"Dispatch From Paradise" writer Cora Lee went searching for ghosts in Presidio Park, but her exploration of San Diego's supernatural underbelly didn't stop there. She visited San Diego's many mysterious cults in person, meeting members and observing their practices, and explored a long-running family dynasty of fortune tellers that has sometimes drawn law enforcement and media attention. In this Halloween episode, we follow Cora through the city's paranormal scene, from haunted hillsides and psychic shops to the strange and sprawling world of alternative spiritual communities. Along the way, religious studies professor Joseph Laycock helps unpack why belief in ghosts, aliens and spirits persists and what our search for "presence" reveals about being human. It's part spooky story, part San Diego history and part philosophical journey into why some mysteries endure — and why, deep down, we might not want them to end.
Guests:
- Cora Lee, journalist and writer of "Dispatch From Paradise" Substack
- Joseph Laycock, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Texas State University
Sources:
- The Junipero Serra Museum (Bill Virden, The Journal of San Diego History via San Diego History Center, 1962)
- Sociopolitical Aspects of the 1775 Revolt at Mission San Diego de Alcala (Richard L. Carrico, The Journal of San Diego History via San Diego History Center, 1997)
- Rumor Has It (Cora Lee, Dispatch From Paradise Substack, 2024)
- Why are people starting to believe in UFOs again? (The Conversation, Joseph Laycock, 2016)
- Over a third of Americans believe in ghosts and U.F.O's (Ipsos, 2021)
- Supernatural Belief Is Not Modulated by Intuitive Thinking Style or Cognitive Inhibition (Miguel Farias, Valerie van Mulukom, Guy Kahane, Ute Kreplin, Anna Joyce, Pedro Soares, Lluis Oviedo, Mathilde Hernu, Karolina Rokita, Julian Savulescu and Riikka Möttönen, Scientific Reports, 2017)
- History and Presence (Robert A. Orsi, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016)
- American Piety In The 21st Century (The Baylor Religion Survey, 2006)
- People of the Forest Orangutans (Mission Wildlife)
- Visionary Spiritual Experiences and Cognitive Aspects of Spiritual Transformation (David J. Hufford, The Global Spiral via Penn Medicine, 2008)
- Spirituality Among Americans (Becka A. Alper, Chip Rotolo, Patricia Tevington and Justin Nortey and Asta Kallo, Pew Research Center, 2023)
- Law of Three Stages (Encyclopedia Britannica)
- Family Business (Cora Lee, Dispatch From Paradise Substack, 2023)
- Gy
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