Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" ends on a note that has puzzled and inspired readers for more than a century: "For there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life." In this episode, JF and Phil search for the meaning of this ethico-aesthetic imperative that Rilke heard resounding from a fragment of Greek statuary. This episode is special because the hosts were able to record it in person while on a writing retreat in Western Quebec. Enroll in THE TWIN PEAKS MYTHOS (https://www.nuralearning.com/twin-peaks-mythos), a 4-week Weird Studies view-along starting June 8th. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's podcast on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Download Pierre-Yves Martel's new album, Mer Bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo” (https://poets.org/poem/archaic-torso-apollo) Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780745649221) Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679753353) He Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He-Man), superhero Munich Terrorist Photo (https://www.npr.org/2022/09/04/1116641214/munich-olympics-massacre-hostage-terrorism-israel-germany) Albert Camus, The Rebel (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679733843) Franz Kafka, "The Trial" (https://www.kafka-online.info/the-trial.html) and “In the Penal Colony" (https://www.kafka-online.info/in-the-penal-colony.html) Auguste Rodin, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin) French sculptor

Of the twenty-two figures that make up the major arcana of the tarot, the Chariot is probably the most commonplace. While the tenth arcanum is a wheel, it's The Wheel of Fortune, not just any old wagon wheel. But arcanum VII is neither the Chariot of Fire or the Chariot of the Gods – just the plain old chariot. Usually, it is interpreted as a symbol of the will in its lower and higher aspects. In this episode, Phil notes that the Chariot can also symbolize something as ordinary as new car. Of course, here on Weird Studies, no car is just a car, and we like to think that Youngblood Priest, the protagonist of the 1972 film Super Fly, would agree. A car also a tool, a medium, a token of mastery, an atmospheric disturbance, a means of manifestation, a spaceship... Enroll in THE TWIN PEAKS MYTHOS (https://www.nuralearning.com/twin-peaks-mythos), a 4-week Weird Studies view-along starting June 8th. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's podcast on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Download Pierre-Yves Martel's new album, Mer Bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Rachel Pollack, Tarot Wisdom (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780738713090) Jordan Parks Jr., Super Fly (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069332/) Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Weird Studies, Episode 144 on “Hellraiser” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/144) Plato, Phaedrus (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780140449747) Vanessa Onwuemezi, Dark Neighborhood (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781913097707) J. G. Ballard, Crash (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781250171511) Paul Virilio, War and Cinema (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/979442) Karl Marx, Grundrisse (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/) Weird Studies, Episode 26 with Michael Garfield (https://www.weirdstudies.com/26)

In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Vanessa Onwuemezi's, "Dark Neighbourhood," a tale of scintillant darkness from her debut collection of the same name. This strangest of strange stories is set in a vast encampment of destitute yet hopeful people whose lives consist entirely of waiting for their turn to step through the iron gates of the Beyond. Living off the dregs of civilization, they seem the last of our kind. They are the ones who, having made it to the front of the line, have the dubious honour of contemplating directly the mystery that awaits us all. Unlike anything we've covered on the show, "Dark Neighbourhood" is a chilling and moving story that elicits interpretation as elegantly as it resists it. Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue) drops on May 1st, 2023! Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Show Notes.docx Vanessa Omwuemezi, Dark Neighbourhood (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781913097707) Peter Breugel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/landscape-with-the-fall-of-icarus) Weird Studies, Episode 140 on “Spirited Away” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/140) Karl Marx, Capital (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781453716540) Phil Ford, Dig (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780199939916) Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book) Weird Studies, Episode 98 on “Taboo” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/98 https://www.weirdstudies.com/98) Michael Wadleigh (dir.), Woodstock (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066580/) Samuel R. Delaney, Dahlgren (https://bookshop.org/p/books/dhalgren-samuel-r-delany/8507517?ean=9780375706684) Leonard Cohen, “Waiting for the Miracle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXvG0SMP7tw) Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781400075232) One red paperclip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip), story of guy who traded a paper clip for a house Weird Studies, Episode 101 on Tanizaki (https://www.weirdstudies.com/101) James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780060906825) George Steiner, Real Presences (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226772349) H. P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlothotep” (https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/n.aspx) Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO” (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0090591708317902) Weird Studies, Episode 144 on Hellraiser (https://www.weirdstudies.com/144) Weird Studies, Episode 29 on Lovecraft (https://www.weirdstudies.com/29)

In the 1980s, Clive Barker burst onto the cultural scene with The Books of Blood, collections of unforgettable tales of horror, depravity, and decadence the likes of which had been seldom seen since the days of Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror and Huysmans' Là-Bas. In the decades that followed, he went on to create an astounding body of work in fantasy and horror as a writer, artist, and film director. In this episode, author, lecturer, and podcaster Conner Habib joins JF and Phil to discuss what is arguably Barker's best-known work, the 1987 horror classic Hellraiser, as well as the novella that inspired it, "The Hellbound Heart." Preorder Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) References Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-hellbound-heart-clive-barker/8956965?ean=9780061452888) Clive Barker (dir.), Hellraiser (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/) Tod Browning (dir.), Freaks (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022913/) Clive Barker, “In the Hills, The Cities” in Books of Blood (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780425165584) Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087800/) Angela Carter, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Carter) English writer Susan Sontag, “Happenings: An Art of Radical Juxtaposition” (https://www.robertspahr.com/teaching/hnm/susan_sontag_an_art_of_radical_juxtaposition.pdf) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231079891) Sturm und Drang, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang) 18th-century artistic movement Gayle Rubin, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gayle_Rubin) American cultural anthropologist Stephen King, It (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781501142970) Robert Wise (dir.), The Sound of Music (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/) Slavoj Zizek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0828154/) Robert Wise (dir.), The Haunting (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/) David Mamet, On Directing Film (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780140127225) Mark Hedsel and David Ovason, [The Zealotor](https://www.google.com/books/edition/TheZelator/1UEAAAAACAAJ?hl=en)_ David Lynch (dir.), Mulholland Drive (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/) Stanley Kubrick, The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) Coil, Hellraiser Themes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZS7eM_-jEA) Bela Bartok, [Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MusicforStrings,PercussionandCelesta)_ Golden Section, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) mathematical ratio Kevin Williamson, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Williamson_(screenwriter)), American screenwriter Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312280864) Special Guest: Conner Habib.

In the 1950s, Carl Jung expressed frustration at the impenetrability of the UFO mystery, the "strange, unknown, and indeed contradictory nature" of this "ostensibly physical phenomenon" with "an extremely important psychic component." Throughout his writings on the topic, he marvels at the impossibility of coming to even preliminary conclusions. Fastforward to 2023, after a series of astounding disclosures on the part of qualified government people, and we have as much reason to be baffled as we ever had. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the mercurial, tricksterish fact of ortherwordly things seen in the sky. Learn more about the Ohio UFO Heritage Conference (https://ufoheritage.com) on May 5-6, 2023. Preorder Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Patrik Harpur, [Daimonic Reality](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/920181.DaimonicReality)_ John Keel The Mothman Prophecies (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780765334985) Jaques Vallee Passport to Magonia (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780987422484) William Shakespeare, Macbeth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780743477109) UFO Rabbit Hole Podcast (https://uforabbithole.com/) Carl Jung, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780415278379) Weird Studies, Episode 141 on SSOTBME (https://www.weirdstudies.com/141) Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781420937800) Weird Studies, Episodes 73 and 74 on Jung (https://www.weirdstudies.com/74) Weird Studies, Episode 44 on William James’s Psychical Research (https://www.weirdstudies.com/44) Jacques Vallée and Paola Leopizzi, Harris, Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781667113647) Jacques Vallée, "Physical Analyses in Ten Cases of Unexplained Aerial Objects with Material Samples" (https://www.academia.edu/8412505/Physical_Analyses_in_Ten_Cases_of_Unexplained_Aerial_Objects_with_Material_Samples) Shepard tone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNzgsAE4F0) Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781803414300) Twin Peaks Mark Pilkington, [Mirage Men](https://www.google.com/books/edition/TheZelator/1UEAAAAACAAJ?hl=en)_ Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781780992525) Weird Studies, Episode 59 on Walking (https://www.weirdstudies.com/59) Weird Studies, Episode 142 on “Last and First Men” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/142)

Jóhann Jóhannsson was one of contemporary cinema's greatest score composers when he passed away in 2018 at the young age of 48. Last and First Men, his enigmatic directorial debut, was released shortly after in 2020. Based on a novel by the same name by the British science fiction writer Olaf Stapleton, the film offers a sustained meditation on the prospect of extinction, the eventuality of humanity's disappearance from the comos. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the images and sounds of the film as they flicker and swell against the backdrop of nonbeing that envelops us all. The conversation touches on the idea of beauty, Brutalist architecture, modernism, and futurity. Preorder Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Jóhann Jóhannsson, Last and First Men (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8015444/) Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfrozen_Caveman_Lawyer), SNL character Spomeniks (https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/what-are-spomeniks), Yugoslavian monuments Olaf Stapleton, The Last and First Men (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781604443578) Woody Allen, Hannah and Her Sisters (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091167/) The Last of Us (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3581920/), television show Ray Brassier, [Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction](https://books.google.com/books/about/NihilUnbound.html?id=zN7WAAAAMAAJ&source=kpbookdescription)_ Weird Studies, Episode 2 on Garmonbozia (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize Speech (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1970/solzhenitsyn/lecture/) Weird Studies Episode 139 on Art Power (https://www.weirdstudies.com/139) Numenius (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/numenius/), Platonist philosopher Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231079891) Jia Tolentino, “The Overwhelming Emotion of Hearing Toto’s “Africa” (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-overwhelming-emotion-of-hearing-totos-africa-remixed-to-sound-like-its-playing-in-an-empty-mall) Weird Studies, Episode 110 on “The Glass Bead Game” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/110) D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780141192482)

Ramsey Dukes, also known by his real name of Lionel Snell, may be one of the most important thinkers on magic since Aleister Crowley. In the impishly-titled Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians Exposed (or SSOTBME for short), Dukes accomplishes something few writers on the topic have been able to do: he gives us magic without asking us to sacrifice anything that makes us sensible modern people. He makes magic seem like the most obvious thing in the world, and he does it without taking away any of its, well, magic. How he does it and what it means are questions that would take several episodes to unpack. In this one, Phil and JF begin the work by discussing how Dukes situates magic in an epistemic compass that also includes science, art, and religion. This set of tools is as essential to a holistic view of reality as the four suits in a deck of cards are essential to a proper poker game. In other words, when we lose magic, we lose a way of dealing with reality. Sign up for JF's upcoming course on Macbeth (https://www.nuralearning.com/weird-macbeth) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES David Lynch (dir.), Mulholland Drive (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/) Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME (https://bookshop.org/p/books/ssotbme-revised-an-essay-on-magic-ramsey-dukes/8438809) Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0828154/) C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781107606142) Weird Studies, Episode 139 on Art Power (https://www.weirdstudies.com/139) Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781442612693) “Virtual” and “Actual” (https://epochemagazine.org/36/on-virtuality-deleuze-bergson-simondon/#:~:text=To%20Deleuze%2C%20the%20virtual%20and,virtual%20which%20coexists%20alongside%20it.), as developed by Bergson and Deleuze Pragmatism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism), philosophical school Jack Parsons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons), American rocket scientist Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/97806The Myth of the Eternal Return91182971) William Shakespeare, Macbeth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780743477109)

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away is one of those rare films that is both super popular and super weird. Rife with cinematic non sequiturs, unforgettable imagery, and moments of horror, it is an outstanding example of a story form that goes all the way back to the myth of Psyche and Eros from Apuleius's Golden Ass, if not earlier. In this type of story, a girl on the cusp of maturity steps into a magical realm where people and things from waking life reappear, draped in the gossamer of dream and nightmare. Musicologist and WS assistant Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss a strange jewel of Japanese animated cinema. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and get early access to Phil Ford's new podcast series on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Sign up for JF's upcoming online course (https://www.nuralearning.com/weird-macbeth) on Shakespeare's Macbeth on Nura Learning. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/) Kyle Gann, Robert Ashley (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780252078873) Robert Ashely, [Perfect Lives](https://ubu.com/film/ashleyperfect.html)_ Apuleius, “Psyche and Eros” from The Golden Ass (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780199540556) Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780486417677) Kentucky Route Zero (http://kentuckyroutezero.com/), video game Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (https://www.zelda.com/breath-of-the-wild/), video game Jean Sibelius, 5th Symphony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjvvBbZhn4&ab_channel=hr-Sinfonieorchester%E2%80%93FrankfurtRadioSymphony) Quentin Tarantino (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000233/), film maker Mark Rothko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko), American painter Giles Deleuze, “What is the Creative Act?” (https://www.kit.ntnu.no/sites/www.kit.ntnu.no/files/what_is_the_creative_act.pdf) GK Chesterton, Orthdoxy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781952410482) Herman Hesse, Siddhartha (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780553208849) Andrew Osmond, BFI Guide to Spirited Away (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781838719524) Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

"YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE!" Tired of failure and self-loathing? Want to be rich and famous while having a good time all the time? Wondering how to turn your banal opinions into Transcendent Truths? Look no further than this special, exclusive episode of Weird Studies, where we reveal, once and for all, the secrets of ART-POWER! Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Ramsey Dukes, BLAST Your Way to Megabuck$ with My SECRET Sex-Power Formula (https://www.amazon.com/Blast-Megabucks-Secret-Sex-Power-Formula/dp/0904311139) James Raggi's statements on artistic freedom in tabletop roleplaying games: Proud to Commit Commercial Suicide 2023 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4SDHS9el0U) and On Potential Inclusivity/Morality Clauses in RPG Licenses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDXR5MQQA-g) David Cronenberg, "I Would Like to Make a Case for the Crime of Art" (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-crime-of-art/) Oscar Wilde, Preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey (https://www.owleyes.org/text/picture-dorian-gray/read/the-preface#root-218900-17) Alfred Gell, [The Art of Anthropology](https://www.google.com/books/edition/TheArtofAnthropology/-V34DwAAQBAJ?hl=en)_ Susanne Langer, “On the Cultural Importance of the Arts” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3331349) Weird Studies, Episodes 73 and 74 on Carl Jung’s Theory of Art (https://www.weirdstudies.com/74) Kodo Sawaki, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dd%C5%8D_Sawaki) Japanese zen teacher Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226861142) Gilles Deleuze, Pure Immanence (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781890951252) Werner Herzog, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1664894/) John Dewey, Art as Experience (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780399531972) Susanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780674665033) Neil Gaiman, “Make Good Art” (https://www.uarts.edu/makegoodart) Leon Wieseltier, “Perhaps Culture is Now the Counterculture” (https://newrepublic.com/article/113299/leon-wieseltier-commencement-speech-brandeis-university-2013) Eugene Vodolazkin, Laurus (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781780748719)

What better way to ring in the New Year than with a freeranging discussion of the dreaded thirteenth arcanum of the tarot? Of all topics, surely death needs the least introduction. Or does it? To those of us who inhabit the castellated compounds of post-industrial privilege, it is perhaps too easy to forget the uninvited guest who skulks in the shadows, touching each of us in turn as he sidles past. "Nothing is certain except death and taxes," Benjamin Franklin once wrote. He was joking, of course. The truth is that death is the only certainty. Click here (https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/event/towards-a-philosophy-of-magic-by-j-f-martel/) for information about JF's upcoming talk at the Last Tuesday Society. Header image: Detail from Harry Clarke's illustration for "The Masque of the Red Death," from the 1919 edition of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination. SHOW NOTES Brian George, Masks of Origin (https://untimelybooks.com/book/masks-of-origin/) Chris Leech, The Gnostic Tarot (https://www.welkintarot.com) Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Rachel Pollack, Tarot Wisdom (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780738713090) Rachel Pollack, 78 Degrees of Wisdom (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781578636655) Edgar Allen Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death” (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781537015934) Weird Studies, Episode 2 on Garmonbozia (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) Steven Spielberg (dir.), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/) Weird Studies, Episode 137 on Sunn O)))’s “Life Metal” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/137) Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780877282686) Thomas Browne, “Urn Burial” (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781420948509) Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781350044029) Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781594772634) Sallie Nichols, Tarot and the Archetypal Journey (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781578636594) Clive Barker, Hellraiser (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/) Weird Studies, Episode 116 on “Blade Runner” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/116) George Gurdjieff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff), Armenian mystic Body without organs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_without_organs), philosophical concept Elizabeth Le Guin, Boccherini’s Body (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520240179/boccherinis-body) G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781952410482) Weird Studies, Episode 126 with Matt Cardin (https://www.weirdstudies.com/126)

We recorded this episode in early December for our Patreon subscribers, but as it's the closest thing to a Christmas special we're ever likely to make, we thought we'd slip it into everyone's stocking this year. In it, we discuss the Ford family's most recently acquired Christmas ornament (which Phil mistakenly calls a luminaria), gazing into the Christmas tree, the loneliness of little worlds, the mystery of incarnation, Colin Wilson's "Faculty X," and the utter weirdness of British Christmas specials. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Erik Davis, A Brief History of the Phantasm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=0afzGJon4RA) Colin Wilson, The Occult (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-occult-the-ultimate-guide-for-those-who-would-walk-with-the-gods-colin-wilson/9920687) The Dog House UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_House_(TV_series)), TV series The Christmas Lantern (https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/e/e38b53e4-e148-4e2d-b301-0b3bb15779ff/ZFrqJ9bF.jpg)

What Evil Dead 2 is to the Baroque, Sunn O))) is to Brutalism. Or more like: if the likening of Evil Dead 2 to the Baroque felt like a stretch in episode 136, the brutalist bona fides of Sunn O)))'s drone metal are incontestable. In this episode, their 2019 masterpiece Life Metal frames a conversation touching on 20th-century avant garde music, the tactility of sound, the metaphysics of the Kickass Riff, Aztec aesthetics, the virtues of impermanence, and of course, the sublime beauty of brutalist buildings. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Sunn O))), [Life Metal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeMetal)_ Theatre of Eternal Music (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_Eternal_Music), musical group Daniel Albright, Panaesthetics (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300186628/panaesthetics/) Brian Eno, [Imaginary Landscapes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImaginaryLandscapes)_ John Wray, “Heady Metal” (https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/magazine/28artmetal.html) Nyarlathotep (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyarlathotep), Lovecraft character Byung-Hul Chan, The Philosophy of Zen Buddhism (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781509545100) Fred Wilcox (dir.), Forbidden Planet (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049223/) H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781515424451) Godfrey Reggio (dir.), Koyaanisquatsi (imdb.com/title/tt0085809/)

"We are the things that were and shall be again." So a demonic flesh puppet tells Ash and his allies in a memorable scene from the classic splatstick flick Evil Dead II. In addition to being a rollicking piece of entertainment, Evil Dead II is an expertly crafted film whose director used every tool and technique to generate a cinematic experience that is – as the tagline went – "2 terrifying, 2 frightening ... 2 much!" In this episode, JF and Phil court the absurd by turning a fun 80s horror movie into a statement on the dread aspirations of matter and a shining example of the modern baroque. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Sam Raimi (dir.), The Evil Dead II (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092991/) Weird Studies, Episode 121 on Mandy and the Bandwagon (https://www.weirdstudies.com/121) Joe Bob Briggs (https://joebobbriggs.com/), American movie critic Chalres Ludlam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ludlam), American actor Weird Studies, Episode 88 on Mr Punch (https://www.weirdstudies.com/88) Kenneth Gross, Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life (https://bookshop.org/p/books/puppet-an-essay-on-uncanny-life-kenneth-gross/1854?ean=9780226005508) Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics (https://bookshop.org/p/books/cannibal-metaphysics-eduardo-viveiros-de-castro/9840023?ean=9781517905316) Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-street-of-crocodiles-and-other-stories-bruno-schulz/11699271?ean=9780143105145) Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-secret-life-of-puppets-victoria-nelson/10858474?ean=9780674012448) Joseph Cermatori, Baroque Modernity (https://bookshop.org/p/books/baroque-modernity-an-aesthetics-of-theater-joseph-cermatori/16276768?ean=9781421441535)

Victoria Nelson saw it first: Popular culture teems with occult ideas, vestiges of bygone belief, fragments of ancient magic disguised as common entertainment. Her 2001 work The Secret Life of Puppets is in many ways the ur-text of weird studies, so prescient and probing it is even more relevant now than it was when it first appeared. In episode 128 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/128), Phil and JF discussed Nelson's wonderful first novel Neighbor George (2021). In this episode, Nelson joins the hosts of Weird Studies to talk about the vision that drove her to write Secret Life along with its equally insightful follow-up, Gothicka. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets, Gothicka, Neighbor George M. R. James, [Collected Ghost Stories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheCollectedGhostStoriesofM.R.James)_ Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801491467/the-fantastic/#bookTabs=1) Sigmund Freud, [Civilization and its Discontents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CivilizationandItsDiscontents)_ Carol Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (https://www.amazon.com/Men-Women-Chainsaws-Gender-Modern/dp/0851704190) Bruno Schulz, [The Street of Crocodiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheStreetofCrocodiles)_ Stephenie Meyer, Twilight (https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-twilight-saga/) series William P. Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity (https://www.amazon.com/Shack-Where-Tragedy-Confronts-Eternity/dp/0964729237) _ Against Everyone with Conner Habib (https://connerhabib.com/against-everyone/), episodes 202 (https://www.patreon.com/posts/74118938?pr=true) & 203 (https://www.patreon.com/posts/74427827?pr=true) James R. Lewis, _The Gods Have Landed (https://sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Gods-Have-Landed2) Anne Rice, [Interview with the Vampire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterviewwiththeVampire)_ Honoré de Balzac, "Séraphîta" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Séraphîta) L. Ron Hubbard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Ron_Hubbard), founder of Scientology Special Guest: Victoria Nelson.

In Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality, the philosopher Federico Campagna argues that we moderns have exhausted the reality system we devised at the dawn of our age, a system he calls Technic. Technic has one goal: to reduce all things to language by naming, tagging, measuring, and quantifying them, by turning every parcel of the physical and psychic universe into a "unit" defined by its position in the system. The result has been an erasure of the mere "suchness" of things, the singularity of things simply existing as they are. To replace a worldview that is now revealing its endemic nihilism, Campagna proposes Magic, a way of seeing that reestablishes a balance between the measurable and the ineffable. JF and Phil discuss Campagna's magisterial performance in this episode. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic (https://bookshop.org/p/books/technic-and-magic-the-reconstruction-of-reality-federico-campagna/11119682?ean=9781350044029) Bill Hicks, “Bit on Marketing” Fredric Jameson, The Seeds of Time (https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-seeds-of-time-revised-fredric-jameson/12858510?ean=9780231080590) Plotinus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus), Neoplatonist philosopher Francis Bacon (https://www.francis-bacon.com/art), Irish artist Samuel Beckett (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett), Irish author William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (https://bookshop.org/p/books/naked-lunch-the-restored-text-william-s-burroughs-jr/12459684?ean=9780802122070) Weird Stuides, Episode 87 on Arthur Machen (https://www.weirdstudies.com/87) Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (https://bookshop.org/p/books/anatomy-of-criticism-four-essays-northrop-frye/10424454?ean=9780691202563)

With the term "weird studies" gaining currency inside and outside academia, Phil and JF thought it was time to discuss the philosophical method they've been developing on the podcast since 2018. Borrowing a term from Erik Davis, they call it weirding, and here set about trying to understand what it is, and what it means. David Lynch's fondness for crying, the practice of queering in cultural theory, the all-too-real phenomenon of "global weirding,"the spooky agency of artworks, and the tragic death of E.T. at the hands of Damien Hirst are just a few of the subjects touched on in the conversation. "Weirding" also happens to be the working title of the book your hosts are writing for Strange Attractor Press, as well as an eight-week series of lectures and discussions starting October 25th, 2022, on the Nura Learning platform. Header image: David Lynch, Mulholland Drive Link to the upcoming course: Weirding: An 8-Week Course With the Hosts of the Weird Studies Podcast (https://www.nuralearning.com) SHOW NOTES Ludwig van Beethoven, 9th Symphony James Elkins, Pictures and Tears (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780415970532) Eugenie Brinkema, The Form of the Affects (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780822356561) David Lynch (dir.), Mulholland Drive (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/) Gilkes Deleuze and Felix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231079891) Weird Studies, Episode 121 on “Mandy” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/121) Erik Davis and Timothy Morton, “Uncanny Objects” (https://techgnosis.com/uncanny-objects/) episode of Expanding Minds Coen brothers (dir.), Hail Caesar (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475290/) Esther Williams (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Williams), American swimmer Weird Studies, Episode 120 on Radical Mystery (https://www.weirdstudies.com/120) Douglas Rushkoff, Survival of the Richest (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780393881066) William Shakespeare, Macbeth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780743477109) Erik Davis, “Weird Shit” (https://boingboing.net/2014/07/14/weird-shit.html) Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (dir.), Up (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/) Steven Spielberg (dir.), E.T. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083866/) Alejandro Jodorowsky, Psychomagic (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781620551073) Martin Buber, I and Thou (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780684717258) Gilbert Simondon, Imagination and Invention (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781517914455) Weird Studies, Episode 106 the Wanderer (https://www.weirdstudies.com/106) Charles Ludlam, “On Camp” in Ridiculous Theater (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781559360418) Weird Studies, Episodes 14 and 15 on “Stalker (https://www.weirdstudies.com/14) Weird Studies, Episode 35 on M. C. Richards’ “Centering” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/35)

With his 2010 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog peeled away the veneer of familiarity on the Chauvet cave paintings, restoring them to their original eldritch sparkle. In this conversation, Phil and JF discuss a cinematic jewel that was wrought under tremendous pressure – and is all the more dazzling for it. The episode was recorded live at the Supernormal Festival in Oxfordshire, England, where your hosts were also subjected to unexpected pressure as the band Plastics started their set at the same time as the talk! Though we feel the musical accompaniment adds depth to the dialogue, listeners who find it distracting can skip to the end of the Plastics' set around 41:30. All listeners are urged to visit the band's Bandcamp page (https://plasticsrockers.bandcamp.com/releases) to sample some choice hardcore. Weird Studies thanks Strange Attractor Press (http://strangeattractor.co.uk), the Supernormal Festival (https://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk), and Plastics (https://plasticsrockers.bandcamp.com/releases). JF Martel gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts (https://canadacouncil.ca/) in making this live recording possible. Header image via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhinocéros_grotte_Chauvet.jpg). Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Werner Herzog, “The Minnesota Declaration” (https://designmanifestos.org/werner-herzog-the-minnesota-declaration/) Tom Waits, “Step Right Up” Herman Melville, Moby Dick (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198853695) Weird Studies, Episode 76 on “Hellier” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/67) Stanley Kubrick (dir.), 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/) Paul Bahn, Images of the Ice Age (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780199686001) Weird Studies, Episode 101 on “In Praise of Shadows (https://www.weirdstudies.com/101) Weird Studies, Episode 129 on “The Fall of the House of Usher” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/129) Matthew Barney, The Cremaster Films (https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/matthew-barney-the-cremaster-cycle) Stanley Kubrick, The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/)

In this bonus episode, originally released for Listener's Tier Patreon supporters, a discussion of the books Phil and JF are reading leads to a debate about the place of plot, story, and worldbuilding in narrative art. The episode contains information on "Weirding," a new course that the hosts of Weird Studies will be teaching together at Nura Learning, starting in late October. Visit nuralearning.com for more information.

The historian of religion Jeffrey J. Kripal writes, "The world is one, and the human is two." The line captures the riddle of reality. What is it with our species? Equipped with an intellect able to grok the basic laws that govern the physical universe, we seem unable to wrap our heads around as simple a question as "What is real?". Recorded live before a learned audience at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) in August of 2022, this episode approaches the enigma by teasing the Weird out of the very idea of intellection. If the architects of DISI are right to say that mind, far from being confined to human skulls, enjoys wide distribution across nature, what might such ideas as magic, synchronicity, and prophecy tell us about intelligence and meaning? DISI is a three-week interdisciplinary event held each year at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The hosts are grateful to Jacob Foster and Erica Cartmill of UCLA for inviting them to speak at the institute. *Header image: *Detail of The Ancient of Days by William Blake. SHOW NOTES Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (https://disi.org)(DISI) Earlier iteration of Jacob Foster's talk, "Toward a Social Science of the Possible (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X28KwUzUCtk)" Pauline Oliveros's Tuning Meditation (https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2022/tuning-meditation-pauline-oliveros-ione) Norbert Wiener (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener), American mathematician Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux (https://philpapers.org/rec/RAMCWU-2)" E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande (https://www.nature.com/articles/140338a0) Aristotle, Physics and Metaphysics Jeffrey J. Kripal, "The World is One, and the Human is Two: Tentative Conclusions of a Working Historian of Religion (https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/mm/2022/00000020/00000001/art00008?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf)" Jeffrey Kripal on Weird Studies: episodes ## and ## Aleister Crowley, See The Vision and the Voice (https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/418/418.htm) and Magick in Theory and Practice (https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/aba.htm) The "Unwritten Doctrines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_unwritten_doctrineshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_unwritten_doctrines)" of Plato Plato, Republic (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html), "Seventh Letter (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/seventh_letter.html)" & Phaedrus Phil's prophetic dream report (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies?filters[search_query]=azathoth) (Patreon supporters only) H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (for description of Azathoth) C. G. Jung, Synchroncity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Alchemical Studies & Mysterium Coniunctionis Charles Taylor, A Secular Age New York Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/us/politics/congress-ufo-hearing.html) on 2022 UFO hearings

In August, 2022, JF and Phil flew to the UK to attend the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) at the University of St. Andrews and the Supernormal Festival in Oxfordshire. In addition to recording two live shows (to be released in the coming weeks), they encountered billiant minds, novel ideas, and arresting works of art that opened new avenues for thought. It's these encounters that anchor this conversation, which branches off to touch ideas such as the elusive ideal of intersciplinarity, Hakim Bey's temporary autonomous zone, the legacy of the 20th-century counterculture, the fate of revolutionary movements, non--human intelligences, and the weirdness of human thought. Header Image by RomitaGirl67 via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vintage_Malibu_Barbie_2.jpg#mw-jump-to-license). Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) References Dial M for Musicology, Interdisciplinarity (https://dialmformusicology.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/disciplinarity/) Hakim Bey, The Temporary Autonomous Zone (https://bookshop.org/books/t-a-z-the-temporary-autonomous-zone-ontological-anarchy-poetic-terrorism/9781570271519) Entitled Opinions Podcast (https://entitledopinions.stanford.edu/episodes) William Gibson, Foreword to Samuel Delaney’s Dhalgren (https://bookshop.org/books/dhalgren/9780375706684) DISI Podcast, Many Minds (https://disi.org/manyminds/) John Krakauer (https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/john-krakauer), professor of nuerology and neuroscience Hunter S. Thompson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson), American journalist The Great Ape Dictionary (https://greatapedictionary.ac.uk/), specific database used by Cat Hobaiter (https://zenodo.org/record/5600472#.Yxe3NOzMK_L)

Edgar Allan Poe can be lauded as a major inspiration for many innovative artists, genres, and movements, from horror fiction to the music of Maurice Ravel. He has also been a major inspiration for Weird Studies, particularly his short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." In this episode, JF and Phil try to pinpoint just what it is about this tale that is so compelling, discovering in the process that whatever it is cannot be pinpointed. Instead, the haunting mood of the story emerges from the peculiar arrangement of all its parts, becoming something entirely new. Click here (https://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk) for more information on the Supernormal Festival, Aug 12-14, in Oxfordshire, England. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) References Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (https://poestories.com/read/houseofusher) Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death (https://poemuseum.org/the-masque-of-the-red-death/) Klangfarbenmelodie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klangfarbenmelodie), musical technique Edgar Allan Poe, "The Poetic Principle" (https://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/poetprnb.htm) Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781780992525) Lovecraft without adjectives (https://boingboing.net/2015/08/24/lovecraft-with-adjectives-sim.html) Weird Studies, Development of Circle vs. Spiral: Wheel of fortune (https://www.weirdstudies.com/114), Blade Runner (https://www.weirdstudies.com/116), The Star (https://www.weirdstudies.com/122), Birhane (https://www.weirdstudies.com/122) Matei Calinescu, The Five Faces of Modernity (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780822307679) Weird Studies, Episode 101 on ‘In Praise of Shadows’ (https://www.weirdstudies.com/101) Phanes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanes#:~:text=Phanes%20was%20a%20deity%20of,Phanes'%20daughter%20or%20older%20wife.z), deity James Herbert, The Dark (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780330522076) Joseph Adamson, “Frye and Poe” (https://macblog.mcmaster.ca/fryeblog/2012/12/16/frye-and-poe-2/) Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_L%C3%A9vy-Bruhl), French anthropologist James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9783030080365) Edgar Allan Poe, “Eureka” (https://www.eapoe.org/works/essays/eureka1.htm)

The American writer and thinker Victoria Nelson is justly revered by afficionados of the Weird for The Secret Life of Puppets and its follow-up Gothicka. Both are masterful explorations the supernatural as it subsists in the "sub-Zeitgeist" of the modern secular West. In 2021, Strange Attractor Press released Neighbor George, Nelson's first novel. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss this gothic anti-romance with a mind to seeing how it contributes to Nelson's overall project of acquainting us with the eldritch undercurrents of contemporary life. Click here (https://www.supernormalfestival.co.uk) for more information on the Supernormal Festival, Aug 12-14, in Oxfordshire, England. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) References Victoria Nelson, Neighbor George (http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/neighbor-george/#:~:text=Set%20in%20a%20haunted%20northern,comic%20companion%20tale%2C%20Bolinas%20Venus%2C) Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets (https://bookshop.org/books/the-secret-life-of-puppets/9780674012448) Victoria Nelson, Gothicka (https://victorianelson.net/gothicka-vampire-heroes-human-gods-and-the-new-supernatural/) Wendy Lesser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Lesser), American critic Ward Sutton Onion cartoons (https://www.theonion.com/queasy-on-the-eyes-1849035193) Extension (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extension_(metaphysics)), metaphysical concept Terry Castle, The Female Thermometer (https://bookshop.org/books/the-female-thermometer-eighteenth-century-culture-and-the-invention-of-the-uncanny/9780195080988) Cessation of Miracles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessationism_versus_continuationism), theological belief E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande (https://bookshop.org/books/witchcraft-oracles-and-magic-among-the-azande-9780198740292/9780198740292) Greg Anderson, “Retrieving the Lost Worlds of the Past: A Case for the Ontological Turn” (https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/120/3/787/19855?login=true) Orcus Grotto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Bomarzo), sculpture Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman (https://bookshop.org/books/the-edible-woman/9780385491068) Nathalie Cooke, [Margaret Atwood: A Biography](https://www.google.com/books/edition/MargaretAtwood/zUBaAAAAMAAJ?hl=en)_ Weird Studies, Episode 96 on Beauty and the Beast (https://www.weirdstudies.com/96) M. C. Richards, “Wrestling with the Daemonic” (https://bookshop.org/books/the-crossing-point-poems/9780819560292)

Like Caligula declaring war on Neptune and ordering his troops to charge into the Mediterranean Sea, our technological masters are designing neural networks meant to capture the human soul in all its oceanic complexity. According to the cognitive scientist Abeba Birhane, this is a fool's errand that we undertake at our peril. In her paper "The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity," she makes the case for the irremediable fluidity, spontaneity, and relationality of people and societies. She argues that ongoing efforts to subsume the human (and the rest of reality) in predictive algorithms is actually narrowing the human experience, as so many of us are excluded from the system while others are compelled to artificially conform to its idea of the human. Far from paving the way to a better world, the tyranny of automation threatens to cut us off from the Real, ensuring an endless perpetuation of the past with all its errors and injustices. Phil and JF discuss Birhane's essay in this episode. Header image from via www.vpnsrus.com (cropped). Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Artificial_Intelligence_%26_AI_%26_Machine_Learning_-_30212411048.jpg). Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Abebe Birhane, "The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity” J. F. Martel, “Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things” (http://www.reclaimingart.com/reality-is-analog.html) Melissa Adler, Cruising the Library: Perversities in the Organization of Knowledge (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780823276363) Weird Studies, Episode 75 on 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.weirdstudies.com/75) Weird Studies, Episode 114 on the Wheel of Fortune (https://www.weirdstudies.com/114) William James (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James), American philosopher Midjourney, AI art generator Rhine Research Center (https://www.rhineonline.org/), parapsychology lab George Lewis, “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives” (https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/58902/original%20%20/Lewis+-+Improvised+Music+after+1950-+Afrological+and+Eurological+Perspectives+.pdf) Abebe Birhane, “Descartes was Wrong: A Person is a Person Through Other Persons” (https://aeon.co/ideas/descartes-was-wrong-a-person-is-a-person-through-other-persons) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz) German philosopher J. R. R. Tolkein, “On Fairy-Stories” (https://coolcalvary.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/on-fairy-stories1.pdf) Martin Buber, [I and Thou](https://archive.org/stream/IAndThou572/BuberMartin-i-and-thoudjvu.txt)

Returning guest Matt Cardin is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose focus on numinous horror places him in the literary lineage as Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood. His new book, What the Daemon Said, collects two decades' worth of meditations on literature, cinema, mysticism, philosophy, and the weird. He joins Phil and JF to talk about a range of topics including dark enlightenment, the idea that fear and trembling are the only sensible reactions to direct exposure to cosmic truth. Header image: detail of cover design for What the Daemon Said, by Dan Sauer Design. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Matt Cardin's website (https://mattcardin.com) Matt Cardin, What the Daemon Said: Essays on Horror, Fiction, Film and Philosophy (https://www.hippocampuspress.com/other-authors/nonfiction/what-the-daemon-said-by-matt-cardin?zenid=eb4sec67t2m8frhke9kamt2qd6) Matt Cardin, Dark Awakenings (https://mattcardin.com/fiction/dark-awakenings/) Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way Morning Pages Journal (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780874778861) Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781611803082) The Gospel of Thomas (https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Gospel%20of%20Thomas%20Lambdin.pdf) Matt Cardin, Dark Awakenings (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780972854566) Robert Frost, “The Figure a Poem Makes” John Horgen, Rational Mysticism (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780618446636) Weird Studies, Episode 41 with Matt Cardin (https://www.weirdstudies.com/41) Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for his Highest (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781627078757) Weird Studies ep. 124 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/124): Dark Night Radio of the Soul, with Duncan Barford Theodore Roszak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roszak_(scholar)), American scholar M. C. Richards, Centering (https://www.amazon.com/Centering-M-C-Richards/dp/B000M18R20) Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52263/52263-h/52263-h.htm) Huston Smith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huston_Smithhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huston_Smith), American religious scholar Martin Buber, [I and Thou](https://archive.org/stream/IAndThou572/BuberMartin-i-and-thoudjvu.txt) John Lee Hancock (dir.), The Rookie (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265662/) (2002) Eckart Tolle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckhart_Tolle), German spiritual teacher Richard Wagner, Parsifal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsifal) Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Canopy-Elements-Sociological-Religion-ebook/dp/B004X3789G) Alan Watts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts), English writer and teacher Richard Rose, After the Absolute: The Inner Teachings of Richard Rose (https://www.amazon.com/After-Absolute-Inner-Teachings-Richard-ebook/dp/B07PMN1GFRhttps://www.amazon.com/After-Absolute-Inner-Teachings-Richard-ebook/dp/B07PMN1GFR) Special Guest: Matt Cardin.

On May 23, 2022, Meredith Michael joined JF and Phil for a live recording at Illuminated Brew Works, a craft brewery in Chicago, Illinois.The occasion was the launch of Weird Studies Black IPA, the fruit of a collaboration with IBW brewmaster Brian Buckman and his team of beer alchemists. The game plan was to talk about potions, but the final conversation ranges over a number of topics including singularity and repetition, time and eternity, alchemy and ritual, Okakura Kakuzō's The Book of Tea, cooking and pickling, and the cultural phenomenon Phil calls "weedhead sh*t." Purchase the Weird Studies Black IPA from Beer on the Wall (https://wehavegreatbeer.square.site/product/illuminated-brew-works-weird-studies-4pk-for-shipping-only-/8126?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=true) or visit the Illuminated Brew Works (https://www.ibw-chicago.com) website. Buy volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Okakura Kakuzō, [The Book of Tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheBookofTea)_ Oscar Wilde on absinthe (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/335553-after-the-first-glass-of-absinthe-you-see-things-as) Mircea Eliade, [The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History](https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Eternal-Return-Princeton-Bollingen/dp/0691182973/ref=sr11?crid=2P1E7XDGASW4L&keywords=The+Myth+of+the+Eternal+Return%3A+Cosmos+and+History&qid=1654693787&s=books&sprefix=the+myth+of+the+eternal+return+cosmos+and+history%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C63&sr=1-1) Toni Morrison. Song of Solomon (https://www.amazon.com/Song-Solomon-Toni-Morrison-Books/s?k=Song+of+Solomon+Toni+Morrison&rh=n%3A283155) The Suzuki Method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_method) Robert Fink, Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520245501/repeating-ourselves) David Cronenberg (dir.), Scanners (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081455/) (1981) Lars von Trier (dir.), Dancer in the Dark (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168629/) (2000) Alan Watts, Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen (https://www.amazon.com/Beat-Zen-Square/dp/0872860515) William Shakespeare, Macbeth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth) Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

For several episodes now, Phil and JF have been circling what St. John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul, that moment in the spiritual journey where all falls a way and an abyss seems to crack open beneath our feet. When it came time to go there in earnest, they could think of no better guide than Duncan Barford, host of the excellent Occult Experiments in the Home podcast. As a master magician, long-time meditator, psychotherapeutic counsellor and writer on spirituality and the occult, Barford is uniquely endowed with the tools, experience, and language to discuss even the most difficult spiritual topics with wisdom and warmth. A Virgil for any Inferno. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack: Volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and Volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) SHOW NOTES Occult Experiments in the Home (https://oeith.co.uk), Duncan Barford's excellent solo podcast Duncan's other website (https://www.duncanbarford.uk), focusing on his work as a psychotherapeutic counselor Duncan's books (https://www.amazon.com/Duncan-Barford/e/B004XO87P4?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1653404096&sr=8-1) on Amazon US Weird Studies, Episode 67 on Hellier (https://www.weirdstudies.com/67) Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Judgement (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781420926941) Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn) Dogen’s Bendowa (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9784805316924) Tibetan Book of the Dead (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780143104940) Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781911597100) St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780486468372) Spinoza, Ethics (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781735268996) Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780904311242) Special Guest: Duncan Barford.

Every off-week, JF and Phil record a bonus episode for Patreon supporters. The conversations on that stream are shorter, less formal, and more improvisitory than those of the flagship show. To give the wider public a glimpse of this hidden dimension of the WS universe, we decided to make this week's "audio extra" available to everyone. As it happens, this episode also contains an important announcement concerning next week's event at Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago: tickets must be purchased via Eventbrite using the link below. No tickets can be sold at the door. Click here (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/illuminated-brew-works-weird-studies-beer-launch-and-live-show-tickets-337365287657) to purchase tickets to the Weird Studies beer launch at Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago on May 23. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies)

The Star is one of the most iconic of the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck. It is also one of the most ambiguous. A woman is shown emptying two urns of water onto the parched ground. She is flanked by nascent plant life. Shining above her are those nocturnal luminaries whose "eternal silence" so frightened the philosopher Blaise Pascal at the dawn of modernity. Are the stars pointing the way to a brighter future, or are they stars of ill omen, warning us of what lies ahead? And what does that little bird in the background signify? In this episode, Phil and JF try to get to the bottom of the starry heavens, only to find out that starry heavens have no bottom. Click here (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/illuminated-brew-works-weird-studies-beer-launch-and-live-show-tickets-337365287657) to purchase tickets to the Weird Studies beer launch at Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago on May 23. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Our Known Friend (Valentin Tomberg), Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781594772634) Pink Floyd, “Astronomy Domine” Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780877282686) Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781723783777) Heimarmene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimarmene), Greek goddess of fate Weird Studies, Episode 121 on Mandy (https://www.weirdstudies.com/121) Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780547773742) Samuel Delaney, Dahlgren (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780375706684) J R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780358439196) Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781681371979) Weird Studies, Episode 103 on the Tower (https://www.weirdstudies.com/103) Weird Studies, [Episode 114 on the Wheel of Fortune] Joni Mitchell, “Ladies of the Canyon”

In this episode, each of your hosts bullies the other into watching a movie he would normally not touch with a bargepole. Phil has been (unsuccessfully) trying to get JF to watch Vincente Minnelli's 1953 musical comedy The Band Wagon and JF has been (also unsuccessfully) trying to get Phil to watch Panos Cosmatos's 2018 psychedelic horror film Mandy. For this episode, they decided they would compromise and watch both. What started as a goof ended up a fascinating Glass Bead Game from which emerge occulted correspondences between films that, on the surface, could not be more dissimilar. One film is a dream of song and dance, the other a dream of blood and violence. Either way, though, watch out: as Deleuze says, "beware of the dreams of others, because if you are caught in their dream, you are done for." Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) SHOW NOTES Iluminated Brew Works (https://www.ibw-chicago.com), Chicago JF's new course, Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic (www.nuralearning.com) Vincente Minnelli (dir.), The Bandwagon (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045537/) Panos Cosmatos (dir.), Mandy (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6998518/) Weird Studies, Episode 73 on Carl Jung (https://www.weirdstudies.com/73) Norman Jewison (dir.), Moonstruck (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093565/) David Thompson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780375711848) Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780816614004)) and Cinema 2: The Time Image (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780816616770) Henri Bergson, “The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and the Mechanistic Illusion” (https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Bergson/Bergson_1911a/Bergson_1911_04.html), from Creative Evolution Terry Gilliam (dir.), The Fisher King (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101889/) Claudia Gorbman, [Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music](https://www.google.com/books/edition/UnheardMelodies/pXzR8I1mGUC?hl=en) Raymond Knapp, The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780691141053) Richard Dyer, “Entertainment and Utopia” in Only Entertainment (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780415254960) Gilles Deleuze, “What is the Creative Act” (https://www.kit.ntnu.no/sites/www.kit.ntnu.no/files/what_is_the_creative_act.pdf)

Though it is seldom acknowledged in the weirdosphere, there is a difference between weirdness and mystery. Most of the time, the Weird confronts us with a problem, an impersonal epistemic obstacle which we can always believe would go away if we just closed our eyes and whistled past it with our hands in our pockets. Mystery, however, is always personal. It envelops us; it addresses us as persons. Mystery is as present within us as it is out there. It is there when you open your eyes, and even more so when you shut them tight. Maybe it had us in its grip before we were even born. In this episode, JF and Phil make radical mystery the focus of a discussion ranging over everything from unique kinds of tea and spelunking mishaps to antisonic demon pipes and malevolent radiators. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES For information on JF's new course, Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic, go to Nura Learning (www.nuralearning.com). Phil Ford, “Radical Mystery: A Preliminary Account” (https://www.patreon.com/posts/radical-mystery-64180412) J.F. Martel, “Reality is analog” (http://www.reclaimingart.com/reality-is-analog.html) John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies (https://bookshop.org/books/the-mothman-prophecies-a-true-story/9780765334985) Gabriel Marcel, [Being and Having](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1242857.BeingandHaving) Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780140447477) Eugene Paul Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics” (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/17448036-the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-mathematics-in-the-natural-sciences) Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198779292) Peter Kingsley, Catafalque (https://bookshop.org/books/catafalque-carl-jung-and-the-end-of-humanity/9781999638412) Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780195002102) Steven Spielberg (dir.), Raiders of the Lost Ark (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/) Dogen, “Instructions for the Cook” (http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Instructions_for_the_cook.html) Alan Watts, The Way of Zen (https://bookshop.org/books/the-way-of-zen-zendao/9780375705106) Weird Studies, Episode 56 with Jeremy Johnson (https://www.weirdstudies.com/56)

Over the last several centuries, there has been one thing on which science and religion have generally agreed, and that is the fixity of the laws under which the universe came to be. At the moment of the Big Bang or the dawn of the First Day, the underlying principles that govern reality were already set, and they have never changed. But what if the laws of nature were not as chiseled in stone as Western intellectuals on both sides of the magisterial divide have assumed them to be? What if creation was an ongoing process, such that our universe in its beginning might have behaved very differently from how it does at present? This is the central conceit of Stanislaw Lem's story "The New Cosmogony," the capstone of his metafictional collection A Perfect Vacuum, originally published in 1971. In this episode, Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss the metaphysical implications of the idea that nature is an eternal work-in-progress. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES For more information JF's new course, Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic, visit Nura Learning (https://www.nuralearning.com/groundwork-philosophy-magic). Stanislaw Lem, “A New Cosmogony” in A Perfect Vacuum (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780156716864) Weird Studies, Episode 118 The Unseen and Unnamed (https://www.weirdstudies.com/118) Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780904311082) Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781441173836) M. John Harrison, The Course of the Heart Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780062503732) Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198788607) Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780156027601) Stanislaw Lem, His Master’s Voice (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780262538459) David Pruett, Reason and Wonder (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780692568743) Andrei Tarkovsky (dir.), Solaris (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/) Philip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780345404473) Andrew W.K., “No One to Know” Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael to discuss two strange and unsettling short stories: J.G. Ballard's "The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon" (1964) and Ursula K. Le Guin's "She Unnames Them" (1985). Their plan was to talk about three stories, but they never got to Phil's pick, which will be the focus of episode 119. The reason is that Le Guin and Ballard's stories share surprising resonances that merited close discussion. From opposite perspectives, both tales put words to a region of reality that resists discursive description, a borderland where that which is named reveals its unnamed facet, and that which must remain unseen reveals itself to the inner eye. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES J. G. Ballard, “The Giaconda of the Twilight Noon,” from The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard (https://bookshop.org/books/the-complete-stories-of-j-g-ballard/9780393339291) Ursula K. Le Guin, "She Unnames Them," from The Real and the Uneal (https://bookshop.org/books/the-unreal-and-the-real-the-selected-short-stories-of-ursula-k-le-guin-reprint/9781481475976) Alfred Hitchcock (dir.), The Birds (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056869/) Jung's concept of the collective unconscious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious) Walter Pater, The Renaissance (https://bookshop.org/books/the-renaissance-studies-in-art-and-poetry-9781146765725/9780486440255) Ursula K. Le Guin, “She Unnames Them” in The Real and the Unreal Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (https://bookshop.org/books/creative-evolution-9781497915053/9781420940435) M. C .Richards, Centering (https://bookshop.org/books/centering-in-pottery-poetry-and-the-person-revised/9780819562005) Weird Studies, Episode 35 on Centering (https://www.weirdstudies.com/35) Weird Studies, Episode 81 on The Course of the Heart (https://www.weirdstudies.com/81) Weird Studies, Episode 84 on the Empress (https://www.weirdstudies.com/84) Linguistically deprived children (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deprivation#:~:text=There%20are%20several%20known%20cases,%22wild%20boy%20of%20Aveyron%22.) Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (https://bookshop.org/books/orality-and-literacy-30th-anniversary-edition/9780415538381) Samuel Taylor Coleridge's thoughts on on imagination and fancy can be found in Biographia Literaria (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6081/6081-h/6081-h.htm) Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

The topic of games and play has fascinated JF and Phil since the launch of Weird Studies. Way back in 2018, they recorded back-to-back episodes on tabletop roleplaying games and fighting sports, and more recently, they did a two-parter on Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, a philosophical novel suggesting that all human culture tends toward play. In this episode, your hosts draw on a wealth of texts, memories, and nascent ideas to explore the game concept as such. What is a game? What do games tell us about life? What is the function of play in the formation of reality? Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780252070334) Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781621389996) Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781405159289) Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781554812158) Jobe Bittman, The Book of Antitheses US version (https://us.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=87), EU version (http://www.lotfp.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=412) Weird Studies, Episode 6, Dungeons and Dragons (https://www.weirdstudies.com/6) Weird Studies, Episode 7, Boxing (https://www.weirdstudies.com/7) C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency as Art (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780190052089) Eduardo Vivieros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781517905316) BF Skinner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner), American psychologist Heraclitus, Fragments (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780142437650)

In his 1978 bestseller The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins described humans as "survival machines" whose sole purpose is the replication of genes. All of culture needed to be understood as a side-effect, if not an epiphenomenon, of that defining function. Four years after Dawkins' book was published, Warner Brothers released Blade Runner, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's dystopian novel Do Androis Dream of Electric Sheep?. Ridley Scott's film presents us with a different kind of survival machine: the replicant, a technology whose sole function is the replication of human beings. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the ethical, metaphysical, and aesthetic dimensions of one of the greatest and most prophetic science fiction films of all time. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES Ridley Scott (dir.), Blade Runner (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/) Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780345404473) Philip K. Dick, “The Android and the Human” (https://sporastudios.org/mark/courses/articles/Dick_the_android.pdf) Philip K. Dick, “Man, Android, and Machine” (https://dickiangnosticism.wordpress.com/2018/01/18/660/) Dennis Villeneuve (dir.), Blade Runner 2049 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/) Weird Studies, Episode 114 on the Wheel of Fortune (https://www.weirdstudies.com/114) Scott Bukatman, Blade Runner: BFI Film Classics (https://shop.bfi.org.uk/blade-runner-bfi-film-classics.html) Alan Nourse, [The Bladerunner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheBladerunner)_ Weird Studies, Episode 115 on Brian Eno (https://www.weirdstudies.com/115) Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198788607) Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780553372120) Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780822310907) Weird Studies, Episode 5 on “When Nothing is Cool” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/5) JF Martel, “Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things” (http://www.reclaimingart.com/reality-is-analog.html) John Carpenter (dir,), The Thing (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/) Beyond Yacht Rock podcast (https://starburns.audio/podcasts/beyond-yacht-rock/) Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny” (https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf) Weird Studies, Episode 86 on “The Sandman” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/86) Orson Welles (dir.), Touch of Evil (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052311/) George Orwell, 1984 (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780451524935)

Soft, soothing, and understated as a rule, ambient music may seem the least weird of all musical genres. Not so, say JF and Phil, who devote this episode to Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports, the 1978 album in whose liner notes the term "ambient music" first appeared. In this conversation, your hosts explore the aesthetic, metaphysical, and political implications of a kind of music designed to interact with the listener -- and the listener's environment -- below the threshold of ordinary, directed awareness. Eno and Peter Schmidt's famous Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards designed to heighten and deepen creativity, lends divinatory support to the endeavor. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES Brian Eno, Ambient 1: Music for Airports Gabriella Cardazzo, Duncan Ward, and Brian Eno, Imaginary Landscapes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUvf6giAAk) [Oblique Strategies Deck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ObliqueStrategies)_ Theodore Adorno, [Introduction to the Sociology of Music](https://books.google.com/books/about/IntroductiontotheSociologyofMusic.html?id=300YAQAAIAAJ)_ Marc Auge, Non-Places (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781844673117) Anahid Kassabian, “Ubiquitous Music” (http://asounder.org/resources/kassabian_ubiquitous.pdf) Sigmund Freud, “On Transience” (https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Transience.pdf) Weird Studies, Episode 104 on Sgt. Pepper (https://www.weirdstudies.com/104) Joris Karl Huysmans, A Rebours (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781613824641) Roger Moseley, Keys to Play (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780520291249)

Season five kicks off with a new installment in the ongoing series on the Tarot's twenty-two major arcana. This time, your hosts overcome the trials that fortune has dealt them -- a hangover in the case of Phil, a sleepless night for JF -- to discuss the Wheel of Fortune. Not surprisingly, the conversation is a mess, albeit a beautiful one that comes full circle in the end, tying up all its loose ends in something like a bow (or a coiled serpent). Topics include the challenges of improvised philosophical discussion, the importance of exposing oneself to difficult ideas, the serpentine nature of immanentist discourse, and the doctrine of the Fall. As usual, the anomymously-authored Meditations on the Tarot gets pride of place, although occult luminaries such as Alejandro Jodorowsky, Aleister Crowley, and Pat Sajak make notable appearances. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Pints with Aquinas (https://pintswithaquinas.com) Jaroslav Hašek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Ha%C5%A1ek), Czech author Lon Milo Duquette, Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781578636235) True Detective (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/), tv show Thomas Ligotti, Conspiracy Against the Human Race (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780143133148) Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780343303433) Alexander Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781594772634) Jessica Hundley et. al., Tarot. Library of Esoterica (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9783836579872) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin), French priest and scientist Herman Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312278496) Bruno Latour (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour), French philosopher David Bentley Hart interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQBfoneh97E)

Shannon Taggart's book Seance is a landmark in art photography and the history of psychical research. Taggart spent years photographing practitioners of spiritualism in the U.S. and Europe in an effort to capture the mysteries of mediumship, ectoplasm, and spirit photography. In this episode, she joins JF and Phil for a conversation on the often-misunderstood tradition of spiritualism, the investigation of the paranormal, and the real magic of photography. If the technological medium is the message, then perhaps the spiritual medium is the messenger. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) **REFERENCES *Shannon Taggart, Séance * Read the introduction to the book here (https://www.academia.edu/45352485/Introduction_to_S%C3%89ANCE) Visual companion page for this episode (https://www.shannontaggart.com/weird-studies) Shannon and her work are featured in Peter Bebergal's excellent book, Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural (https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Frequencies-Extraordinary-Technological-Supernatural/dp/0143111825) Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell (https://www.weirdstudies.com/24) Lionel Snell, “The Charlatan and the Magus” (http://the-philosophers-stone.com/articles/charlatn/magus.htm) George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781401000820) Diane Arbus (http://www.artnet.com/artists/diane-arbus/), American photographer Warner Herzog (dir.), Cave of Forgotten Dreams (https://imdb.com/title/tt1664894/) Jeffrey Mishlove, Interview with James Tunney on Francis Bacon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2tlUmbT9I) Eva C, (https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/marthe-b%C3%A9raud-eva-c#Experiments_by_Albert_von_Schrenck-Notzing) French medium Andrew Jackson Davis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson_Davis), American spiritualist Henry Alcott (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Steel_Olcott), American Theosophist For further reading on women, spiritualism, and the art of the invisible: Ann Braude, Radical Spirits (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780253215024) Guggenheim, Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future (https://www.guggenheim.org/publication/hilma-af-klint-paintings-for-the-future) Special Guest: Shannon Taggart.

The Book of Probes contains a assortment of aphorisms and maxims from the work of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, each one set to evocative imagery by American graphic designer David Carson. McLuhan called the utterances collected in this book "probes," that is, pieces of conceptual gadgetry designed not to disclose facts about the world so much as blaze new pathways leading to the invisible background of our time. In this episode, Phil and JF use an online number generator to discuss a random yet uncannily cohesive selection of of McLuhanian probes. REFERENCES Marshall Mcluhan and David Carson, The Book of Probes (https://bookshop.org/books/the-book-of-probes/9781584232520) Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (https://bookshop.org/books/to-the-lighthouse-9780156907392/9780156907392) Marshall Mcluhan, The Mechanical Bride (https://bookshop.org/books/the-mechanical-bride-folklore-of-industrial-man/9781584232438) Aristotle, System of causation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes) G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (https://bookshop.org/books/orthodoxy-chesterton/9781511903608) Eric A. Havelock, Preface to Plato (https://bookshop.org/books/preface-to-plato/9780674699069) Weird Studies, Episode 71 on Marshall Mcluhan (https://www.weirdstudies.com/71) Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy (https://bookshop.org/books/orality-and-literacy-30th-anniversary-edition/9780415538381) Christiaan Wouter Custers, A Philosophy of Madness (https://bookshop.org/books/a-philosophy-of-madness-the-experience-of-psychotic-thinking/9780262044288) Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense (https://bookshop.org/books/the-logic-of-sense-revised/9780231059831) Marshall Mcluhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (https://bookshop.org/books/the-gutenberg-galaxy/9781442612693) Harry Partch (https://www.harrypartch.com), American composer Marc Augé, Non-Places (https://bookshop.org/books/non-places-an-introduction-to-supermodernity/9781844673117) Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/sapir-whorf-hypothesis) Denis Villeneuve (dir.), Arrival (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt254316/) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (https://bookshop.org/books/a-thousand-plateaus-capitalism-and-schizophrenia/9780816614028) Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit (https://bookshop.org/books/on-bullshit/9780691122946)

A wish-fulfilment fantasy for pubescent boys of all ages, or a subtle disquisition on the ethics of a sorcerous world? John Milius' Conan the Barbarian (1982) manages to be both, although one may be easy to overlook. In this episode, JF and Phil leave the heights of Hesse's The Glass Bead Game with a headlong dive to the trash stratum. Their wager: that Conan the Barbarian, a film without a hint of irony, is a spiritual statement that is equal parts empowering and disquieting, and a prime of example of how fantasy is sometimes the straightest way to the heart of reality. REFERENCES John Milus (dir.), Conan the Barbarian (1982) Richard Fleischer (dir.), Conan the Destroyer (1984) Robert E. Howard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard), American writer, author of the Conan stories Jack Smith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Smith_(film_director)), "On the Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez" Weird Studies #3: Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3) H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx) Fritz Leiber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Leiber), American writer Weird Studies #95: Demon Seed: On Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child (https://www.weirdstudies.com/95) Dungeons & Dragons Weird Studies #20: The Trash Stratum (part 1 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/20), part 2 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/21)) Masaki Kobayashi (dir.), Kwaidan (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058279/) Jerry Zucker (dir.), Ghost (1990) Roget's Thesarus of English Words and Phrases (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099653/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) Maria Montez (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montez), Dominican-American actress

In the current "attention economy," which has resulted in plummeting literacy rates and the almost wanton neglect of various cultural practices, what significance does culture even have? Why seek to preserve something our age has decided doesn't have to exist? Perhaps Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game can be read as an answer to those questions. The order of monastic scholars in the novel exists mainly to remember what others were happy to consign to oblivion. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Hesse's ideas on the order and its sacred game in terms of how they might help us meet the challenge facing anyone who believes the value of culture can't be expressed in dollars and cents. REFERENCES Herman Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312278496) Pope Benedict XVI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XVI), former head of the Catholic church J.S. Bach, Well Tempered Clavier, Rosalyn Tureck (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XoAJ98PbDM) interpretation and Glenn Gould (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOHnzWo8FXY) interpretation Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781453722480) Chauvet Cave (https://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/en) Peter Bebergal Strange Frequencies (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780143111825) Andy Goldsworthy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy), British artist Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780307476821) William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312160623)

JF and Phil have been talking about doing a show on The Glass Bead Game since Weird Studies' earliest beginnings. It is a science-fiction novel that alights on some of the key ideas that run through the podcast: the dichotomy of work and play, the limits and affordances of institutional life, the obscure boundary where certainty gives way to mystery... Throughout his literary career, Hesse wrote about people trying to square their inner and outer selves, their life in the spirit and their life in the world. The Glass Bead Game brings this central concern to a properly ambiguous and heartbreaking conclusion. But the novel is more than a brilliant work of philosophical or psychological literature. It is also an act of prophecy -- one that seems intended for us now. Header image by Liz West, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Green_marbles_2.jpg). REFERENCES Herman Hesse, The Glass Bead Game (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312278496) Paul Hindemith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Hindemith), German composer Morris Berman, The Twilight of American Culture (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780393321692) Alfred Korzybski, concept of Time Binding Christopher Nolan, Memento (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/) William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312160623) Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679772873) David Tracy, [The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/790661.AnalogicalImagination)_ Jeremy Johnson, Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness (https://bookshop.org/books/seeing-through-the-world-jean-gebser-and-integral-consciousness/9781947544154) Teilhard de Chardin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin), French theologian Mathesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathesis_universalis) Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze (https://bookshop.org/books/the-hermetic-deleuze-philosophy-and-spiritual-ordeal/9780822352297) Weird Studies, Episode 22 with Joshua Ramey (https://www.weirdstudies.com/22) Joseph Needham (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Needham), British historian of Chinese culture James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games (https://bookshop.org/books/finite-and-infinite-games/9781476731711)

Modern skeptics pride themselves on being immune to unreason. They present themselves as defenders of rationality, civilization, and good sense against what Freud famously called the "black mud-tide of occultism." But what if skepticism was more implicated in the phenomena it aims to banish than it might appear to be? What if no one could debunk anything without getting some of that black mud on their hands? In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the weird complicity of the skeptic and the believer in the light of George P. Hansen's masterpiece of meta-parapsychology, The Trickster and the Paranormal. REFERENCES George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal (https://bookshop.org/books/the-trickster-and-the-paranormal/9781401000820) James Randi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi), stage magician and paranormal debunker Michael Shermer, (https://michaelshermer.com/) American science writer CSICOP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Skeptical_Inquiry), Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer Rune Soup, Interview with George P. Hansen (https://runesoup.com/2017/06/talking-the-trickster-and-the-paranormal-with-george-p-hansen/) Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell (https://www.weirdstudies.com/24) Weird Studies, Episode 89 on Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo (https://www.weirdstudies.com/89) Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (https://bookshop.org/books/the-ritual-process-structure-and-anti-structure/9780202011905) Wouter Hanegraaff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wouter_Hanegraaff), Dutch professor of esoteric philosophy Shannon Taggart, Seance (https://www.shannontaggart.com/) Society for Psychical Research (https://www.spr.ac.uk/) Weird Studies, Episode 44 on William James’s Psychical Research (https://www.weirdstudies.com/44) G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (https://bookshop.org/books/orthodoxy-9780802456571/9781952410482) Robert Anton Wilson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson), American author Aleister Crowley, [Magic Without Tears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagickWithoutTears)

Joy Williams' third novel, Breaking and Entering, is the story of lovers who break into strangers' homes and live their lives for a time before moving on. First published in 1988, it is a book impossible to describe, a work of singular vision and sensibilty that is as infectious in its weird effect as it is unforgettable for the quality of its prose. In this episode, the novelist, spiritual thinker, and acclaimed podcaster Conner Habib joins JF and Phil to explore how the novel's enchantments rest on the uniqueness of Williams' style, which is to say, her bold embrace of ways of seeing that are hers alone. Williams is an artist who refuses to work from within some predetermined philosophical or political idiom. As Habib tells your hosts, she goes her own way, and even the gods must follow. Discover Against Everyone with Conner Habib on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/ConnerHabib) Support Weird Studies on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Buy the soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Photo by Wolfgang Moroder via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florida_Pelican_fliing_on_Bradenton_Beach.jpg) REFERENCES Conner Habib, "Joy Williams: The Best Fiction Writer Alive" (https://connerhabib.com/2015/12/31/on-joy-williams-or-the-best-fiction-writer-alive/) Joy Williams, [Breaking and Entering](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/834582.BreakingandEntering) Joy Williams, The Quick and the Dead (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780375727641) The Paris Review, Interview with Joy Williams (https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6303/the-art-of-fiction-no-223-joy-williams) Heraclitus, Fragments (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780142437650) Joy Williams, “Breakfast” in Taking Care (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780394729121) Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679735779) The Phantom Stranger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Stranger), DC Comics character James Joyce, Ulysses (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679722762) Eugene Ionesco, Rhinoceros (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780573614743) Deleuze and Guatarri, What is Philosophy? (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231079891) Quentin Meillassoux (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Meillassoux), French philosopher David Mamet, On Directing Film (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780140127225) David Mamet, True and False (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679772644) Nicholas Winding Refn (dir.), The Neon Demon (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1974419/) Joy Williams, “Congress” (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781400095520) Joy Williams, “Hawk” (https://granta.com/hawk/) Stephen Sexton, If All the World and Love Were Young (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/41081318-if-all-the-world-and-love-were-young) Scott Burnham, Mozart’s Grace (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780691168067) Special Guest: Conner Habib.

In this episode, Weird Studies turns meta, reflecting on the peculiar medium that is podcasting, and how it has shaped the Weird Studies project itself. JF and Phil provide a glimpse into what it feels like to create the show from the inside, where each recording session is like a journey into an unknown Zone. The conversation also occasions sojourns into the flow state, or experience of pure durée, its implications for our conception of free will, and surprising parallels between modern materialists’ adherence to nihilism and ancient religious ascetic practices. Ultimately, JF and Phil explore the archetypal image of the wanderer as representative of Weird Studies’s existence so far, and of the kind of impact and legacy this project can have. N.B. Weird Studies will be on a haitus for the month of September, and will return on September 29. In the meantime: Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) References Robert Sapolsky, Interview with Pau Guinart (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihhVe8dKNSA) Bruno Latour, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour) French philosopher Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198788607) Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780745649221) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780061339202) Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780060937133) Nina Simone, “Feeling Good” Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780440539810) Richard Wagner, Siegfried Lewis Carol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781954839199) John David Ebert, American cultural critic Patrick Harpur Daimonic Reality (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780937663097) Marshall McLuhan, The Global Village (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780195079104) Phil Ford, “What was Blogging?” (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01411896.2019.1601982) Weird Studies, Episode 71 on Marshall McLuhan (https://www.weirdstudies.com/71)

The Twin Peaks mythos has been with Weird Studies from the very beginning, and it is only fitting that it should have a return. In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Tamler Sommers, co-host of the podcast Very Bad Wizards (https://www.verybadwizards.com/) to discuss Fire Walk with Me, the prequel film to the original Twin Peaks series. Paradoxically, David Lynch’s work both necessitates and resists interpretation, and the pull of detailed interpretation is unusually strong in this episode. The three discuss how Fire Walk with Me, and the series as a whole, depicts two separate worlds that sometimes begin to intermingle, disrupting the perceived stability of time and space. Often this happens in moments of extreme fear or love. Through their love for Laura Palmer and for the film under consideration, JF, Phil, and Tamler enact their own interpretation, entering a rift where the world of Twin Peaks and the “real” world seem to merge, demonstrating how Twin Peaks just won’t leave this world alone, and can become a way for disenchanted moderns once again to live inside of myth. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) References David Lynch, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105665/) The Sons of Sam: A Descent into Darkness (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13156316/), Netflix documentary David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780486432502) Antonin Artaud, The Theater and Its Double (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780802150301) Mark Frost, The Secret History of Twin Peaks (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781250075581) Mark Frost, Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier (https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Peaks-Dossier-Mark-Frost/dp/1250163307) Jason Louv, (http://jasonlouv.com/) occultist Duncan Barford, Occult Experiments in the Home (https://oeith.co.uk/) podcast Weird Studies, Episode 67 on “Hellier” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/67) Weird Studies, Episode 78 on “The Mothman Prophesies” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/78) Sound mass (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_mass), musical technique Michael Hanake (dir.), Caché (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/) Courtenay Stallings, Laura’s Ghost (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781949024081) Special Guest: Tamler Sommers.

It is said that for several days after the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the spring of 1967, you could have driven from one U.S. coast to the other without ever going out of range of a local radio broadcast of the album. Sgt. Pepper was, in a sense, the first global musical event -- comparable to other sixties game-changers such as the Kennedy assassination and the moon landing. What's more, this event is as every bit as strange as the latter two; it is only custom and habit that blind us to the profound weirdness of Sgt. Pepper. In this episode, Phil and JF reimagine the Beatles' masterpiece as an egregore, a magical operation that changes future and past alike, and a spiritual machine for "turning us on" to the invisible background against which we strut and fret our hours on the stage. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) REFERENCES Weird Studies, Episode 31 on Glenn Gould’s ‘Prospects of Recording’ (https://www.weirdstudies.com/31) Nelson Goodman, [Languages of Art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LanguagesofArt) Brian Eno, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) Weird Studies, Episode 33 On Duchamp’s Fountain (https://www.weirdstudies.com/33) Emmanuel Carrère, La Moustache (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0428856/) Rob Reiner, This is Spinal Tap (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/) Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058182/) Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2 (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780816616770) James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781476731711) Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, What is Philosophy? (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231079891) Arthur Machen, “A Fragment of Life” (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700361h.html) David Lynch, Lost Highway (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/) Zhuangzi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi) (Butterfly dream) Ian MacDonald, Revolution in the Head (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781556527333)

Continuing their series on the tarot, Phil and JF discuss the card nobody wants to see in a reading – The Tower. Featuring lightning bolts, plumes of ominous smoke, and figures plummeting from the windows, the Tower’s meaning at first glance seems clear: “pride comes before a fall,” as the old adage goes. But as JF and Phil delve into the details, they note not only the card’s connection to the Biblical tower of Babel and the fall of man, but also its relevance to the present era’s systems of control and communication breakdown. This discussion leads them to search for an antidote to the Tower's message of destruction. References Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781594772634) Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226458120) Arnold Schoenberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg), Austrian composer Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/gilles-deleuze-postscript-on-the-societies-of-control) Wilco, “Radio Cure” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm-MpLGfogA) Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780415310277) George Cukor (dir.), A Star is Born (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047522/) Performativity, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performativity) sociological concept Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9785841295051) Jaques Ellul, The Technological Society (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780394703909)

"What was he doing, the great god Pan, down in the reeds by the river?" With this question, the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning opens her famous poem "A Musical Instrument," which explores nature's troubling embrace of savagery and beauty. It seems that Pan always raises questions: What is he doing? What does he want? Where will he appear next? Linked to instinct, compulsion, and the spontaneous event, Pan is without a doubt the least predictable of the Greek Gods. Small wonder that he alone in the Greek pantheon sports human and animal parts. In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Gyrus, author of the marvellous North: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos, to capture a deity who, though he has made more than one appearance on Weird Studies, remains decidedly elusive. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies): Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Gyrus, "Sketches of the Goat God in Albion" (https://dreamflesh.com/essay/goat-god-albion/) Gyrus, North (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781907222276) James Hillman, Pan and the Nightmare (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780882142258) Pharmakon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy)), philosophical term Stanley Diamond, In Search of the Primitive (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780878555826) Philippe Borgeaud, The Cult of Pan in Ancient Greece (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3646890-the-cult-of-pan-in-ancient-greece) Hellier (https://www.hellier.tv/), television docuseries Weird Studies, Episode 98 on exotica (https://www.weirdstudies.com/98) Pink Floyd, [Piper at the Gates of Dawn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePiperattheGatesofDawn) Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781514664599) Clayton Eshelman, [Juniper Fuse](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/947785.JuniperFuse)_ Plutarch “On the Silence of the Oracles” (https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plu/pte/pte05.htm) Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781556432330) D.H. Lawrence, “Pan in America” (http://www.thegreatgodpanisdead.com/2021/02/pan-in-america.html) Jim Brandon, [The Rebirth of Pan](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1372769.TheRebirthofPan)_

In modern physics as in Western theology, darkness and shadows have a purely negative existence. They are merely the absence of light. In mythology and art, however, light and darkness are enjoy a kind of Manichaean equality. Each exists in its own right and lays claim to one half of the Real. In this episode, JF and Phil delve into the luxuriant gloom of the Japanese novelist Jun'ichirō Tanazaki's classic meditation on the half-forgotten virtues of the dark. Get your Weird Studies MERCH! https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies Find us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies REFERENCES Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780918172020) Chiaroscuro (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro), Renaissance art style John Carpenter (dir.), Escape from L.A. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116225/) Weird Studies, Episode 13 on Heraclitus (https://www.weirdstudies.com/13) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in Age of Mechanical Reproduction (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781667156071) Yasujiro Ozu (dir.), Late Spring (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781667156071) Wabi Sabi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi), Japanese idea John Carpenter (dir.), Escape from NY (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082340) Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781781683101) Eric Voegelin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Voegelin), German-American philosopher

Central to the tradition of cosmic horror is the suggestion that the ultimate truth about our universe is at once knowable and unthinkable, such that one learns it only at the cost of one's sanity and soul. John Carpenter is one of a handful of horror directors to have successfully ported this idea from literature to cinema. This episode is an attempt to unearth some of the eldritch symbols buried in a selection of Carpenter's apocalyptic works, including Escape from New York, The Thing, They Live,_ In the Mouth of Madness, and the little known _Cigarette Burns. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies Find us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies REFERENCES John Carpenter films discussed: The Thing (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/) Cigarette Burns (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0643109/) In the Mouth of Madness (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/) Prince of Darkness (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093777/) Halloween (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/) They Live (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/) Escape from New York (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082340/) Escape from L.A. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116225/) Big Trouble in Little China (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/) Other References: Pascal Laugier (dir.), Martyrs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029234/) Srdjan Spasojevic (dir.), A Serbian Film (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1273235/) Weird Studies, Episode 90 on The Owl in Daylight (https://www.weirdstudies.com/90) Roger Corman, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Corman) American director Northrup Frye, Words with Power (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780156983655) J. R. R. Tolkien, forward to The Fellowship of the Ring Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri, “Percept, Affect, and Concept” in What is Philosophy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780231079891) Weird Studies, Episode 72 on the Castrati (https://www.weirdstudies.com/72) Weird Studies, Episode 46, Thomas Ligotti’s Angel (https://www.weirdstudies.com/46) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~cinichol/CreativeWriting/323/MarquezManwithWings.htm) China Mieville, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Mi%C3%A9ville) British author Karlheinz Stockhausen, comments on 9/11 (https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/30/arts/music-the-devil-made-him-do-it.html) H. P. Lovecraft, Nyarlothotep (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9798200625857) H. P. Lovecraft, “The Haunter of the Dark” (https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/hd.aspx) Nick Land, Fanged Noumena (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780955308789) Zack Snyder, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Snyder) American director Haeccaity and Quiddity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haecceity), philosophical concepts Samuel Delaney, Dahlgren (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780375706684) Weird Studies, Episode 98 on Exotica (https://www.weirdstudies.com/98) Quentin Meillasoux, After Finitude (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780826496744) Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies (https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/German/Rilke.php)

In this never-before-released episode recorded in 2019, Phil and JF travel to rural Oregon through the Netflix docu-series, Wild Wild Country. The series, which details the establishment of a spiritual community founded by Bhagwan Rajneesh (later called Osho) and its religious and political conflicts with its Christian neighbors, provides a starting point for a wide-ranging conversation on the nature of spirituality and religion. What emerges are surprising ties between the “spiritual, not religious” attitude and class, cultural commodification, and the culture of control that pervades modern society. But they also uncover the true “wild” card at the heart of existence that spiritual movements like that of Rajneesh can never fully control, no matter how hard they try. REFERENCES Chapman and Maclain Way (dirs), Wild Wild Country (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7768848/) Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780618918249) Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780674212770) Carl Wilson, Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780826427885) Peter Sloterdijk, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sloterdijk) German cultural theorist Weird Studies, Episode 47, Machines of Loving Grace (https://www.weirdstudies.com/47) Slavoj Žižek, On Western appropriation of Eastern religions (https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/zizek.php) William Burroughs, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_S._Burroughs) American writer Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/778828?seq=1) Bhagwan Rajneesh/Osho, Speech on friendship (https://www.oshotimes.com/insights/lifestyle/spirituality/can-you-accept-the-master-as-your-friend/) Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781911597100) Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780060937133) James Carse, The Finite and Infinite Games (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781476731711)

Exotica is a kind of music that was popular in the 1950s, when it was simply known as "mood music." Though somewhat obscure today, the sound of exotica remains immediately recognizable to contemporary ears. Its use of "tribal" beats, ethereal voices, flutes and gongs evoke a world that is no more at home in the modern West than it is anywhere else on earth. With its shameless stereotyping of non-Western cultures and its aestheticization of the other, exotica rightly deserves the criticism it has drawn over the years. But as we shall see in this episode, if you stop there, you just might miss the thing that makes exotica so difficult to expunge from Western culture, and also what makes it a prime example of how the "trash stratum" sometimes becomes the site of strange visions that transcend culture altogether. REFERENCES Phil Ford, “Taboo: Time and Belief in Exotica” (https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/article/103/1/107/81624/Taboo-Time-and-Belief-in-Exotica) Future Fossils, Episode 157 (https://shows.acast.com/futurefossils/episodes/157) Weird Studies, Episode 21: The Trash Stratum (https://www.weirdstudies.com/21) Weird Studies, Episode 79: Love, Death and the Dream Life (https://www.weirdstudies.com/79) Jack Smith, “The Perfect Filmic Appositeness Maria Montez” Yma Sumac, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yma_Sumac) Peruvian singer Les Baxter, "The Oasis of Dakhla" Steely Dan, "I Heard the News" Stravinsky, Rite of Spring Les Baxter, “Hong Kong Cable Car” Jacques Riviere, review of The Rite of Spring (http://sarma.be/docs/621) Nenao Sakaki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanao_Sakaki), Japanese poet Lew Welch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Welch), American Beat poet JF Martel, “Stay with Mystery: Hiroshima Mon Amour, Melancholia, and the truth of extinction” (http://notesandqueries.ca/number-106/) Jeffrey Kripal, Mutants and Mystics (https://bookshop.org/books/mutants-and-mystics-science-fiction-superhero-comics-and-the-paranormal/9780226271484) Captain Beefheart, “Orange Claw Hammer” Martin Buber, I and Thou (https://bookshop.org/books/i-and-thou/9780684717258)

The question of art has been of central concern for JF and Phil since Weird Studies began in 2018. What is art? What can it do that other things can't do? How is it connected to religion, psyche, and our current historical moment? Is the endless torrent of advertisements, entertainment, memes, and porn in which seem hopelessly immersed a manifestation of art or of something else entirely? In this exploration of the main ideas in JF's book Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, your hosts focus on these burning questions in hopes that the answers might shed light on our collective predicament and the paths that lead out of it. Photo by Petar Milošević via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wooden_spiral_stairs_(Nebotičnik,_Ljubljana).jpg) REFERENCES JF's upcoming course on the nature and power of art (https://www.nuralearning.com/art-and-contemplation.html), starting May 10th, 2021 JF Martel, [Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice](https://www.amazon.ca/Reclaiming-Art-Age-Artifice-Treatise/dp/1583945784/ref=sr11?dchild=1&keywords=reclaiming+art&qid=1619535152&sr=8-1) Weird Studies, Episode 84 on the Empress card (https://www.weirdstudies.com/84) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (https://bookshop.org/books/the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction/9781453722480) Werner Herzog, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1664894/) Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/) Adam Savage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Savage), Special effects designer Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780816614028) Kabbalistic emanationist cosmology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)) Henry Corbin’s concept of the “imaginal” (https://www.amiscorbin.com/bibliographie/mundus-imaginalis-or-the-imaginary-and-the-imaginal/) William Shakespeare, The Tempest (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780743482837) [Tibetan book of the Dead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BardoThodol)_ James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781853260063) James Hillman, The Thought of the Heart and The Soul of the World (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780882143538) Phil Ford, “Battlefield medicine” (https://dialmformusicology.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/battlefield-medicine/) Jaques Ellul, idea of “technique” (https://ellul.org/themes/ellul-and-technique/) Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780307476821) Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (https://bookshop.org/books/dynamics-of-faith/9780060937133)

Jean Cocteau's visionary rendition of Madame de Beaumont's fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast," itself the retelling of a story that may be several millennia old, is the topic of this Weird Studies episode, which proposes a journey down lunar paths to the crossroads where love and death intersect. Drawing on Surrealism, myth, and the occult, Cocteau's 1946 film transcends the limitations of media to become a living poem, a thing that is also a place, a place that is also a mind. This conversation touches on the genius of the child, the mysteries of Eros, the monstrosity of consciousness, and the sorcery of cinema. Photo by Ivan Jevtic on Unsplash Click here (https://www.nuralearning.com/art-and-contemplation.html) to register for JF's upcoming course on art. REFERENCES Jean Cocteau (dir.), La Belle et la Bête (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038348/) Jaques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781944418762) Sergei Diaghilev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Diaghilev), Russian impresario Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (dir.), Beauty and the Beast (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/) David Thomson, Have You Seen? (https://bookshop.org/books/have-you-seen-a-personal-introduction-to-1-000-films/9780375711343) Bram Stoker, Dracula (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780141439846) Johannes Vermeer (http://www.essentialvermeer.com/), Dutch painter Philip Glass, [La Belle et la Bête](https://philipglass.com/compositions/belleetlabete/)_ (opera) Game of Thrones (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/), Television series Weird Studies, Episode 84 on the Empress Card (https://www.weirdstudies.com/84) Weird Studies, Episode 94 on the Moon Card (https://www.weirdstudies.com/94)

Doris Lessing's uncategorizable oeuvre reached strange new heights in 1988 with the publication of her short novel The Fifth Child. The story couldn't be simpler. In the England of the 1970s, a couple determined to live out a dream that many of their generation have rejected -- the big family in the old house with the pretty garden -- conceive a child that may or may not be human. From that moment on, the boy, their fifth, becomes the alien force that will tear their dream to pieces. Profoundly ambiguous and unsettling, The Fifth Child is a weird novel that raises questions about parenthood, family, and the impenetrable depths of nature. Header Image: The Changeling by Henry Fuseli (1780) Additional music: "Fast Bossa Nova: Falling Stars" (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dee_Yan-Key/latin_summer/Fast_Bossa_Nova_Falling_Stars) by Dee Yan-Key REFERENCES Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780679721826) Doris Lessing, Shikasta (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780394749778) M. R. James (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James), weird fiction author Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780345337665) Weird Studies, Episode 67 on “Hellier” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/67) Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780674012448) David Icke, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke) conspiracy theorist Deros, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharpe_Shaver) underground beings from the fiction of Richard Sharpe Shaver Hieronymus Bosch (https://www.hieronymus-bosch.org/), Dutch Renaissance painter Weird Studies, Episode 86 on “The Sandman” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/86) Slavoj Žižek, The Puppet and the Dwarf (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780262740258) Louis Sass, “The Land of Unreality: On the Phenomenology of the Schizophrenic Break” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0732118X88900116) Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198779292) Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780804732185) Richard Thorpe (dir.), The Wizard of Oz (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/) Frank L. Baum, The Wizard of Oz (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780142427507) Weird Studies, bonus episode on Adventure Time (https://www.weirdstudies.com/88b) James Hillman, The Soul’s Code (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780399180149) Doris Lessing, Ben in the World (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780060934651) Roman Polanski (dir.), Rosemary’s Baby (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/) Richard Donner (dir.), The Omen (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075005/) Donald Cammell (dir.), Demon Seed (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075931/)

"Here is a weird, deceptive life." Thus does Aleister Crowley describe the meaning of one of the most sinister and spectral cards in the tarot. In this episode, Phil and JF continue their ongoing series on the twenty-two major trumps with a deep dive into the hopelessly enigmatic world of Arcanum XVIII: The Moon. After a brief chat about Voltron and professional wrestling, your hosts start on the lunar path beset by traps and illusions, in hopes that their half-blind perambulation will lead to startling insights. Image by Damien Deltenre via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20th_March_2015_total_solar_eclipse.JPG). References Roland Barthes, Mythologies (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780809071944) Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Colin Wilson, The Occult (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781780288468) Eliphas Levi, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89liphas_L%C3%A9vi)_ French esotericist Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780684824772) Weird Studies, Episode 86 on The Sandman (weirdstudies.com/86) Plato, Republic (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781546630821) Antoine Faivre, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Faivre) scholar of esoteric studies Wouter Hanegraaff, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wouter_Hanegraaff) historian of philosophy Alastair Crowley, Book of Thoth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780877282686) Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781420940435) Carl Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/93950.Mysterium_Coniunctionis) Peter Kingsley, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kingsley) historian of philosophy St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781640322189) J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780618640157) Weird Studies, Episode 93 on Charles Taylor (https://www.weirdstudies.com/93) Algis Uždavinys, Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7221031-philosophy-as-a-rite-of-rebirth)

In A Secular Age, the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor tries to come to grips with the seismic development that transformed the world after the Renaissance, namely the secularization of the society and soul of Western humanity. What does it mean to live in an age where religion, once the very matrix of social existence, is relegated to the realm of private and personal choice? What defines secularity? Are modern people really as "irrelegious" as we make them out to be? In this episode, JF and Phil squarely train their sights on a question that continues to haunt them, with Taylor as their Virgil in what amounts to a descent into the ordinary inferno of modern unknowing. Header Image by Pahudson, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Patricks_Cathedral_surrounded_by_Skyscrapers.jpeg) REFERENCES Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com) Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780674986916) Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780674987692) Weird Studies, ep 71: The Medium is the Message (https://www.weirdstudies.com/71) Penn & Teller, Bullshit (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0346369/) René Descartes, Meditations (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780140447019) Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter-Culture (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780520201224) Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781732190320) Jacques Ellul, [The New Demons](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1362676.TheNewDemons) David Foster Wallace's essay on David Letterman Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198788607) Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226861142) Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780367679859)

With his latest film (http://www.aglitchinthematrixfilm.com), a meditation on what it means to believe we live in a computer simulation, Rodney Ascher has once again placed himself among the most innovative and visionary filmmakers working in the documentary form today. While the "Simulation Hypothesis" has been a hot topic ever since The Matrix came out in 1997, it is Ascher's ability to suspend judgement, training his camera on the experience of believers rather than the value of their beliefs, that makes A Glitch in the Matrix such a unique and significant exploration, a strange work of "phantom phenomenology." Weird Studies listeners will recall that Phil and JF devoted an episode to Ascher's films -- most notably Room 237 and The Nightmare -- back in the early days of the podcast. In this episode, Rodney Ascher joins them to discuss his cinematic vision, his take on the weird, and his thoughts on what is real and why it matters. REFERENCES Rodney Ascher (www.rodneyascher.com), American filmmaker -- A Glitch in the Matrix (www.aglitchinthematrixfilm.com) Jay Weidner's theories on Kubrick (http://jayweidner.com/the-kubrick-series-redrum/) Buddhist idea of the the Arising and Passing Away (https://www.dharmaoverground.org/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/The+Arising+and+Passing+Away) [Dungeons & Dragons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons%26Dragons), tabletop roleplaying game James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain 1880-1939 (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319905266) Magic Eye (https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/) pictures Parmenides (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides/), Greek philosopher Wachowskis, [The Matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMatrix)_ Alan Moore, "Superman: For the Man Who Has Everything" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_Man_Who_Has_Everything) Conway's Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) Joshua Clover, The Matrix (BFI Film Classics) (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-matrix-9781844570454/) Jonathan Snipes (http://www.jonat8han.com), American composer Clipping (http://www.itsclippingbitch.com), experimental hip hop band "Shining" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0) romantic comedy recut Michael Curtiz (dir.), Casblanca (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/) John Boorman (dir.), [Point Blank](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062138/?ref=fnaltt2) Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought (https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Modernism-Insanity-Literature-Thought/dp/0674541375) Special Guest: Rodney Ascher.

In this episode, Phil and JF explore the vast palatial halls of Susanna Clarke's novel Piranesi. Set in an otherworld consisting of endless galleries filled with enigmatic statues, Piranesi is the story of a man who lives alone -- or nearly alone -- in a dream labyrinth. As usual, our discussion leads to unexpected places every bit as strange as Clarke's setting, from Borge's infinite library and Lovecraft's alien cities to Renaissance Europe, where the art of memory was synonymous with wisdom and magic. SHOW NOTES Susanna Clarke, Piranesi (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781635575637) Joshua Clover, 1989: Dylan Didn't Have This to Sing About (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780520267879), The Matrix (BFI Modern Classics (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781839022678) John Crowley, Little, Big (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780061120053) Christopher Priest, [The Prestige](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePrestige)_ (+Christopher Nolan's screen adaptation (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/)) Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781635576726) JF Martel, "The Real as Sacrament" (forthcoming?) Frances Yates, The Art of Memory (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781847922922) Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/book-of-memory/323D304448453717FAF27D72E13FFB76#) Plato, Phaedrus (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html) Henri Bergson, [Matter and Memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MatterandMemory) Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel) Giovanni Battista Piranesi, [Carceri d'invenzione](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ImaginaryPrisons)_ Maurits Cornelis Escher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher), Duch artist H. P. Lovecraft, [At the Mountains of Madness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AttheMountainsofMadness) Gaston Bachelard, [The Poetics of Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePoeticsofSpace)_ Gyrus, North: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos (https://dreamflesh.com/projects/north/) [Emerald Tablet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EmeraldTablet), foundational Hermetic text Joshua Foer, [Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalkingwith_Einstein) Weird Studies ep. 42 - On Pauline Oliveros, with Kerry O'Brien (https://www.weirdstudies.com/42) Giovanni colleague? Allen Ginsberg, "America" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b41f119f) Rodney Ascher, A Glitch in the Matrix (https://www.aglitchinthematrixfilm.com) Walter J. Ong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J._Ong), American philosopher Weird Studies ep. 71: The Medium is the Message (https://www.weirdstudies.com/71) Thomas Ligotti, "The Night School" (https://weirdfictionreview.com/2015/10/the-night-school/) Thomas Aquinas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas), Christian philosopher and theologian Erasmus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus), Christian philosopher Marsilio Ficino (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsilio_Ficino), Christian philosopher

Weird Studies has so far devoted just one show to Philip K. Dick, and that was way back in April 2018, with episode 10, "Adrift in the Multiverse." Last fall, as another foray into Dickland began to feel urgent, Phil and JF talked about which of his books they should tackle. The answer that seemed obvious was VALIS, the semi/pseudo-autobiographical masterpiece that constitutes PKD's most explicit attempt to make sense of the theophanic experiences that altererd his life in 1974. But then Phil suggested The Owl in Daylight, a novel on which PKD worked feverishly in the last years of his life but left unwritten. And sure enough, reviewing and analyzing a book that doesn't exist proved to be the best way of getting to the heart of Dick's incomparable oeuvre. SHOW NOTES Gwen Lee, What if Our World is Their Heaven? The Final Conversations of Philip K. Dick (https://www.amazon.com/World-Their-Heaven-Conversations-Philip/dp/1585673781) The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick, volume 6 (https://www.amazon.com/Selected-Letters-Philip-1980-82-Dicks/dp/1887424261) Philip K. Dick, [The Exegesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheExegesisofPhilipK.Dick)_ Anonymous, [Meditations on the Tarot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeditationsontheTarot)_ Secondary qualities (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary/secondary_quality_distinction), philosophical concept Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAoLJ8GbA4Y) Burt Bacharach, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt_Bacharach) American musician Philip K. Dick, "The Preserving Machine" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1902160.The_Preserving_Machine) Jorge Borges, "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Approach_to_Al-Mu'tasim) The Good Place (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4955642/), American television series Philip K. Dick, Valis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valis) Weird Studies, Episode 78 on John Keel's 'Mothman Prophesies' (https://www.weirdstudies.com/78) Richard Wagner, Parsifal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsifal) Weird Studies, Episode 73 on Carl Jung (https://www.weirdstudies.com/73)

Ishmael Reed's 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo is a conspiracy thriller, a postmodern experiment, a revolutionary tract, a celebration, and a magical working. It is a novel that, over and above prophetically describing the world we live in, creates a whole new world and invites us to move in. For Phil and JF, Mumbo Jumbo exemplifies art's creative power to generate new possibilities for life. It is also the perfect occasion for pinpointing the difference between the kind of magical thinking that fuels virulent conspiricism, and the more profound magical thinking which alone can save us from it. *Image: *Albrecht Dürer, Two Pairs of Hands with Book REFERENCES Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo (https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/aug/01/mumbo-jumbo-a-penguin-classic-2017-ishmael-reed) Harold Bloom, The Western Canon (https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/harold-bloom-creates-a-massive-list-of-works-in-the-western-canon.html) For more on Colin Wilson's concept of lunar religion, see The Occult (https://www.amazon.com/Occult-Colin-Wilson/dp/1842931075) Weird Studies, episode 36: "On Hyperstition" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/36) William S. Burroughs, [Naked Lunch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NakedLunch)_ Carl Van Vechten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Van_Vechten), American writer Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, Illuminatus! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy) MC5, "Kick Out the Jams" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XhQRFO4M7A) Karl Pfeiffer (dir.), Hellier (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9640354/), webseries Jasun Horsley, 16 Maps of Hell (https://auticulture.com/liminalist/16-maps-of-hell-campaign/) Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell), SSOTBME (https://www.amazon.com/SSOTBME-Revised-essay-Ramsey-Dukes/dp/0904311082) Anonymous, [Meditations on the Tarot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeditationsontheTarot)_ Fats Waller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fats_Waller), American jazz musician Owen Barfield, [Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SavingtheAppearances) Weird Studies, episode 57 - "Box of Gods: On Raiders of the Lost Ark (https://www.weirdstudies.com/57)" Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity (https://www.amazon.com/Gnostic-Religion-Message-Beginnings-Christianity/dp/0807058017) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, [Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature](https://www.amazon.com/Kafka-Toward-Literature-Theory-History/dp/0816615152/ref=sr13?dchild=1&keywords=Kafka+minor+literature&qid=1609947211&s=books&sr=1-3)

Weird Studies will launch its fourth season on January 6th, 2021. But to celebtrate the end of very strange year, we thought we'd release a conversation which until now was available only to our top-tier Patreon backers. Therein we discuss the philosophical underpinnings of "Puhoy," memorable episode of the brilliant animated series Adventure Time. This was JF's introduction to a show that Phil has often recommended for its novel treatment of complex ideas and downright weirdness. Watch "Puhoy" on YouTube: Part 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4IT9oFfjZQ) Part 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcGRmR6mpuY)

Before Coraline, before American Gods, in the early days of the Sandman series, Neil Gaiman collaborated with Dave McKean on some truly groundbreaking graphic novels: Violent Cases (1987), Signal to Noise (1989), and the work discussed in this Weird Studies episode. The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch (1994) is the story of a boy whose initiation into the dark realities of life, death, and family plays out in the shadow of the (in)famous Punch & Judy puppet show. Unlike some of Gaiman's more overtly marvellous offerings, Mr Punch is a subtle fantasy whose weirdness hides in the gaps and folds of lost time. It is in Dave McKean's brilliant art that the magic shines through, letting us know that the narrative is only part of a vaster, hidden thing. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the themes, ideas, and mysteries of an unparalleled piece of comics art. REFERENCES Watch Aaron Poole's 9-minute short film "Oracle" (https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2020/12/08/oracle/) Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, [The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16792.TheTragicalComedyorComicalTragedyofMr_Punch) "That's the Way to Do It! A History of Punch and Judy" (http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/thats-the-way-to-do-it%21-a-history-of-punch-and-judy/), Victoria Albert Museum _ Ronald Briggs, [Father Christmas](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/705257.FatherChristmas)_ Clement Greenberg, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_specificity) American art critic Marcel Proust, [In Search of Lost Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSearchofLostTime) Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (http://www.scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/) J. F. Martel, Patreon Post on The Untimely (https://www.patreon.com/posts/untimely-42999059) Weird Studies, Episodes 20 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/20) and 21 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) on the Trash Stratum Weird Studies, Episode 72 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/72) on the Castrati Samuel Pepys, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pepys) English administrator and diarist Nick Lowe, The Beast in Me (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j7WGxbe6zA)

It would be wrong to describe Arthur Machen's Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature (1902) as a work of nonfiction, since the book features a narrative frame that is as moody and irreal as the best tales penned by this luminary of weird fiction. But if the eccentric recluse at the centre Hieroglyphics is a fictional philosopher, he is one who, in Phil and JF's opinion, rivals most aesthetic thinkers in the history of philosophy. The significance of this text lies in its willingness to disclose a function of art that few before Machen had dared to touch, namely its capacity to generate ecstasy by confronting us with the mystery that beats the heart of existence. In this episode, your hosts discuss a work which, in their opinion, comes as close to scripture as the nonexistent field of Weird Studies is likely to get. REFERENCES Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature (https://library.um.edu.mo/ebooks/b33299365.pdf) Thomas Ligotti, [Songs of a Dead Dreamer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SongsofaDeadDreamer) Weird Studies, Episode 3 on the White People (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3) J.F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/238123/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-artifice-by-jf-martel/) Weird Studies, Episode 63 on Colin Wilson’s 'The Occult' (https://www.weirdstudies.com/63) William Shakespeare, Hamlet (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/full.html) Indra’s Net, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net) philosophical concept James Machin, Weird Fiction in Britain, 1880 – 1939 (https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783319905266) Weird Studies, Episode 5 on Lisa Ruddick's 'When Nothing is Cool' (https://www.weirdstudies.com/5) Oscar Wilde, [The Soul of Man Under Socialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSoulofManUnderSocialism)_ Rudolph Otto, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Otto) German theologian

The German polymath E. T. A. Hoffmann is one of the founding figures of what we now call weird literature. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss one of his most memorable tales, "Der Sandmann." Originally published in 1816, it is the story of a young German student whose fate is sealed by a terrifying encounter with the eponymous figure during his youth. The story packs several tropes that would later become staples of the weird: the protean monster, the double, the automaton... Your hosts discuss how Hoffmann uses these tropes without letting any of them coalesce into a stable thing in the reader's mind, thereby effecting a slowbuild of ambiguity upon ambiguity that culminates in a true paroxysm of dread. The argument is made that Freud does essentially the same thing in his famous essay "The Uncanny," wherein Hoffmann's story plays an important role. REFERENCES E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Sandman (http://art3idea.psu.edu/metalepsis/texts/sandman.pdf) Horace Walpole, [The Castle of Otranto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheCastleofOtranto)_ Edgar Allan Poe, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe) American writer Sunn o))) (https://sunn.southernlord.com/), American metal band La Monte Young, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Monte_Young), American composer Stuart Davis, Aliens and Artists (https://aliensandartists.podbean.com/) Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Uncanny-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141182377) Neil Gaiman, [Mr. Punch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTragicalComedyorComicalTragedyofMr.Punch) Jaques Offenbach, [Tales of Hoffmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTalesofHoffmann)_ Frank Zappa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa), American musician Ernst Jentsch, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Jentsch), German psychiatrist E. T. A. Hoffmann, [The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheLifeandOpinionsoftheTomcatMurr)_ Weird Studies, episodes 73 and 74 on Carl Jung (https://www.weirdstudies.com/73)

Since its release in 1973, Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man has exerted a profound influence on the development of horror cinema, a rich vein of folk music, and the modern pagan revival more generally. Anthony Shaffer's ingenious screenplay gives us a thrilling yarn that is also a meditation on the nature of religious belief and practice. Just in time for Halloween, Phil and JF discuss the philosophical ideas that undergird this folk horror classic, focusing on the perennial role of sacrifice in religious thought. REFERENCES Robin Hardy (director), The Wicker Man (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070917/) Stanley Kubrick (director), The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) Terence Fisher (director), The Devil Rides Out (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062885/) Piers Haggard (director), Blood on Satan’s Claw (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066849/) John Boorman (director), Deliverance (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068473/) Rob Young, Electric Eden (https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Eden-Unearthing-Britains-Visionary/dp/0865478562) Gerald Gardner, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Gardner_(Wiccan)) English wiccan Margaret Murray, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Murray) English anthropologist Cecil Sharp, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Sharp) English ethnomusicologist Phil Ford, "Taboo: Time and Belief in Exotica" (https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/article-abstract/103/1/107/81624/Taboo-Time-and-Belief-in-Exotica?redirectedFrom=fulltext) Friedrich Nietzsche, [Untimely Meditations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UntimelyMeditations)_

This second instalment in our series on the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck features the Empress. As Aleister Crowley writes in The Book of Thoth, this card is probably the most difficult to decipher, since it is inherently "omniform," changing shapes continuously. In a sense, the Empress is variation itself. Her card becomes the occasion for a conversation about the less knowable side of reality, the one that tradition associates with the Yin, nature, potential, and -- controversially -- the feminine. This in turn leads to a discussion of white versus black magic, and how the two may not always be as diametrically opposed as we might believe. REFERENCES P.D. Ouspensky, The Symbolism of the Tarot (https://www.hermetics.net/media-library/tarot/the-symbolism-of-the-tarot/) Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism (https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Tarot-Journey-Christian-Hermeticism/dp/1585421618) Weird Studies episode 82 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/82) on the I Ching Patrick Harper, [The Secret Tradition of the Soul](https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Tradition-Soul-Patrick-Harpur/dp/1583943153/ref=pdsbs141/140-2671578-8733449?encoding=UTF8&pdrdi=1583943153&pdrdr=1f913c75-26fb-4522-b450-4e6e159171b5&pdrdw=Hilro&pdrdwg=13E6P&pfrdp=b65ee94e-1282-43fc-a8b1-8bf931f6dfab&pfrdr=BMMJH3SBSHVHH83Y9HRF&psc=1&refRID=BMMJH3SBSHVHH83Y9HRF) Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (https://www.amazon.com/Book-Thoth-Short-Egyptians-Equinox/dp/0877282684) Simon Magus, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus) religious figure Henri Gamache, The Mystery of the Long Lost 8th, 9th, and 10th Books of Moses (https://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Long-Lost-Books-Moses/dp/1585093599) Solomon grimoires (https://grimoire.org/person/solomon/) Lionel Snell/Ramsay Dukes, (https://ramseydukes.co.uk/) English magician Weird Studies episode 3 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3) on Arthur Machen's "The White People" Joséphin Péladan, (http://peladan.net/) French magician Susanna Clarke Piranesi (https://www.amazon.com/Piranesi-Susanna-Clarke/dp/163557563X) Shawshank Redemption (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/), film Franz Liszt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Liszt), musician Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5334704/)

David Lynch's Lost Highway was released in 1997, five years after Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me elicited a fusillade of boos and hisses at Cannes. The Twin Peaks prequel's poor reception allegedly sent its American auteur spiralling into something of an existential crisis, and Lost Highway has often been interpreted as a response to -- or result of -- that crisis. Certainly, the film is among Lynch's darkest, boldest, and most enigmatic. But of course, we do the film an injustice by reducing it to the psychological state of its director. Indeed, one of the contentions of this episode is that all artistic interpretation constitutes a kind of injustice. But as you will hear, that doesn't stop Phil and JF from interpreting the hell out of the film. Just or unjust, fair or unfair, interpretation may well be necessary in aesthetic matters. It may be the means by which we grow through the experience of art, the way by which art makes us something new, strange, and other. Perhaps the trick is to remember that no mode of interpretation is, to borrow Freud's phrase, the one and only via regia, but that every one is just another highway at night... REFERENCES David Lynch (dir.), Lost Highway (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/) Alfred Hitchcock (dir.), Vertigo (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/) Arnold Schoenberg, Three Keyboard Pieces, op. 11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeTFxbsVGrI) James Joyce, [Finnegan’s Wake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinnegansWake)_ Weird Studies, Episode 81 on The Course of the Heart (https://www.weirdstudies.com/81) Jacques Lacan, (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/) French psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek) Slovenian philosopher Arnold Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQVkbKULKpI) Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0010323/) David Foster Wallace, "David Lynch Keeps his Head" in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again (https://www.amazon.com/Supposedly-Fun-Thing-Never-Again/dp/0316925284) Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story (https://www.westsidestory.com/) Patreon audio extra on Penderecki's "Threnody" (https://www.patreon.com/posts/threnody-36382598) Trent Reznor, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Reznor) American musician David Bowie, "Deranged" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aepBpZ3kXek) Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, "Oblique Strategies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies) Tim Powers, Last Call (https://www.amazon.com/Last-Call-Novel-Fault-Lines/dp/0062233270) Manuel DeLanda, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_DeLanda) Mexican-American philosopher

The Book of Changes, or I Ching, is more than an ancient text. It's a metaphysical guide, a fun game, and -- to your hosts at least -- a lifelong, steadfast friend. The I Ching has come up more than once on the show, and now is the time for JF and Phil to face it head on, discussing the role it has played in their lives while delving into some of its mysteries. REFERENCES I Ching, (https://www.amazon.com/I-Ching-Book-Changes/dp/B000J4GE6Q) Wilhelm-Baynes translation I Ching, (https://www.amazon.com/Total-I-Ching-Stephen-Karcher/dp/074993980X) Stephen Karcher translation Game of Thrones, (https://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones) HBO series George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire (https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire) George R. R. Martin, “Sandkings” in: Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Compendium-Strange-Dark-Stories/dp/0765333627) H. P. Lovecraft, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft) American writer Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Realism-Philosophy-Graham-Harman/dp/1780992521) Aleister Crowley, “777” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123658.777_and_Other_Qabalistic_Writings_of_Aleister_Crowley) Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/cannibal-metaphysics) Joel Biroco, Calling Crane in the Shade (https://www.biroco.com) (website) Philip K. Dick, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick) American novelist Lionel Snell, a.k.a. Ramsey Dukes (http://ramseydukes.co.uk/), British occultist Richard Rutt, _Zhouyi: A New Translation with Commentary _ (https://www.amazon.com/Zhouyi-Translation-Commentary-Changes-Durham/dp/070071491X) Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast_(series)) Redmond and Hon, Teaching the I Ching (https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Ching-Changes-Religious-Studies/dp/0199766819) Weird Studies, episode 72 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/72), On the castrati Weird Studies, episode 77 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/77), On the fool tarot card Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/408555.Meditations_on_the_Tarot) The Usual Suspects (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/) (movie) Colin Wilson, The Occult (https://www.amazon.com/Occult-History-Colin-Wilson/dp/0394465555)

The British writer M. John Harrison is responsible for some of the most significant incursions of the Weird into the literary imagination of the last several decades. His 1992 novel The Course of the Heart is a masterful exercise in erasing whatever boundary you care to mention, from the one between reality and mind to the one between love and horror. Recounting the lives of three friends as they play out the fateful aftermath of a magical operation that went horribly wrong, Harrison's novel gives Phil and JF the chance to talk contemporary literature, metaphysics, Gnosticism, zones (see episodes 13 & 14), myth, transcendence, history, and arachnology. Together, they weave a fragile web of ideas centered on that imperceptible something that forever trembles at the edge of our perception, beckoning us to step into its world, and out of ours. REFERENCES M. John Harrison, [The Course of the Heart](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17742.TheCourseoftheHeart ) M. John Harrison, "The Great God Pan" Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/389) Philip K. Dick, Ubik (https://www.amazon.com/Ubik-Philip-K-Dick/dp/0547572298) Philip K. Dick, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (https://www.amazon.com/Three-Stigmata-Palmer-Eldritch/dp/0547572557) Weird Studies, Episode 14 on Stalker (https://www.weirdstudies.com/14) Jonathan Carrol (https://jonathancarroll.com/), American novelist Robert Aickman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aickman), British writer Magic Realism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism), literary genre Phil Ford, “An Essay on Fortuna, parts 1 and 2,” Weird Studies Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) John Crowley, Ægypt (http://johncrowleyauthor.com/magic-and-history/) Jorge Borges," The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Approach_to_Al-Mu'tasim)" Strange Horizons, Interview with M. John Harrison (http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/interview-m-john-harrison/) M. John Harrison on worldbuilding (http://web.archive.org/web/20080410181840/http://uzwi.wordpress.com/2007/01/27/very-afraid/) Thomas Ligotti, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ligotti) American horror writer [Weird Studies subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdStudies/comments/i8h0yk/weirdstudiessynchronicityengine/)_ Albert Camus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus), French philosopher David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/319/the-spell-of-the-sensuous-by-david-abram/) Spiders’ nervous systems (https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-thoughts-of-a-spiderweb-20170523/) Valentinus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic)), gnostic theologian Simon Magus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus), religious figure Wiccan goddess and god (https://wiccaliving.com/wiccan-goddess-god/) Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles (https://www.amazon.com/Street-Crocodiles-Classic-20th-Century-Penguin/dp/0140186255) Weird Studies, Episode 37 with Stuart Davis (https://www.weirdstudies.com/37)

Your hosts' exploration of mysticism and vision in pop music continues with two powerful pieces of popular music: Radiohead's "Pyramid Song" from the 2001 album Amnesiac, and Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf's "Ballad of the Sad Young Men," from the 1959 Broadway musical The Nervous Set. Synchronicity rears its head as the dialogue reveals how these two gems, selected by JF and Phil with no expectation that they might form a set, begin to glow when placed side by side, amplifying and focussing each other's eldritch light. This episode touches on Neoplatonic myths of spiritual ascent, African-American spirituals, Plato's realm of Forms, Gnosticism, dream visitations by the dearly departed, the travails of the Beat generation, the objectivity of hope, the implosion of America, and that particularly modern condition of the soul which Phil calls the "Philosopher's Blues." REFERENCES Radiohead, "Pyramid Song" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Song) Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf, "The Ballad of the Sad Young Men" (http://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/b/ballad_of_the_sad_young_men.html) Edgar Allan Poe, "The Pit and the Pendulum" (https://poestories.com/read/pit) Charles Mingus, [Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MingusMingusMingusMingusMingus) Plato, Phaedrus (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1636/1636-h/1636-h.htm) Plato, Republic (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html) Plato's Unwritten Doctrines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_unwritten_doctrines) The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast, episode 69: "Plutarch's Myths of Cosmic Ascent" (https://shwep.net/podcast/plutarchs-myths-of-cosmic-ascent/) William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/621/621-h/621-h.html) Pierre Hadot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Hadot), French philosopher Algis Uzdavynis, Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism (https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Rite-Rebirth-Neoplatonism-7-Dec-2008/dp/B011T6X636) Charles Taylor (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Taylor), Canadian philosopher Phil Ford, "The Philosopher’s Blues" (Weird Studies Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) exclusive) Peter Sloterdijk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sloterdijk), German philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure), French linguist JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Art-Age-Artifice-Manifesto/dp/1583945784) JF Martel, "Stay With Mystery: Hiroshima Mon Amour, Melancholia, and the Truth of Extinction" in Canadian Notes & Queries, issue 106: Winter 2020 (http://notesandqueries.ca/product/cnq-106-winter-2020/), edited by Sharon English and Patricia Robertson Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (https://www.amazon.com/Nihil-Unbound-Enlightenment-Extinction-Brassier/dp/023052205X) Jay Landesman and Theodore J. Flicker, [The Nervous Set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheNervousSet), musical Phil Ford, [Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture](https://www.amazon.com/Phil-Ford/dp/0199939918/ref=tmmhrdswatch0?encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) Jay Landesman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Landesman), American publisher and writer Marshall McLuhan, "The Psychopathology of 'Time & Life'" (https://ionandbob.blogspot.com/2018/02/marshall-mcluhan-psychopathology-of.html) Marshall McLuhan, [The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMechanicalBride) William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43291/sailing-to-byzantium) Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477348/) Mike Duncan (Twitter) Jeff Chang, [Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54754.CantStopWontStop)_ Karl Marx, Capital: Volume I (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf)

In this episode of Weird Studies, an improvised analysis of two pop songs -- Nina Simone's version of James Shelton's "Lilac Wine" and Ghostface Killah's visionary "Underwater" -- becomes the occasion for a deep dive to the weird wellspring of artistic creation. In trying to understand these songs and why they love them so much, your hosts touch on themes such as necromancy, decadence, liebestod, visionary experience, the Muslim image of paradise, the necessity of rifts, Norman Mailer's concept of "dream life," and the magical operation that is sampling. Header image: Boris Kasimov, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Underwater_sculptures_at_Molinere_Underwater_Sculpture_Park.jpg) REFERENCES James Shelton, "Lilac Wine" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilac_Wine) Nina Simone, "Lilac Wine" from the album WIld is the Wind (https://www.discogs.com/Nina-Simone-Wild-Is-The-Wind/master/122235) (1966) Ghostface Killah, "Underwater, from the album Fishscale (https://www.discogs.com/Ghostface-Killah-Fishscale/release/666352) (2006) MF Doom, "Orange Blossoms," from the album Special Herbs, Volume 4, 5 & 6 (https://www.discogs.com/Metal-Fingers-Special-Herbs-456/release/221258) Richard Strauss, [Salome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome(opera))_ Weird Studies, episode 25 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/25): David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch C. G. Jung's practice of active imagination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_imagination) JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-artifice/) Thomas Mann, [Death in Venice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeathinVenice) Paul Horn, Visions (https://www.discogs.com/Paul-Horn-Visions/release/1825281) Alexander Mackendrick (dir.), [The Sweet Smell of Success](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SweetSmellofSuccess)_ Les Baxter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Baxter), American composer Les Baxter, "Papagayo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU35vSL5oCQ)" Debussy, [Nocturnes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocturnes(Debussy))_ Rebecca Leydon (https://www.oberlin.edu/rebecca-leydon), music scholar Weird Studies episodes 73 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/73) and 74 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/74), on C. G. Jung's aesthetic vision Alexander Courage, Theme from Star Trek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_from_Star_Trek) ("Where No Man Has Gone Before") Richard Dawkins, [The Selfish Gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSelfishGene) Norman Mailer, “Superman Comes to the Supermarket" (https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3858/superman-supermarket/) James Joyce, Ulysses (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm) and [Finnegans Wake](https://archive.org/stream/finneganswake00joycuoft/finneganswake00joycuoftdjvu.txt)_

At the time The Mothman Prophecies' was released in 1975, and again when he penned an afterword for the 2001 edition, John Keel appeared to have made up his mind about the "ultraterrestrials" that he had tracked and hunted for most of his adult life. They were unconcerned about the welfare of the people whose lives they threw into disarray, he said. They were liars, cheats, and frauds who refused to play fair. They saw good and evil as synonymous and they were dangerous. Like many other explorers of reality's uncharted waters, John Keel returned to port knowing less than he did (or thought he did) when he set out. And this led him to ponder the possibility that only thing to know about such matters is that there is nothing to know -- that the universal mind, as Charles Fort had suggested before him, was insane. In this episode of Weird Studies, JF and Phil share their thoughts on The Mothman Prophecies, focusing less on the creatures and events that haunted Point Pleasant in 1966-67 than on how these things affected the brilliant writer who was chosen to be their baffled chronicler. REFERENCES John A. Keel, [The Mothman Prophecies: A True Story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMothmanProphecies) William S. Burroughs, [Naked Lunch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NakedLunch)_ Stephanie Quick (https://stephaniequick.home.blog)'s blog Weird Studies talks to Jeffrey J. Kripal: episode 39 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/39)and episode 45 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/45) H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" (https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cc.aspx) Neil Gaiman, [American Gods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmericanGods)_ Jeffrey J. Kripal, Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (https://www.amazon.com/Mutants-Mystics-Science-Superhero-Paranormal/dp/022627148X) David Lynch's [Twin Peaks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwinPeaks)_ David Lynch, [Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwinPeaks:FireWalkwithMe)_ Bob Lazar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lazar), American engineer (?) William James (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James), American philosopher

"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man can reason away." This line from a Doobie Brothers song is probably one of the most profound in the history of rock-'n'-roll. It is profound for all the reasons (or unreasons) explored in this discussion, which lasers in on just one of the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck, that of the Fool. The Fool is integral to the world, yet stands outside it. The Fool is an idiot but also a sage. The Fool does not know; s/he intuits, improvises a path through the brambles of existence. We intend this episode on the Fool to be the first in an occasional series covering all twenty-two of the major trumps of the Tarot of Marseilles. REFERENCES The Fool (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Jean_Dodal_Tarot_trump_Fool.jpg) in the tarot St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_to_the_Corinthians) Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism (https://www.amazon.com/Meditations-Tarot-Journey-Christian-Hermeticism-ebook/dp/B00B1FG9PI) Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (http://www.thule-italia.net/esoterismo/Aleister%20Crowley/Aleister%20Crowley%20-%20The%20book%20of%20Thoth.pdf) Plato, Phaedrus (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html) Weird Studies episode 60 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/60) - Space is the Place: On Sun Ra, Gnosticism, and the Tarot Till Eulenspiegel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Eulenspiegel), folk figure Aleister Crowley, [Magick Without Tears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagickWithoutTears) Weird Studies episode 75 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/75) - Our Old Friend the Monolith: On Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey Weird Studies episode 76 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/76) - Below the Abyss: On Bergson's Metaphysics Rider-Waite Tarot Deck (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite_tarot_deck) Richard Wagner, Parsifal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsifal) G. W. F. Hegel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel), German philosopher Ramsey Dukes, Words Made Flesh: Information in Formation (https://www.amazon.com/Words-Made-Flesh-Information-Formation/dp/0904311112) George Spencer Brown, [Laws of Form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LawsofForm) Alain Badiou, Deleuze: The Clamor of Being (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/deleuze) [Punch and Judy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PunchandJudy), British puppet show George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal (http://www.tricksterbook.com) Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living (https://www.amazon.com/Importance-Living-Lin-Yutang/dp/0688163521) Thomas Mann, [Death in Venice](https://www.amazon.com/Death-Venice-Thomas-Mann/dp/1420958178/ref=sr11?dchild=1&keywords=Death+in+Venice&qid=1594182534&s=books&sr=1-1) Phil Ford's lecture on Death in Venice (Patreon exclusive (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies)!) Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2638/2638-h/2638-h.htm) Hal Ashby (dir.), [Being There](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeingThere)_ Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa, The Way of the Tarot (https://www.amazon.com/Way-Tarot-Spiritual-Teacher-Cards/dp/1594772630) Frank Pavich (dir.), [Jodorowsky’s Dune](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky%27sDune)_ Tarot of Marseilles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_of_Marseilles) André Breton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Breton), French surrealist artist

According to the French philosopher Henri Bergson, there are two ways of knowing the world: through analysis or through intuition. Analysis is our normal mode of apprehension. It involves knowing what's out there through the accumulation and comparison of concepts. Intuition is a direct engagement with the absolute, with the world as it exists before we starting tinkering with it conceptually. Bergson believed that Western metaphysics erred from the get-go when it gave in to the all-too-human urge to take the concepts by which we know things for the things themselves. His entire oeuvre was an attempt to snap us out of that spell and plug us directly into the flow of pure duration, that primordial time that is the real Real. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the genius -- and possible limitations -- of his metaphysics. REFERENCES Henri Bergson, "Introduction to Metaphysics" (http://www.reasoned.org/dir/lit/int-meta.pdf) Weird Studies episode 13 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/13) -- The Obscure: On the Philosophy of Heraclitus Weird Studies episode 16 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/16): On Dogen Zenji's 'Genjokoan' Bertrand Russel's critique of Bergson's philosophy (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Bergson_(Russell)) Dōgen Zenji, Shōbōgenzō (https://www.amazon.com/Shobogenzo-Zen-Essays-Dogen-Eihei/dp/0824814010) Wiliam James, Principles of Psychology (https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/James/Principles/) Plato, Theaetetus (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/theatu.html) Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/after-finitude-9781441173836/) Aleister Crowley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley), British occultist Graham Harman, "The Third Table" (https://www.amazon.com/Graham-Harman-Thoughts-Documenta-Gedanken/dp/3775729348) Weird Studies episode 8 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/8) - On Graham Harman's "The Third Table" Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4352) Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5740/5740-pdf.pdf)

When the quarantine began, professors around the world raced to put their classes online, and for the Jacobs School's big undergraduate music history course (M402 represent!) Phil created a series of solo podcasts, many of which have been appearing on the Weird Studies Patreon site. Our patrons seem to be enjoying them, so we thought we'd publish the first one ("The Duke of Ellington") as an off-week bonus for all our listeners, partly as a teaser for the subscriber-only stuff on Patreon and partly because Duke Ellington is cool. There's a bit of technical music talk in this, but you can ignore it and still get the main point: Ellington's early short film Symphony in Black and his subsequent orchestral suite Black Brown and Beige represent his lifelong project of using his "beyond category" music to articulate a vision of African American past and future. Please note: this was Phil's first attempt at doing a solo podcast in far-from-ideal circumstances, and the sound is pretty unpolished in places. He got his act together for the later ones; go check them out at https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies. REFERENCES Fred Waller (dir.), Symphony In Black - A Rhapsody of Negro Life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPD-8-l68L4) Duke Ellington, Black, Brown, and Beige (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxqZNeMGUxg) Dudley Murphy (dir.), Black and Tan Fantasy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWge47vuatY) John Howland, [Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the Birth of Concert Jazz](https://www.press.umich.edu/349615/ellingtonuptown)_

"You don't find reality only in your own backyard, you know," Stanley Kubrick once told an interviewer. "In fact, sometimes that's the last place you'll find it." Oddly, this episode of Weird Studies begins with Phil Ford hatching the idea of putting a replica of the monolith from 2001 in his backyard. As the ensuing discussion suggests, this would amount to putting reality -- or the Real, as we like to call it -- in the place where it may be least apparent. Perhaps that is what Kubrick did when he planted his monolithic film in thousands of movie theatres back in 1968. Moviegoers went in expecting a Kubrickian twist on Buck Rogers; they came out changed by the experience, much like the hominids of great veld in the "Dawn of Man" sequence that opens the film. This is what all great art does, and if you look closely, maybe 2001 can tell you something about how it does it. Because in the end, the film is the monolith, and the monolith is all art. REFERENCES Stanley Kubrick (dir.), 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/) Arthur C. Clarke, "The Sentinel" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentinel_(short_story)) Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.foliosociety.com/ca/2001-a-space-odyssey.html) (novel) Clement Greenberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Greenberg), American art critic Stanley Kubrick (dir.), The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) Sergei Eisenstein, [Film Form: Essays in Film Theory](https://www.amazon.com/Film-Form-Essays-Theory/dp/0156309203/ref=pdlpo14t0/147-0144282-1131014?encoding=UTF8&pdrdi=0156309203&pdrdr=37cf94c0-adb2-4fc2-bbfa-91b00773da7f&pdrdw=CdtxC&pdrdwg=jkLXJ&pfrdp=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pfrdr=9KCP3Y7C1RPE4XDH7N9D&psc=1&refRID=9KCP3Y7C1RPE4XDH7N9D)_ Weird Studies episode 62: It's Like "The Shining," But With Nuns: On "Black Narcissus" Ligeti, Atmosphères Gerard Loughlin, [Alien Sex: The Body and Desire in Cinema and Theology](https://books.google.ca/books?id=5WZwCtrqJ8kC&pg=PA73&rediresc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)_ Jay Weidner, Kubrick's Odyssey: Secrets Hidden in the Films of Stanley Kubrick (https://www.amazon.ca/Kubricks-Odyssey-Secrets-Hidden-Films/dp/B004PF0FJM) Rob Ager's analysis (https://www.collativelearning.com/2001%20analysis%20new.html) of 2001 (Ager was criticized for not citing Loughlin above) Eric Norton's Playboy interview (https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2016/10/02/playboy-interview-stanley-kubrick/) with Stanley Kubrick J. F. Martel, "The Kubrick Gaze" (https://www.amazon.com/Toward-2012-Perspectives-Next-Age/dp/B002PJ4L72) in Daniel Pinchbeck & Ken Jordan (eds.), Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age J. F. Martel, "The Future is Immanent: Speculations on a Possible World" (https://realitysandwich.com/149962/the-future-is-immanent-speculations-on-a-possible-world/) Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/) Sid Meier's Civilization V (https://civilization.com/civilization-5/) Stanley Kubrick (dir.), Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/) Stanley Kubrick (dir.), A Clockwork Orange (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/) Dziga Vertov, Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov (https://www.amazon.com/Kino-Eye-Writings-Dziga-Vertov/dp/0520056302) Marshall McLuhan, [Understanding Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnderstandingMedia)_ Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology) Gilbert Ryle, "Improvisation" (https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/LXXXV/337/69/974404?redirectedFrom=PDF)

In this second part of their exploration of C. G. Jung's essay "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," JF and Phil try to discern the psychological and metaphysical implications of the great Swiss psychologist's theory of art. For one, this involves discussing what Jung meant by archetypes, and how these relate to the artists who bring them forth in artistic works. This in turn leads to a discussion of the emergent artwork as an "autonomous complex," that is, as a self-moving spirit that requires the artist merely as a conduit for its manifestation in human -- and cosmic -- history. REFERENCES Carl Gustav Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (http://www.studiocleo.com/librarie/jung/essay.html) Arthur Machen, "Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy" (https://archive.org/details/hieroglyphicsnot00mach) Rick Riordan, [Percy Jackson & the Olympians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PercyJackson%26theOlympians) series of novels Robert Altman (director), Nashville (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073440/) Homer, The Odyssey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey) Jacques Offenbach, [The Tales of Hoffmann](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTalesofHoffmann)_ E. T. A. Hoffmann, "The Sandman" (http://art3idea.psu.edu/metalepsis/texts/sandman.pdf) David Lynch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lynch), American filmmaker (the Dionysian!) Stanley Kubrick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick), American filmmaker (the Apollonian!) Richard Wagner's idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk) William S. Burroughs, [Naked Lunch ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NakedLunch)_ Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance (https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/vermeer-woman-holding-a-balance.html), and JF's analysis (https://www.metapsychosis.com/consciousness-in-the-aesthetic-imagination/) thereof Lisa Ruddick, "When Nothing is Cool" (https://thepointmag.com/criticism/when-nothing-is-cool/) Weird Studies episode 5 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/5): Reading Lisa Ruddick's "When Nothing is Cool"

This is the first of two conversations that Phil and JF are devoting to C. G. Jung's seminal essay, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," first delivered in a 1922 lecture. It was in this text that Jung most clearly distilled his thoughts on the power and function of art. In this first part, your hosts focus their energies on Jung's puralistic style, opposing it not just to Freud's monism (which Jung critiques in the paper) but also to the monism of those other two "masters of suspicion," Marx and Nietzsche. For Jung, art is not a branch of psychology, economics, philosophy, or science. It constitutes its own sphere, and non-artists who would investigate the nature of art would do well to respect the line that art has drawn in the sand. Weird Studies listenters will know this line as the boundary between the general and the specific, the common and the singular, the mundane and the mystical... REFERENCES C. G. Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (http://www.studiocleo.com/librarie/jung/essay.html) Joshua Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century (http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Modern-Occult-Rhetoric,5019.aspx) Peter Kingsley, Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity (https://peterkingsley.org/product/catafalque/) Sigmund Freud (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud), Austrian psychologist Kinka Usher (director), Mystery Men (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132347/) Theodor Adorno, “Bach Defended Against his Devotees” Aleister Crowley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley), English magician C. G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus (https://philemonfoundation.org/published-works/red-book/) Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, [The Power of Myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePowerofMyth)_ C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (https://www.amazon.com/Memories-Dreams-Reflections-Carl-Gustav-ebook/dp/B004FYZK52) C. G. Jung, [The Portable Jung](https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Jung-Library/dp/0140150706/ref=sr11?dchild=1&keywords=Viking+Portable+Jung&qid=1589374313&s=digital-text&sr=1-1-catcorr) Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life" in: [Untimely Meditations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UntimelyMeditations)_ Weird Studies, episode 49 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/49): Nietzsche on History Weird Studies, episode 70 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/70): Masks All the Way Down, with James Curcio Christian Kerslake, Deleuze and the Unconscious (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/deleuze-and-the-unconscious-9781441154996/) Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-hermetic-deleuze) Paul Ricoeur (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ricoeur/), French philosopher Rudolph Steiner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner), Austrian esotericist

For over two centuries in early modern Italy, boys were selected for their singing talent castrated before the onset of puberty. The goal was to preserve the qualities of their voice even as they grew into manhood. The procedure resulted in other physiological changes which, combined with an unnaturally high voice, made the castrati the most prodigious singers on the continent. As Martha Feldman shows in her book The Castrato, a masterpiece of cultural history, the castrated singer was such a singular figure that he invited comparisons with angels, animals, and kings, attracting adoration and ridicule in equal measures. The castrato was a true liminal being, and as JF and Phil discover in this episode of Weird Studies, an unlikely herald of the present age. REFERENCES Martha Feldman, The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520292444/the-castrato) Stanley Kubrick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick), American filmmaker Alessandro Moreschi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Moreschi), the last castrato, singing "Ave Maria (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws)" Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm) X-Men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men) Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Old_Man_with_Enormous_Wings)" Thomas Ligotti, "Mrs Ligotti's Angel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm1iH6EIMAA)", read by horror writer Jon Padgett (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7189686.Jon_Padgett) Weird Studies, Episode 48: Thomas Ligotti's Angel (https://www.weirdstudies.com/46) Thomas Aquinas, [Summa Theologica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SummaTheologica)_ Genesis P-Orridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_P-Orridge), American musician and occultist

On the surface, the phrase "the medium is the message," prophetic as it may have been when Marshall McLuhan coined it, points a now-obvious fact of our wired world, namely that the content of any medium is less important than its form. The advent of email, for instance, has brought about changes in society and culture that are more far-reaching than the content of any particular email. On the other hand, this aphorism of McLuhan's has the ring of an utterance of the Delphic Oracle. As Phil proposes in this episode of Weird Studies, it is an example of what Zen practitioners call a koan, a statement that occludes and illumines in equal measures, a jewel whose shining surface is an invitation to descend into dark depths. Join JF and Phil as they discuss the mystical and cosmic implications of McLuhan's oracular vision. REFERENCES McLuhan, [Understanding Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnderstandingMedia)_ The Playboy interview (https://nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview-marshall-mcluhan) McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, [The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMediumIstheMassage) Graham Harman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Harman), American philosopher Clement Greenberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Greenberg), American critic Dale Pendell, [Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1556438052/ref=dbsadefrwtbiblvppii2) Brian Eno (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Eno), British composer Marshall and Eric McLuhan, The Laws of Media: The New Science (https://utorontopress.com/ca/laws-of-media-1) _ Jonathan Sterne, _The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-past) Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone (editors), The Essential McLuhan (https://www.amazon.com/Essential-McLuhan-Eric/dp/0465019951) Charles A. Reich, [The Greening of America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGreeningofAmerica)_ David Fincher (director), The Social Network (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/) _ Gilles Deleuze, _Cinema I (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/cinema-1) _and _Cinema II (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/cinema-2) Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin (https://www.amazon.com/Ever-Present-Origin-Part-Aperspectival-Manifestations/dp/0821407694) Eric Havelock,_ Preface to Plato (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674699069)_ Walter J. Ong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_J._Ong), American theorist Plato, [Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic(Plato))_

James Curcio is an American multidisciplinary artist and nonfiction writer whose works include the novels Join My Cult, The Party at the World's End, and the upcoming Tales from When I Had a Face. Recently, Curcio edited Masks: Bowie and Artists of Artifice, an anthology of essays by various thinkers and artists on the complex interplay of fact and fiction, self and other, in the life of the modern creator of artistic works. David Bowie's career, from the early experimentations to the great working that was his final album Blackstar, provides the book's gravitational field. In his effort to better plumb the mysteries of the aesthetic universe, Curcio penned the anthology's opening essay, "Masks All the Way Down," and it is on that piece that this conversation focuses. Join James, Phil and JF as they discuss the terrifying and liberating idea of an aesthetic cosmos as seen from the vantage point of the artist who learns that with new each work comes a new face, an amalgam of symbols and forces drawn from a depth of surfaces, a paper-thin dream that goes ever so deep... REFERENCES James Curcio (editor), Masks: Bowie and Artists of Artifice (www.intellectbooks/masks) James Curcio's website: https://www.jamescurcio.com James Curcio's new novel, Tales from When I Had a Face (www.TalesFromWhenIHadAFace.com) David Bowie, Blackstar (https://www.imablackstar.com) Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (https://archive.org/details/bodiesthatmatter00butl) Poppy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppy_(entertainer)), American singer Anatta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta), the Buddhist concept of no-self Nagarjuna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna), Indian philosopher Yukio Mishima (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima), Japanese writer Hunter S. Thompson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_S._Thompson), American writer Lewis A. Sass, [Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought](https://books.google.ca/books/about/MadnessandModernism.html?id=fCddtAEACAAJ&rediresc=y)_ Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life" in Untimely Meditations (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/nietzsche-untimely-meditations/4AF50CD140CAB4EA8D249422BF60D5E5) Ornette Coleman, [Change of the Century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChangeoftheCentury)_ Thomas Merton, [The Way of Chuang Tzu](https://books.google.ca/books/about/TheWayofChuangTzu.html?id=Odh47AxzR4C&rediresc=y) Vladimir Nabokov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Nabokov), Russian novelist Nicholas Roeg (director), The Man Who Fell to Earth (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074851/) Raphael Bob-Waksberg (creator), [BoJack Horseman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoJackHorseman)_ Richard Dyer, [Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society](https://books.google.ca/books/about/HeavenlyBodies.html?id=oUJ0Qbse7lYC&rediresc=y) Euripides, [The Bacchae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheBacchae)_ Special Guest: James Curcio.

What is there to say about the COVID-19 virus that hasn't already been said, over and over again, all around the world, in quaratined houses and on TV and social media and countless Zoom chats ... what can we say that you haven't heard? Well, probably nothing. But we are now at the point where we realize that the real importance of the things we say is not their content, but the mere fact of saying them. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and at a time when we have been driven into separate solitudes, we are discovering that the real meaning of our utterances might be something like "hello, are you there?" and "I am here, talking to you." In that spirit, Phil and JF have a conversation about William James's essay "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake," partly to discuss the ways that it's relevant to our present circumstances and the ways it's not, but mostly to make human connections, both with each other and with Weird Studies listeners. As JF says, stay close, but keep your distance. REFERENCES William James, "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake" (http://fullreads.com/essay/on-some-mental-effects-of-the-earthquake/) William James, Writings 1902-1910 (https://www.loa.org/books/66-writings-1902-1910) Noel Black (director), "To See the Invisible Man" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_See_the_Invisible_Man), 2nd segment of episode 16 of The Twilight Zone (1985-86) Weird Studies no. 29, “On Lovecraft” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/29) Weird Studies no. 64, “Dreams and Shadows: On Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/64) Weird Studies no. 67, “Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On Hellier” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/67) Martin Heidegger, “‘Only a God Can Save Us’: The Spiegel Interview" (http://www.ditext.com/heidegger/interview.html) Bruno Latour, "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns" (http://modesofexistence.org/) H.P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlathotep” (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/n.aspx)

In preparation for an upcoming special episode on living in the early days of the Covid-19 Pandemic, here's Phil Ford reading an essay William James wrote on his experience of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. REFERENCES William James, "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake" (http://fullreads.com/essay/on-some-mental-effects-of-the-earthquake/)

In 1979, the American psychologist James Hillman published The Dream and the Underworld, a polemical meditation on the nature of dreams. Rejecting the orthodoxies of both Freud and Jung, Hillman argued that the the "nightworld" of dream should not play second fiddle to the "dayworld" of waking life, because in the soul as on earth, day and night are equally essential, and equally real. To reduce a dream to a message or interpretation is to fail the dream. In order for dreams to do their work on us, says Hillman, we must cease to regard them as hallucinations, mere metaphors, epiphenomena, or illusions, and instead see them as the imaginal other life we all must live. Every night, for Hillman, each of us descends into the underworld to encounter those forces that shape us and our surroundings. The way down is the way up. REFERENCES James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Underworld-James-Hillman/dp/0060906820) T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" (https://msu.edu/~jungahre/transmedia/the-hollow-men.html) Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2398) George Steiner, Real Presences (https://www.amazon.com/Real-Presences-George-Steiner/dp/0226772349) Hakim Bey, Orgies of the Hemp Eaters: Cuisine, Slang, Literature and Ritual of Cannabis Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Orgies-Hemp-Eaters-Literature-Cannabis/dp/1570271437) Erik Davis, High Strangeness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/high-weirdness) Brad Warner on drugs and Buddhism (http://hardcorezen.info/sex-and-drugs-and-buddhism/5962) Aldous Huxley, [The Doors of Perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDoorsofPerception)_ Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (https://www.versobooks.com/books/1570-24-7) Christopher Nolan (dir.), Inception (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/) Jorge Luis Borges, "Nightmares" in Seven Nights (https://www.amazon.com/Jorge-Luis-Borges-1984-10-16-Paperback/dp/B00H86QLHK) Henri Bergson, Dreams (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20842)

On the night before this episode of Weird Studies was released, a bunch of folks on the Internet performed a collective magickal working. Prompted by the paranormal investigator Greg Newkirk, they watched the final episode of the documentary series Hellier at the same time -- 10:48 PM EST -- in order to see what would happen. Listeners who are familiar with this series, of which Newkirk is both a protagonist and a producer, will recall that the last episode features an elaborate attempt at gate opening involving no less than Pan, the Ancient Greek god of nature. If we weren't so cautious (and humble) in our imaginings, we at Weird Studies might consider the possibility that this episode is a retrocausal effect of that operation. In it, we discuss the show that took the weirdosphere by storm last year, touching on topics such as subterranean humanoids, the existence of "Ascended Masters," Aleister Crowley's secret cipher, the Great God Pan, and the potential dangers of opening gates to other worlds ... or of leaving them closed. REFERENCES Karl Pfeiffer (director), Hellier (https://www.hellier.tv) Philip K. Dick, Valis (https://www.amazon.com/VALIS-Valis-Trilogy-Philip-Dick/dp/0547572417) Weird Studies episode 12 - The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher (https://www.weirdstudies.com/12) John Benson Brooks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Benson_Brooks), American musician Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Sound-Music-Hip-Culture/dp/0199939918) Thelema (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelema) Allen H. Greenfield, [The Complete Secret Cipher of the Ufonauts](https://www.amazon.com/Complete-SECRET-CIPHER-UfOnauts/dp/171864535X/ref=pdsbs14t0/133-7739091-0346850?encoding=UTF8&pdrdi=171864535X&pdrdr=353611af-e47e-4e30-8a57-660b52cf9fcc&pdrdw=4jKmT&pdrdwg=zk2TP&pfrdp=5cfcfe89-300f-47d2-b1ad-a4e27203a02a&pfrdr=6316BW6KREEPKCF1G4T8&psc=1&refRID=6316BW6KREEPKCF1G4T8)_ Secret cipher online tool (https://www.naeq.io/about/) Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law (https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/engccxx.htm) Gematria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria) John Keel, [The Mothman Prophecies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMothmanProphecies) Eric Wargo, [Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious](https://www.amazon.com/Time-Loops-Precognition-Retrocausation-Unconscious/dp/1938398920/ref=cmcrarpdproducttop?ie=UTF8)_ Grant Morrison, [The Invisibles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheInvisibles)_ Genesis P. Orridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_P-Orridge), American artist Alex Reed, [Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assimilate:ACriticalHistoryofIndustrialMusic) Helena Blavatsky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky), Russian theosophist Annie Besant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Besant), British theosophist Peter J. Carroll (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Carroll), British occultist Kenneth Grant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Grant), British occultist C. G. Jung, The Red Book (https://www.brainpickings.org/2010/01/20/carl-jung-the-red-book/) Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, "Chinese Whispers: The Origin of LAM" in The Blood of the Saints (https://archive.org/details/01TheBloodOfTheSaints) Richard Sharpe Shaver (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharpe_Shaver), American writer and contactee James Hillman, [Pan and the Nightmare](https://books.google.ca/books/about/PanandtheNightmare.html?id=OokQAQAAIAAJ&rediresc=y) Occultist Paul Weston's blog post (http://www.paulwestonglastonbury.com/hellier-interview-featuring-allen-greenfield-paul-weston/) on Hellier John Keel, [The Mothman Prophecies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMothmanProphecies) Peter Kingsley, Catafalque (https://peterkingsley.org/product/catafalque/) Eric Voegeln, [The New Science of Politics: An Introduction](https://books.google.ca/books/about/TheNewScienceofPolitics.html?id=kNfBCKFB8WMC&rediresc=y)_ and [Science, Politics, and Gnosticism](https://www.amazon.com/Science-Politics-Gnosticism-Eric-Voegelin/dp/1932236481/ref=sr11?keywords=science+politics+and+gnosticism&qid=1583333002&s=books&sr=1-1) Auguste Comte (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Comte), French philosopher Colin Wilson, [The Occult: A History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheOccult:AHistory)_

In the paper discussed in this episode, Phil Ford coins the term "diviner's time" to denote a particular feeling that will be familiar to anyone who has engaged in divinatory or magical practice, namely the feeling that it all means something, that the universe, with all its chaos and randomness, nevertheless contains -- or is itself -- a kind of music. This episode goes deep down the rabbit hole as Phil and JF try to wrap their heads around conceptions of time, causality, and meaning that are very different from our usual understanding of those terms. REFERENCES Phil Ford, "Diviner’s Time" (https://www.patreon.com/posts/33549091) (Patreon exclusive) Karl Pfeifer (director), Hellier (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1FwIuicx88) Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux" (https://philpapers.org/rec/RAMCWU-2) E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Witchcraft-Oracles-and-Magic-Among-the-Azande) Jung, "On Synchronicity" Jung, [Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle](https://archive.org/stream/223463118SYNCHRONICITYAnAcausalConnectingPrincipleJung/223463118-SYNCHRONICITY-An-Acausal-Connecting-Principle-Jungdjvu.txt)_ Bruno Latour, An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns (http://modesofexistence.org) Grant Morrison (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTMFBYXmvMk) on chaos magic, the occult, and sigil creation Austin Osman Spare's sigil theory (https://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/chaos/spare/aosig.html) Eric Wargo, [Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious](https://www.amazon.com/Time-Loops-Precognition-Retrocausation-Unconscious/dp/1938398920/ref=sr11?keywords=time+loops+wargo&qid=1582046494&s=books&sr=1-1) Alan Chapman, [Advanced Magick for Beginners](https://archive.org/stream/advanced-magick-for-beginners-alan-chapman/advanced-magick-for-beginners-alan-chapmandjvu.txt)_ William James's essays in psychical research: bibliography (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674267084&content=toc) Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=After+Finitude:+An+Essay+on+the+Necessity+of+Contingency&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8) Toronto World Youth Day 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Youth_Day_2002) Crowley, [Magick Without Tears](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagickWithoutTears) Leibniz's concept of pre-established harmony (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-established_harmony) Matthew Segall on the Greek concepts of time, "Minding Time: Chronos, Kairos and Aion in an Archetypal Cosmos" (https://footnotes2plato.com/2015/05/15/minding-time-chronos-kairos-and-aion-in-an-archetypal-cosmos/) Richard Lester (director), Hard Day's Night (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058182/) Freud, "The Uncanny" (https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf) Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Otto/The-Idea-of-the-Holy) Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo3622811.html) Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History (https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Eternal-Return-Cosmos-History/dp/0691097984) Charles Taylor, [A Secular Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASecularAge)

B. W. Powe is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and professor at York University, in Toronto. His work, though it covers an immense range of topics from politics and poetics to magic and technology, proceeds from a mystical apprehension of the universe as the locus of magical operations, the site of experiments in cosmic becoming. In his various books and essays, Powe continues a uniquely Canadian form of the visionary tradition whose luminaries include his former teachers Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye. In this episode, he joins JF and Phil for an exploration of the meaning, potency, and danger of the visionary in art and literature. Header image: Detail of "Green Color" by Gausanchennai (Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Green_color.jpg)). REFERENCES B. W. Powe's website (https://bwpowe.net) B. W. Powe, [The Charge in the Global Membrane](https://www.amazon.com/Charge-Global-Membrane-B-Powe/dp/0997502185/ref=cmcrarpdproducttop?ie=UTF8)_ B. W. Powe, [Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye: Apocalypse and Alchemy](https://www.amazon.com/Marshall-McLuhan-Northrop-Frye-Apocalypse/dp/1442616164/ref=tmmpapswatch0?encoding=UTF8&qid=1580849056&sr=1-1) Frank Lentricchia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lentricchia), "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic" Lorca's concept of duende Hildegard of Bingen's concept of viriditas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viriditas) Gilles Deleuze, [Cinema II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema2:TheTime-Image)_ Ernest Hemingway, [The Old Man and the Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheOldManandtheSea)_ Marshall McLuhan, [Understanding Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnderstandingMedia)_ Marshall McLuhan, [The Gutenberg Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGutenbergGalaxy) Marshall McLuhan, "Notes on William Burroughs" Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Sound-Music-Hip-Culture-ebook/dp/B00DPJ6RE6) John Clellon Holmes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clellon_Holmes), beatnik Northrop Frye (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Frye), Canadian literary critic Hildegard von Bingen, Ordo Virtutum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUMlhtoGTzY) Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRjQCvfcXn0) Genesis 32, Jacob and the Angel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_wrestling_with_the_angel) R. D. Laing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._D._Laing), Scottish psychologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, [The Phenomenon of Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePhenomenonofMan)_ William James, [The Varieties of Religious Experience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheVarietiesofReligiousExperience) Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus) Sylvia Plath, "Daddy" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48999/daddy-56d22aafa45b2) Jack Kerouac (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac), American writer Allen Ginsberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Ginsberg), American poet Lionel Snell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Snell), British philosopher and magician Special Guest: B. W. Powe.

In her National Book Award acceptance speech in 2014, Ursula K. Le Guin intimated that, far from being superseded by digital technology, fantastic fiction has never been more important than it is about to become. Soon, she prophesied, "we will need writers who can remember freedom -- poets, visionaries, realists of a larger reality." In this episode, Phil and JF plumb the prophetic depths of one of her most famous books, A Wizard of Earthsea. A discussion of the novel's style and lore leads us into the politics and metaphysics of fantasy as developed by Le Guin and her predecessor, J. R. R. Tolkien. In the end, we realize that fantasy is not the literary ghetto it's been made out to be, but the sine qua non of all fiction. SHOW NOTES John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn) Heidegger, "On the Origin of the Work of Art" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_the_Work_of_Art) Beowulf (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16328/16328-h/16328-h.htm), An Anglo-Saxon epic poem Weird Studies, episode 41 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/41) -- On Speculative Fiction, with Matt Cardin Weird Studies, episode 61 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/61) -- Evil and Ecstasy: On 'The Silence of the Lambs' Weird Studies, episode 62 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/62): Like 'The Shining,' But With Nuns: On 'Black Narcissus' The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes (https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Romances-Chretien-Troyes/dp/0253207878) (translated by J.F.'s mentor, David Staines) Sir Thomas Malory, [La Morte d'Arthur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeMorted%27Arthur) Lewis Carroll (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll), British fantasist Ursula K. Le Guin's acceptance speech (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2v7RDyo7os) at the National Book Awards, 2014 David Hume, [An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnEnquiryConcerningHumanUnderstanding) and [A Treatise of Human Nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATreatiseofHumanNature)

At its simplest, what Colin Wilson calls Faculty X is "simply that latent power in human beings possess to reach beyond the present." Yet its existence is evinced in all those phenomena that modernity files under "supernatural" or "occult." As difficult to explain as it is impossible to omit from any honest survey of human existence, the occult haunts the modern, not just as a vestige of the past but also, perhaps, as a promise from a time to come. For Wilson, magic isn't the living fossil the arch-rationalists would like it to be, but a "science of the future." Faculty X is an evolutionary power, innately positive, inseparable from the will to live and the unshakeable conviction that, somehow, this world has some real, ineffable meaning. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Wilson's concept of Faculty X as elaborated in his monumental 1971 work, The Occult. REFERENCES Colin Wilson, [The Occult: A History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheOccult:AHistory)_ [Rick and Morty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RickandMorty), American sitcom Colin, Wilson, [Dreaming to Some Purpose](https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Some-Purpose-Colin-Wilson/dp/0099471477/ref=tmmpapswatch0?encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) Colin Wilson, [The Outsider](https://www.amazon.com/Outsider-Colin-Wilson/dp/0874772060/ref=sr11?keywords=the+outsider+wilson&qid=1578474099&s=books&sr=1-1) Gary Lachman, [Beyond the Robot](https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Robot-Life-Colin-Wilson/dp/0399173080/ref=sr11?keywords=Beyond+the+Robot&qid=1578474127&s=books&sr=1-1) Camus, [The Myth of Sisyphus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMythofSisyphus)_ David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence Making Sense, episode 107 (https://samharris.org/podcasts/107-life-actually-worth-living/): Is Life Actually Worth Living? Peter Wessel Zapffe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe), Norwegian philosopher Thomas Ligotti, [The Conspiracy Against the Human Race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheConspiracyAgainsttheHumanRace)_ Francisco Goya, [The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSleepofReasonProducesMonsters)_ Emil Cioran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Cioran), Franco-Romanian essayist Arthur Schopenhauer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer), German philosopher At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing (https://www.loa.org/books/342-at-the-fights-american-writers-on-boxing-hardcover), Library of America collection Joe Frazier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Frazier), American pugilist Henri Bergson, [Matter and Memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MatterandMemory) Edouard Schuré, [The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religions](Edouard Schuré, _The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religion (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Initiates-Secret-History-Religions/dp/0893452289) Weird Studies, episode 8 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/8): On Graham Harman's "The Third Table" Thomas Merton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton), American monk Gary Snyder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Snyder), American poet

The 1947 British film Black Narcissus is many things: an allegory of the end of empire, a chilling ghost story with nary a spook in sight, a psychological romance, and a meditation on the nature of the divine. Its weirdness is as undeniable as it is difficult to locate. On the surface, the story is straightforward: five nuns are tasked with opening a convent in the former seraglio of a dead potentate in the Himalayas. But on a deeper level, there is a lot more going on, as Phil and JF discover in this conversation touching on the presence of the past, the monstrosity of God, the mystery of the singular, and the eroticism of prayer, among other strangenesses. REFERENCES Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburged (dirs.), Black Narcissus (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039192/) Rumer Godden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumer_Godden), author of the original novel Stanley Kubrick, The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) Gilles Deleuze, [Difference and Repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DifferenceandRepetition) Tim Ingold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Ingold), British anthropologist -- lecture: "One World Anthropology" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEWS89dd9nM) Jonathan Demme (dir.), The Silence of the Lambs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/) Pierre Bourdieu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu), French sociologist Bruno Latour, On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods (https://www.dukeupress.edu/on-the-modern-cult-of-the-factish-gods) Don Barhelme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme), American short story writer Paul Ricoeur (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ricoeur/), French philosopher Weird Studies episode 16 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/16): On Dogen Zenji's Genjokoan The King and the Beggar Maid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_and_the_Beggar-maid) Gillo Pontecorvo, [The Battle of Algiers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheBattleofAlgiers)_ “Painting with Light,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuwU_f42dUk) featurette on the Criterion Collection DVD of Black Narcissus

The Welsh writer Arthur Machen defined good and evil as "ecstasies." Each one is a "withdrawal from the common life." On this view, any artistic investigation into the nature of good and evil can't remain safely ensconced our modern, common-life construal of thinigs. It must become fantastic and incorporate aspects of "nature" that feel "supernatural" from a modern standpoint. Jonathan Demme's screen adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs is a powerful example. The film oscillates undecidably between a straightforward crime story and a work of supernatural horror. In this episode, JF and Phil cast Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling as figures in a myth that pits the individual against the institution, the singular against the type, and the forces of light against the forces of darkness. REFERENCES Jonathan Demme (dir.), The Silence of the Lambs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/) Thomas Harris, [The Silence of the Lambs](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23807.TheSilenceoftheLambs) (original novel) Carl Jung (https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2019/08/02/carl-jung-on-the-doctrine-of-privatio-boni/#.XefQEy8ZO_I) on the doctrine of Privatio Boni Johann Sebastian Bach, [The Goldberg Variations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldbergVariations)_ William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Recognition-Blue-Ant-Book-ebook/dp/B000OCXGVY) Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgnClrx8N2k) Howard Shore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Shore), Canadian composer Arthur Machen, The White People Weird Studies, episode 3 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3): Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People" Machen, [The White People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWhitePeople) Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature (https://archive.org/details/hieroglyphicsnot00mach/page/n4)

Somebody once said, "No prophet is welcome in his own country." Whether this was true in the case of jazz musician and composer Sun Ra depends on whom you ask. With most, the dictum probably bears out. But there are those who can make out certain patterns in Ra's life and work, patterns that place him among the true mystics and prophets. Of course, these people already believe in mysticism and prophecy, but Sun Ra's total devotion to his myth does not leave much wiggle room on this front. He is asking us to choose: believe or disbelieve. And if you go with disbelief, you'll need to explain the sustained coherence and lucidity of his message, and the transformative power of his music. In this episode, Phil and JF take a look at Sun Ra's unforgettable film Space is the Place, interpreting it as a document in the history of esotericism, using gnostic thought and the tarotology as instruments to bring some of his secrets to light. REFERENCES Sun Ra, Space is the Place Sun Ra: Brother from Another Planet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeiN1Wu0bM0)_ Deleuze and Guattari, [A Thousand Plateaus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AThousandPlateaus) and [Kafka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority(philosophy))_ (for the concept of minority) Antoine Faivre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Faivre), French historian of esotericism Michel Foucault, [The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheOrderofThings)_ Eliphas Lévi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éliphas_Lévi), French occultist Edward O. Bland (director) [The Cry of Jazz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheCryofJazz)_ Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History (https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691182971/the-myth-of-the-eternal-return) Ingmar Bergman, [The Seventh Seal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSeventhSeal) Stanley Kubrick, Dr Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/) Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice (https://www.amazon.com/Magick-Theory-Practice-Aleister-Crowley/dp/1555217664) Jackson Lears, Something for Nothing: Luck in America (https://www.amazon.com/Something-Nothing-America-Jackson-Lears/dp/0670031739)

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around a lake." This line from Wallace Stevens' "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" captures something of the mysteries of walking. It points to the undeniable yet baffling relationship between walking and thinking, between putting one foot in front of the other and uncovering the secret of the soul and world. In this episode, JF and Phil exchange ideas about the weirdness of this thing most humans did on most days for most of world history. The conversation ranges over a vast territory, with zen monks, novelists, Jesuits and more joining your hosts on what turns out to be a journey to wondrous places. Header image by Beatrice, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lucca_labirinto.jpg) REFERENCES Dogen, The Mountains and Waters Sutra (https://tricycle.org/magazine/mountains-and-waters-sutra/) Weird Studies listener Stephanie Quick (https://stephaniequick.home.blog) on the Conspirinormal podcast (http://conspirinormal.com/blog-1/2019/9/23/conspirinormal-episode-281-ste[phanie-quick-sex-magick-101) Weird Studies episode 51, Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood' (https://www.weirdstudies.com/51) Lionel Snell, SSOTBME (https://www.amazon.com/SSOTBME-Revised-essay-Ramsey-Dukes/dp/0904311082) Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1862/06/walking/304674/) Arthur Machen, "The White People" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_White_People_(Machen)) Herman Melville, Moby Dick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick) Vladimir Horowitz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Horowitz), Russian panist Gregory Bateson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Bateson), cybernetic theorist The myth of the Giant Antaeus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antaeus) Wallce Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" (https://genius.com/Wallace-stevens-notes-toward-a-supreme-fiction-annotated) Deleuze, [Difference and Repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DifferenceandRepetition) Michel de Certeau, [The Practice of Everyday Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePracticeofEverydayLife) John Cowper Powys, English novelist Will Self (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Self), English writer Guy Debord, [The Society of the Spectacle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSocietyoftheSpectacle) Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nTjn1yJp0w) Paul Thomas Anderson (director), Punch Drunk Love (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272338/) Viktor Shklovsky (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Shklovsky), Russian formalist Patreon blog post on Phil’s dream (https://www.patreon.com/posts/virus-30409580) David Lynch (director), [Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TwinPeaks:FireWalkwithMe)_

What is the role of the critic in the world of art? For some, including lots of critics, the figure exudes an aura of authority: her task is to tell us what this or that work of art means, why it matters, and what we are supposed to think and feel in its presence. Cast in in this mold, the critic is an arbiter, not just of taste, but also of sense and meaning. The American art critic Dave Hickey categorically rejects this interpretation, which he says gives off a mild stench of fascism. For Hickey, the critic plays a weak role, and it's this weakness that makes it essential. In his essay "Air Guitar," published in 1997, Hickey argues that criticism can never really penetrate the mystery of any artwork. Criticism is rather a way to capture the "enigmatic whoosh" of art as one instance of the more pervasive "whoosh" of ordinary experience. So, no act of criticism can ever exhaust an artwork. The critic interprets a singular experience of art into words so that others might be encouraged to have their own, equally singular experiences. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss what criticism has to do with art, life, politics, and ordinary experience. Header image: Caravaggio, The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599-1600) REFERENCES Dave Hickey, Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (https://www.amazon.com/Air-Guitar-Essays-Art-Democracy/dp/0963726455) Plato, Republic (https://www.iep.utm.edu/republic/) Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying (https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/Abstracts/Wilde_1889.html)" Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Sound-Music-Hip-Culture/dp/0199939918) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature (https://www.amazon.com/Kafka-Toward-Literature-Theory-History/dp/0816615152) Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? (https://www.amazon.com/What-Philosophy-Gilles-Deleuze/dp/0231079893) Dave Hickey, "Buying the World" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20027807?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) Clinton e-mails exhibition (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hillary-clinton-reads-emails-venice-art-show-1648867) at the Venice Biennale Oscar Wilde, [The Portrait of Dorian Gray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThePictureofDorianGray)

Raiders of the Lost Ark is more than a Hollywood movie made in the summer blockbuster mold. As Phil says in his intro to this popping Weird Studies episode, the film is "a Trojan horse of the Weird, easy to let in but once inside, apt to take over." This conversation sees him and JF discuss a movie we dismiss at our own risk, a cinematic masterpiece replete with enigmas that reach back to the foundations of Western civilization. What does the Ark of the Covenant signify? What does it contain? What happens if you open that box of god(s)? And whose god is this, anyway? These are questions that have puzzled theologians and mystics for centuries, and Steven Spielberg's great work asks them anew for an age gone nuclear. Image by arsheffield (https://www.flickr.com/photos/arsheffield/4720479991) REFERENCES Steven Spielberg, [Raiders of the Lost Ark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RaidersoftheLostArk) Steven Soderbergh’s version of Raiders (http://extension765.com/soderblogh/18-raiders) with sound and color removed Weird Studies Patreon extra, “Weird Genius” (https://www.patreon.com/posts/weird-genius-29698043) Weird Studies episode 28, “Weird Music Part 2” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/28) Camille Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre (https://www.classicfm.com/composers/saint-saens/guides/danse-macabre-visualisation/) M. Night Shyamalan, Signs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286106/) [Buck Rogers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BuckRogers), [Flash Gordon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashGordon) Neil Jordan (dir.), The End of the Affair (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172396/) Weird Studies episode 29, “On Lovecraft” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/29) Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism (https://archive.org/stream/TheOccultRootsOfNazism201602/The%20Occult%20Roots%20of%20Nazismdjvu.txt) Howard Carter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Carter), British archaeologist Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” (https://maskofreason.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/the-library-of-babel-by-jorge-luis-borges.pdf) Claude Levi Strauss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Lévi-Strauss), French anthropologist Clement Greenberg's concept of medium specificity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumspecificity) D. W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gni3Es9ACg) David Mamet, On Directing Film (https://www.amazon.com/Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/0140127224) Dumbo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbo) (1941 film) H. P. Lovecraft, “The Strange High House in the Mist” (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/shh.aspx) Jan Fries, Helrunar: A Manual of Rune Magick (https://www.amazon.com/Helrunar-Manual-Magick-Jan-Fries/dp/1869928903) Neil Gaiman, American Gods (https://www.amazon.com/American-Turtleback-School-Library-Binding/dp/0606396594/) GIF (https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/e/e38b53e4-e148-4e2d-b301-0b3bb15779ff/72Th5Q8y.gif) of the soldier moving funny at the end of Raiders Weird Studies episode 2, “Garmonbozia” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) Aaron Leitch (http://kheph777.tripod.com/indexaol.html), occultist Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure Gene Wolfe, [Soldier of the Mist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoldieroftheMist)_

The German poet and philosopher Jean Gebser's major work, The Ever-Present Origin, is a monumental study of the evolution of consciousness from prehistory to posthistory. For Gebser, consciousness adopts different "structures" at different times and in different contexts, and each structure reveals certain facets of reality while potentially occluding others. An integral human being is one who can utilize all of the structures according to the moment or situation. As Gebserian scholar Jeremy Johnson explains in this episode, modern humans are currently experiencing the transition from the "perspectival" structure which formed in the late Middle Ages to the "aperspectival," a new way of seeing and being that first revealed itself in the art of the Modernists. Grokking what the aperspectival means, and what it might look like, is just one of the tasks Jeremy, Phil and JF set themselves in this engaging trialogue. Jeremy D. Johnson is the author of the recently released Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness (https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Through-World-Consciousness-Nuralogicals/dp/1947544152). REFERENCES Jeremy Johnson, Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and the Integral Consciousness (https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Through-World-Consciousness-Nuralogicals/dp/1947544152) Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin (https://www.amazon.com/Ever-Present-Origin-Part-Aperspectival-Manifestations/dp/0821407694) William Irwin Thompson, Coming Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312176921) Ken Wilber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber), integral theorist Lionel Snell, “Spare Parts” (https://fulgur.co.uk/austin-osman-spare/spare-parts/?v=7516fd43adaa) Nagarjuna, “Verses of the Middle Way” (https://www.stephenbatchelor.org/index.php/en/verses-from-the-center) (Mulamadhyamakakarika) Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life (https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/philosophy-of-the-acrobat-on-peter-sloterdijk/) Thomas Aquinas, [Summa Theologica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SummaTheologica)_ Object-oriented ontology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_ontology) (OOO) Dogen, [Uji](https://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/DogenTeachings/UjiWelch.htm) (“The Time-Being”), from the Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) Special Guest: Jeremy D. Johnson.

No survey of weird literature would be complete without mentioning Algernon Blackwood (1869-1951). As with all masters of the genre, Blackwood's take on the weird is singular: here, it isn't the cold reaches of outer space that elicit in us a nihilistic frisson, but the vast expanses of our own planet's wild places -- especially the northern woods. In his story "The Wendigo," Blackwood combines the beliefs of the Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands with the folktales of his native Britain to weave an ensorcelling story that perfectly captures the mood of the Canadian wilderness. In this conversation, JF and Phil discuss their own experience of that wilderness growing up in Ontario. The deeper they go, the spookier things get. An episode best enjoyed in solitude, by a campfire. Header Image: "Highway 60 Passing Through the Boreal Forest in Algonquin Park" by Dimana Koralova, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Highway_60_passing_through_the_boreal_forest_in_Algonquin_Park_(September_2008).png) SHOW NOTES Glenn Gould, The Idea of North (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szgnGV4hOKU) Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo" (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10897/10897-h/10897-h.htm) Game of Thrones (https://www.hbo.com/game-of-thrones) (HBO series) Weird Studies, Episode 29: On Lovecraft (https://www.weirdstudies.com/29) H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx) Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69390/the-philosophy-of-composition) Fritz Leiber, [The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FafhrdandtheGrayMouser) Richard Wagner, Parsifal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsifal) David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4093826/) Peter Heller, The River: A Novel (https://www.amazon.com/River-novel-Peter-Heller/dp/0525521879) The Killing of Tim McLean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tim_McLean) (July 30, 2008) Weird Studies, Episode 3: Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3) Mysterious Universe: Strange and Terrifying Encounters with Skinwalkers (https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/11/strange-and-terrifying-encounters-with-skinwalkers/) Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds (https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Magonia-Folklore-Parallel-Worlds/dp/0809237962) Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Realism-Philosophy-Graham-Harman-ebook/dp/B009ODXIH6) Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40241)

"All things feel," Pythagoas said. Panpsychism, the belief that consciousnes is a property of all things and not limited to the human brain, is back in vogue -- with good reason. The problem of how inert matter could give rise to subjectivity and feeling has proved insoluble under the dominant assumptions of a hard materialism. Recently, the American filmmaker Errol Morris presented his own brand of panpsychism in a long-form essay entitled, "The Pianist and the Lobster," published in the New York Times. The essay opens with an episode from the life of Sviatoslav Richter, namely a time where the famous Russian pianist couldn't perform without a plastic lobster waiting for him in the wings. In Morris's piece, the curious anecdote sounds the first note of what turns out to be a polyphony of thoughts and ideas on consciousness, agency, Nerval's image of the the "Hidden God," and the deep weirdness of music. Phil and JF use Morris's essay to create a polyphony of their own. REFERENCES Errol Morris, "The Pianist and the Lobster" (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/21/opinion/editorials/errol-morris-lobster-sviatoslav-richter.html) Sviatoslav Richter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav_Richter), Russian pianist Nick Cave., Red Hand Files #53 (https://www.theredhandfiles.com/who-are-your-favourite-guitarists/) Thomas Kuhn, [The Structure of Scientific Revolutions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheStructureofScientificRevolutions) Bruno Monsaingeon (dir.), Richter: The Enigma (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfJVpjI3wJM) Bon Jovi, "Livin’ on a Prayer" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk) Brad Warner, "The Eyes of Dogen" (http://hardcorezen.info/the-eyes-of-dogen/6368) Gilles Deleuze, [Difference and Repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DifferenceandRepetition) Edgard Varèse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgard_Varèse), composer Benjamin Libet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet#Implications_of_Libet%27s_experiments), neuroscientist Robin Hardy (dir), [The Wicker Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWickerMan) Frans De Waal, Mama’s Last Hug (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/08/mamas-last-hug-frans-de-waal-review) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, [A Thousand Plateaus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AThousandPlateaus) Sartre, [The Transcendence of the Ego](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheTranscendenceoftheEgo) Tarot de Marseille - XVIII: The Moon (https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/e/e38b53e4-e148-4e2d-b301-0b3bb15779ff/W4v2yByR.jpg) Marsilio Ficino, [Three Books on Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devitalibritres)_ Carl Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (http://www.studiocleo.com/librarie/jung/essay.html), The Red Book (https://www.npr.org/2009/11/11/120129676/the-red-book-a-window-into-jungs-dreams) Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Gods-Original-Knowledge-Evolution/dp/0553371304)

William Gibson's Pattern Recognition was published in 2003, in the wake of 9/11. You would think that a novel about the early Internet's effects on the collective psyche would feel dated today. But Gibson's insight into the deeper implications of digital culture and soul-rending consumerism are such that we are still catching up with Cayce Pollard, the novel's protagonist, as she journeys into the hypermodern underworld, searching for the secrets of art, time, and death. In this episode, JF and Phil read Pattern Recognition as an exploration of the attention economy, an ascent of the all-seeing pyramid, a subtle rewilding of postmodern culture, and a handbook for the magicians of the future. REFERENCES William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (https://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Recognition-Blue-William-Gibson/dp/0425198685) Malcolm Gladwell, "The Coolhunt" (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/03/17/the-coolhunt) Douglas Rushkoff, [Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PresentShock:WhenEverythingHappensNow)_ Alvin and Heidi Toffler, [Future Shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FutureShock)_ Weird Studies Episode 30 -- On Stanley _Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (https://www.weirdstudies.com/30)_ Weird Studies Episode 50 -- Demogorgon: On _Stranger Things (https://www.weirdstudies.com/50)_ Austin Osman Spare, [The Focus of Life: The Mutterings of AOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheFocusofLife)_ Douglas Rushkoff, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age (https://www.wired.com/2011/07/douglas-rushkoff/)

The idea that beauty might denote an actual quality of the world, something outside the human frame, is one of the great taboos of modern intellectual thought. Beauty, we are almost universally told, is a cultural contrivance rooted in politics and history, an illusion that exists only in human heads, for human reasons. On this view, a world without us would be a world without beauty. But in this episode Phil and JF explore two texts, by James Hillman and Peter Schjeldahl, that dare to challenge the modern orthodoxy. For Hillman and Schjeldahl, to experience the beautiful is precisely the break out of human bondage and touch the Outside. Beauty may even be one of the few truly objective experiences anyone could hope for. Peter Schjeldahl, “Notes on Beauty,“ in Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New Aesthetics (https://www.amazon.com/Uncontrollable-Beauty-Toward-New-Aesthetics/dp/1581151969) James Hillman, “The Practice of Beauty,” in Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New Aesthetics (https://www.amazon.com/Uncontrollable-Beauty-Toward-New-Aesthetics/dp/1581151969) C.G. Jung's retreat, Bollingen Tower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollingen_Tower) Ugly public art (https://padailypost.com/2017/12/01/time-to-democratize-public-art/) in Palo Alto Dave Hickey, Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (https://www.amazon.com/Air-Guitar-Essays-Art-Democracy/dp/0963726455) Deleuze and Guattari, “Of the Refrain,” from [A Thousand Plateaus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AThousandPlateaus) Roger Scruton, Beauty (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/019955952X?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwrogerscrut-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=019955952X%22%3EBeauty%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22%3Ca%20href=) Weird Studies, Episode 36 -- On Hyperstition (https://www.weirdstudies.com/36) Weird Studies, Episode 33 -- The Fine Art of Changing the Subject: On Duchamp's "Fountain" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/33) Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking (https://www.amazon.com/Years-Magical-Thinking-Lionel-Snell/dp/0904311244) George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (https://www.iupui.edu/~santedit/sant/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/George-Santayana-The-Sense-of-Beauty.pdf) Ingri D'Aulaires, D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (https://www.amazon.com/DAulaires-Greek-Myths-Ingri-dAulaire/dp/0440406943) Messiaen, [Quartet for the End of Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYpBHc8pxU)_ Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light (https://www.amazon.com/He-Held-Radical-Light-Faith/dp/0374168466) God, [Book of Job](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BookofJob)

Through her fiction, Flannery O'Connor reenvisioned life as a supernatural war wherein each soul becomes the site of a clash of mysterious, almost incomprehensible forces. Her first novel, Wise Blood, tells the story of Hazel Motes, a young preacher with a new religion to sell: the Church Without Christ. In this episode, JF and Phil read Motes's misadventures in the "Jesus-haunted" city of Taulkinham, Tennessee, as a prophetic vision of the modern condition that is at once supremely tragic and funny as hell. As O'Connor herself wrote in her prefac to the book: "(Wise Blood) is a comic novel about a Christian malgré lui, and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death. REFERENCES Flannery O'Connor, [Wise Blood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiseBlood)_ James Marshall, [George and Martha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeorgeandMartha) (here's a great NYT piece (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/books/george-and-martha-james-marshall.html) on the books) Graham Hancock, [Fingerprints of the Gods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FingerprintsoftheGods)_ Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (https://www.amazon.com/Life-You-Save-May-Your/dp/0374529213) Jonathan Haidt, [The Righteous Mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheRighteousMind) G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/130) Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha (https://www.mctb.org) George Santayana, [The Sense of Beauty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSenseofBeauty)_ Amy Hungerford's lecture (https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291/lecture-3) on Wise Blood (Yale University)

The Duffer Brothers' hit series Stranger Things is many things: an exemplary piece of entertainment in the summer blockbuster mold, a fresh take on the "kids on bikes" subgenre of science fiction, a loving pastiche of 1980s Hollywood cinema. And as Phil and JF attempt to show in this episode, Stranger Things is also a deep investigation into the metaphysical assumptions of our times, and a bold statement on the ontology of the analog real. This, at least, was the thesis of JF's three-part essay "Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things," which appeared on Metapsychosis (https://www.metapsychosis.com/reality-is-analog-philosophizing-with-stranger-things-part-one/) after the first season dropped in 2016. Here, Phil and JF revisit that essay in order to expand on its arguments and discuss how it hoilds up in light of the series continued unfolding. The conversation touches on Apple's famous 1984 ad for the first Macintosh, the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the otherworldliness of airports, the ensorcelments of consumerism, and much more. REFERENCES [Stranger Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrangerThings)_ "Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things" available at Metapsychosis (https://www.metapsychosis.com/reality-is-analog-philosophizing-with-stranger-things-part-one/) or in ebook format (https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Analog-Philosophizing-Stranger-Things-ebook/dp/B01LXO775I) Samuel Delaney, Dhalgren (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhalgren) 1984 Apple commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSnW-ygU5g) for Macintosh [Wild Wild Country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WildWildCountry), Netflix documentary series Tom Frank, “Why Johnny Can’t Dissent” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43555671) Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Sound-Culture-Hardcover-August/dp/B010EW5LNY) Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ7osdJ4H_8) William S. Burroughs, [Naked Lunch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NakedLunch)_ Jack Kerouac, [Visions of Cody](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisionsofCody) William James, A Pluralistic Universe (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11984) Marc Augé, [Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity](https://books.google.ca/books/about/Nonplaces.html?id=5YsOAQAAMAAJ&rediresc=y) Weird Studies, episode 2: Garmonbozia (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) Homer, Odyssey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey) Matt Cardin, Dark Awakenings (http://www.mattcardin.com/fiction/dark-awakenings/) The Wachowskis, [The Matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMatrix)_ Jonathan Haight and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind (https://www.thecoddling.com)

In his essay "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life," Nietzsche attacks the notion that humans are totally determined by the historical forces that shape their physical and mental environment. Where other philosophers like Plato saw virtue in remembering eternal truths that earthly existence had wiped from our memories, Nietzsche extolled the virtues of forgetting, of becoming "untimely" and creating a zone where something new could arise. For Nietzsche, history was useful only if it served Life. Because we live in an age which constantly reifies history (through movies, news, social media, etc.) while also tricking us into thinking we somehow exist outside of history, the essay remains as relevant today as it was when Nietzsche wrote it a century and a half ago. REFERENCES Nietzsche, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life" in [Untimely Meditations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UntimelyMeditations)_ Epic Rap Battles of History: Eastern Philosophers vs Western Philosophers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_RO-jL-90) Ernest Newman, Life of Wagner (https://www.amazon.com/Life-Wagner-Volumes-Ernest-Newman/dp/0521291496) Alexander Nehamas, [Nietzsche: Life as Literature](https://www.amazon.com/Nietzsche-Life-Literature-Alexander-Nehamas/dp/0674624262/ref=sr11?keywords=Nietzsche%3A+Life+as+Literature&qid=1560911442&s=books&sr=1-1) Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25457/25457-pdf.pdf) Michael Foucault, "What is Englightenment?" (https://leap.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2017/01/Foucault-What-is-enlightenment.pdf) Antinatalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism) Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1998/1998-h/1998-h.htm) James Carse, [Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FiniteandInfiniteGames)_ P. J. O’Rourke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._J._O%27Rourke), American writer Richard Pryor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Pryor), American comedian

Journalist and historian of religion Erik Davis joins Phil and JF to talk about his latest magnum opus, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies. In this masterwork of weird scholarship, Davis explores the simultaneously luminous and obscure worlds of three giants of Seventies counterculture: Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick. Their psychonautical legacy serve as fuel for a deep-delving conversation on Davis' own ontological leanings, yearnings, and hesitations. We touch on his philosophical development since the release of Techgnosis in 1998, the meaning of "weird naturalism," the primacy of the aesthetic, the uses and abuses of anthropotechnics, the challenges of tightrope-walking across bottomless chasms, and lots more. REFERENCES Erik Davis, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Expreience in the Seventies (http://strangeattractor.co.uk/shoppe/high-weirdness/) Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (https://www.amazon.com/TechGnosis-Myth-Magic-Mysticism-Information/dp/1583949305) Philip K. Dick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick), American science fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson), American writer Terence McKenna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_McKenna), Half-elf bard Graham Harman, American philosopher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Harman) Timothy Morton, British philosopher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Morton) Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo4126089.html) William James (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James), American philosopher and psychologist Hee-jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist (https://www.amazon.com/Eihei-Dogen-Mystical-Hee-Jin-Kim/dp/0861713761) Dogen, "Instructions for the Cook" (http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Dogen_Teachings/Instructions_for_the_cook.html) Steve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process" (http://www.bussigel.com/systemsforplay/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Reich_Gradual-Process.pdf) Peter Sloterdijk, [You Must Change Your Life](https://books.google.ca/books/about/YouMustChangeYourLife.html?id=aDcBAAAQBAJ&rediresc=y) Albert Hofman’s famous bicycle ride (https://allthatsinteresting.com/bicycle-day-albert-hofmann) Erowid LSD vault (https://erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd.shtml) George Lackoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (https://www.amazon.ca/Metaphors-We-Live-George-Lakoff/dp/0226468011) Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, [Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age](https://www.amazon.com/Syntheism-Creating-God-Internet-Age/dp/9175471833/ref=sr11?qid=1559663582&refinements=p27%3AAlexander+Bard&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Alexander+Bard)_ Special Guest: Erik Davis.

Made in 2003, Lutz Dammbeck's documentary The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet is a film about many things, but the gist of it is something like what William Burroughs called the doctrine of control. We live in a world governed by technologies designed with a particular idea of society in mind, one that has its roots in the trauma of global war and the utopian dreams of modern thinkers. The viability of this ideal is, of course, an important question, and it was made all the more urgent by recent developments at the intersection of technology and politics. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the doctrine of control as imagined by one of its fiercest -- and most insane -- critics: Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski's thoughts on technological society form the through-line of Dammbeck's film, which in turn serves as a through-line for this jam on everything from one-world government and cybernetics to the archetype of the magus and the Whole Earth Catalog. REFERENCES Lutz Dammbeck (director), The Net: The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434231/) (2003) Chuck Klosterman, "FAIL" in [Eating the Dinosaur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EatingtheDinosaur) Jacques Ellul (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Ellul), French theorist Suzanne Treister, HEXEN Tarot Deck (http://www.suzannetreister.net/HEXEN2/HEXEN_2_Temp.html) -- Seven of Swords (http://www.suzannetreister.net/HEXEN2/TAROT_COL/Sword7_CybSeance.html) -- Justice (http://www.suzannetreister.net/HEXEN2/TAROT_COL/TAROT_JUSTICE_OWG-BR.html) -- The Sun (http://www.suzannetreister.net/HEXEN2/TAROT_COL/TAROT_SUN_AnarchoP.html) Norbert Wiener, [Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics:OrControlandCommunicationintheAnimalandtheMachine) and [The Human Use of Human Beings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheHumanUseofHumanBeings)_ Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook (https://archive.org/details/scientificoutloo030217mbp) Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20160545) Kevin Kelly, [What Technology Wants](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatTechnologyWants) Weird Studies Episode 2: Garmonbozia (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) Stewart Brand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Brand), writer and editor of the [Whole Earth Catalog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WholeEarthCatalog) Ursula Le Guin, [Always Coming Home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlwaysComingHome) Gary Snyder's idea that "we are primitives of an unknown culture" is explored in Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dig-9780199939916?cc=ca&lang=en&) Richard Brautigan, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace) (poem) [San Francisco Oracle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanFranciscoOracle) Heidegger, [The Question Concerning Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheQuestionConcerningTechnology)_

In his short story "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel," contemporary horror author Thomas Ligotti contrasts the chaotic monstrosity of dreams with the cold, indifferent, and no less monstrous purity of angels. It is the story of a boy whose vivid dream life is sapping his vital force, and who resorts to esoteric measures to rectify the situation. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the beauty and horror of dreams, the metaphysical signifiance of angels and demons, and the potential dangers of seeking the peace of absolute "purity" in the wondrous flux of lived experience. REFERENCES Thomas Ligotti, "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm1iH6EIMAA)" (read by Jon Padgett) Roger Scruton, The Face of God (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-face-of-god-9781847065247/) Thomas Ligotti, [Songs of a Dead Dreamer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SongsofaDeadDreamer) Thomas Ligotti, "The Last Feast of Harlequin" in [Grimscribe: His Lives and Works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimscribe:HisLivesandWorks) Robert Aickman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aickman), English author H. P. Lovecraft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft), American author H. R. Giger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Giger), Swiss artist Jean Giraud a.k.a. Moebius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Giraud), French comic book artist Donald Barthelme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme), American author Pierre Soulages (https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/Pierre-Soulages), French artist Bruno Schulz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Schulz), Polish author Thomas Bernhard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bernhard), Austrian author Edgar Allan Poe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe), American author J. F. Martel, "The Beautiful Madness: Primacy of Wonder in the Works of Thomas Ligotti" (Forthcoming in James Curcio (ed.), Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice (https://www.intellectbooks.com/masks) from Intellect Books) Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo" (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10897/10897-h/10897-h.htm) Thomas Ligotti, "The Dark Beauty of Unheard of Horrors" in The Thomas Ligotti Reader: Essays and Explorations (https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Ligotti-Reader-Darrell-Schweitzer/dp/1592241301) Dogen Zenji (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dōgen), Zen master Manichaeism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism) Spencer Brown, [The Laws of Form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LawsofForm) Ramsey Dukes, Words Made Flesh: Information In Formation (https://www.amazon.com/Words-Made-Flesh-Information-Formation/dp/0904311112) Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/essays-critical-and-clinical) Thomas Ligotti, "Purity," in Teatro Grottesco (https://www.amazon.com/Teatro-Grottesco-Thomas-Ligotti/dp/0753513749) James Joyce, Ulysses (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4300/4300-h/4300-h.htm) Advaita Vedanta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta) Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal (https://www.amazon.com/Hermetic-Deleuze-Philosophy-Spiritual-Religion/dp/082235229X) Lewis Carroll, [Alice's Adventures in Wonderland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27sAdventuresinWonderland)_ and [Through the Looking Glass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThroughtheLooking-Glass) James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Underworld-James-Hillman/dp/0060906820) P. J. O’Rourke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._J._O%27Rourke), political satirist

"May the present 'you' not survive this little book," Jeffrey Kripal writes in the prologue to The Flip. "May you be flipped in dramatic or quiet ways." Indeed, Kripal's latest is a kind of manifesto, a call to embrace the metaphysical expanses that reveal themselves to many who dare dip a toe outside the materialist lifeboat we've been rowing away in for a couple of centuries now. In this conversation, Phil and JF talk to the eminent scholar of religion about the life-changing epiphanies that have convinced many a hardboiled materialist that bouncing billiard balls is probably not the best metaphor for what is actually going on in the universe. In essence, this is a conversation about stories, about the fictions we tell ourselves to make sense -- or nonsense -- of our world. REFERENCES Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge (https://blpress.org/books/the-flip/) Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (https://archive.org/details/twosourcesofmora033499mbp/page/n1) Sigmund Freud, [Civilization and its Discontents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CivilizationandItsDiscontents)_ Weird Studies, Episode 37: Entities, with Stuart Davis (https://www.weirdstudies.com/37) Special Guest: Jeffrey J. Kripal.

The great American thinker William James knew well that no intellectual pursuit is purely intellectual. His interest in the "supernormal," whether it take the form of spiritual apparition or extrasensory perception, was rooted in a personal desire to uncover the miraculous in the mundane. Indeed, the early members of the British Society for Psychical Research and its American counterpart (which James co-founded in 1884) were united in this conviction that certain phenomena which most scientists of their day considered unworthy of their attention were in fact the frontier of a new world, an avenue for humanity's deepest aspirations. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss two papers that James wrote about the first phase in the history of these research societies. James lays bare his conclusions about the reality of psychical phenomena and its scientific significance. The bizarre fact that psychical research has made little progress since its inception lays the ground for an engaging discussion on the limits of the knowable. REFERENCES Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment Frederic W. H. Myers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_W._H._Myers), theorist of the "subliminal self" Weird Studies, Episode 37: Entities (https://www.weirdstudies.com/37) Thomas Henry Huxley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley), aka "Darwin's Bulldog" Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld (https://www.amazon.com/Daimonic-Reality-Field-Guide-Otherworld/dp/0937663093) Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast Trilogy (https://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-Gormenghast-Trilogy-Mervyn-Peake-ebook/dp/B0056GJI5Q/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+_Gormenghast_+Trilogy&qid=1554906043&s=books&sr=1-1) Thomas Kuhn, [The Structure of Scientific Revolutions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheStructureofScientificRevolutions) James Randi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi), professional skeptic Dean Radin, Real Magic (https://www.amazon.com/Real-Magic-Ancient-Science-Universe/dp/1524758825) Eric Wargo, Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious (https://www.amazon.com/Time-Loops-Precognition-Retrocausation-Unconscious/dp/1938398920) Lionel Snell a.k.a. Ramsey Dukes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Snell), British magician [Changeling: The Lost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling:TheLost) tabletop roleplaying game Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance (https://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance) Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingenc (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/after-finitude-9781441173836/)y Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux ("Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux")" C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (https://www.amazon.com/Synchronicity-Connecting-Principle-Collected-Extracts/dp/0691150508)

Shirley Jackson's stories and novels rank among the greatest weird works produced in America during the 20th century. However, unlike authors such as Philip K. Dick and H.P. Lovecraft, Jackson didn't cut her teeth in the pulps but among the slick pages of such illustrious publications as The New Yorker. On the other hand, whether because her most famous novel uses the traditional ghost story form or because she was a woman, Jackson only rarely appears in the litanies of weird literature, where she most definitely belongs. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss two of Jackson's short works, "The Lottery" and "The Summer People." The conversation touches on such cheerful topics as human sacrifice, the use of tradition to license evil, and the alienness that can infect even the most familiar things ... when the stars are right. Header image by Hussein Twabi (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Storm_clouds_gathering.jpg), Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES The Weird Studies Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) Shirley Jackson (http://shirleyjackson.org/) Zoë Heller, “The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/the-haunted-mind-of-shirley-jackson),” review of Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (https://www.amazon.com/Shirley-Jackson-Rather-Haunted-Life-ebook/dp/B01BX7S014) American writer Mitch Horowitz (https://mitchhorowitz.com/) Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Rhonda-Byrne/dp/1582701709) Stuart Wilde, [The Trick to Money is Having Some](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67752.TheTricktoMoneyIsHavingSome) Seymour Ginsburg, [Gurdjieff Unveiled](https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/books/Gurdjieff/GUNVEILEDFINALWHOLEBOOK1305d.pdf) Randall Collins, Violence: A Microsociological Theory (https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8547.html) James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078ZZYR56/) Homer, The Iliad Phil & JF at Octopus Books (https://www.patreon.com/posts/jf-martel-with-25148548) in Ottawa, 2015 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf) “Whatever happens to you has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. The twining strands of fate wove both of them together: your own existence and the things that happen to you.” David Lynch, Blue Velvet (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/)

In the mid-1960s, Pauline Oliveros was a composer of experimental electronic music. But at the end of the 1960s, shocked by the political violence around her, she turned away from electronic technology and towards to a different kind of experimentation, which Dr. Kerry O'Brien calls "experimentalisms of the self." The immediate result of this turn was Oliveros's Sonic Meditations, a series of instructions for group bodymind practice. This work became the seed of Deep Listening, a sort of musical yoga Oliveros developed throughout the rest of her long career. Dr. O'Brien joins JF and Phil for a conversation on practice, "gaining mind," the ritual value of art, the wisdom of the body, and whether Deep Listening is really best understood as art at all. REFERENCES Kerry O'Brien, "Listening as Activism: The 'Sonic Meditations' of Pauline Oliveros" (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/listening-as-activism-the-sonic-meditations-of-pauline-oliveros) Pauline Oliveros (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Oliveros), American composer John Cage, 4'33" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3) Dead Territory performing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGEG4JiOqew) Cage's 4'33" Alvin Lucier, "Music for a Solo Performer" (http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/05/alvin-lucier-music-for-solo-performer) Peter Sloterdijk, [You Must Change Your Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouMustChangeYourLife) Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf) Lawrence Weschler, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520256095/seeing-is-forgetting-the-name-of-the-thing-one-sees) Special Guest: Kerry O'Brien.

Neil Gaiman wrote, "If literature is the world, then fantasy and horror are twin cities, divided by a river of black water." Flame Tree Publishing underwrites this claim with their recent publication, The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy and Horror. The book is a veritable gazetteer of these two cities in the heartland of the imaginal world. Writer and scholar Matt Cardin, founding editor of the marvellous Teeming Brain (www.teemingbrain.com), wrote a chapter for the book focusing on the books and films of the Sixties and Seventies. In this episode, he joins JF and Phil to discuss the kinship of horror and fantasy, the modern ghettoization of mythopoeic art, the prophetic reach of speculative fiction, and the "cauldron of cultural transformation" that was the Sixties and Seventies. Header Image by Moralist, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Candles.jpg) REFERENCES The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy and Horror (https://www.flametreepublishing.com/The-Astounding-Illustrated-History-of-Fantasy-&-Horror-ISBN-9781786648037.html) Matt Cardin's website (http://www.mattcardin.com) The Teeming Brain (http://www.teemingbrain.com) American literary critic S. T. Joshi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._T._Joshi) British writer and scholar Roger Luckhurst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Luckhurst) Neil Gaiman, introduction to The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Cycle-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0345384210) The concept of "folk psychology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_psychology)" H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/dq.aspx) H. P. Lovecraft, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/tgsk.aspx) James Curcio, Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice (http://www.jamescurcio.com/post/182128171068/masks-bowie-and-artists-of-artifice-modern) (forthcoming) American author Thomas Ligotti (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ligotti) British author Arthur Machen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Machen) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein) Ian McEwen, Enduring Love (https://www.amazon.com/Enduring-Love-Novel-Ian-McEwan/dp/0385494149) Weird Studies, Episode 36: On Hyperstition (https://www.weirdstudies.com/36) J. R. R. Tolkien, [The Silmarillion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSilmarillion)_ Terry Brooks, [The Sword of Shannara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSwordofShannara)_ Stephen R. Donaldson, [The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheChroniclesofThomasCovenant) [Night of the Living Dead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NightoftheLivingDead) (George A. Romero, 1968) The Lord of the Rings animated film (Ralph Bakshi, 1978) Lloyd Alexander, [The Chronicles of Prydain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheChroniclesofPrydain)_ Madeleine L'Engle, [A Wrinkle in Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWrinkleinTime)_ The Call of Cthulhu Role-Playing Game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Cthulhu_(role-playing_game)) (Chaosium) Ray Bradbury, [Something Wicked This Way Comes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SomethingWickedThisWayComes) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978) William Irwin Thompson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Irwin_Thompson), At the Edge of History Interview (https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/george-clayton-johnson) with Twilight Zone luminary George Clayton Johnson [The Wicker Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWickerMan) (Robin Hardy, 1973) [The Omen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheOmen)_ (Richard Donner, 1976) Stephen King, [Salem's Lot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Salem%27sLot)_ Special Guest: Matt Cardin.

In Jonathan Glazer's loose screen adaptation of Michel Faber's novel Under the Skin, a creature of mysterious origin drives around Scotland in a white van, collecting lonely men and spiriting them away to an otherworld where they are turned into food.... or something. Drawing on a deep well of literary, visual, and musical tradition, Glazer (with help from his score composer Mica Levi) create a vivid work of tragedy and horror, masterfully executed for maximal weirdness and unwaveringly true to the auteur's intent to reveal our world from an "alien perspective." In this episode, Phil and JF discuss some themes and ideas they've pried from this exquisite tangle of image and sound. Along the way, they discuss the role that serendipity, coincidence, and fate play in both art-making and scholarship. REFERENCES Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013) Other films by Glazer: Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004) Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975) Iannis Xenakis, Greek composer Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, 2017) Ligeti, Atmosphères Stranger Things (The Duffer Brothers, 2016) Screen shot of "Space Invader" (https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/e/e38b53e4-e148-4e2d-b301-0b3bb15779ff/RV_ugxHk.jpg) Easter egg in Under the Skin Weird Studies Episode 37: Entities, with Stuart Davis John August, American screenwriter Phil Ford, "The Devil's On Your Side: A Meditation on the Perennially Disreputable Business of Hermeneutics" (unpublished) Room 237 (Rodney Ascher, 2013) William Irwin Thompson, Imaginary Landscape: Making Worlds of Myth and Science Interview with Mica Levi (https://www.indiewire.com/2014/11/mica-levi-on-why-composing-under-the-skin-was-really-mental-190232/), who composed the score for Under the Skin Atar Arad, American violist David Caspar Friedrich, [Wanderer above the Sea of Fog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WandererabovetheSeaofFog)_

"The world is not simply composed of physical causes strung together in strictly materialistic and mechanical fashion," writes Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal in his seminal book, Authors of the Impossible. "The world is also a series of meaningful signs requiring a hermeneutics for their decipherment." This, in a nutshell, is Kripal's position vis à vis the fact of paranormal experience, a fact that he has explored in numerous works of scholarship over the last 25 years. For Kripal, whether we see supernatural entities as beings from other worlds or creatures of the human imagination is secondary to the question of whether they merit serious philosophical thought and consideration. On that point, he says, "it's not an option to be neutral." JF and Phil had the honor of sitting down with Jeffrey Kripal to discuss the super-natural, the sacred, and the reasons why these categories remain as vital now as they ever have been. Header image: "Artist's Impression of the Mothman," by Tim Bertelink, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mothman_Artist%27s_Impression.png). REFERENCES Jeffrey J. Kripal, Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo8490174.html), The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo4126089.html), Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5892347.html), The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained is Real (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/530045/the-super-natural-by-whitley-strieber-and-jeffrey-j-kripal/9780143109501/) (with Whitley Strieber), and Changed in a Flash: One Woman's Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks it Empowers Us All (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576933/changed-in-a-flash-by-elizabeth-g-krohn/9781623173036/) (with Elizabeth G. Krohn) Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) Wouter Hanegraaff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wouter_Hanegraaff), historian of hermetic philosophy John Keel, [The Mothman Prophecies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMothmanProphecies) Graham Harman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Harman) and Eugene Thacker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Thacker), philosophers J. F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-artifice/) E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (https://www.amazon.com/Witchcraft-Oracles-Magic-among-Azande/dp/0198740298) The X-Men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men) (Marvel Comics) Special Guest: Jeffrey J. Kripal.

Music writing has always been something of an occult practice, trying by some weird alchemy to use concepts to describe stuff that defies the basic categories of intellect. So long as we stick to classical music, we can pretend that nothing too odd is happening, since the classical tradition has been steeped in notation for centuries. But when a musicologist attempts to analyze, say, an ambient track by Brian Eno, things aren't so simple. Suddenly notation won't do, and there comes the need to make use of every tool in the poet's shed. This episode focuses on a recently published article by Phil on this question. In due course, the discussion turns to the power of good writing: its capacity not just to convey an author's subjective impressions, but to disclose new facets of the ineffable, baroque objective world. SHOW NOTES Phil Ford, "Style as Analysis" in The Routledge Companion to Popular Music Analysis: Expanding Approaches (https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Popular-Music-Analysis-Expanding-Approaches/Scotto-Smith-Brackett/p/book/9781138683112), edited by Ciro Scotto, Kenneth M. Smith and John Brackett Christopher Ricks, [Dylan's Vision of Sin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan%27sVisionsofSin)_ Ferrucio Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31799/31799-h/31799-h.htm) Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/feminine-endings) Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey (https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1360) Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Sound-Music-Hip-Culture-ebook/dp/B00DPJ6RE6) Jerry Hopkins, [No One Here Gets Out Alive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoOneHereGetsOutAlive)_ Brian Eno, [Another Green World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnotherGreenWorld) Mitchell Morris, The Persistence of Sentiment: Display and Feeling in Popular Music of the 1970s (http://california.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1525/california/9780520242852.001.0001/upso-9780520242852) William Youngren, “Balliett’s Bailiwick,” Partisan Review 32, no. 1 (Winter 1965) Whitney Balliett, Collected Works (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1168302.Collected_Works) E.M. Forster, [Aspects of the Novel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AspectsoftheNovel)_ Henri Bergson, [Matter and Memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MatterandMemory)

Several years ago, on New Year’s Eve, a tall, purple-robed praying mantis appeared to multidisciplinary artist Stuart Evan Davis as he meditated while running a fever. “Remember who you work for,” the entity said after beaming a zettabyte of information into Stuart’s febrile mind. Though it lasted less than a minute, the encounter sparked a series of life-changing -- and hair-raising -- events worthy of a Philip K. Dick novel. JF and Phil talk to Stuart Davis to get his thoughts on nonhuman intelligences, the artistic cosmos, a movie trilogy the Mantis commissioned, and Stuart’s brilliant audio documentary, [Man Meets Mantis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi8W0qCUH0)_. Header image by OLJA, Wikimedia Commons Stuart Davis Official Website (http://www.stuartdavis.com/) Stuart Davis, [Man Meets Mantis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi8W0qCUH0)_ Stuart Davis, “Something from Nothing (https://www.consciouslife.com/something-from-nothing-6-month-course/)” course Jasmine Karimova (https://www.jasminekarimova.com/), singer-songwriter Ramsey Dukes, [The Good, The Bad, and the Funny](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2064416.TheGoodtheBadtheFunny)_ John Mack (http://johnemackinstitute.org/), psychiatrist and abduction phenomenon researcher Jacques Vallee (http://www.jacquesvallee.net/research.html), ufologist John Keel (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18452.John_A_Keel), paranormal researcher Weird Studies episode 2, “Garmonbozia (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2)” Norman McLaren, Spheres (https://www.nfb.ca/film/spheres/) Remedios Varo (https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-surrealists-paintings-inspire-witches-academics-alike), artist Leonora Carrington (https://www.artsy.net/artist/leonora-carrington), artist JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (http://www.reclaimingart.com/) Special Guest: Stuart Evan Davis.

Happy holidays, Weird Studies listeners! In this short "Christmas Bonus" episode, your intrepid hosts finish up what began as a discussion of Nick Land's concept of hyperstition. Following last week's closing remarks about the importance of "banishing" ideas that might otherwise take us over, the segment focuses on the dividing line between the personal and the political. Where does the one end and the other begin? What do we risk when we choose to make a necessarily limited standpoint the locus of some totalizing view? The answers will take back to the birth of eukaryotic cells, the sin of Cain, and the wisdom of Sun Ra. References made in this conversation were included in the show notes for Episode 36 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/36).

Hyperstition is a key concept in the philosophy of Nick Land. It refers to fictions which, given enough time and libidinal investment, become realities. JF and Phil explore the notion using one of those optometric apparatuses with multiple lenses -- deleuzian, magical, mythological, political, ethical, etc. The goal isn't to understand how fictions participate in reality (that'll have to wait for another episode), but to ponder what this implies for a sapient species. The conversation weaves together such varied topics as Twin Peaks: The Return, Internet meme magic (Trump as tulpa!), Deleuze and Guattari's metaphysics, occult experiments in spirit creation, the Brothers Grimm, and the phantasmic overtones of The Communist Manifesto. In the end we can only say, "What a load of bullsh*t!" Header Image: Still from the 1920 German Expressionist film [The Golem: How He Came in the World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGolem:HowHeCameintotheWorld)_, by Paul Wegener. REFERENCES JF's notes (https://www.weirdstudies.com/articles/hyperstition) on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the refrain Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, [A Thousand Plateaus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AThousandPlateaus) David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: The Return (https://welcometotwinpeaks.com/) Phil Ford, "Garmonbozia" (work in progress, unpublished) Delphi Carstens, "Hyperstition" (http://merliquify.com/blog/articles/hyperstition/#.XBm36fZKiV7) Delphi Carstens, "Hyperstition: An Introduction" (http://merliquify.com/blog/articles/hyperstition-an-introduction/#.XBm4QfZKiV4) (2009 interview with Nick Land) Richard Dawkins, [The Selfish Gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheSelfishGene) CCRU Archives (https://www.urbanomic.com/tag/ccru/) The occult concept of the egregore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore) William Irwin Thompson, Imaginary Landscape: Making Worlds of Myth and Science (https://www.amazon.ca/Imaginary-Landscape-Making-Worlds-Science/dp/0312048084) Martin Heidegger, [Being and Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeingandTime) Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, The Blood of the Saints (https://archive.org/details/01TheBloodOfTheSaints/page/n1) A. T. L. Carver, "The Truth About Pepe the Frog and the Cult of Kek" (https://pepethefrogfaith.wordpress.com/) Paul Spencer, "Trump's Occult Online Supporters Believer 'Meme Magic' Got Him Elected" (https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgkx7g/trumps-occult-online-supporters-believe-pepe-meme-magic-got-him-elected) Colm A. Kelleher, The Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah (https://www.amazon.ca/Hunt-Skinwalker-Science-Confronts-Unexplained/dp/1416505210) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf) G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (https://archive.org/stream/orthodoxy16769gut/16769.txt) Sun Ra, [Space is the Place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIsthePlace)_

The first step in any pottery project is to center the clay on the potter's wheel. In her landmark essay Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person (1964), the American poet M. C. Richards turns this simple action into a metaphor for all creative acts, including the act of living your life. The result is a penetrating and poetic reflection on the artistic process that values change, unknowing, and radical becoming, making Richards' text a guide to creativity that leaves other examples of that evergreen genre in the dust. Phil and JF get their hands dirty trying to understand what centering is, and what it entails for a life of creation and becoming. The discussion brings in a number of other thinkers and artists including Friedrich Nietzsche, Norman O. Brown, Carl Jung, Antonin Artaud, and Flannery O'Connor. Header image: NASA REFERENCES M. C. Richards, Centering: In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person (https://www.amazon.com/Centering-Pottery-Poetry-Caroline-Richards/dp/0819562009) J. S. Bach, [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWell-TemperedClavier) American pianist David Tudor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tudor) C. G. Jung, [Memories, Dreams, Reflections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memories,Dreams,Reflections) Weird Studies, Episode 33: "The Fine Art of Changing the Subject" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/33) Gilles Deleuze, [Nietzsche and Philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NietzscheandPhilosophy) Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double (https://www.amazon.com/Theater-Its-Double-Antonin-Artaud/dp/0802150306) (translated by M. C. Richards) Rudolf Steiner, [Alchemy: The Evolution of the Mysteries](https://books.google.ca/books/about/Alchemy.html?id=mgXMBzISqc4C&rediresc=y)_ Norman O. Brown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_O._Brown), author of Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130-images.html) Flannery O'Connor, "Novelist and Believer (https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9114)"

Although he is one of the luminaries of the weird tale, Robert Aickman referred to his irreal, macabre short works as strange stories. Born in London in 1914, Aickman wrote less than fifty such stories before his death in 1981. JF and Phil focus on one of his most chilling, "The Hospice," from the collection Cold Hand in Mine, published in 1975. In it, Aickman uses a staple ingredient of the classic ghost story -- a man is stranded on a country road at night, lost and out of petrol -- to concoct an unforgettable blend of fantasy and nightmare, reality and dream. Indeed, Phil and JF argue that Aickman deserves a place alongside David Lynch and a few others as one of those rare fabulists who can adeptly disclose how reality is more dreamlike, and dreams more real, than most of us would care to admit. Header Image: Detail from photo by Ivars Indāns (Wikimedia Commons) REFERENCES Robert Aickman, "The Hospice" from Cold Hand in Mine (https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Hand-Mine-Robert-Aickman/dp/0571244254) Dante Aligheri, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41537/41537-h/41537-h.htm) David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return (https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/why-twin-peaks-the-return-was-the-most-groundbreaking-tv-series-ever-115665/) David Hume, [An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problemofinduction#DavidHume)_ Weird Studies, Episode 22 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/22): Divining the World with Joshua Ramey Norman Mailer, An American Dream (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308/308496/an-american-dream/9780241340516.html)

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp trolled the New York art scene with Fountain, the famous urinal, whose significance has since swelled in the minds of art aficionados to become the prototype of all modern art. The conversation as to whether or not Fountain fulfills the conditions of a genuine work of art has been going on ever since. In this episode, JF and Phil weigh in with their own ideas, not just about what art is, but more importantly, about what art -- and only art -- can do. The result is a no-holds-barred assault on the very idea of conceptual art, a j'accuse aimed squarely at Duchamp and anyone else who would make the arts as scrutable, and as trivial, as the latest political attack ad or home insurance jingle. REFERENCES J. S. Bach, [The Well-Tempered Clavier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWell-TemperedClavier) Roger Scruton, The Face of God (https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/face-god) Philip Larkin, All What Jazz (http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2014/12/philip-larkin-all-that-jazz.html) Daniel Clowes, Art School Confidential (https://artinfiction.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/art-school-confidential1991-daniel-clowes/) Banksy, Girl with Balloon (https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/18/17994350/banksy-painting-shred-girl-with-balloon-auction) Bill Hicks, stand-up bit on marketers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHEOGrkhDp0) Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” (https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2791-the-storm-blowing-from-paradise-walter-benjamin-and-klee-s-angelus-novus) and Paul Klee, Angelus Novus Arthur Danto, “The Art World” (https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2014/IM088/Danto__1_.pdf) Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes (https://www.warhol.org/lessons/brillo-is-it-art/) JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (http://www.reclaimingart.com/) Cornelius Cardew, “Stockhausen Serves Imperialism” (http://www.ensemble21.com/cardew_stockhausen.pdf) John Roderick, “Punk Rock is Bullshit” (http://www.johnroderick.com/new-page-1/ Clay Routledge https://twitter.com/clayroutledge?lang=en) Susan McClary, foreword (https://www.press.umich.edu/9293551/just_vibrations) to William Cheng, Just Vibrations Deleuze, "What is the Creative Act?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKd71Uyf3Mo) Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm) Biggie Smalls, "Ready to Die" (https://genius.com/albums/The-notorious-big/Ready-to-die) Cave paintings (http://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/en) at Chauvet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel lecture (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1970/solzhenitsyn/lecture/) Jonathan Glazer, Under the Skin (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441395/)

Jorge Luis Borges's story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a metaphysical detective story, an armchair conspiracy thriller, and a masterpiece of weird fiction. In this tale penned by a true literary magician, Phil and JF see an opportunity to talk about magic, hyperstition, non-linear time, and the power of metaphysics to reshape the world. When Phil questions his co-host's animus against idealist doctrines, the discussion turns to dreams, cybernetics, and information theory, before reaching common ground with the dumbfound appreciation of radical mystery. Jorge Luis Borges, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in Ficciones (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficciones) Weird Studies, Episode 29, "On Lovecraft" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/29) George Berkley, [A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATreatiseConcerningthePrinciplesofHumanKnowledge)_ (1710) John Crowley, the Aegypt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86gypt) tetralogy Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/after-finitude-9781441173836/) Sir Thomas Browne, [Hydriotaphia - Urn Burial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydriotaphia,UrnBurial) Richard Wagner, [Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DerRingdesNibelungen)_ William James, A Pluralistic Universe (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674673915) Karl Schroeder, "Degrees of Freedom" (https://medium.com/@aviv/degrees-of-freedom-d883f1265e89) Weird Studies, Episode 26, "Living in a Glass Age" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/26) Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26163/26163-h/26163-h.htm) Dogen, [Genjokoan](http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/DogenTeachings/GenjoKoan8.htm)_

Most people know Glenn Gould as a brilliant pianist who forever changed how we receive and interpret the works of Europe's great composers: Bach, Beethoven, Schoenberg... But Gould was also an aesthetic theorist who saw a new horizon for the arts in the age of recording technology. In the future, he said, the superstitious cult of history, performance, and authorship would disappear, and the arts would retrieve a "neo-medieval anonymity" that would allow us to see them for what they really are: scarcely human at all. This episode interprets Gould's prophecy with the help of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, the Chinese Daoist sage Zhuang Zhou, and the German philosopher Martin Heidegger, among others. SHOW NOTES Glenn Gould, "The Prospects of Recording" (https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.01-e.html) Marshall McLuhan's Tetrad of media effects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrad_of_media_effects) Ludwig van Beethoven, Concerto no. 3 in C minor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._3_(Beethoven)) Glenn Gould, "Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould about Glenn Gould" (https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/glenngould/028010-4020.07-e.html) Glenn Gould and Yehudi Menuhin, dialogue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30VH1Messq0) on The Music of Man Jean-Luc Godard, A Married Woman (A Married Woman) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058701/) Heidegger, Der Spiegel interview (http://lacan.com/heidespie.html) (1966) Daoist sage Zhuang Zhou (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuang_Zhou) Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction) Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/) Marshall McLuhan, The Playboy interview (http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/spring07/mcluhan.pdf) Marshall McLuhan, [The Mechanical Bride](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMechanicalBride) Marshall McLuhan, [Understanding Media](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnderstandingMedia)_ Douglas Rushkoff and Michael Avon Oeming, Aleister and Adolph (https://www.amazon.com/Aleister-Adolf-Douglas-Rushkoff/dp/1506701043)  Joyce Hatto Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking (https://www.amazon.com/Years-Magical-Thinking-Lionel-Snell/dp/0904311244) Kevin Bazzana, Glenn Gould: The Performer in the Work (https://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Performer-Performance-Practice/dp/0198166567) Phil Ford, “Blogging and the Van Meegeren Syndrome” (https://dialmformusicology.com/2016/02/05/blogging-and-the-van-meegeren-syndrome/) David Thompson, Have You Seen...?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films (https://www.amazon.com/Have-You-Seen-Personal-Introduction/dp/0375711341)

No dream is ever just a dream. Or so Tom Cruises tells Nicole Kidman at the end of Eyes Wide Shut. In this episode, Phil and JF expound some of the key themes of Kubrick's film, a masterpiece of cinematic chamber music that demonstrates, with painstaking attention to detail, Zen Master Dōgen's utterance that when one side of the world is illuminated, the other side is dark. Treading a winding path between wakefulness and dream, love and sex, life and art, your paranoid hosts make boldly for that secret spot where the rainbow ends, and the masks come off. REFERENCES Arthur Schnitzler, [Dream Story (Traumnovelle)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DreamStory)_ -- Source of the EWS screenplay, sadly overlooked in the episode but well worth a read. Frederic Raphael, Eyes Wide Open: A Memoir of Stanley Kubrick (https://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Wide-Open-Stanley-Kubrick/dp/0345437764) Bathysphere (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathysphere)  Frank L. Baum, [The Wonderful Wizard of Oz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWonderfulWizardofOz) David Icke's "reptilian" theory of the British Royal Family (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-36339298/david-icke-on-9-11-and-lizards-in-buckingham-palace-theories)  Thomas A. Nelson, Kubrick: Inside a Film Artist's Maze (https://www.amazon.com/Kubrick-Inside-Film-Artists-Midland/dp/0253202833) Screenshot (https://uploads.fireside.fm/images/e/e38b53e4-e148-4e2d-b301-0b3bb15779ff/14VBmkoF.png) of newspaper article from Eyes Wide Shut Rodney Ascher, [Room 237](https://www.nfb.ca/film/room237/)_ James Hillman, Pan and the Nightmare (https://www.amazon.com/Pan-Nightmare-James-Hillman/dp/0882142259)  Gustave Moreau, L'Apparition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Apparition) Mario Praz, [The Romantic Agony](https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.13207/2015.13207.The-Romantic-Agonydjvu.txt)_ William S. Burroughs, “On Coincidence,” in The Adding Machine (https://www.amazon.com/Adding-Machine-William-S-Burroughs/dp/0802121950) J.F. Martel, "The Kubrick Gaze" (http://realitysandwich.com/149960/the-kubrick-gaze/)

Phil and JF indulge their autumnal mood in this discussion of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's work, specifically the essay "Notes on the Writing of Weird Fiction" and the prose piece "Nyarlathotep." Philip K. Dick, Algernon Blackwood, and David Foster Wallace make appearances as our fearsome hosts talk about how the weird story differs from conventional horror fiction, how Lovecraft gives voice to contemporary fears of physical, psychological and political infection, and how authors like Lovecraft and Dick can be seen as prophetic poets of the "great unbuffering of the Western self." REFERENCES H. P. Lovecraft, "Notes on Writing Weird Fiction" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/nwwf.aspx) H. P. Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/n.aspx) 1974 Rolling Stone feature (http://www.philipkdickfans.com/mirror/articles/1974_Rolling_Stone.pdf) on PKD Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero/weird-realism-lovecraft-and-philosophy-graham-harman/) Theodor Roszak, [The Making of a Counterculture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMakingofaCounterCulture)_ Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo" (https://archive.org/stream/thewendigo10897gut/10897.txt) Algernon Blackwood, "The Willows" (https://archive.org/stream/thewillows11438gut/11438.txt) Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, [The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWeird)_ H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx) Charles Taylor, [A Secular Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASecularAge) E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (https://www.amazon.com/Witchcraft-Oracles-Magic-among-Azande/dp/0198740298) Peter Sloterdijk, [You Must Change Your Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouMustChangeYourLife) David Foster Wallace, [Infinite Jest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfiniteJest)_ H.P. Lovecraft, "The Music of Erich Zann" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mez.aspx) H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour Out of Space" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cs.aspx) H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cc.aspx) Weird Studies, Episode 2: Garmonbozia (https://www.weirdstudies.com/2) Marshall McLuhan, [Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnderstandingMedia)_

"Music is worth living for," Andrew W.K. sings in his latest rock anthem. In this second episode on the weirdness of music, JF and Phil focus on two works steeped in ambiguity and paradox: Bob Dylan's "Jokerman," from the landmark post-Christian album Infidels, and Franz Liszt's "Mephisto Waltz, No. 1: The Dance at the Village Inn," inspired by an episode in the Faust legend. If this conversation has a central theme, it may be music's power to unhinge every fixed binary, from God and the Devil to culture and nature. Music, as exemplified in these pieces, can put us in touch with the abiding mystery of the eternal in the historical, the unhuman in the human... The hills are alive! REFERENCES Bob Dylan, "Jokerman" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XSvsFgvWr0) Franz Liszt, “Mephisto Waltz no. 1,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaBa9q3u9H0) performed by Boris Berezovsky Andrew WK, "Music is Worth Living For" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdW3UJ7lQvU) Leonard Cohen, “The Future” (https://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-the-future-lyrics) C.G. Jung, [Aion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aion:ResearchesintothePhenomenologyoftheSelf)_ Douglas Rushkoff, Testament (http://www.rushkoff.com/books/testament/) The Guardian, “Carthaginians sacrificed own children, archaeologists say” (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-sacrificed-own-children-study) Garry Wills, "Our Moloch" (https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/12/15/our-moloch/) Minoan snake goddess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_snake_goddess_figurines) statues Richard Wagner, Parsifal http://www.monsalvat.no/ T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land) Daniel Albright, Untwisting the Serpent: Modernism in Music, Literature, and Other Arts (https://www.amazon.com/Untwisting-Serpent-Modernism-Music-Literature/dp/0226012549) Beckett, Not I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4LDwfKxr-M) Nikolaus Lenau (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaus_Lenau), German Romantic poet Wolgang von Goethe, Faust, Part 1 (https://www.amazon.com/Faust-Part-Oxford-Worlds-Classics/dp/019953621X), translated by David Luke Weird Studies, Episode 3: Sin: "Ecstasy, and the White People" (https://www.weirdstudies.com/3)

In this first of two episodes devoted to the music of the weird, Phil and JF discuss two works that have bowled them over: the second movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, used to powerful effect in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and the opening music to Cronenberg's film Naked Lunch, composed by Howard Shore and featuring the inimitable stylings of Ornette Coleman. After teasing out the intrinsic weirdness of music in general, the dialogue soars over a strange country rife with shadows, mad geniuses, and skittering insects. And to top it all off, Phil breaks out the grand piano. Header image by Bandan, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Danby_Insect.jpg) REFERENCES Ligeti, [Musica Ricercata, 2nd movement](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIDN3EkWN8)_ Howard Shore and Ornette Coleman, opening music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liYqmdkS1hw) for David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch Schopenhauer, [The World as Will and Representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWorldasWillandRepresentation)_ Suzanne Langer, [Philosophy in a New Key](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhilosophyinaNewKey) Henri Bergson, [Creative Evolution](https://archive.org/stream/creativeevolutio00berguoft/creativeevolutio00berguoftdjvu.txt)_ Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/) Viktor Shklovsky, "Art as Technique" (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en122/lecturelist-2015-16-2/shklovsky.pdf) Stanley Kubrick, Eyes Wide Shut (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120663/) Hitchcock, Psycho (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054215/) Vulture, "The Evolution of the Movie Trailer" (http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/the-evolution-of-the-movie-trailer.html) by Granger Willson Official Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b726feAhdU) for The Shiningvs teaser (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFXGrTng0gQ) for 2012 Jan Harlan (director), Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278736/) David Cronenberg, Crash (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/) William S. Burroughs, [Naked Lunch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NakedLunch)_ Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari, [A Thousand Plateaus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AThousandPlateaus) Gunther Schuller's interview (https://ethaniverson.com/interview-with-gunther-schuller-part-1/) with Ethan Iverson Weird Studies, Episode 25: David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (https://www.weirdstudies.com/25) Deleuze & Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Oedipus)

Stone, bronze, iron... glass? In his recent thought and writing, transdisciplinary artist and thinker Michael Garfield defines modernity as an age of glass, arguing that the entire ethos of our era inheres in the transformative enchantments of this amorphous solid. No one would deny that glass plays a central role in our lives, although glass does have a knack for disappearing into the background, at least until the beakers or screens crack and shatter. Glass is weird, and like a lot of weird things, it can serve as a lens (so to speak!) for observing our world from strange new angles. In this episode, Michael joins Phil and JF to talk through the origins, the significance, and the fate of the Glass Age. Michael Garfield (http://weirdstudies.com/guests/garfield) is a musician, live painter, and futurist. He is the host of the brilliant Future Fossils Podcast (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/future-fossils/id1152767505?mt=2). REFERENCES Michael Garfield's website (http://michaelgarfield.net/) + Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/michaelgarfield) + Medium (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield) + Bandcamp (http://michaelgarfield.bandcamp.com) Michael Garfield, "The Future is Indistinguishable from Magic" (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/the-future-is-indistinguishable-from-magic-5b9596a4ea) (This is the essay we discuss that was unpublished at the time of the recording) Michael Garfield, "The Future Acts Like You" (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/the-future-acts-like-you-7848b55475d5) Michael Garfield, "The Evolution of Surveillance Part 3: Living in the Belly of the Beast" (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/the-evolution-of-surveillance-part-3-living-in-the-belly-of-the-beast-2a42538ee2) Artist David Titterington's Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/posts/16115658) Richard Doyle, On Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life Sciences (https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=797) Corning, "The Glass Age" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12OSBJwogFc) (corporate video) Jean-Paul Sartre, Baudelaire (https://www.amazon.com/Baudelaire-Jean-Paul-Sartre/dp/0811201899) John David Ebert, "On Hypermodernity" (https://cultural-discourse.com/on-hypermodernity/) John C. Wright, The Golden Age (https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Age-John-C-Wright/dp/0765336693) J.R.R. Tolkien, [The Lord of the Rings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheLordoftheRings) Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/hyperobjects) Christopher Knight and Alan Butler, Who Built the Moon? (https://www.amazon.com/Who-Built-Moon-Christopher-Knight/dp/1842931636) Pink Floyd, [The Dark Side of the Moon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDarkSideoftheMoon)_ Marshall McLuhan, [The Gutenberg Galaxy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGutenbergGalaxy) Marshall McLuhan, [The Medium is the Massage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheMediumIstheMassage) Spinoza, Ethics (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3800) Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1991-cbc-massey-lectures-the-malaise-of-modernity-1.2946849) Martine Rothblatt, [Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality](https://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Human-Promiseand-Perilof-Immortality/dp/1250046912) John Crowley, [Little, Big](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little,Big)_ Jose Arguelles, Dreamspell Calendar (http://www.13moon.com/dreamspell.htm) William Irwin Thompson, Lindisfarne Tapes (https://centerforneweconomics.org/envision/legacy/lindisfarne-tapes) Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-audible-past) Karl Schroeder, “Degrees of Freedom,” in Heiroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (https://www.amazon.com/Hieroglyph-Stories-Visions-Better-Future/dp/0062204718) Michael Garfield, “Being Every Drone (https://medium.com/@michaelgarfield/being-every-drone-the-future-of-xr-robotic-telepresence-19f12889da78)” Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Evolution-Henri-Bergson/dp/0486400360) Special Guest: Michael Garfield.

JF and Phil head for Interzone in an attempt to solve the enigma of Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg's 1991 screen adaptation of William S. Burroughs' infamous 1959 novel. A treatise on addiction, a diagnosis of modern ills, a lucid portrait of the artist as cosmic transgressor, and like the book, "a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork," Naked Lunch is here framed in the light Cronenberg's recent speech making the case for the crime of art. Image by Melancholie, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gabel.jpg). REFERENCES David Foster Wallace, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way," (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_Curious_Hair) from Girl With Curious Hair Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Oedipus), and "How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?" in [A Thousand Plateaus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AThousandPlateaus) David Cronenberg (writer-director), Naked Lunch (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/) (the film) William Burroughs, [Naked Lunch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NakedLunch)_ (the novel) Thomas De Quincey, [Confessions of an Opium-Eater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConfessionsofanEnglishOpium-Eater) Dale Pendell, Pharmako/Poeia: Power Plants, Poisons and Herbcraft (https://www.amazon.com/Pharmako-Poeia-Revised-Updated-Herbcraft/dp/1556438052) "David Cronenberg: I would like to make the case for the crime of art," (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-crime-of-art/) Globe and Mail June 22 2018 JF Martel, [Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice](https://www.amazon.com/Reclaiming-Art-Age-Artifice-Manifesto/dp/1583945784/ref=sr11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1536764053&sr=1-1&keywords=reclaiming+art+in+the+age+of+artifice) Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Sound-Music-Hip-Culture/dp/0199939918) Derek Bailey (director), [On the Edge: Improvisation in Music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edy2QlPjaU)_ Phil Ford, "Good Prose is Written By People Who Are Not Frightened" (https://dialmformusicology.com/2017/08/10/good-prose-is-written-by-people-who-are-not-frightened/) Geroge Orwell, "Inside the Whale" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_the_Whale)

As Lionel Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, observes in his seminal esoteric essay, "The Charlatan and the Magus" (1984), the series of trumps in a tarot deck doesn't begin with the noble Emperor or august Hierophant, but with the lowly Fool, followed by the Juggler. Trickery or illusion, Snell suggests, may not be the dealbreaker we've thought it to be in parapsychological investigation. It may even be a feature, not a bug, of the magical process. In this episode of Weird Studies, JF and Phil talk to Lionel Snell about trickster magic, and all we miss out on when we make rational truth the only measure by which we know reality. Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], "The Charlatan and the Magus" (http://the-philosophers-stone.com/articles/charlatn/magus.htm) Darren Brown, Tricks of the Mind (https://www.amazon.com/Tricks-Mind-Paperback-DERREN-BROWN/dp/1905026358) Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (https://www.amazon.com/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0062316117/) Phil Ford, “Birth of the Weird" (http://www.weirdstudies.com/articles/birth-of-the-weird) Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], How to See Fairies: Discover Your Psychic Powers in Six Weeks (https://www.amazon.com/How-See-Fairies-Discover-Psychic/dp/1904658377) Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], S.S.O.T..B.M.E. (https://www.amazon.com/SSOTBME-Revised-essay-Ramsey-Dukes/dp/0904311082) John Keats, Negative Capability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability) Weird Studies, Episode 9: "On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick" (http://www.weirdstudies.com/9) Special Guest: Lionel Snell [Ramsey Dukes].

Phil stops by JF's Canadian homestead for a raucous IRL conversation on the idea of presence. The range of topics includes objects of power, the magic of books, the mystery of the event, modernity's knack for making myths immanent, genius loci, the mad wonder of Blue Velvet, and the iron fist of the virtual. REFERENCES Gil Scott-Heron, "The Revolution Will Bot Be Televised" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGaoXAwl9kw) Louis CK on smart phones at the ballet recital (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS3jbaeseT8) Henri Bergson, [Matter and Memory](http://www.reasoned.org/dir/lit/matterandmemory.pdf), Creative Evolution (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26163/26163-h/26163-h.htm) Gilles Deleuze (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze) on the virtual: see Bergsonism, Proust and Signs, The Logic of Sense, Difference and Repetition, Cinema II: The TIme Image Expanding Mind with Erik Davis, "Being Anarchist" (http://expandingmind.podbean.com/e/expanding-mind-being-anarchist-051018/) JF Martel, "Reality is Analog" (https://www.metapsychosis.com/reality-is-analog-philosophizing-with-stranger-things-part-one/) Jason A. Josephson-Storm, The Myth of Disenchantment (https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo26032843.html) (and Gyrus's review (https://dreamflesh.com/review/book/myth-disenchantment/)) Gyrus, North: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos (https://polarcosmology.com/) William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Time-Falling-Bodies-Take-Light/dp/0312160623) Geoffrey O’Brien, Phantom Empire (https://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Empire-Movies-Mind-Century/dp/0393312968/) David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch Keeps His Head” (http://www.lynchnet.com/lh/lhpremiere.html) Donald Barthelme (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Barthelme) David Lynch, Blue Velvet (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090756/) Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Cannibal Meraphysics (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/cannibal-metaphysics)

American philosopher Joshua Ramey, author of The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal, and Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency, joins Phil and JF to discuss a philosophical project whose implications go deep and weird. In his books and articles, Joshua proffers the vision of a world where divination -- whether or not it is recognized as such -- isn't just possible, but necessary for advancing knowledge, creating art, and forming communities. And his research has revealed that the wardens of our neoliberal order know this all too well. As he writes in an essay discussed in this episode, the mandate of a weird age ought to be clear: "Occupy, and practice divination." **REFERENCES Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-hermetic-deleuze) Joshua Ramey, [Politics of DIvination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency](https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/politicsofdivination/3-156-c10d5ea3-3149-479b-87bf-03db7e5a7b2f) Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux" (abstract (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0969725X.2014.920638)) Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti, University of British Columbia, at academia.edu (https://ubc.academia.edu/VanessadeOliveiraAndreotti) Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study (https://www.amazon.com/undercommons-fugitive-planning-black-study-ebook/dp/B01EX6CYJ6) Deleuze, [Nietzsche and Philosophy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NietzscheandPhilosophy), [Difference and Repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DifferenceandRepetition), and [The Logic of Sense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheLogicofSense)_ Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on Contingency (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/after-finitude-9781441173836/) Elie Ayache, [The Blank Swan: The End of Probability](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470725222/ref=dbsadefrwtbiblvppii0) Weird Studies, "Does Consciousness Exist?" Parts One (http://www.weirdstudies.com/17) and Two (http://www.weirdstudies.com/18) Special Guest: Joshua Ramey.

The writings of underground filmmaker Jack Smith serve as a starting point for Phil and JF's second tour of the trash stratum. In their wanderings, they will uncover such moldy jewels as the 1944 film Cobra Woman, the exploitation flick She-Devils on Wheels, and (wonder of wonders) Hitchcock's Vertigo. The emergent focus of the conversation is the dichotomy of passionate commitment and ironic perspective, attitudes that largely determine whether a given object will turn out to appear as a negligible piece of garbage... or the Holy Grail. By the end, our hosts realize that even their own personal trash strata may give off shimmers of the divine. Jack Smith, [Flaming Creatures](https://www.moma.org/learn/momalearning/jack-smith-flaming-creatures-1962-1963)_ Robert Siodmak (director), Cobra Woman (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036716/) (1944) Jack Smith, "The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez" Roger Scruton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Scruton), English philosopher [Mystery Science Theater 3000](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MysteryScienceTheater3000)_ (TV series) Kenneth Burke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Burke), American literary theorist Alfred Hitchcock (director), Vertigo (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/) (1958) Fyodor Dostoevsky, [Notes from Underground](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NotesfromUnderground) Charles Ludlam's Theater of the Ridiculous (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Ridiculous) Mel Brooks (director), [High Anxiety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HighAnxiety)_ (1977) "Ironic Porn Purchase Leads to Unironic Ejaculation" (https://local.theonion.com/ironic-porn-purchase-leads-to-unironic-ejaculation-1819565403), The Onion (1999) James Carse, [Finite and Infinite Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FiniteandInfiniteGames)_ Jorge Luis Borges, "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Approach_to_Al-Mu%27tasim) Herschell Gordon Louis (director), She-Devils on Wheels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TosyNe9nzQ) André Bazin, What is Cinema? (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520242272/what-is-cinema) Erik Davis, "The Alchemy of Trash" (https://techgnosis.com/the-alchemy-of-trash/) David Lynch, Mulholland Drive (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166924/) William James, [The Varieties of Religious Experience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheVarietiesofReligiousExperience) Phil Ford, "Birth of the Weird" (https://dialmformusicology.com/2018/02/07/birth-of-the-weird/)

Is the Holy Grail a crushed beer can in the gutter? JF and Phil consider the implications of Philip K. Dick's line, "the symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum." Gnosticism, Aleister Crowley's Thoth tarot, Thomas Ligotti's "The Order of Illusion," Jack Smith's glorification of moldy glamour, saints' relics that look like beef jerky -- all this and more in the first of a two-part conversation. REFERENCES Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (https://hermetic.com/crowley/book-of-thoth/index) Phil Ford, "What Good News Do You Bring?" (https://dialmformusicology.com/2015/03/11/what-good-news-do-you-bring/) Philip K. Dick, The Exegesis (https://www.amazon.com/Exegesis-Philip-K-Dick/dp/0547549253/) Philip K. Dick, VALIS (https://www.amazon.com/VALIS-Valis-Trilogy-Philip-Dick/dp/0547572417) Stanislav Lem, Microworlds (https://www.amazon.com/Microworlds-Stanislaw-Lem/dp/0156594439) Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind (http://righteousmind.com/) Robertson Davies, The Rebel Angels (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/74405.The_Rebel_Angels) Thomas Ligotti, Noctuary (https://www.amazon.com/Noctuary-Thomas-Ligotti/dp/1596064706) Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/51356) Frank Darabont (dir.), The Shawshank Redemption (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111161/) Weird Studies podcast, On Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' Part 1 (http://www.weirdstudies.com/14) and Part 2 (http://www.weirdstudies.com/15) Richard Wagner, Parsifal (http://www.monsalvat.no/index.htm)

After announcing that Weird Studies will be going to a bi-weekly release schedule for the summer, Phil and JF talk about how the podcast has gone so far and what's on the horizon (more guests!). Before long, they're digging deep into what makes each of them tick as weird speculators, locating the points at which their ideas differ and converge. The discussion touches on the philosophy of Quentin Meillassoux, the theology of Tertullian, the Beatles, the Coke-Pepsi dichotomy, the art of religion, and more. SHOUT OUTS Mandala artist Betty Paz (http://www.bettypaz.com/) Infinite Conversations (https://www.infiniteconversations.com/) Michael Garfield, the Future Fossils (https://www.mindpodnetwork.com/category/futurefossils/) podcast Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell), “The Charlatan and the Magus” (http://the-philosophers-stone.com/articles/charlatn/magus.htm) Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal (https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-hermetic-deleuze) and [The Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency](https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/politicsofdivination/3-156-c10d5ea3-3149-479b-87bf-03db7e5a7b2f) REFERENCES Patrick Harpur, The Secret Tradition of the Soul (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/the-secret-tradition-of-the-soul/) Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on Contingency (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/after-finitude-9781441173836/) GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/130) MC Escher, [Drawing Hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DrawingHands)_ The works of Tertullian (http://www.tertullian.org/works.htm)

JF and Phil finally get down to brass tacks with William James's essay "Does Consciousness Exist?" At the heart of this essay is the concept of what James calls "pure experience," the basic stuff of everything, only it isn't a stuff, but an irreducible multiplicity of everything that exists -- thoughts as well as things. We're used to thinking that thoughts and things belong to fundamentally different orders of being, but what if thoughts are things, too? For one thing, psychical phenomena (a great interest of James's) suddenly become a good deal more plausible. And the imaginal realm, where art and magic make their home, becomes a sovereign domain. REFERENCES William James, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" (http://fair-use.org/william-james/essays-in-radical-empiricism/does-consciousness-exist) Steven Shaviro, The Universe of Things (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-universe-of-things) Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego (https://www.amazon.com/Transcendence-Ego-Existentialist-Theory-Consciousness/dp/0809015455) William James, Essays in Psychical Research (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674267084&content=toc) Weird Studies D&D episode (http://www.weirdstudies.com/6) Proust, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-a-flawed-version-of-proust-became-a-classic-in-english) The Venera 13 probe's photos of the surface of Venus (https://www.space.com/18551-venera-13.html) Wallace Stevens, "A Postcard from the Volcano" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43432/a-postcard-from-the-volcano)

In this first part of their discussion of William James' classic essay in radical empiricism, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?", Phil and JF talk about the various ways we use the slippery C-word in contemporary culture. The episode touches on the political charge of the concept of consciousness, the unholy marriage of materialism and idealism ("Kant is the ultimate hipster"), the role of consciousness in the workings of the weird -- basically, anything but the essay in question. That will come in part two. Header image by Miguel Bolacha (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MiguelBolacha), Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES William James, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" (http://fair-use.org/william-james/essays-in-radical-empiricism/does-consciousness-exist) Daniel Dennett, [Consciousness Explained](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConsciousnessExplained)_ Daniel Pinchbeck (http://www.pinchbeck.io/), author and founder of Reality Sandwich (http://realitysandwich.com/) Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dig-9780199939916?cc=ca&lang=en&) Scott Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674018532&content=reviews) Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/after-finitude-9781441173836/) Matt Cardin (http://www.mattcardin.com/) - author and editor, creator of The Teeming Brain (http://www.teemingbrain.com/)

JF and Phil tackle Genjokoan, a profound and puzzling work of philosophy by Dogen Zenji. In it, the 13th-century Zen master ponders the question, "If everything is already enlightened, why practice Zen?" As a lapsed Zen practitioner ("a shit buddhist") with many hours of meditation under his belt, Phil draws on personal experience to dig into Dogen's strange and startling answers, while JF speaks from his perspective as a "decadent hedonist." "When one side is illumined," says Dogen, "the other is dark." For proof of this utterance, you could do worse than listen to this episode of Weird Studies. REFERENCES Dogen Zenji, [Genjokoan](http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/DogenTeachings/GenjoKoan8.htm)_ Shohaku Okumura (http://www.sanshinji.org/) and the Sanshin Zen Community in Bloomington, Indiana Peter Sloterdijk, [You Must Change Your Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouMustChangeYourLife) Weird Studies, Episode 8 (http://www.weirdstudies.com/8): "On Graham Harman's 'The Third Table'" Gilles Deleuze, [Cinema 1: The Movement Image](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema1:TheMovementImage) Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, [In Praise of Shadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InPraiseofShadows)_ Thomas Aquinas, [Summa Theologica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SummaTheologica)_ Henri Bergson, [Matter and Memory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MatterandMemory) Søren Kierkegaard, [Fear and Trembling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FearandTrembling) Joris-Karl Huysmans, À Rebours (Against Nature) (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/35341/against-nature/) Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-materialism-458.html)

In this second of a two-part conversation on Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker, Phil and JF explore the film's prophetic dimension, relating it to Samuel R. Delany's classic science-fiction novel Dhalgren, the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the affordances of despair, the spookiness of color, the transformation of noise into music, and the Chernobyl disaster. They even come up with a title for a novel Robert Ludlum never wrote but should have written: The Criterion Rendition! REFERENCES Andrei Tarkovsky (dir.), Stalker (https://www.criterion.com/films/28150-stalker) Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhalgren) (foreword by William Gibson) H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour Out of Space" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space) John Searle, Seeing Things as They Are: A Theory of Perception (https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Things-They-Are-Perception/dp/0199385157) Steve Reich, Come Out (https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9886-blood-and-echoes-the-story-of-come-out-steve-reichs-civil-rights-era-masterpiece/) Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 1 (http://gustavmahler.com/symphonies/mahler-symphony-1.html) Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology) Stanley Kubrick, The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Exclusion_Zone) Sigmund Freud, [Beyond the Pleasure Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeyondthePleasurePrinciple)_

Journey into the Zone to uncover some of the strange artifacts buried in Tarkovsky's cinematic masterpiece, Stalker (1979). In this first of a two-part conversation, Phil and JF discuss a poem by Tarkovsky's dad, compare the film with the sci-fi novel that inspired it, explore the ideological underpinnings of formulaic genre, delve into the meaning and affordances of the concept of zone, and affirm that in a sufficiently weird mindset, even a casual stroll in your hometown can become an excursion into a Zone of your own. REFERENCES Andrei Tarkovsky (dir.), Stalker (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/) Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, [Roadside Picnic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoadsidePicnic)_ The Wachowskis (dir.), The Matrix (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/) James Cameron (dir.), Avatar (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/) Second City Television (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_City_Television) (SCTV), vintage Canadian comedy show Alex Garland (dir.), Annihilation (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798920/) (based on the novel by Jeff Vandermeer; here's an article (http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/9-ways-annihilation-the-movie-differs-from-the-book.html) on how Garland's film differs from Vandermeer's arguably weirder text) SCTV, Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: Whispers of the Wolf (https://www.secondcity.com/network/sctv-monster-chiller-horror-theatre-whispers-of-the-wolf)

Heraclitus of Ephesus was one of the great pre-Socratic thinkers. Called the Obscure and the Weeping Philosopher, he left behind a collection of fragments so mysterious and pregnant with meaning that they continue to puzzle scholars to this day. In this episode, Phil and JF use a random number generator to select a number of fragments and speculate about their content. By the end, they will also have disclosed the bizarre contents of JF's tenth-grade "hippie bag," outed Oscar Wilde as a Zen Buddhist, and taken a walking tour of a city that exists only in Phil's dreams. REFERENCES Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? (https://www.amazon.com/What-Ancient-Philosophy-Pierre-Hadot/dp/0674013735) Northrop Frye, The Great Code (https://www.amazon.com/Great-Code-Bible-Literature/dp/0156027801) Northrop Frye, Words with Power (https://www.amazon.com/Words-Power-Literature-Collected-Northrop/dp/0802092934) I Ching: The Book of Changes (http://www.akirarabelais.com/i/i.html) Oxford World Classics, The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists (https://www.amazon.ca/First-Philosophers-Presocratics-Sophists/dp/019953909X) Wikisource page for Heraclitus (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus) James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Underworld-James-Hillman/dp/0060906820) Dogen Zenji, [Genjokoan](http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/DogenTeachings/GenjoKoan8.htm)_ Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body (http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo5417890.html) Gilles Deleuze on Spinoza (http://deleuzelectures.blogspot.com/2007/02/on-spinoza.html) Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm) Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm) Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html) Neil Gaiman, [Seasons of Mist](http://sandman.wikia.com/wiki/SeasonofMists) (the fourth arc of the Sandman series) Deleuze on Dreams (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klhi6S6G-OY)

American filmmaker Rodney Ascher is a master of the weird documentary. Whether he be exploring wild interpretations of a classic horror film in Room 237, bracketing the phenomenon of sleep paralysis in The Nightmare, studying the uncanny power of the moving image in "Primal Screen," or considering the sinister power of a kitschy logo in "The S from Hell," Ascher confronts his viewers with realities that resist final explanations and facile reduction. In this episode, Phil and JF follow Ascher's films into the living labyrinth of a strange universe that isn't just unknown, but radically unknowable. REFERENCES American filmmaker Rodney Ascher, (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0038896/) director of "The S from Hell" (https://vimeo.com/18332484), Room 237 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2085910/), The Nightmare (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3317522/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1), and "Primal Screen" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6966122/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1) James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Underworld-James-Hillman/dp/0060906820) The Duffer Brothers (directors), [Stranger Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrangerThings)_ (web TV series) Alan Landsburg (creator), In Search Of... (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074007/) with Leonard Nimoy (American TV series) Errol Morris (director), The Thin Blue Line (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096257/) Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (editors), [The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheWeird)_ British speculative writer Michael Moorcock (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock) Lord Dunsany, [The Gods of Pegana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGodsofPeg%C4%81na)_ Arthur Conan Doyle, [The Hound of the Baskervilles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheHoundoftheBaskervilles) Stanley Kubrick (writer-director), The Shining (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/) Richard Attenborough (director), Magic (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077889/) Sandor Stern (writer-director), Pin (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095871/) Freud, "The Uncanny" (http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf) Freud, [Beyond the Pleasure Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeyondthePleasurePrinciple)_ David Lynch (writer-director), Lost Highway (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116922/) French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Lacan) Duncan Barford, Occult Experiments in the Home: Personal Explorations of Magick and the Paranormal (https://www.amazon.com/Occult-Experiments-Home-Explorations-Paranormal/dp/B019TMD5CE) JF Martel, "Ramble on the Real" (http://www.reclaimingart.com/blog/ramble-on-the-real) Phil Ford, "Birth of the Weird" (https://dialmformusicology.com/2018/02/07/birth-of-the-weird/) American astronomer Carl Sagan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan) Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674824263) René Descartes, [Meditations on First Philosophy ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeditationsonFirstPhilosophy)_

M. R. James' "The Mezzotint" is one of the most fascinating, and most chilling, examples of the classic ghost story. In this episode, Phil and JF discover what this tale of haunted images and buried secrets tells us about the reality of ideas, the singularity of events, the virtual power of the symbol, and the enduring magic of the art object in the age of mechanical reproduction. To accompany this episode, Phil recorded a full reading of the story. Listen to it here (http://www.weirdstudies.com/11a). REFERENCES M.R. James, "The Mezzotint" (http://www.thin-ghost.org/items/show/145) Robert Aickman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aickman), English author of "strange stories" Edgar Allan Poe, "The Oval Portrait" (https://poestories.com/read/ovalportrait) Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm) Marshall McLuhan, The Book of Probes (https://www.amazon.com/Book-Probes-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/1584232528) Clement Greenberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Greenberg), American art critic J.F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-artifice/) Marcel Duchamps, Fountain (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573) Henri Bergson, Laughter (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4352) John Cage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage), American composer David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: The Return (http://www.sho.com/twin-peaks) Gilles Deleuze, [Difference and Repetition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DifferenceandRepetition) Vilhelm Hammershøi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhelm_Hammersh%C3%B8i), Danish painter Sigmund Freud, [Beyond the Pleasure Principle](https://www.libraryofsocialscience.com/assets/pdf/freudbeyondthepleasureprinciple.pdf) Martin Heidegger, [What is Called Thinking?](https://www.amazon.com/Called-Thinking-Harper-Perennial-Thought/dp/006090528X/ref=sr11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1524419879&sr=1-1&keywords=heidegger+what+is+called+thinking) Stanley Kubrick, [The Shining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheShining(film)) Ferruccio Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (https://archive.org/details/sketchofanewesth000125mbp) David Lynch on why you shouldn't watch films on your phone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0) Nelson Goodman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Goodman), American philosopher Pablo Picasso, Guernica (https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp) Paul Thomas Anderson, The Master (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-astonishing-power-of-the-master) Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings (http://www.harpercollins.ca/9780061627019/basic-writings) Phil Ford, "No One Understands You" (http://www.weirdstudies.com/articles/no-one-understands-you)

M. R. James has been hailed as the unrivalled maser of the classic ghost tale, and his powers are at their zenith in "The Mezzotint," a story that first appeared in his 1904 collection, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. In it, James reimagines the Gothic trope of the haunted picture in a weird new light. The text, read here by co-host Phil Ford, serves as a springboard for Weird Studies episode 11, where we discuss the enduring power of the art object in the age of mechanical reproduction.

In 1977, Philip K. Dick read an essay in France entitled, "If You Find this World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others." In it, he laid out one of the dominant tropes of his fictional oeuvre, the idea of parallel universes. It became clear in the course of the lecture that Dick didn't intend this to be a talk about science fiction, but about real life - indeed, about his life. In this episode, Phil and JF seriously consider the speculations which, depending on whom you ask, make PKD either a genius or a madman. This distinction may not matter in the end. As Dick himself wrote in his 8,000-page Exegesis: "The madman speaks the moral of the piece." REFERENCES Philip K. Dick, excerpts from “If You Find This World Bad You Should See Some Of The Others” (https://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/mrwatkin/PKDick.htm) R. Crumb, The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick (http://philipdick.com/resources/miscellaneous/the-religious-experience-of-philip-k-dick-by-r-crumb-from-weirdo-17/) Emmanuel Carrère, [I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0763S614F/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)_ “20 Examples of the Mandela Effect That’ll Make You Believe You’re In A Parallel Universe” (https://www.buzzfeed.com/christopherhudspeth/crazy-examples-of-the-mandela-effect-that-will-make-you-ques?utm_term=.gdLGp2ddN#.pp9DaNAA1) Philip K. Dick, [The Man in the High Castle](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216363.TheManintheHighCastle)_ Weird Studies, "Episode 9: On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick" (http://www.weirdstudies.com/9) Weird Studies, "Episode 4: Exploring the Weird with Erik Davis" (http://www.weirdstudies.com/4) William Shakespeare, The Tempest (https://www.folger.edu/tempest) Sun Ra, Space is the Place (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s8VZz-ERO0) Zebrapedia (http://zebrapedia.psu.edu/) (crowdsourced online transcribing/editing of the Exegesis) Ramsey Dukes (Lionel Snell), Words Made Flesh (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/253790.Words_Made_Flesh) Daniel Dennett, [Consciousness Explained](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2069.ConsciousnessExplained)_ Bernado Kastrup, Why Materialism is Baloney (https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2013/04/why-materialism-is-baloney-overview.html) Gordon White, Star.Ships: A Prehistory of the Spirits (https://runesoup.com/books/) Nick Bostrom, “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” (https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html)

The plan was to discuss the introduction to Aleister Crowley's classic work, Magick in Theory and Practice (1924), a powerful text on the nature and purpose of magical practice. JF and Phil stick to the plan for the first part of the show, and then veer off into a dialogue on the basic idea of magic. Along the way, they share some of the intriguing results of their own occult experiments. REFERENCES Photo (https://uploads.fireside.fm/images/e/e38b53e4-e148-4e2d-b301-0b3bb15779ff/fpTCS4XJ.jpg) of JF's "large sum" cheque Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice (http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/aba.htm UPLOAD PHOTO of cheque) The Gospel According to Thomas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas) James George Frazer, [The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/TheGoldenBough) Erik Davis, "Weird Shit" (https://boingboing.net/2014/07/14/weird-shit.html) [I Ching, The Book of Changes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IChing)_ Joshua Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century (http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Modern-Occult-Rhetoric,5019.aspx) [The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheBookofAbramelin)_ The Shackleton Expedition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition) Grant Morrison on how to do sigil magic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mtzU9mVlk0) Alan Chapman, Advanced Magick for Beginners (https://archive.org/details/advanced-magick-for-beginners-alan-chapman) David Hume, [A Treatise of Human Nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATreatiseofHumanNature) David Hume, [An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnEnquiryConcerningHumanUnderstanding) Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason" (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0969725X.2014.920638?journalCode=cang20#.U6BST5RdWSo) Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency (https://www.amazon.com/After-Finitude-Essay-Necessity-Contingency-ebook/dp/B00OG4EEVW) E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (https://www.amazon.com/Witchcraft-Oracles-Magic-among-Azande/dp/0198740298/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/mm.aspx)

JF and Phil discuss Graham Harman's "The Third Table," a short and accessible introduction to "object-oriented ontology." Phil takes us on a tour of his closet, we discover that JF's kids are better at this weird studies stuff than their old man, and the conversation veers through Harman's Lovecraftian "weird realism," Zen's "just sit" meditation, panpsychism, Martin Buber's I and Thou, experimental filmmaking, and more. WORKS AND IDEAS CITED IN THIS EPISODE Graham Harman, "The Third Table (https://www.amazon.com/Graham-Harman-Third-Thoughts-Documenta/dp/3775729348)" Graham Harman, [Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects](https://www.amazon.com/Tool-Being-Heidegger-Metaphysics-Graham-Harman/dp/0812694449/ref=sr1sc1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522743615&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=graham+harmon+tool+being)_ Martin Heidegger, [Being in Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeingandTime) J. F. Martel, "Ramble on the Real (http://www.reclaimingart.com/blog/ramble-on-the-real)" Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (http://zero-books.net/blogs/zero/weird-realism-lovecraft-and-philosophy-graham-harman/) H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cc.aspx)" Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (https://www.giffordlectures.org/lecturers/arthur-stanley-eddington) Graham Harman, "Objects and the Arts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ0GR9bf00g)" (lecture) Bernardo Kastrup, Why Materialism is Baloney (https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2013/04/why-materialism-is-baloney-overview.html) Daniel Dennett, [Consciousness Explained](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConsciousnessExplained)_ Walden, A Game (https://www.waldengame.com/) – A computer game based on Heny David Thoreau’s classic work, Walden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden) South Park, “Guitar Queer-O (http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Guitar_Queer-O)” (season 11, episode 13) Wikipedia entry on art critic David Hickey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Hickey) Heraclitus, [Fragments](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/FragmentsofHeraclitus) Martin Buber, [I and Thou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IandThou) The concept of “substantial form (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantial_form)” in Aristotle’s philosophy Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Question_Concerning_Technology) Steven Shaviro, The Universe of Things (https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-universe-of-things) William James, "Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist? (https://archive.org/details/jstor-2011942)" Andy Warhol’s minimalist films Empire (https://www.moma.org/collection/works/89507) and Sleep (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0187513/) Wikipedia entry on filmmaker Terrence Malick (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Malick) Neil Jordan (director), The End of the Affair (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172396/) (based on the novel by Graham Greene) J. F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-artifice/) Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (http://www.klimt.com/en/gallery/women.html) (painting) Matthew Akers (director), David Blaine: Beyond Magic (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6265614/) The Duffer Brothers (directors), Stranger Things 2 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/episodes)

For as long as they've been pounding the crap out of each other for good reasons, humans have also been pounding the crap out of each other for fun. Everywhere, in ever age, elaborate systems, rituals, and traditions have arisen to ring in the practice of violence and thereby offer the rough beast that lurks in every soul a chance to come out for a stretch in the sun. In this episode, Phil and JF delve into one of the most scandalous affairs of all: the illicit dalliance of Aphrodite and Ares, beauty and violence. WORKS & IDEAS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE: Ernest Hemingway, [Death in the Afternoon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeathintheAfternoon)_ James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War (https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59420-011-3) Homer, The Odyssey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey) Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing (https://www.amazon.com/Boxing-Joyce-Carol-Oates/dp/0060874503) La fosse aux tigres (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5109866/) (documentary directed by Jason Brennan and JF Martel; Nish Media) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm) Richard Strauss's opera Salome (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/19/classicalmusicandopera.dance) Gur Hirshberg, "Burke, Kant, and the Sublime (http://philosophynow.org/issues/11/Burke_Kant_and_the_Sublime)" Gilles Deleuze, [The Logic of Sense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheLogicofSense)_

The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga was one of the first thinkers to define games as exercises in world-making. Every game, he wrote, occurs within a magic circle where the rules of ordinary life are suspended and new laws come into play. No game illustrates this better than Gary Gygax's tabletop RPG, Dungeons & Dragons. In this episode, Phil and JF use D&D as the focus of a conversation about the weird interdependence of reality and fantasy. Header image: Gaetan Bahl (Wikimedia Commons) WORKS CITED OR DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE Official homepage (http://dnd.wizards.com/) of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game Critical Role (http://criticalrolepodcast.geekandsundry.com/) web series   Another RPG podcast JF failed to mention: The HowWeRoll Podcast (http://www.howwerollpodcast.com/) Demetrious Johnson’s Twitch site (https://www.twitch.tv/mightymouseufc125) [Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameOver:KasparovandtheMachine)_ (documentary)   Chessboxing! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kK5TQSKmS3o)   Jackson Lears, Something for Nothing: Luck in America (https://www.amazon.com/Something-Nothing-America-Jackson-Lears/dp/0670031739)   Peter Fischli, The Way Things Go (https://www.amazon.com/Way-Things-Go/dp/B00005UW7W)   Jon Cogburn and Mark Silcox, Dungeons & Dragons and Philosophy: Raiding the Temple of Wisdom (https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Philosophy-Raiding-Popular/dp/0812697960)   Lawrence Schick, ed., Deities & Demigods: Cyclopedia of Gods and Heroes from Myth and Legend (https://www.amazon.com/Deities-Demigods-Cyclopedia-Advanced-Dungeons/dp/0935696229)   Article on Mazes and Monsters (https://mashable.com/2015/10/28/tom-hanks-dungeons-dragons/#1V067KU7SEqa), a movie that came out of the D&D moral panic of the 1980s   Phil Ford, “Xenorationality” (https://dialmformusicology.com/2015/09/26/xenorationality/)   Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element of Culture (https://www.amazon.com/Homo-Ludens-Study-Play-Element-Culture/dp/1621389995)   John Sinclair, [Guitar Army: Rock and Revolution with the MC5 and the White Panther Party](https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Army-Revolution-White-Panther/dp/1934170003)

Phil and JF discuss Lisa Ruddick's "When Nothing is Cool," an essay on the postmodern humanities and its allergy to essences -- especially that personal essence we call soul. Maybe the soul is a heap of miscellaneous notions and influences that I paint a face onto and then call "me." Or maybe there is something under that painted effigy of the self. If so, what? And if there's nothing under there, could it be a nothing that delivers? WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE Lisa Ruddick, "When Nothing is Cool" (https://thepointmag.com/2015/criticism/when-nothing-is-cool) Elizabeth Gilbert, "Your Elusive Creative Genius" (https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius) Judith Halberstam, "Skinflick: Posthuman Gender in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs" (https://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article-abstract/9/3%20(27)/36/31508/Skinflick-Posthuman-Gender-in-Jonathan-Demme-s-The?redirectedFrom=fulltext) Daniel Chua (http://www.music.hku.hk/daniel_chua.html#books) (the musicologist whose name Phil couldn't remember) Brett Easton Ellis, American Psycho (https://www.amazon.com/American-Psycho-Bret-Easton-Ellis/dp/0679735771) Mary Harron, American Psycho (film) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psycho_(film)) David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return (http://www.sho.com/twin-peaks)

Scholar, journalist and author Erik Davis joins Phil and JF for a freewheeling conversation on the permutations of the weird, Burning Man, speculative realism, the uncanny, the H. P. Lovecraft/Philip K. Dick syzygy, and how the world has gotten weirder (and less weird) since Erik’s groundbreaking Techgnosis was published twenty years ago. WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE: Erik Davis’s Techgnosis website (https://techgnosis.com/) Erik Davis's podcast, Expanding Mind (http://expandingmind.podbean.com/) Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/techgnosis/) Erik Davis, Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (https://www.amazon.com/Nomad-Codes-Adventures-Modern-Esoterica/dp/1891241540/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1520348249&sr=8-1) Erik Davis, Led Zeppelin IV (https://www.amazon.com/Led-Zeppelins-Zeppelin-IV-33/dp/0826416586/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8) Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546891/the-weird-and-the-eerie-by-mark-fisher/9781910924389/) Philip K. Dick, Exegesis (https://www.amazon.com/Exegesis-Philip-K-Dick/dp/0547549253/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=x) Goop Magazine, no. 2 (https://shop.goop.com/shop/products/goop-magazine-issue-no-2) Hakim Bey and the Temporary Autonomous Zone (https://hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont) The Burning Man (https://burningman.org/) Festival Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/history-ideas-and-intellectual-history/taming-chance?format=PB&isbn=9780521388849) Erik Davis, “Weird Shit” (https://boingboing.net/2014/07/14/weird-shit.html) JF Martel, “How Symbols Matter” (http://thefinch.net/2016/03/10/jf-martel-how-symbols-matter/) Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics (https://archive.org/details/anintroductiont00berggoog) Charles Baudelaire, “Correspondances” (https://fleursdumal.org/poem/103) from Fleurs du mal Sigmund Freud, “The Uncanny” (http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf) Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/305132/anti-oedipus-by-gilles-deleuze-and-felix-guattari/9780143105824/) The Onion, “Lovecraftian School Board Member Wants Madness Added to Curriculum” (https://local.theonion.com/lovecraftian-school-board-member-wants-madness-added-to-1819570587) Special Guest: Erik Davis.

JF and Phil delve deep into Arthur Machen's fin-de-siècle masterpiece, "The White People," for insight into the nature of ecstasy, the psychology of fairies, the meaning of sin, and the challenge of living without a moral horizon. WORKS CITED OR DISCUSSED Arthur Machen, "The White People" - full text (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_White_People_(Machen)) or Weird Stories audiobook (http://www.weirdstudies.com/3a) read by Phil Ford Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40241/40241-h/40241-h.htm) H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx) J.F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-artifice/) Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (https://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Strange-Norrell-Susanna-Clarke/dp/B00YTJ4X8I/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3HJRSB4DNWHR4EF6BNVX) Jack Sullivan (ed)., The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penguin_Encyclopedia_of_Horror_and_the_Supernatural) John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies: A True Story (https://www.amazon.com/Mothman-Prophecies-True-Story/dp/0765334984/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519189041&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mothman+prophecies) Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality (https://www.amazon.com/Daimonic-Reality-Field-Guide-Otherworld/dp/0937663093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519189061&sr=1-1&keywords=daimonic+reality) Jacques Vallee, Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers (https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Magonia-Folklore-Flying-Saucers/dp/0987422480/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519189093&sr=1-1&keywords=passport+to+magonia) Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Morning_of_the_Magicians) Michael Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (https://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Punish-Prison-Michel-Foucault/dp/0679752552) J.K. Huysmans, Against Nature (À rebours) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_rebours)

Weird Stories is a series of readings for Weird Studies listeners who want to dig deeper into the themes and ideas discussed on the Weird Studies podcast. In his seminal essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," H. P. Lovecraft named Arthur Machen one of the four "modern masters" of horror fiction, alongside Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, and M. R. James. Born in 1863, Machen burst onto the London literary scene in 1890 with the controversial novella "The Great God Pan." He was briefly considered one of the luminaries of the Decadent movement before falling into obscurity and experiencing a literary rebirth toward the end of his life. In this Weird Stories installment, Phil Ford reads the complete text of one of Machen's most famous works, "The White People" (1904).

Phil and JF use a word from the Twin Peaks mythos, "garmonbozia," to try to understand what it was that the detonation of atomic bomb brought into the world. We use the fictional world of Twin Peaks as a map to the (so-called) real world and take Philip K. Dick, Krzysztof Penderecki, Norman Mailer, William S. Burroughs, Theodor Adorno, and H.P. Lovecraft as our landmarks. Warning: some spoilers of Twin Peaks season 3. Works Cited or Discussed: Phil Ford, "The Cold War Never Ended", Dial M for Musicology (1) (https://dialmformusicology.com/2014/12/02/the-cold-war-never-ended-i/) (2) (https://dialmformusicology.com/2014/12/03/the-cold-war-never-ended-ii/) (3) (https://dialmformusicology.com/2014/12/04/the-cold-war-never-ended-iii/) (4) (https://dialmformusicology.com/2015/02/17/the-cold-war-never-ended-iv/) Twin Peaks: The Return — Official Site (http://www.sho.com/twin-peaks) Philip K. Dick, “The Empire Never Ended,” treated in R. Crumb’s “The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick” and the “Tractate” from Dick’s Exegesis: http://www.tekgnostics.com/PDK.HTM (http://www.tekgnostics.com/PDK.HTM) Norman Mailer, “The White Negro” (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/the-white-negro-fall-1957) Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (https://www.amazon.com/Nihil-Unbound-Enlightenment-Extinction-Brassier/dp/023052205X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517320725&sr=1-1) J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007978PGI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1) Arthur Machen, The White People (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25016/25016-h/25016-h.htm#Page_111) Robert Oppenheimer, “I am become death” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac) C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity) William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Lunch-Restored-William-Burroughs/dp/1433259672) Howard Phillips Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cc.aspx) William B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming) Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima) The Book of Ecclesiastes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes) Jon H. Else, The Day After Trinity (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080594/) (documentary) Francisco Goya, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleep_of_Reason_Produces_Monsters)" Stanley Kubrick, Doctor Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/) Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic_of_Enlightenment) Jean Beaudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation) Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle) William James, A Pluralistic Universe (https://archive.org/details/apluralisticuni01jamegoog) Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself (https://www.amazon.com/Advertisements-Myself-Norman-Mailer/dp/0674005902)

Phil and J.F. share stories of sleep paralysis and talk about Charles Fort's sympathy for the damned, Jeff Kripal's phenomenological approach to Fortean weirdness, Dave Hickey's notion of beauty as democracy, and Timothy Morton's hyperobjects.