Episode 334: Conspiracy, Ghost Hunting, and Graverobbing (with Colin Dickey)
/Join us as we talk with writer and academic, Colin Dickey, and discuss hot takes of ghost hunting shows as reality TV, the banality of evil, and how haunted architecture reflects what society is most afraid of.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, the Satanic Panic, ableism, gun violence, toxic masculinity, murder, Flat Earth and conspiracy theories, anti-semietism, sexual assault/abuse, infanticide, and assassination.
Guest
Colin Dickey is a writer, speaker, and academic, and has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories all over the country. He’s the author of multiple books, including Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, and The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. A regular contributor to the New Republic and Lapham’s Quarterly, he is also the co editor of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. Check out his upcoming book, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends The Bright and Breaking Sea by Chloe Neill
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out Join the Party, a collaborative storytelling and roleplaying podcast co-hosted in part by Julia and Amanda. Search for Join the Party in your podcast app, or go to jointhepartypod.com.
Sponsors
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Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And today we are so excited to be joined by Colin Dickey, a writer both of us have enjoyed, as someone whose work we have quoted in previous episodes with Jess, Julia and me. Finally, we get to talk to the person himself. Colin, welcome to the show.
COLIN: Hey, thanks so much for having me on.
JULIA: It is our pleasure. Colin, for our listeners who might not know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and what you talk about?
COLIN: Sure. My name is Colin Dickey, what do I do? Lately, I think what I do is best summarized by sort of, trying to sort of understand the kind of invisible world which in the past has taken the form of, of ghosts, cryptids, you know, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and people like that. My—my new book is on Secret Societies and sort of the fear of kind of hidden conspirators, be they Freemasons or the Illuminati, or Satanists, or lizard people, or what have you. So that's kind of what I do in a nutshell, so.
JULIA: Wonderful. Well, I am so stoked for that new book, I have to pick it up. And I am really curious to kind of, I guess, begin at the beginning and ask you kind of how did you begin to explore the world of ghosts and death, and haunting? Like, what was the inciting incident? Or was it something that you were always really interested in?
COLIN: Oh, I don't think there was an inciting incident. I mean, I—you know, I've said this before, but I grew up down the street from the Winchester Mystery House, and that was kind of touched on when I was a kid. I think I was sort of always interested in kind of strange architectural spaces, and particularly growing up in the suburbs where, you know, there—everything sort of just seems sort of boring and dumb and uninteresting. And I—I got, I think, from a— from a young age, kind of really interested in— in like, things that were kind of floating beneath the surface. I think high school I was very into, like the beat generation and, you know, criminals and drug addicts, even though I was like, neither of those things. I was very boring teenager. But I was very much interested in these kinds of subterranean worlds. And so that kind of started it, you know? And I think also, like growing up in the 80s, again, like was sort of the time of like, the Satanic Panic, which again, is something that I ended up finally writing about in this new book. And this idea that like behind any suburban home or any daycare, there was going to be these like secret hidden, you know, satanic temples and terrible things going on. You just would never know, you would just drive past them, and never— never suspect anything. So I think I was always interested in that kind of stuff, and like, what is happening underneath the surface. You know, that— that was kind of the general thing. I mean, I got into, like death, just kind of really by accident. You know, my first book was on this series of grave robberies of famous people's skulls in the like, late 18th, early 19th century from about 1798-1840. People just like we're stealing the heads of famous people, primarily Viennese composers, you know, Franz Josef, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, only parts of Beethoven's head. But also Emanuel Swedenborg, the Swedish mystic. And so I just— I was trying to understand why that all happened. And it sort of led me down this long road of like, trying to understand our relationship to the corpse and burial rites, and what happens like to the body after it's like gone. And why—why someone would like you know why someone who was friends with Franz Joseph Haydn would dig up his body five days after he died, and cut off his head and clean the he— like decomposing head of his friend, and then put the skull on his mantelpiece underneath a glass like bell jar. Like why would you do that, that seems crazy. So I don't know, that's a long answer to that question. I don't know if that gets said any of it, but yeah.
JULIA: No, absolutely it does. And I'm going to backtrack us a little bit back to your—your childhood and growing up in suburbia because we talk a lot on the show about how suburbia is really the kind of perfect hotbed for growing up with urban legends and stuff like that, especially like sleepy towns. But was there a particular urban legend? I know you mentioned the Satanic Panic, but was there a particular urban legend in your town or in your area that you remember just like ingrained itself in your mind,
COLIN: Oh, I'm trying to think because San Jose is so goddamn boring in so many different ways. But there was definitely— so I don't know if people know the geography of the San Francisco Bay area, but you know, there's kind of—you know, San Jose is on this peninsula. And the peninsula runs down, and there's— there's this sort of chain of mountains, the Santa Cruz Mountains that runs along that Peninsula. And at— when you get to the bottom of the bay, that's— that's San Jose. The Santa Clara Valley, which is where I grew up, and it's always strange [5:28] Valley because it— it's like a floodplain, there's not another side. But anyway, so the Foothills, kind of south of the Santa Clara Valley, you know, sort of where you kind of get into the kind of natural edge of you know, the the Santa Cruz Mountains. And there was a story, I hadn't really thought about this in long time. But there was a story up, you know, in Alameda hills where my friend Danielle left about the this family of albinos, I guess? Which you know, of course, now I'm like, oh, this is wildly problematic. But at the time that's— that is what I reme—I remember the family of albinos. I remember that you if you drove down this one road, I can't remember what road it was now, but it's kind of windy road that went up into the— in the foothills. You know, you ran the risk of them sort of assaulting, like jumping on your car and sort of a costing you and that kind of thing. So that's— I thought that yeah, that was kind of like, I don't know, that was— I don't remember hearing that until I was in high school. So I'm trying to remember if there's anything else. But they said San Jose was really boring, was really, you know, there wasn't much going on. It was like—it was like the 80s, it was like the rise of the tech industry, that's all anybody wanted to talk about. That's all anybody cared about was like Apple and Microsoft. So like, you know, there was no culture, there's nothing interesting happening.
AMANDA: Well, we are products of the suburbs too. Julia and I grew up outside New York City in a very sleepy Long Island suburb, and we bonded and became friends in elementary school. All, you know, coming from this urge of like, there's gotta be something else there, baby. You know, and just looking into mythology and being obsessed with urban legends. In part, I think because, you know, kids crave some kind of simulation. I wonder, Colin, do you think you'd be a different person? Or how do you think your— your life and your interests might be different if you did grow up in San Francisco proper, instead of in San Jose?
COLIN: I have no idea. [7:13] I have no idea, I can't answer that.
AMANDA: I think of myself and the potential that I could have, you know, been a city kid and you know, like grown up harder. And growing up, but you know, more worldly and knowing more. And probably I would crave then, the sameness of the suburbs, right? It's a real sort of grass is greener situation. But the suburbs, at least for us really prioritized like sameness and the facade, and looking like everybody else and looking normal. And so this, you know, fascination that behind all these closed doors, you know, there are unusual things happening was particularly compelling.
JULIA: Yeah, there's famously a lot of the urban legends on Long Island. The area that we're from is oh, that house is painted black, so Satanists live there. That is a recurring theme for the kind of small town suburbia of—at least for us, but I feel like in general across the United States.
COLIN: Sure. Isn't that like a Puritan thing? Aren't like Puritans houses painted black? Because it's like simple like, you get to Salem, like all the old preserved houses are painted black. That's just like a standard. It's like the opposite of a Satanists thing.
JULIA: Yeah. But this is a Levitown kind of community.
COLIN: Okay.
JULIA: Where they decided to do like faux brick and black and everything like that. So in a community where it's literally every house looks exactly the same, the fact that those people like made their house into a witch house, is the thing that was like, oh, the 50s, that's wrong.
AMANDA: There must be something wrong.
COLIN: Gotcha. Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
COLIN: Alright. Fair.
JULIA: Yeah, no. But if we come from a much more seasoned and historical neighborhood, I would 100% agree with you on that. So I would love to talk to you a little bit. I was reading an interview that you did, where you were talking about the kind of cross between ghost hunting, particularly ghost hunting shows and the use of technology. And I'm going to start this conversation with a kind of a very broad question, which is, what do you think ghosts are?
COLIN: I mean, I think why I'm fascinated by them is they are a topic of interest to any number of different people for a whole series of different reasons. And I think that is really hard to reduce to any one thing. I think for a lot of people there, whether or not they believe in them or not, they're kind of way of dealing with their own mortality. I think for other people their way of like processing grief and loss of others. I think they're a sort of way of talking about kind of just like generally the unexplained. I mean, you know, in writing Ghost Land, what I sort of came away with over and over again, is there a way to like process our weird feelings about architecture? So— and I don't think any of these are like, those are all just like sort of like, you know, anthropological or sociological answers like I—do I like— that I don't—I don't have a feeling or a belief about the paranormal beyond it. I get yelled at a lot for being a debunker. And I just feel like it's really just like that's a question that's sort of it's— it's such a personal question that it seems kind of a waste of everybody's time to kind of, you know, try and answer. So I don't. So I have no idea what ghosts are. They are whatever you want them to be.
JULIA: That is a totally great and valid answer. I was just curious. We talk a lot on the show about ghosts being a, a kind of physical manifestation of memory a lot of time. Like, that's—that's my personal theory that I've talked about on the show quite a bit. So I am very curious than to ask you about your thoughts on Ghost Hunters on television and what they are—what they believe they're capturing. Because I know that you've— you've talked a little bit about that before. So can you give me your—your hot takes on Ghost Hunters?
COLIN: Oh, I mean, what are the— what do they think they're capturing? I think they're— they're— I think they're having an experience. They're capturing an experience. They are like, I— you know, like, I guess like one term that gets used around a lot, you know is legend tripping. I think they are sort of interested in—again, a kind of break from the normal— a break from the everyday so you—you know, you do like, what are they capturing? They're— they're capturing what they want to hear. Again, you know like I've been—I've listened to a lot of EVP recordings, I've watched a lot of k2 meters light up. I have seen a lot of orbs. That is what you want it to be. I guess, like, do I have a hot take? I don't know, like, it's great for them. I'm happy for them, as long as they're not, you know, contributing to the destruction or vandalism of you know, historic buildings or whatever. I mean, like, good on you. Like, that's great—great for them. I'm happy for them and that's great.
JULIA: I am famously been quoted as saying, I will fight Zak Bagans in a parking lot, any day of the week. So I appreciate the like, good for the mentality of like, especially the televised ghost hunters. Because a lot of times my husband is super into those shows. And he's a very strong believer in the paranormal. And a lot of times I will, I'll make fun of him a little bit, where he'll be like, oh, did you see like that clip where they heard the ghost say get out? And then they play the recording? It's just like, [static sound] I'm like, that sure sounded like a voice saying get out. Sure. If you say so.
COLIN: I mean, you know, the—the question, I guess that I have it's like, why so many. I mean like, the idea that there are—there are dozens of the show's over, and over and over again. All— not all, but most of which are gonna follow the same format. There's like the ghost hunting crew. It's always like a dude and his best friend, and then his girlfriend. Like it's like that kind of weird, you know like and—and, you know, when I was—when I was talking to like the ghost hunting groups in LA, in particular. I mean, this is a little cliche, but it's true. You know, everybody was trying to get the ne—you know, be the next reality show. So everybody, like, you know, had their website, had T-shirts, had— had their little, like, their crew and their branding. And so I get it you know, on the sense of just like, this is America, and you know reality TV is reality TV. But it is fascinating, this sort of appetite for the same thing over and over, and over again. That the shows will go to the same places, the people all look the same. The evidence is all kind of the same. It's—and it's this kind of, almost like, you know, kind of almost in a Freudian way, this kind of compulsion of repetition, which I think is maybe more—more interesting than what they actually catching on any show. Like, I think it's like one of my favorite books of all time is this Anne Carson book Autobiography of Red, which has this kind of forward in the beginning, which is almo— this kind of like mini essay. And one of the things she says is she—she's paraphrasing the— the French philosopher John Boudreau does not—she quotes him directly, but it's not a direct quote. Like she like kind of paraphrasing, but the line is, consumption is not a passion for the substance, but a passion for the code. And I think about that a lot, that like what you are consuming in these ghost shows over and over again, is a structure you know? Like the— the beats are all the same. AAnd that's— I've been— I feel that way about like TV generally. I feel like everybody who's so excited about prestige television, mostly, it's always the same. It doesn't matter if it's like the Sopranos or Westwood or whatever, it's always the same fucking show. You know, like so I see that—so when every time I watch one of these ghost hunting shows, it's just like, like, I don't even know what—which one this is. Zack Vegas, I don't know who that guy is. There's like a million of those guys. They're all the same. They've got like good looking pecs, short hair. They're like just super browy, and so I guess like, what's really going on there? Is there— there's a certain— I think there's like a construction of a very specific kind of masculinity. I think there's a way of creating a kind of masculine performance. And certainly the're—the're women Ghostbusters business. And a lot of them it's like— it's like the girlfriend or the wife and anyone where—where she or the women are sort of pitched in either like semi subordinate or ancillary or supportive roles, or any of the ones in which, you know, the women are sort of more prone to be the kind of believers, versus the kind of rational skept— skeptic technology. It's all like a weird performance of gender roles in this way. And I think—I think the tech stuff, the broieness. Like what are you doing over and over and over again, This is why it won't work, it was just one. If it was just one show, you wouldn't be able to do this. You have to— you have to do it over and over again. Because you have to create this like archetype of the technologically adept, browy dude, who is rationally and scientifically trying to make a space for the heebie jeebies, as a way of of corralling and cordoning off, I think, a very basic human emotion that like, you know, masculine bros can't perform or be—we allowed to show in more, and like, kind of more traditional context. So you have to kind of, like, put it in a haunted house, so that you can like, you know like, I don't know, like, who isn't like scared at night alone in an empty house. Like, I don't care who—like bro, you are. Like, it happens, you know. Like, I mean, what the hell that guy— I mean, there's just that story about that guy who like shot that woman because she like turned down the wrong driveway. You know like this is like, you know, like, people are freaked out to be home alone and like—and so what happens is now you have this whole regimen of dudes who are kind of performing a way to be scared of the dark, in a way that preserves these kinds of toxic masculinity tropes. So that's— that'smy reading on that.
JULIA: That is so interesting. That's absolutely incredible. As you were kind of talking about that, too, I was making some interesting connections in my brain, between those ghost hunting shows and also shows kind of like The Bachelor or the Bachelorette, where all of these men are basically the same. And it doesn't matter how many seasons they put out, all the guys are going to hit the same beats each season. There's going to be you know, men who are like fighting, and there's going to be men who are crying and upset, but like trying to hold it together, because toxic masculinity says they can't cry over a woman. And I think that's just like really interesting because these are supposed to be quote-unquote, “reality”. And in the case of The Bachelorette, and The Bachelor franchises, those are, you know, a competition show where the ghost hunting shows are not, but kind of they are at the same time, where the prize is, hey, maybe we're gonna prove that ghosts are real.
COLIN: Oh, yeah, it's definitely competition show. Yeah, in the way you're talking about. And I mean, it's also like a travel show, you know, it's like—
JULIA: Yeah.
COLIN: It's like The Amazing Race meets The Bachelorette meets, you know, Survivor, or some shit like that. Like—and that's just, that's the formula. And it— not only works, it works better, the more times it gets shown. Because, you know, I mean, yeah, like, how does the reality TV start? It starts with MTV is the real world. And it's— I think it's the second season where they get the asshole. And the—and that's when the whole thing clicks, right? Like the first season is fine. There's normal fighting, normal people, normal tension.
AMANDA: Yes.
COLIN: It's the second season when they get the asshole and they're like, this is now compulsively watchful. Then every reality shows got to have the asshole. You know, I had a friend who used to edit for one of these, like cooking shows, and he would talk about how the producers would like, it was like our show about cupcakes. And the producers would send note saying like, this needs to be more life or death. And he's like, it's cupcakes.
JULIA: The show about cupcakes.
COLIN: You know, it doesn't— it's not life or death. So I think like, yeah, like all of that stuff is what then leads to, you know, these sort of paranormal reality shows. And the more that you see, the more they look exactly alike. The more they follow the trope, the more viewers are convincing themselves. Like this actually, is reality, because it's showing up over and over again. This isn't an anomaly, this isn't just— this isn't one guy. This is like, dozens of guys, and it's comforting to know, they all kind of look like this.
AMANDA: What's the hit rate on these shows? How often is there something that they do detect and can't explain away?
JULIA: The way that the editing is done is they're always going to find quote- unquote, “evidence,” right? Like it—they'll usually per episode visit like three places. And there's a reason that you pointed out like it is a travel show. And there's a reason that most of the shows are on the Travel Channel. Because they are like basically just travel shows with a hint of spookiness to them, right?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: And so yeah, like every episode, they'll have one or two things where there'll be like, so we took our recording to an EVP expert to see if he could explain it. And he's like, I don't know. Yeah, it could be a ghost. That's it—that's it. You always have an expert who says like, I can't definitively say if this was or was not a ghost, so I feel like if they debunked their evidence every single episode, it wouldn't work as well. You know what I mean?
AMANDA: Yeah, it's— it's that element of maybe this time is the time, right? Like that—that hope or tension or reason to come back and watch the next episode of the TV show against what your network can sell ads. You know, that is really the driving force. I'm a huge consumer, Colin of like reality and competition shows and also a lot of genre fiction and especially romance. And so I have been thinking a lot in myself about like, patterns are comforting, and we are pattern-recognizing animals. And those deviations, those surprises, sort of the more— the more tight my expectations are, the smaller the deviation has to be for it to register for me. You know, were watching a show for 45 seasons like Survivor, they make the smallest change to how something typically goes. And, you know, my heart races like I've been startled, you know by something. Because it's— it's the smallest change, but the baseline is so firmly established. And I think that's why these little blips of the paranormal were 2000 times out of 2001 that I look in that corner of the room nothing is there. The one time it seems something might be you know. The— the more firmly entrenched the pattern, the smaller that change has to be for it to really register.
COLIN: Yeah, that makes sense to me. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think as a—as a travel thing. Again, I mean, I wrote about this and Ghost Land, but like, for all the kind of silliness these are— these things are like keeping some places alive. The Merchants House Museum, which is under constant threat of developers, like they've embraced their kind of paranormal legacy to kind of make, you know, on a new generation care about this building, which seems great. Seems good to me. Yeah, I mean, I think it—yeah, like right. So like this idea that like you know, you look at a row of 10 houses and the 11th one, there's something off about it, and the way that you're describing about that seems cool and strange and fun and worth sort of checking out. I don't know like I—I don't have a problem with like the code of consumption perse, particularly with like fiction, with like romance novels, or I don't watch prestige TV, but I don't have a problem with it. It's more the—the way when that becomes packaged as reality. Noncompetition shows, but in like in shows where you're being sold something that's reality when it's clearly been sort of molded. I think like true crime is a really good example of this. Like, all true crime looks the same, and that's really strange to me, because crime does not look the same. And a lot of like, like important or forgotten or unsolved, you know, murders and crimes are just uninteresting to producers and uninteresting to editors, because they don't fit the pattern. Because true crime is not about focusing on actual crimes. It's focusing on creating a narrative over and over again, that can be sold and repackage so. So it's just a really a question of like, the sort of structural repetition is not the problem. It's more the question of what—what are we doing with that structural repetition. And what—what are the benefits and drawbacks of it?
AMANDA: Well, that sounds like a wonderful segue into your newest book Under the Eye of Power. But first Julia, let's take a short break and go grab a refill.
JULIA: Sounds good. Let's go.
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DM Eric and emphatic players Amanda, yes, Amanda from this show. Brandon and me Julia, welcome everyone the table from longtime tabletop RPG players, to folks who have never touched a role playing game before. And our current campaign is actually a pirate story that is set in the world of plant and bug folk. We also have the Camp Paign, which is a Monster the Week game that is set in a weird summer camp. Campaign Two was a modern superhero game. And then campaign one was a high fantasy story. And once a month, we also released the after-party, where we answer your questions about the show and how we play the game. So what are you waiting for, pull up a chair and Join the Party. Search for Join the Party in your podcast app or go to jointhepartypod.com We are sponsored this week by BetterHelp. Now, therapy is something that I have really benefited from starting and continuing on, even as I get older and get to know myself a little better. 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And where does inspiration come from? again hosted by Jay Acunzo, who's an author, creative coach and a guy who has spent his career obsessing over the same aspiration/ delusion to be the Anthony Bourdain of stories about creativity. You can listen to Unthinkable anywhere you get podcasts. Or visit the link in our show notes for a starter pack of stories for new listeners. Check it out. And now let's get back to our episode.
JULIA: So Colin something that we love to ask all of our guests is what drinks have you been enjoying lately? Whether that is cocktails, mocktails, coffee drinks. What have you? What—what has been your—your cup of tea so to speak lately?
COLIN: Oh, you know I did for the fall and winter I was drinking this thing called a Gold Rush which I was making honey syrup, where you boil like a cup of water and a cup of honey and then you have this like stable syrup, it's good for mixing. And then it's like, so it's like honey, lemon juice, and bourbon. That was like a real good winter drink. And now I'm doing Black Manhattan's which is a Manhattan where you— you swap out the vermouth for a Verona, and then you add— it's like Angostura bitters and then a little bit of orange bitters. And that's what I've been doing lately, and that— that works really well. I went to this like weird, kind of haunted, kind of house thing in LA last Halloween. It was sort of this interact— It was kind of like a—and I don't mean this pejorative because I had a huge amount of fun. It was like a low-read sleep no more. It was like—
AMANDA: Nice.
COLIN: —you know, you have this building, where you kind of wandered through and there were these characters, and you were kind of—you could talk to them, you could interact with them. And you were trying to sort of understand this story.
JULIA: Was it House of Spirits?
COLIN: It might have been House of Spirits. Have you done this?
JULIA: I'm familiar with it. Yeah.
COLIN: Okay. And I mean, what was fantastic about it is that unlike Sleep No More, you had like two hours, you had a time limit, and they gave you four mini cocktails over the course that they had like—and they were not mini at all. Like, which was fantastic. And ma—again, made it a really fun time. But one of the—one of the ones that I've had that I've been trying to like recreate ever since was like a— it was like a bourbon-based cocktail with like apricot liqueur, and [30:48] and that was just like a really good combo. And that's—that's my goal for the spring and summers to recreate that one.
JULIA: Heck, yeah. Yeah, there's nothing better than getting blasted, and then like walking into a room while someone like crawls backwards towards you. You're like, Oh, please. Hold on a second.
COLIN: There was a photo of me and the person I'm with, posing with one of the like, dressed up characters, that her and I have zero memory of taking away like, it was absolutely—like, by the time we got home, we stopped and got tacos. Had—we're fine. No hangover whatsoever the next day, but for like, about two minutes, we appear to have completely gotten blackout drunk, just long enough to take this photo which neither of us have any recollection of taking. And— and then— and then we're fine, so.
JULIA: You really got to pace yourself at. If you're going to enjoy House of Spirits, listeners, I would recommend pacing yourself as you go through the night because—
AMANDA: Eat a good meal before. Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah.
COLIN: If you're going to enjoy it, listeners, I recommend not pacing yourself, I recommend going full tilt.
AMANDA: Dr. Dickey is not that kind of doctor. Nonetheless, our platform is yours. I was actually in Sleep No More the night of the 2016 election.
COLIN: Oh, wow.
AMANDA: Which looking back, traumatized me a bit for life. But I think is a wonderful transition into your newest book coming out this July, Under the Eye of Power. And I would love to know, a I'm really obsessed with subtitles of books. Yours is, how fear of Secret Societies shapes American democracy. And I would love to know a bit about the genesis of this book. What started you know, catching your eye? And how your interests formed their way into like a book proposal and then outline and then a full last book, which is not a thing I have any experience with?
COLIN: Yeah, so the book that I sold after Ghost Land was originally about conspiracy theories writ large. Oh, gosh, it was going to do chronic Lyme disease. It was going to do the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It was going to do like the whole, like perpetual motion engines. I think I had a whole chapter about that. And then there was going to be a chapter on— on— on Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster and the chapter on Aliens, and a chapter on the flat earth. I put the Bigfoot and alien stuff at the end because I was like this is—this is going to be the most fun part. And I want to save it for the end. So I wrote two-thirds of this book and then realized that The first two-thirds were just not working whatsoever. So I went back to my editor, and I said, can I just write this book on Bigfoot, UFOs, and flat earth? And that took some convincing, but that— so I just basically throughout like, 60,000 words of, of the book that I wrote and started over from scratch.
AMANDA: Brutal.
COLIN: And so that's, you know, the unidentified and, you know, ultimately, I—much to my regret, had to cut the flat earth section as well because that was like one of my favorite parts. But it just wasn't fitting for the book. It didn't— it didn't make sense. It was the right move. So I ended up with a lot of this material that I had already done. Although, as I said, it didn't—didn't work, and it wasn't clicking, and I wasn't happy with it. And so like 2020, couple months before the Unidentified was supposed to come out, a friend of mine helped me move. And he was the one who was just like, sort of as we were driving this U hall to my new apartment, he was one of just like, I don't know, it sounds like your next book would be Secret Societies. And it—it took me a while to sort of understand, like, again, I had so much of the Freemason and the Illuminati stuff. The sort of anti-semitic stuff, the anti-Catholic Stuff, I had all that stuff sticking around. It took a while to figure out like, again, like how they fit together and what they were doing. Yeah, so that— that took me like another couple of months. I think like the way that I— like I keep— I tend to conceive of my books and kind of idiosyncratic ways that makes sense to myself. But like, the marketing people don't let me talk about because I don't— I don't know that they make sense to like average people. But like, you know, Ghost Land was my book about architecture. About you know, living in buildings. And the Unidentified was my book about Borderlands and —and the frontier. And this is my book about underground and subterranean spaces. So it's— it's sort of I mean, in some cases literally, you know, in terms of, you know, like the way basements get sort of used in a various number of conspiracy theories and like back rooms, and this idea that there's always like a door behind which something is— is hiding, you know. Or you know, not as literally, but still vaguely literally, like the idea of the Underground Railroad. The idea that there is, you know, this underground, the Weather Underground, those kinds of things. So—so once I sort of started, think of it as like, you know, there's the front room and the back room, there's the above ground in the subterranean space. I started to sort of understand the way the book could kind of come together in a way that I think was cool and fun. So that's—that's how it came together. So yeah.
AMANDA: It's a great answer.
JULIA: That's awesome. We talk a lot about liminal space on the show. And this idea that this book kind of focuses on the outward facing, and then the behind the scenes. What was something that really like surprised you in doing the research to put this book together in terms of the stories that you were writing about?
COLIN: You know, once I sort of decided that this book was about groups, real or imagined, that were thought to be conspiring behind the scenes to subvert American law and American democracy. Once I—once that became the template, I think one of the most surprising things is the groups that fell into that. So you know, as mentioned, you know, that's—that's the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad, you know. I mean, it's not and— it's not nearly as networked, or top-down as I think its detractors imagined it. But yeah, this was a loose group of people who were breaking American law. You know, sort of conspiring to do that. So, you know, so I was like, oh, well, this is also about the Underground Railroad. This is about slave insurrections. This is about, you know, Denmark Vesey, in Charleston, South Carolina, you know. And then it's also about the CIA, the FBI. You know, like, these are also secret groups who have worked behind the scenes to pervert the will of—of the American people and break laws. That's like, literally what they were doing for decades, and probably still are to a large degree. So like, once I had sort of figured out that that was kind of structure, I kind of cast a wide net that then I kind of peel back. But I sort of really just started to naively ask that question. Who—who falls into this group, You know, or to this definition, which groups fit that? And so that was—that was a fun and kind of fascinating experience to sort of make, you know, the Illuminati and lizard people talk to, you know, abolitionists and the CIA. And you know, sort of weird banking conspiracists and crap like that, so.
AMANDA: Another real interest of mine is heist movies. And I am really curious about what makes us root for the folks trying to subvert the system, versus the like feeling of, you know, personal indignation, that I think underlies a lot of the conspiracy theories that you're chronicling in this book about, you know, how dare they kind of say they're doing one thing, and then actually be doing another is what I perceive to be kind of one of the motivating impulses of, you know, they're— they're using a position of power or resources, whoever that they is in that sentence. You know to do something that, you know, I average show would not do. And why perhaps it's so cathartic to see, you know, a band of ragtag heroes that have been, you know, unfairly marginalized, like take what they ought to take from the government, or a bank or whatever it is that they're robbing. Those two things have some kind of relationship in my mind that I'm trying to pin down. And I wonder if you have any takeaways after the process of writing this book about you know, what—what are the— the fears or motivations that make these theories so not just kind of believable, but like, motivating and life altering for people who become true believers?
COLIN: I mean, I think that whole like, how dare they thing is somewhat of a dodge. I think that people— I mean, the conclusion that I've ultimately come to is that people come to conspiracy theories because they are—they're comforting. You know, there's that sense of like, how dare they— these— these elites. This Cabal, you know, often, which is sort of just like, you know, two steps away from some sort of anti-semitic drivel. But like, you know, ultimately, it's about believing that there's order to the world, even if it's a malevolent order, it's still an order that explains things and explains why things aren't working out for you in the way that you want it. And it gives you a villain, you know. And so— I mean I— you know, I open the book with— with this quote from Karl Popper, the mid-century philosopher who is the—you know, a person according to [39:34] who— who first coined the term conspiracy theory. And, you know, his line is the conspiracy theory mindset or a little paraphrase here, but conspiracy theory mindset is when you get rid of God and ask what is in his place. You know, and so it's about this kind of belief that there is an order, a kind of total—like totalizing explanation for everything in the world. But it is malevolent, and you know. So it's—you know, it's,— it's less like the God of like a kind of, you know, patriarchal, Judeo, Muslim, Christian God and more of a kind of like, kind of polytheistic you know, like the you know, the kind of like figure of a kind of Satan or something. I mean, I guess that's— that's Christian. But you know, this idea that there was like a negative force out there. When I went to the flat earth conference, this isn't in the book, unfortunately. But, you know, I talked to this guy who was a pediatrician, worked with children, for God's sakes. And he told me that like child of his had been born with autism. But as I sort of pieced together a story, it was about 18 months from that, to vaccines to Satan controls the world through seven powerful families that he talks to via telephone. Like you know, like that you know, that's— because that then makes sense, right? Like you know, like, for someone I mean, I wouldn't be—I wouldn't think one would would have to feel sad about having a child with autism. But—but this guy appeared to feel like you know, this was— this was some problem for him, you know, that— that needed an explanation, and he settled on vaccines.
AMANDA: Yeah.
COLIN: And from there, it became a question like—one of the stories that I talked about in the book is th— the Ursulines Convent Ride of 1834, which is the beginning of the kind of current panic around groomers. And this idea of like, rings of sexual predators, right? This idea that Catholic-like convents in the 1820s and 30s were this like place where priests who, like use the confessional basically, as a form of mind control. It's kind of half blackmail, half mind control. We're taking these women, you know, away from their—their fathers and their future husbands and away from there, you know, future children, taking them out of, you know, like circulation and a kind of like sexual familial community sense. And thus doing horrible things to them. You know, so there's this rampant suspicion that these, you know, teenage and young adult women are, you know, subjected to all sorts of sexual depravities. But that's a problem because it's the 1820s, there's going to be babies, right? There's going to be unwanted pregnancies, right? So where are the children if this conspiracy theory is true, where are the children? Well, there aren't any children.
AMANDA: Yeah.
COLIN: So then you have to add a new layer to your conspiracy theory. Ohh, the children are all being murdered. It's—so it's not just about sexual abuse, it's now about infanticide, too, because they have to cover up the evidence because there is no evidence
AMANDA: To kind of preserve, yeah, the theory and the fiction.
COLIN: Yeah. So the problem with— with these conspiracy theories is that you keep having to add on to them as the evidence doesn't match the story. And that just sort of keeps going on, and on and on. And you get more and more elaborate conspiracy theories in order to sort of justify the perception of the world as it—as it sort of appears. I forgot where I was going with that, but you see where I'm going with that. Like you can fill in the blacks out.
JULIA: But it seems like it creates kind of a pipeline from you know, just one basic thing all the way to Satan is talking to families on the telephone.
COLIN: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, yeah, because once— once you have allowed yourself to doubt the reality before you, you can—you can do whatever you want. I— like years ago, this guy, Francisco Goldman, this novelist wrote this nonfiction book about this—this murder of a —of a Jesuit priest in I believe, I want to say, Guatemala, I'm so sorry, I can't— it's been— this has been like 15 years, so I really apologize if I'm getting the country wrong. And you know, this was a liberation theologist you know, and so the government assassinated him. And then they— they concocted this really wild story about he was murdered by his gay lover. And then the gay lover had this like Pitbull, and the pitbull had like nob the corpses head, you know, etc, etc, etc. And, you know—and so is this kind of, you know, cover up and—and I went saw Francisco talk and hit this line during the q&a, which was so just kind of batshit but amazing. Where he was like, you know, Virginia Woolf talks about a room of one zone. You need a room, one zone to be able to write. And for totalitarian governments, a room of one zone is legal immunity and impunity. Once you know that you're gonna get away with it, you can make up whatever shit you want. You can—you're free to be creative, that sort of like, opens the floodgates. And so I think of like, a lot of conspiracy theories it's basically like, once you sort of give yourself the freedom to reject what you believe to be the party line, the sky's the limit, you know? Like you can just—you can go nuts. That's how— you know again, I keep going back to flutter people because they're such a good example of this. But like, one of the people at the conference, or the convention I went to basically said as much he said, we are the tip of the spear. Because if you can doubt that the Earth is round, you can doubt anything, you know. And I think that is where we're heading is, this world where people are not happy with their current reality.They're not happy with things as they see it. They're looking for a way out of that cognitive dissonance, a way out of feeling bad and conspiracy theories come along. And they say, like, they give you license to believe what you want to believe. And it's very liberating. I think— I think people embrace it, people. I mean, we talk a lot about people on the right, obviously, because they tend to be more dangerous. But people on the left, love a conspiracy theory because it's liberating, right? Believing that like Monsanto is responsible for— I mean, Monsanto is just a shitty awful company, but they're not like evil masterminds, they're just capitalists, you know? But like—
AMANDA: Yeah.
COLIN: —the— the need to create, to take sort of ordinary villains you know, the Bush administration who are just a bunch of chuckle fucks with too much money and power, and make them into these kind of masterminds and malevolence. Like and then you look at the Iraq war like that—nobody masterminded that. Like, y'all had, like everything at your disposal, you can even pull that off. Like there's no—there's no conspiracy here, you guys are just assholes. That's my feeling about that.
AMANDA: Yeah, realizing the kind of banality of evil, the banality of abuse of crime, of all of these real things, it kind of takes away the you know, thrill of thinking man, this is like this—this must be over the top in order to happen so much. And it's not the–you know, everyday emotions that I experience of, you know, anger, resentment, et cetera. All these things that through willingness and opportunity and whatever else, you know, snowball into something that could be explained in a less personal way that makes me think about my role in the you know, events around me. And my culpability in them in. And my opportunity to maybe make them better. It absolves me of all of that because I'm— I'm a mere observer on the outside and not, you know, a person on the inside. I agree. Like, listen, I watched procedurals too. I know the thrill of thinking, man, you know, this—this crime scene looked banal, but really it was that someone was so smart that they like had the ice pick them melted, and then the cat licked it and like, then the crime, you know, unfolded. And it is valuable to be honest about the reasons why these things appeal to us. And what I really appreciate about so much of your work Colin, including— especially the Unidentified, which we quoted in our episode on the Loch Ness monster, and that chapter in particular, really stood out to me about why these stories fascinate us. And what that says about us because I think it's a two-way street. The art looks back, right? Like you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back, whether that abyss is reality TV show, or a novel you're reading, or something that you kind of get sucked into online. It appeals for a reason, and it— it rubs off on you in some rea— in some way as well.
COLIN: Yeah. And again, I mean, like, I always get dinged for being like a killjoy. And I resist that because almost like I—know, I love a weird thing I like— I think the—
AMANDA: Yeah.
COLIN: The point— particularly the point of the Unidentified was really sort of offer up, like, the idea that there— there are aspects and elements of wonder out there. And it's perfectly normal and healthy to want them and to seek them out. And there are ways to embrace the weirdness of the world without sort of succumbing to these kinds of conspiratorial ideas, you know? And again like—or, like on a— on a darker side, I mean, everybody who is so, you know, sure that there's this evil ring of, you know, child abusers out there that has yet to be discovered. Those people will never talk about the Catholic Church, which is a legitimate conspiracy. You know, was like a legitimate conspiracy of sexual abuse among minors that like was networked, was coordinated, was a violation of law and dignity and ethics, and went underground for years. And so like, it's— it's that weird thing where like—like, the question you have to ask is like, what is your desire? Why are you interested in this topic? What— like what is— what is driving the desire? Is that desire are clouding your ability to sort of think through what's actually happening here? And then from that, are there other ways to satisfy your desire that are in a less destructive way? Because I don't think that desire is bad. I'm not like out here telling people like, you know, stay away from spooky houses. Spooky houses are cool and rad like a crazy old hotel is wonderful. You know, like, go—go nuts, you know. Like, it's just like be cognizant of the structural patterns that you're putting on these things. Be cognizant of like, why you believe the things that you believe. Like, it's cool to be like awestruck by the pyramids, but as soon as you're like, oh, you know, aliens built this, like you—you've sort of entered in this other phrase. So like, how do you just maintain that sense of wonder and joy about the world without giving into the stories, which I think are kind of way more harmful than then people are prepared to admit? Something like that.
JULIA: Yeah, absolutely.
AMANDA: And I think a really good empowering, keep an eye out, note to end on. So Colin Under the Eye of Power is out on July 11, this year 2023. Can you let folks know where they can follow you and your writing, and your work and thoughts about spooky houses and shit online?
COLIN: Yeah, I mean, I'm like there's a website. That's just my name, colindickey.com I assume at some point it will get updated. I need to do something about that. I'm most active on— on Twitter and Instagram, which is my full name, Colin Dickey. On Instagram, I tend to be a little bit more on brand. On Twitter, it's just more like dumb thoughts coming out of my head, so be warned about that. But yes, but I also try and keep people updated on—on book stuff and other events and stuff like that. So yeah, I'm around.
JULIA: Awesome. and remember listeners next time you go to check out the creepy hotel or creepy house in your neighborhood. Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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AMANDA: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
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JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye!