenes" of what famously went down at that villa in Switzerland (hint: It wasn't all writing. There was also a fair bit of sex, drugs and rock n' roll), as wel...

In 1816, under a sunless sky, 18 year old Mary Godwin dreamnt of a man who could re-animate the dead. But the story of Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus wasn't born out of superstition, it was born out of the Ennlightenment itself.

This episode unravels how a secret Bavarian order, a volcanic winter and one radical family's  obsession with reason combined to create the world's first modern monster.

From the real Illuminati in ...

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Welcome to an episode that I've done inn combination with: A). Just getting back from a weeks long vacation in Japan and B). Popular demand for this particular subject matter.

What is that subject matter, you ask?

It's actually about one of my favorite things in Japan - their toilets! Specifically, their high-tech Toto ones.

Because the Japanese didn't just re-invent the toilet into something spectcacular, they actua...

Hello Seekers!

Jess here - I'm back from Japan (expect that love-letter podcast to Toto toilets coming your way very soon :)

In the meanie, Here is my latest deep dive into videogames and their real-life counterparts. This week, we're loking at: Assassin's Creed Hexe (as currently titled) and the real German witch trials it world-builds around.

Plus, it's the first day of October, so it's a rather apropo subject matter.

When peop...

Seekers!

This week we're heading deep into the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A million acres of twisted pitch pines, bogs and legends that refuse to die.

For over 250 years, locals have whispered about a winged, hoofed creature living within the wilderness: The Jersey Devil.

But here's the plot twist: one of the most famous supposed eyewitnesses wasn't a farmer or a trapper. It was Joseph Bonaparte, Napolean Bonaparte's older brother...

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Step into the world of the unseen as we explore the strange history of dowsing rods in this episode of: Do You KNow Where Your Ghost Hunting Techniques Come From?

From their origins in Germanic medieval mines to their controversial use in modern warfare, this episode uncovers the folklore and the alleged science behind this mysterious practice.

Join me as I ask the question: Is dowsing a functional skill or a testame...

Today's, "Do You KNow Where Your Ghost Hunting Techniques Come From?" episode is focusing on: Trigger Items.

From ancient libations to Victorian scéance tables stacked with dolls and jewelry to teddy bears wired with ghost-tech, objects have always been used as "bait" for the dead.

Find out the strange occult history behind the modern use of "trigger items" and how this particular technique to draw out the dead goes back way furthe...