Some Other Sphere

My guest for this episode is Dick Khan, author of the DMT & My Occult Mind book series. In those texts, Dick documents his personal research into the effects of using the drug Dimethyltryptamine, which is a powerful hallucinogen and a key component in Ayahuasca, a drink used by several indigenous tribal cultures in South America as part of their spiritual practises. It is often referred to as “The...

For the first time here at Sphere HQ, we have a returning guest, Matt Hopewell, who was on the show last year to talk about Discordianism.  This time around we’re discussing some of the unusual phenomena he’s experienced over the years and his thoughts on what might have been happening. This includes a discussion on Gorillas, which I’m not sure either of us anticipated, but was just as fascinating...

Hello! In this episode I discuss the life and work of the artist, writer and occultist, Ithell Colquhoun with Dr Amy Hale. Ithell Colquhoun is perhaps best known as a member of the surrealist art movement in the 1930’s and 40’s both in London and Paris but she was also deeply interested in a variety of esoteric subjects and her art was part of a larger, long term magical practise that encompassed...

My guest for this episode is Kiki Dombrowski. Kiki is a spiritual researcher and explorer, and has spent her life studying mythology, magic, witchcraft and the supernatural. She has been reading Tarot for over 25 years and is the author of two books, the latest of which, A Curious Future is a guidebook to some of the more unusual techniques people have used over thousands of years to try and predi...

My guest for this episode is Steve Mills, a listener to the podcast who contacted me with details of ghostly phenomena he and some friends encountered in Birmingham, England back in the 1980’s that is intriguing to say the least.   I talked with him about those experiences and his thoughts on their nature, and what it might suggest on a broader scale when it comes to trying to understand the super...

In this episode I talk about the life and works of the artist Leonora Carrington with Dr Kate Laity.   Leonora Carrington is often considered part of the surrealist movement of the early 20th Century but her artwork is full of purposeful, esoteric symbology and otherworldly creatures, and often related to deeply personal events from her very eventful life. She also had a deep interest in mythology...

My guest for this episode is Andy Burnham, creator of the Megalithic Portal  website. What started out as a small database of ancient sites in the late 1990’s is now an extensive and detailed Archaeological resource, lovingly sourced by people like Andy who are interested in the myriad ancient stone circles, Henges and other such structures that dot the landscape. The website was such a success th...

"Do you ever go somewhere, and have a strong emotional response to it, such as happiness, nostalgia or fear? Have you ever wondered why we look for meaning in places and develop stories or legends about them over time? Well these behaviours are known as a sense of place..." Those are the words of my guest for this episode, Ailish Jane, creator of the excellent Sense of Place Podcast . Ailish has i...

Folklore is a wonderful thing. It is deep rooted in the human experience and is a vital component of countless cultures throughout time. There are some startling similarities in the beings and legends  encountered across the globe, but also unique differences that set apart a cultures mythic landscape. A wonderful example of this is Japan, a land long shrouded in mystery and hidden from the west,...

This episode begins with a quote from my guests: “Spooky things happen every day all around us! Instead of brushing these peculiar moments and bizarre encounters off as chance, or mere coincidence, what if we talked about them, mapped them, and tried to decode the message?” Well, that’s what Garrett Kelly and Jeremy Puma have done with the Liminal Earth Project, which they describe as a map of the...

Recently, whilst out on a run, I went too near some stinging nettles and OUCH! – got stung. Luckily, I immediately knew what to do. I found a dock leaf of course,  and rubbed the affected area. Pain over and my run was saved! I feel like I’ve always known that cure and I’m sure it’s something that most of you will have been told as a child as well. It is a very old piece of knowledge that has last...

When it comes to cryptids, one of the most famous of all is the Loch Ness Monster. However there are many other lakes around the world where it is believed creatures from Earth’s distant past have survived, even thrived – and some of these could well have more evidence to back them up than dear old Nessie. A great example is Champ – the mysterious denizen of Lake Champlain in the United States. Si...

My guest for this episode is Aaron Gulyas, author of books such as Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgest and The Chaos Conundrum as well as being the creator of The Saucer Life podcast, where he examines the folkloric aspect to the Flying Saucer phenomenon and explores the history and lore of Ufology through the lens of individual stories of encounters, sightings, concepts or events. I think...

This weeks episode is about a remarkable woman from Victorian Wales called Lady Charlotte Guest and her quest to preserve the folklore and legends of her adopted homeland, which would be published as the Mabinogion, widely regarded today as one of the most important collections of medieval prose literature in Europe. The stories it contains began life as part of an oral storytelling tradition in B...

Shirley Jackson’s novel ‘The Haunting of Hill House’, written in 1959 is considered one of the best ghost stories of the 20th Century and is seen as highly influential in the depiction of hauntings in literature in modern times. The protagonist of the story is Eleanor Vance. The novel opens with her travelling to the titular house to be part of a scientific investigation she has been invited to by...

Interest in the Occult is a strong as ever in the 21st Century. When you consider that these subjects are usually those that sit outside of acceptance by mainstream science or organised religion but can have a deep connection to human experience, it’s easy to understand the appeal – and I say that as someone who is very interested. It’s interesting that a lot of these idea are devalued by the main...

When you think of magic, two things will usually come to mind; an artist on stage, performing fantastic acts such as card tricks, illusions, mind reading and hypnosis; or a more esoteric practice – someone, usually by themselves, enacting a ritual in an attempt influence their world by invoking supernatural assistance. In some ways, there would seem to be some similarities between these two scenar...

In the late 1950’s, two high school friends, Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley would regularly meet at their local bowling alley in East Whittier, California to hang out and talk long into the night about the issues of the day and the limits of the world that they lived in – one they felt was based all to willingly on order and control. What if there was a different way of engaging with the world, some...

In this episode, I discuss Tarot with Elin Heron, who has been a Tarot reader for over twenty years and also hosts regular classes and workshops for people interested in learning more about the cards. I’m very much a novice myself, and as such, this episode is a beginners guide, discussing the origins of Tarot, it’s evolution from a renaissance card game into an occult resource, the Major and Mino...

Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge running from east to west on the border of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire in England. Each side of it peppered with caves and until earlier this year, the site was most famous for spectacular cave art made by hunter gatherers many thousands of years ago. A recent discovery has added a fascinating aspect to the history of the site however. What was thought to be...

My guest for this episode is author and host of the Myth Legend and Lore podcast, Siobhán Clark. In her podcast Siobhán discusses a wide range of stories from her native Scotland, which feature a fascinating mix of characters and settings, and date far back into the early history of the nation. We talked about the storytelling traditions of the people of those times, the cultures they came from, a...

My guest for this episode is Shanon Sinn, the author of a book called “The Haunting of Vancouver Island”. He has lived on the Canadian island for over twenty years and in that time has formed a deep, personal connection with the wildlife, landscape and people who live there. His book examines a wide range of supernatural tales, from first nations legends, through the early days of European settlem...

My guest for this episode is Chris Reeve, the creator of a blog called “The Gotobed Diaries”. The blog details his discovery of the case files of one Doctor Thomas Gotobed, who appears to have been (or still is) some kind of researcher of the occult. The files themselves vary between reports on paranormal incidents and the good doctor’s own thoughts on various theories about the supernatural. Is D...

My guest for this episode is author and folklore blogger Icy Sedgwick. Icy has written several novels and short stories, many of which involve the supernatural. She is also a keen folklorist, writing a blog on an array of fascinating subjects and regularly contributing to "Folklore Thursday" on Twitter.  We talked about her interests in the paranormal and writing, how the concept of a haunting var...

For this episode, my guest is comedian and Cryptozoologist Matt Kessen, who combined a lifelong obsession with monsters with his natural funnybones to create the phenomenon that is “ Reverend Matt’s Monster Science” – a regularly updated comedy show he presents that has covered an impressively broad range of subjects, most notable of which is perhaps “What to do in the event of a Dinosaur attack”....