Weird Studies

The podcast discusses William James' essay on the mental effects of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, highlighting the differences between earthquakes and pandemics. It explores perceptions and interpretations of earthquakes, includes a firsthand account of an earthquake experience, and discusses the resilience and resourcefulness of the affected population.

Exploring the nature of dreams, rejecting traditional interpretations. Dream as a reflection of the pandemic and a deeper archetype. The metaphorical shadow and finding positivity. The significance of dream interpretation and the underworld. Making a soul as a creative act. The relationship between dream self and daylight ego. The connection between drugs and dreams. Surrealism's exploration of the supernatural and occult.

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

Delving into diviner's time, the podcast explores synchronicities, magical causality, and the feeling that the universe contains a deeper music. Discussions touch on philosophical concepts, sigil theory, chaos magic, and the intricate workings of magic and quantum physics, questioning conventional perceptions of time and causality.

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 magicianSpecial 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