Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
Today we finish up with our interview with accomplished author Anna Maria Manello, who has written three books to date, with two more on the way. As an anthology writer, she has interviewed people from across the globe, and in this interview she reveals some of her favorite stories she's heard, in addition to some creatures in Filipino lore. You definitely don't want to miss out on this conversation. The interview by itself is a little over thirty minutes in length, so I won't draw out this introduction. And that's not just from a time perspective.
This past week, both my wife and I caught COVID. And while she is just fine now, thank goodness, my voice is still recovering from the ordeal. So apologies in advance. If you thought that there is no way that my voice could get worse, then surprise, I guess. But seriously, I do hope everyone out there takes care. This week was no joke. I felt like an envoy of trucks had ran me over. Please look after yourselves and take any precautions that you can. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Before I go, two last things. First, in the show notes, I have a link to gallus.
fm, a web application that allows you to post comments and receive reactions to this episode and many others in my catalog. I really hope you give it a shot. I've already had several great conversations there. Second, our Discord server has been continuing with Wednesday movie night. Last week's film was Terrified, and this coming Wednesday will be Sanatorium. If you want to join in on the fun, which is Wednesday's night at 9 p.m. Eastern, then please feel free to join and enjoy a free movie and a great conversation afterwards.
To finish up, I will say that if you do want to support the podcast and perhaps get episodes early, then please consider becoming a Patreon. You can join for as little as three dollars a month, and every little bit helps me tremendously. With all that said, sit back, relax, and enjoy our final piece of our conversation with Anna Maria Manello. Thank you. You interview people from all over the world. What are some of the scariest or most unique stories that you've heard?
I've had quite a few of those. And I think that's also what pushed me to compile the first book, Portal. Because there were so many. And I had been chronicling it, writing it longhand in a notebook of all things, a wireb wh wirebound notebook. That eventually I thought, okay, maybe I need to just put this in print to kind of showcase to people how very different the reality is, you know, and I I consider reality to be multidimensional. And it definitely is. Two stories stand out to me. One is a story about a couple who chose to rent a house, a farmhouse in rural France.
Now, the France that we normally think about is the France of uh, you know, the elite, the jet set. You know, you go to the south and we see all these wonderful restaurants and things of that nature, and you know, all the castles. This one is the central part of France where this happened. My husband and I met this couple while we were touring of all places, Eastern Europe. We were actually, I'm trying to think now, we were either in Vienna at the time when we met them or just crossing over finally into Croatia.
People usually cluster together when they're tourists, you know, they have the commonality of language and commonality of custom and questions get asked, where are you from? Yada yada yada. I think I tend to have that kind of a face where somehow, you know, people tell me some really bizarre stories. Or usually I start with a story of my own, and then the ones that are receptive gravitate to me, and then they still you know start to feel comfortable because I'm telling a story like that. So maybe if they tell their own, they won't be judged or, you know, ridiculed or anything.
But this couple were British. They had gone to France a few years before, and what they thought they would do is they would rent a farmhouse. They wanted to get away from the tourists, they wanted to get away from the traffic, so they'd never been to the area of central France and they decided they were gonna stay there and just drive. They were actually gonna rent a car and just drive to all the different sites around them. So the first night that they were there, they actually came in a little later than usual.
They decided they would eat dinner, and in France, in in Europe, meals are usually done 7 30, 8 o'clock, 8 30 at night, much later than we do. They came back to the house and it was pitch dark. You know, there's no street lights, it's a rule. And they unlocked it, got settled, and everything else. They go up to the second floor bedroom and they were getting ready for bed, and the woman looks out and realizes there's an adjoining barn to the left, just a few yards away, and it had an intense blue light. And she turned to her husband and she said, Well is the landlord in there, you think?
There's somebody in the barn. And he said, I don't know. I didn't get any kind of phone call or anything to say that he would be there. He doesn't live in the premises, and you know, they have that kind of conversation. So eventually they dismissed it. They got into bed, and windows in Europe, they're usually open in the summer because there's no air conditioning. So they opened the window and uh, you know, the breeze was coming in, and then they sensed movement down below. They were on the second floor. So the woman looked out the window trying to see if the light is still there.
This time the light wasn't there, but then there were these two uh deer deer D E E R wandering about below and looking into the kitchen window. The kitchen window is right below where their bedroom was, but she could not register in her head what she was actually seeing. There was something very strange about them, and there was the one light, I guess it must have been like a street light or whatever light it was, that was casting some light on them so she could partially see. So she called over her husband. He comes to the window and looks down, and there they are walking on two feet.
Oh, I've never seen deer walk on two feet.
No, and I've seen a lot of deer.
They were peering through the kitchen window for one, and then they were walking around on two feet. This couple stayed up all night. They could not sleep, they were very discomfited at what they were seeing. They could not classify what those things were, and they were concerned it was going to get in.
Well, yeah, I would be scared crackless. I mean, dear lord.
So that's one story that really when they were retelling it to me, they asked me, what do you think they were? And I, you know, I wanted to tell them. I thought they were ETs, I think they were just disguising themselves as dear. But I I mean, how how am I to know? They didn't sense anything evil out of it, they just sensed that it was intensely curious. And the light, they have no idea what the light was about. The next day they contacted the landlord and he said, I wasn't there. I wasn't anywhere near there. And then they explained what they cut their vacation short.
They decided to go into the village uh and try and get a hotel room, and that's what they did. They got a hotel room, they they chose not to come back.
I mean, when they talked to the landlord, I mean, did they share any of these details? Had he ever seen anything in that area at all?
What the husband told me is that he didn't really want to tell the landlord what he thought he saw because he was afraid the guy would think he was crazy.
Well, I can understand that all too well.
He wanted to know if he was in the barn because earlier that evening they had seen the blue light, which, yeah, that's fine. You know, and the guy said no, I was nowhere near there. And then they went on to explain Yes. And they were trying to explain to him that I I think the way it came off is that the guy figured they were afraid to be alone in a remote section. There are certain places in France that do feel remote. And and I think that that's how they got out of what they needed to get out of in order to move into a hotel.
Gotcha. Now that is a story and a half right there. I've never heard anything even remotely similar to that.
The other story I have was in Thailand. I know you having been in Asia, you know there's a lot of folklore about strange creatures. Oh, yes.
And in the Philippines, we have a creature we call a tianak. And the tianak usually disguises itself as an infant. Obviously, it's not. So we were on an escorted tour in this case. A couple of people in the group, I think there was 25 maybe, had wandered off, and the guide had to go in search of them. So by the end of the evening, when it was close to dinner, the guide was very unhappy. He found the couple who had wandered off, and then proceeded to tell us a story about what could happen to you when you wander off and on your own. So at the time, we were in Chiang Mai, I believe.
We were on the outskirts, and there was a banana plantation, and there were all these different trees, and we were staying in a hotel that really just kind of melted into the background. It was beautiful. So, into that atmosphere, he starts talking about a couple. One was a tenant farmer, so he worked the land, and it was a plantation he was working in. He was expected to live right in the middle of the plantation and he had a wife and a new infant son. So as the evening went, he had to go and gather water.
She had to go on some kind of an errand, but it just encompassed getting out of the house that was on stilts and going a few feet away. I think she was cutting up something, I don't remember anymore. And left the infant in the one and only bedroom. And the crib happened to be right next to an open window. You know, JJ, those kinds of homes, they're very spare. There's no screens, there's really nothing to close the window with. It was just a one-stick affair. You pull the stick, the window closes shut.
So because, as you know, it's very hot in Thailand, they opened the window with the one rod and propped it up, so it was open to the night. She was only gone for a few minutes, and he st she starts hearing screaming, and it was her child screaming. And she didn't know what had happened. Her husband had come back carrying two pails of water, and they proceeded in to check on the kid, and they discovered this creature with jagged teeth and the eyes that were bloodshot, and the infant was gone. The infant was never found.
He chased whatever creature that was, it jumped out of the window, and the infant was nowhere in the crib. It was lying in the crib and it was nowhere in the hut.
Oh my gosh. You know, talking about commonality, I mean there are so many ancient and modern types of demons and entities that love to go after either pregnant women or infant babies.
Yes.
Whether it's Lamash 2 or in Ethiopia, the Show to Lai.
Mm-hmm.
All of those tales are just terrifying in scope, because as a father, I just I couldn't even begin to imagine.
And you know, there's a lot of commonality, so it's obviously universal. Some people say it's just folklore, it's just an old wives' tale. I don't think so. I really do believe these things at one point in time when there were more remote wooded forests on the planet that they were they existed, probably much more so than today. But I mean the the stories about you know the djinn, the shape shifter, those things it's not just the Middle East where you hear those stories.
I did hear of one, but they're also, you know, when I'm comparing Philippine folklore to all these stories such as the dog man and werewolf, these things occur in parts of the UK as well. And in the US.
Very true. In fact, in uh park that is no more than thirty thirty-five minutes from where I grew up, and which uh supposedly I have I've never actually researched it, but where the original uh Camp Crystal Lake from uh from the Jason series was actually filmed. There's supposed to be a wealth of tales around a werewolf type creature that just prowls around the garbage dumps. Now who knows if that's true, but I mean it's it's fascinating nonetheless.
It's fascinating until you encounter it in person.
That's why I can say it's fascinating because I certainly never have. So I I do want to ask you, uh, you know, uh I know that I mean you've already given, you know, a taste, but are there any other Filipino indigenous spirits or monsters that have always kind of fascinated you?
The one that I know, and even my own grandmother used to say, you better be careful, don't go out in the woods. You might encounter the Aswang. And to me, the Aswang is kind of like a you know, a vampire. And it's talking about universality, that's probably one of the ones that frighten me the most. I've heard of a lot of stories when I lived in the Philippines about this type of energy and how somehow it can place an evil eye, which is a unique bent in comparison to the other types of vampiric creatures that roam the other countries that it actually can tag a person and follow them.
I don't really know what their purpose is, but my understanding is that they're very evil. So it almost seems to me that there's this amorphous form.
Out there. The shape shifts and manifests itself when it's given an opportunity. And that's how I me I classify the a swan. That it manifests itself when somehow it sees a person that it considers to be a good victim.
Is that the same entity that um also likes to eat the recently dead?
Yes. Though there's a few of 'em, I mean, they've been given different names depending on the region. If you look at the um the legends that come out of the Visayas, which is south of Manoa, they have their own set of creatures with different names. One that comes to mind is You know, Bigfoot, Sasquatch. They have their own terminology. Um, I don't believe Bigfoot has ever been seen in Luzon in the northern Philippine reaches. But that's just what I know. But I think it has been seen in the southern parts that's less developed, that's more wooded, less traveled.
So the more remote the spot is, the more we're likely to see these things. And and they're very universal. There used to be a comic strip that came out in the Philippines when I was a child. And it was all devoted to Bigfoot. Really? Yeah, and the pictures are, you know, when when I was looking at I'm trying to think of a couple of authors right now whose names escape me. I greatly respect them. They talk about Bigfoot and all the encounters where you would find them and i regionally, you know, they're all over the US. And I think to myself, my gosh, what does this remind me of?
And I realized when I was still in elementary school that there was a uh a comic and it was called But Batan Utan, which was the name of the Bigfoot. And when you see the illustrations, JJ, it is a doppelganger for a Bigfoot. The thing is about nine feet tall. It looks like, as we people would say, it looks like a gorilla, but it's got this hair all over it, you know, like a horse's mane. It's covered in hair, and it eats people.
There you go. Yep. This original thing, the swan, if I pronounce that correctly. I I don't know if this is the same thing that I have heard tales of, but is this the thing that you're never supposed to like directly talk about?
Because I've heard there's one story, and I don't know if it was a from a movie or if it was something that I've read, where a kid's father was recently interred, and the kid saw a shape-shifted thing that was kind of perched on top of the grave, and the father's body was gone the next day, and the uncle that was there forbid anyone from talking about this because it would draw their attention.
Well, uh, I I can't tell you because there is one creature that I know if I named them, it would draw their attention.
I definitely don't want that, yeah.
So you you put me in a quandary that's oh no, that's perfectly fine.
Uh we don't need to go further down that path.
I I actually I don't know. That's the most sincere answer I have to your question, but I do know of one which we cannot mention. That what happens is the energy of your conversation, your thoughts draws it, and the next thing you know, you have an encounter.
Yeah, okay. Yeah, we're going to switch topics now. So I do want to ask you because uh so what drove you to write The Way Through the Woods, A Child's Escape Through the Haunted Forests of World War II Germany?
Because I mean Yes, I know it's it's a long title.
Because I I think that is everything that's you know, you need all of that in order to describe it, but I mean that it seems to like such a highly unique piece of paranormal history.
Yes, and and this, JJ, I discussed this on a different podcast probably when the book first came out, came out in May. The interesting part about this is that I actually did not intend to write this book. I wrote the book because I met this elderly woman who happened to be part of a guest list for a birthday party that was held at a huge restaurant. I happened to be seated next to her. It's one of those parties where they put little name tags or whatever they're called on the plate. Yeah, the little placards, kind of like a wedding reception. She ended up sitting next to me.
So, in the process of the night, as these things happen, you know, people start talking about their lives, or I don't know, I must have that kind of a face. She starts talking about what she went through in World War II. Wow.
And I said to her, that sounds like a very, very interesting story. She was giving me kind of like a through line. And then she snagged me, riveted me towards the end when she started telling me something that was so incredible that I sat there, didn't even realize what time it was. And some people were already leaving. And I said to her, Do you mind giving me your number so that we can talk more about this experience that you have? And she said, No, not at all.
So we ended up having one conversation after another in the next few weeks, a couple of months, and then finally I got her permission to write her story. So the book is a memoir of a woman. The book opens with her just about three or four years old. And it was when Hitler started installing these loudspeakers in German villages with the intention of calling the people and telling them what they're expected to do and what they're not supposed to do. I mean, Hitler was a control freak to the ultimate degree. This revolves around something called a T4 program.
In the Nazi vernacular, and I'm not going to say I'm an expert, I had to be in order to write the book, and I actually have never been to Germany. Places in the world, I've never been to Germany. I had to study it at length. I had to take a look at the lay of the land and study the villages that she went through. But the T4 program in the Nazi vernacular talks about how you have to eliminate and purify the race by getting rid of everybody who is either sick or disabled. And it revolves around how her family was broken apart because they were hiding a disabled child.
I won't give away anything more than that, but yes, it is a supernatural story.
You definitely seem to have a knack of connecting with people very quickly, which I can only imagine has led to some fantastic opportunities. That's going to be the next one after I finish Portal. Thank you.
What's your most favorite book that you've written today?
Hmm. That's a tough one. But I do say that I I think The Way to the Woods was a book I wasn't expecting to be able to write. I've never been really a novelist. I started as a screenwriter. So that's all of 110 pages maximum that I was able to write. 110 pages equals 110 minutes on the screen. So to be able to write something that was close to 300 pages, it kind of just came out of me. As I was writing her details, her accounts, I started creating a timeline of events. And then I thought, okay, you know, this is gonna be a novella, but then it kept going. It just kept going.
And then before I knew it, I had an entire memoir that was novel length. So I would have to say, my publisher loves that story. He read it and actually personally called me. So I I would have to say I do like that one.
Oh, that is fantastic. I I have to ask you, as an author, what is your writing process? Because I'm always curious to hear.
I don't know that I have one. Basically, what I I don't really write outlines because I find them very, very restrictive. A lot of things flow off to the page that I never anticipate. What I do do is I get into the mind of the person that I'm talking about. I let them speak to me and I extrapolate from the way they behave, the way they felt at the interview, how they reacted to the event as the event was unfolding as if I was physically there. And the more present I am with them, and the more I feel what they feel, the more that page comes alive.
So that in a lot of ways, as someone has told me, it's almost like I'm watching a movie and I can feel the guy roll down the ridge and fall. I can see the blood spattering all over his shirt. I can see the train thrumming right above him and the bodies that were coming out of the train and falling off the train tracks. So what I do is I aim to be, as people would say, in the zone, I guess. I don't really hear anything when I'm writing. I don't feel anything when I'm writing, except for whatever I'm writing above about. I'm I'm actually there.
I'm actually in whatever it is that I'm writing in. So it just keeps flowing.
That sounds like the best way of going about it. That's awesome. And I'm going to finish with one last question. I know you have gone through already some of the methods that you use to help dissipate whatever negative energies may be attracted to you know thinking or writing, etc. But from the people that you have interviewed from whatever else that you've encountered, let's say that someone is going through a particular type of a attack or obsession, whatever it may be, do you have any other recommendations in terms of how someone can protect themselves?
I would say that whatever their religion is, whatever they believe, engage in it. So you could be a born-again Christian, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, you could be Jewish, go back to the synagogue, actively participate in the Mass, take all the sacraments that you can, make a relationship, create a relationship with the priest, with the rabbi, with the Imam, with the intention of becoming closer to God. Because every time you enter a sacred site, what you're doing is discouraging all the lower negative forces from following you because their energy becomes incompatible with yours.
Take whatever symbol means holy to you. You know, if it's Roman Catholicism, take the rosary with you, a relic with you, take the masouza with you, whatever that could be that holds power for you. If you believe in it, that's enough to drive whatever it is at bay. So that would be my advice.
Thank you. That makes total sense. Completely agree with everything that you've said, and yeah, I I really hope that that helps anyone who may be going through a particular type of affliction, etc. I do want to wind up by giving you a chance to tell us how they can find you, how they can, you know, how anyone that's listening can learn more about you. You know, this is your time to uh to to tell us all of that.
Okay, so my three books are all on Amazon. I think probably the the best way to do that is to either type in the title or type in my name. My name's kind of tricky, but it's got a lot of A's in there. So Anna Maria Manalo, up on the browser of Amazon, will take you to all three books. I also have a website. I think you're gonna probably have it on the show notes, but I can repeat it here. It's anamaria manaloauthor.com. When they click on that site, uh they can always subscribe to the newsletter. I usually update people that way as to when my next book is coming out.
I also have a storytelling podcast that I will shortly embed into the website. And those are original uh short stories that are also supernatural and based on witness accounts. I I don't interview people. It's too hard for me. I think what you're doing is very difficult. All I do is I read an account, it could be from Portal or it could be from the third book, Haunted Heirlooms. Or it could be an original story that I just heard from someone.
So that's you do have a blog section on that website which seems to are those original stories that you write there?
So the blog the website originally was intended to share screenplays that I have already registered. I was originally there to attract producers. I spent several years uh pitching screenplays and things of that nature. It has evolved into a book website. So the most recent entries are actually stories, true accounts from different people. So that's what you see there. I usually update them once a week.
So if someone is interested in reading a particular story, one of which is it's called The Wishing Well, it's an account that was shared with me by a friend of someone who actually moved near Mount Adams in New Hampshire. So that's also part of that website. First page of the website is basically about me, second page is about the three books. And people just need to click on the book uh in order to be led to the portal where they can buy the book.
Gotcha. Yeah, I was gonna say that I read the Wish and Well stories on the site, and they are very, very well done. If nothing else, go check out her website. You'll find that link in the show notes. You also will find it on Southern Demonology.com. Anna Marie, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you sharing your wealth of experiences and information and just about the writing process and the books that you have put out into the world. They're beautiful things, and it has been an honor to be able to talk to you.
Thanks so much, JJ. I really appreciate that. That is so wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedbacks that you may have. As always, I am JJ and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.