Weird Studies

Returning guest Matt Cardin is a writer of fiction and nonfiction whose focus on numinous horror places him in the literary lineage as Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood. His new book, What the Daemon Said, collects two decades' worth of meditations on literature, cinema, mysticism, philosophy, and the weird. He joins Phil and JF to talk about a range of topics including dark enlightenment, the idea that fear and trembling are the only sensible reactions to direct exposure to cosmic truth. Header image: detail of cover design for What the Daemon Said, by Dan Sauer Design. Listen to volume 1 and volume 2 of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop REFERENCES Matt Cardin's website Matt Cardin, What the Daemon Said: Essays on Horror, Fiction, Film and Philosophy Matt Cardin, Dark Awakenings Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way Morning Pages Journal Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones The Gospel of Thomas Matt Cardin, Dark Awakenings Robert Frost, “The Figure a Poem Makes” John Horgen, Rational Mysticism Weird Studies, Episode 41 with Matt Cardin Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for his Highest Weird Studies ep. 124: Dark Night Radio of the Soul, with Duncan Barford Theodore Roszak, American scholar M. C. Richards, Centering Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols Huston Smith, American religious scholar Martin Buber, I and Thou John Lee Hancock (dir.), The Rookie (2002) Eckart Tolle, German spiritual teacher Richard Wagner, Parsifal Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion Alan Watts, English writer and teacher Richard Rose, After the Absolute: The Inner Teachings of Richard RoseSpecial Guest: Matt Cardin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On May 23, 2022, Meredith Michael joined JF and Phil for a live recording at Illuminated Brew Works, a craft brewery in Chicago, Illinois.The occasion was the launch of Weird Studies Black IPA, the fruit of a collaboration with IBW brewmaster Brian Buckman and his team of beer alchemists. The game plan was to talk about potions, but the final conversation ranges over a number of topics including singularity and repetition, time and eternity, alchemy and ritual, Okakura Kakuzō's The Book of Tea, cooking and pickling, and the cultural phenomenon Phil calls "weedhead sh*t." Purchase the Weird Studies Black IPA from Beer on the Wall or visit the Illuminated Brew Works website. Buy volume 1 and volume 2 of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop SHOW NOTES Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea Oscar Wilde on absinthe Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History Toni Morrison. Song of Solomon The Suzuki Method Robert Fink, Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice David Cronenberg (dir.), Scanners (1981) Lars von Trier (dir.), Dancer in the Dark (2000) Alan Watts, Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen William Shakespeare, MacbethSpecial Guest: Meredith Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For several episodes now, Phil and JF have been circling what St. John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul, that moment in the spiritual journey where all falls a way and an abyss seems to crack open beneath our feet. When it came time to go there in earnest, they could think of no better guide than Duncan Barford, host of the excellent Occult Experiments in the Home podcast. As a master magician, long-time meditator, psychotherapeutic counsellor and writer on spirituality and the occult, Barford is uniquely endowed with the tools, experience, and language to discuss even the most difficult spiritual topics with wisdom and warmth. A Virgil for any Inferno. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack: Volume 1 and Volume 2 Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop SHOW NOTES Occult Experiments in the Home, Duncan Barford's excellent solo podcast Duncan's other website, focusing on his work as a psychotherapeutic counselor Duncan's books on Amazon US Weird Studies, Episode 67 on Hellier Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Judgement Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” Dogen’s Bendowa Tibetan Book of the Dead Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel Spinoza, Ethics Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking Special Guest: Duncan Barford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every off-week, JF and Phil record a bonus episode for Patreon supporters. The conversations on that stream are shorter, less formal, and more improvisitory than those of the flagship show. To give the wider public a glimpse of this hidden dimension of the WS universe, we decided to make this week's "audio extra" available to everyone. As it happens, this episode also contains an important announcement concerning next week's event at Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago: tickets must be purchased via Eventbrite using the link below. No tickets can be sold at the door. Click here to purchase tickets to the Weird Studies beer launch at Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago on May 23. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Star is one of the most iconic of the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck. It is also one of the most ambiguous. A woman is shown emptying two urns of water onto the parched ground. She is flanked by nascent plant life. Shining above her are those nocturnal luminaries whose "eternal silence" so frightened the philosopher Blaise Pascal at the dawn of modernity. Are the stars pointing the way to a brighter future, or are they stars of ill omen, warning us of what lies ahead? And what does that little bird in the background signify? In this episode, Phil and JF try to get to the bottom of the starry heavens, only to find out that starry heavens have no bottom. Click here to purchase tickets to the Weird Studies beer launch at Illuminated Brew Works in Chicago on May 23. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop REFERENCES Our Known Friend (Valentin Tomberg), Meditations on the Tarot Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of the Tarot Pink Floyd, “Astronomy Domine” Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law Heimarmene, Greek goddess of fate Weird Studies, Episode 121 on Mandy Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea Samuel Delaney, Dahlgren J R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols Weird Studies, Episode 103 on the Tower Weird Studies, [Episode 114 on the Wheel of Fortune] Joni Mitchell, “Ladies of the Canyon” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, each of your hosts bullies the other into watching a movie he would normally not touch with a bargepole. Phil has been (unsuccessfully) trying to get JF to watch Vincente Minnelli's 1953 musical comedy The Band Wagon and JF has been (also unsuccessfully) trying to get Phil to watch Panos Cosmatos's 2018 psychedelic horror film Mandy. For this episode, they decided they would compromise and watch both. What started as a goof ended up a fascinating Glass Bead Game from which emerge occulted correspondences between films that, on the surface, could not be more dissimilar. One film is a dream of song and dance, the other a dream of blood and violence. Either way, though, watch out: as Deleuze says, "beware of the dreams of others, because if you are caught in their dream, you are done for." Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack SHOW NOTES Iluminated Brew Works, Chicago JF's new course, [Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic](www.nuralearning.com) Vincente Minnelli (dir.), The Bandwagon Panos Cosmatos (dir.), Mandy Weird Studies, Episode 73 on Carl Jung Norman Jewison (dir.), Moonstruck David Thompson, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image) and Cinema 2: The Time Image Henri Bergson, “The Cinematographical Mechanism of Thought and the Mechanistic Illusion”, from Creative Evolution Terry Gilliam (dir.), The Fisher King Claudia Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music Raymond Knapp, The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity Richard Dyer, “Entertainment and Utopia” in Only Entertainment Gilles Deleuze, “What is the Creative Act” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Though it is seldom acknowledged in the weirdosphere, there is a difference between weirdness and mystery. Most of the time, the Weird confronts us with a problem, an impersonal epistemic obstacle which we can always believe would go away if we just closed our eyes and whistled past it with our hands in our pockets. Mystery, however, is always personal. It envelops us; it addresses us as persons. Mystery is as present within us as it is out there. It is there when you open your eyes, and even more so when you shut them tight. Maybe it had us in its grip before we were even born. In this episode, JF and Phil make radical mystery the focus of a discussion ranging over everything from unique kinds of tea and spelunking mishaps to antisonic demon pipes and malevolent radiators. Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack REFERENCES For information on JF's new course, Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic, go to [Nura Learning](www.nuralearning.com). Phil Ford, “Radical Mystery: A Preliminary Account” J.F. Martel, “Reality is analog” John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Eugene Paul Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics” Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism Peter Kingsley, Catafalque Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy Steven Spielberg (dir.), Raiders of the Lost Ark Dogen, “Instructions for the Cook” Alan Watts, The Way of Zen Weird Studies, Episode 56 with Jeremy Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the last several centuries, there has been one thing on which science and religion have generally agreed, and that is the fixity of the laws under which the universe came to be. At the moment of the Big Bang or the dawn of the First Day, the underlying principles that govern reality were already set, and they have never changed. But what if the laws of nature were not as chiseled in stone as Western intellectuals on both sides of the magisterial divide have assumed them to be? What if creation was an ongoing process, such that our universe in its beginning might have behaved very differently from how it does at present? This is the central conceit of Stanislaw Lem's story "The New Cosmogony," the capstone of his metafictional collection A Perfect Vacuum, originally published in 1971. In this episode, Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss the metaphysical implications of the idea that nature is an eternal work-in-progress. Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack REFERENCES For more information JF's new course, Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic, visit Nura Learning. Stanislaw Lem, “A New Cosmogony” in A Perfect Vacuum Weird Studies, Episode 118 The Unseen and Unnamed Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude M. John Harrison, The Course of the Heart Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene Stanislaw Lem, Solaris Stanislaw Lem, His Master’s Voice David Pruett, Reason and Wonder Andrei Tarkovsky (dir.), Solaris Philip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” Andrew W.K., “No One to Know” Special Guest: Meredith Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael to discuss two strange and unsettling short stories: J.G. Ballard's "The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon" (1964) and Ursula K. Le Guin's "She Unnames Them" (1985). Their plan was to talk about three stories, but they never got to Phil's pick, which will be the focus of episode 119. The reason is that Le Guin and Ballard's stories share surprising resonances that merited close discussion. From opposite perspectives, both tales put words to a region of reality that resists discursive description, a borderland where that which is named reveals its unnamed facet, and that which must remain unseen reveals itself to the inner eye. Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack REFERENCES J. G. Ballard, “The Giaconda of the Twilight Noon,” from The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard Ursula K. Le Guin, "She Unnames Them," from The Real and the Uneal Alfred Hitchcock (dir.), The Birds Jung's concept of the collective unconscious Walter Pater, The Renaissance Ursula K. Le Guin, “She Unnames Them” in The Real and the Unreal Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution M. C .Richards, Centering Weird Studies, Episode 35 on Centering Weird Studies, Episode 81 on The Course of the Heart Weird Studies, Episode 84 on the Empress Linguistically deprived children Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy Samuel Taylor Coleridge's thoughts on on imagination and fancy can be found in Biographia Literaria Special Guest: Meredith Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The topic of games and play has fascinated JF and Phil since the launch of Weird Studies. Way back in 2018, they recorded back-to-back episodes on tabletop roleplaying games and fighting sports, and more recently, they did a two-parter on Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, a philosophical novel suggesting that all human culture tends toward play. In this episode, your hosts draw on a wealth of texts, memories, and nascent ideas to explore the game concept as such. What is a game? What do games tell us about life? What is the function of play in the formation of reality? Support us on Patreon Find us on Discord Get the new T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack REFERENCES Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia Jobe Bittman, The Book of Antitheses US version, EU version Weird Studies, Episode 6, Dungeons and Dragons Weird Studies, Episode 7, Boxing C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency as Art Eduardo Vivieros de Castro, Cannibal Metaphysics BF Skinner, American psychologist Heraclitus, Fragments Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices