Weird Studies

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 William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch Stephanie Quick's blog Weird Studies talks to Jeffrey J. Kripal: episode 39 and episode 45 H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" Neil Gaiman, American Gods Jeffrey J. Kripal, Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal David Lynch's Twin Peaks David Lynch, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Bob Lazar, American engineer (?) William James, American philosopher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"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 in the tarot St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Plato, Phaedrus Weird Studies episode 60 - Space is the Place: On Sun Ra, Gnosticism, and the Tarot Till Eulenspiegel, folk figure Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears Weird Studies episode 75 - Our Old Friend the Monolith: On Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey Weird Studies episode 76 - Below the Abyss: On Bergson's Metaphysics Rider-Waite Tarot Deck Richard Wagner, Parsifal G. W. F. Hegel, German philosopher Ramsey Dukes, Words Made Flesh: Information in Formation George Spencer Brown, Laws of Form Alain Badiou, Deleuze: The Clamor of Being Punch and Judy, British puppet show George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Phil Ford's lecture on Death in Venice (Patreon exclusive!) Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot Hal Ashby (dir.), Being There Alejandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa, The Way of the Tarot Frank Pavich (dir.), Jodorowsky’s Dune Tarot of Marseilles André Breton, French surrealist artist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" Weird Studies episode 13 -- The Obscure: On the Philosophy of Heraclitus Weird Studies episode 16: On Dogen Zenji's 'Genjokoan' Bertrand Russel's critique of Bergson's philosophy Dōgen Zenji, Shōbōgenzō Wiliam James, Principles of Psychology Plato, Theaetetus Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Aleister Crowley, British occultist Graham Harman, "The Third Table" Weird Studies episode 8 - On Graham Harman's "The Third Table" Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Duke Ellington, Black, Brown, and Beige Dudley Murphy (dir.), Black and Tan Fantasy John Howland, Ellington Uptown: Duke Ellington, James P. Johnson, and the Birth of Concert Jazz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"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 Arthur C. Clarke, "The Sentinel" Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel) Clement Greenberg, American art critic Stanley Kubrick (dir.), The Shining Sergei Eisenstein, Film Form: Essays in Film Theory 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 Jay Weidner, Kubrick's Odyssey: Secrets Hidden in the Films of Stanley Kubrick Rob Ager's analysis of 2001 (Ager was criticized for not citing Loughlin above) Eric Norton's Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick J. F. Martel, "The Kubrick Gaze" 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" Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Sid Meier's Civilization V Stanley Kubrick (dir.), Dr Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Stanley Kubrick (dir.), A Clockwork Orange Dziga Vertov, Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology" Gilbert Ryle, "Improvisation" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" Arthur Machen, "Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy" Rick Riordan, [Percy Jackson & the Olympians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Jackson%26_the_Olympians)_ series of novels Robert Altman (director), Nashville Homer, The Odyssey Jacques Offenbach, The Tales of Hoffmann E. T. A. Hoffmann, "The Sandman" David Lynch, American filmmaker (the Dionysian!) Stanley Kubrick, American filmmaker (the Apollonian!) Richard Wagner's idea of Gesamtkunstwerk William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, and JF's analysis thereof Lisa Ruddick, "When Nothing is Cool" Weird Studies episode 5: Reading Lisa Ruddick's "When Nothing is Cool" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" Joshua Gunn, Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century Peter Kingsley, Catafalque: Carl Jung and the End of Humanity Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychologist Kinka Usher (director), Mystery Men Theodor Adorno, “Bach Defended Against his Devotees” Aleister Crowley, English magician C. G. Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections C. G. Jung, The Portable Jung Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life" in: Untimely Meditations Weird Studies, episode 49: Nietzsche on History Weird Studies, episode 70: Masks All the Way Down, with James Curcio Christian Kerslake, Deleuze and the Unconscious Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal Paul Ricoeur, French philosopher Rudolph Steiner, Austrian esotericist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Stanley Kubrick, American filmmaker Alessandro Moreschi, the last castrato, singing "Ave Maria" Baruch Spinoza, Ethics X-Men Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" Thomas Ligotti, "Mrs Ligotti's Angel", read by horror writer Jon Padgett Weird Studies, Episode 48: Thomas Ligotti's Angel Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Genesis P-Orridge, American musician and occultist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 The Playboy interview McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects Graham Harman, American philosopher Clement Greenberg, American critic Dale Pendell, Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft Brian Eno, British composer Marshall and Eric McLuhan, The Laws of Media: The New Science _ Jonathan Sterne, _The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone (editors), The Essential McLuhan Charles A. Reich, The Greening of America David Fincher (director), The Social Network _ Gilles Deleuze, _Cinema I _and _Cinema II Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin Eric Havelock,_ Preface to Plato_ Walter J. Ong, American theorist Plato, [Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic(Plato))_ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex Poppy, American singer Anatta, the Buddhist concept of no-self Nagarjuna, Indian philosopher Yukio Mishima, Japanese writer Hunter S. Thompson, American writer Lewis A. Sass, Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life" in Untimely Meditations Ornette Coleman, Change of the Century Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu Vladimir Nabokov, Russian novelist Nicholas Roeg (director), The Man Who Fell to Earth Raphael Bob-Waksberg (creator), BoJack Horseman Richard Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society Euripides, The Bacchae Special Guest: James Curcio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" William James, Writings 1902-1910 Noel Black (director), "To See the Invisible Man", 2nd segment of episode 16 of The Twilight Zone (1985-86) Weird Studies no. 29, “On Lovecraft” Weird Studies no. 64, “Dreams and Shadows: On Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea” Weird Studies no. 67, “Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On Hellier” Martin Heidegger, “‘Only a God Can Save Us’: The Spiegel Interview" Bruno Latour, "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns" H.P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlathotep” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" Walter Pater, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry George Steiner, Real Presences Hakim Bey, Orgies of the Hemp Eaters: Cuisine, Slang, Literature and Ritual of Cannabis Culture Erik Davis, High Strangeness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies Brad Warner on drugs and Buddhism Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep Christopher Nolan (dir.), Inception Jorge Luis Borges, "Nightmares" in Seven Nights Henri Bergson, Dreams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Philip K. Dick, Valis Weird Studies episode 12 - The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher John Benson Brooks, American musician Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Thelema Allen H. Greenfield, The Complete Secret Cipher of the Ufonauts Secret cipher online tool Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law Gematria John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies Eric Wargo, Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious Grant Morrison, The Invisibles Genesis P. Orridge, American artist Alex Reed, Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist Annie Besant, British theosophist Peter J. Carroll, British occultist Kenneth Grant, British occultist C. G. Jung, The Red Book Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, "Chinese Whispers: The Origin of LAM" in The Blood of the Saints Richard Sharpe Shaver, American writer and contactee James Hillman, Pan and the Nightmare Occultist Paul Weston's blog post on Hellier John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies Peter Kingsley, Catafalque Eric Voegeln, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism Auguste Comte, French philosopher Colin Wilson, The Occult: A History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" (Patreon exclusive) Karl Pfeifer (director), Hellier Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux" E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande Jung, "On Synchronicity" Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle Bruno Latour, An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns Grant Morrison on chaos magic, the occult, and sigil creation Austin Osman Spare's sigil theory Eric Wargo, Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious Alan Chapman, Advanced Magick for Beginners William James's essays in psychical research: bibliography Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Toronto World Youth Day 2002 Crowley, Magick Without Tears Leibniz's concept of pre-established harmony Matthew Segall on the Greek concepts of time, "Minding Time: Chronos, Kairos and Aion in an Archetypal Cosmos" Richard Lester (director), Hard Day's Night Freud, "The Uncanny" Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy Eric Voegelin, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History Charles Taylor, A Secular Age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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). REFERENCES B. W. Powe's website B. W. Powe, The Charge in the Global Membrane B. W. Powe, Marshall McLuhan and Northrop Frye: Apocalypse and Alchemy Frank Lentricchia, "Last Will and Testament of an Ex-Literary Critic" Lorca's concept of duende Hildegard of Bingen's concept of viriditas Gilles Deleuze, Cinema II Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy Marshall McLuhan, "Notes on William Burroughs" Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture John Clellon Holmes, beatnik Northrop Frye, Canadian literary critic Hildegard von Bingen, Ordo Virtutum Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock" Genesis 32, Jacob and the Angel R. D. Laing, Scottish psychologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience Sylvia Plath, "Lady Lazarus" Sylvia Plath, "Daddy" Jack Kerouac, American writer Allen Ginsberg, American poet Lionel Snell, British philosopher and magician Special Guest: B. W. Powe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" Heidegger, "On the Origin of the Work of Art" Beowulf, An Anglo-Saxon epic poem Weird Studies, episode 41 -- On Speculative Fiction, with Matt Cardin Weird Studies, episode 61 -- Evil and Ecstasy: On 'The Silence of the Lambs' Weird Studies, episode 62: Like 'The Shining,' But With Nuns: On 'Black Narcissus' The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes (translated by J.F.'s mentor, David Staines) Sir Thomas Malory, La Morte d'Arthur Lewis Carroll, British fantasist Ursula K. Le Guin's acceptance speech at the National Book Awards, 2014 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and A Treatise of Human Nature Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Rick and Morty, American sitcom Colin, Wilson, Dreaming to Some Purpose Colin Wilson, The Outsider Gary Lachman, Beyond the Robot Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence Making Sense, episode 107: Is Life Actually Worth Living? Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters Emil Cioran, Franco-Romanian essayist Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, Library of America collection Joe Frazier, American pugilist Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory 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 Weird Studies, episode 8: On Graham Harman's "The Third Table" Thomas Merton, American monk Gary Snyder, American poet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Rumer Godden, author of the original novel Stanley Kubrick, The Shining Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Tim Ingold, British anthropologist -- lecture: "One World Anthropology" Jonathan Demme (dir.), The Silence of the Lambs Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist Bruno Latour, On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods Don Barhelme, American short story writer Paul Ricoeur, French philosopher Weird Studies episode 16: On Dogen Zenji's Genjokoan The King and the Beggar Maid Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers “Painting with Light,” featurette on the Criterion Collection DVD of Black Narcissus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs (original novel) Carl Jung on the doctrine of Privatio Boni Johann Sebastian Bach, The Goldberg Variations William Gibson, Pattern Recognition Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil" Howard Shore, Canadian composer Arthur Machen, The White People Weird Studies, episode 3: Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People" Machen, The White People Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy in Literature Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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_ Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus and [Kafka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority(philosophy))_ (for the concept of minority) Antoine Faivre, French historian of esotericism Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences Eliphas Lévi, French occultist Edward O. Bland (director) The Cry of Jazz Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, or, Cosmos and History Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal Stanley Kubrick, Dr Strangelove, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice Jackson Lears, Something for Nothing: Luck in America Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"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 REFERENCES Dogen, The Mountains and Waters Sutra Weird Studies listener Stephanie Quick on the Conspirinormal podcast Weird Studies episode 51, Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood' Lionel Snell, SSOTBME Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" Arthur Machen, "The White People" Herman Melville, Moby Dick Vladimir Horowitz, Russian panist Gregory Bateson, cybernetic theorist The myth of the Giant Antaeus Wallce Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction" Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life John Cowper Powys, English novelist Will Self, English writer Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” Paul Thomas Anderson (director), Punch Drunk Love Viktor Shklovsky, Russian formalist Patreon blog post on Phil’s dream David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Plato, Republic Oscar Wilde, "The Decay of Lying" Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? Dave Hickey, "Buying the World" Clinton e-mails exhibition at the Venice Biennale Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Dorian Gray Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 REFERENCES Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark Steven Soderbergh’s version of Raiders with sound and color removed Weird Studies Patreon extra, “Weird Genius” Weird Studies episode 28, “Weird Music Part 2” Camille Saint-Saëns, Danse Macabre M. Night Shyamalan, Signs Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon Neil Jordan (dir.), The End of the Affair Weird Studies episode 29, “On Lovecraft” Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism Howard Carter, British archaeologist Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel” Claude Levi Strauss, French anthropologist Clement Greenberg's concept of medium specificity D. W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation David Mamet, On Directing Film Dumbo (1941 film) H. P. Lovecraft, “The Strange High House in the Mist” Jan Fries, Helrunar: A Manual of Rune Magick Neil Gaiman, American Gods GIF of the soldier moving funny at the end of Raiders Weird Studies episode 2, “Garmonbozia” Aaron Leitch, occultist Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure Gene Wolfe, [Soldier of the Mist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoldieroftheMist)_ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. REFERENCES Jeremy Johnson, Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and the Integral Consciousness Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin William Irwin Thompson, Coming Into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness Ken Wilber, integral theorist Lionel Snell, “Spare Parts” Nagarjuna, “Verses of the Middle Way” (Mulamadhyamakakarika) Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica Object-oriented ontology (OOO) Dogen, Uji (“The Time-Being”), from the Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye) Special Guest: Jeremy D. Johnson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 SHOW NOTES Glenn Gould, The Idea of North Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo" Game of Thrones (HBO series) Weird Studies, Episode 29: On Lovecraft H. P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" Edgar Allan Poe, "The Philosophy of Composition" Fritz Leiber, The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Richard Wagner, Parsifal David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return Peter Heller, The River: A Novel The Killing of Tim McLean (July 30, 2008) Weird Studies, Episode 3: Ecstasy, Sin, and "The White People" Mysterious Universe: Strange and Terrifying Encounters with Skinwalkers Jacques Vallée, Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics: A Note Upon Ecstasy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"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" Sviatoslav Richter, Russian pianist Nick Cave., Red Hand Files #53 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Bruno Monsaingeon (dir.), Richter: The Enigma Bon Jovi, "Livin’ on a Prayer" Brad Warner, "The Eyes of Dogen" Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Edgard Varèse, composer Benjamin Libet, neuroscientist Robin Hardy (dir), The Wicker Man Frans De Waal, Mama’s Last Hug Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego Tarot de Marseille - XVIII: The Moon Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life Carl Jung, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry", The Red Book Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Malcolm Gladwell, "The Coolhunt" Douglas Rushkoff, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Future Shock Weird Studies Episode 30 -- On Stanley _Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut_ Weird Studies Episode 50 -- Demogorgon: On _Stranger Things_ Austin Osman Spare, The Focus of Life: The Mutterings of AOS Douglas Rushkoff, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 James Hillman, “The Practice of Beauty,” in Uncontrollable Beauty: Toward a New Aesthetics C.G. Jung's retreat, Bollingen Tower Ugly public art in Palo Alto Dave Hickey, Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy Deleuze and Guattari, “Of the Refrain,” from A Thousand Plateaus Roger Scruton, Beauty Weird Studies, Episode 36 -- On Hyperstition Weird Studies, Episode 33 -- The Fine Art of Changing the Subject: On Duchamp's "Fountain" Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty Ingri D'Aulaires, D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light God, Book of Job Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 James Marshall, George and Martha (here's a great NYT piece on the books) Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty Amy Hungerford's lecture on Wise Blood (Yale University) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 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 "Reality is Analog: Philosophizing with Stranger Things" available at Metapsychosis or in ebook format Samuel Delaney, Dhalgren 1984 Apple commercial for Macintosh Wild Wild Country, Netflix documentary series Tom Frank, “Why Johnny Can’t Dissent” Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Arcade Fire, “We Used to Wait” William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody William James, A Pluralistic Universe Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity Weird Studies, episode 2: Garmonbozia Homer, Odyssey Matt Cardin, Dark Awakenings The Wachowskis, The Matrix Jonathan Haight and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Epic Rap Battles of History: Eastern Philosophers vs Western Philosophers Ernest Newman, Life of Wagner Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity Michael Foucault, "What is Englightenment?" Antinatalism Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility P. J. O’Rourke, American writer Richard Pryor, American comedian Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Erik Davis, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information Philip K. Dick, American science fiction writer Robert Anton Wilson, American writer Terence McKenna, Half-elf bard Graham Harman, American philosopher Timothy Morton, British philosopher Jeffrey J. Kripal, The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion William James, American philosopher and psychologist Hee-jin Kim, Eihei Dogen: Mystical Realist Dogen, "Instructions for the Cook" Steve Reich, "Music as a Gradual Process" Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Albert Hofman’s famous bicycle ride Erowid LSD vault George Lackoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, Syntheism: Creating God in the Internet Age Special Guest: Erik Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 (2003) Chuck Klosterman, "FAIL" in Eating the Dinosaur Jacques Ellul, French theorist Suzanne Treister, HEXEN Tarot Deck -- Seven of Swords -- Justice -- The Sun Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine and The Human Use of Human Beings Bertrand Russell, The Scientific Outlook Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants Weird Studies Episode 2: Garmonbozia Stewart Brand, writer and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog Ursula Le Guin, Always Coming Home Gary Snyder's idea that "we are primitives of an unknown culture" is explored in Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Richard Brautigan, "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" (poem) San Francisco Oracle Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" (read by Jon Padgett) Roger Scruton, The Face of God Thomas Ligotti, Songs of a Dead Dreamer Thomas Ligotti, "The Last Feast of Harlequin" in Grimscribe: His Lives and Works Robert Aickman, English author H. P. Lovecraft, American author H. R. Giger, Swiss artist Jean Giraud a.k.a. Moebius, French comic book artist Donald Barthelme, American author Pierre Soulages, French artist Bruno Schulz, Polish author Thomas Bernhard, Austrian author 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 from Intellect Books) Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo" Thomas Ligotti, "The Dark Beauty of Unheard of Horrors" in The Thomas Ligotti Reader: Essays and Explorations Dogen Zenji, Zen master Manichaeism Spencer Brown, The Laws of Form Ramsey Dukes, Words Made Flesh: Information In Formation Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical Thomas Ligotti, "Purity," in Teatro Grottesco James Joyce, Ulysses Advaita Vedanta Joshua Ramey, The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld P. J. O’Rourke, political satirist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"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 Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents Weird Studies, Episode 37: Entities, with Stuart Davis Special Guest: Jeffrey J. Kripal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, theorist of the "subliminal self" Weird Studies, Episode 37: Entities Thomas Henry Huxley, aka "Darwin's Bulldog" Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld Mervyn Peake, The Gormenghast Trilogy Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions James Randi, professional skeptic Dean Radin, Real Magic Eric Wargo, Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious Lionel Snell a.k.a. Ramsey Dukes, British magician Changeling: The Lost tabletop roleplaying game Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Joshua Ramey, "[Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux]("Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux")" C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES The Weird Studies Patreon Shirley Jackson Zoë Heller, “The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson,” review of Ruth Franklin, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life American writer Mitch Horowitz Rhonda Byrne, The Secret Stuart Wilde, The Trick to Money is Having Some Seymour Ginsburg, Gurdjieff Unveiled Randall Collins, Violence: A Microsociological Theory James Hillman, A Terrible Love of War Homer, The Iliad Phil & JF at Octopus Books in Ottawa, 2015 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations “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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" Pauline Oliveros, American composer John Cage, 4'33" Dead Territory performing Cage's 4'33" Alvin Lucier, "Music for a Solo Performer" Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Lawrence Weschler, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees Special Guest: Kerry O'Brien. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 REFERENCES The Astounding Illustrated History of Fantasy and Horror Matt Cardin's website The Teeming Brain American literary critic S. T. Joshi British writer and scholar Roger Luckhurst Neil Gaiman, introduction to The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death The concept of "folk psychology" H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" H. P. Lovecraft, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" James Curcio, Masks: Bowie and the Artists of Artifice (forthcoming) American author Thomas Ligotti British author Arthur Machen Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Ian McEwen, Enduring Love Weird Studies, Episode 36: On Hyperstition J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968) The Lord of the Rings animated film (Ralph Bakshi, 1978) Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time The Call of Cthulhu Role-Playing Game (Chaosium) Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978) William Irwin Thompson, At the Edge of History Interview with Twilight Zone luminary George Clayton Johnson The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) Stephen King, Salem's Lot Special Guest: Matt Cardin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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" 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, who composed the score for Under the Skin Atar Arad, American violist David Caspar Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"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. REFERENCES Jeffrey J. Kripal, Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred, The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion, Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal, The Super Natural: Why the Unexplained is Real (with Whitley Strieber), and Changed in a Flash: One Woman's Near-Death Experience and Why a Scholar Thinks it Empowers Us All (with Elizabeth G. Krohn) Stanley Kubrick's The Shining Wouter Hanegraaff, historian of hermetic philosophy John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies Graham Harman and Eugene Thacker, philosophers J. F. Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande The X-Men (Marvel Comics) Special Guest: Jeffrey J. Kripal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, edited by Ciro Scotto, Kenneth M. Smith and John Brackett Christopher Ricks, Dylan's Vision of Sin Ferrucio Busoni, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Jerry Hopkins, No One Here Gets Out Alive Brian Eno, Another Green World Mitchell Morris, The Persistence of Sentiment: Display and Feeling in Popular Music of the 1970s William Youngren, “Balliett’s Bailiwick,” Partisan Review 32, no. 1 (Winter 1965) Whitney Balliett, Collected Works E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Header image by OLJA, Wikimedia Commons Stuart Davis Official Website Stuart Davis, Man Meets Mantis Stuart Davis, “Something from Nothing” course Jasmine Karimova, singer-songwriter Ramsey Dukes, The Good, The Bad, and the Funny John Mack, psychiatrist and abduction phenomenon researcher Jacques Vallee, ufologist John Keel, paranormal researcher Weird Studies episode 2, “Garmonbozia” Norman McLaren, Spheres Remedios Varo, artist Leonora Carrington, artist JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice Special Guest: Stuart Evan Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, by Paul Wegener. REFERENCES JF's notes on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the refrain Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus David Lynch (director), Twin Peaks: The Return Phil Ford, "Garmonbozia" (work in progress, unpublished) Delphi Carstens, "Hyperstition" Delphi Carstens, "Hyperstition: An Introduction" (2009 interview with Nick Land) Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene CCRU Archives The occult concept of the egregore William Irwin Thompson, Imaginary Landscape: Making Worlds of Myth and Science Martin Heidegger, Being and Time Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, The Blood of the Saints A. T. L. Carver, "The Truth About Pepe the Frog and the Cult of Kek" Paul Spencer, "Trump's Occult Online Supporters Believer 'Meme Magic' Got Him Elected" Colm A. Kelleher, The Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Sun Ra, Space is the Place Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 J. S. Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier American pianist David Tudor C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections Weird Studies, Episode 33: "The Fine Art of Changing the Subject" Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double (translated by M. C. Richards) Rudolf Steiner, Alchemy: The Evolution of the Mysteries Norman O. Brown, author of Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Flannery O'Connor, "Novelist and Believer" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Dante Aligheri, The Divine Comedy: The Inferno David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Weird Studies, Episode 22: Divining the World with Joshua Ramey Norman Mailer, An American Dream Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Roger Scruton, The Face of God Philip Larkin, All What Jazz Daniel Clowes, Art School Confidential Banksy, Girl with Balloon Bill Hicks, stand-up bit on marketers Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History” and Paul Klee, Angelus Novus Arthur Danto, “The Art World” Andy Warhol, Brillo Boxes JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice Cornelius Cardew, “Stockhausen Serves Imperialism” John Roderick, “Punk Rock is Bullshit” Susan McClary, foreword to William Cheng, Just Vibrations Deleuze, "What is the Creative Act?" Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Biggie Smalls, "Ready to Die" Cave paintings at Chauvet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel lecture Jonathan Glazer, Under the Skin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Weird Studies, Episode 29, "On Lovecraft" George Berkley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) John Crowley, the Aegypt tetralogy Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia - Urn Burial Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) William James, A Pluralistic Universe Karl Schroeder, "Degrees of Freedom" Weird Studies, Episode 26, "Living in a Glass Age" Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution Dogen, Genjokoan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices