Episodes

  • S3 Ep8: The National Directory of Haunted Places -- Part 2

    S3 Ep8: The National Directory of Haunted Places -- Part 2
    Oct 3 2025
    “Haunted events are beyond our logic and occur in ways that challenge our perception of reality. But whether a place is haunted by ghosts, flying saucers, angels, demons, or some strange energy can be a matter of some debate...” -- Dennis William Hauck, The National Directory of Haunted Places.

    Richard prepares for the biggest, most important and most personal pitch of his life. It’s the one that could change everything -- if he doesn’t screw it up. And The National Directory of Haunted Places never leaves his side. Richard scans the country, looking for something to believe in -- and even visits a haunted house in Michigan that just happens to be for sale! Just when it seems like the spirits are on his side, reality throws a curve ball: it looks like his son Owen might be born prematurely. Is there a middle ground between magic and the mundane? Is it possible to live with one foot in each? And where do you turn when real life threatens to tear hope away completely?

    Links:

    Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

    Get RHPB merch here! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/?

    Buy The National Directory of Haunted Places https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=national+directory+of+haunted+places&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313

    Visit Case Vega -- but look out for those dark green margaritas! https://www.casavega.com/
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 3 mins
  • S3 Ep7: The National Directory of Haunted Places -- Part 1

    S3 Ep7: The National Directory of Haunted Places -- Part 1
    Sep 19 2025
    “In almost every town in America, there are places where strange things happen...” -- Dennis William Hauck, The National Directory of Haunted Places.

    When Richard found The National Directory of Haunted Places at a small bookstore in Taos, New Mexico, it was like finding an enchanted treasure map. It seemed to promise a world filled with magic, all yours for the asking -- if you could find it. Right now, Richard needs magic more than ever. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory has come out -- but he still hasn’t sold anything on his own. His options are fading fast -- and now there’s a baby on the way. Maybe it’s time to grow up and leave childish things behind. As Richard obsessively tears through The National Directory of Haunted Places, searching the country for ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot -- and hope -- the walls start to close in on him. Will cold, hard reality have the final word? Or will Richard somehow find the unmarked turn-off that leads to the shadowy land of dreams?

    Links:

    See Richard Hatem LIVE! The “Light in the Dark Tour” tickets and news are all right here! https://www.eventbrite.com/o/richard-hatems-paranormal-bookshelf-podcast-90573788253

    And here! https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

    Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

    Get RHPB merch here! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/?

    Buy The National Directory of Haunted Places https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=national+directory+of+haunted+places&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313

    Visit Santacafe https://www.santacafe.com/?y_source=1_MzI3NjAxMTktNzE1LWxvY2F0aW9uLndlYnNpdGU%3D

    Visit L’Auberge Chez Francois https://www.laubergechezfrancois.com/
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 1 min
  • S3: SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE: The Light in the Dark Tour -- with Scott Philbrook

    S3: SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE: The Light in the Dark Tour -- with Scott Philbrook
    Sep 12 2025
    Astonishing Legends own Scott Philbrook joins Richard to find out everything you need to know about the upcoming RHPB “Light in the Dark Tour”! Rich and Scott break it down for you: the cities, the shows -- everything you need to know. PLUS -- Scott will be joining Richard live onstage in Washington, DC at Kramer’s Books! Along the way Rich and Scott talk about Halloween, Haunted Houses, Happy Hour, heart attacks, how to pronounce “Long Island” -- and the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “Time Warp” dance!

    THEN: Richard talks with Leo and Janice Bartoldus, the RHPB fans who are generously hosting the final RHPB live show in Centereach, Long Island at their very own annual Halloween Haunted House! They’ll fill us in on all the thrills and chills -- and cocktails! -- you can expect when you arrive at this very special event!

    Links:
    See Richard Hatem LIVE! The “Light in the Dark Tour” tickets and news are all right here! https://www.eventbrite.com/o/richard-hatems-paranormal-bookshelf-podcast-90573788253

    And here! https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

    Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

    Get RHPB merch here! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/
    Show More Show Less
    56 mins
  • S3 Ep6: Forty Years of Psychic Research

    S3 Ep6: Forty Years of Psychic Research
    Sep 5 2025
    “I became aware of an amazing world of hidden, outlaw forces. A world in which miracles were everyday occurrences.” Hamlin Garland, Forty Years of Psychic Research.

    It started out as a simple challenge from a friend: travel the country testing psychic mediums and see if you can figure out what they’re doing. Those words sent Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hamlin Garland on a 40-year quest to prove the existence of life after death. But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, the most important answers have a funny way of staying just out of reach.

    Richard struggles to finish his final semester at USC and nothing is going his way. His scripts aren’t selling, his girlfriend Michelle is dating some other guy -- hell, he can’t even pass basic algebra. If Hamlin Garland can’t succeed in his quest after forty years, what makes Richard think he can achieve his meager dreams -- especially when all the evidence seems to prove otherwise? But then a friend shows up and throws down a terrifying challenge -- and it will only take five minutes. Will Richard accept? And if he does, will it redeem him -- or lead to the worst failure of all?

    Links:

    See Richard Hatem LIVE! The “Light in the Dark Tour” tickets and news are all right here! https://www.eventbrite.com/o/richard-hatems-paranormal-bookshelf-podcast-90573788253

    And here! https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

    Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

    Get RHPB merch here! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/?

    Buy Forty Years of Psychic Research here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/forty-years-of-psychic-research-hamlin-garland/21385301?ean=9798869324399&next=t
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 19 mins
  • S3 Ep5: The Premonitions Bureau

    S3 Ep5: The Premonitions Bureau
    Aug 22 2025
    “Premonitions are impossible and they come true all the time.” -- Sam Knight, The Premonitions Bureau

    What would you do if you could see the future? Would you even want to? Join Richard as he explores Sam Knight’s The Premonitions Bureau, in which British psychologist Dr. John Barker learns the hard way that the privilege of seeing around corners comes with an unusually high price tag.

    Meanwhile, Richard has always seen his own life as a rollercoaster: a terrifying journey of sharp twists and turns and stomach-flipping plunges that feels like it will last forever -- but also like it will end too soon. Travel with him backwards and forwards through time, from 2022… to 1977… and the year 2000… as he travels from childhood to fatherhood and back again, trying desperately to answer the biggest question of all: what’s going to happen next? Pull down the safety bar and keep your hands and feet inside the car, because the answers he finds might just scare you -- to death.

    Links:

    See Richard Hatem LIVE! The “Light in the Dark Tour” tickets and news are all right here! https://www.eventbrite.com/o/richard-hatems-paranormal-bookshelf-podcast-90573788253

    And here! https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

    Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

    Get RHPB merch here! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/?

    Buy Sam Knight’s The Premonitions Bureau here: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=sam%20knight&ch_sort=t&cm_sp=sort-_-SRP-_-Results&ds=30&dym=on&rollup=on&sortby=17&tn=premonitions%20bureau

    The movie Rollercoaster isn’t available to stream, but you can buy a DVD copy here: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Rollercoaster-DVD-Universal-Studios-Action-Adventure/1090301?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 1 min
  • S3: The Fortean and the Skeptic Should Be Friends: My Conversation with Blake Smith

    S3: The Fortean and the Skeptic Should Be Friends: My Conversation with Blake Smith
    Aug 8 2025
    According to Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma!, “The farmer and the cowman should be friends.” Shouldn’t it be the same for the Fortean and the skeptic? Is it even possible?

    My guest tonight is Blake Smith, the host of the MonsterTalk podcast, and a self-described skeptic. And I think you know how I take issue with a lot of skeptics and so-called skeptical arguments. But Blake and I are friends. Somehow, after a vulgar and insulting email blunder on my part, Blake kindly wrote back to me, a correspondence began, he invited me to be on his podcast, and the rest is history. The Fortean and the skeptic became friends. I think the reason we’re friends is that Blake has an honest interest in all things paranormal, but he also came upon his skepticism in a very human way. He doesn’t use it as a cudgel to beat anybody down. And best of all, ridicule is just not part of who he is. Also, the guy he has an amazing book collection, he loves to drink port, he’s quick with a pun -- and he’s just an all-around great guy.

    In this conversation we cover everything from Whitley Streiber’s Communion to the Heaven’s Gate tragedy; from exploding lightbulbs to snake-handling cults; and from “the hard problem of consciousness” to the one kind of paranormal experience that might change Blake’s skepticism forever.

    LINKS:

    Listen to Blake Smith’s award-winning podcast Monstertalk here: https://www.monstertalk.org/

    RHPB LIVE SHOWS are coming! Keep up as we add dates and locations at the RHPB website https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/

    And find out about upcoming performances and buy tickets at Eventbrite!: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dallas-richard-hatems-paranormal-bookshelf-live-tickets-1520485967459?aff=oddtdtcreator&fbclid=IwY2xjawMAjP9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHv9pgzdQBIIpLfpidbEp2IzjboC0W1P-qf_l9kBsPY7aJHzO8jg-6rhKQEmQ_aem_-ogycSZIIOELXK6VHRuNMQ

    Want to support the show? Join us on Patreon here https://www.patreon.com/c/RichardHatem?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

    Buy Richard Hatem’s Paranormal Bookshelf merch at https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 27 mins
  • S3 Ep4: A Christmas Carol

    S3 Ep4: A Christmas Carol
    Jul 25 2025
    Sometimes Christmas just doesn’t feel like Christmas. It’s December 2001, and Richard is living alone, facing down his first Christmas Eve without his family. But he’s about to learn that Christmas has its own magic -- and its own surprising plans for him…

    One hundred and fifty-eight years earlier, Charles Dickens changed the world with his story of another lonely man on Christmas Eve who ended up getting far more than he bargained for. What Dickens didn’t know -- but Richard does all too well -- is that what he actually created was literatures most famous near-death experience. Join Richard and Dickens as they each face down their Christmas ghosts -- and hope to wake up the next morning transformed…

    Notes & Links:
    You can get a copy of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol pretty much anywhere, but I highly recommend Michael Patrick Hearns’ The Annotated Christmas Carol where I got most of the information for this episode. You can get it at AbeBooks here: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?ch_sort=t&cm_sp=sort-_-SRP-_-Results&ds=30&dym=on&isbn=9780393051582&rollup=on&sortby=2

    Get the DVD of Albert Finney’s musical Scrooge here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-scrooge-ronald-neame/3719770?ean=0097361459745&gQT=0

    Learn all about the GameBoy Advance Owen wanted so badly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQvSB3KBUIE
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 8 mins
  • S3 Ep3: Monsters, Giants and Little Men From Mars

    S3 Ep3: Monsters, Giants and Little Men From Mars
    Jul 11 2025
    It’s April 1975, and Richard is still that lonely, haunted little kid we met in RHPB Ep.1: Ghosts & Specters. In fact, it’s just a few weeks later when, courtesy of Mrs. Fuller (the librarian who introduced Richard to his first paranormal bookshelf) that he comes across Monsters, Giants and Little Men From Mars by Daniel Cohen. It seems like the perfect fit. But then Darren McGavin shows up in Kolchak: The Night Stalker and shows Richard that some monsters can be defeated -- if you’ve got the nerve…

    Flash forward to 1985 and Richard seems to have left all of his monsters behind. But that summer, a very different kind of monster shows up way too close to Richard’s home, and nothing will ever be the same again…

    Notes & Links:

    Sign up for Patreon and support the show, receive ad-free episodes -- plus monthly bonus content! Join here:
    https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

    Grab some amazing RHPB merch here!
    https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/?

    Buy Monsters, Giants & Little Men From Mars here:
    https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/9780440958291/

    Discover Matt Monro -- the legend…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ6Tp-nna9I

    Check out “Old Glory” -- The Bicentennial Condom!
    https://imgur.com/gallery/from-1976-one-time-old-glory-u-s-bicentennial-novelty-condom-YvTvpsi

    Read Phillip Carlo’s in-depth book about the Richard Ramirez/Night Stalker Case.
    https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-night-stalker-the-disturbing-life-and-chilling-crimes-of-richard-ramirez-philip-carlo/7340915?ean=9780806538419&next=t
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 1 min