0:02

I have powered it with a truth spell. There

0:05

it was, a fully open lotus flower. A

0:08

magic

0:08

healing spell conjured from

0:11

rainbow energy. This is

0:12

the subterranean realm of the universe.

0:14

A San Francisco teenager finds out falling

0:17

into the lands of Vedic mythology was just

0:19

the beginning of his story, and it's far

0:22

from over. Listen and subscribe to

0:24

Shadow Realms Season 2 everywhere

0:26

you get your podcasts.

0:30

Soundzington. Soundzington.

0:33

Soundzington Media! On

0:37

the last episode of Unspookable, we

0:39

talked about the possible existence of

0:42

ghosts and why so many

0:44

of us believe in them.

0:46

This week, we're going even deeper

0:48

as we talk to an expert, author

0:51

Incha Fitzpatrick, who is exploring

0:53

vampires, ghosts, and

0:55

more with her totally factual

0:57

field guide to the supernatural book

0:59

series.

1:00

I'm Elise Parisian, and we are chilling

1:02

with ghosts on this episode of

1:05

Unspookable.

1:21

I'm here this week with Unspookable head writer

1:24

Eleanor Riley Condit and producer

1:26

Nate Dufort. We're excited this week

1:28

to welcome Incha Fitzpatrick, writer

1:31

of the new book, Chilling with Ghosts.

1:33

So Chilling

1:35

with Ghosts is actually the second

1:38

book in the totally factual field guide

1:40

to the supernatural series.

1:42

Can you tell us about the series and

1:44

how it came about and how the new book

1:47

fits into it? Yeah, of course. So the

1:50

totally factual guide to the supernatural,

1:52

which is very hard to say three or four times

1:55

each, is a series

1:57

for

1:58

small supernaturalists. adult supernaturalists

2:01

who want to dive into

2:03

the science, history, meaning

2:06

behind some of our favorite supernatural

2:09

creatures. And Quark

2:11

reached out knowing that I

2:13

loved everything spooky

2:15

and weird and asked

2:17

if I wanted to do it. And I immediately

2:20

said yes. And then I love

2:23

supernatural creatures, folklore and

2:25

deep diving into the corners and avenues of

2:27

that weird world. So it was just

2:30

a hand in hand super fit. But

2:33

how this new book fits in is the

2:35

first book was Hanging with Vampires, which

2:38

we told the myths and the folklore that

2:41

surrounded vampires and how they came to be.

2:43

And then we ultimately

2:46

asked the question, like, are vampires

2:48

real? And so for Chilling

2:50

with Ghosts, we continue

2:52

that deep dive into everything. And

2:55

then we kind of take the deep

2:57

dive of the belief and disbelief

3:00

surrounding ghosts and what

3:02

they are, how to talk

3:05

to them respectfully.

3:07

And it ultimately asked the question,

3:09

like, do you believe in ghosts?

3:12

For our listeners from your

3:14

research and understanding, what

3:17

actually is a ghost? It's

3:19

a super difficult,

3:21

super difficult thing to nail down.

3:23

And we actually have like this brilliant quote

3:26

in the beginning of the book by Lisa

3:28

Morton, that like the

3:30

shape of the undead spirit or

3:33

apparition changes with people's

3:35

perspective, like of it.

3:38

And for me and my beliefs,

3:40

like a ghost is an undead spirit

3:42

or apparition who lingers

3:44

on this plane, they die tragically,

3:47

or they have some unfinished business, or there's

3:49

some meaning and feeling behind

3:52

them lingering. Some

3:55

ghosts are very lovely. Some

3:58

are not. Some ghosts can take. like

4:00

any shape and size, some can

4:02

be residual hunt, poltergeist

4:06

to mist and ghost lights. Like those

4:08

are, that's my understanding.

4:11

But we also like acknowledge,

4:13

especially in the book and me, myself

4:16

and my beliefs, like we acknowledge that like, like

4:18

there's some beliefs and understandings about ghosts

4:20

that a lot of people don't have and that

4:23

there's some like cultural differences. So

4:26

it all kind of goes back to your

4:28

understanding perspective

4:32

and beliefs in ghosts really come

4:35

from like your perspective.

4:38

Totally, I love all of that. And

4:40

just like we do here on Unspookable, the

4:42

book discusses the real science and history

4:45

behind these scary stories. And love

4:47

to know like how much, and you kind of

4:49

answered this a little bit, but still like

4:51

how much do you buy into these stories of the supernatural

4:55

and have you yourself had any experiences

4:57

of the

4:58

supernatural?

4:59

I am the easiest mark alive

5:01

when it comes to like ghost stuff. I

5:04

believe in so many ghost stories. There are

5:06

like, are obviously like some like reading

5:09

the Amityville horror book, like as

5:11

a kid, I was just like, that seems

5:14

suspicious. That seems very

5:16

weird. But then like, there's

5:18

some other things. And

5:21

like, I always have the belief that there are some

5:23

other unexplainable things, especially

5:26

with ghosts and their

5:28

experiences. And again, perceptions

5:30

that like are so deeply personal

5:34

and they matter

5:36

to them. And it's kind of just like, I'll

5:38

eat it up. I'll still gobble it up. It's

5:41

not, I don't care. I'm just like, if

5:43

it's real, not real, gimme, gimme,

5:45

gimme.

5:48

And when I was a teenager,

5:51

this is kind of like a weird story because like I'm

5:54

thankful that it didn't happen to me. I was just in their room

5:56

when it happened. And I was just like, that's enough.

5:59

I had a friend.

5:59

And we had just come from a trip from Salem

6:03

and she had brought like the Ouija board

6:05

and it was

6:07

like the Ouija board

6:09

with the, oh my God, I

6:11

forgot how you say it, the thing. Playing

6:14

chat. Playing chat, yeah. And

6:17

then her and a couple of our

6:19

other friends were like sitting down at her kitchen table

6:22

playing it. And

6:24

then once everything got

6:26

quiet, it started spelling out her

6:29

grandmother's name. And

6:32

this is the part that kind of freaked me out because

6:34

her grandmother was living in the house, just

6:37

had recently passed away. And

6:40

she was living in the house with her grandfather too. And

6:43

so I was just like, nope,

6:45

I'll see y'all later. I'm going to the park. This

6:47

is not my business, not my place. I

6:52

scooted out of there and everybody just put it away.

6:56

And then I kind of live near a cemetery.

6:58

Once I walk out, I turn

7:01

cemetery. So I've

7:03

had a couple of experiences

7:05

where my cat would just start looking into

7:08

this one corner in my room and I'm like,

7:11

you know we don't really

7:13

play that in here, so I don't know

7:15

why you're doing this to me. There's

7:19

like the two experiences that

7:21

I've had, thankfully, hopefully

7:23

no more.

7:24

If you're nice, I accept it. Sounds

7:28

like overall relatively mild

7:30

as far as. Yeah, but still

7:32

scary.

7:33

Scary,

7:34

surface level stuff. Yeah, I

7:36

love that you were like, these are

7:38

not my ghosts. Goodbye. Yes.

7:41

Like not my ghost, not my problem. I'm

7:43

good. I wish you well.

7:46

Team no. Yeah.

7:49

So, you know, ghost hunting has increasingly

7:52

popped up in media and in pop culture, especially

7:54

over the last decade or so. Can

7:56

you tell us the fact versus fiction

7:59

of

7:59

what we see?

7:59

on TV on these kinds of shows. Okay,

8:02

I have been a really big connoisseur

8:05

of ghost hunting

8:07

reality TV for a long time.

8:09

I I've

8:12

had to accept within myself

8:15

that the really big fiction of it

8:17

all is it's

8:19

for entertainment. All of it's for entertainment 100%

8:23

like I've also like read

8:26

a bunch of interviews with like ghost

8:28

hunters who used to work on that show and

8:30

then they'd be like, Oh, you don't like when

8:33

you put a flashlight on

8:35

the ground and then like you twist it

8:38

a little bit and then you put your foot on

8:41

it and then you could just twist it back and forth to

8:43

like, so like, tell us something

8:45

ghost and then and like, you guys

8:47

have you guys have ruined this for

8:49

me. But

8:49

the big fiction of it all really

8:52

is

8:56

is that it's like it's a lot of smoke and mirrors.

8:58

It's really a lot of entertainment. And

9:00

I think going into it, you have to

9:03

be cognizant of that it's really

9:05

entertainment. I will say

9:07

that the two factual things that

9:11

I've noticed, especially after

9:13

writing this book is that the equipment

9:15

is pretty real, not

9:18

used properly. But

9:20

it's pretty real like the EMS meters

9:22

like when they had the dowsing rods or thermometers

9:25

and stuff like that. That's all real

9:27

stuff that you can like go and get and

9:29

use respectfully. And

9:33

like another thing is that

9:35

the history of the place that

9:38

they go to really is real

9:41

history. And there's some real things

9:44

behind it. And that's always super

9:46

factual and true if they tell it right. But

9:49

it's always there's always some just

9:51

real deep down ingrained history and

9:54

it's that's a really big thing to be cognizant

9:56

of.

9:57

That makes a lot of sense. So

9:59

it's

9:59

celebrations like Ciadillo's Muertos

10:02

or practices like mummification that exist

10:05

in the public consciousness, partly through the

10:07

inclusion in books and films. During

10:09

your research, what were some of the thought

10:12

provoking practices, beliefs or

10:14

celebrations that you came across that

10:16

you wish were more represented in the media?

10:19

Oh,

10:21

that's a good question. There

10:23

are two. And one

10:26

is the Hungry Ghost Festival, because

10:29

reading that for the first time, I was

10:32

absolutely taken by it. And I

10:34

was just like, that's such a really

10:36

cool, there's

10:39

a really great meeting and tradition

10:42

after that festival, like honoring and satisfying

10:44

the ghost of the dead. And

10:46

there's,

10:47

there's also a lot of interesting things

10:50

that you can't do during that festival,

10:52

like not whistling,

10:53

don't stand close to a wall, don't

10:55

leave your clothes out. And you kind of

10:57

just go, huh, but there's such like a

11:00

rich, ingrained

11:02

thing, like this culture

11:05

that like comes behind it. And it's I

11:07

really would love to see more of

11:09

that. This is gonna sound morbid.

11:13

But I would love to see more tellings

11:16

of death from like the outside in,

11:19

because there's such a really there's

11:21

such a rich and incredible culture surrounding

11:24

that. And even

11:27

though like it sounds, again, very

11:29

morbid, but deaths from different

11:31

religions and cultures can

11:34

really be something

11:36

eye opening. And

11:39

they're either really celebrated or

11:42

mourned. And you don't want to

11:44

glorify it, obviously, but there's just

11:46

this unspoken rule about death. So

11:48

like seeing how different like cultures

11:50

and experiences kind of come across

11:53

in that heavy topic, I would love to

11:55

see more of, because we just

11:57

kind of hide it and like bury it and keep

11:59

it deep down. down and away. So it was kind of just like,

12:01

no, like, let's actually, let's

12:04

talk about this thing. This thing is like,

12:06

it's a part of everybody got to do

12:08

it at some point. Was there

12:12

ever a point in your research

12:14

that you found yourself scared, like, sort

12:17

of like in the cemetery where you're just like, I just

12:18

need to walk away from this for a bit. Is

12:20

it also sound weird? Not

12:23

really. I think

12:26

because given the book

12:28

subject matter, I

12:30

was always like a really big person who

12:32

was like, comfortable with like, deaths and grief

12:35

and ghosts. And those are like always

12:37

like my supernatural creatures. So like,

12:39

actually being able to do it, I'm just like,

12:41

yeah, let's go respectfully. So, and

12:44

I think, going

12:49

into the book, or coming out

12:51

of the book, actually, I, I kind

12:54

of, I was scared about anything in the book

12:56

or what I had, like, I was scared of

12:59

myself coming out of

13:01

the book, because I was just like, oh, people are gonna

13:03

think like, I'm just like, super existential,

13:07

super morbid person who's just like,

13:09

just like, it's just like,

13:12

but I got over that, like, pretty quickly,

13:14

because like, I'm really passionate

13:17

and about this, like matter. So it's,

13:19

it's one of those things where it's just like, oh, this

13:22

is okay. And I think that this is like

13:24

a thing that everybody needs, these are things that

13:26

everybody needs to know. I think it's anything,

13:30

I only stopped for like a hot

13:32

minute to read like Edgar

13:35

Allan Poe stories. And then

13:37

I was just like, you know what, let's get back into

13:39

it. Spook them up.

13:42

Love

13:44

it. A classic. All right. Well, the next

13:46

question is kind of a palate

13:49

cleanser, literally. So the

13:51

book has these like bite size

13:54

excursions throughout

13:56

where, you know, you step into

13:59

different total. territory as

14:01

well. For instance, there's a recipe

14:04

in this book called A Haunted Graveyard

14:06

Parfait. What made

14:09

you want to sprinkle in sections

14:11

like this throughout the book?

14:12

That is

14:15

all my editor. Shout out to

14:17

her. She's so incredible and she kind

14:20

of wanted to break up the chapters with like

14:22

these fun activities to kind of like get your brain

14:25

out of the mold of being

14:27

like spooky and into the mode

14:29

of being just like, hey, here's something really fun

14:31

to do. Like the one thing that

14:34

I'm really, I think the one activity that I'm really

14:36

proud of, especially within this book,

14:39

is the ultimate ghost story

14:42

because like it combines

14:44

my love of like TFT, RPG,

14:46

storytelling, and spooky stuff. And

14:49

then I love the fact that they can

14:51

make their own haunted house.

14:54

And it's just, but they're so much fun.

14:58

And actually being able to do them for the book

15:00

too,

15:01

adorable. I'm like

15:03

sitting there with like DIY ecto

15:05

slime just like, I'm gonna get

15:07

it. I'm gonna get it.

15:09

What do you think it is about

15:12

middle graders in particular

15:14

that want to seek out scary

15:17

content or things that creep them out? I

15:20

think it's,

15:21

I think it's almost like adults where

15:24

we have like this horror

15:27

is very much something where like we can all connect

15:29

with our fear

15:32

and these little, these weird feelings

15:34

that we had that are like deep down stuffed

15:37

within us. So like with

15:40

a lot of middle graders, I

15:42

found out that, and

15:44

even me as a middle grader from way before,

15:47

it's kind of just like, I want to be

15:50

safely invited into

15:52

a space where these spooky

15:54

things can happen, but you know at the

15:56

end of the day that you're safe. So I think

15:59

with like hanging with vampires and

16:01

chilling with ghosts, it's just kind of like these. It's

16:04

that you're safe with

16:06

us because we're taking you by the hands

16:08

like metaphorically and we're guiding you through

16:11

these spooky territories. But

16:13

I think at the end of the

16:15

day, it's like you can go back to your normal

16:17

life and you won't see

16:19

a vampire and you won't see a ghost and

16:22

that's okay and that's pretty good. If

16:24

you do see one, you have the efficient

16:27

technology in order to handle it. Especially

16:29

if you see a vampire and then you get a poncho.

16:34

Or a garlic bazooka.

16:38

Wow, everybody was just like garlic

16:40

bazooka, like what? What

16:43

else are you excited about in

16:45

terms of books or

16:47

movies or anything, even if it's

16:50

not ghost related? What's

16:52

really getting your

16:54

brain going lately? I'm really,

16:56

really, really, really

16:58

bright now, kind of like going

17:01

back to my folk horror renaissance.

17:03

Because that was a big,

17:06

for me growing up, that was a big genre

17:09

for me, which like the wicker

17:11

man, the blood of Satan's

17:13

claw, things like that. And

17:15

then I'm also kind of

17:17

going through, since it's spooky

17:20

months, I'm also going back through my flasher

17:22

era, which

17:24

like it never goes away. So

17:26

I'm like rewatching all the Fridays of the 13th and

17:29

like kind of going back into this sub

17:32

genre of horror and exploitation

17:35

movies called like, people

17:37

are going to think I'm weird and morbid again, but it's

17:39

called like gorse flotation, which

17:41

like has like a lot of Herschel

17:43

Gordon Lewis films like Color

17:46

Me Blood Reds, The Wizard

17:49

of Gore and stuff like that. And

17:52

then with books, I'm reading a

17:54

lot of folk horror books. So like stuff

17:57

like Bunny is a little bit

17:59

folk horror.

17:59

to me. And I

18:03

just picked up the hoodies, which I'm

18:05

like super into right now. And

18:08

yeah, there's a lot I could go on forever.

18:11

What

18:15

else can I say? Because I'm like, I'm always

18:17

like deep diving into something

18:19

like super strange and weird. Like I'm also

18:21

like I, I recently re went

18:24

back into like my 19th century

18:26

spiritualism. And then which ended

18:28

up taking me to like the satanic panic.

18:30

So now I'm also reading Michelle remember,

18:34

like, where, where am

18:36

I? And

18:38

just thank you so much for joining us. You

18:40

can check out the totally factual field guide

18:43

to the supernatural chilling with ghosts

18:46

in your local bookstore or wherever you

18:48

get your books. Thank

18:49

you so much. Thank you.

18:51

Thank you for having me. This has been like such a

18:53

pleasure.

18:59

Thank you for listening to unspeakable. I'm

19:02

your host, Elise Parisian. Join

19:04

us next week by unspeakable head writer, Eleanor

19:06

Riley Condit and unspeakable producer,

19:09

Nate DuPort.

19:10

Our theme song and additional music composed

19:13

by Jesse Case. Our logo

19:15

was created by Natalie Kuhn. If

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you enjoy the show, make sure to tell your

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friends. You can leave us a rating

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and review in your podcast player of choice,

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or share an episode on social media. Speaking

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of social media, you can find unspeakable

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19:37

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19:41

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19:44

For more information on our show

19:46

and the people behind it, go to www.kensingtonmedia.com.

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