After being fascinated with writing and having paranormal experiences at an early age, supernatural suspense author L. Sydney Fisher decided to use people’s real stories of hauntings, possessions, and demonic activity as fodder for her fiction. Her Bradford Haunting series is inspired by a real murder in the 1970s and the strange events that followed in Tupelo, Mississippi, which some of them, she witnessed herself.
L. Sydney Fisher
Her paranormal investigations have led her to write the Haunted History series as well, focusing on more legendary sites around Northeastern Mississippi, so we discuss how she does her paranormal research and the process of how she turns people’s experiences into exciting fiction. Her latest book is The Devil’s Board.
One of the things I like about Sydney’s work is that it’s inspired by true events as opposed to claiming its a documentation (ala The Amityville Horror). Fiction and narratives are meant to be exciting, and horror and suspense are meant to thrill you viscerally. Sometimes you have to go a little extreme with the story to make that happen, and real-life events aren’t usually that extreme.
When you’re researching paranormal claims, it’s really easy to want to exaggerate and make things more dramatic to excite your audience, or in many authors’ cases, to sell your book. When it’s fiction, it gives you that freedom to exaggerate what actually happened to heighten the drama and it gives readers like me (who are generally skeptical of big paranormal claims) permission to turn our BS detectors off and just enjoy the story. The fact that it started with real events, helps make it exciting without straining credulity, and I really appreciate that.
Since L. Sydney Fisher is out in “Elvis Country” and our
conversation about The King of Rock n’ Roll dominated the beginning of the conversation, we thought it’d be a perfect time to sing about the real conspiracy theory that Elvis faked his own death. Here’s Sunspot with “The King’s Not Dead”!
Well the King’s not dead baby
You know the King ain’t dead.
He faked his OD on the potty
Flew to Brazil instead
I saw Elvis Presley
At the Burger King in Kalamazoo
He just wanted some peace and quiet
And a Double Whopper too.
Well the King’s not dead baby
Hell no the king ain’t dead
He was on borrowed time from organized crime
after Nixon made him a fed.
I saw Elvis Presley
He was an extra in Home Alone.
He’s wearing a sweet turtleneck
Under the beard he had grown
Well the King’s not dead baby
Oh no the King’s not gone
Misspelled his middle name above his grave
So that we’d know it’s a big con
I saw Elvis Presley
Outside a store in Nashville
He was looking for his microphone
Cuz he’s got some time to kill.
I saw Elvis Presley
riding on a unicorn
Doing karate kicks with Bigfoot
And saying it’s alright mama, you don’t have to mourn.
While 2017 hasn’t had the murder rate of 2016 yet, the year did start out with the loss of William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, with the news ominously coming out on Friday the 13th in January.While he did create one of the most famous works of horror of the Twentieth Century, he was much more than just a horror writer. His stories dealt with questions of faith, guilt, temptation, and how a just and loving God could allow so much evil in the world.
Man, 70s mustaches were the best!
He lived long enough to see the continuation of his story in the latest Exorcist TV Show, which is the best thing to happen to the franchise since The Exorcist III, (you can skip The Exorcist II entirely and the fourth one was so bad they had to shoot two different versions of it to try and salvage some of their investment. )
The possession continues…
We’ve even opened up a couple of shows with this sweet George C. Scott monologue from The Exorcist III: Legion. But we’re not the only band that used it, it was particularly popular with ultra-heavy bands and sampled on albums from Beyond, Cryptopsy, Children of Bodom, Slayer, and even Guns n’ Roses have used it in live shows. Also, it was reportedly the film that Jeffery Dahmer was watching when his apartment was raided by the police. So, great job, Blatty!
But the reason that we still talk about The Exorcist today is not only because the shocks and the scares of watching a twelve-year old girl do unspeakable things with a crucifix. We’ve seen much more edgy horror movies (especially from France, those dudes are sick!)
One of the main reasons that demonic possession is so scary is because lots of people believe in the Devil. If you’re Catholic, and Blatty’s mother was deeply Roman Catholic and the author himself kept up with his faith (well, except for the whole getting divorced three times thing – but the first one was annulled, which is a very Catholic thing to do!) then rejecting the Devil is right in the Baptismal promises. You’ve got to talk about Satan if you’re a Catholic, his temptations lurk all around.
It was the research and the inspiration that Blatty took from real life exorcisms and cases of demonic possession that made The Exorcist feel so real. Allison Jornlin from Milwaukee Ghosts joins us in this episode to talk about those cases, famously one happened in St. Louis in 1949 (The Roland Doe Case) but it was also inspired by a lesser known case involving a Wisconsin Exorcist Priest-Hero named Theophilus Riesinger (who will also get his own episode sometime!) and an exorcism he performed in Iowa, described in the 1935 book Begone, Satan!
Click on the book to read the entire account of the possession free online
When he was 87, Blatty would write his own book on personal paranormal experiences called Finding Peter that chronicle is own faith and brushes with the supernatural, but he’ll always be best remembered for being a writer capable of terrifying audiences so shockingly that his work became a cultural touchstone, while keeping it sensitive and thoughtful enough with ideas of faith and hope, that it served a bigger purpose than merely gruesome entertainment.
One last FYI, if you hear that Father Malachi Martin was the inspiration for the Father Merrin character in The Exorcist, don’t buy it. It’s just marketing for the new documentary about Malachi Martin’s life (which looks cool in its own right and Malachi was a colorful character who we’ll have to dive into sometime), but here’s the truth in an article in the Los Angeles Times
The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, however, dismissed Martin’s work as unbelievable. William Peter Blatty, who wrote the best-selling “The Exorcist” and the screenplay for the 1973 movie of the same name directed by William Friedkin, gave “Hostage” a scathing review in the Los Angeles Times, assailing its accuracy as well as Martin’s style. “I loathe this book,” Blatty wrote. “It gives possession a bad name.”
For this week’s song, we were looking for a track that appealed to the basest instincts of people, just like Pazuzu (or Captain Howdy) did in The Exorcist, so we selected a Sunspot song that deals with faith in its own way and sometimes that faith gets betrayed when people fall into temptation, anger, and resentment. And when that happens, the world can come “Crashing Down”.
Well, I guess I thought the fight,
would bring out the best in you,
because you always said my faith,
would see you through.
And as we sat there in the calm before the storm,
there were barbarians at the door… and I heard you,
Screaming for revolution,
I hear you scream for blood.
Screaming for retribution,
for another Flood.
And as I watched you scream your life away,
the world came crashing down.
And I know you hate the world,
for what it put you through.
But you struck against the ones,
that believed in you.
I always thought you were to strong to be afraid,
until I watched you run away… when I heard you,
Screaming for revolution,
I hear you scream for blood.
Screaming for retribution,
for another Flood.
And as I watched you scream your life away,
the world came crashing down.
As you sit there in your hole,
where your screams can’t break through,
well you’ve lost your freedom now,
look what your anger’s done for you.
There is no quarter, no exception to the rule,
there’s no one left to listen to you…
And you can cry wolf a thousand times and watch the rest of us survive.
Screaming for revolution,
I hear you scream for blood.
Screaming for retribution,
for another Flood.
And as I watched you scream your life away,
the world came crashing down.
The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana is reputed to be one of the most haunted homes in the United States. With a reputation of murder, treachery, and slavery, the Myrtles has dozens of ghost stories and the fact that it’s a bed and breakfast makes it a popular spot for amateur ghost hunters.
Back in 2000, My sister, Allison from Milwaukee Ghosts and I did an overnight at the Myrtles and had a good time while not really seeing anything spooky (I, however, was terrified the whole time because it’s hard to ignore all the stories!)
That was a fun trip, but Allison just wasn’t convinced of the veracity of the tales so in 2012, we worked on a video presentation to have the most balanced and well-researched look at the Myrtles Plantation and its history. While the Myrtles is featured on ghost hunting show after ghost hunting show (Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, and Unsolved Mysteries have all famously featured the plantation) how accurate is the history that they tell us on TV?
We interviewed former owner Francis Kermeen, Myrtles curator and tour guide Hester Eby, paranormal researcher David Wiseman, and haunted historian David Young to talk about experiences, historical inconsistencies, EVPs, vengeful slaves, possession, and much much more in this detailed investigation of one of America’s most notorious haunts.
While we never ended up releasing the video that we made for this episode, I’m really happy that the information is seeing the light of day finally because it’s got stuff that you will absolutely not hear anywhere else.
The song we’re featuring in this episode is “Freakshow” by Sunspot, which was originally inspired by this particular trip to Louisiana (my first time in New Orleans) and we opened at least one-hundred shows with this song as we were touring in 2002 and 2003.
Hotter than hell in the shade today,
and I’m sweating bullets waiting for you,
jonesing for a fix of my favorite sin.
I walked the streets for days,
trying not to break my mother’s back,
looking for silence above the din.
Will I be the one,
who leaves a bad taste in your mouth?
Spitting out your teeth, just like a dream.
Or I could be the one,
who could turn your head around to see,
that damaged goods are much more valuable than what they seem.
Welcome to the Freakshow,
Don’t be a no-show,
Because this act is guaranteed to blow your mind.
Just a cross-section,
that’s perfect in its imperfection.
Take a look or you will never know,
just what you might find.
Take me where the saints go marching,
with the hookers and the vampires,
and everyone’s invited to the dance.
Sometimes we forget who we’re supposed to be,
the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,
and every sinner deserves a second chance.
Welcome to the Freakshow,
Don’t be a no-show,
Because this act is guaranteed to blow your mind.
Just a cross-section,
that’s perfect in its imperfection.
Take a look or you will never know,
just what you might find.
Will I be the one,
who leaves a bad taste in your mouth?
Spitting out your teeth, just like a dream.
Or I could be the one,
who could turn your head around to see,
that damaged goods are much more valuable than what they seem.
When you prick me do I not bleed?
I know I’m in no shape to judge.
Did you leave a second chance there for me…
or was that bad taste in your mouth too much?
Welcome to the Freakshow,
Don’t be a no-show,
Because this act is guaranteed to blow your mind.
Just a cross-section,
that’s perfect in its imperfection.
Take a look or you will never know,
just what you might find.
A rock band's journey into the afterlife, UFOs, entertainment, and weird science.
