00:00:03:20 - 00:00:31:10
Unknown
You come to me when I'm lonely. I take your hand and we go home. You cover me with your you with my.

00:00:31:13 - 00:01:12:19
Sasha
We are never more vulnerable than when we stand naked in the shower. But what if we are the ones scaring away spirits? Does the door between worlds work both ways? Can a spirit attach themselves to you? And if demonic possession is a real thing, what do the demons do with their time off between possessions? I first met Nicolas Kaufman when he shared a story at my live Ghost Stories by the fire event about the magical child and iconic New York City witchcraft shop that haunted West 19th Street back in the 1980s.

00:01:12:21 - 00:01:16:07
Sasha
Nick is the critically acclaimed author of numerous works.

00:01:16:07 - 00:01:16:26
Sasha
Of horror.

00:01:16:26 - 00:01:45:26
Sasha
And suspense, including the Bram Stoker, award winning General Slocum Scold and the Shirley Jackson Award nominated Chasing the Dragon. In addition to spirits and possession, in this conversation, we talk about the creative process muses where stories come from and what happens when your mother catches you dabbling in witchcraft. Grab a cup of tea and cozy up to this funny philosophical conversation.

00:01:45:28 - 00:01:51:22
Sasha
Because I'm your host, Sasha Graham, and this is Ghost Stories.

00:01:51:25 - 00:02:03:28
Sasha
By the fire company. Lovely lady.

00:02:04:00 - 00:02:11:27
Sasha
Hi, Nicholas. I'm so excited that you are here to talk with us today. Thank you for coming on the show.

00:02:12:00 - 00:02:18:20
Nicholas
It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. I always enjoy getting the chance to talk with you about spooky things.

00:02:18:22 - 00:02:26:17
Sasha
It's so fun. So, speaking of spooky things, I'm dying. No pun intended.

00:02:26:19 - 00:02:40:17
Sasha
Do you grow up in a house or with a family who told ghost stories? Did you or did your family believe in ghosts? And were they a spooky crew?

00:02:40:19 - 00:03:07:19
Nicholas
Not at all, no. I don't think they believed in ghosts. I think we were. We were. I don't want to make it sound like judgmental, but I think we were a rational, very rational family. We. I was raised Jewish. I'm still I still consider myself culturally Jewish. But we would go, you know, I went to Hebrew school and all that stuff when I was a kid, and we would go to temple for the holidays and whatnot.

00:03:07:22 - 00:03:29:00
Nicholas
But even then, I never felt like our family was particularly spiritual either. I think it was really just a sort of these were our traditions. We would, you know, go to synagogue and and whatnot. But I think in terms of ghosts or the paranormal, I think that would have definitely been a step too far for my parents and my brother.

00:03:29:03 - 00:03:58:27
Nicholas
I, on the other hand, as a kid, had a crazy, wild imagination. I used to love scary movies and I had all sorts of scary toys. I loved playing with bits, plastic dinosaurs. And my mother told me one time that, you know, the scarier the dinosaur apparently was, the more I wanted to play with it. So? So I think I was always leaning towards that stuff, whether or not I believed in ghosts, I don't I don't know.

00:03:59:00 - 00:04:14:15
Nicholas
I, you know, I think in the dark of night, when you hear a sound that you can't explain, then yeah, you definitely believe in ghosts. But in the you know, in the bright light of day, I'm not sure I ever truly believed.

00:04:14:17 - 00:04:28:00
Sasha
So as a horror, suspense, urban fantasy author and as a child who loved to play with spooky, scary things, did that have a kind of seductive glamor to you?

00:04:28:03 - 00:04:47:18
Nicholas
I think I think yes. And I think what it mostly was, was I was a very lonely kid. I wasn't very outgoing. I didn't have a lot of friends, but I had a lot of imagination. I did a lot of what they call imaginative play, which is basically when you're let's say you have to action figures and you have a conversation between them.

00:04:47:21 - 00:05:15:19
Nicholas
But I think the loneliness that I felt as a kid, especially growing up in the suburbs where I did, or almost a rural town, translated to a love of monsters, because I think monsters in many ways are stand ins for lonely kids or for children, even even not lonely kids. But I mean, like Frankenstein, I think of things like the Frankenstein monster and stuff like that.

00:05:15:21 - 00:05:39:12
Nicholas
His the epitome of a lonely kid. He's just trying to make friends and he's he's messing up every chance he gets because he looks weird and he doesn't know how to talk to people. As a kid, I looked weird and didn't know how to talk to people. So I think that there was that correlation there. And I think that's a difficult thing for people who aren't into spooky stuff to understand.

00:05:39:15 - 00:05:58:25
Nicholas
I think there's this idea that as a kid you're scared of ghosts, you're scared of monsters. And to a certain extent that's true. But I think you also relate to them. I think you also sort of have sympathy for them because they are so similar to yourself.

00:05:58:27 - 00:06:22:10
Sasha
I'm so excited to hear you say that. That's not something that you hear people talk about a lot in terms of of the ways you might sympathize with a monster, with a demon, with a ghost, with a vampire. I was always utterly beguiled by those things on the other side while being also nervous of them and afraid of them.

00:06:22:13 - 00:06:41:18
Nicholas
yeah, I used to always say, like I. I don't know if I believe in ghosts, but I also don't want one to appear to me. You know, I'd be too scared. Like, you know, if there are any ghosts listening right now, as. As we're having this discussion. Don't appear to me. I don't want to see you too scared of that.

00:06:41:25 - 00:07:02:24
Sasha
Be careful of what you might. What you might fall in. You know? It's so funny. Yeah. So. So you have not yet to at this point in your life that you know of officially seen a ghost and or any other sort of energy or or had communication with the other side?

00:07:02:27 - 00:07:22:04
Nicholas
Well, I don't know. I saw something once and I don't know if it was a ghost or my imagination or a visitation of some kind. I can. But I was I was young and I had as I said, I had a pretty wild imagination. And it was the middle of the night. So who knows? I think I could have been dreaming with my eyes open.

00:07:22:06 - 00:07:28:13
Nicholas
But if you can, if you have a moment, I'll tell you the story because it's a little bit involved.

00:07:28:18 - 00:07:31:19
Sasha
Yes, exactly. I brought you here.

00:07:31:21 - 00:07:33:17
Sasha
Okay.

00:07:33:19 - 00:07:57:18
Nicholas
So I grew up in Westport, Connecticut, which is sort of a suburban slash rural area of Connecticut. I lived on a road called North Ridge Road, which was a cul de sac. So it only had about maybe 11 houses. And then there was a lot of woods which which you'll find all over Connecticut. There's a lot of woods in Connecticut.

00:07:57:20 - 00:08:31:24
Nicholas
my my bedroom. I was very lucky. My brother and I had separate bedrooms. My bedroom faced the back of the house and the backyard and the woods. And I was like I said, you know, a very imaginative child. And I would frequently wake up in the middle of the night for reasons unknown, maybe. And then I would like, turn on the light and read, or maybe I would just try to fall back asleep and I would sometimes hear things that maybe were just sort of aural hallucinations or maybe were real.

00:08:31:24 - 00:08:58:14
Nicholas
I don't know. I remember one time hearing what I was convinced was a violinist playing that, you know, playing the violin in our backyard. And obviously there was no violinist in the backyard. It was more likely I was hearing something from a neighbor's house or maybe my parents were listening to the radio or something. I can't really recall how late at night this was, but I was convinced there was a spectral violinist in the backyard.

00:08:58:16 - 00:09:16:20
Nicholas
So that's just an example of what my imagination was like as a child. So this particular instance, I woke up in the middle of the night, which, as I said, was not unusual, turned on the light. Maybe I was right. No, I got out of bed for some reason. Maybe I went to the window to look and see what was outside.

00:09:16:20 - 00:09:41:04
Nicholas
There was nothing outside, didn't see anything. But when I turned back to the bed, I saw the very vague outline of a form sitting on the bed of a human form. And it was, you know, how it used to be. Like if you tuned to the TV, to a bad station, it would be like static. It would be like snow.

00:09:41:06 - 00:10:04:20
Nicholas
That's what the interior of this silhouette looked like to me. It looked like that kind of static and it was just sitting on the bed. And I think, again, this has been quite a few years since then. I think I saw I'd get up and walk out of the room. I don't know what it was. I thought it was imagination or if it was some kind of visitation.

00:10:04:23 - 00:10:25:16
Nicholas
The next morning I was talking with my brother who his bedroom was across the hall from mine, and we had we had we both had early bedtimes because we were pretty young. And I remember I would shout, I thought I was being so, so like slick and sly. I would shout across the bedroom, like across the hallway, like, Hey, are you asleep yet?

00:10:25:16 - 00:10:49:14
Nicholas
And he'd be like, No. And our parents would be like, Shut up in there. But so the next morning, I guess at breakfast or something, I said, I said to my brother that I had had this weird experience and he said that he also had gotten up in the middle of the night and went to his window and saw lights in the sky.

00:10:49:16 - 00:10:50:25
Sasha


00:10:50:28 - 00:11:16:27
Nicholas
So I don't know what to make of that. There's, you know, my rational brain is just like we were kids. We were probably half asleep. He might he might not even have been telling the truth when he said that. I don't know. All I can tell you is what I experienced, what I remember experiencing. And I really thought that I saw this vague outline of a human like shape sitting on my bed and then getting up and leaving the room.

00:11:16:29 - 00:11:30:00
Sasha
That is so. So let me ask you a question. Do you believe or is it your are you inclined to think that children are more how old were you at the time?

00:11:30:02 - 00:11:35:11
Nicholas
I must have been single digits, maybe ten, Maximum ten maximum.

00:11:35:12 - 00:11:58:02
Sasha
Okay. So are you of the mindset that that children are more open to seeing things in a wider scope because they haven't they're not quite, you know, the world hasn't been perfectly explained to them. In other words, you know, the minute you name something, the minute something you're told what something is, it kind of boxes it in. Right.

00:11:58:02 - 00:12:34:10
Sasha
And I think that I mean, I certainly think that children, the younger they are, the more kind of attached they are to the other world. And I think that that's why so many spooky things will happen around small children or you'll hear them say wild, creepy, uncanny things. And and then it kind of ratchets up again. I feel like in the hysteria of being a teenager sometimes and then again at the end of our life, right when we're transitioning out and suddenly, you know, we've seen people, you know, or we hear stories about people seeing those who've crossed over that are back to get them.

00:12:34:13 - 00:12:44:08
Sasha
So I don't know what's what do you what do you think if you were going to put money on the fact that you actually did see something where it was your imagination, what do you think?

00:12:44:11 - 00:13:04:15
Nicholas
Well, look, it's stuck with me all these years. Like I'm 54 now, So this is over 40 years ago that that this happened and it stuck with me. So I think there's a reason it stuck with me. It definitely made an impression on me. Was it an alien visitation? Was it a ghost? Was it something from the other world?

00:13:04:15 - 00:13:32:01
Nicholas
I can't answer that. I don't know, because it never happened again. And it didn't necessarily leave me with a trace of itself or any sort of idea that I had been visited by something other than, Wow, that was weird. But I think you're right about children. And I think looking at it from a possibly slightly different angle, I think kids are really open minded because they are learning so much about the world still.

00:13:32:01 - 00:13:57:27
Nicholas
So they're very open minded. So you can you know, you can tease kids and say, you know, if you're not good, Santa Claus isn't going to give you a presence and they'll believe you. So, you know, they're open minded. And I think kids are also very imaginative. And I think that that combination, if one does believe in things like Spectacle world and the other worlds and stuff, like, I think that leaves them open to it much more than we are as adults.

00:13:57:27 - 00:14:18:15
Nicholas
Where we feel we we feel as adults that we know everything, right? We we were like, I've lived so long. What's the what's left in this world to to surprise me or whatever. But kids, kids are surprised every day by something new. And I think that really leaves them open to different kinds of experiences that we we have as adults.

00:14:18:18 - 00:14:45:20
Sasha
Such different and even just the way so, you know, in in tarot, which is my area of expertise, the pages, the pages which are the use of tarot, there's four of them in the deck. They represent that right before puberty. It's kind of sweet spot. And I think that one of the the magical things and enjoyable things that we can all remember from when we were kids is even just our sense of time.

00:14:45:22 - 00:14:57:25
Sasha
How incredibly when you're like six or seven and first or second grade, like how long just the beginning of the school year is until the holiday break. I mean, it's in reality, my God.

00:14:57:25 - 00:15:08:20
Nicholas
As an adult, you know, for years speed by. But I don't remember the four years of high school or even of the years before that going this quickly.

00:15:08:27 - 00:15:10:15
Sasha
Yeah. And ever. And so.

00:15:10:15 - 00:15:11:03
Nicholas
Long.

00:15:11:05 - 00:15:38:06
Sasha
So long and so viscerally alive to when you when when I think back to being a kid or when I try to move into that energy again for myself just as an adult. Because because I think it's it's I think it's truly living on a moment to moment basis. Right. And and and with that, it's almost tantric in its intensity of of paying attention not only to how you're feeling but also what you're experiencing.

00:15:38:08 - 00:15:54:13
Nicholas
Yeah. And everything is dialed up to 11 at that age too, right. I mean you feel like everything is life or death that goes with you into high school and maybe college too. But everything, every little thing feels like life or death. I hope she likes me. If she doesn't like me, I'll just die, you know.

00:15:54:13 - 00:15:57:27
Sasha
Like so, you.

00:15:57:27 - 00:16:08:17
Sasha
Know. it's so. It's so, so true. So you spent half of your childhood in, I would say, of your formative years, your young, formative years in Westport, Connecticut. And then.

00:16:08:17 - 00:16:11:08
Nicholas
Yes, I moved back to New York City when I was 12.

00:16:11:11 - 00:16:24:01
Sasha
To New York City when you were 12. So did you ever have anything spooky or strange happen to you in the streets of New York? Because that's certainly an intense place to live with lots of energies flying around.

00:16:24:03 - 00:16:28:21
Nicholas
I have something strange happened to me in the streets of New York almost every day, but I'm not sure I.

00:16:28:21 - 00:16:30:23
Sasha
Would call them spooky.

00:16:30:26 - 00:16:57:19
Nicholas
That's usually just somebody acting erratically in the subway or who knows? But I did have something happen to me. Just this was just a couple of weeks ago here in my apartment. So I was taking a shower. It was so it was it was it was the morning I was taking a shower singing Easy Lover by Phil Collins to myself, because that's what I only sing in the shower.

00:16:57:21 - 00:16:59:01
Sasha
And I had.

00:16:59:03 - 00:17:02:08
Nicholas
I had heard that song again recently and it was stuck in my head.

00:17:02:11 - 00:17:03:00
Sasha
It's catchy.

00:17:03:00 - 00:17:14:15
Nicholas
It's a catchy it's a catchy song, you know, complete tangent. But I never thought of myself as a Phil Collins fan. But I know the words to like 99% of his songs, and they're all very catchy.

00:17:14:18 - 00:17:19:16
Sasha
Yeah, they're what stories?

00:17:19:18 - 00:17:40:22
Nicholas
But of course, in the shower I often change the lyrics to songs to be about my cats, which is a totally normal thing that cat owners do anyway. So I get out of the shower and I'm telling off and I'm humming the song and there's a knock at the bathroom door, just a single, single knock. Now, my wife isn't home.

00:17:40:25 - 00:18:00:00
Nicholas
She's at this point, she's already left for her place of employment for the day. But we have cats and I know that cats my cats don't like necessarily when there's a door between me and them and they'll meow and they'll sometimes scratch at it. So I thought maybe that's what I heard. So I opened the door. There's nobody there.

00:18:00:00 - 00:18:28:26
Nicholas
There's nothing there. The cats are both asleep, like on opposite sides of the apartment, nowhere near the bathroom. So I closed the door. Go on with my routine. There's no further knocks. It doesn't happen again. But it was very clearly a knock. So I thought to myself, Well, maybe it was one of the cats. They just made a noise in the apartment somewhere, and I heard it louder than than I expected.

00:18:29:03 - 00:18:52:27
Nicholas
Or maybe it was from a neighbor or anything. Some noise that my brain interpreted as a knock on the door because it didn't happen again. I don't know. I don't know what it was. You know, it was it was it just a noise that I heard? Was it a ghost? I don't know. But I'll say this because it didn't happen again.

00:18:52:29 - 00:19:07:29
Nicholas
If it was a ghost, the sight of me naked was so terrifying that it immediately fled for the next plane. The reality?

00:19:08:02 - 00:19:09:12
Sasha
I don't think.

00:19:09:12 - 00:19:12:06
Sasha
So. It was a message.

00:19:12:07 - 00:19:18:24
Sasha
From the other side that clearly you have a recording, you know, a singing career.

00:19:18:27 - 00:19:19:20
Sasha
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:19:19:23 - 00:19:25:17
Sasha
And it was a message to keep going, keep going with the Phil Collins number.

00:19:25:19 - 00:19:48:10
Nicholas
Well, you know, Phil Collins himself has not passed over yet, so it couldn't have been him. But who knows, you know, So that was just a weird experience. I've never had anything like that happen before because the apartment I live in is brand new. It was a new construction. My wife and I were the first people to move in, so it doesn't have a history like nobody passed away here or nobody had lived here before.

00:19:48:12 - 00:19:53:24
Nicholas
So it really it's there haven't been before that there haven't been any spooky moments.

00:19:53:27 - 00:20:14:10
Sasha
But I you know, I it seems to me and again, I don't I you know, I wouldn't swear by any of this when I when I talk about my theories of the invisible world and the paranormal and the supernatural. But it does seem to me that places can be haunted, not energies can be attached not only to a house like.

00:20:14:11 - 00:20:38:15
Sasha
Especially like old houses, places with history. But I think often the people themselves do, you know. And so, for instance, my mother had moved in with us right before, about a few months before the pandemic, and it was very clear that she brought an energy with her.

00:20:38:17 - 00:20:39:04
Sasha
Interest in.

00:20:39:09 - 00:20:42:03
Sasha
And it was not a friendly energy.

00:20:42:06 - 00:20:43:00
Nicholas
Interesting.

00:20:43:07 - 00:21:14:15
Sasha
And I, I had felt it. And and I and I'll preface this by saying I you know, I write about tarot and the paranormal, but I am I would call myself a skeptic because I really I really when something is actually happening, I want to know that it's happening. And I think it's important for people who do like creative and metaphysical work to try and, you know, delineate that space between the creative imagination and when something is actually happening and even have some sort of parameters to kind of figure those out.

00:21:14:15 - 00:21:42:15
Sasha
But but I literally had to, at a certain point, go down into the kitchen where it seemed to be residing in the pantry, walk through, and I had to ask for it to leak because it was nefarious and it was dark and it did leave. So the whole reason I even bring it up is I don't know. Do you think that people carry energies as well and that that do you know, does that ring true for you?

00:21:42:18 - 00:22:00:17
Nicholas
I mean, I think it sounds really, really interesting and possible. And I'm sort of I'm still sort of in awe of the fact that there was this nefarious presence in your apartment and all you had to do was ask it to leave. And it was like, okay. It was like it was like, go.

00:22:00:19 - 00:22:07:23
Sasha
Yeah. So this is actually it was in my farmhouse, not in the I never have my mother move into the New York City apartment.

00:22:07:23 - 00:22:12:00
Sasha
It's much too small. Yeah, of course. Of course.

00:22:12:02 - 00:22:26:24
Nicholas
Like, you know, you hear about when you hear about cleansing a home, you hear about rituals and the burning of sage and all this stuff. But I'm just it's. It's so cool to me that you were just like, Hey, you should, you should go. And this entity or whatever, it was like, okay, about.

00:22:26:26 - 00:22:52:24
Sasha
Yeah, well, I think that, that that's one of the interest. I think it's your first for me, it's always my first go to and what I would talk about like in the classes that that I teach that you know, that any, again, this is just my inclination of what I believe. I don't have hard and fast proof other than my own experience of it but that that things on the other side are just the same as things on this side, maybe just in a different form.

00:22:52:26 - 00:23:27:14
Sasha
So, you know, in witchcraft, if you are petitioning a God and asking for help or working with a plant or an animal with that energy, then you would create a relationship with it like you would with a person. And and then the same thing, you know, and I often I'll often use kind of working with the other side energies or exploring the other side with New York City is an analogy to you know you would walk the streets of like, you know, East 28th Street at 4 a.m. in a much different way than you would, you know, at 2:00 in the afternoon.

00:23:27:14 - 00:23:48:06
Sasha
So the same things hold true. But I think that I think that certainly just addressing it, letting you know that you like that thing, letting it know that you see them and you're aware of them and putting down some boundaries, just like with a human being, as often your first step and will often take care of it, not always.

00:23:48:09 - 00:23:49:06
Sasha
Not always.

00:23:49:08 - 00:23:56:29
Nicholas
Do you know why it was sort of attached to your mom? Like why she how she was able to bring it with her?

00:23:57:01 - 00:24:34:00
Sasha
Yeah, well, again, this is my conjecture, but she's she is not now she's, she's quite wonderfully in the moment now, but she's intense and and has a very grinding, dark energy. And and I think that I think it's an interesting thing when you look at somebody energetically when somebody is kind of in in trauma or sad or upset, you know, all of our all of our natural reaction is to go over and in comfort that person.

00:24:34:07 - 00:24:41:16
Sasha
Right? Whereas if somebody is like happy and excited and life is great and their energy is expansive like this, people are like, Whoa.

00:24:41:19 - 00:24:43:22
Sasha
I have an Internet.

00:24:43:24 - 00:25:03:08
Sasha
So I think that I think that for certain personalities, I think there's certain shades of darkness like attracts like. And I think that she's had a number of of things with her her entire for most of her life. So it wasn't surprising to me. But I didn't I didn't like it. Yeah.

00:25:03:10 - 00:25:06:00
Nicholas
That's so fascinating to me.

00:25:06:02 - 00:25:06:27
Sasha
Me too.

00:25:07:05 - 00:25:35:10
Nicholas
This idea that that there are other beings out there, right, that are invisible at are drawn to your energy. It's fascinating. You know, I used to think I, you know, in movies, when someone is possessed by a demon. Right. There's always like, you know, there's some scary demon that possesses, more often than not, a young girl in these movies because they are they're all they're all rip offs of The Exorcist, pretty much.

00:25:35:17 - 00:25:54:12
Nicholas
But anyway, I used to think, like, what? What do these demons do between possessions? Like, what are they doing in their off time? Is their world like our world where they're just like they have administrative stuff they have to do between possessions, just like, do they have like upper management that they have to like, report to?

00:25:54:14 - 00:26:13:17
Sasha
It's such a great question, isn't it? If they had that much power to like take over a body and then like then and they had they could like there's no way they couldn't get out of there like Exorcist restraints, like, I'm sorry, there's just yeah. If you're floating and puking and defecating, what you can't.

00:26:13:17 - 00:26:15:17
Sasha
You can use the energy to throw the.

00:26:15:21 - 00:26:20:03
Sasha
Priest across the room but you can't break out of like the sad little rope's holding you.

00:26:20:05 - 00:26:22:03
Sasha
Right? Right.

00:26:22:06 - 00:26:37:09
Sasha
Yeah. It doesn't with demonic possession is something so that so fascinates me. I got to watch a demonic because I watch what I. I watched someone possessed in a church service one day.

00:26:37:12 - 00:26:38:13
Sasha
A real.

00:26:38:15 - 00:26:57:05
Sasha
fascinating. Yeah, it was in a in a Baptist church service. And again, speaking of energy, like, I felt the energy of what was going on, but and before I even turn to look, I was like, she's possessed, you know, And my God. And it was a whole thing. And it lasted for quite some time for most of the service.

00:26:57:05 - 00:27:16:06
Sasha
And it was a big gregarious service, that house band on stage, you know, people were receiving. It was amazing energy in there. And and she was kind of fighting it off. They had choir and her. So we asked the pastor, Pastor Derrick, at the end, you know, was that normal? Is she going to be okay? And he's going, yeah, it happens.

00:27:16:06 - 00:27:27:17
Sasha
You know, it happens from time to time. It's like usually they feel a lot better, you know, after the possession. But she's going to need to pray. It was a particularly.

00:27:27:17 - 00:27:28:21
Sasha
Strange.

00:27:28:24 - 00:27:58:29
Sasha
One, but, you know, it made me think, you know, is this well, is it a learned behavior possession, like speaking in tongues? You know, I don't know that, you know, and and am just being curious about it. I'm not passing judgment on these practices, but a Buddhist friend of mine who's a scholar of Tibetan Buddhism who's going to be on ghost stories, you know, he'll say mental illness in one culture, you know, is a possession in another.

00:27:58:29 - 00:28:12:11
Sasha
And then that odd place, that space between mental health and the supernatural. And I don't know, it's it's fascinating stuff. You've never seen an exorcism or a possession before in real life?

00:28:12:18 - 00:28:22:07
Nicholas
No, just just in the movies. And so I sort of in my mind, that's where it exists, right? So it's hard for me to imagine it in real in the real world.

00:28:22:09 - 00:28:28:14
Sasha
Yeah. It's why it was violent. It was violent. It was. It was what was happening for her was violent. And that wow.

00:28:28:14 - 00:28:30:00
Nicholas
It must have been pretty scary to witness.

00:28:30:06 - 00:28:40:01
Sasha
It was very scary. It was very uncomfortable. Like, you know, the, you know, energetically speaking, something was definitely happening. Wow. I don't know.

00:28:40:01 - 00:28:48:18
Nicholas
But so you're you're tuned into energy. Like, you can feel energy probably better than I can or better than maybe most people can.

00:28:48:20 - 00:29:12:22
Sasha
I don't know. I mean, I think we all have different sort of superpower is. But you you are you're an author and you've written many, many books and short stories and novels. I think that there's a sensitivity in that. So I. Do you do you ever I'm curious, do you feel like there is an innate creative consciousness of the stories that come through you?

00:29:12:25 - 00:29:27:08
Sasha
In other words, when you get an idea for a story, do you feel like this is something that is separate from me, that wants to come through me and be made real? Or how does how does that work for you? What's your creative process like?

00:29:27:10 - 00:29:54:10
Nicholas
I don't it doesn't come to me that way. I don't feel like, you know, some people talk about having a muse and the muse is speaking to them. It's never really felt like that for me. I'm more of an observer and that's that's where my creativity comes from. I see things or I learn things, and I put them together in strange combinations, and that's how I get my ideas.

00:29:54:12 - 00:30:20:24
Nicholas
But, you know, this idea of of muses goes back so far, and it's really interesting to think about how humanity humankind has been struggling with this idea of where do ideas come from? Well, I'm not sure we even really know now, because I don't think there's any other creature on this planet that creates an exact in that kind of way.

00:30:21:00 - 00:30:45:10
Nicholas
Yes. And I feel so much of that, I think has to do with our having language. But this idea of of coming up with stories on our own, like like where did that come from? I don't know. It goes back to, you know, maybe those first fires in the caves, right, where people were relating their their tales of of hunting mammoths or whatnot.

00:30:45:12 - 00:31:00:03
Nicholas
And then there's this. Maybe there's one guy that was like, yeah, I hunted a saber tooth tiger and it went like this. And he's like, making up the story as it goes along. And maybe that was like the first kind of story that there ever was where somebody was just sort of like, you know, fictional story, I mean, where somebody was just like, yeah.

00:31:00:03 - 00:31:04:09
Nicholas
So then I, you know, went after this saber tooth tiger.

00:31:04:11 - 00:31:09:22
Sasha
I don't know if there was blood. I proved it was. yeah,

00:31:09:25 - 00:31:15:12
Nicholas
I left the body out there. I left the tiger. I couldn't bring it back.

00:31:15:15 - 00:31:16:15
Sasha
But it's a it's a.

00:31:16:15 - 00:31:50:04
Sasha
Really interesting thing that everything that we see around us, everything that surrounding you right now in your office, was once an idea in someone's had existed in real life near the station. It is so cool. And and I think that that's why stories matter so much to you now because you know, other people show us what's possible and certainly in stories and and for for better or for better or for worse.

00:31:50:04 - 00:32:02:20
Sasha
So what would you say in most of your stories end on a high note, curious notes? Are they ambiguity? Like tell me.

00:32:02:22 - 00:32:28:26
Nicholas
It depends on the story. I don't think I necessarily have a particular recurring way of ending a story, but, you know, it depends. For for the novels that I've written, there might be a little twist in the tale at the end, like a sort of, you know, does the evil continue kind of thing. But with short stories that might be more ambiguous.

00:32:28:28 - 00:32:48:04
Nicholas
I like ambiguity and short stories. I respond to it because I think it lights me up a lot more than than like, see, you know, seeing the monster is fun, but wondering if there really is a monster sticks with me like I like that. So I try to capture that as much as I can in my short stories.

00:32:48:04 - 00:32:57:06
Nicholas
But in novels I'm usually a little bit more, more solid about what's going on and and how it's resolved. But what you were saying.

00:32:57:09 - 00:32:58:03
Sasha
Or what.

00:32:58:06 - 00:33:30:27
Nicholas
I was just what you were saying before about how everything in this office was once an idea and it was made real. That's how I think about books and novels in particular, fiction in particular. What an incredible thing that is. Somebody had an idea and they decided to put it down on paper. And now it's something I'm holding in my hand and partaking in and sharing in peeking into the mind of that writer through a physical object.

00:33:30:29 - 00:33:40:26
Nicholas
It's breathtaking when you think about it like that. They have summoned this thing into the world through the power of their imagination. That's incredible to me.

00:33:40:28 - 00:33:57:05
Sasha
And people are ingesting it. Reading it without speaking all of none. None of it is with none of it is with words. It happens across time, right? We can read Charles Dickens or.

00:33:57:10 - 00:33:58:26
Sasha
Yeah, really digging.

00:33:58:29 - 00:34:03:12
Nicholas
Into Charles Dickens brain. He's been dead for a long time.

00:34:03:14 - 00:34:09:27
Sasha
Yes. Which is why libraries and bookstores are such spooky, wonderful, stacked places to be, don't you think?

00:34:09:27 - 00:34:11:18
Sasha
When I you.

00:34:11:24 - 00:34:30:25
Nicholas
I love the feel of walking into a bookstore, even if I don't buy because I have so many books at home already that I haven't read. I don't need to buy more books, but I go in there and I always wind up buying something anyway. I just love I love the energy of a bookstore. I love the people that I see in bookstores, complete strangers, but they're there.

00:34:30:25 - 00:34:39:16
Nicholas
Their nose, their noses are in these books and they're learning something or they're having an experience. It's incredible to me.

00:34:39:18 - 00:34:49:18
Sasha
Incredible. What and I have to ask you this, what would you say is one of the scariest stories you've ever read.

00:34:49:21 - 00:35:19:09
Nicholas
Ever read? Wow. Okay. So it's a dopey, like 1970s horror novel called The Lizard's Tail by, I think, Mark Brandel. And it was made into a movie by Oliver Stone called The Hand. And so it's about this cartoonist. I think he's a cartoonist. He's an artist of some form who loses his hand in a car accident and he's no longer able to make his art.

00:35:19:12 - 00:35:40:00
Nicholas
So he's just stewing and bitterness and resentment. And everyone that he sort of dislikes now winds up mysteriously dead. And he starts to think that it's his hands, like his severed hand has come and has come to life on its own. And it's murdering these people, sort of ambiguous in the novel. But in the in the movie, it's very much like that.

00:35:40:00 - 00:36:24:14
Nicholas
That's absolutely what's happening. Like, you know, they show the hand crawling around and stuff and and killing people. But there's, you know, it's certainly possible in the book that he's doing it and he doesn't know that he's doing it right. And he's putting the blame on this severed hands that he imagines is killing them. But there's a moment in the book where he receives a shoe box, like a mysterious shoe box appears for him, and he opens it up and there's like this there's a thing inside that I don't want to give away that was so shocking to me that indicating that somebody he actually liked had also been murdered, that I dropped the book,

00:36:24:17 - 00:36:48:06
Nicholas
it fell out of my hands. And that's rarely happened to me. That's that's that's not something it's so hard for me to get scared by reading, because for me, fear is very it's very visual. It's very auditory. Like if I hear a creepy noise in a movie or something like that, I know to get to get worked up, but on the page, it's very hard to scare me or shock me.

00:36:48:09 - 00:36:58:25
Nicholas
And I. This one did. I just I wound up like, they dropped the book. It's been out of print for years, and I hope somebody brings it back because it's a really fun story.

00:36:58:27 - 00:36:59:04
Sasha
that's.

00:36:59:10 - 00:37:08:27
Sasha
That's so awesome. What was it more disconcerting because it may have been him that was actually like.

00:37:09:00 - 00:37:10:07
Sasha
Well, it's.

00:37:10:09 - 00:37:14:23
Nicholas
What he finds in the box. Again, I don't want to say, but it's a very intimate body part.

00:37:14:25 - 00:37:16:18
Sasha
And.

00:37:16:21 - 00:37:21:29
Nicholas
It was just very shocking.

00:37:22:01 - 00:37:25:09
Sasha
my gosh, that's scary.

00:37:25:12 - 00:37:40:03
Nicholas
So it's a really cool idea. First, for a book to like this, you know, this idea of like all these people that you just like are dying mysteriously and you're sure it's not you doing it, but you think that it is connected to you somehow That's. Really creepy.

00:37:40:06 - 00:37:40:20
Sasha
That's true.

00:37:40:27 - 00:37:50:29
Sasha
Well, do you ever do you ever do those crazy, like, thought exercises in your head where you're like, what if my waking life is a dream?

00:37:51:01 - 00:38:04:04
Nicholas
So the comedian Sarah Silverman has this bit that she does where she says she's worried that this is a dream and she's actually like in an old age home somewhere, like masturbating in a closet.

00:38:04:06 - 00:38:04:17
Sasha
They're going to.

00:38:04:17 - 00:38:09:09
Nicholas
Come and find her.

00:38:09:11 - 00:38:10:26
Sasha
You know, I just.

00:38:10:28 - 00:38:21:22
Sasha
It's a very funny thing, like I do. I often will imagine, like my moment of death. And looking back and like, I like to think, gosh, if your whole life flashes before your eyes.

00:38:21:25 - 00:38:24:05
Nicholas
Right. How do we know we're not in that flash right now?

00:38:24:10 - 00:38:47:03
Sasha
Exactly. Exactly, Exactly. That point. And and if I have like in a really amazing moment, I'll be like, this is definitely one of those end of life flashes. Like, I'll definitely, you know, be seeing this again. But it seems entirely plausible if if we were to find out that the whole thing was just a hallucination, it almost makes sense in a weird way.

00:38:47:05 - 00:39:11:21
Nicholas
It's so weird because we're so locked into our own heads, our own existences. We're seeing only through our own eyes. It's heart, you know, sometimes you have to wonder, like, do these other people really exist? Or is this like, is this all a dream state? And I'm just some free floating consciousness amusing myself, Like I've created this this entity called Sasha Graham, who I'm now talking to.

00:39:11:29 - 00:39:23:26
Nicholas
Right. It's I know it's a it's very and it's probably psychotic, but it's something I think that that that we all think of once in a while like is the world around me real?

00:39:23:29 - 00:39:44:21
Sasha
Is it have you ever this this happened to me not too long ago and freaks me out to no end. But I love it at the same time. Have you ever unexpectedly seen someone, your spouse or a good friend on the street when you didn't expect to see them? And and so it's but they didn't see you seeing them.

00:39:44:23 - 00:40:04:09
Sasha
And so you're looking at this person walking down the block or maybe getting into the car, going that human over there is the person that I've had children with or spent the last four years of my life with look as ordinary as every other person. Is that ever happened to you?

00:40:04:12 - 00:40:21:14
Nicholas
Yes. And I take it one extra ridiculous step. I'm like, they didn't see me because I'm a ghost. Like, how could my good friend not have seen me on the street? I'm a ghost.

00:40:21:17 - 00:40:24:04
Sasha
We are spirits in the material world.

00:40:24:07 - 00:40:25:18
Sasha
That's right.

00:40:25:20 - 00:40:27:10
Nicholas
Sting was correct.

00:40:27:12 - 00:40:33:24
Sasha
He was so he had got so many things right. He got so many things. Space.

00:40:33:27 - 00:40:50:09
Nicholas
Do you mind? Can we talk about the tarot for a moment that's needed by tarot as well? Yes I've always liked tarot. I've never been able to read it. I don't have the ability, I think, to see the images and draw meaning from them in the same way. Or maybe it's maybe it's I haven't learned how to do it.

00:40:50:12 - 00:41:06:05
Nicholas
But you've created tarot decks. You've created those images yourself. Do those images I don't mean to turn the interview around on you, but do those do those images come to you in some sort of, you know, trance or dream state or from someplace else?

00:41:06:07 - 00:41:29:27
Sasha
well, yes. And my gosh, thank you for asking this question, which I'm super happy to talk about. So, number one, Tarot. Tarot is a language. It's a visual language that is grounded in esoteric theory. So it is something that can be learned like French or Italian or anything else. So that just takes a matter of practice and the desire to do that.

00:41:29:27 - 00:41:53:10
Sasha
Anybody can read a card, but anybody can, and it's visual. So anybody can also read a card and just tell the story of what they see on the card and relate that either to the person they're for or to themselves. But as far as the images on the cards, what's what makes tarot different than a regular deck of playing cards?

00:41:53:10 - 00:42:21:16
Sasha
Or 78 tarot cards are the major arcana and the major arcane. Are these major archetypal energies and archetypal energies is something that anyone from any culture, no matter where they grew up, what their religious system was like, would understand what an archetypal energy is. So an example is mother or father. Everybody, every human on this planet understands the idea of mother or father.

00:42:21:18 - 00:42:57:22
Sasha
Death when things fall apart in the tower. Love Right. So, so, so archetypal energy. It's it's really phenomenal because it it really is what grounds us all as human beings. We're so much more alike than we are different. You know, again, the difference is that's just material world, right? That's just like the pentacle, the pentacle level. So when I'm designing a terror attack and at this point, like tarot, tarot is how can I explain this?

00:42:57:25 - 00:43:30:05
Sasha
So Tarot is the energy of tarot because so many people have worked with it for so many centuries. It does hold its own collective energy. So the same way, if you were an herbal witch saying you went out and were collecting, I don't know, lavender to work with lavender to help you sleep better, or perhaps Mother Wart because you wanted to soothe something that was uneasy in yourself or or hollyhock.

00:43:30:11 - 00:44:07:12
Sasha
You know, if you're working on your heart the same way that you would work with the energy of the plant, it has its own intelligence. So is there an intelligence in the archetypes of tarot? So if if, if the occultist or the witch or the practitioner chooses to, you can work with the energies of those cards and certainly when I'm creating a terror attack, that energy, which is very fluid, and the energy, I believe, of tarot, like anything else, the more that people go in and use it, the more expanded it becomes.

00:44:07:12 - 00:44:31:00
Sasha
You know, it's the first thing you realize when you when you start to do nature magic is that you're not the first person in there. You can sort of feel the footsteps of the foot paths of those who kind of ventured before you. So everybody who goes in to do some kind of work is expanding. That experience. And so working with the archetypes of tarot is probably just like working with the archetypes, the tropes of a novel.

00:44:31:03 - 00:44:51:10
Sasha
Do you? And so you have like the Father Emperor energy, That's what's coming through. But it's it's it's a little more direct, I think, because you can really access that energy, particularly in appeal to it, ask it what it wants to be, how it wants to reveal itself.

00:44:51:12 - 00:44:57:15
Nicholas
Yeah, it's so fascinating. It sounds very creative. It sounds like not that different from writing.

00:44:57:18 - 00:45:22:29
Sasha
it's not. No. I mean, it's not at all different from writing. I don't think there's any difference except for the fact that what it what is what I find nice about tarot is it's very concise in its structure. While it's fiction and poetry and prose have essential rules and things that people adhere to. And tarot is a nice, neat, you know, so that.

00:45:22:29 - 00:45:24:20
Sasha
Yeah, thank you.

00:45:24:22 - 00:45:37:00
Nicholas
Sure. I have the wait writer deck somewhere around this messy office. But you've really opened my eyes to the fact there are so many other decks out there, some of them with really gorgeous art.

00:45:37:02 - 00:45:59:11
Sasha
Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's, what's beautiful about tarot is that and I've talked about this to other authors and I is that tarot is kind of evergreen, you know, when you create a tarot deck or you were anyone works with tarot when they're working with it on a daily basis, they really it really becomes a sacred relationship And like this kind of love object and.

00:45:59:11 - 00:46:29:26
Sasha
So unlike a novel that you've had your experience or a movie where you have the experience and then you leave and maybe it's still like on your bookshelf and it's like a totem that you think of and smile every time you look at it. With tarot, it's a world that you're you're repeatedly going into and then using to work out all your stuff with becomes a very it's a very evergreen, intimate universe to create, which makes you really happy.

00:46:29:29 - 00:46:51:19
Nicholas
You know, I briefly I was briefly a Wiccan in my in my teen years. I was in a coven of one. I had a Book of Shadows that I bought from from the magical child, that store that used to be on 19th Street. And I would burn incense in my room while I was doing these rituals. I had an anthem.

00:46:51:20 - 00:47:08:29
Nicholas
I had the whole thing. So my mother was very concerned about me because I was burning incense in my room and she just sort of had a talk with me one day. And I said, Are you smoking pot in your room? Because she thought I was using the incense to mask the smell of pot. And I said, No, doing witchcraft.

00:47:09:05 - 00:47:10:28
Sasha
And I think I.

00:47:10:28 - 00:47:17:07
Nicholas
Think that was an even worse answer than I could have given her.

00:47:17:10 - 00:47:24:12
Sasha
But let me ask you, did you set out to be a solitary witch or was that just that you were the only person around?

00:47:24:14 - 00:47:43:20
Nicholas
I was the only person. Well, I was the only person around. And B, I had not yet come out of my shell at that age. I was very shy. I didn't know how to talk to people, approach people ask, ask of people anything I needed, such as, Do you have a coffin? And is there room for one more?

00:47:43:23 - 00:47:58:16
Nicholas
So I just. I just did my own thing. I didn't stick with it. I think this was just during a phase where I was trying to find myself, so I was trying a bunch of different things and I really I was fascinated by it. I read all sorts of books about it, but I think it turned out not to be for me.

00:47:58:18 - 00:48:02:16
Sasha
Yeah, well, you know, and back then, I'm guessing this is like the eighties.

00:48:02:22 - 00:48:04:03
Nicholas
yeah, mid-to-late eighties.

00:48:04:06 - 00:48:18:21
Sasha
The mid-to-late eighties. It was really, even if you did have, like, the hotspot to say, Hey, anybody here? You know, I need to find a coven. Like, even if you articulate, they weren't easy to find. You know.

00:48:18:24 - 00:48:35:26
Nicholas
I wonder if I had gone to back to the Magical child or there was another star called Enchantments in the Village that was another sort of Wicca store. They probably could have hooked me up. They probably could have said, yeah, I know these folks. Why don't you talk to them? But I was too shy. I just I just didn't have it in me.

00:48:35:29 - 00:48:50:12
Sasha
So we've got we've got a great story from you, from our live event involving the magical child. But for the people who are just into this interview right now, could you explain to everybody what the magical child in New York City was and why it was so?

00:48:50:14 - 00:49:12:28
Nicholas
She was it was an interesting and it was a spooky store. I know people who would go into that store and immediately get bad vibes from it like it was. It was a spooky story, but it was a it was a place where you could buy spell books, amulets, incense if you wanted something dopey, like the Parker Brothers, Ouija Ouija board.

00:49:12:29 - 00:49:31:22
Nicholas
They had those, too. It was just it was it was very much a sort of, I call it, you know, without without meaning any offense. I call it a very witchy store. And so it had all sorts of, that kind of stuff. It was run by somebody who I think might have been a friend of Anton Levey or something like that.

00:49:31:22 - 00:49:55:02
Nicholas
He had a he had a dark energy, this guy. And so and that really seeped into the store itself. So I would go there from time to time looking for books about Wicca, looking for interesting jewelry, like I bought a bunch of really cool rings and necklaces at the time from that place, probably not even understanding what what they were supposed to symbolize or what uses they might have in ritual.

00:49:55:08 - 00:50:19:00
Nicholas
I was just like, That's a cute ring. by that. So yeah, this is the danger of giving teenagers allowances. Anyway, so it was a very cool store though, and I do kind of miss it. It's a it's a restaurant now on 19th Street. It doesn't look anything. I think it was a Spanish place and now I think it's something else.

00:50:19:02 - 00:50:37:01
Nicholas
It doesn't look at all the same on the inside. So because that would be weird. Like if you're eating at this restaurant, you look around like, wait a minute, wasn't this the magical child? But it was it was an interesting place. It was cool place, and it definitely did have a weird vibe to it. So I never as much as I enjoyed going there.

00:50:37:01 - 00:50:52:00
Nicholas
It's interesting looking back now, I never put this together in my mind until this minute. I loved going there, but I always wanted to leave pretty quickly and I think that I was picking up on that sort of dark, dreary vibe that was in there.

00:50:52:03 - 00:51:27:26
Sasha
There was definitely a standoffish energy in there that I felt as well when I would venture down there, Gosh, I was probably like 19 or 20 when I was poking around in there. And I and I never I never understood if it was a witchcraft place, like why they would be as standoffish as I had found the Catholic Church to be when I my mother had married a Catholic and I found them incredibly, incredibly standoffish and snotty and like I didn't know the rituals and like I was some kind of an idiot because like, I hadn't met one of my born with this knowledge.

00:51:27:26 - 00:51:51:05
Sasha
Like, I've never done this before. And that's something I've actually never appreciated about metaphysics and witchcraft in general, which is why I've always strived to be really open and transparent in talking about magic and the supernatural, because it's part of all of us. It's not an exclusive few. So I've always thought that, yeah, I've always thought that was an odd correlation.

00:51:51:11 - 00:51:56:16
Sasha
But enchantment enchantments, which was in the East or is in the East Village.

00:51:56:19 - 00:51:58:01
Nicholas
That was more still around.

00:51:58:02 - 00:52:07:11
Sasha
Yeah, that's more of like the feminine kind of home, would you say, of magic in New York City back in the day and today possibly, Yeah.

00:52:07:11 - 00:52:34:04
Nicholas
I didn't go there as often, but I went there a few times. I never had a better vibe. It really did much better vibe than the magical child. It's funny, you know, the magical child, they were very protective of of knowledge and culture. And it makes me feel like, I don't know, they didn't want customers in a weird way.

00:52:34:04 - 00:52:53:15
Nicholas
Like, I think they would have been just as happy if nobody had ever showed up at the store. And then they could just hang out with their with their robes and their daggers and do whatever. But I love, you know, as weird as it was, as as much as I wanted to get out of there, every time I was there, there was just something about that place that kept drawing me back.

00:52:53:15 - 00:53:23:06
Nicholas
I was fascinated by the paranormal, by the supernatural. Again, I think it started actually just with a love of horror and suspense and moved into like, Well, what if some of this is real? Not like the truly scary stuff, but what if things like magic are real? What if I were able to? I mean, this is a little sad, I guess, but what if I were able to control my life better than I can as a teenager using the skills or the art or actual spells of magic?

00:53:23:09 - 00:54:03:16
Sasha
See, And that's that's something interesting because first of all, to me, there's a long history of the masculine use of magic, which is very much summoning a demon and commanding things and making things and that sort of Yeah, So but I do feel like people reach for witchcraft and of course, like across all cultures, you know, almost the less, almost the less power people have, the more folkloric, you know, the more supernatural is what they will reach for.

00:54:03:16 - 00:54:08:10
Sasha
Because nobody can take that away from you, Right? Like your energy.

00:54:08:12 - 00:54:21:16
Nicholas
So funny you say that because I wound up when I went to college studying folklore. And I think there's a direct line through all of this of of trying to find your power and where you belong.

00:54:21:18 - 00:54:44:17
Sasha
Exactly. And I think that's why Tarot and witchcraft exploded during the pandemic, during the MeToo movement. Certainly social media Tick Tock Instagram gave an easy way for people to share that, and it gave. And people who had time during the pandemic to study spiritual pursuits that maybe wouldn't have had the time otherwise. But I think that a lot of us felt like we were losing control.

00:54:44:17 - 00:54:52:25
Sasha
And I think that that's why the huge surge of interest in in witchcraft and tarot and magic.

00:54:52:27 - 00:54:53:08
Sasha
But that was.

00:54:53:08 - 00:54:57:11
Nicholas
Definitely a dark time, you know, when we were all stuck at home, locked down.

00:54:57:13 - 00:55:22:04
Sasha
Totally for sure. I think it's interesting, hearkening back to the seventies and the for also how witchcraft Tarot was, it was almost like fetishized do you know, it was it was if you could get your hands on a tarot deck it was almost that. It was it was almost as hard to get your hands on a tarot deck as it was to get your hands on a playboy.

00:55:22:10 - 00:55:29:09
Sasha
Right? Or like a dirty magazine. Like you be like, Ooh.

00:55:29:12 - 00:55:38:23
Nicholas
And it was like a party trick, right? Like, you know, Brad's bringing a tarot deck to the cocktail party this Saturday. You know, be sure to be there.

00:55:38:25 - 00:55:41:03
Sasha
Yeah, it's crazy.

00:55:41:03 - 00:56:05:15
Sasha
It's fun. my God, This is so great. So I want to ask you just what your inclination is based on your experience in life and how growing up and just everything, What do you feel? Where do you think we were before we were born and where do you think we go when we die? What do you that looks like?

00:56:05:18 - 00:56:32:28
Nicholas
These are obviously age old questions. It's hard to know. I don't I don't have a philosophy on that. I don't I think more probably because I'm in the second half of my life now, I think more about where do we go after we die than where were we before we were born? I don't know. You know, the truth is either option is okay with me.

00:56:32:28 - 00:57:04:03
Nicholas
Like, do we go on or do we just sleep in darkness? I'm okay with either one. I you know, I make no bones about it. I love to sleep. I enjoy sleeping. And I'm sure that would be really peaceful. The idea of going on also gives us as as living beings, a bit of peace because we think, well, I've accumulated all this knowledge and and personality and friends and loved ones and whatever, and I kind of don't want to give that up.

00:57:04:06 - 00:57:15:21
Nicholas
So we have this idea that we go on and that's that's a very peaceful, comforting idea. So really, if it's either one of those, I think I think it's okay.

00:57:15:23 - 00:57:20:17
Sasha
I like that you will be okay because everything will just be where it is, right?

00:57:20:18 - 00:57:21:05
Sasha
Yeah.

00:57:21:08 - 00:57:33:00
Nicholas
Unless we go into another like there's there are beliefs out there that you live your life over again, like trying not to make the same mistakes either either as yourself or you reincarnated. Maybe as a different person.

00:57:33:02 - 00:57:33:23
Sasha
Right.

00:57:33:23 - 00:57:40:12
Nicholas
And that's that seems like a lot. I don't know if I want to do that. Like, I've, you know, I've seen.

00:57:40:12 - 00:57:41:02
Sasha
Enough.

00:57:41:04 - 00:57:44:15
Sasha
Everybody's walking around going, No, I know I'm an old soul.

00:57:44:18 - 00:57:50:09
Sasha
I know this is my last time around.

00:57:50:12 - 00:58:05:07
Sasha
I have to be honest. I feel like I've always felt the idea of reincarnation as being a very small way to look at an infinite universe. Like the idea that we would just back to this little the same place.

00:58:05:07 - 00:58:06:06
Nicholas
Yeah.

00:58:06:09 - 00:58:07:12
Sasha
Yeah. You know.

00:58:07:15 - 00:58:20:29
Sasha
And when when people are getting their past lives done, you know, you always these I was always these dramatic. I was a princess, I was a king, I was a cop like nobody. It was just like a poor little beggar on the street. Yeah.

00:58:21:01 - 00:58:26:14
Nicholas
Yeah. I was Cleopatra. I was King Tut. I was Bob.

00:58:26:16 - 00:58:29:04
Sasha
Before that, nothing like really happened to you.

00:58:29:04 - 00:58:35:29
Nicholas
Yeah, I was. I was Bob. I was King Tut's accountant.

00:58:36:01 - 00:58:36:18
Sasha
It doesn't.

00:58:36:18 - 00:58:37:08
Sasha
Make sense.

00:58:37:08 - 00:58:38:18
Sasha
I just write.

00:58:38:21 - 00:59:01:00
Sasha
And I do. I do realize the energy and patterns repeat, and I do. I was just talking with another guest on the show about trapped energy that seems to sometimes people like multiple people in like a hotel will see the same making the same pass. And this I like. So I do believe in repetition for sure, but I don't think it's quite as literal.

00:59:01:06 - 00:59:16:16
Nicholas
Yeah, and I would be surprised if reincarnation were true that we just came back to this same world. There's a whole universe out there, you know, maybe. Maybe we will reincarnate as a being on a completely different planet where we have entirely new things to learn and experience.

00:59:16:18 - 00:59:19:15
Sasha
And in senses that we can't even imagine. Right?

00:59:19:15 - 00:59:26:18
Nicholas
Yeah, that that sounds good to me, rather than just coming back and living on earth again and trying not to make the same mistakes.

00:59:26:21 - 00:59:36:05
Sasha
Yeah, I agree. I we'll take the same mistakes, but try them out in a completely new multiverse with new, I don't know, new clothing and new forms and new fun things.

00:59:36:07 - 00:59:37:20
Sasha
Yeah. Yeah.

00:59:37:23 - 00:59:40:06
Sasha
Thank you so much for being a guest. Go.

00:59:40:08 - 00:59:43:06
Nicholas
Sasha, thank you so much for having me. This a blast?

00:59:43:08 - 00:59:45:03
Sasha
Yeah. Will you come back again?

00:59:45:06 - 00:59:47:04
Nicholas
Anytime. Anytime.

00:59:47:06 - 00:59:49:10
Sasha
Thank you, Nicholas.

00:59:49:12 - 00:59:52:27
Sasha
My name.

00:59:52:29 - 01:00:16:04
Sasha
Thank you so much for being part of Ghost stories by the Fire. Do you have a spooky story? Near-death experience or supernatural happenings you'd like to share? I'd love to hear it. Submit your story to Sasha Grammy.com with ghost stories by the fire in the subject line. You might just wind up on this podcast, and if you want to support it.

01:00:16:04 - 01:00:16:25
Sasha
And keep.

01:00:16:25 - 01:00:20:18
Sasha
The ghost stories coming, head on over to Sasha Grammy.com.

01:00:20:25 - 01:00:21:19
Sasha
To check out my.

01:00:21:19 - 01:00:50:07
Sasha
Books and tarot decks which are available for purchase at your favorite bookseller. The Ghost Stories by the Fire theme song is titled Lovely from the original motion picture score of The Deeper You Dig, a film about the lengths a mother will go to to find her daughter's killer, even if that means accepting a curse from Beyond the Grave Lead vocals by Zelda Adams Stream The Deeper You Dig On Amazon Prime or Toby.

01:00:50:10 - 01:00:54:24
Sasha
Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I'm saving you a seat.

01:00:54:27 - 01:00:55:20
Sasha
At the fire.