1 00:00:00,720 --> 00:00:06,599 You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network, the best in paranormal talk radio 2 00:00:06,799 --> 00:00:13,439 in the UK and around the world. Hello world, you're listening to Eleanor 3 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:19,320 Wagner's Strange and Scary World here on the Paranormal UK Radio Network, where we're 4 00:00:19,399 --> 00:00:26,039 always creeping it real. I'm your host, Eleanor Wagner. Please join me 5 00:00:26,079 --> 00:00:31,519 and welcoming to day's guest at their researcher and musician, Joshua Cutchen. Hi, 6 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:35,280 Joshua, Hi, it's so nice to be here. Thank you for 7 00:00:35,399 --> 00:00:40,000 coming. I appreciate it. Yeah, you're absolutely welcome. I'm glad that 8 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:45,719 our mutual acquaintance josh from What Alerts Beneath put us in touch, and yeah, 9 00:00:45,719 --> 00:00:51,719 I'm looking forward to our conversation. We were talking about strange and piery 10 00:00:51,759 --> 00:00:57,439 phenomena and he mentioned to me that you had some really great knowledge about fairies, 11 00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:00,960 and it just lightened up my mind. I was like, oh, 12 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,560 my gosh, because I have this elderly gentleman. He's like eighty six years 13 00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:07,480 old, and I don't even know if I told you this, but he 14 00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:11,480 loves to take his dog for walk and go and check out the deer in 15 00:01:11,519 --> 00:01:14,799 his neighborhood and he's great with the camera. But I also think he's very 16 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:19,040 sensitive to spirit and to the unknown, and he catches things that are just 17 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:23,239 crazy and he gets excited and the messages me and sends me these pictures. 18 00:01:23,280 --> 00:01:25,400 Do you see this? Do you see that? In this one picture he 19 00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:29,599 sent me, look like this little leprechn guy hanging out with the deer. 20 00:01:30,159 --> 00:01:33,599 And he says, this thing lives in this field. And he says, 21 00:01:33,599 --> 00:01:36,920 I see it all the time, and now I want to see this picture. 22 00:01:38,120 --> 00:01:40,560 I will definitely send it to you. What I'm all settled in. 23 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:42,480 I will send you the picture. You have a look at it, because 24 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:46,840 it is crazy cool. And that's kind of what put that first thought in 25 00:01:46,879 --> 00:01:51,239 my mind. Because now that I've been doing this for about five years or 26 00:01:51,239 --> 00:01:57,680 so, I'm talking to all these people via the podcasting, and I realize 27 00:01:57,719 --> 00:02:01,560 there's a lot more out there that we're not aware of. I feel like 28 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:08,319 my scope was this absolutely. Yeah. You start with something simple, it 29 00:02:08,400 --> 00:02:10,560 gets its foot in the door, you know. So it's like, well, 30 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:14,199 we all think that maybe ghosts are possible, and then you look into 31 00:02:14,199 --> 00:02:19,039 that and things start to snowball, and eventually you wind up at something as 32 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,199 frankly patent leaf silly, as as fairies and faith fulk which you know, 33 00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:27,919 when people discuss these topics, that's kind of a punchline that people use. 34 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:30,479 They're like, well, they saw a UFO. It's not like he said 35 00:02:30,479 --> 00:02:32,680 he saw a Leprichn And for me, it's for me, it's like, 36 00:02:32,759 --> 00:02:37,719 well, you know, there's such a long, extensive history here, and 37 00:02:38,639 --> 00:02:43,199 a very strong argument to be made that a lot of the a lot of 38 00:02:43,319 --> 00:02:47,360 modern UFO encounters are actually sort of variations on these older fairy stories. So 39 00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:51,960 you start to say, well, maybe there is something something to this. 40 00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:55,159 So, yeah, it's that that's a that I've heard of a lot of 41 00:02:55,199 --> 00:03:00,120 people who have had that sort of similar journey, myself included to a degree. 42 00:03:00,039 --> 00:03:04,639 Why don't we start with how you got involved in how you guys started. 43 00:03:05,599 --> 00:03:08,639 So I was always a I was always a monster kid. You know, 44 00:03:08,719 --> 00:03:12,759 anytime there was a creature feature on TV, I would be watching that. 45 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:17,719 Yeah. Yeah, and naturally that sort of I think spills over into 46 00:03:19,439 --> 00:03:22,280 you know, the unknown, the unexplained, those sort of things. So 47 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:24,639 for the longest time, my primary interest, you know, was Bigfoot. 48 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:30,479 It wasn't until years later that I discovered that my father actually was a subscriber 49 00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:34,800 to the big Foot Field Researchers Organization newsletter. I'm like, okay, well, 50 00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:38,479 maybe there's something or editary here. But you know, I grew up 51 00:03:38,479 --> 00:03:44,000 in a household that never told me that I couldn't look into these sort of 52 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,319 things. You know. It was, you know, there's sort of an 53 00:03:46,319 --> 00:03:47,439 attitude that as long as I had a book in my hand, at least 54 00:03:47,439 --> 00:03:51,479 I was reading, and that's a good thing. Be receptive to everything. 55 00:03:51,680 --> 00:03:54,240 Yeah, exactly. Even though I grew up in a Christian household, there 56 00:03:54,240 --> 00:04:00,479 weren't any religious barriers to any of this stuff or anything like that. Yeah, 57 00:04:00,479 --> 00:04:03,080 which is, you know, a refreshing take that I don't feel like 58 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:06,639 I hear a lot from young religious families nowadays. But that's not here. 59 00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:12,439 We're there anyway. So, you know, ghosts kind of were a little 60 00:04:12,439 --> 00:04:15,120 bit passe for me. I've had some ghost ish experiences in my past, 61 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:17,000 and you know it's kind of like, well, yeah, of course, 62 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:20,319 you know, that was sort of mad at food regarding that the Bigfoot thing. 63 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:24,600 I was on this sort of train of thought that Bigfoot might be a 64 00:04:24,639 --> 00:04:30,800 giant undiscovered primate. My thinking has shifted in that regard significantly, but we'll 65 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:34,040 put that aside for the time being. I was very much skeptical on the 66 00:04:34,079 --> 00:04:38,759 UFO question because if you look at, you know, even a cursory reading 67 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:44,399 of the sighting reports that have happened over the past seventy years, and arguably 68 00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:47,720 the UFO question has been in the background from I'm much much longer than that. 69 00:04:47,759 --> 00:04:51,040 But if you look at just the past seventy years, it seems to 70 00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:56,120 paint a picture of multiple civilizations coming here, when in like, you know, 71 00:04:56,199 --> 00:05:00,480 hundreds of different styles of craft and an equal number of configurations, everything 72 00:05:00,519 --> 00:05:04,639 from little short airy dwarves to giant black people. And it's kind of like, 73 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:08,079 okay, well, you know, I can buy the a species as 74 00:05:08,079 --> 00:05:10,560 a visiting here, but you know, one of the odds that there are 75 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:15,160 so many different species of visiting here. So I ended up finally coming around 76 00:05:15,319 --> 00:05:18,800 to the UFO possibility and really entertaining it as something that might have an objective 77 00:05:18,800 --> 00:05:24,360 basis probably around the year twenty fifteen, and that was the year sorry twenty 78 00:05:24,399 --> 00:05:28,720 twelve actually because twenty fifteen was when I left my job, But twenty twelve, 79 00:05:29,079 --> 00:05:31,720 twenty twelves when I got a job and I had an hour long commute 80 00:05:32,160 --> 00:05:36,800 to and from work, and I started listening to podcasts, and I, 81 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:40,279 you know, having always had a little bit of an interest in this stuff, 82 00:05:40,319 --> 00:05:44,560 I started listening to some paranormal podcasts and they introduced me to the possibility 83 00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:48,000 that some of these things that people encounter are not necessarily being encountered in this 84 00:05:48,079 --> 00:05:53,600 reality. They're occurring, those experiences are unfolding in an altered state of consciousness 85 00:05:53,639 --> 00:05:56,959 that's allowing us to see into another world. And for that mean for me, 86 00:05:57,079 --> 00:06:02,839 that was a very parsimonious way to sort of explain the variations that you 87 00:06:02,879 --> 00:06:08,839 see across these different sightings, because if they somehow are interacting with our minds, 88 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:12,360 then they could literally appear like anything they want to right, And you 89 00:06:12,399 --> 00:06:15,120 know, there's some indications through their various folklores that something like that is going 90 00:06:15,160 --> 00:06:19,759 on. So I started being more open to the UFO question, and my 91 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:25,839 interests kept on growing, and I had a I think it was a Christmas 92 00:06:25,839 --> 00:06:28,560 It was either Christmas gift or a Birthday gift. That was an Amazon card 93 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:30,959 from my sister in law, and I decided that I was going to get 94 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:35,160 a big footbook and I got a wonderful bigfoot book, Jay Robert Aliy's Raincoast 95 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:40,160 Sasquatch. It's all about sightings that happened on the coast of Alaska, and 96 00:06:40,439 --> 00:06:45,959 I recall reading in there that there is a bit of folklore among some of 97 00:06:45,959 --> 00:06:51,319 the tribes that one of their bigfoot analogs, the Bequas. It's believed that 98 00:06:51,480 --> 00:06:56,839 if you accept food from the Bequas, number one, it isn't really food 99 00:06:56,879 --> 00:06:59,399 at all. It looks like salmon, but it's actually dried tree bark. 100 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:01,879 And number two, if you accept this food from the book Was and you 101 00:07:01,879 --> 00:07:05,519 eat it, you'll be trapped with the book Was forever. And that was 102 00:07:05,560 --> 00:07:10,560 when something triggered in the back of my mind. And I don't know why 103 00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:14,079 this detail always stood out to me, but it did. There's this long 104 00:07:14,160 --> 00:07:18,920 standing prohibition in the fairy folklore or Western Europe that if you take food in 105 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:24,720 fairyland, you're destined to be stuck there in fairyland forever. And it was 106 00:07:24,800 --> 00:07:30,480 so confronting to me to see that bit of folklore juxtaposed against indigenous folklore in 107 00:07:30,519 --> 00:07:36,439 Alaska, which is it's it's practically the same prohibitious, practically the same taboo. 108 00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:41,399 What accounts for that? And you know, I came to the to 109 00:07:41,519 --> 00:07:45,319 the conclusion that it had to be one of several things. It had to 110 00:07:45,319 --> 00:07:50,000 be either the least exotic, which I still find really fascinating, is that 111 00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:55,639 there is a sort of young and collective unconscious, this well of motifs that 112 00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:58,560 we draw upon regardless of where we are in the world, which is a 113 00:07:58,560 --> 00:08:03,680 fascinating idea and of itself. Or there was a lot more exchange of culture 114 00:08:03,759 --> 00:08:09,160 between the old and New worlds prior to Columbus or the Vikings, or that 115 00:08:09,279 --> 00:08:13,000 these things have an objective reality all of their own. That people are coming 116 00:08:13,079 --> 00:08:18,480 up with these similar rules and things about interacting with this other world because they've 117 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:22,480 all experienced at firsthand, Sony. Any three of those is absolutely fascinating to 118 00:08:22,519 --> 00:08:26,600 me as as a possibility, And I said, well, someone should write 119 00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:31,680 a book on that. And you know, I got a death job at 120 00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:35,679 the University of Georgia at the time, and jumping into this field is not 121 00:08:35,759 --> 00:08:43,679 something one does lightly because I dare say, it makes you times are changing, 122 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:46,720 and this is not necessarily the case now, but is right it? 123 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:52,320 Yeah, it sort of sort of makes you unhirable there were some, There 124 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:54,159 were some. There were some job interviews that I progressed through about three or 125 00:08:54,159 --> 00:08:58,600 four realms, and then I think they finally decided to google me, and 126 00:08:58,600 --> 00:09:03,919 it was like, oh, he's a koop. But I just I felt 127 00:09:03,919 --> 00:09:05,720 a calling to put together my first book, which was A Trojan Feast, 128 00:09:05,759 --> 00:09:11,360 which looked specifically at this sort of food taboos as it appears in different cultures, 129 00:09:11,399 --> 00:09:16,240 and it really is widespread amongst every inhabited continent. People will have this 130 00:09:16,279 --> 00:09:20,320 idea that if you go to you know, the other world, whatever that 131 00:09:20,399 --> 00:09:28,159 might be, spirit world, underworld, the astral rail, wherever where whenever 132 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:31,720 we go to this other reality, don't eat or drink anything. And you 133 00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:35,399 know, I still find that fascinating that that's such a pervasive myth. But 134 00:09:35,919 --> 00:09:39,399 I wrote my first book on that topic and it was well received. To 135 00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:43,720 my absolute shock, there were folks whose books that I read in middle school 136 00:09:43,799 --> 00:09:48,759 who were saying kind things about a Trojan Feast That must have like tugged at 137 00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:54,000 yahr strings right, because the two were actually accepting you in giving you good 138 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:58,600 feedback. I could not have hoped for a better and warmer reception. And 139 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,480 it was kind of like being a basketball fan and kind of enjoying basketball, 140 00:10:03,519 --> 00:10:05,799 but not knowing you had any aptitude. And all of a sudden, you 141 00:10:05,799 --> 00:10:09,159 know, Lebron's like, hey, good job kid. It's like, oh 142 00:10:09,879 --> 00:10:15,120 wow, did you say that to me? Yeah, I'm still in shock 143 00:10:15,159 --> 00:10:18,360 at Like sometimes I looked through my phone and some of the names of people 144 00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:22,840 that I count as friends now not just acquaintances but friends kind of shocks me. 145 00:10:22,639 --> 00:10:28,559 It's been a wonderful what trap. So yeah, I ended up quitting 146 00:10:28,559 --> 00:10:31,360 my job and just working as an author and a musician, and eight years 147 00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:35,519 later, it's finally become profitable. It took a while, but it's finally 148 00:10:35,559 --> 00:10:39,159 become It happened. I've been writing since I was a kid, and I 149 00:10:39,279 --> 00:10:43,519 actually wrote my first book before I had children, so this is way back. 150 00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:48,120 And then when they were full grown and on their own, I decided 151 00:10:48,200 --> 00:10:50,480 to publish it, and all of a sudden it took off. And you 152 00:10:50,519 --> 00:10:54,559 know how you always have that time in that place the universe has it for 153 00:10:54,639 --> 00:10:56,120 you when they want to do it, and you just have to go with, 154 00:10:56,279 --> 00:11:01,240 well, well, my career started when I'm fifty, and you know, 155 00:11:01,519 --> 00:11:05,159 being an author, it's a struggle just getting your book out there. 156 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:07,799 Whether you see a profit or not is one thing. But it's the joy 157 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:13,120 of writing and getting that story out that's the right. And that's how I 158 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:16,799 do it for the sheer joy of it out. I try to emphasize this 159 00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:20,240 to folks because I run into people who are trying to chase trends, and 160 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:24,399 it's that's never been my guiding ethos. I mean, I write these I 161 00:11:24,440 --> 00:11:30,200 write books for myself and I do projects for myself. I have been fortunate 162 00:11:30,279 --> 00:11:31,919 enough that people want to come along for the ride. I just felt what 163 00:11:31,919 --> 00:11:35,360 I do is I try to make it the highest quality that I can be, 164 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:39,279 even though it's just for me, and people seem to want to share 165 00:11:39,279 --> 00:11:41,759 in that journey. Now here we are, keep on doing it then, 166 00:11:41,919 --> 00:11:45,399 yeah, so here we are, depending on how you count, seven or 167 00:11:45,480 --> 00:11:50,000 eight books later, and yeah that's great. Well, when I when I 168 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,960 first started writing my first book, it was a psychological thriller and that's where 169 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:56,480 my thing was. I mean, I was always into Stephen King and Dean 170 00:11:56,600 --> 00:12:00,360 Cools and so all that was the stuff I read. And then I went 171 00:12:00,399 --> 00:12:01,799 to school to write for children. So you think I had to write a 172 00:12:01,879 --> 00:12:05,840 children's book along the way, But I never really thought that I was going 173 00:12:05,879 --> 00:12:09,799 to end up writing true account hauntings. But my joy was always in that 174 00:12:09,919 --> 00:12:11,639 phenomena. When I was a kid, it was all about ghosts and creature 175 00:12:11,720 --> 00:12:16,360 virtual like Ustad and in Surgeon. That was my thing. So the universe 176 00:12:16,399 --> 00:12:20,639 had a plan and I just needed to wait to find out. And before 177 00:12:20,639 --> 00:12:22,960 I knew it, I was writing books on true account hauntings in the community 178 00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:26,039 where I live. But what I wanted to share with you, which was 179 00:12:26,480 --> 00:12:30,559 a little story. It was going to just be ghost stories, true account 180 00:12:30,559 --> 00:12:33,000 ghost stories in the neighborhood. And then when I put it out on social 181 00:12:33,039 --> 00:12:37,600 media, all these people came to newick stories about big Foot in my community 182 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:41,360 and UFOs and there were such good stories I could not leave them out. 183 00:12:41,720 --> 00:12:46,879 So rather than it just be Sussex County hauntings, I did Sussex County huntings 184 00:12:46,960 --> 00:12:50,320 and other strange phenomena so I could put those stories in, which turned out 185 00:12:50,360 --> 00:12:54,639 to be a really good thing because now it's enabled me to write about, 186 00:12:54,559 --> 00:12:58,600 yeah, the UFOs and big Foot and other things like near death experience and 187 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:05,159 carnation And now I'm talking to you about fairy so yeah, and I'm sure 188 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:09,679 you've noticed this because this is this is where my greatest interest, if we 189 00:13:09,679 --> 00:13:13,759 want to get really niche sort of originates is the more you look into this 190 00:13:13,799 --> 00:13:16,960 stuff, the more porous these boundaries become between these phenomena. You know, 191 00:13:18,039 --> 00:13:22,360 you have bigfoot stories that sound like a ghost story because the thing just winks 192 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:26,240 out of out of sight and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, you know, 193 00:13:26,279 --> 00:13:30,679 you have people who who see dead loved ones and alien abductions or see a 194 00:13:30,799 --> 00:13:33,320 UFO and their house fills with poulter geist activity. And it starts to appear 195 00:13:33,360 --> 00:13:37,399 as if a lot of these boundaries that we draw between these different phenomena are 196 00:13:37,519 --> 00:13:41,360 sort of arbitrary. And that's that's sort off. If I if I had 197 00:13:41,399 --> 00:13:46,039 to speak highly of myself, which I am always hesitant to do, but 198 00:13:46,159 --> 00:13:48,679 if I had to, I have to say that I try to be a 199 00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:52,639 disrupting force and say, hey, let's mix all this stuff up, and 200 00:13:52,679 --> 00:13:58,240 then you can see, like how it might be that we're looking at multiple 201 00:13:58,279 --> 00:14:03,120 facets of one bigger picture, bigger reality. And you know that the fairy 202 00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:07,000 folk stuff, I think to a certain degree an argument could be made that 203 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:11,399 it's one of the underlying substrata of these things in addition to consciousness. As 204 00:14:11,399 --> 00:14:16,919 alluded to earlier, a lot of stuff falls within that fairy umbrella that we've 205 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:20,360 been I don't think, I don't think willingly. I don't think it's a 206 00:14:20,360 --> 00:14:26,639 sinister agenda. But we've been deprived of how truly powerful that body of folklore 207 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:30,600 is because we have this idea of what fairies are in popular culture being these 208 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:35,879 sweet little vixens with wings, and that's not really what's indicated in the folklore. 209 00:14:35,919 --> 00:14:41,200 If you go back, not even that far, your sinister or the 210 00:14:41,559 --> 00:14:46,960 idea of fairies in our current form that we think of them and being sweet 211 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:52,000 little things is pretty much in Elizabethan idea. In fact, you can't really 212 00:14:52,039 --> 00:14:56,759 find depictions of fairy wings much earlier than some of the stagings of Shakespeare's plays. 213 00:14:56,759 --> 00:14:58,120 There are a couple of references in poetry, but if you actually go 214 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:03,639 back and look at the folk tales in Western Europe, they not only lackwings, 215 00:15:03,799 --> 00:15:07,840 they've always been attributed powers of levitation and flight and things like that, 216 00:15:07,919 --> 00:15:11,639 but they also were not always you know, short and tiny. Sometimes they 217 00:15:11,639 --> 00:15:16,600 would appear just as tall as a human being. Oh really, Yeah, 218 00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:20,440 And a lot of these terms are are really fluid. That's something else that 219 00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:24,440 you're quickly discovering them. Elves, trolls, fairies, mermaids, giants, 220 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,840 they kind of all fall under that generalized fairy umbrella. But there's always this, 221 00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:31,840 you know, this assumption that fairies, being shape shifters, can be 222 00:15:31,919 --> 00:15:35,080 whatever size they dang well please. And then the other thing that I find 223 00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:39,440 really fascinating about it is if you look, you know, we normally think 224 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:41,840 of fairies as being though English, Scottish, Irish, you know, that's 225 00:15:41,879 --> 00:15:46,080 that's sort of the yeah. And then you know, if if if we 226 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:48,519 want to say elves, then we're looking into Scandinavia and that's sort of you 227 00:15:48,559 --> 00:15:54,039 know region, and you know Germany with dwarves. But what you find out 228 00:15:54,360 --> 00:16:00,759 is that after looking at this long enough I would hazard a guess that any 229 00:16:00,919 --> 00:16:04,320 region in the world that is that as people, there is some culture that 230 00:16:04,399 --> 00:16:11,360 has stories of beings who tend to not exclusively in their variations on this, 231 00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:17,000 but beings who tend to live on the margins of society, have supernatural powers, 232 00:16:17,279 --> 00:16:22,039 tend to be short, often dwell underground, and are fond of kidnapping 233 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:26,559 human beings, sometimes replacing them with changelings. Yeah, so I mean like 234 00:16:26,039 --> 00:16:30,679 nat and you know, it's no more it's no more stark for me than 235 00:16:30,720 --> 00:16:34,639 if you look at some of the the Cherokee Missing legends from here in the 236 00:16:34,679 --> 00:16:41,000 New World. And it gets so specific that I have to ask myself if 237 00:16:41,039 --> 00:16:45,960 there might be cultural contamination from some of these early ethnographers because it is so 238 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:51,720 specific. Sometimes I read a story and the only thing differentiating it from a 239 00:16:51,840 --> 00:16:56,559 story in Ireland is just the proper nouns. You know, there's this belief 240 00:16:56,639 --> 00:17:00,000 that time would fluctuate in the presence of fairs in Ireland, and you see 241 00:17:00,039 --> 00:17:07,359 the same story among the Yunmi Sunsi or the Nayah here in here in the 242 00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:11,960 Southeastern United States. There are these ideas that they are associated with earthworks, 243 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,039 sometimes burial mounds, and that's something you certainly see in the Old World, 244 00:17:15,119 --> 00:17:18,880 and you also see down here in the Southeastern United States. And again there's 245 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:26,359 that question like if there wasn't any cultural exchange between these two populations in pre 246 00:17:26,480 --> 00:17:30,400 Columbian times, then why is why do the why do these things look so 247 00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:36,960 darn similar? There is a sinister aspect to the fairies, but I like 248 00:17:37,039 --> 00:17:44,200 to call them more capricious you know, it's strange that because you have Disney 249 00:17:44,319 --> 00:17:49,960 is very known to portray everything is to just the wonderful and glorious and the 250 00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:56,720 mermaids, and so people get this this perception and then it's not a reality, 251 00:17:56,759 --> 00:18:00,160 and then you find out, like the original fairy Tales, they were 252 00:18:00,240 --> 00:18:04,759 killing people and not loving people. Yeah, if it's sort of the same 253 00:18:04,799 --> 00:18:08,440 sanitization that you see if you go back and actually read Brothers Grim, you 254 00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:14,319 know you can see that sort of same sort of cotton candy facade put on 255 00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:18,119 things. Yeah, but you know, there was this there was this idea 256 00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:22,079 that you know, time would dilate in this other realm. They could be 257 00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:26,160 forces for good or forces for I wouldn't even say evil again, I'd say 258 00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:30,480 just the negative forces. You know, if you if you kept your fairy 259 00:18:30,519 --> 00:18:34,000 that was associated with your household, maybe it was a brownie or a French 260 00:18:34,039 --> 00:18:38,599 goblin or something, if you kept them appeased with offerings and you treated them 261 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,480 kindly and didn't speak all of them, they could bring you great fortune. 262 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:48,359 And if you even accidentally offended them, then your life would fall apart. 263 00:18:48,519 --> 00:18:52,160 And this could be this could be something as relatively innocuous as cutting down the 264 00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:55,119 wrong tree, you know, or even you know, there's a story from 265 00:18:55,279 --> 00:18:57,640 the Isle of Man where somebody ran into its fairy tree just like happened to 266 00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:00,440 brush into one, and you know, I think they were stricken blind in 267 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:06,319 that particular story. So yeah, it's that they are not to be trifled 268 00:19:06,359 --> 00:19:10,240 with, and they are unpredictable. Again, capricious is the adjective that I 269 00:19:10,279 --> 00:19:15,200 like to use, but exactly what they were what they are you know, 270 00:19:15,279 --> 00:19:21,480 a lot of our modern conceptions of fairies again using that as an umbrella term 271 00:19:21,519 --> 00:19:25,400 to encompass things like gnomes and elves and sprites and all this. Our modern 272 00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:29,799 conception of fairies really ties them to this sort of idea of like being earth 273 00:19:29,880 --> 00:19:33,880 elementals and helping vegetation grow and being you know, stewards of nature at the 274 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:40,920 bottom of the garden. And while that's indicated to a degree in some of 275 00:19:40,960 --> 00:19:45,279 the folklore, and we could get into time permitting and interest permitting, we 276 00:19:45,319 --> 00:19:51,960 can get into that, but that is mostly an outgrowth of this late nineteenth 277 00:19:52,039 --> 00:19:56,440 century spiritual movement known as theosophy, which you might have run into. It 278 00:19:56,640 --> 00:20:00,880 was closely tied with the spiritualist movement dealt with a lot of channeled material. 279 00:20:02,119 --> 00:20:08,200 Helena Petrovna Blovotsky was the leader of this organization, and it's from that tradition 280 00:20:08,279 --> 00:20:14,640 that we see this idea of fairies being elementals and inhabiting a flower and helping 281 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:18,000 it grow. That's sort of where the roots of that sweeter version of theories 282 00:20:18,119 --> 00:20:21,680 kind of originate. If you go back into the folklore, and again this 283 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:26,119 is a consistency that I've voted, you find lots of connections between fairies, 284 00:20:26,759 --> 00:20:30,799 regardless of what cottony you're looking at in the human debt, whether it is 285 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:34,279 that you can die and become a faery or that you die and you go 286 00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:40,000 to the fairies, or it's not entirely clear, and it's often get some 287 00:20:40,039 --> 00:20:44,920 conflicting information in that regard, but some of the origins seem to be tied 288 00:20:45,200 --> 00:20:48,000 to the human dead. Some of the origins for fairies seemed to be to 289 00:20:48,039 --> 00:20:53,119 seem to suggest that they were demoted pagan spirits or that they were you know, 290 00:20:53,359 --> 00:21:00,279 smaller deities that were associated with individual areas as well, really specific spirits 291 00:21:00,319 --> 00:21:04,240 of place, you know. And then of course to Christianity comes along and 292 00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:11,000 can't abide any degree of nuance in this regards. So you get these stories 293 00:21:11,039 --> 00:21:14,440 that become Christianized that you know, oh, the fairies are demons, or 294 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:19,079 you get the stories that fairies were the angels that were too good for Hell 295 00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:22,480 and too bad for Heaven, or the fairies who happen to be on the 296 00:21:22,519 --> 00:21:26,480 outside of Heaven when the gates were shut after the word of it. I'm 297 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:29,759 sorry, you have to put a title. Yeah, you have to put 298 00:21:29,759 --> 00:21:33,680 a label on it. This this this compulsion that we all we all feel 299 00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:37,839 as human beings. My mentor Greg Bishop calls it the certainty fetish like we 300 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,039 have tubby able to say, this is what it is. That's probably been 301 00:21:41,079 --> 00:21:45,680 the most surprising thing about looking into the fairy folklore is how just messy it 302 00:21:45,759 --> 00:21:49,640 is, to the degree that you will talk to fairy scholars and yes, 303 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:55,680 those people do exist, and they will they themselves will tell you that no 304 00:21:55,720 --> 00:22:00,880 one really knows where this sort of archetype of the fairy came from. It 305 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:07,039 just sort of appears and the sort of back engineered to be to be one 306 00:22:07,079 --> 00:22:11,200 thing or another. Yeah, I know this is a far out question, 307 00:22:11,319 --> 00:22:15,640 but you hear about all these missing people, do you think they have something 308 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:18,480 to do with as you mentioned kidnapper. Well, you know, it's so 309 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:22,559 a lot of them missing for one one stuff people who go missing in national 310 00:22:22,599 --> 00:22:27,119 parks. I've often said that missing for one one is a paranormal worshact test, 311 00:22:27,319 --> 00:22:30,680 you know, So whatever you're really interested in is why you're going to 312 00:22:30,759 --> 00:22:32,720 see. So you talk to somebody, you fit the pig foot, It's 313 00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:33,160 like, oh, it's a big foot. You talk to somebody who. 314 00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:38,160 So I realize, having made that statement, that there's a lot of irony 315 00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:41,200 in the fact that I would attribute most of that to fairy activity, because 316 00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:45,319 I'm sort of outing myself in my own worshact. But at the same time, 317 00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:49,319 there are some specifics that I don't think any of the other explanations. 318 00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:53,960 If we're going to solve one unknown with another with another unknown, there's some 319 00:22:55,119 --> 00:23:00,599 specifics to those cases that I think fit the fairy folklore model very well. 320 00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:06,720 Some of the David Pelatis's work, he talks about how people sometimes he's known 321 00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,440 as a trend of them wearing bright clothing, perhaps the color red, sometimes 322 00:23:11,279 --> 00:23:15,759 before they disappear into these national parks. And I'll be darned if you don't 323 00:23:15,799 --> 00:23:18,680 look through some of that fairy folklore, they could be offended by certain wud 324 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:22,720 clothing and this was often regions specific, but one of the clothing, articles 325 00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:26,039 of clothing, or colors of articles and clothing that they would be most offended 326 00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:30,519 by and be inclined to take you would be if you wore red. And 327 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:34,839 again in some other folklore in different parts of Europe, if you wore red 328 00:23:34,839 --> 00:23:40,160 it could repel the fairies. But there's still this connection between bright clothing and 329 00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:45,640 disappearances. There's also in those David Pelatis reports these stories of you know, 330 00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,599 the search has to be shut down because the weather rolls in and it's a 331 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:53,200 horrible storm that sort of shuts down the operation. And I have trouble making. 332 00:23:55,279 --> 00:23:57,920 I have trouble coming up with a scenario where UFOs are controlling the weather 333 00:23:59,039 --> 00:24:02,799 or big Foot controlling the weather. But fairies have always been associated with storms. 334 00:24:02,799 --> 00:24:06,559 It's been one of the one of their primary powers. So that ticks 335 00:24:06,559 --> 00:24:11,359 another box. Yeah. One of the most fascinating things that I fascinating connections 336 00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:14,960 that I saw was, you know a lot of these missing four on one 337 00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:19,279 stories, the person is sometimes found face down and they've got their clothing neatly 338 00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,599 stacked beside them, which is always very geary sort of thing to see. 339 00:24:23,079 --> 00:24:27,559 There is an article, an academic article. I can't remember what journal it 340 00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:30,079 was, nor can I remember the author, but I do have it cited 341 00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:36,400 in one of my books that there are stories in Hawaii that if you run 342 00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:40,200 into the night Marchers, who are not explicitly fairies, but sort of share 343 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,039 a lot of the same attributes that you'd see with fairies in Europe, including 344 00:24:42,039 --> 00:24:45,599 this tendency to troop across the landscape on certain nights. If you were to 345 00:24:45,799 --> 00:24:49,000 encounter the night marchers, and the one thing you should do to protect yourself 346 00:24:49,079 --> 00:24:52,440 is before their king walked by, you should strip yourself make and lie face 347 00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:56,279 down the ground. It's like, oh, that's that's kind of great. 348 00:24:56,359 --> 00:25:00,319 So so yeah. I do see a lot of a lot similarities between these 349 00:25:00,319 --> 00:25:07,200 disappearances and the faithful stuff, and I think that it suggests some things. 350 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:14,680 It suggests that these older phenomena, if they do have an objective reality, 351 00:25:14,799 --> 00:25:18,480 never really went away. They just sort of change their appearance of their name. 352 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:22,559 You know, I'm not sure that calling these things feries is an accurate 353 00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:26,440 reading, you know, I think that we're using language to try to tack 354 00:25:26,519 --> 00:25:30,839 onto something to make it seem more comfortable to wrap our heads around. But 355 00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,359 you know, the other thing it sort of becomes a problem too, is 356 00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:38,319 that the term faery, again just looking specifically at Western Europe, was applied 357 00:25:38,319 --> 00:25:41,960 to a lot of things much in the same way that we would just throw 358 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:45,480 around the term paranormal or supernatural. So when you're looking back through these older 359 00:25:45,519 --> 00:25:52,599 books, it might not be as explicitly phenomena from the good folk or the 360 00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:55,640 gentry or the we folk, whatever you want to call them, as much 361 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:59,400 as it is just their language for describing something that explained, oh it's fairy, 362 00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:03,000 you know. All that being said, though, I do see throughout 363 00:26:03,519 --> 00:26:08,079 a lot of the paranormal phenomena that we talk about the thumb print of this 364 00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,839 older folklore and this older mythology that just really refuses to go away no matter 365 00:26:12,839 --> 00:26:18,599 how much we try to keep reinventing the paranormal wheel. So we were talking 366 00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:22,079 about fairies, we were talking about big foot, and then you threw away 367 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:30,799 nons and all that other stuff. So there then we realize obviously, yeah, 368 00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:34,119 or you know, sometimes I entertained the idea that there's a lot less 369 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,519 more than we realize, but a lot less than we think. And what 370 00:26:37,599 --> 00:26:44,079 I mean by that is that these are just masks that this other thing likes 371 00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,240 to switch out and put put on and take off. Stephen King, Well, 372 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:53,720 you know, it's interesting in Katherine Briggs's Encyclopedia Fairies, which I have 373 00:26:53,799 --> 00:26:56,880 sitting over there in two pieces on my shelf because I've looked through her so 374 00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:03,559 much. She was a pretty fairy scholar and wrote several books on fairies, 375 00:27:03,599 --> 00:27:08,319 and there's an entry in her Encyclopedia of Fairies about a shape shifting, supernatural 376 00:27:08,519 --> 00:27:15,480 fairy that would appear just like your deepest fears, and it was referred to 377 00:27:15,599 --> 00:27:22,839 as it So, yeah, that's that's a bloody yeah. All. It's 378 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,440 another thing that I'm fascinated with is is how we as a culture sort of 379 00:27:26,519 --> 00:27:30,279 laugh about fairies, but they are. They're everywhere, like you know, 380 00:27:30,559 --> 00:27:34,160 their influence is with us to this day in ways that we don't fully comprehend. 381 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,640 I mean, you know, the medical term stroke is a derivation of 382 00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:41,240 the fairy stroke, which would be when somebody was, you know, touched 383 00:27:41,319 --> 00:27:45,000 by a fairy, they would have the symptoms that we normally associate with a 384 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,119 stroke nowadays. But that term literally comes from that older term for fairy strike. 385 00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:59,279 Yeah, the colored cobalt was originally associated with the underground mining fairies known 386 00:27:59,319 --> 00:28:03,240 as the cobalt. That's that's where the Yeah, and you can just the 387 00:28:03,279 --> 00:28:07,480 list goes on and on and on, connections and other things in other ways. 388 00:28:07,519 --> 00:28:12,359 That's so interesting. It has not gone anywhere, gets lost in history 389 00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:19,480 and gets lost amongst the mob of things that are around us. So take 390 00:28:19,519 --> 00:28:25,359 somebody like you to unearth it and put it out there. These these older 391 00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:30,039 ways haven't gone anywhere. They've just sort of transformed and gone underground. I 392 00:28:30,039 --> 00:28:36,759 guess you could say, so suffice it to say, fairies, where your 393 00:28:36,839 --> 00:28:40,200 love wiser? Or is it just about everything? I mean, it's it's 394 00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:45,079 just about everything. Although you know, I keep on feeling this pull back 395 00:28:45,119 --> 00:28:51,079 to that older fairy folklore. I'm at the point now where I have difficulty 396 00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:56,039 differentiating the UFO experience from the fairy stuff. It's gotten so specific. So 397 00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:03,000 look, let's so, UFOs are probably about a dozen different explanations, right, 398 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,880 some mundane and some strange. But if you look at sort of the 399 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:14,160 contact scenario with these beings, it's startlingly consistent. A lot of These parallels 400 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,240 were first noted in public, you know, in a public forum by ufologists 401 00:29:18,279 --> 00:29:22,960 chock Fleet in his nineteen sixty nine Passports and Magonia. But you know, 402 00:29:23,119 --> 00:29:29,880 I can say, I can make the following statements both about modern UFO encounters 403 00:29:30,039 --> 00:29:37,119 or modern UFO and occupants and fairies, short beings presided over by a taller 404 00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:45,359 being in the leadership capacity, carrying wands, capable of paralysis, causing missing 405 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:53,359 time, traveling as lights through the sky, associated with ancient structures and ancient 406 00:29:55,160 --> 00:30:02,599 sites of human habitation, powers of levitation, powers to walk through walls. 407 00:30:02,759 --> 00:30:07,920 It gets so specific that I could I could even say, you know, 408 00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:11,119 there's a common risk recurring trope in the alien abduction community of having an implant, 409 00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:12,960 right, you know, I've got like, you know, they put 410 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,319 something in my body that let lets them track me or monitor me. I'm 411 00:30:17,319 --> 00:30:22,240 sure you've heard these stories. There's a direct analog for this, and in 412 00:30:22,279 --> 00:30:27,480 Western Europe known as the fairy blast, and blast in this sense shares the 413 00:30:27,519 --> 00:30:34,200 same word root Germanic word root as blustery and blister. And this idea was 414 00:30:34,279 --> 00:30:38,319 that you could be hit with a fairy blast of wind, especially if you 415 00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:45,119 defended the fairy and it would cause a blister on your skin, and within 416 00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,079 this blister would be all sorts of anything, and just detry thiss right. 417 00:30:49,079 --> 00:30:52,160 It would be a it might be a piece of a twig, or it 418 00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,799 might be a bit of bone, or it might be a bit of porcelain, 419 00:30:55,839 --> 00:30:57,079 or it might be a tooth, or it might be here. But 420 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:03,000 this idea that there's a foreign object put by supernatural forces in your body, 421 00:31:03,279 --> 00:31:04,599 you can see that in the fairy stuff too. So it's gotten to the 422 00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:10,559 point where I used to hedge my bets and say, I'm pretty sure that 423 00:31:10,559 --> 00:31:14,640 if you find anything in you know, the fairy folklore, there's an analog 424 00:31:14,759 --> 00:31:18,200 in the UFO stuff and vice. First I'm pretty sure, but nowadays I'm 425 00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:21,759 like, I will be able to find something that, even if you have 426 00:31:21,839 --> 00:31:25,759 to sort of tilt in your head and squint, is a pretty close match. 427 00:31:25,839 --> 00:31:29,079 I mean, you've also got this extensive history of you know, human 428 00:31:29,119 --> 00:31:33,119 alien hybrids, and long before that was ever, long before that was ever 429 00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:38,119 a discussion point, you had you know, fairies taking children and fairies taking 430 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,400 people to breed with them, or people you know, being taken away to 431 00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:45,279 the other world and coming back with a strange child that was had all these 432 00:31:45,319 --> 00:31:49,000 miraculous talents and gifts, much in the same way that the UFO community talks 433 00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:53,599 about star scenes and Indigo children. So it's just it's gotten to the point 434 00:31:53,599 --> 00:32:00,200 where I just it's perhaps the most remarkable coincidence in the world or the these 435 00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,759 two things are related, even if there's not an objective reality to it. 436 00:32:02,759 --> 00:32:07,359 It's the same impulse that we are reinventing with a twenty first century veneer. 437 00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:12,759 I think, do the Black Eyed Children fit into the spectrum somewhere along? 438 00:32:13,839 --> 00:32:16,240 So the Black Eyed Children are something of a of a peculiarity. I know 439 00:32:16,319 --> 00:32:22,359 some people who don't really like to treat them as authentic because the stories sort 440 00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:28,240 of seem to pop up relatively recently. I'm a little bit more charitable in 441 00:32:28,279 --> 00:32:31,279 my assessment of it. I see shades of the black Eyed children and the 442 00:32:31,279 --> 00:32:37,400 men in black, which some people have compared to vampires in the way that 443 00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:42,480 they have to be invited inside. Right but right, right, So, 444 00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,160 so once you make that connection black eyed children to men and black to vampires, 445 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:50,799 then you're back into You're back into the fairy stream, right Because a 446 00:32:50,799 --> 00:32:54,680 lot of the diseases that people would associate with vampiresm like consumption, tuberculosis, 447 00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:59,119 et cetera. They would associate that with vampires. They also associate that with 448 00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:04,079 fairies. Both fairies and vampires couldn't cross running water. Both fairies and vampires 449 00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,279 specific fairies had to be invited in. Both can be repelled by certain objects, 450 00:33:08,359 --> 00:33:12,960 often iron horseshoes in the case of fairies, or crucifix or crosses in 451 00:33:13,359 --> 00:33:16,839 the case of vampires. So there is a connection there. My second book 452 00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:22,039 was all about supernatural smells. It was called The Brimstone Deceit and was looking 453 00:33:22,079 --> 00:33:24,640 at just the reports of smells and all sorts of supernatural and paranorable cases and 454 00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:29,799 trying to see if there was some connection between all these different things. And 455 00:33:29,839 --> 00:33:34,400 there are some stories of the Black Eyed children smelling either soul for us or 456 00:33:34,559 --> 00:33:42,519 like dirt, like the earth, and do find those indicated in some direct 457 00:33:42,559 --> 00:33:45,359 ways some oblique ways in some of the older fairies stories as well. So, 458 00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:49,519 yeah, I think that there is a connection to be made there. 459 00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,079 Yeah. Interesting. So what's on your agenda in the months ahead? What 460 00:33:54,119 --> 00:34:00,839 do you win with yourself? Well, it has someone who has also written 461 00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:05,200 you said you've written some fiction too, Is that correct? Yeah, I 462 00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:10,039 write psychological thrillers in children's books, so you can commiserate my foolishness and the 463 00:34:10,079 --> 00:34:16,199 fact that I am about Charlie's a novel. Yeah, it's called them Old 464 00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:21,239 Ways Never Died. If you've been listening to this conversation, you probably have 465 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,199 an idea of some of the antagonists in it. That's a proof that I 466 00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:29,800 got. That's exciting. Yeah, it's it's all done, and you know, 467 00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:32,760 it's simultaneously more and less difficult than working on the non fiction. It's 468 00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:37,880 less it's less difficult because I tend to I tend to be very diligent with 469 00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:44,440 my citations. So my last book series, Ecology of Souls, had forty 470 00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:50,039 two hundred in notes, and not having to do that for a novel as 471 00:34:50,079 --> 00:34:54,119 a relief. But at the same time, yeah, and nobody can tell 472 00:34:54,119 --> 00:34:59,119 you you can because it's fiction out at the same time, you're staring at 473 00:34:59,159 --> 00:35:00,719 that blinking cursor on the screen, You're like, this is going to come 474 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:05,159 from me. But yeah, you know, a part of it was being 475 00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:13,000 sort of a loose I would loosely identify myself as a union who really appreciates 476 00:35:13,039 --> 00:35:15,199 the ideas of Carl Young. I think that as essay on flying Saucers is 477 00:35:15,199 --> 00:35:19,039 still one of the best things I ever written about the UFO phenomenon. But 478 00:35:20,119 --> 00:35:24,639 i'd loosely identifying with Carl Young. I've I've often parroted this idea, this 479 00:35:25,400 --> 00:35:30,280 observation that you know, people don't have ideas, ideas have people. And 480 00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:37,199 it's the sense that there's this well of archetypes, the collective of consciousness, 481 00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:42,360 just inspiration that's out there that you sort of act as a vector for right 482 00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,679 you know. It's and I'm sure that you felt this too, like things 483 00:35:44,679 --> 00:35:46,360 just sort of come to you out of nowhere. You're like, that's not 484 00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,480 me, Like, I don't know what it is, but that's nothing. 485 00:35:49,639 --> 00:35:52,079 No. I true. Some oftentimes I say, I think I feel like 486 00:35:52,159 --> 00:35:57,239 somebody's channeling through me that. Yeah, I know, it's like somebody's using 487 00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,880 me to get what they want out. Yeah. I I recently read an 488 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:02,639 interview with Ray Bradberry where he said the same thing. He said, you 489 00:36:02,639 --> 00:36:06,800 know, sometimes I go downstairs early in the morning and I pick pick one 490 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,239 of my books off my shelf and I just sit there and cry because I 491 00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:14,119 have no idea where this came from. And so I'd always always said that 492 00:36:14,159 --> 00:36:15,400 thing, you know, I'd always said that thing, like I believe that 493 00:36:15,559 --> 00:36:20,079 people don't have ideas ideas have people, but I'd never really experienced it in 494 00:36:20,119 --> 00:36:23,559 that way. And then I'd talked to enough authors of fiction who had said 495 00:36:23,559 --> 00:36:28,199 that they had interacted with their characters and like they would try to make their 496 00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,239 characters do things and the characters would refuse, and I'm like, this sounds 497 00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:36,039 really interesting. Well, yeah, And honestly, the way that I think 498 00:36:36,119 --> 00:36:39,000 like that's in terms of the way that I think can conceptualize these topics. 499 00:36:39,079 --> 00:36:45,519 That is a paranormal slash, supernatural slashing new menace experience in and of itself. 500 00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:49,000 So I wanted to experience that firsthand, and that's why I sort of 501 00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:53,079 embarked on this. Yeah, I did, And it was really interesting because 502 00:36:53,159 --> 00:36:58,320 one of their favorite times to come to me would be between being fully awake 503 00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,719 and falling asleep. Okay, And I you know, I thought i'd keep 504 00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,440 a no pad by my best and right, I really have the pad and 505 00:37:05,519 --> 00:37:08,000 the and the pen on my next fand because in the middle I will get 506 00:37:08,519 --> 00:37:13,599 sentences and paragraphs and I and I've got I got a jot them down, 507 00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:15,199 and I'll be like this in the dark because I don't want to wake up 508 00:37:15,199 --> 00:37:20,239 my husband just so that I can get it down, because I will forget 509 00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:22,880 it totally by the morning and it's happened, and I've been so pissed off 510 00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,719 at myself, so I keep and by so it doesn't happen. Yeah, 511 00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:29,360 it just evaporates into the either if you don't there are a couple of ideas 512 00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,679 that I get away like that. Yeah, but it's it's uncanny, and 513 00:37:32,079 --> 00:37:37,119 I'm very encouraged to hear that you've experienced the same thing because it's so like 514 00:37:37,199 --> 00:37:38,480 you, I don't know where it's coming from. I don't know where the 515 00:37:38,559 --> 00:37:43,320 verbage is coming from. It's not typically something that I would I would feel 516 00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:47,079 that I'm educated enough or capable and I'm doing but it just comes and I'm 517 00:37:47,119 --> 00:37:52,559 like thankful for it, and yeah, very appreciative for it. But like 518 00:37:52,599 --> 00:37:55,039 you, I don't know where it comes from. Well, and I don't 519 00:37:55,079 --> 00:37:59,239 know if it's you know, I don't know if it's well, I don't 520 00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:01,880 know if it's a collective unconscious or I don't know if it's our thoughts taking 521 00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,880 on a life of their own, or I don't know if it's, you 522 00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:07,800 know, some sort of retrocausal thing where this thing already exists in the future 523 00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:13,719 and it's projecting backwards across time to pull us into making it very clever real. 524 00:38:15,159 --> 00:38:19,960 But it does feel like there's an externality to it, and I wanted 525 00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:22,119 to experience that and I got to. And it's the sort of thing that 526 00:38:22,639 --> 00:38:28,199 unless you have experienced it, you can't quite articulate the profundacy of it. 527 00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:32,920 Yeah, yeah, Well, I'm happy for you that you did because well, 528 00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:37,519 yeah, I'm right in as I've been fond of saying. Well, 529 00:38:37,559 --> 00:38:40,400 as I mentioned earlier, I did it for myself, so to that extent, 530 00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:45,679 I have no expectations for it, but I do have aspirations for it, 531 00:38:45,519 --> 00:38:49,599 So we'll see how it's received. If nobody likes it, then I 532 00:38:49,639 --> 00:38:52,360 did it for me and I got to have that experience that we talked about 533 00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:55,119 so exactly. And that may be the only reason why you meant to do 534 00:38:55,199 --> 00:38:59,840 it. I mean, we do things for certain reasons. We have no 535 00:39:00,039 --> 00:39:02,400 idea what they are sometimes, so if that's what was meant to happen for 536 00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:06,599 that reason, then so be it. But I don't think that it will 537 00:39:06,639 --> 00:39:12,519 be well received because of what you have behind, you're already something about it. 538 00:39:13,039 --> 00:39:16,800 Yeah, well I'm eager to share the characters with with folks, and 539 00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:20,760 and yeah, it ties in a lot of the themes, and I get 540 00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,199 to say some things that I wouldn't normally get to say because you know, 541 00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:30,480 you can only be there's a certain conservatism that you have to employ when writing 542 00:39:30,559 --> 00:39:34,519 nonfiction. You know well, and you can speculate, but you have to 543 00:39:34,519 --> 00:39:37,079 address that you're speculating and then make sure that it's clear, so you know. 544 00:39:37,119 --> 00:39:42,079 Anyway, I get to have somebody coming back and saying something to you 545 00:39:42,079 --> 00:39:45,159 about something, and well that was my opin. Oh yeah, yeah, 546 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:50,320 always I've experienced. I'm not thinking you might experience, but it's from my 547 00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,320 experience. Yeah, it was really interesting. I gave my one of my 548 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:59,199 first talks was that a New Faun meeting done here in Georgia, and it 549 00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:01,920 was about that sort of food exchange that I alluded to as being my first 550 00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:05,840 book. And there was an experiencer in the front row and she said, 551 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,639 I've experienced all this stuff all my life and I've never had anybody any of 552 00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:13,159 these things offer any zood to me again. And I said, I said, 553 00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,480 I respect that, and I acknowledge that that is I believe you, 554 00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:19,639 I said, I've also I've also driven my entire life and not had to 555 00:40:19,679 --> 00:40:24,039 blow out. It doesn't mean it doesn't happen, you know. So yeah, 556 00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:29,079 I think that you see that message when you said that, she kind 557 00:40:29,079 --> 00:40:31,880 of got quiet, you know. And yeah, I wasn't trying to be 558 00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,039 snarky, but you know, I'm just trying to say that you've got to 559 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:40,480 no, well yeah you say so, yeah, so yeah, yeah, 560 00:40:40,519 --> 00:40:45,480 I think And that's something that I keep on trying to bring people back to, 561 00:40:46,199 --> 00:40:51,159 especially in this era when we've got all these congressional hearings on UFOs and 562 00:40:52,119 --> 00:40:57,119 they seem to be propping up this military industrial complex thing, is that the 563 00:40:57,159 --> 00:41:02,320 most important as back to these encounters does seem to happen at the individual level, 564 00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:07,639 you know. I mean the stories these phenomena, I don't think are 565 00:41:07,679 --> 00:41:13,000 about sharing with the world or proving anything to the world. I mean, 566 00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:17,639 I think if you are trying to prove the reality of these things, it's 567 00:41:17,639 --> 00:41:23,119 a bit like getting a secret love letter from a lover and going around everybody 568 00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:25,800 was saying, look they love me, Look this person loves me, that's 569 00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:29,880 not the purpose of a love letter. You know, a love letter is 570 00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:35,400 an exchange between two people. And now, so yeah, I sort of 571 00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:39,599 think that we we can always use, or should we should always embrace the 572 00:41:39,599 --> 00:41:45,280 opportunity to resenter these phenomena back on the experiencers themselves, because a lot of 573 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:50,320 these things seem Taylor made for the people who see them. Yeah, I 574 00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,599 say that too. A lot of people that follow my books when they receive 575 00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:57,840 messages from deceased loved ones, you know, they have people that are turning 576 00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:00,800 them that didn't happen, that was just a class And I say to them, 577 00:42:00,079 --> 00:42:04,280 you don't need to prove anything to anybody. You receive something, and 578 00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,119 if it's in your mind and your heart that that was your deceased dad or 579 00:42:07,159 --> 00:42:13,000 your deceased child, receive it as that it's your personal experience. Nobody can 580 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,239 shut you down, and they can both be right. Like to the to 581 00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:19,400 the outside party, it can just be a cloud, and to the person 582 00:42:19,679 --> 00:42:22,360 exactly seeing it, it can Yeah, it can be something different. I 583 00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:25,519 mean, it's similar to similar to dreams, and I think that a lot 584 00:42:25,519 --> 00:42:30,199 of this stuff sort of maybe unfolds in this sort of waking dream state, 585 00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:35,000 not to say that I think that it's imaginary, but that rather it's just 586 00:42:35,039 --> 00:42:37,239 there's another realm that we access that's neither here or there. But you know, 587 00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,719 you'll have some people come to you with this most profound dream for them 588 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:44,440 and you're listening to it and you kind of get bored halfway through. You've 589 00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:47,880 had this happen, I'm sure, and that's because it's not for you. 590 00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:51,760 It wasn't your dream, you know. So yeah, I think that's always 591 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,920 important. I am describing it though, that was good putting it. Why 592 00:42:54,920 --> 00:43:00,599 don't you please tell the listeners where they can find you, what your website 593 00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:04,960 is and wait getting books and stuff, because I don't think. I'm not 594 00:43:05,039 --> 00:43:07,480 on Twitter. I was on Twitter for a while and it just got to 595 00:43:07,519 --> 00:43:12,559 be too much. Several years back I quit Twitter. But you can reach 596 00:43:12,599 --> 00:43:16,039 me through my website at Joshua Kutchin dot com and j O S h U 597 00:43:16,199 --> 00:43:20,920 A c U T C h I N dot com just like a cut on 598 00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,519 your chin, and there's information about all my books up there, and also 599 00:43:24,639 --> 00:43:29,679 conference appearances, links to all interviews that I do like this one, and 600 00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:35,039 I do have a presence on Facebook. Joshua Cutchen author, and yeah, 601 00:43:35,079 --> 00:43:37,960 if you're interested in any of my work, you can go to my website 602 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:43,760 and punish yourself by listening to hours upon end of me of me talking. 603 00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:49,519 Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Well, I thank you so much for 604 00:43:49,599 --> 00:43:52,679 joining me today. I appreciate it, and I'm gonna be looking those books 605 00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,760 up myself. It's a pleasure. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. 606 00:43:57,119 --> 00:44:01,079 Yes, thank you, ghostly listeners, and sign up or level up 607 00:44:01,159 --> 00:44:07,199 on my author Eleanor Wagner Patreon program. That's PA t R e o N, 608 00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:14,880 where you will find special bonus opportunities only available to its patrons, such 609 00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:20,880 as one on ones with me and co hosting opportunities on episodes of Eleanor Wagner's 610 00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:25,960 Strange and Scary World podcast. Thank you, paranormal enthusiasts for tuning in today. 611 00:44:27,519 --> 00:44:31,199 I hope you'll come back again. Remember to tap into your own gifts. 612 00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:37,199 Everyone has them, and in the meantime, make sure you're creeping it real