Ethereal Realms: Beyond the Fringe

Welcome, dear listeners, to a city steeped in history and shrouded in mystery. Today, we invite you to join us on a journey through the winding streets and hidden alleys of the dark and enigmatic city of Glasgow, Scotland. But our journey won't stop at the well-known hauntings. We'll also dive into the lesser-known, but equally unsettling, stories of ghosts that continue to roam the city. From the eerie apparitions on the River Clyde to the restless souls in the hidden corners of Glasgow University, you'll be left wondering if you've ever truly walked alone in this historic city.

Throughout human history, mythologies and religious beliefs have intertwined and evolved with shared motifs and similar stories, giving rise to narratives which transcend time and cultural boundaries. Within this complex tapestry, a hypothesis emerges, suggesting a connection between the Egyptian deity Set & his henchmen, the demons of the Goetia, and their associated mythologies alleged survival within secret societies like the Freemasons. This podcast will explore this speculative idea, highlighting potential threads that may link these entities together, while acknowledging the cautionary approach necessary when navigating such intricate subjects.

Today, we will look at plants with human-like root systems, such as mandrakes and valerian, which have magical properties attributed to them. Although it is widely accepted that plants evolve and adapt over time through natural selection, it is also possible that human intervention may have played a role in shaping the physical characteristics of certain plant species. This is particularly true in the cultivation and domestication of plants for food, medicine, and other purposes. It is very likely that ancient herbalists and practitioners of magic and witchcraft intentionally selected and propagated plants with roots that resembled human limbs or figures. This may have been done for a variety of reasons, including a belief in the plant's magical or medicinal properties as well as a desire to create objects that had some symbolic or ritual significance. Thus, the practice of cultivating mandrakes and other plants with human-like root systems has evolved over time as a result of these types of beliefs and practices. As humans selected and propagated plants with specific characteristics, those traits would become more common in subsequent generations, ultimately leading to the development of distinct plant varieties with human-like roots.

There is no doubt that what people used to attribute to faeries or the supernatural is now often attributed to space aliens. This shift in attribution can be attributed to a number of factors, including advances in technology, changes in societal beliefs and values, and cultural influences. One reason for this shift is the prevalence of science fiction and popular media that often depict extraterrestrial beings and their technology. Shows like The X-Files, Ancient Aliens, and Doctor Who have made the idea of alien life and visitation more mainstream, leading many people to think about the possibility of alien intervention in human affairs. Another reason for this shift is the way that our understanding of the universe has changed over time. As our knowledge of space and the cosmos has expanded, so too has our understanding of what is possible in terms of extraterrestrial life. With the discovery of exoplanets and the possibility of habitable zones in our own galaxy, the idea of intelligent alien life has become more plausible than ever before.

Welcome to another podcast.  This time we'll be taking a further look at Historic UFO sightings across Scotland, and their curious relationship to the locations of where you might find ancient tumuli or ancient barrows, or indeed other ancient monuments.  Something which Scotland has copious amounts of.  I spent the afternoon putting this together, and if you don't say Wow at the end of it, then I'll have failed in my task.   In some ways, this podcast will go full circle on some of the matters we've discussed before, because it will utilize and link historical accounts, some folklore, oral testimony, even fairy-lore.  I'm sure it will all make sense.  You'll be an expert on Scottish Ufology by the end of this podcast.  So let's stuck in.

This podcast is specifically about what a Hedge Witch does today, and as best as we can piece together true historical accounts, what they once did.  I'm a stickler for the truth, not fanciful things to satisfy people who want to dress up or claim to be a witch just to spook their Christian parents or the unenlightened.  What you do, should be your choice however.  There is no dogma here.  Today we'll be looking at the working tools, or rather the lack of them. The main issue here for me, is that one person's guesswork or creative writing becomes another person's dogma.  Once it's been repeated and reprinted a thousand times it becomes their facts which they quote as though it was just like that.  I'll put it to you that if you hold so strongly to any belief or idea, then you really need to reconsider why you believe that is so, and prove it to yourself by researching where that dogma or idea actually came from.  Often you will find someone made it up, quite recently. We won't be doing that here.  We will be looking at what is known and verified.  Emphasizing ALWAYS that there is no such strict dogma in the true Scottish Witchcraft practiced by my ancestors.  Whether what these Cunning women, Cunning men, and Highland Seers, and Spaewives, practiced was even witchcraft as we understand it today, is open to question. When it comes to Hedge Witchcraft, some things are assumed or borrowed from other Pagan practices.  Whether they were one and the same, no one is alive today to confirm or deny any of that.  One basic tenet of paganism is that all paths to the creative life force are valid and are to be respected. The aim of these podcasts is to give you as true an idea of what went on, as we possibly can.  The only books referenced will be well over 100 years old, and often were based on oral testimonies which the Scottish authors wrote down and published.

Today, I'm going to relate my experience with the greys, which really started before I was even born.  This is not a topic I feel comfortable about.  In a previous episode, I described my experience in what I believe was an alien abduction.  I'm going to revisit it today.  More importantly, I'm going to try and address some kindred experiences which make me uncomfortable.  I suspect, that for a lot of us who have had these experiences we don't think they are all that important, or we attempt to refute or dismiss them for our own comfort.  Also, the smaller experiences, can seem much less invasive and easier to dismiss.  There could be something in that, perhaps we are not meant to think too hard about it.  Not even when there is a catalogue of such experiences throughout our lives. I'll be blunt.  I am curious but uncomfortable with the whole topic.  I think we could look at the case history of Whitley Strieber here and consider that there are people, who for some reason or other, have a lifelong set of experiences with some other lifeforms.  Space Aliens or otherwise.  Perhaps, because of people like Whitely, the rest of us are able to put our own experiences into words.  I am particularly open to the idea that these are very Earthly beings and may even be demonic in nature.  

There are few things in Scottish mythology as feared and terrifying as a Kelpie.  Kelpies are shape-shifting aquatic monsters which haunt rivers, lochs and the sea.  A Kelpie is known in the Gaelic as an Each Uisge, which is literally a water-horse. The stories of Kelpies abound and come down to us from prehistoric times.  I go into this topic with a little bit of trepidation, and part of me even wants to avoid talking about it, because the myth of the Kelpie is something which chilled me as a child.  The window behind me is open wide, that's real thunder and lightning you are hearing behind me.  Thunder and lightning and a fierce wind just began happening as I began to speak about this, I am superstitious enough to wonder if we should even go there.  Coincidence to the non-believer maybe, but perhaps a sign to those schooled in the Arts and lore of the ancients.  Oddly enough the sound of a kelpie’s tail entering the water is said to resemble the sound of thunder.  Let's look at some recorded accounts of people encountering demonic Kelpies.

There is much imagined and written down by people who in recent times, have made incredible assumptions, often showing complete ignorance of recorded history of what pertains to witchcraft, and what does not.  The question is, was this done out of ignorance, or was it done intentionally?  In the case of Gerald Gardner, probably mostly the former and partly the latter.  I've hinted at this before, but it would seem that he wanted to wash Lucifer out of Leland's Aradia, and yet to use the book to create a ritualistic dogma which does not exist within Aradia.  Aradia is about a slave class of people who have broken free, live apart, and view mainstream society and anyone affluent as their enemy.  Gardner of course, could not have that in his new improved Wicca. Okay so the obvious question here would be, do any other similar historical records of witchcraft exist which could corroborate this idea?  In particular, since Gardner was looking for evidence of British witchcraft, yet Aradia is about Italian witchcraft.  Well, yes there are. Let's start by ignoring the testimonies of alleged 'witches' were forced to make under duress by the very oppressive church, who through pain and threat of death could make people admit to anything.  Sure, we can gleam some things from them, but in the main we know how flawed that is as an historical resource.

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 1.  Let's mark Bram Stoker's upcoming 175th birthday, with some real tales of Vampires.  As we approach Bram Stoker's 175th Birthday.  I thought it would be interesting to look at what might have inspired him to write his most famous novel 'Dracula'.  You don't really have to go to the Carpathian Mountains, to find historical accounts of vampire stories, or in fact Dracula's castle.  The British Isles have had our fair share of Vampire encounters over the years, and today we are going to explore some of them. The scene is set, to talk about some real Vampire encounters which might have been the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.