#26 - Peter Bebergal, Author of Strange Frequencies & Season of the Witch
The Witch Wave
Pam Grossman
4.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2019
⏱️ 69 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Peter Bebergal is the author of several books about occulture and the paranormal including Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood, and his newest book, Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural. He also writes about speculative music and literature for such places as The New Yorker online, Slate, The Times Literary Supplement, The Quietus, BoingBoing, and The Believer. On this episode, Peter discusses the importance of imagination, the “reality” of belief, the relationship between magicians and hackers, and the use of technology to access otherworldly realms.
Pam also talks about art and the uncanny, and answers a question from a listener who wonders if she’s being called by a goddess.
Our sponsors for this episode are The Conjured Saint, Blood Milk, and Mithras Candle.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Witch Wave is brought to you by The Conjured Saint. |
| 0:04.0 | It's a spectacular online resource for hand-crafted magical artifacts, |
| 0:09.0 | including ritual oils, sacred bath and body products, and spiritual cleansers. |
| 0:15.0 | You'll find these and much, much more on The ConjuredSt.com. |
| 0:21.0 | Even better, which wave listeners get 20% off by using offer code which, that's WITCH, at |
| 0:29.7 | checkout. So what are you waiting for? Go to the conjured saint.com and conjure some new magic into your life today. |
| 0:40.0 | The world is filled with bewitching people and you might be one too. |
| 0:47.0 | Welcome to the podcast where art is magic, magic is real and reality is stranger than dreams. I'm Pam Grossman and this is the |
| 0:57.3 | witch wave. |
| 1:00.3 | Oh inside you can I'd be afraid. |
| 1:05.0 | Oh, suddenly cheeks in the night, a mountain with me to my knees to my knees to my face, |
| 1:22.0 | a rooted me. Hello and welcome to got back from a trip to Mexico City which is one of my very favorite |
| 1:45.0 | artist, |
| 1:49.0 | artist, the Surrealist Painter and Art Witch Radios Varro. And when I was at the show, looking at |
| 1:57.8 | her sketches and paintings and books and magical objects, I was overcome, not just by her work and how much she's |
| 2:08.1 | meant to me, but also because I felt her presence. Now Ramedios passed away in 1963, nearly two decades |
| 2:18.2 | before I was even born. Nonetheless, there was this moment when I was standing looking at one of her paintings, and I just knew she was there with me. |
| 2:31.0 | It was an emotional and spiritual experience to be sure, but it was also a physical one. |
| 2:39.1 | My body felt her nearby, and I got this. I tend to think of it as a fuzzy sensation |
| 2:48.0 | this soft alive tingling up and down my arms that I get whenever I'm experiencing something uncanny or numinous. |
| 2:58.4 | In that moment, her painting felt like a bridge, a physical tool or portal that was acting as a connection point |
| 3:08.7 | between Remedios and me. I said some things to her, I thanked her, and I truly believe that she heard me. |
... |
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