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Pleasing Terrors

Join acclaimed ghost storyteller Mike Brown for a bi-weekly tour through the shadows of history. The Pleasing Terrors Podcast features stories about haunted places, creepy history, and forgotten folklore.
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Episodes

Charleston Gothic (Part 1)

In this episode, we take a look at Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold Bug," a story about an encrypted map that leads to a buried pirate treasure. We will visit a haunted theater and discuss a play a play about the death of Poe that was first performed there in 1994. The story, the ghosts, and the play are all clues that lead to a hidden treasure that Poe was attempting to find in Charleston in 1828. This is the first installment of a two-part story. Works Cited: Buxton, Julian T., The Ghosts of Charle...

Jan 18, 20241 hr

The Mermaid Returns: Part 3

The conclusion of the three part series which combines history, ghosts, true crime and fairytales.

Dec 21, 202247 minEp. 43

The Mermaid Returns: Part 2

The second episode in a three part series about one of Charleston's lost stories. It is a true story that combines history, true crime, ghosts and fairy tales.

Dec 11, 202252 min

The Mermaid Returns: Part 1

This is the first in a three part series about one of Charleston, South Carolina's lost stories. It combines history, ghosts, true crime, amd fairytales.

Dec 01, 202253 minEp. 41

Here Are Dragons

This episode features the untold story of the origin of King Kong.

Mar 29, 202148 min

Last Breath

This episode tells a story about pirates and a haunted dungeon.

Oct 30, 20201 hr 1 min

The Mermaid

This episode tells the story of the Charleston mermaid.

Jul 24, 202047 min

Corpsewood

This is a story about a German fairytale and a brutal murder in northwestern Georgia. Suggested reading: The Corpsewood Manor Murders In North Georgia by Amy Petulla

Oct 23, 201947 min

Through A Glass Darkly

This a story about the Titanic, Victorian sex trafficking and a mummy's curse.

Sep 17, 201935 min

Shadows of Savannah (Part 1): Most Haunted

In this episode I visit some of Savanah's most haunted locations. Suggested Reading: Haunted Savanah: America's Most Spectral City by James Caskey Haunted Savannah by Georgia R. Byrd

Feb 22, 201934 min

True Ghosts

Harry Houdini and the Halloween Séance.

Aug 24, 201831 min

Creepy Door Room

An unexpected return to a very creepy place to do a very foolish thing.

Apr 24, 201830 min

In the Shadow of Oz

This episode features The Wizard of Oz, Greek mythology and a famous unsolved murder.

Apr 10, 201831 min

Resurrection

Episode 30: Resurrection delves into the history of Chicago's most famous ghost: Resurrection Mary!

Mar 16, 201827 min

029: Invisible World Part 2 - Satan’s Kingdom

I am with Alyson Horrocks of The Strange and Unusual Podcast. It’s the evening of August 20th, 2017. We are in Danvers, MA which was previously known as Salem Village. We are visiting the Samuel Parris archeological site. Surrounded by a rail fence there are two stone lined cellars marking the location of the house that once stood here. Next to this location is a grassy path that leads to the back of a house with a wolves head door knocker. A wolf can be a monster of many faces and a bad omen. T...

Dec 12, 201741 min

028: Strange Terrors

Alyson Horrocks from the Strange and Unusual Podcast took me on a tour of a historical site with a dark past. The site sits in a town called Danvers, but it was once Salem Village. This site was the culmination of a strange mix of religion, superstition, folklore, slavery, patriarchy, truth, and lies. A place where people’s imagination or secret motives ran wild and story or lie or desperate attempt at redemption led to the basis for one of the darkest times in colonial American History. What st...

Oct 20, 201738 min

027: The Dark Path

The history of the Navajo goes back in time to the Four Corners region in Arizona. Where the spider grandmother spun a giant web and threw it into the night sky to create the stars. This area known as Canyon de Chelly is also known as the Canyon of the Dead after a misguided weaver’s warning resulted in a cruel cave massacre. Like the art and designs of the Navajo weaver’s blanket, the Navajo legends are intertwined with a ranch purchased by a Utah couple. The Sherman ranch seemed like an idylli...

Sep 29, 201741 min

026: Monster of the Deep

On November 20th, 1850 night watchman George Pollard Jr. makes his nightly rounds on the foggy Island of Nantucket, MA. An island once inhabited by proud tribes of Native Americans before the addition of the colonists. An island that was the whaling capital of the world for over a century. The inhabitants and the whalers themselves were haunted with superstition and legends about the dark underworld of the sea and the evil that lied beneath the depths. The dangers were all too real, yet it wasn’...

Sep 19, 201730 min

025: A Vampire's Heart

Count Dracula’s story is one of many pieces; a story of a man and the secrets that are hidden inside his castle. Bram Stoker, the story’s author, is also a man of many secrets who constructed his own castle and built a fortress around his heart. The puzzle of Count Dracula is not complete until the intertwining pieces are put together. When put together what do the pieces reveal about the story and the man behind it? Episode Highlights: A young lawyer encounters strange experiences inside the Co...

Aug 18, 201737 min

024: The Devil Inside

Chicago’s West 63rd Street Post Office was built in 1938 over the site of what its creator referred to as “The Castle”, and in 1902 an Ohio Daily News article called it Chicago’s Ghost Castle. Whatever you want to call it, this site was once or possibly still is the home to a notorious killer. A figure who built a home that included a 2nd floor full of secret passages, trap doors, and hidden staircases. The basement so notorious that a crowd would lay on the sidewalk and try to peer through the ...

Jul 31, 201730 min

023: Sins of the Father

The Heriot House in Georgetown, South Carolina was built in 1765. It is now the Harbor House Inn and there are many stories by visitors and Georgetown residents alike of seeing an image of a woman that looks like she doesn’t belong there. Is this woman the ghost of a forlorn lover or does she represent something more sinister? Something that ties in with the four circles of Dante’s Inferno and stretches all the way from the old Heriot House to a Greenwich Village neighborhood located on Jane Str...

Jul 24, 201743 min

022: Hell Broke Loose

In Austin, Texas in 1884 a female servant was killed in a gruesome ax murder. Feeble attempts were made to find the murderer, but to no avail. Soon a series of gruesome ax murders and attacks followed. Each one more horrific than the other, and the murders spread beyond the black servant population to the white community. What originally was considered a black problem in the South twenty years after the Civil War became society's problem. This was a birth. The birth of legions of Demons cast out...

Jul 07, 201732 min

021: Hungry Spirits

In Native American folklore, there was a dark creature that possessed the mind and body of men, instilling within them a great hunger for human flesh. The Wendigo was feared by tribes throughout what is now North America and Canada as stories of bloodshed and terror spread across the continent. Picture it: Your best friend, your husband, your sister -- crouched down and feasting upon the flesh of someone you love. It’s been many, many years since a Wendigo was rumoured to be wreaking havoc, but ...

Jun 02, 201725 min

020: True Horror

The Salisbury Plain is the name for the 300 miles of grasslands located in Wiltshire, England. Home to Stonehenge, a rich history, and a wide variety of plants and animals, the Salisbury Plain is one of the most famous locations in England. For the residents of Wiltshire, however, the area is notorious for more than its archaeological features and mystical energy. The great grassy plains of Salisbury border the mansions of Wiltshire, whose walls are painted in blood and sorrow. In these great ho...

May 19, 201728 min

019: The Dark Séance Polka

The White House: In all it’s glory, from the immaculately-kept gardens to the walls hung with priceless art, is an icon of American history and power. Home to every President since 1800, the White House is seen as a safe haven for the President and their family. Not even the heavy iron fence that borders the grounds of the White House can keep dark magic from harming its inhabitants. A curse muttered on a bloodied battlefield in 1812 has left over a hundred years of President’s scared for their ...

May 02, 201728 min

018: The Place of the Dragon

Deep within the heart of New Jersey lies an untamed swath of trees and brush, long believed to be the home of the Jersey Devil itself. A horrifying creature with the head of a goat and the wings of a bat, the legend of the Jersey Devil has haunted the Pine Barrens for generations. Yet the Jersey Devil might not be the only degenerate creature lurking within the shadows of the Pines. What dark secrets does the Devil guard? Episode Highlights: The many forms of dragons What secrets does the dragon...

Apr 14, 201723 min

017: A Monster of Many Parts

Who can forget the classic tale of the mad scientist who creates a gorgeously gruesome Creature, only to become frightened and disgusted by his own creation? Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein is one of the most widely taught examples of Gothic literature, yet most readers don’t know the true story behind Shelley’s most famous work. Was Frankenstein really the product of a writing competition between friends while on summer vacation, as most people believe it to be, or was the story of the scient...

Apr 04, 201725 min

016: True Crime

Fairy tales often teach an important moral lesson, hidden within the entertaining twists and turns of the story. The tale of Bluebeard, the rich man who keeps the bodies of his murdered wives locked behind the forbidden doors of the dungeon in his castle, doomed to have his wrongdoing exposed by his newest wife, serves as a reminder to young women that curiosity can sometimes be your downfall -- or your savior. In real life there are rarely happy endings to tragedies and moral lessons must be le...

Mar 17, 201730 min

015: Condemned, Part Two - The Devil’s Hour

The time between three and four in the morning is said to be the hour when evil is at the height of it’s power -- the time when the Devil ascends from Hell and ghosts haunt the land of the living. In part two of my experience of the Devil’s hour inside Charleston’s Old City Jail, I receive a message from Hell itself, and discover the truth about one of the jail’s most famous prisoners -- Lavinia Fisher herself. Episode Highlights: 3 AM inside the Old City Jail Torture chambers, the crane of pain...

Feb 24, 201732 min
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