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This week on Paranormal Pajama Party, we're heading to Scotland to meet its green ladies and glaistigs.

Discover the tragic tale of Dame Lilias Drummond, whose ghostly presence still haunts Fyvie Castle centuries after her untimely death. Learn about the protective yet mischievous nature of glaistigs, the goat-legged women who guard cattle and castles alike. Uncover the dark histories behind other famous green lady hauntings, including those at Crathes Castle and Longleat House.

This episode examines the complex symbolism of the colour green in various cultures, particularly its association with both life and death. We'll also talk about how Scottish tourism has capitalised on these ghostly legends, transforming haunted castles into popular attractions. Is it ethical to commodify dark history, including violence against women and children?

Tune in for a haunting journey through misty moors, ancient castles, and enduring legends.

Key moments

• 1:02 – Dame Lilias Drummond
• 6:26 – Glaistigs, AKA maighdean uiane
• 13:02 – Meet the Green Ladies
• 21:30 – Folklore, superstition, and the colour green
• 25:11 – Scotland's paranormal tourism industry
• 30:33 – Sex sells – even haunted houses

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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This episode explores the complex figure of Rangda, a fearsome demon queen in Balinese mythology.

Tourists may be familiar with Rangda’s frightening face, as a version of a ritual dance based on the Balinese myth of the widow-witch Calon Arang is popular at Bali’s many resorts.

But Rangda is a much more complex figure than these simplified and shortened performances may lead you to believe. She’s an important player in the key Balinese concept of “rwa bhineda” – unity in duality – and a reminder that binary thinking often fails to capture nuanced realities.

Tonight on the podcast, we’re tracing Rangda's origins back to the historical Queen Mahendradatta and examining how her story became intertwined with the Hindu goddess Durga.

We’ll also get into how powerful women throughout Indonesian history (and, let’s be real, world history more broadly) have been demonised for political reasons.

Key moments

• 1:07 – The story of Calon Arang
• 9:00 – Meet Rangda
• 11:31 – "Rwa bhineda", Rangda, and Barong
• 16:05 – Queen Mahendradatta and the Mataram Kingdom
• 26:29 – The Gerwani women's movement
• 30:27 – Modern Bali and Rangda

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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This episode is the long-promised part two of our exploration of “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe was doing his thing In 19th-century America, at a time middle- and upper-class white women were being encouraged to join the "Cult of True Womanhood", which idealised women as pious, pure, submissive, and domestic, confining them to the private sphere while men dominated public life. It’s all very tradwife.

Tonight on the podcast, we’ll examine how this cultural ideal influenced Poe's portrayal of women in his stories, often reducing them to beautiful, passive reflections of male characters. Madeline Usher from "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a prime example of this characterisation.

This is particularly ironic because while Poe's fictional women were often two-dimensional, he was surrounded by and attracted to strong, independent women in real life. Make it make sense!

I’ve got bad news for the tradwives who aren’t allowed to listen to this blasphemous podcast: The constraints of True Womanhood paradoxically led to the rise of the “New Woman” and first-wave feminism.

Unfortunately, if you think female characters being used as set decoration for male characters isn’t still happening, you haven’t watched television, seen a movie or read a book recently.

We’ll wrap up tonight’s chat with a conversation about the ways women are still often used as plot devices or mirrors for male characters in contemporary horror and other genres.

Key moments:

• Recap of "The Fall of the House of Usher"
• Roderick as the brain, Madeline as the body
• Was Madeline Usher pregnant?
• The Cult of True Womanhood
• True Women, New Women, Suffragettes and "The Feminine Mystique"
• Contemporary examples of refrigerator women like Madeline Usher

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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Paranormal Pajama Party is pro-self-care. I mean, come on. Pajamas are right there in the name.

To be kind to myself this week, I'm not releasing a new episode. Instead, I'm sharing an episode I wrote and produced for the other podcast I make – the one people actually pay me for.

This is Monash University's What Happens Next?, episode 79: "Are Reproductive Rights Human Rights?". You'll never guess what the answer is. (You will, they are, please vote this November if you're a U.S. citizen, thank you.)

Learn more about What Happens Next? or view the transcript of this episode.

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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When you think horror, you think of Edgar Allan Poe. His stories go hard on the eerie atmosphere, intricate plots, and unhinged characters.

But it’s important to note that most of those characters are men. And among Poe’s female characters, two recurring traits stand out prominently: they’re usually beautiful, and they’re usually dead.

This episode explores Poe's fixation with beautiful dead women, tracing it back to his tumultuous life and personal losses, including those of his mother, Eliza Poe, and his wife, Virginia Clemm.

We’ll talk about how these experiences and the cultural glamorisation of tuberculosis victims influenced scary women in Poe’s works such as Madeline Usher, the unwitting villain of his well-known short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher".

Key moments

• 1:08 – "The Fall of the House of Usher" (abridged)
• 27:26 – Welcome to the party!
• 30:55 – Eliza Poe
• 32:48 – Tuberculosis and beauty
• 38:09 – Edgar Allan Poe and masculinity
• 40:30 – Virginia Clemm
• 48:46 – Poe's beautiful dead women

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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The dark history of witch hunts has some unsettling parallels with modern misogynistic violence. Tonight’s episode continues our discussion on Heinrich Kramer’s witch-hunting manual, the “Malleus Maleficarum”, with a critical look at its legacy, especially as it relates to incel culture and the manosphere.

We’ll examine the parallels between Kramer's misogynistic beliefs and the 2014 Isla Vista killings by Elliot Rodger, exploring the roots of violent ideologies in both cases. We’ll use the “path to intended violence” theory to compare the steps leading to mass violence in the 15th century and today.

We’ll also talk about the origins of the incel community, its online presence, and the dangerous ideologies that stem from extreme misogyny.

This episode discusses themes of terrorism, weapons, murder, serious injury, suicide, and pervasive sexism. Listener discretion is advised.

Key moments

• 0:59 – "Witch-Burning" by Mary Elizabeth Counselman
• 2:41 – Welcome to the party
• 7:43 – Incel culture and the manosphere
• 12:41 – The path to intended violence
• 19:14 – Hunters and howlers: Jacob Sprenger and Jordan Peterson
• 21:07 – Internalised misogyny, accusations of witchcraft, and Pearl Davis
• 23:05 – More parallels between early modern witch-hunts and modern violence against women

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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Tonight we’re burning books! Well. Just one book. And it started it.

We’re opening the pages of the “Malleus Maleficarum”, or Hammer of Witches, a 15th-century treatise on identifying, trying, and punishing witches. We get into the origins of the book and its misogynistic zealot of an author, Heinrich Kramer.

I’m not saying Kramer's obsession with women's sexuality and his book's endorsement of torture and execution led directly to the deaths of tens of thousands of women… but it definitely found an enthusiastic audience among the people who were responsible for massive witch hunts. On tonight’s episode, we’ll also talk about the tumultuous socio-political landscape of early modern Europe, exploring the theories behind this devastating moral panic.

And we’re not done discussing the ways Kramer’s legacy has echoed throughout history. Join me next week right here for part two – the “Malleus Maleficarum” and the incels.

Key moments

• 0:58 – A neighbourly dispute
• 7:18 – Heinrich Kramer and Helena Scheuberin in Innsbruck
• 11:10 – Kramer writes the Malleus Maleficarum
• 13:17 – Why are witches female?
• 19:09 – The early modern witch trials pop off

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

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Last week on Paranormal Pajama Party, we met the monster girls of Greek mythology. This week, in part two of our monster girls series, we’re considering the representation of monstrous women in horror video games.

Monster girls are female-coded creatures that blend human and monstrous elements, often portrayed as both alluring and terrifying. This duality reflects male anxieties about female sexuality and autonomy.

We’ll explore the origins of monster girls in various mythologies and their roles in tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, emphasising how these characters often reinforce patriarchal views by fitting into archetypes: maiden (sexual), mother (pregnant), and crone (ageing and unattractive).

We’ll also discuss the toxic culture within the gaming industry, exemplified by events like GamerGate, a harassment campaign targeting women in gaming.

Luckily, it’s not all bad news. Positive changes are occurring, with more inclusive game design and diverse representation slowly improving the industry, and legislative progress for victims of cyber-harassment.

Still, here at Paranormal Pajama Party, we’re all for more creative portrayals of female characters that break away from traditional sexist tropes (who doesn’t love and fear GLaDOS from Portal?), and for diverse voices in all areas. And we love a monster girl – they remind us that it’s okay to be angry, push back, and demand more.

Key moments

• 1:08 – Alex meets the spider woman
• 3:51 – Recap of last week's episode
• 5:39 – Meet the monster girls of video games
• 11:01 – Maiden, mother, crone archetypes and the triple goddess
• 19:35 – Psychological effects of sexualised character portrayals
• 22:06 – GamerGate and the alt-right
• 26:22 – Things start to look up

If you’re enjoying the show, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review Paranormal Pajama Party to help others discover it!

View all my sources for each episode and read the episode transcipt here.

Follow @ParanormalPJParty on Instagram.