00;00;00;28 - 00;00;09;28

Yeah. But, you know, it's it's. Come on.

00;00;10;01 - 00;00;22;24

You come to me when I'm lonely. I take your hand and we go home.

00;00;22;26 - 00;00;27;24

You cover me with your love. Hello.

00;00;27;27 - 00;00;59;12
Sasha Graham
And welcome to Sasha Graham's ghost stories by the fire season two. I'm your host, Sasha Graham. I'm broadcasting from w h NY. Western Catskill Radio 93.6 FM on your radio dial. It's just after midnight. I'm hoping you'll stick around and burn some of that midnight oil with me, because I've been out in the wild collecting ghost stories just for you.

00;00;59;14 - 00;01;28;24
Sasha Graham
I'm broadcasting tonight's show from the old fire tower in Juans Hollow, New York. So for you locals listening in, we have a wild, windy night in the store. Expect spotty power outages and loose debris. Use caution if driving, especially on bridges and elevated roads. If you're already home tucked safely under the covers, relax and snuggle in to the sound of my voice.

00;01;28;26 - 00;01;59;08
Sasha Graham
If you hear something scratching on your window pane or bumping on the roof, it's probably just the wind. Tonight I have a trinity of tales all involving aspects of theater and performing. Tonight's tales are eerie, uncanny. And trust me when I say our final story will leave you with more questions than answers. So have your tickets in hand for the usher.

00;01;59;11 - 00;02;25;28
Sasha Graham
Grab a drink at the bar before settling into your seats. Because I'm about to dim the lights and raise the red curtain for tonight's show. Welcome to season two of Sasha Graham's ghost stories by the fire, episode 20. The ghouls must go on. Do you remember your first big break up? Whether you were the breaker upper or the breaker.

00;02;26;00 - 00;03;03;29
Sasha Graham
It hurts when lovers separate. And we never forget romantic heartbreak. Some people say we are extra vulnerable to spiritual attacks when we are tired, exhausted. Or even worse, when we are nursing a broken heart. And it's sometimes in those vulnerable states with all the fences down that we see or feel something that we might have otherwise overlooked. As our first story teller found out, you'll hear my voice introducing the speaker as I bring him to the stage.

00;03;04;01 - 00;03;34;28
Sasha Graham
But let me first say that Colin MacFarlane is an actor who has appeared on Broadway, the West End film and TV. But who I met in the tarot occult world. He and all of tonight's guests were recorded live at a Sasha Graham's Ghost Stories by the Fire event at the Baron's intense tasting room in Brooklyn, New York. Now here's Colin MC filling me with the screaming monk of Hampstead Heath.

00;03;35;00 - 00;04;01;22
Sasha Graham
I'm really excited to bring up my closing story teller. He's an incredible terrorist. He's an amazing astrologer. He's an absolutely phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal actor. And it was funny because I got to see you on stage, long after I knew you from, like, our tarot work. And I was just like, he's. Well, he's on Broadway, so of course he's good.

00;04;01;22 - 00;04;33;16
Sasha Graham
But I'm like, Bill, he's really good. He's just. You are. You're such a wonderful talent. And I'm so happy that you're here tonight. You have a history. I think he recently were playing, Scrooge. And so he is very much part and parcel of the invisible world. He's about to return to Broadway. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my friend Colin MC Philomene.

00;04;33;18 - 00;05;00;25
Colin McPhilamy
Thank you. I feel like I should hand you about $20 for that, introduction. I'm an actor, a stage actor. So you've never heard of me? And one of the reasons for that is that although I do have a small, modest portfolio of victim of the week roles, things like law and order, being a stage actor is a fabulously effective way to remain unknown to the general public.

00;05;00;27 - 00;05;27;22
Colin McPhilamy
In fact, I think Mike is in witness protection programs. Sometimes, amazing stories that we've heard is wonderful. And it makes me feel that, you know, I'm not alone, that I haven't actually lost my mind over the years. And it was at the Old Vic that I met this staggeringly beautiful, actress. Well, I thought so, anyway.

00;05;27;25 - 00;05;55;10
Colin McPhilamy
And we fell into a relationship, as you know, can happen in theaters when you're in a play together. It's called a showmance. And, you know how it is when you get sensitive to the other side. There are a number of ways to open up the chakras. You know, go. Calisthenics, perhaps. Illegal substances? Not really recommended.

00;05;55;12 - 00;06;25;04
Colin McPhilamy
One surefire way is to fall in love with someone who's not in love with you. I speak from experience on this. Anyway, also, man, that lasted about a year. It was a lot of fun. It was up and down on again, off again. You know, it was very late at night and all that. That means. Then I went away on tour again, and six weeks later, I woke up one morning to realize I was in love with this girl.

00;06;25;06 - 00;06;47;26
Colin McPhilamy
And I thought, this is fantastic. I'm in love and I know it. So I drove through the night down the motorway to London. Rocked up at about dawn. I'm in love with you. Too late, she says, because now I'm with Andy. Have you ever had your heart broken? Anyone? Yeah. You know. Okay, well, you know what it's like.

00;06;47;26 - 00;07;08;26
Colin McPhilamy
You know, you can't sleep, you can't eat. You don't want to. You ring up all your friends, and you bore them with your version of what went wrong. Right. You take a bottle of vodka. Not a very good idea. Anyway, one night I had a my best friend, Jim, and, I used to bore him with my version of what went wrong.

00;07;08;28 - 00;07;33;13
Colin McPhilamy
We went out to a pub. We had a pint of beer, was a very modest drinking night. And I say that because at the time, heartbroken as I was, I was really in training to drink for England and I think if I can, I don't know, I would've won a gold, you know? But anyway, I had a pint of beer, just the one, and I was walking home and I was going to take a shortcut across Hampstead Heath.

00;07;33;15 - 00;07;58;20
Colin McPhilamy
I don't know if you've been to London. Some of you, you might know where that is. It's 700 acres of semi wild woodland. It's a really magnificent place and it's pretty civilized. I say semi wild, you know, and there's a place called Parliament Hill and it's called Parliament Hill because if you approach London from the north, it's the first place where you can see the Houses of Parliament.

00;07;58;22 - 00;08;29;07
Colin McPhilamy
So I'm walking up this hill and I begin to be aware that each step is becoming incrementally more difficult to take. And little by little, the mist begins to rise on the ground. And I'm walking up the slope to Parliament Hill and to my right there's a meadow which in the daytime is completely visible, but now it's very misty.

00;08;29;10 - 00;09;02;20
Colin McPhilamy
And suddenly, quite suddenly, I can barely move. And I see in the distance of about a hundred yards an enormous figure, which I would say was about the height of this ceiling, which would be, what, 12 or 13ft high? It's a monk, and it's shrouded in a white cowl, and it's running towards me running, but it's not getting any closer.

00;09;02;23 - 00;09;32;17
Colin McPhilamy
Thank God. But while it's running, it's screaming. It's screaming. Right now, there's a phrase in hamlet in which I played the ghost. It's one thing to play a ghost. It's another thing to see one. The phrase in hamlet is distilled almost to jelly with the act of fear. And I can tell you I attest to the meaning of that line.

00;09;32;18 - 00;10;04;13
Colin McPhilamy
I was I've never been so frightened, and I could barely move, and this thing was rushing towards me and screaming. And I thought, what do I do? Well, when it comes to the spiritual life, I'd categorize myself as a lapsed, non observant, neo pagan, right? But I knew what you meant to do. If you see a ghostly presence that might be hostile is, as Sasha said, you can always refuse.

00;10;04;13 - 00;10;35;03
Colin McPhilamy
You can't come in. Not now, but in other tools. Remedies to suppress. So, I mean, it's like they say, there are no atheists at sea, right? So I start to pray and I can't even turn round. But what I can do is walk backwards. And after a while I've covered about ten yards and the screaming diminishes, and with each step backwards, I take the presence gets less.

00;10;35;05 - 00;10;55;27
Colin McPhilamy
So I just I decide I'm imagining it. I'll test it. I walk for the main image, the screaming. Okay, so that put another two miles on my late night walk on my head to go around the heath. And finally I got home. The next day I went back on a bicycle. It was pure daylight. The place is like a park.

00;10;55;27 - 00;11;21;17
Colin McPhilamy
It's full of people. There's absolutely no trace of that experience except in the meadow. There's a plinth. It's a sort of stone pyramid type shape, obelisk shape, commemorating something. I don't know what. So I think I wonder if it's connected with that. But there's absolutely no trace. Well, here's the twist. I was in therapy at the time for the heartbreak.

00;11;21;17 - 00;11;42;09
Colin McPhilamy
You know, all that good stuff. So I said to the therapist, the next time I saw him, I said, well, you know, you thought I told him about this when it happened. I said, you thought I was crazy, but now you know I am right. And here's the twist, because he said, no. What do you mean, no? He said no.

00;11;42;11 - 00;11;47;29
Colin McPhilamy
Exactly the same thing happened to me, you know.

00;11;48;02 - 00;11;56;07
Colin McPhilamy
Thank you very much.

00;11;56;09 - 00;12;24;12
Sasha Graham
Wow. Talk about a confirmation. We go to therapy to sort our issues out and be seen. But how often is it that the therapists themselves have swum in the same supernatural soup as us? And I wonder what could have happened to that monk to provoke his eternal screaming? Was it the bland food, the vow of poverty, or all that abstinence?

00;12;24;14 - 00;12;51;08
Sasha Graham
I love how Colin said it's one thing to play a ghost, but another thing to see a ghost. Isn't that the truth? Actors get paid to play parts, bring rules to life, and wear metaphorical theatrical masks, but actors aren't alone in it. Aren't we all playing the part of who we think we are or would like to be?

00;12;51;10 - 00;13;18;24
Sasha Graham
Don't we all wear masks when we step into the outside world? The mask of our jobs, our personal style, and the mask we wear to gain the approval of others? But what would happen if we stopped trying to fool everyone else and most importantly, ourselves? What if we took off the mask and stood in the naked truth of who we actually are?

00;13;18;27 - 00;13;52;24
Sasha Graham
I dare you to try it. That just might be scarier than any screaming ghost. Our next story isn't told by an actor, but from the point of view of an audience member. What would happen if you went off for a night of theater and discovered an energy from your evening's entertainments, had hitched a ride home with you? Our second storyteller experienced this very scenario and lived to tell us about it.

00;13;52;26 - 00;14;13;13
Sasha Graham
Heather Carlucci is a psychic medium medical, intuitive, and frequent storyteller at Ghost Stories by the fire. She spun the following tale on May 10th, 2023. Here is Heather Carlucci with the Provincetown Poltergeist.

00;14;13;15 - 00;14;15;15
Unknown
Hi, everybody. How are you?

00;14;15;18 - 00;14;49;05
Heather Carlucci
So I'm a psychic medium, and what I write about are things that I've already experienced. Is everybody here new or people been here before? Anybody? Hi. Hi. Okay, I've done this. I've done this story before because I'm kind of working on it. And under Sasha's, influence, the book is coming together. So enjoy. Provincetown, Massachusetts is on the farthest tip of Cape Cod.

00;14;49;07 - 00;15;10;16
Heather Carlucci
It's a gay haven. Well, now a queer haven. And I've been to many such places in my lifetime. But never P-Town. Friends had asked me there many times, but something always came up. About four years ago, my dearest friend said that I just had to go and it must be with them. And I ignored my disdain for Massachusetts and their heralded history of burning witches.

00;15;10;19 - 00;15;37;11
Heather Carlucci
And I packed my car. And so there we were, a perfect sunny, warm October weekend. You know, everybody gets around in P-Town on bikes, and they don't like bikes. And since a motorcycle accident at age 19 where I suffered amnesia, I stay away from things like with wheels and no doors. But this was very much a when in Rome weekend, and I promised myself I would somehow find that joy.

00;15;37;14 - 00;16;00;22
Heather Carlucci
So immediately after checking into the hotel, it came to our attention that this weekend was the Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. Every venue had a production of one of his works for the entire weekend, and the only available tickets were at the theater in Provincetown in a show called Death of Drag Queens, or something uplifting like that. Oh my God, I cannot wait to take you there.

00;16;00;24 - 00;16;23;10
Heather Carlucci
Aaron stayed there five years ago and woke up with a woman standing over his bed with a string of pearls. And I hear these kinds of things a lot. Everybody wants to take me somewhere grim. Joey looked at me. Girl, you've got to see the murals they have hanging in there. As can. Weird. So we purchased the tickets, got on our bikes, and rode all the way down to the end of the Cape to the end.

00;16;23;12 - 00;16;43;23
Heather Carlucci
It is right where the pilgrims first landed. They actually landed there first and then went out to Plymouth Rock and then came back. So we went inside and Joey grabbed my arm to run through the lobby and down the hall before the great room to see all of these murals. There must have been ten of them depicting different scenes.

00;16;43;25 - 00;17;07;21
Heather Carlucci
And weird it was. There was one called Pilgrims First Laundry, and they were pilgrims standing knee deep in the ocean, fully dressed, with blank looks on their faces. And on the next panel, seemingly the same scene, there were 1920 sunbathers in their tank suits, with stereotypically dressed Native Americans waving to them from the shore. And then a group of playing in the middle of the street, children playing in the middle of the street.

00;17;07;25 - 00;17;32;24
Heather Carlucci
One child had his entire fist in his mouth. He had come to be known as the bulimic child. Each mural possessed an image which made me say, okay, so the closer we get to the great room we got, it got warmer and more flush I got. I turned to look into it and I felt full on nausea. I saw visions of nooses and torture and bloodshed and pleasure.

00;17;32;26 - 00;17;49;29
Heather Carlucci
We heard a woman's voice call for everyone to be seated in the theater, and I looked at my friends a bit lost and said, you mean we're still going to go to the show? They looked at me and they rolled their eyes. The show added all this discomfort as a 45 minute tribute to domestic abuse. It was not a good situation.

00;17;50;02 - 00;18;12;15
Heather Carlucci
Even Kathleen Turner being in the front row, didn't even take the edge off. And during the show, I kept feeling a scratching on what felt like two fingernails on my left hand. It was quick and I brushed it off and it happened again. Then when the show was over and as I walked out, I felt it again as I thought somebody was brushing against my hand, but nobody was there.

00;18;12;18 - 00;18;37;15
Heather Carlucci
I ran out of that hotel. We rode back to ours and had a nightcap, and then went back to our rooms at 3:30 a.m., I woke up with the scratching on my arm. That same scratching. I looked up and I saw a woman in the bathroom mirror and she spoke. I said, take me back. Please take me back.

00;18;37;18 - 00;18;55;06
Heather Carlucci
I lay down and I tried to close my eyes, but her presence in the room felt like a living human. I collected myself, I threw on a sweater, and I got on that goddamn bike, and we rode all the way down to the Provincetown Inn. And I could feel the flesh to my face again, like I did when I saw the Great Room.

00;18;55;08 - 00;19;13;25
Heather Carlucci
It was hot from the neck up, and I noticed that I felt no wind. Even though I was riding as fast as I could to get to this, to get to the next hotel, I rode into the parking lot and in the front of the hotel I felt the heat lift up off of my face and the scratching finally stopped.

00;19;13;28 - 00;19;21;19
Heather Carlucci
And then I was alone and the wind started to blow again, and I rode back to the hotel and drove my car everywhere for the.

00;19;21;19 - 00;19;29;26
Sasha Graham
Rest of the week.

00;19;29;29 - 00;19;55;15
Sasha Graham
Interesting how their story spoke to the qualities of the wind, that ghostly night in a tarot deck, the wind and the element of air is reflected by the seat of swords that speeds in a regular card playing pack and swords in tarot describe our state of mind or thoughts and the way we communicate. Tonight's storm reflected a state of mind.

00;19;55;17 - 00;20;21;01
Sasha Graham
I'd say it looks like insanity out there. Sitting here. I've got a view of the valley, and my seat feels like the still point in the middle of a forest rave. The pines are thrashing and the white clouds are zipping by the moon so quickly it looks like an Edgar Gorey illustration. I suppose the engine of all this wind is an early onset spring whipping through the atmosphere.

00;20;21;01 - 00;20;48;22
Sasha Graham
But it does seem as if the seasons have shifted a bit, doesn't it? You know, I've seen melting glaciers in Tibet. I seen the receding waters of the sea of Galilee with my own eyes and I've also seen a thick gray pollution blotting out sunlight in China, India, even in northern Italy. Sometimes the scariest possible thing isn't hiding in the shadows.

00;20;48;24 - 00;21;20;27
Sasha Graham
It's boldly staring us right in the face. Yet, like characters in a slasher, we refuse to admit that there's something wrong. Worse yet, we keep feeding the monster. Perhaps it's because we created him, and none of us want to kill our darlings. But what about when those darlings grow out of control? Turn around and feed on us. Will it all have been worth it in the end?

00;21;20;29 - 00;21;54;15
Sasha Graham
One of the interesting things about seasonal chefs is if you pay attention closely, you can detect the underbelly of any coming season long before it arrives. A warm August evening might bring you a October synthwave sunset for a Halloween movie poster. Cool. September mornings might bring the taste of January frost to your lips. The trick is to pay attention because everything is speaking to you all the time.

00;21;54;17 - 00;22;28;14
Sasha Graham
The question is, can you slow down long enough to notice it? It's getting late, so I'm going to ignore those strange noises coming up from below the fire tower and let us both be swept away by our final storyteller. Have you ever dreamed of running away to join the circus? Our final guest did just that. Eliot is a charismatic orator who literally ran away to clown in the circus.

00;22;28;17 - 00;22;37;21
Sasha Graham
But what happens when the circus and the occult collide?

00;22;37;24 - 00;22;45;02
Sasha Graham
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Eliot to the stage.

00;22;45;05 - 00;23;03;25
Elliott
So I was working in a bookstore in my college town. I graduated with a degree in history, and on a lunch break, I renewed a friend of mine. I'd been with a play in a play with in university, and I just casually said, hey, what are you doing this summer? And he said, well, I'm touring America as a clown in the circus.

00;23;03;27 - 00;23;21;23
Elliott
And I said, really? I said, can I go with you? And he said, well, have you ever clowns before? And I said, no, no, I can do it. I said, I can do. I was the class clown in eighth grade. I was and he said, can you ride an elephant? I said, no problem, you know, fall off an elephant.

00;23;21;24 - 00;23;39;03
Elliott
How do you do that? You can't fall off. And so anyway, he got a contract and we went down a first date was March 3rd in Odessa, Texas, 1979, and the owner of big Red faced Tex and Larry said, Gary on the parking lot. He said, well, you know why we're here? We're here to have a good year and make some money.

00;23;39;03 - 00;23;57;03
Elliott
So let's have a good season. And I thought, well, I gotta learn everybody's name. I'm going to be on the road for nine months, you know. And I learned quickly not to bother with the workers. We lost one every show. We picked one up in every town. There were runaways, schizophrenics, criminals, bums. And they just came and go.

00;23;57;03 - 00;24;17;15
Elliott
But one of them we picked up early in the season in, in Saint Louis. And, his name was Dean, and, he was a very simple guy. He was always like, hey, Elliot, how you doing? And he had the strength of three men. I didn't know what barrel chested meant till I'd seen him. His chest was muscled all around.

00;24;17;15 - 00;24;33;07
Elliott
He was like a barrel. Anyway, he was a simple guy and stronger than three men and he was loading the truck, two guys, and hand him a 60 pound rubber mat, and he could pile them tirelessly. And he was smart enough. They'd say, look, the next gig, we got to take the trapeze out first, and he would figure that out.

00;24;33;07 - 00;24;51;17
Elliott
So a few weeks later, he's driving the concession truck and he's one of us. We stayed the whole season, and I remember we'd go to these discos in Texas to pick up the local girls. It was like those cowboy movies with the piano stops and everybody looks up. Half the show was Mexican, so it was a little tense.

00;24;51;17 - 00;25;18;03
Elliott
But when Dean was there. Strike the three men loyal as a dog. Simple bodyguard anyway. And I remember one when we drank too much. Bernie came up, said, hey, how are you doing? He slapped me in the back and I said, well, he's broken my spine. His hands were like iron. Anyway, long story, could be shorter. Last gig was Corpus Christi, Texas, and I was in our 12ft trailer under the palm trees reading a book.

00;25;18;05 - 00;25;39;12
Elliott
Really interesting book given to me by a friend of mine, a girlfriend in college who taught art in Princeton, and it was called the Transformative Vision. Jose. Goal. Hourglass. The whole New Age movement was based on his research into Mayan astrology. He also talked about the drug experiments of Anthony Noto. The thesis of the book was there was an unhealthy split between the functioning of the right and the left hemisphere of the brain.

00;25;39;15 - 00;25;57;11
Elliott
He dates it to the Renaissance, and he supports it with everything from Mayan astrology to to mandalas. Fascinating book. Anyway, I'm reading this book and we decide to lay over. Head back to Wisconsin the following day. The Mexicans all headed for the border because we were in Texas and Dean walks by and I'm sitting up in the trailer reading the book.

00;25;57;13 - 00;26;22;05
Elliott
So I figure the prop truck is still here. He hasn't left. And he looks up and he says, he says, hell yeah. So that's a good book. If I'd asked myself, could Dean read? I just said probably not. So I was stunned and I said, have you read it? He said, yeah, yeah. I said, well, I've read just about everything ever written on the occult.

00;26;22;07 - 00;26;42;20
Elliott
You know, if he'd read this, he had read everything because this was the farthest neighborhood of the occult, you know, they didn't know where to put this book. It was City Lights bookstore, transformative vision. They didn't know where to put it. So I was stunned again. And I said, I said, have you read it? And he said, yeah, you know, I've read just about everything you ever written on the occult.

00;26;42;22 - 00;27;03;12
Elliott
And I said, you have. And he said, yeah, yeah. He said, I guess I can tell you says, do you know what a warlock is? And I said, you mean like a male witch? He said, yeah. You said, back in Saint Louis, me and a couple of friends, we were practicing, and I woke up one day and one of my friends, he was dead.

00;27;03;14 - 00;27;25;01
Elliott
The other one, he gone crazy. And I had to get on the road and disperse my powers, or I'd be dead, too. He said, I don't know. He summoned something he couldn't control and he killed him. That's the story.

00;27;25;03 - 00;27;28;01
Unknown
I haven't answered questions.

00;27;28;03 - 00;27;58;21
Sasha Graham
Like, how did know when he was finished dispersing his powers? Was he getting rid of it by putting it on other people, or was he trying to outrun it and disperse it through his rearview mirror? Did Elliott absorb Dean's energy, and can dangerous energy be transformed into something useful? Well, if you're interested in the occult, I write about it extensively in my Llewellyn's Complete Book of the Rider-waite Smith Tarot.

00;27;58;24 - 00;28;25;06
Sasha Graham
The Writer Waits material was created by a secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a fascinating group of male and female magicians making magic at the turn of the century. Llewellyn's complete book of the writer Waite Smith Tarot is available at bookshops everywhere or through my website. Sasha graham.com. Speaking of my website, do you have an interesting ghost story you'd like to share?

00;28;25;08 - 01;04;03;14
Sasha Graham
Because I'd love to hear it and maybe have you on the show. Drop me a line at Sasha graham.com and put ghost stories in the subject line. That's all for now. And until we meet again, this is Sasha Graham signing off. Stay spooky, stay cozy, and don't be afraid of the dark.

01;04;03;17 - 01;04;16;17
Sasha Graham
Wow. I have a million unanswered questions. Like, when would Dean know when he had dispersed all the energy he'd raised during his occult activity? And did Elliot absorb it?