Interviews
Good Witch Patti Negri Discusses Psychic Development and Finding Magic in Everyday Life [Interview]
Welcome back to DEAD Time. I hope you left a light on for me, because it’s the time of year when pumpkins are carved, and children dress up as ghosts, witches, and their favorite movie monsters to trick or treat. If you’re a fan of Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures, you have most likely seen “Good Witch” and psychic medium Patti Negri, who has participated in numerous investigations of haunted locations with the team. In addition to being a psychic medium, Patti is an author, teacher, speaker and podcaster.
She is also a partner and educator at University Magickus, an online spirituality school, where students can learn about Psychic Development, Tarot, Werewolf Magick, and the Vampiric Arts. She has a best-selling book called Old World Magick for the Modern World: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques to Balance, Empower, and Create a Life You Love. Patti is also President and Chief Examiner of the American Federation of Certified Psychics and Mediums.
Bloody Disgusting was delighted to have the chance to chat with Patti Negri about her life as a medium, teaching others about psychic development, haunted locations, how she finds joy in life, and much more.
Photo Credit: Patti Negri
Bloody Disgusting: How old were you when you first realized that you were a medium and could communicate with the dead, and can you describe what your first paranormal experience was like?
Patti Negri: It was honestly as long as I can remember. I remember being a toddler in grade school and having these special friends I talked to. I just knew they weren’t imaginary friends; they were real spirits, and they would give me real information. I honestly think kids have the gift, but for most of us it gets taught out of us with our modern, Western, non-mystical, non-magical society. We’re missing a lot of this, but luckily it didn’t get taught out of me. My mom would say, “Yeah, grandma talked to them too.”
I had this literal, almost obsession for the dead. It wasn’t dark or morbid, most of it was good and they had things to say. So, I literally did my first séance, which is one of the things I’m known for, when I was seven or eight years old. I went in the hall in my little suburban Long Beach home where there were no windows and I stuffed towels under the door. My best friend Sherry Jones was there and then I realized, “I don’t really know any dead people.” So, I started naming off movie stars, that you know at seven or eight, like Marilyn Monroe and whoever you know. Literally, my windowless, lightless hall filled with orbs and shadows and sounds. We went screaming outside, but I was actually just jumping up and down going, “This is real, and this is controllable. I did this. I was able to do this.”
So, starting at about age thirteen I became a speaker. I started studying religion, philosophy, occult science, and metaphysics to try to put this gift that I had into different languaging. It’s all energy and we’re energy, so it doesn’t matter what kind of template or belief system you put on top; it’s just there.
BD: It’s interesting that you were so young, and you weren’t afraid.
PN: No, the only negative thing that gets me on a daily basis is that when you see all these spirits in your life sometimes it is scary. But I love scary movies and TV shows. I watch all the old scary ones; I’m just obsessed with them. So, I guess I liked being scared. The only bad thing is that when you see this stuff all the time, I didn’t know how to turn it off at that time. I learned pretty quickly about having an on and off switch. [laughs] I sleep face down on the pillow, which when you’re a woman of a certain age you’re not supposed to do that; you’re not supposed to squish your face into a pillow with your hands, but I still do that [laughs]. I cannot sleep on my back. It’s hard to even sleep on my side because I’m like, “They’re going to get me.” I just can’t do it. After a whole lifetime of squishing into a pillow, that’s the only drawback.
BD: You are a partner and educator at University Magickus, an online spirituality school. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
PN: Yeah! I have two partners; my friend Father Sebastiaan, who is a vampire; and this beautiful guy Nick, who is in Iceland. I’ve always been a teacher; I used to teach for House of Intuition, which is a metaphysical shop here in Los Angeles and I’m just kind of a teacher by nature. I’ve studied this my whole life, so I teach it, whether I’m sitting on a TV show teaching it or speaking to a group of college kids. So, Nick asked me, “Why don’t we do an Instagram live where you talk about something or teach something?” Out of that, he started this thing called Haunted Diary where we teach some classes. Then we were like, “Let’s turn it into a school.” And we did, about three or four years ago. We have about twenty teachers now and we’re international.
I teach Mediumship Development and Psychic Development, Spellcasting, Familiars, Past Life Regression, and Father Sebastiaan goes mostly into the vampiric arts. But we have teachers from every path. We have psychics, vampires, witches, and werewolves. We have Denny Sargent, who is actually a professor at Washington University, who teaches werewolf magick. He doesn’t put on a werewolf costume, but he does howl at the moon, so it’s a magical path in itself. We even have some New Age teachers and Brazilian magic. I look at all these schools and I’ve always been a learner, and I went, “Why do all these schools cost so much money? I shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars to learn how to talk to the dead or to learn how to properly do a séance.” So, we wanted it to be really affordable and that’s exactly what we did.
It’s online, it’s on Zoom, it’s the best of all worlds. If people come on for the classes, for example I was teaching a Mediumship class, tonight I’m teaching a séance class, and next week I’m teaching a Tarot class, there might be forty or fifty people in the class. So, it’s $10 a month or the max price for a class is $10 or $20. If fifty people sign up for my class, maybe I’ll have twenty people there live, because in England it’s 2am, so they’re just going to watch it the next day. Everyone gets a video of the class. So, I’m really proud of it because it’s a labor or love. I want people who want to learn to be able to learn about many paths. My one rule for teachers is that you’re not allowed to say, “This is ‘the’ truth.” You can say, “This is my truth” or this is “a truth.” But there are so many truths out there, so we don’t want to say that we’re one specific belief system at all.
Photo Credit: Patti Negri
BD: You’ve appeared on Ghost Adventures several times. What is that like?
PN: Yeah, I’ve done it about twice a season for the last nine years. I love working with Zak and the guys. I absolutely love it. I like an adventure. I never know where I’m going; I never know what I’m doing, because they do really want it legit. I get on a plane, or I drive to an address and I’m like, “Okay, I know nothing.” I always get a little scared like, “What if I walk in and I get crickets? What if I don’t know?” But the places are so vetted that it’s like, “Okay, somebody died over here, somebody was decapitated. Oh, we’re at the Hotel Cecil.”
BD: How did the GAC team first reach out to you and what has it been like working with them in so many haunted locations? Do you have a favorite case you’ve investigated with them?
PN: My first time was in 2015 and literally every episode would have that local person who experienced something or a local medium or psychic or something like that. They were doing a haunted Hollywood episode, and I had just been at the American Legion Hall because I’m on the board of the Hollywood Arts Council, and we bring arts into the schools. We did ghost walks and my husband’s jazz band played and everybody dressed in old 1940s clothes. I literally had all these deep conversations with Charlie Chaplin on this one exact stool. Unknown to me, that is the exact stool he sat in every Friday night and the people at the American Legion told Zak Bagans, “Oh my God, this woman was just here, and she pointed out Charlie Chaplin’s stool.” So, they called me in and it normally would have been just one episode like people usually get, but we just hit it off and they found out my ability with seances. So, we did the Black Dahlia and they called me in to do a séance with the Black Dahlia and that went really good. Now they just call me in about twice a season. It’s fun! I can’t talk about it yet, but we just did a really great episode and it’s probably going to air around Halloween. It was fun [laughs]. It’s always an adventure.
BD: Tell me about your book Old World Magick for the Modern World: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques to Balance, Empower, and Create a Life You Love. I read it sold out in five countries.
PN: Yeah, it’s been a best seller in five countries. It was kind of a labor of love. I work with private clientele, and I see energy. I’m a busy girl and I don’t have an hour to meditate, I have thirty seconds to pull it together. And I’m an elemental witch, so I work with air and fire and water and earth, so I come up with these things. Everybody is out of balance; the world is out of balance. We know that, it’s crazy! So, I would tell people, “Look at the elements and you’re stressed out. Is this emotional stress? That’s water. Run your hands under water. Is your head foggy? That’s your air element. You just need thirty seconds worth of breathing exercises.” So, it’s literally super life hacks. You don’t have to be a psychic medium; you don’t have to be a witch. It’s why you put a little salt in your toilet when you go to the bathroom and what that releases. It’s simple, little life hacks to make your life magical from the second you get up until you go to bed. It’s why you put a glass of water beside your bed. Don’t drink it because it’s going to collect everything.
You can learn psychic development in your sleep. It’s giving the universe permission to download while you’re asleep. So, the whole book is that. It was just a labor of love. It’s self-published. I have a new book coming out on haunted dolls and poppets from Llewellyn. We just announced it, and I saw the cover. That will be out in 2025. I’m really proud of that. As I’m staring at my haunted doll who is giving me the evil eye right now [laughs].
BD: You give off this aura of positivity in everything I’ve seen about you, and I just think that’s really interesting because it seems kind of rare nowadays.
PN: Thank you! I’m still twelve on the inside. I still have that joy of life. I can’t wait to get up in the morning and see what’s going to happen and I hope I never lose that. So far, I haven’t. I love people. That’s part of why I like teaching, and I just think we are such an amazing, weird species. So flawed, so fucked up, but so amazing. I like people. I like life.
BD: You mentioned your new book that’s coming out next year. Are you working on anything else that you can tell me about?
PN: Yeah! But as always, there are a couple of TV projects that I can’t talk about yet. But they are in the works. We’ve been filming and it would be very different, and it would be very cool, so my fingers are crossed on that. I’m working with a really good production company, and we’ve been shooting. But I can’t talk about that yet. I just want to see what each day brings. I’ve got more TV stuff coming out and I’ve got that book. I’m part of another book that we just launched on intuition, which was pretty fun, but I’m just one chapter in it. They brought twenty women from all over the world to each write one chapter on intuition, like intuition leaders, and that’s what I teach. So, every day let’s see what happens.
To learn more about Patti Negri’s work or to book a service, you can check out Patti’s website. For information about classes at University Magickus, visit https://www.magicku.org.
Photo Credit: Patti Negri
Interviews
‘Rubberhead’ Director Nick Taylor on FX Maverick Steve Johnson, Practical Effects, and Seven-Year Journey
Horror journalist, producer, and podcast host Nick Taylor moves into the director’s seat for his feature debut with illuminating documentary Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson.
It chronicles the wild life and career of SFX maverick Steve Johnson, based on the multi-volume book series Rubberhead: Sex, Drugs and Special FX, and those familiar likely already know Rubberhead isn’t your standard horror documentary.
Johnson is responsible for so many memorable movie monsters, having worked on Fright Night, Poltergeist II, An American Werewolf in London, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and Night of the Demons, to name a few. He’s also extremely candid in ways that feel atypical in this industry, open about his failures as much as his successes.
“It was a natural progression for sure,” Nick Taylor tells Bloody Disgusting of his transition into filmmaking ahead of Rubberhead‘s world premiere next week at the Fantasia Film Festival on July 23. “I think with my podcast, I got adept at interviewing people and pulling creative lessons out of them, which was the point of my podcast. I wanted this movie to be sort of a creativity pill for artists where if they’re starting a project or feel creatively stuck, they could watch this movie and be inspired and get actual practical creative lessons.”
Taylor’s background in PR and marketing also organically led him down this path.
He charts the course from book promo to documentary director: “But also Bloody Disgusting had a lot to do with this movie because in the very beginning when I first met Steve, I was helping him promote his book and I said, ‘Hey, I got a marketing background and a journalism background. Let me help you promote this book. I’ll just pitch stories from your life to the media, and we’ll see what happens.’ And John Squires wrote an article about Steve making Slimer under the influence of tons and tons of cocaine, and that went fairly viral.”
“For a week, it was story time with Steve,” Taylor continues. “He would tell me a story from his life, and every story was about a major movie, a major director, lots of drugs and alcohol and insanity. I would write them up, and I think John published about three or four of them. So huge shout out to John Squires because that was really great. So yeah, there were definitely a lot of outgrowths of my journalism background that definitely contributed to this movie.”
Rubberhead condenses the multi-book series into a cohesive feature film with a breezy runtime, sparking the obvious question as to how Taylor approached condensing Johnson’s life down to an under 2-hour documentary film.
“That was one of the more difficult parts of all of this, because we had enough for a series or an epically long six-hour fan documentary,” he answers. “But from day one, I did not want to make a fan documentary. I love them. They’re a lot of fun, but I did want the movie to stand on its own two feet as a character-driven portrait of an artist and a time period and a technology, that being practical effects. I did want to be objective. I didn’t want to make this too long. I wanted to make it re-watchable. So I think we just really had to focus on what the narratives were that we wanted to tell. So there were some basically almost cliché archetypical mythic narratives present in Steve’s life. We could have made this way longer, but we wanted to keep it short. But luckily that’s why you have special features.”
Johnson quickly proves to be an engaging subject thanks to his self-effacing wit and frank self-reflections; expect no shortage of stories about how drugs factored into the height of his career or the failures it wrought.
That rare quality was an asset for Rubberhead, Taylor confirms. “He does not shy away from anything about the drugs, the addiction, the bridges burned, the mistakes made, the lessons learned. He just is honest about all of it. He’s had a lot of time for reflection, and he’s done a lot of reflection, so he doesn’t shy away from any of it, which is huge because it’s very refreshing. I don’t think a lot of people are that way, at least in this industry from what I can see. So I think it was hugely beneficial. We wanted to lean into that, and we wanted to make this sort of a gonzo Hunter S. Thompson sort of wild tale through Steve’s overall life.“
Condensing his life into this doc was a slow and steady process for Taylor, too. “It’s been almost seven years. It’s been a labor of love. We’ve been as indie as it gets. We would shoot what we could when we could, and then we would edit when we could. Then after a while it all came together.”
In a way, making Rubberhead brings Taylor’s horror fandom full circle. It turns out that the very film that sparked his interest in the genre and practical effects also comes with an amusing Steve Johnson anecdote.
Taylor explains, “My gateway for sure was Beetlejuice. I saw that at a very young age; I think I was four or five. I felt somebody had shown me, my soul. I get a little emotional thinking about it. There was something about that movie that felt so strange and unusual, but also felt so familiar. It was spooky, but it was fun, and it was lighthearted, and it had humor, but it also had this macabre celebration to it that I just really got into as a kid. I felt somebody had shown me my own soul. And funny story, Steve got fired from Beetlejuice because Tim Burton gave him his hand-drawn designs and Steve’s like, ‘Oh my God, these look like kids did them. This is not what you want. I know what you want. I’m going to redesign these for you.’ And Tim Burton was like, ‘Yeah, no, you’re not.’ So yeah, funny story.”
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