Seventh Sanctum - 'Into the Shadows': Magic and the Occult with Andy (A.D.) Mercer

“Into the Shadows: Magic and the Occult with Andy Mercer”

This week on Seventh Sanctum, Kerry Ann and Natalie journey deep into the unseen with renowned occultist and author Andy (A.D.) Mercer. From Traditional Witchcraft to Dr. John Dee and Enochian Magic, Andy opens up about the transformative—and often misunderstood—world of the Occult. We talk about the esoteric,  magical psychology and why the Occult still matters in a disenchanted world.

Andy Mercer is a UK-based occultist, author and publisher with over 30 years of experience in the esoteric arts. Andy has written several influential books, including ‘The Wicked Shall Decay’, ‘Runa – The Wisdom of the Runes’, ‘Liber Corzonzom’, ‘Underworld Gnosis – Occult Currents in Dante’s Inferno’ and Sefer-ha Sitra Achra. He publishes through Three Hands Press and Troy Books, two respected independent publishers of esoterica. And most recently, Ninth Circle Press, his own publishing company. Known for his grounded yet deeply mystical approach, Andy continues to challenge and inspire seekers.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paranormal-uk-radio-network--4541473/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hello, Welcome. I am Kerrie Ann and you're listening to
Seventh Sanctum. Thank you so much for joining us, and
today as normal, I'm being joined with my co ghosts,
my co host. It's not original, it's not original. Natalie,
how are you, ghost? How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm all right. I'm sort of confused because we're now
in British summertime and there's light everywhere and I'm a
Goth and I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Well, I'm a Ginger and I don't like it for
the same reasons.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
I was like, it's so bright out here, I can't
see anything. That's all light everywhere, and it's where to
night timing on.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, I feel that in my soyle Goths and Gingers alike.
And this evening we'll being joined by Andy Mercer, who
is the show's producer, who works, who's a big part
of and I never want to get it wrong and
so it's a big double negative there, but the Paranormal

(01:26):
UK Radio network, So please tell us a little bit
about you and yeah, and the part that you play
to make Seventh Sanctum what it is today.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Blow when do I start? Yeah, I co run the
whole network with ireland Mark, and we've been going for
about ten years now. I think you've been doing this.
I'm one of a few other shows as we'll have
a regular show with a friend Steve Ward High Strangers
Factor has been for a few years and now you
guys came on board a couple of years ago now,
I think, and I basically produce your show. I take
this raw material, had a bit of music about to

(01:55):
unt a little bit to get out on the network.
So that's what I do for you guys, which is
good fun. Enjoyed working on other people shows. It's easily
working on your own.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Absolutely, And we've been working together now for I want
to say, it's like six or seven years to investigations.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Easily, must be.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yeah, absolutely. I think I started this about ten, no
more than that, about eleven years ago, and have passed
across quite quickly through different radio shows at the time
and investigations and things. And yeah, I think the first
time we ever investigated I think it was at Covered
and Hatch.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Oh, very likely.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
I think we kind of first really met when Richard
Clement started his own little station and in the parasearch
thing about and again I was about ten years ago
now it's absolutely flowing by and I think we did
a couple of investigations after That's whe we've first sort of
started talking and became part of your team for a while,
which kind of went a bit strange. But I'm to
talk about that not but yet I think it's a

(02:56):
bit old. But yeah, so we've really stayed content ever since,
even though I've now moved away from the land of
Essex over in the West Country. Might as well quiet
more peaceful here.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yes, and we have an aged one bit myself.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Well, I don't know Fortunes is audio owning so that
my lack of hair is not visible on camera now, So.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Okay, fair enough. So what are you so? I know
that you have you have your publishing company now, so
tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Yes, I am Ninth Circle Press. It's published ocult esoteric books.
We've just we I would say we, but really it's
just me. I am, I am everything, the whole whole works.
Just released our most recent book. I just said an
hour again. It's one of these funny things you get
this saying us our and we in this sort of
publishing world, make your big company. But it's just me, me,

(03:51):
and my writers obviously that we would be my other
writer who at the third book of just published is
about it's Judas as in biblical Judas and witchcraft. There's
a connection between Judas and traditional witchcraft to do with
the betrayal and the outsider, and Ian Chambers has written
in this particular book which is very good. Indeed, he's
best known for a book called The witch Compass, which

(04:11):
is about judicial witchcraft, which came out via Llewellian a
couple of years ago and sold very well, so with
his going pretty well. So that's the third book I've released.
The second one was with a friend mine, Richard Ward,
who wrote about witchcraft and the occult in Essex, of course,
where he and I are both from and where you
guys are now Becausessius has got a very rich history
to do with the emotion of witchcraft in the eighteen

(04:32):
hundreds and into the more modern times, which maybe we'll
talk about bit later. And the first book I published
was my own book, which will probably take half the
show to explain. It's a bit complex stuff to do
with the dark side of the Kabbala, but it's not.
It's thing called the c acra which is the old
Jewish mystical version of evil, the origins of it, and
it's been mixed up with the Kabbala, and the have

(04:55):
been mixed together by a lot of more modern writers.
My book shows the different concepts, different ideas. So that's
the three that have been out from Ninth Cysical Press
so far. It was something I always wanted to do
for years. I must have been since the early twenty
tens the idea of getting the published myself. But as
you know, I am what it was psych a therapist
by trade. It was always a case that women that
was a bit quiet with clients. I think, let's looking

(05:17):
at the publishing, so let's let's develop that plan. And
of course I get busier again with work and I
kind of forget about it. It kind of just drifts
off to one side. But after nearly twenty years as
a therapist, we decided to relocate, say from Essics to
the West Country. So I've dropped most of my clients.
I've you know, finished them off. They've worked through stocks.
It takes a word to sell a house and move,
so I was able to have time to sort of

(05:38):
finish their therapy, but a few have stayed with me,
you can continue on theline. So I do work a
bit as a therapist now, but the idea was to
move away to then focus on starting this publishing company.
So it happened, say twenty twenty three, my first book
came out, and so far to one book a year,
so far three four, twenty five. But stepping things up now,
got a couple of books in the pipeline that become

(06:00):
out later on this year. We're getting it all to
do with witchcraft and the occult and those sorts of things.
That's very much the focus of Ninth Circle Press, if
it was interesting. The reason why it's called Ninth Circle
is I'm very much a fan of Dante Dante Aligary,
who was an Italian poet from the thirteen hundreds. I
wrote the Divine Comedy, and the first part is called Inferno,
which is basically his journey into Hell, and the Ninth

(06:22):
Circle is the deepest level of hell where Satan himself
is frozen in ice and he has to try and
escape from there. So that was where the name Ninth
Circle Press name has come from. Which one of those
funny things when you try and think, I got to
call yourself as a publican company, All sorts of names
and ideas bounced around and think of this idea of
that idea, Never, I haven't seen it quite fit. And
it just happened on the idea of the ninth circle,

(06:45):
and it just seems to already work. It's very catchy,
it easy to remember. So I stuck with that.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
I was like, happened Sanctum, wasn't it? Because I said
to Kerry, why have you picked the names Sanctum issues? Like,
oh no, it sounded good.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, exactly, these things you don't.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
They It's very dramatic, though, the ninth Circle to like
go right there into the heart of darkness? Literally, what
got you interested in? Do you study the Kabbala? Then?
With you writing a book on it? Because or was
it just a curiosity thing that got you interested in?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
I very much have been a long standing interest in
the occult, generally a different various topics and aspects of
I suppose I could kept it an odd story, which
is kind of encapsulates things. Really. When I was a
bit interested in the occulture is on the mid teens,
but it kind of sort of dropped away for a
while until my early twenties, when one particular afternoon, I

(07:44):
was working in London the Financial Physics Exchange, which is
like business and nrble but go out for a walk
and had a funny dream the night before which I
remembered seeing. This dream was literally physical spheres, metal spheres
with metal paths connect them together in the air. I
was following walking around them. Now I knew about the Cabala,
I have to say, was something I'd heard of before,

(08:05):
but I remember that in dream, and I remember walking
into a bookshop in London and there was a copy
of Dion Fortune's Mystical Cabbala, and that particular edition the
cover was of silver spheres of parking into them together. Therefore,
I needed to get back into this stuff, and I
kind of dropped out of it because I was sort
of working in the city and I thought, no, I
need to get back into the occult stuff, and that
one kind of inspired the interest. But my interest in

(08:28):
the occult was all sorts of different veins in different pathways,
but the Cabbala is certainly one of them, and got
very deeply into that and the Golden Dawn, which is
all based around cabalistic material so it got a bit
up from there. But what I was mentioned just now
was very much aware of the fact that a lot
of modern writers write about think called the clipoff, which
is this negative side of the Cabbala, which I knew about,

(08:48):
and they often used the term situacra as in interchangeable
between the two. And I was quite intrigued by this
because trying to find the origins of the clip off
was quite difficult. The Cabbala has been around since about
the third century a d. But it wasn't to the
tenth century they think all the Zohar was written, which
is his twenty two volumes, which kept it the whole
idea what the Kabbala's about, and reading the verses that

(09:11):
are available at the time. The translations were brilliant, and
then a new one came out. They gave him out
ten twelve years ago long, and they're actually about fifteen
years ago. A guy called Professor Daniel Match did a
new translation of the Zoha, and it's much more accurate,
and unlike the previous versions. He didn't need anything out,
even stuff that didn't really make a lot of sense.

(09:31):
He still was in it. And it starts seeing these
references to the Citrakra, the other side, which is like
the other side, opposite of good, and I thought, this
is not the same as the kabala at all. This
is something quite different to the clip off. And realizing
there was no origins to the modern clipoff that you
could really follow, but there was his situ ka've been
on a lot longer, so that really inspub me just

(09:54):
start doing a lot of research and digging into stuff.
So I read quite a lot of the zoo and
Zoa is huge, but I've a period of back three
or four years I was working on this particular the book,
and just the more I dug into, the deeper I got,
I thought, no, this is something different. Modern writers are
choosing to use these two terms citiacra and clip off interchangeably,
but they're not the same thing. They're actually quite different.
And I think it's time to someone to really write

(10:16):
a book and say, look, this is a different thing,
which is what my book was about.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Wow, it's like I'm finding that quite a lot, just
like I mean, I'm aware of classical texts and things,
but there's there's a limit to my understanding of it.
But I've been listening to a lot of different podcasts
with like people that study the classical era, you know,
and everything. And he was saying that if you don't
speak or learn original Greek and you read the text

(10:43):
in original Greek, you miss so much nuance in it.
Because he one particular guy I was listening to, was
saying about like the way we translate things, and he
was like, certain languages have less words in them than others,
and he says, ancient Greek has so many words that
the new wants are more important because they have more words.
And when you reduce it down to a language with

(11:06):
less words in it, a lot of the meaning gets lost.
And I mean he was translating Garland and he ended
up coming from Garland around to I can't remember how
he related it back to the Bible and things, so
I mean I was only just learning about it because
he was saying that the like say, everybody tends to

(11:26):
use a lot of terms interchangeably, or they choose the
popular meaning of a term that that also alters the
meaning of what you're reading. And it's like so like
you say, when you have a a with a lot
of modern writers are quite guilty of it because they
tend to use text or already translated rather than retranslating
it themselves, so they miss and obviously the people that

(11:48):
translated it if they don't know what they're talking about either,
you know. I mean, sometimes that's better because you translate
it perhaps more literally, but when you've got a contextual meaning.
I was reading about the Karli, the non Dualshiva tantra stuff,
and he was saying that all the metaphor that's in
it because the culture at the time was quite prudish,

(12:10):
so they had to kind of hide a lot of
what they were trying to explain in metaphor. And if
you don't understand that the metaphor or what they or
why they say the things they do, the cultural context
of it, again, you lose the meaning. So you get
this literal picture and you think, oh, it's just this,
this and this, and he says, well, actually that means that,
that means that this could mean that, and the reason

(12:31):
why they did that is because nobody liked this, and
so you know, it's sort of and it's really sort
of like made me question a lot of older like say,
a lot of the older texts and the older religions
and the context of the culture they were in at
the time as well. So their meaning of it might
be different to our current understanding because we're looking at

(12:52):
it in a modern lens as well.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Particularly important about ten translation of the Zone, because it
was designed to be as accurate as possible. I mean,
if you said, some of this stuff won't make sense,
but this is literally what it says, you know. That's
the closest you get into exact English. And the previous
two translations, the Sorencino was done in the nineteen twenty
odd and then there's the Kabbala Center version and the

(13:17):
nineties I think it was. The Gobala Center version is
just dreadful, it really is. They're putting to push their
own agenda very much so, and you can sometimes you
can't tell what's the actual translation and what's actually their notes.
They're kind of intermingled them. Was Matt's is very much separate.
I mean some of the pages in the Math edition
it's physically quite large, and about that much of the
Zohar text and that much explanation underneath, which is like

(13:38):
three or four times the size and the explanation of
a small piece of text. It's quite crazy, but it's
absolutely fascinting because there's also one particular book of the
zohog Azo was in number of books together. They left
out the other two translations have left out, and that's
the one that really talks about the Situa Acra. So
you can kind of forgive some of other writers from
the eighties and nineties who didn't have access as good

(13:58):
a quality translation as is now, especially as they didn't
bother translating this particular chapter because it is very strange,
but it is. It's the key element of what the
City Rogue is actually about is in that missing chapter.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
So everything get obscure, doesn't it. It's like, you know,
because like like you say, even if it doesn't make
sense to most people, it may make sense to somebody,
you know. You know, very often it's like with the
metaphorical stuff, it's like when you're immersed in the thing itself,
these metaphors suddenly make sense, you know, like when you're

(14:33):
actively practicing, the way you describe things would change. So
it's like, just because it doesn't make sense doesn't mean
it shouldn't be translated. So it's interesting the way that
they just sort of like, well, this is nonsense, we're
not going to put it in. And yet it's classed
as a book, so it must have some importance to
be in there.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Absolutely why they bother put in the first place if
we didn't think it mattered that that's very much the
problem the stuff was. It didn't make a huge difference.
But and a lot of writers do tend to pick
up a thread or a trend and will follow the
same pattern of thinking without really exploring exactly what it
meant or it came. What I discovered was you have
the traditional definition of the ten spheres of the Kabara,

(15:11):
the tree of life, and they are written to say,
the tenth eleth century, and are quite clear what they are.
But when you look at the clip off, which is
this other opposite version, there's nothing until about the eighteen hundreds.
I mean, there's a chap in the sixteen hundreds whose
name has just escaped me completely. For a second Jewish
mystic who wrote about the a version of the Zohar,

(15:31):
and his name has just gone out my head completely.
Just very annoying. Anyway, we're about that, but there was
this section that kind of talks about the darker side
of the cabana. The clipoff clip off shells is what
you referred to as but the actual ten names of

(15:51):
the clip off weren't really written about until there's the
eighteen hundreds, so it's relatively modern. Still nothing like as
old as the Zohar is with the Kabara and say
the Situarkra stuff in there.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
So yeah, that's curious. Do you do you find like
a significant difference between the two dark side things and
as in like ones completely erroneous or are they just
different shades of a similar idea, very.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Different ideas, very different ideas The whole concept is completely different.
None of these forces in the citual Oka emerge from it.
They don't come out. They pull you into those realms
with crissical ideas or demons as they come out and
get you. They don't in the Situarka at all. It's
what used to place you fall into. It reminded me
a little bit of exploring a Dante's Inferno. You have
to go through these realms, and that's what really struck

(16:36):
me when I actually read this, almost like a practical
exploration of the realms of the siu Akra. There as
seven of them. There's seven of the seven levels you
work through, and they are complex in them and individually
complex in their own right, there's seven of them, and
it's all quite different to what's in the clip off
with very different ideas.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
I was going to say, that's a really interesting idea
that you get pulled into something, because it's like I
tend to find that sometimes with the healing work. It's
like you you'll you'll just end up sort of trying
to stay in one place and you just sort of
end up sometimes somewhere else. Yeah, it's different, and you
just your perceptions are different. Everything's different, and you're just like,

(17:16):
wait a minute, things aren't working the way they normally
work here, what's going on? And it's only one you
sort of figure that out that you can pull yourself
out of it. So that's that's quite an interesting concept
because yeah, because like you say, did yeah, I would
probably go both ways, wouldn't it. In one way, it's
like the sort of the demonic energy type is trying

(17:36):
to come out, but it's also trying to pull you
in at this you.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Know, Yeah, it's into their trap. Basically, if you commit
the right kind of seen your fall into their trap,
you're then dragged into that realm. You can't it doesn't
come looking for you just get sucked into it you
can know 'escape.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, quite quite. That's an interesting concept, actually, I think
that could be more. That could explain some things a
lot more, particularly than the the concept of sort of
like we're all fundamentally good and all we have to
do is the right thing. But if you are in
a different perceptual realm, that's not necessarily the case, because

(18:16):
it would tangte you and change you, and the landscape
would be different and the way you navigate it would
be different. So in order to come out of it,
you have to not be navigating it in that manner, because.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
It comes back to the basic thing with Western religion.
We are fundamentally bad, we are of sin, you know,
and we are to redeem ourselves in God's eyes. If
you go to the east of the Hinduism, for example,
which a brief mention with Karli, your divine and it's
your mission is to find your way to the divine,
because your divine already is to realize what you already are.
So there's a fundamental difference there. And suddenly some early

(18:48):
Judaism had them more of an idea like that that
you'll find your way back to the God, back to
God is the journal rather than being of sin, of
sin stuff really Christianity that comes really from there. So
there is often you often hear this either like you
Christian ideas, and that's much nonsense. They're not the same ideas.
There's a modern term we've come up with, but they
are quite different.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
Yeah, I know, that's interesting because it's it's sort of like,
you know, it's sort of like listening to this classical
guy talking about like the way he translated Christianity and
you just suddenly realize there is not a Christianity.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
It's all interpretation, almost all of it. And it's like
even when you read what Jesus said and did, there's
almost no information there on what Jesus said or did
you know or how he did it is. So it's
sort of like so all of it's interpretation, and it's
based upon like you say, like sin. You know, there's
various different interpretations of what sin even is.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
It's it's really quite It's the first time in a
long time where it started to hurt my brain and
I've had to actually concentrate on something like that to it,
and I was just like, oh, it's already.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
You always have the same problem. Of course, it's written
in the bibulous of in Arabaic, so it's a completely
different submitic language. So it's hard to translate directly from
non submitted from non submitted language as a whole sense
of meaning, it's completely lost. Deeming that problem, particularly the Christianity.
You've gone from Aramaic into Greek, from Greek into Latin,
Latin into English, and so that's quite a journey and

(20:23):
quite different languages. He's same with the Greek particularly, you know,
so there's always that problem of trying to get their
direct translations of the fact that as Doan'tel, Mack is
obviously an expert in the Hebrew, you know, he knows
it intimately. So he was able to give a first
person translation which was a very good indeed.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Oh no, that's really cool, yeah, because it was like
there was something I read a little while about that
said that different languages shape the way you perceive the world.
So the way language is structured alters the way you
think and see the world around you. And that's why
I mean, I think in the article they were arguing for,
you know, having more to pull languages so that it

(21:01):
would open your mind up because then the different different
ways of sort of structuring it alters the way you
look at the world. And it's like even that on
its own is a mind blowing concept, which is you
just it's.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
My degree is in philosophy, so we've abvious we talked
about all different ways of view in the world and
how you know, the way you're understanding of the world
is structure by how you express yourself as well. The
meaning you have behind what you say you know will
find me alter the how you view reality.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, no, it's it's quite an interesting concept. It's it's
very very thought provoking when you actually really start to understand. Yes,
each thing, yeah, especially throughout history, that each thing you
read throughout history has layers on it. Either it's like say,
unless you can read original source material, but even then,

(21:51):
a lot of that's not original, you.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Know, it is speak of Christianity. The First Testament was
the First Gospels. It more one hundred years after it's
supposed to have lived, so nobody was at the time
wrote about him apart from there are some Hebrew writings
about this particular person, but it was one of many
massias that were going around at the time. Was like
your Messiah, and there's so many of them at the time.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, because it wasn't a specific term for a specific person,
was it. It was a generalized It was a generalized
sort of title I think at the time, wasn't it.
So it's like, you know, again, that's a context we
don't get taught and it's sort of yeah, no, it's
it is interesting, probably sort of very deep mindfield to

(22:38):
fall into, though, because there's so much going on at
those periods of time, and like you say, to understand
the context, it is just like you could take years
just on each section.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
The early Christians were convinced that Jesus were back over
the next hundred years two thousand years ago. Now you know,
he's a bit like.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Back and gone again. You know, you just stood a
little wrecky and was like, yeah, I think I wait.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
He ended quite quietly and left quite quietly at the
same time, isn't it Jesus center to chat? Jesus left
the chat quite abruptly. So I know that you said
that you made that change from Essex to Somerset, isn't it. Yes,

(23:27):
there's been a few people that have moved to Somerset. Actually,
when I'm thinking about some of the paranorl people that
we kind of worked with. But I know that a
lot of the conversations that we'd had previously was around
the witchcraft that was in Essex and the kind of
the historical links that we have. In particular we spoke.
I know that when I used to talk to you
about you before, we would speak about James Murrell the

(23:47):
cunning man. We used to yes, and at the same
era we had Sarah Moore who was the sea witch
as well. So what I'm wondering is, since being where
you are now in Somerset, is there any kind of
folklore witchcraft stories that have kind of grabbed your attention
in the same way and James Murell Wance did.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Well, he does, Oh because I say absolutely at the moment,
No not, someone said, because I'm actually working on a
book that is going to work on the whole notion
of George picking Gill and James Murrell identifying that James
Mrrall is a real cunning man of Essex and picking
girls can be nonsense. And so I've been working on
for a while now. It's gathering together all the documents
and information that I can demonstrate the reality of James

(24:30):
Mrrall being the real cunning man, the real magician, real
male witch and George picking Gill is nothing other than
a modern invention created by a called Eric Mabel in
the sixties, and so many people have jumped on the
band are believe in that picking Gill was this amazing
wizard person. He wasn't the man was. Rachel lived to
over ninety and that's it. He's claim to fame until

(24:53):
say nineteen sixty, where for some reason Eric Maple, who
hald have really written about Murrell, had main clear Murrall
was this cunning man, so he decided to change his
story really and claim that George picking Gill was with
this grand wizard that was the master of all these
covered in Canudon and it's just nonsense. There's no evidence
for it. Look any of the books published before nineteen

(25:14):
sixty that writes about witchcraft and magic in Essex, the
only person they ever mentioned is James Murrell, going back
to the eighteen hundreds when he was still alive writing
about him. There's not a word about this. There's there's
a chap pose name against one of those data my
memories going names escaping me. But he wrote the History
of the Rochford Hundred, which is actually multiple volume set

(25:35):
of all the different reasons of South End based around
the South End, and he wrote about Canudon another word
about picking Gill, not a word, but he writes about
Murrell in Hadley where Mrrell lived. So it's you know,
it's it's interesting this one person has really created this
mythology and now there's a run with it you were
talking about before. Really, you know, you're taking board as

(25:55):
particular ideas somehow being gospel, and people run with it.
You know. It's I think more and more people are
recognizing there is something not quite right, but it's only
in America. They're still very much big on these George
picking Gill being this mysterious, powerful magician character. And it
is to say it's been a plan for a while
to put this book together, which is to say fairy
short ies say from me about the history, but it's

(26:16):
bringing all the information together to demonstrate that George picking
Gill was a modern myth largely invented by Eric Maple,
whereas James Murrell from that fifty years before is the
real deal. And the funny thing is you read some
of the stuff contributor to Morrell's life for what he
actually did, and then read what Marles supposed to have done.
It's the same thing. So he's transposed to one person

(26:36):
to the other again. Forty Maple died years ago, so
I know I to find out why he did what
he did. But it's really annoying and frustrating that he's
done this. And because another writer really picked up on
the idea who called himself Lou and his real name
data and names of us skip me completely, but he
wrote about it in the nineteen eighties and he massively

(26:57):
expanded upon the stories about what picking you're supposed to
have done, and it's just nonsense, really, it's just it's
just made up fiction. And there as an American writer
who wrote a little bit later on you then picked
up the back and even further, and it was just
crazy that this guy was saying, we thought these massive rituals,
and you got the Lou claiman that picking your influence
people Alista Crowley and Joe Garl and the founder of

(27:19):
Wicker saying that he actually wrote all these magical rituals
for them. But when you read Picking his actual life,
when he comes to his mascificate, he signs of an X.
He can't him write. He's supposed to these amazing rituals,
but he can't actually write, so it's like it just
doesn't add up. But it's got very much in this
sort of the modern psyche that George Pinking is this
amazing witch from Essex who's really about alfums terrble and

(27:41):
always do these strange things, and it's like it's just rubbish.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
And I think as well some of the conversations that
we had at the time was very similar, because I
think around about the same time, that's when I was
doing some research around Sarah Moore, and what I found
quite interesting was they kind of they coexist or they existed,
found about the same era. And what I found quite
interesting was the differential kind of the way that Sarah
Moore was received by their community in comparison to James

(28:10):
Murraw as well, with a distinctive wicked witch kind of
persona that was given to Sarah Moore as opposed to
the cunning man you know, James Murrell, And I found
that quite interesting. Do you what is your perception on
that kind of yeah that yeah, yeah, view on both
of those characters, well.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
More has been largely forgotten. Really, I mean, your research
were the best rents over about it. It's so little
actually written. It seems it's been just another witch that
kind of nonsense that goes around. And what you've done
there is really good. I mean it is. I think
you might have to broier research in.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
My book, you know, I know, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
So Murrell was seeing more as somebody would fight against witchcraft.
He was someone who'd turn to as a honeyman who
battle against which is his One of the little tricks
was to create a called the Witch's bottle, which is
not the same as which is a bottle of history.
He would get a metal bottle made up and put
various bits and pieces in it a link to the witch,
and he put it on the fire and it was
starting to make a noise and it was like whistling,

(29:10):
so obviously it's boarding inside. And the idea was that
was the witch in pain and suffering. And there have
been stories of suddenly being a on his door and
there's a witch outside screaming, let me be free, don't
don't stop what you're doing, and then she drops dead.
You know, again, it's a it's a story not it's
ever actually happened. But he was known for his witch bottles,
and funnily enough, one of the first he made didn't

(29:31):
was sealed properly, and it did go bang a big bank,
which damaged the fire. It was actually in so the
man who used to make him for him, George Copple
I think his name was, He was a black sweep,
used to make the metal bods for him. He used
to leave a small hole in the lid to let
the steam ats. He aldn't expload again. But James's son
Buck didn't know that, and his first attempt to do

(29:52):
what his father used to do blew up half a cottage.
He exploded and destroyed the building. It was is that
somebody else's? But yeah, so I was like, no, you
shouldn't be doing this, Buck, don't, don't. Don't get involved
with this stuff. So the most largest is sort of
combating witchcraft rather than causing it. The idea of this
picking your capitals. He had caused malicious things to happen

(30:14):
and then say I'm the one who can get rid
of it for you. Moral was like I'd come along
and say I can help you with this problem, but
you didn't create the problem. But the item was this
thinking you would cause a problem and then would be
the solution to the problem. But it's just made up
ubbish anyway.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, And I think that's quite an interesting because when
we think about witchcraft and the witch's bottle in the
way that we're used in it now. Even Andy, when
we did the last event that we had, I think
it was the event of soo in at Colchester Castle,
we looked at that witch's bottle that had been found
and decounted during an antiques rowthow and the guy drunk

(30:52):
from it and then later realized that it was witch's
product is bodily product with some rass thrown in as well.
So this this is obviously a practice that happens for
many many, many many many years ago. And it's interesting
how witchcraft was used to expel witchcraft, so to speak,

(31:14):
at the irony in that I found quite fascinating as well,
especially when Yeah, we were doing some research around the
Rich witch trials and we recognized that that was one
of the processes that were what they would do to
be able to bring the witch out of hireding was
witchcraft itself. Yeah, which is like I think therefore, I am.
Wasn't that really what the Puritan's approach was to the

(31:37):
witchfinder general, was that kind of concept that he himself
was a witch because he was acknowledging its existence in
the first place.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Well, the funin thing is, of course, we've got a
book written in the sixteen hundreds called The Discovery Witchcraft
by Reginald Scott, which was supposed to be Regecott the
debunking witchcraft, proving it was all faith, false and nonsense.
But he cataloged all these spells and rituals and what
the witches did, and it's actually treasure trove, you know,
for anyone's into in traditional witchcraft. It's the book to
go to, you know, because it's all there just by

(32:04):
these plans. But obviously they use some of that material
to try and debunk witchcraft, for things like the mouth
that's a man of a karum. So the hammer of
the witch is trying to eradicate, which I mean, we've
got two tractive because we're talking about this is the
sixteen hundreds of augment here with the witchcraft trials. This
is the eighteen hundreds of people like coming Murral much
more recently, so there is a kind of a crossover
in the sense of the continuation of a form of

(32:24):
witchcraft that was around, but it's not been some I mean,
there's a book written by Margaret Murray in the nineteen
hundreds which claimed there was some big witch cost West
western Europe is like this big organized witch cult across Europe,
which is again a forty complete nonsense and their argument
kind of fell apart very fast. But again some people
still think it's genuine that really did have this strong
witch cult going. But again there's no evidence of a

(32:47):
grouping of work. They're certainly individuals. I mean, one of
the first books I wrote years back, because the wiki
to already k, which is a compilation of witchcraft spells
incantations from the Folcalo Society of eighteen hundreds. They are
actually proper spells. These folks which went out and collected
They used to go out to the countryside and sort
of talk to the locals and write down their tales
of strange things happening and history of that sort of stuff,

(33:08):
and they used to actually recall the real spells these
people were using, which is why I published. But there
are always individuals, there no obvious group work. There's a
thing called the Society of Horsemen's word, which are people
work forces. Obviously there's a kind of a bit more
like freemason kind of thing, but that's the place as
you get to a proper organized magical groupings. Otherwise it's

(33:31):
just individuals who sometimes did have genuine books of magic
that passed down through the families. Sometimes it was just
things they'd read themselves or heard themselves and were using them,
but there was never anything organized.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
And Margaret and Murray, I've come across her name before.
She at one point was considered an expert in terms
of what is witchcraft. In particular, there was an unsolved
murder case happened in I want to say it's I

(34:04):
want to say it is near Pendell, when there was
an elderly gentleman that had been been unlived using a pitchfork,
and she was actually called in to allege that the
reason why this had happened was because he owed a
debt to land until only pay that debt was to

(34:25):
bleed and soak into the land. And this gentleman, I mean,
there's still this actual footage of TV interviews from his granddaughter,
was like he was just an ordinary guy, just was
trimming some hedges. But this lady was brought in as
an expert and actually proclaimed that this was a ritual

(34:46):
un alive in so.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
She disappoint him. True, No, I was gonna say.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
She did some good work.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
The bleeding into the land. That's the blood acre that
goes back to my friend the Ian Chamber's new book
HU called demart that's about that area, that idea, this
sort of bleeding into the land as the betrayal things
of Margaret Murray. She was very much recognized as an egyptologist.
That was her real field of expertise. And see what
still is you know, as a great eyptologist. But she
said wandered into his witchcraft area. I mean, I've got

(35:15):
the original Focal Society magazine article she had published that
was the beginning of the whole thing, which I got
really cheap act. She was quite nice to find. Now
got a subsequent book of course as well. Looking over
the exits on my bookcase. But yeah, I mean she
was seen as having real validity and expertise, and she
wrote the entire bit of botanicas Arty and witchcraft for
a number of years and the various versions. But more

(35:35):
and more evidence began to stack up that just none
of this stuff added up. There was no records, there's
no evidence of any of this. Again, I see bits
of witchcraft here and there, and things like the case
you mentioned there. The ideas were passed down almost through
the family and just through sort of village life, you know,
sort of village gossiping about what you can and can't
do to achieve change. But it's it's just fascinating how

(35:56):
those ideas kind of bounced around. But it's not this
big plan in this kind of field of witchcraft knowledge.
I mean, say half people could even read or right,
and they were just told stuff orally perhaps on my
relative I speaking of which I found out many years
ago that my dad's grandma was the worse of her
village in Wales. And it's almost like, is this like
a hereditary link down to me, this interest because my

(36:19):
actual parents have known just and Dad have no interest
at all in magic. I like what I do in
the fact I'm published and writer, and that's quite nice.
But yeah, so there is always that kind of hidden
link in something to discover that can be lurking in
the background of your own life.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Absolutely very interesting. So I think the next kind of
half really is to really explore your world within the
paranormal and what you've been getting up to and what
you've done some of the interesting cases that you've worked on.
Because as long as I've known you, we've been doing
a paranorl but you've been doing it a lot longer

(36:54):
than I have.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
Oh yes, joh, I's and old now cheers. Well. I've
actually done an online interview with the magazine Guazaza and
Sounds about publishing, and they were asking my interest in
the paranorm as well as the occult, and I was
telling them my very first experience I had, which has
never quite worked out, must have been around about nineteen

(37:15):
seventy nine, seventy eight, seventy eight seventy nine. I was
about ten eleven years old, so work up me ancient thereally.
But so from that first experience in Cold House Fault,
which have I told you about? I remember if I
told the story, Okay, I'll tell the story. Everyone listens
to me on our network as herby story a few times,
I must admit, but I will tell it again. Essex,

(37:38):
along the Estuary, there is cold House Fault which is
near Tilbury, which is a if anyone doesn't know it
is something that we don't. It was originally built in
the Napoleonic times early eighteen hundreds as a thought to
guard the Thames. It was built up bigger in the
First World War and then again in the Second World
War as a gun in placement to protect obviously London
with the bombers coming over. But by the nineteen seventies

(38:01):
it was completely derelicted. It's been fenced off as corrugated
iron and fencing follow all the way around that you
couldn't get inside on its both not supposed to get inside.
It was derelicted and it was quite dangerous in parts,
pretty much falling apart. But kids being kids, summer holidays
on summer Sundays, you know gout it was a big
country park, so we'd get in the fault. Basically you'd

(38:22):
find a gap in the fence and head inside. And
if you remember carry it's got a big courtyard thing
in the middle, which is like a parade ground excuse me,
and you'd have kids and they're up me saying eleven
years or playing football and stuff like that. And this
particular summer Sunday afternoon we were there. I was inside.
It was a few kids in there playing football. I
was a bit of a way from where the rest
of them were, and I was own business. And the

(38:46):
grounds gravel, so it makes noise. You walk on it,
you can't miss the noise. I suddenly looked up and
saw two men in uniform. It went about ten fifteen
feet away from me, just walking past, dressed in military uniform.
And I looked for a couple of seconds, and it
didn't really shot us. I looked away, looked back, and
they were gone. I thought, what the hell was that.
I realized they were walking towards what was a brick wall.

(39:09):
There's no door there they'd gone past. I say, there
was solid as really as anything, both of them dressed
in It's that mid kind of kind of green browning
on the uniform. The one thing I did notice that
really stuck in my mind was there like like bandaging
round below their knees down to their ankles, which I
found that years later was a World War One uniform,
not World War two, so that from the First World War.

(39:29):
But they were completely silent. That's the thing I noticed
that they made no sound. That was walking on gravel,
but there was no noise but they were completely solid,
and I was like, I was more intrigued. I wasn't scared.
I was like, what's that? What have I just seen?
And I remember getting out of the park and Tom
of my parents what I had seen, and they're like, oh, really, well,
they'd bring the believe them when I was like ten
years old. But I was like, absolutely fascinating, what on

(39:52):
earth and I just seen? So I started and I
heard of ghosts obviously, so I started reading about them
from books in the library and I spent sort of
the next few year in the library. I've been reading
about all sorts of stuff about ghosts and again in
witchcraft and supernatural and the culture sort of came from
that as well. But that's my first experience, which was
years ago, so kind of started from there. But that

(40:13):
was the That's one of those ones that will always
stick with me, and all the things I've seen in
the experience over the years, that's all that stayed with
because it was the first. But it was so clear,
so real, and I've never seen anything as clear as
that until last year. And I had another experience, which
is after we've last seen each other, so we won't

(40:35):
know about this. We my wife and I stayed in
remember was it Dartmouth? Sorry, Dartmouth is a little sort
of harbor town down here. We love visiting harbors and
seaside that kind of stuff. Just go away for lots
of long weekends, just staying there. And there's one particular
restaurant in Dartmouth which is actually right on the coast,
is right on the edge of the harbor, and it

(40:57):
looks like a station, literally looks like an old fashioned station.
It's never been a train or anything. It was designed
and built and not like that, built in the nineteen twenties.
And we were in there having dinner, and we were
right in one corner and the table beside us there
was a young couple and a kid and the dog,
and there was a small little behind us. But it
was no one, not exemptives, no one there. In fact
that you had stuff on the table so you couldn't
be used. We were sitting there and the Mandy, my wife,

(41:21):
was looking past me to the couple in the beside us,
and she said, the woman's got really funny eyebrows. You
don't know what she'd done to them. That really big
and thick. And I thought, oh, when she goes to
the lou whatever she comes back. And we were sitting
there and this woman dressed in black walked right past us,
long black hair, as real as anything, walked past us,
and she went off and I could look down as

(41:43):
eating and I thought, look what she comes back to.
The ribbers looked like like that, and I thought, that's funny.
She's not coming back. I said to Mandy, that woman,
the one just walked past us. That what you were
talking about with the black air, and he said, no,
one's got blonde hair and looked at the shoulder woman
a blonde hair and was definitely not the same woman.
This person had come from nowhere and had walked right
past us. Again no sound, but in a restaurant, expect

(42:06):
to be too much. But she was as real as anything.
And the way just came over to say I was deserved,
and I said, just seeing this figure walk past, He said,
all right, yes, no I've heard of her. I've never
seen her. But let me get the other girl. The
other way is coming and said, yeah, I've seen her
so last year woman, tall woman dressed in black with
blonde black hair. To know who she is, but yes,
this place is definitely haunted. I was like, well, it

(42:28):
was that thing again. It was so real. If you
weren't interested in the coast, you wouldn't have even get
a second thought. But it was to say it was
not the woman who was sitting on the field beside us,
but no one behind us. There's nothing there apart from
the door that was locked and blocked up the stuff
in front of it, so she couldn't have come from
that door. There's no come from nowhere else, just like
she's just resent to just walked past us. It was
quite amazing, So that was pretty good.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Did Mandy see as well, No, she didn't notice that.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
I didn't notice her at all. And the fact I
said to her that woman's not coming back once her
eye brothers I was would even give it a sad
and thought. And man said, now the woman's blonde, and
she was over There was blonde, curly hair. I saw
was very long jet black hair dressed in black. So
it definitely was really quite strange.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Did we have a backstory for her? Do we know
who she is other than she just she didn't know near.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
What she's near. But the first one had been a
couple of months. She said, I've been told about, but
it didn't. I never see him. The other one was older.
While i've seen her last year, I don't know who.
Don't think about her who she is, but yeah itself.
But then be tommers the staff that yes we do
have a ghost, and yes one of us has seen it.
It's like blimey, incredible.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
See, we talk when we have guests on Me and
Aie talk about paranoral experiences because our perceptions are very
different to what that looks like because we come from
different backgrounds. Natalie comes from a I think one's more
spiritualist kind of you know that, yeah, and whereas Nannie's
more healing and the way that we perceived we perceive
an it's cotly different. But now that you've had some experiences,

(44:03):
would you say that you've had similar where you've seen
the full body apparition.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Not that solid. It's like I have seen stuff, but
I wouldn't say that I would. I've seen it as
if it was real three D. There's always been some
element to it that's made me sort of understand that
it wasn't Yeah dimensional, if that makes sense. So you've
kind of had the holy Grail of all paranormal things.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, twice. I mean I've always said the more you
do so, the more sensive you become. And I mean
I've seen many, many things ofations. But again, as you say,
you know it's not a physical being. There's something going on.
It's weird. But that was like just solid as anything.
It was really anything. You hadn't looked back and realized
it was the wrong woman, and there's nowhere else this
woman to have come from, or wouldn't have realized this
affect you didn't come. It was just a fact you

(44:53):
didn't come back. You walk past us because the loser
at the fire, and you see the stairs upstairs where
they were, and she never came back. And the interest
is no where near where that where that she'd walked.
She couldn't have gone out the door. And then that
one main door is she gone, and that wasn't there.
She wasn't part of the cleontel. That was quite quiet,
and it was quite early in the year.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Do you think that's the annoying thing about it? Though?
It's like you perceive the thing as if it's there
and then realize it's not there, and you think, damn it.
I think after it's like, you know, it's like your
brain sort of has a slight delay. It's like, wait,
but yeah, that's the thing with the paranormal. It's sort

(45:35):
of like, you know when people say like orbs can't
be this, that, and the other, and I'm like, I've
actually seen orbs, but I've also seen shapes. I've also
seen figures, and it's you know, it's so you're sort
of thinking all that there's different manifestations of things and
they could all be the same thing potentially very much.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
So I've said one of our approaches the hydrogenous factor
on my Shoulder with Steve Waller, is that we don't
different shape between these things. We get a bit deep
in what thinkings are fundamentally the same thing. Ghost you, foes,
cryptis are all the same thing that manifests according to
your belief systems, what your interests are, how you perceive
these other realities, if you like, there are these beings

(46:14):
what everyone call, they present themselves in ways that suit
your understanding. And again I've mentioned this many times. I've
shows before, but there was a show back in the
nineteen eighty it's called The Martian Chronicles, which is about
man's first expression of Mars a dramas is written a
rare brabery, and the idea is the Martians themselves don't
have a physical form anymore, but they can take appear

(46:35):
to be certain ways. And there's one particular scene I
don't want to spoil because it's worl worth watching. Oh
but it's worth watching, where the set of the first
church on Mars and the vicary if you like, is
in there late one evening and he hears movement behind
you in the corner of the back corner of the church.
It's sort of in the gloom, and Jesus walks forward,
complete with the crown, the thorns, blood in his hands

(46:56):
from the crucirix and everything, and the figure basically says,
please stop doing this to me. It hurts and the
priests that what you mean you are putting this idea
on to me of how you think I'm supposed to look.
You're making me basically making it like Jesus because that's
your belief system, and says stop doing exerting me. I
don't know. So I see a lot of these panelal fluma.
That's what it is. They are non corporeal beings that

(47:19):
can manifest in certain ways. And one of the spit
side right here by. The theory is about Bigfoot is
that it's interdimensional, that it's some kind of being that
can move between dimensions. Is why you get reports of
that big footprints suddenly stopping in the middle of nowhere,
you know, just stop as if it's just been lifted
off the ground and vanished. And one theory is that
these things are moving between realities, that it's a it's

(47:40):
a probable being, it's a beast, you know, it's an annimal,
but it is somehow moves between realities. And perhaps ghosts
are doing the same thing. She flipped out of whatever
acituy she did in before and came into her house.
Briefly as I watched the work passed the World War
two soldiers. Something triggered their appearance to re emerge as residual,
residual beings. But there's still a man of some kind

(48:00):
of energy that was present in the place, and it
took on a form that was suited to the built
the buildings of teen years old, and it was a
military base. I didn't know much about it at the
ten years old, but I knew what it was. So
them taking that former first or war soldiers made.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Sense possibility as well as like that, you had a
sort of slight time slip yourself. Yeah, yeah, your mind split.
So you did have a temporary time split, which is
why perhaps they seemed so real as well, because you
were actually seeing them, you know what I mean, in
the same place and time.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
I give you a example of that happened to a friend
of mine, which is quite amazing. He was researching in
the Phisophical Society's library in London and probably heard of them.
And he said, once it o case. You were sitting
at his desk and you looked up and a man
dressing very unusual old fashioned clothing was staring at him.
And the guy sort of looked at him, straight to

(48:51):
my friend stranger, and then he turned and went between
the bookcases, and friend got up and looked. It was gone,
but they'd seen each other, obviously, this guy so it
was dressed to kind of Victorian style, claiming with the
office that he goes back to Victorian age, and of
course my family was dressing modern clothing. So they were
seeing each other, and so that was the really weird thing.
He could. I could see he was looking at me,
and we looked puzzled. Obviously I was dressed very strangely,

(49:13):
and I was him thinking equally puzzled as and whatever am
I seeing? So that was I think that was a
really good song. Probably probably was a time slit because
they were aware of each other.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Yeah, I think it's I think I were. Reality is
a lot more fluid than people sing. It's like now,
I was saying to my mum the other day, I'm
not convinced that we aren't having crossing timelines right now.
It's like and crossing parallel universes because it's just like
because I keep noticing details of things keep changing, and

(49:46):
it's sort of like, you know, I can't remember what
the example was. What. We have a bridge near us
called Swartston Bridge. It's very old. I can't remember how
old it is, but it's a causeway across like the floodplains,
and it's like for about six months, I drive down
it several times a week and it's real crooked. It's

(50:07):
difficult to drive on. You have to really be careful
this it is just not straight. And it's like for
six months of the year, I'm fine driving down it now.
All the optics, all the corners, the angles don't need
to think about it. And then suddenly one day I
went down it and I was like, this bridge is
a different shape. Uh yeah, And now when I go
down it, I have to really focus because I'm like,

(50:28):
I swear this wasn't this narrow before. And it's just
sort of like and there was something else that happened,
and I Mum had an argument with me because I
was like, no, this was this and she goes, no,
it's not. And I was like, no, I'm telling you
it was like this, and she goes, no, it's always
been like that. And I'm just like and there's been
a you know, everything goes on about the Mandela effect,

(50:48):
but there's been about four or five things now in
the last talking about times tips. Actually that is weird.
It's not quite ghosting. But I come out of this
supermarket one night and I'd park my Courser as a
silver Courser at the time, in the car park, same
place I always parked it because I'm a bit autistic,
so I have to part more or less in the

(51:09):
same place.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Everyone does that.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah, said, I know where the car is, but it's like,
you know, it's sort of like that's my safe parking
place I always parked there come out of it. It
was late at night, it was nobody else around the
car park. There was like two three other cars everywhere else.
My car was at the far end because nobody ever walks,
so it's like you don't have to worry about sort
of squeezing in. And I got halfway across the car
park and I looked to where my car should be,

(51:32):
and I actually stopped in the middle of the car
park and was staring at this car that was in
my car parking space. And it was a courser, but
it was like no design of courser that had ever existed,
like a different bumper, a different thing down the side.
It was a different color, a different shape. And I

(51:52):
actually stopped and stared at it for about five or
ten seconds, going, that's where my car should be. My
car isn't there. There's no cars on either side of it.
Where the hell is my car? And I was just
like a bit, a bit like confused for a bit,
and then so I thought, well, I'll just go in
that direction anyway, because you know, maybe I'm being stupid
or something. And as I started walking, that car disappeared

(52:16):
and my silver car reappeared. My silver Corsa. It was
just like I said, this courser doesn't exist in the will.
It's not a model that has ever existed. And I've
done it before as well, where I was filling up
petrol and I looked down at my car again course,
because I only ever drived courses. I looked down in

(52:37):
my car and it was a reno, and I was like,
why am I filling up a reno? And then I
looked away and look back again. It was my quarter again,
and I was just like the first time, I wasn't
very well, so I thought, I'm just having like fever jeams.
The second time, though, I was stone.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Called soupid and I see aned some therapy there because
you're having some slips moments.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Time, I was like, no, no, I'm just ill. The
second time, I was like on my way home from work,
so it was just like completely normal, and I was
just like, what the hell is that, you know, and
it's like I've had a couple of things happened, and
I was just like but then they sort of switched
back again. So it's sort of like I'd like to say,
I'm not convinced that our dimensions don't actually switch and
then switch back again a story of.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
A friend of mine his name because I haven't expressially
really but I know him well to know he wouldn't
have made this up. Absolutely not at all good for
years back. Now he's living in London, he was there's
been a bit of book colacked like me, and him
and his young girlfriend had gone to Canada Market just
to see if they can find some interesting books. He
picked up a few books from a couple of stores
and they decided they want to get something to eat.
It was getting into early evening. He said, we wanted
to see I find an Indian restaurant. We came out

(53:43):
of a different entrance for the market that they normally
used and said, we'll never look around, see will find something.
The family the Indian restaurant down one side street and thought,
keep it trying. And so the food was okay, and
had the meal paid for it and left and he
realized he got back to the tube, so he left
the books behind he'd booked in the bag the restaurant.
You know, I don't want to lose these, So he
walked back to the restaurant. Definitely the right street, the

(54:05):
right place, and the building was boarded up. It was
closed down. It was completely closed there and said, this
has been closed down. It goes down for ages, and
this is absolutely the right road. There's no way. So
we looked around other streets off as couldn't find it.
So this is the right road, not only with the
restaurant on his books are God as well? Now, he said,
this is They were both him and his partner are convinced.

(54:26):
He said. He said to me, you've will on my own,
but it might have made a mistake, but said no, no,
we were both convinced. This was the road. That was
the building and it's boarded up, so it's just so
sit in the restaurant, I can think back, and said,
nothing seemed strange and usually didn't feel wrong, but obviously
it's some kind of weird reality flipp had occurred for
them there. It was just very strange. I mean, he's
into the like I am. But they said, that's one

(54:48):
of the weird things ever happened to him, was this
restaurant changing reality.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
We used to have that thinking was in reading. There
was a book shopping reading that we went in once
and we could never find it after that, and then
often we'd randomly find it and it was never quite
We just were like, oh, we'll go to a bull show.
It's like, we can't find it. Next time I was
visiting my sister, it's like, can we see if we
can find that bookshop? And she was like it doesn't exist.

(55:15):
We can't find it anymore. And I was like, what
is it closed down? She goes, no, it's not there.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
It happened. People usually dismissed it as being their own imagination.

Speaker 5 (55:25):
Or you know, obviously, but it's bizarre because I've had
I've had it happen a few times now that I'm
starting to actually question partly my own Like you say,
you first after you think I was going a little
bit crazy, but you're like waiting in it.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
It's like there's no other explansion. Recently here in my
house we had a little one my wife and well
there's things going in this house were definite, I mean
ritual magic in it. So there's not surprising. But also
we know that at least the most the blast person
livid died in the house, and we think possibly one
before they did as well, so there's possibly there. But
a couple of things have happened that have stood out
as we've got quite a long lounge. Rather that it's

(56:04):
like double the aspect, opposite ends and so often not
so much now. When we first moved here, we could
see a black catwalk across the lounge at the following
of the lounge. It was like, did you see that? Yeah,
that's weird. I had friend Richard stayed early last year.
He came over for a long weekend when was away
and he said, if you get a cat got into
your house, because it's just some shore saw a catwalk

(56:25):
pass the same space. I mean, we didn't tell him
about what we've seen, but he said, no, I just
saw a catwall past. No, no, definitely no cats in here.
But no, we've seen it. We've smelt cigarette smoke more
than one occasion. Now nobody around us smokes, neither side
or opposite smoked. Highness is an empty field, so there's
no one there, but it's not smoking the house. But
just last week we had a little strange insidance which

(56:47):
I'm mentioned on my Facebook page. Actually a little that
inch high statue of Ganesh, the Hindu god. We're sitting
in the lounge watching TV, and all of a sudden
we both were like a like something fallen manual that
the hallway and on the third step from the bottom
statur had appeared. Now it's mine, I know it. I
hadn't seen since we moved house. It was completely covered

(57:09):
in dust, thick dust all over it. It just appeared
on the stairs. Lily just dropped onto the stairs. God
knows where that came from. Absolutely no idea at a
where that came from. Sos happened. But when you say
you weld have it's the same thing we would have
the occult you do panel investigating. The more you do it,
the more you tune you become, and I think you
are more visible to them, whatever they are, and they

(57:31):
noticed you more as well. And we've had a few
things there recently. A remote control disappeared and reappeared on
its end. It sank straight up in the at the
fact base. It could do it, but you'd have to
very carefully place it on the carpet do it. It
would fall over. But were sitting there sort of bottomed up.
How the hell did it get there? I mean, it

(57:51):
possibly have landed like that. It's not been dropped from anywhere.
It was just it was there on the floor. So yeah,
so's these things have me for many years. I mean
a story I'd tell many times is back when I
was living in a flat in London with Mandy and
her mom. I used a small back room and she
repaired Vinty's fountain pens. And one of the best things
for Vinta's fountain pen repair is copy decks glue, because
it's flexibly strong but flexible and offering you new flexibility

(58:13):
of a pen. I had a big tub, quite a
large tub of it in that back room used to
is and it went missing. It just literally disappeared for
about a month. And I came home from work one
day and I go upstairs to get changed and you
can get to the top of the stairs. You could
as you walk upsteps you could see the end room
and as all were upstairs there it was in the
middle of the floor of the room. It's just appeared. Obviously.

(58:35):
I asked Mandy's mom because she tired, she lived on
She said, and touch it, and I know she wouldn't have
made it up and it's not things he did, and
it just reappeared. It's nice, this portload more actually it's
good stuff. But it was literally in the middle of
the floor. There's no way it could have been there
that time and not be noticed. So yeah, these tricks
to elements something that's probably the most common feature I

(58:57):
think in tendive experience. I think has been moved around
things disappearing and reappearing in odd places. That's a very
common phenomena. So you've probably caught more poly gist space
rather than ghostly, but yeah, it's one of the most
common things people tend to report ope activity and tricks
to podu ice particularly.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I think that's a really interesting I think within itself,
that's a whole news show, isn't it talking about the
different different types of hauntings and different types of manifestations
of spirit, which is also really fascinating, which we've come
to the end of today's show. It would be really
good for us to be able to have that discussion

(59:35):
on a secondary one. But I leave Natalie in full
control of booking guests in because I am chaos apparently.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
Chaos and about coming on job bloody shot.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
I was like, I don't see you want to interview him. Really,
it's just like organizing and everything else, and I think.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
You know, organized, we were like passing ships because we
arranged it and then you was going out to New
York and we weren't too sure when you was going
to be going out to New York. And then yeah,
it kind of just nothing seemed to coincide. And then
it kind of just yeah, I got distracted by something shiny,
clearly because my attention doesn't stay very long. And then

(01:00:19):
and then and Hee was like, oh, we have a
booked in. I'm like, no, we have not booked it in,
but Nannie is in control of the booking on me. No, No,
it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
Learn to be more more forceful because it was like, oh,
you're ADHD, And I was like, how could I be
ADHD when I have to organize carry not Adhd. I'm
the one organizing things, but I've got to be more
what's the word directing when I organized? Because I'm two
people pleasing. So I'm like, would you like to instead

(01:00:53):
of saying we're doing this at.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
This time end off, I'm absolutely vibrating for ADHD. So
I'm like, oh, okay, look at this new thing. So
yeah it is it is yes, So yes, Natalie, we're booking.
It would be great to ask to have that discussion again.
And in the meantime for anyone that's joined us this evening,
Where can I find you and where can I find
your publishing and what can they look for it forward

(01:01:20):
to in the next couple of months.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
Okay, Well, I am Ninth Circle Press, which is Ninthcircle
Press dot com or dot co dot uk. I own
both as a Ninth Circle Press. One word Facebook, She's
the best place to find me for want to communicate
with me on Facebook. And Andy Mensa, which you can
find as a picture of Dent used to be a
picture of me reading Carl Jung book with the book
sort in front of my face as if it was

(01:01:43):
me for years, and I've just recently changed that to
a picture of Dente. But I think I might go
back to the old Carl Young because everyone knows that
picture of me, so they'll return to that one at
the moment. To the next books. I am working on
two at the moment. One is a reprint of an
old book I did years ago with a friend, myn
Richard about a fragment of Greek magic, Greek magical, a

(01:02:04):
fragment of a Greek magical for priory. It's old, very
old magical spell stuff. And my own book. The first
one I actually had published is called liber kearons On,
which is about Knocking Magic, which first thing about ten
years ago and has been with another publisher for a
while and for a verse reason it's not going to
publishing it. So I've got that back. So I'm working
on my own liber kreons On second edition, which is

(01:02:24):
much more expanded. And then I'm so working on the
book on Murrall and Picking Gear, which it's only really
like a long essay with all the a coupany of
material that basically proves the argument, proves the case that
should be out with Troybooks. Another probas I've worked with
rather than from me, because yah, much bigger than I am.
I don't want to get the word out about just spelling
this myth about Murrow and big ging Gil. So that's

(01:02:47):
at work at the moment.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
So there you it's exciting, and we do have a
couple of events coming up as well, which obviously you'll
be coming along to some of it, some of this, Yeah,
so we're still kind of pie in the sky at
the moment. We will we're finalizing some dates, so we've
got some of those coming up. So obviously they're based
in Essex and so if you want to come along
and come along to one of them, yeah, you'd be

(01:03:09):
able to meet Andy Mercer at those events as well,
which is fantastic. So with that, I'm going to say
thank you so much Andy to finally have you on
the show. It's been really good talking. Yeah, it's been
really lovely. I look forward to chatting again soon. Thank
you for joining us.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
And with that I'm going say goodbye, thank you so
much for everyone that's joined us, and we will see
you next time.