Learning Day: Interviews with the Crystal Skull 🌭

Greetings, Hotdogger. It’s time you met the chattiest crystal skulls in all South Florida.

That’s right: I read Interviews with the Crystal Skulls: Ancient Secrets of the Multiverse, Unlocking the Healing Codes Within Us and the Hierarchy of Heaven. Yes, the title has a period on the end. No, I don’t think it needed a longer title than the first clause. Nobody sees a book promising Crystal Skull Stuff and wonders if we’ll get weird. You don’t ask a crystal skull how to scrub tile grout or make better salads. You ask a crystal skull about your wackiest whim, and they throw wackier wacky back at you.

This book crushingly, thrillingly disappointed me. I read this in hopes of a specific style of fun. Half of Amazon Dot Com is peddling crystal skull stuff. Only this ebook is peddling crystal skull interviews. This book is, theoretically, a talk show. I know it’s a pretend talk show. But it’s a pretend talk show where the guests are crystal skulls and the hosts are the loopiest Floridians with access to Starbucks WiFi. That should be a blast. Here is a brief hint of why it underdelivers:

This book interviews a set of progressively more powerful crystal skulls about secrets of the universe. Unfortunately, these skulls are same-y to talk to. They are same-y to talk to because the book’s authors are talking to themselves. It turns out a conversation between a tedious person, and themself, is tedious squared. They also fail to offer anything new to the bullshit community. The authors mash together mystical stuff from three continents they consider mysterious: Atlantis, Lemuria, and Asia. They also work in a lot of Christian lore, plus Christian-ish filler about light and energy and whatnot. They write all this in a personal fantasy tone, depicting skulls that are super impressed with the authors’ knowledge of the authors’ own canon.

Question: what ties together a Catholic saint, a South Asian cosmology concept, plus reincarnation? Answer: stop badgering the authors for answers.

Yeah! Can’t you see these authors are busy? Busy de-funning the premise of “ask crystal skulls questions”? This is one of the most pedantic, wearying books I’ve ever read. Me saying that should blow your mind. I read multiple books about seemingly boring topics, every week, for a living. This one crystal skulls book wore me out more than three entire books about baking soda. It’s a grind. Somehow these authors come off as selfish jerks about how much they know about crystal skulls blessing the world with healing revelations. They even slam-dunk their bonafides with a “Bibliography” section. This book has dozens of footnotes. They might’ve been my favorite part. These authors make claims about fluorite crystals altering the dharma of the Abrahamic cryptid-angel Metatron, and tag that claim with a footnote. It’s phenomenal. Every time I saw one of those tiny numbers, it felt like approaching a new door on an advent calendar. I knew I could click for a little treat, in the form of a funny URL. Unfortunately, this gunked my Internet history. Now my browser thinks I want to visit “energymuse.com”, or revisit a HuffPost article about the fourth Indiana Jones movie. Yes, the fourth Indiana Jones movie. The crystal skulls one. This book footnotes one write-up of that movie, a couple times. Also, do not bring up Indiana Jones 4 around these crystal skull chatters. They think that movie is normie popcorn-y misinformation, about crystal skulls.

After pooping all over that movie, they cite the blog about it, to prove one of their Floridian skulls is 36,000 years old. Sloppy? Yes. More interesting than everything else in this book? Yes. The authors write both sides of their chats, with crystal skulls, as if it’s the minutes of a county board meeting. It could be so wild! This is a book revealing all world pyramids interconnect through a subterranean light grid of energies. This is a book claiming Buddha is also Mohammed, and is friends with a crystal skull named Moe. Those wild swings should be fun. Instead, we get a blow by blow of this feeling like a laggy Microsoft Teams check-in.

The authors are two Fort Lauderdale residents who are possibly hooking up. One author is Ordained Interfaith Minister Reverend Marguerite Pizzati. Her credentials include a friend giving her a bunch of crystal skulls in 2015, and her parents almost naming her “Margherita Pizza”. The other author is A.J. Ferrara, whose bio is an extensive list of film production companies he presidents, and film scripts he penned that are in active pre-pre-pre-production with companies he presidents. Marguerite and A.J. spent a lot of time together, with crystal skulls. Their authorial collaboration is seamless, in the sense that it’s never clear who is speaking or typing. The only distinction is that Marguerite gets described as the “guardian” of the skulls. A.J. gets described as visiting them a lot. The skulls get described as the motivating force for Marguerite writing anything at all.

What I wouldn’t give to know the details of these authors’ business relationship and [eyebrows waggling] personal relationship. Because sure, this crystal skull book could’ve been a pretext for them gathering. Gathering, to boink. But I sure hope it’s more, or different, because there might be a much weirder power dynamic here. It seems like A.J. does the writing, and Marguerite does the crystal skull possessing. Does that mean A.J. did all the labor of writing the entire book, in exchange for Marguerite providing access to crystal skulls? Is A.J. paying his dues? Is he working overtime for an entry-level foot-in-the-door role in the crystal skull industry? Is he working in the crystal skulls’ crystal mailroom? I hear that’s how Hollywood works. “Hollywood” is also a town in Florida. No joke: Marguerite’s bio says she spent more than a decade running Hollywood Florida’s “The Center for Human Development Spiritual Healing Center & Meditation School”. Is this relationship the Florida swampcoast version of a mogul and assistant? Is A.J. brownnosing bigwigs, in a scenario where the “bigwigs” are hairless skull-rocks? I think it is. I think I read a book about a dozen eternally-communing crystal skulls, and found out its weirdest relationship is between the two middle-aged Treasure Coasters banging this out.

Speaking of Hollywood, I’m forced to question A.J.’s bonafides as a filmmaker. Why? This book has pictures. Phone pictures. They’re almost good enough for the crystal skulls’ use as passport photos:

There’s also a couple of skulls group photos:

Oh, and there’s one photo set documenting an angelic visitation. It comes out of nowhere. “By the way, we took pictures of angels” is one notecard on the wall-pinned outline of this book, if that outline’s existence weren’t as fictional as every concept in it.

These angel pics are the best example of another authorial failing. Margie and A-Jod invoke all sorts of Christian angels and saints. Shortly after I said “Jesus Mary and Joseph” out loud in frustration with this book, the book invoked Jesus, then Mary, then a crystal skull spirit who once incarnated as Joseph. For the second time in a row, I’ve read a book by American cultists, promising NEW REVELATIONS that NOBODY ELSE IS TALKING ABOUT…only to find out the cultists are more Christian than our general population.

Despite that Bible element, the book pulls quite an un-Christian move. This book condescends to the reader. Here’s how it feels: do you remember the long-ago teevee sex comedy Game Of Thrones? That show did a running gag where a hot barbarian told Jon Snow “you know nothing, Jon Snow.” This book is like that, toward you, every time the authors ask the skulls something about a far less interesting fantasy world.

“Wow: this idiot barely even knows five star systems we emanated from.”

“It’s like you’ve barely even identified one flying object.” This entire rug of skulls is judging you:

As much as these negging skulls wasted my time, I’m grateful to them for delivering one fantastic punchline. They close big. Here is the joke math: the book promises an escalating journey through more and more powerful skulls. In practice this is a pyramid scheme, because every skull tells you there is so much more to be revealed, and we can’t get to it now, just wait for the next skull to really blow your mind. Then there’s further chapters of circling back to previous skulls, because anticipation is the main component of edging. It’s a big waste of time. A waste of time, with one recurring theme. Every chapter promises a final boss skull called Max. Max has the full revelations you seek. Max is why we are all here. Hilariously, Max does not belong to this book’s authors and is on loan from another gal.

Whoops! Also, thank you? Very honest of the authors to admit they’re not the mightiest figures in Crystal Skull Schlock. I sincerely think they might’ve turned honest here because the spark went out of their hookups. With no sequel coming, might as well wrap it up with another gal’s super-skull and chase new love in Saint Pete (the Florida city, not a Christian saint summoned via skull voodoo).

Max is the endgame of this whole book. We’ve met a progression of skulls, all promising Max knows the true secrets of this universe. We listened to skulls describe an imminent alien invasion of Earth, and a 3000-year king of Atlantis who is also the Egyptian god Thoth, and all sorts of other wildness… always capped off with “and if you think that’s amazing, wait till we get to Max’s revelations.” Then, Max talks to us, in the book’s shortest chapter. He tells us the astonishing truth that we need to be nice people and keep a positive attitude. Then, somebody knocks on the door of the room. Upon hearing a knock, Max’s spirit bails. We don’t get him back. The central promise of this entire tedious book resolves with the universe’s most powerful crystal skull spirit getting spooked by one door knock. The story gets terminated by what’s probably a FedEx delivery.

This might strike you as shabby, random world-building. Especially because the authors’ skull connections have a less than impressive origin story.

Then the book ends with the shallowest science-y narrative exclamation point I’ve ever read.

A lot to unpack here. “Coast to Coast AM” is nonsense. Its best feature is having the good sense to broadcast its woo-woo at The Kooking Hour. String theory is real physics stuff that’s complicated, but easy to riff on if you’re already in Crystal Skull Mode. Why does any of this come up? The unclear author of this epilogue says an out-of-context radio interview, heard at bleary dawn, indicated the Large Hadron Collider hasn’t discovered a “god particle” – and therefore, Max is a good book ending.

That’s how this book ends! The mysterious unison voice of two Floridian Boomers tells us they did a D+ job of listening to A.M. radio, and thanks to its mention of particle physics, a crystal skull named Max showed us how to save the universe. Don’t get me wrong: “a weird nut ruminating about weird light” can be a fantastic book ending. It’s just not quite the crystal skull revelations I was promised. Is that a letdown? Perhaps. But when it comes to chasing the secrets of the universe, it’s important that we have no fear. I heard that idea from somebody recently. I forget who. Possibly a 36,000 year old crystal skull. Oh no. Oh well. Merry Skullsmas to us all.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Ted H, whose body is also part crystal. Guess which part. Guess with your hands.