Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on
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Speaker 2: To Coast to Coast George Nori with you. Derek Mason
Speaker 2: with US writer, researcher and award winning travel and documentary photographer.
Speaker 2: He hosts the award nominated podcast called spirit Box, best
Speaker 2: known for his work on the gin Ye Gaudi. Lives
Speaker 2: in East Sussex, United Kingdom, and that's where we're going
Speaker 2: live right now. Darrere, welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Good morning Georgia. Say, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 2: How do people hear your podcast? By the way, spirit Box.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the podcast has been around for but just
Speaker 3: over four years now, and I look at all all
Speaker 3: the different types of spirit encounters, folklore and the interview
Speaker 3: modical practitioners about their experiences.
Speaker 4: So guess it's a fun chow fantastic.
Speaker 2: How did you get involved in the unusual like this?
Speaker 3: Well, it started, It started ready from the of my
Speaker 3: photographic work. I used to be a travel and documentary
Speaker 3: photographer and I spent a lot of time in India
Speaker 3: in particular, and I just started bumping up against this
Speaker 3: this stuff when I investigated certain subjects like like the Gin,
Speaker 3: which are these beings that are said to be made
Speaker 3: of smokeless fire, most known within kind of the Arabic
Speaker 3: world and Islamic worlds. I also did. I did a
Speaker 3: documentary piece on a Hindu sect known as the Agori,
Speaker 3: and they practiced some extreme magical rituals and strange things
Speaker 3: started to happen when I investigated and got into this area,
Speaker 3: and that repiqued my interest and I wanted to understand
Speaker 3: my experiences more and I just started researching and it
Speaker 3: and one thing led to another reading.
Speaker 2: Did the strange things there happen to you or just whenever?
Speaker 3: Yet, some strange things did happened to me, particularly when
Speaker 3: I went to Delhi in twenty sixteen to shoot a
Speaker 3: story related to the locations within the city of Delhi
Speaker 3: that are associated with the Gin. The famous book by
Speaker 3: an author called William dal Rymple called A City of Gins,
Speaker 3: and it's about his time as a young correspondent in Delhi.
Speaker 3: So I went to the Deli to shoot these locations
Speaker 3: and kind of build a story about the Gin looking
Speaker 3: at it from such a more paranormal perspective. And I
Speaker 3: just had a list of disasters from from day one
Speaker 3: I had a quite intense nightmare which I found out
Speaker 3: was located in one of the locations that I was
Speaker 3: going to shoot it. So basically I was sitting down
Speaker 3: in during a Susi celebration and there are lots of
Speaker 3: fantastic music in a place called Nismodine Dark, which is
Speaker 3: the tomb of a very famous Supi Saunds. People go
Speaker 3: there to be healed by the Gin a hill from
Speaker 3: the Gin Rother. And during that nightmare, there was a man.
Speaker 4: Sitting to my left.
Speaker 3: And he turned and looked at me and his face
Speaker 3: was decomposed. Yeah, it was quite intense. He was wearing
Speaker 3: a white hat and said, don't come here. And my
Speaker 3: camera broke. There was two weeks before I was supposed
Speaker 3: to go. I couldn't get it repaired. No one could
Speaker 3: figure out what was wrong with it. My my father
Speaker 3: came with me. His tooth broke in Heathrow Airport before
Speaker 3: we even left on the flight. We had to change
Speaker 3: hotels like three times in two days, like just everything
Speaker 3: was difficult. But when I got finally got to this
Speaker 3: location Nismoden, I was directed to an area where there
Speaker 3: was a small.
Speaker 4: Enclosure where people people were waiting.
Speaker 3: To be treated by the by the stuffies to help
Speaker 3: help them with Gin problems, so to speak, Gin possession.
Speaker 3: And there was a man sitting there, and he had
Speaker 3: a white hat on, and he was staring directly at me,
Speaker 3: and I believe he was being possessed. He was possessed
Speaker 3: and sessed by Gin, and the Gin was staring at me.
Speaker 3: It's the only time I've ever been afraid to take
Speaker 3: a photograph of my life.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been heard Gara in your work.
Speaker 3: I haven't been hurt, but I have had some like
Speaker 3: frightening experiences, experiences that challenge my worldview. If you ask
Speaker 3: me five year years ago if I believed in spirits
Speaker 3: and believe the magic, I would have said now now,
Speaker 3: I absolutely believe those things are real.
Speaker 2: Hence the book Song of the Dark Man, which we're
Speaker 2: going to get into in a big way.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Here in the United States, we talk a lot about
Speaker 2: shadow people in the hat Man. Now yours is the
Speaker 2: dark Man that's different than these entities, is it not?
Speaker 3: It's I would say the hat Man and some of
Speaker 3: the shadow.
Speaker 4: People are lower emanations of the.
Speaker 2: Same force, which is an evil force.
Speaker 3: I think it's more ambiguous than that I think the
Speaker 3: expedience because the experience is so intense and frightening for
Speaker 3: people that they can often believe it to be evil,
Speaker 3: but it's not necessarily the case. That's not to say
Speaker 3: that people don't have the evil experience, but it is
Speaker 3: often an experience that leads to people's worldview being changed
Speaker 3: and bringing in creative forces into people's lives. So that's
Speaker 3: the reason it's called Song of the dark Man because
Speaker 3: people sometimes when people have these experiences, these initiatory experiences
Speaker 3: with the dark Man, they get a form of creative
Speaker 3: energy coming through them. They also get a form of
Speaker 3: magical energy coming through them, so it's almost like an
Speaker 3: initiation into creativity or initiation into into magical practice.
Speaker 2: There are who coined the phrase dark man?
Speaker 4: Oh goodness, Yeah, that's a that's a great question.
Speaker 3: There's so many names for the spirits and this force
Speaker 3: that I could tell you where that that name originally
Speaker 3: came from. But I heard names like that and and
Speaker 3: others from a lot of the medicitions. And which is
Speaker 3: that I interviewed.
Speaker 2: Has the name the devil been associated with the dark man.
Speaker 3: What they would call the folk devil, not not the
Speaker 3: Christian devil.
Speaker 2: What's the difference, Well, the.
Speaker 3: Folk devil is more of a trickster type character, so
Speaker 3: it would be like the devil and folklore that essentially
Speaker 3: tends to be an in morality plays the stories that
Speaker 3: people's character gets questioned, whereas the the Christian devil is
Speaker 3: more of that kind of opposing, opposing figure that is
Speaker 3: set up to be diametrically opposed to God.
Speaker 2: There his website is his name he spells a E
Speaker 2: A R R A G. H. Mason dot com linked
Speaker 2: up at Coast to coast am dot com. There are
Speaker 2: what if you had to explain, and you will, who
Speaker 2: the dark man is, What the dark man is? What
Speaker 2: would you say?
Speaker 3: I'd say it's the disruptive force, a destructive force that
Speaker 3: reminds us that we are part of nature, that we're not.
Speaker 3: We don't own nature, we don't rule over nature, but
Speaker 3: we are part of it. And that's what I mean
Speaker 3: about the folks that will be in this kind of
Speaker 3: trickster character. It makes people understand that whatever you think
Speaker 3: about the world, how it's how it works, who's in
Speaker 3: control that all those things can be undermined in an instant.
Speaker 2: Is the phrase the dark man pretty well known in
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say so, No, it's more well known in.
Speaker 4: Like occult circles.
Speaker 2: Why is the dark man experience to some so terrifying?
Speaker 2: What happens?
Speaker 3: Well, what I noticed going through the focalore and going
Speaker 3: through the trials of various twelve reports from seventeenth century
Speaker 3: when the Scottish witch trials is there is a the
Speaker 3: figure that often appears that it's part animal and part human.
Speaker 3: It also tends to be get black, and it has
Speaker 3: it tends to interrupt journeys. So we have things like
Speaker 3: you know, like you get the fairy stories about someone's
Speaker 3: walking along the road at night and then a dark
Speaker 3: horseman comes up and challenges them to a race, and
Speaker 3: like the race, the prize of the race is actually
Speaker 3: their soul, you know, and at that part that dark
Speaker 3: and will be called like the King of the fairies.
Speaker 3: So these things tend to interlap quite a bit. People
Speaker 3: still have these experiences. People still have these interrupted journeys
Speaker 3: where very strange things happen. But they might be called
Speaker 3: different things might be called like like crypto animals or
Speaker 3: things like that. But it's at the undercurrent the actual
Speaker 3: circumstances are the same. Somebody has a journey there in
Speaker 3: between one place and another. It's a liminal thing. They
Speaker 3: are maybe out somewhere that it isn't civilization, it's out
Speaker 3: somewhere wild, and their journey is interrupted. Something mysterious happens
Speaker 3: to them, and their world changes. And what I mean
Speaker 3: by their world changing is their understanding of how the
Speaker 3: world works. The structure of the universe is utterly changed
Speaker 3: because they've had this experience that has turned their world
Speaker 3: on their head.
Speaker 2: Let's break down the title of the book. First of all,
Speaker 2: Song of the Dark Man. What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Well, particularly the reason I chose the words song is
Speaker 3: was active to the sagas and ancient mythologies and folklowers
Speaker 3: of Irelands which where performed these stories were performed. Parts
Speaker 3: of this were sung. This spirit is associated with inspiration
Speaker 3: it particularly things like music and poetry. So that's why
Speaker 3: I wanted to put that in there, to understand, to
Speaker 3: help people understand that this is part of this experience
Speaker 3: and part of the things that this spirit bequeaths people.
Speaker 2: The cover of the book, that picture that illustration is
Speaker 2: done right.
Speaker 4: Scary, yes it is, it is.
Speaker 3: I had very little to do with that but yeah.
Speaker 2: The subtitle of the book is one of Them Father
Speaker 2: of Witches. What does that mean?
Speaker 3: So in the Scottish witch trials we have a repeated.
Speaker 4: Pattern where a.
Speaker 3: Dark figure came into someone's life and brought them into magic. So,
Speaker 3: for example, Margaret Alexander, she was tried in sixteen forty
Speaker 3: seven and she referred to a man in black clothes
Speaker 3: who made her go forward. She also spoke to this
Speaker 3: man being the king of the fairies. When pressed, she
Speaker 3: said his physical nature was cold. Another lady, Margaret Allen,
Speaker 3: was tried in sixteen sixty one and first servant testified
Speaker 3: so she saw black man go into Margaret's room and
Speaker 3: appear to move around like he had hoops. Thomas Black
Speaker 3: Pride in sixteen sixty one that the devil appeared to
Speaker 3: him at night in the shape of a man. Agnes
Speaker 3: Clarkson Pride in sixteen forty nine spoke how her home
Speaker 3: was filled with a black myst and then then she
Speaker 3: saw this dark man with whom she has carnal dealings.
Speaker 3: So the pattern comes up again and again.
Speaker 2: The second title is called Lord of the Crossroads.
Speaker 3: Explain that, well, this is a reference to where people
Speaker 3: and like American countryman, and people have gone to negotiate
Speaker 3: with the spirit of the crossroads, and within certain magical schools,
Speaker 3: the crossroads believed to be a place of power, that
Speaker 3: these crossroads have emerged from migration paths of animals, and
Speaker 3: where they cross over, they're they're again liminal places. So
Speaker 3: people will go to the to the crossroads two initiate
Speaker 3: contact with the spirit there. The most famously Robert Johnson,
Speaker 3: the blues musician. Legend has it that the dark Man
Speaker 3: took Robert Johnson's guitar, tuned it at the crossroads and
Speaker 3: handed back to him along with great talent, success and
Speaker 3: and money. And we find that pathion goes on and
Speaker 3: on throughout our music. Lots of luminaries talk about Johnson's music,
Speaker 3: Keith Richards, Robber Plants, Bob Dylan. I'm quite strikingly Bob
Speaker 3: Dylan in a in an interview in the early two thousands,
Speaker 3: he was asked, I think it was sixteen minutes. He
Speaker 3: was asked why he was still working at through many
Speaker 3: years of success, and he replied, it all goes back
Speaker 3: to a destiny thing. I made a bargain with it
Speaker 3: a long time ago, and I'm holding up my end
Speaker 3: and went pressed to reveal whom he had made this deal.
Speaker 3: He gave a right smile and laugh and said, with
Speaker 3: the chief commander on this earth and the world we
Speaker 3: can't see, which is a very striking thing to say,
Speaker 3: and really kind of jumped jumped out of me when
Speaker 3: I'm want to find that.
Speaker 2: What what did Robert Johnson have to give up in
Speaker 2: order to get those benefits?
Speaker 3: The legend said that he he he gave up.
Speaker 4: His soul for this.
Speaker 2: Not worth it?
Speaker 3: Is it? I wouldn't say so now, I mean.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't trade my soul for whatever Johnson thinks he
Speaker 2: got out.
Speaker 4: Of the deal.
Speaker 3: Yep, I would agree with you, which which makes you
Speaker 3: question of what was Dylan talking about?
Speaker 2: Good point?
Speaker 1: Point?
Speaker 2: Does the dark Man inject himself in many events?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: What we what we found here is going through the
Speaker 3: going through the folklore mythology is I started to see
Speaker 3: this figure which in Irish is called on far dark
Speaker 3: or on far dove, so those terms in Gaelic translation
Speaker 3: as the dark man or the black man. Now those
Speaker 3: when I did some research within some of the Irish
Speaker 3: folklore collections which are available online, I started to see
Speaker 3: this figure come up again and again, and he was
Speaker 3: set up as this adversarial figure, this trickster figure that
Speaker 3: would drive all these stories along. And one of the
Speaker 3: most famous stories that I found him in was in
Speaker 3: a collection known as the Senian Cycle. So the Fenian
Speaker 3: Cycle is a body of Irish distriture originally dating from
Speaker 3: the seventh century, and essentially the Fenian cycle is one
Speaker 3: where these noble warriors, the Fienna, spend their time hunting, fishing,
Speaker 3: and engaging with adventures in the spirit world and to
Speaker 3: help orientate people think and Irish knights to the round table.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what we're looking at here. The p
Speaker 3: earliest compilation of the Fenian stories is found in Column Shana,
Speaker 3: or the Locally of Ancients. This text is made up
Speaker 3: of three manuscripts, two from the fifteenth century and third
Speaker 3: dating to the seventeenth century. But these manuscripts reflect a
Speaker 3: far older tradition, goes way back, and like Irish is
Speaker 3: the oldest vernacular language apart from Latin in Western Europe.
Speaker 3: So these stories, the dark Man turns up only a
Speaker 3: very very small passage, and he sets the whole string
Speaker 3: of events of that create this great story, which is
Speaker 3: the story of the birth of Osheen, who is Sean
Speaker 3: mccool's son and essentially Sean McCool, who is the Irish
Speaker 3: Arthur is out hunting. He finds a strange deer. His
Speaker 3: dogs won't attack the deer, so he brings the deer
Speaker 3: back into his force. That night, a beautiful fairy woman
Speaker 3: called five that comes into his quarters and begs his
Speaker 3: protection from this man, who she calls the dark the
Speaker 3: dark man of the she or the black medicition of
Speaker 3: the men of God. Now this is the dark man.
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