I talk to Danielle Aykroyd about her family's involvement in spiritualism, and growing up in a home where the paranormal is just normal. For the full episode, sign up for the Otherworld Patreon Danielle Aykroyd, also known by her stage name Vera Sola, is a singer-songwriter, poet, and multi-instrumentalist. She is the daughter of the actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd who came from a long line of spiritualists. His family was heavily involved in the movement and the movie Ghostbusters was actually based on the experiences of his great grandfather. His great-grandfather, Samuel Augustus Aykroyd, was a dentist and an avid spiritualist who held séances at the family home in Ontario, Canada. He was deeply interested in communicating with spirits, which was a popular practice during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Samuel Aykroyd even kept detailed journals documenting his experiences and beliefs. If you want to hear the entire interview, it's out now on the Otherworld Patreon. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the background of Danielle Aykroyd?
Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. This episode is an interview I did with Danielle Ackroyd. This is a short preview. If you want to hear the full thing, you can do so at patreon.com slash otherworld. Danielle Ackroyd is also known by her stage name, Verasola. She's a singer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist.
Chapter 2: How did the Aykroyd family influence Ghostbusters?
She is also the daughter of the very famous actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd. I'm not sure how many people are aware of this, but Dan Aykroyd came from a long line of spiritualists. His family was heavily involved in the movement, and the movie Ghostbusters is actually based on the experiences of his great-grandfather. I know that sounds like I'm making it up, but this is completely true.
His great-grandfather, Samuel Augustus Aykroyd, was a dentist and avid spiritualist who held seances at the family home in Ontario, Canada. He was deeply interested in communicating with the spirits, which was a popular practice during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Samuel Ackroyd even kept detailed journals documenting his experiences and beliefs, which is what inspired Ghostbusters.
This is all to say that the Ackroyd family is very connected to the belief in the supernatural. And for that reason, Danielle had a very unique childhood where the paranormal was... kind of normal. She has so many interesting stories, and I wanted to get her on here to discuss her family history, what growing up in that world was like, and what kind of things she experienced along the way.
Chapter 3: What was it like growing up in a spiritualist family?
... ...
Welcome to Otherworld. I'm joined today by Danielle Ackroyd. How are you doing? Doing pretty good. You're the daughter of Dan Ackroyd. I would not know. You're wearing a Ghostbusters sweatshirt.
Did the name give it away?
The name, but, you know, there might be other. There's probably other. There's no other Ackroyds?
Chapter 4: What unique experiences did Danielle have with the paranormal?
There's a lot of Ackroyds, but as far as I know, I haven't come across a Danielle Ackroyd. There's Peter Ackroyds, and Peter's my grandfather's name and my uncle's name, and there's a famous Shakespearean author, scholar, called Peter Ackroyd, but no Danielle's. I think I am the one junior.
Are there non-connected Ackroyds out there?
Chapter 5: How has spiritualism evolved in the Aykroyd family?
We have to be connected somehow. It's such an uncommon name. There's a lot of different spellings because it's been misspelled for over a thousand years, essentially.
It's very hard to spell.
Chapter 6: What was the initial vision for Ghostbusters?
So hard.
Well, welcome. Bringing up your famous father very early, but it's kind of what we're here to talk about in a sense. I think the average person does not know it, but like your family has a long history with the paranormal and spiritualism specifically. Yes. This kind of blew my mind when I heard it, that Ghostbusters was based in part on
Chapter 7: Why is the Aykroyd family farm significant in their history?
off of your family's history and like your dad's own history with spiritualism which is crazy i mean yeah this is uh it seems to me that your dad like that might be his main thing and entertainment was like a side plot in his life is that an exaggeration
I don't think so. I mean, entertainment is certainly something that he stumbled into. It's not anything really that he ever wanted as far as he describes it. I mean, he basically lives in the woods in Canada now, which is kind of what he always wanted to do. But yeah, I'm a fifth generation spiritualist, technically. I don't practice spiritualism myself. My practice is different.
But if you wanted to You know, really draw the lines. It started with my great-great-grandfather, who, turn of the century, began looking into this stuff. And it's trickled down in various ways, and each generation has taken it in a new direction.
That's crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy.
I want to get into all of that, but how much of Ghostbusters was based on all of this? To me, it's like a silly, fun-loving movie. To find out that it was based on real events in general is shocking, let alone off of your dad, which kind of a legend, you know, Blues Brothers, all sorts of things, but you don't, like, it was a shocking fact. Even Ghostbusters is a funny movie.
Yeah, I mean he – first of all, he wanted it to be lighthearted and funny, although it initially was a lot darker from what I can gather before Harold Ramis and others got involved. But yeah, basically it grew out of him growing up in this environment where my grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather and the women alongside them investigated all of this stuff.
And we've grown up in wickedly haunted houses. The real nexus of all of this would be my family farm in Canada, which is where they held all of these seances. And so my dad was surrounded by that and in that environment from the time he was
very, very small child and sort of picking up these, you know, Fate magazine and the Journal for the American Society of Psychical Research and reading all of these things. I think he said on the phone to me earlier today that it was originally sparked by him reading this article on quantum reality and the paranormal, essentially. And then just kind of weaving in
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