What lies beneath
Penny Royal review
Rating – 
Last week I reviewed Vayse, and mentioned that Hine and Buckley got me addicted to a new podcast called Penny Royal. After the mentions of overlap with the documentary series Hellier (which you will remember I am a big fan of. It’s not like I never talk about it!) I just had to check it out.
So was my mind blown? Have I become a living embodiment of the Charlie Day pinboard meme? Am I being surveilled by mysterious dark suited men in unmarked vans? Well what I can say is [REDACTED], and that there seems to be a [REDACTED] especially concerning [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]. Here’s my Penny Royal review.
So what’s it about?
The Penny Royal is an area in Kentucky with a rich and very strange history. It seems to be some kind of focal point for some very strange events indeed. A place where UFO sightings, pagan gods, satanic cults rub shoulders with Nazis, Freemasons artists and musicians.
What starts out as a seemingly coincidental overlap with Greg and Dana Newkirk’s first series of Hellier (yes, Hellier again. Have you watched it yet? You really should). It soon expands though, into an examination of magickal thinking, synchronicities, and quantum theory.
Presenter Nathan Isaac ties all these myriad threads together into one huge overarching story. The show is about 50% history lesson, and 50% interviews with residents of the area, and experts in related fields. The residents are the source of a lot of the charm here. Particularly artist and musician Dan Dutton. If The Penny Royal was an actual person, then he would surely be it.
Is it any good?
It is certainly compelling. So compelling in fact that I have supported the show on patreon so I can hear all the other interviews they have.
Having said that, there are some parts that seem a bit of a stretch. Particularly if you know similar stories. There is an interview with a woman who was allegedly in a satanic cult when she was a young girl. Now, I’m not one to say that her experiences are made up. I will say though, that her story does seem very similar to a lot of the stories from the satanic panic that were eventually shown to be false memories implanted by psychiatrists. Make of that what you will.
This is a series that will require more than one run through to get the full benefit from, and that is it’s downfall. There were huge chunks of episodes that I had to rewind, and some that I feel I missed out on altogether. This isn’t a show that keeps you engaged (at least, not in the 8 hour chunks I was devouring it in). The problem is, is that the information presented is so remarkable that you really do want to binge it, just to see what happens next.
Final thoughts
There are few podcasts that I can say could legitimately change your outlook on life. This, however, is one. Whether you believe all of the high strangeness or just some of it, there is no doubt that The Penny Royal is a weird place indeed. Certainly on a par with places in the Pacific NorthWest, or places like Glastonbury and Avebury here in the UK.
In this day and age, we all need a bit of wonder in our lives don’t we?
You can get Penny Royal here:
For more great reviews, I recommend GreatPods