Spectre Vision Radio

Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.

For more episodes or to support the podcast,

go to weirdstud J.F. Martel. This will be Matt Cardin's second appearance on Weird

Studies. In February of 2019, Matt joined us to explore the implicit metaphysics of speculative

fiction genres, fantasy, science fiction, and horror. The takeaway from that conversation,

for me at least, was that speculative storytelling is

realistic in a way that conventional naturalism isn't, unless that is, it discloses the

magical underlay that gives its shape and coherence. Speculative fiction we saw lets in more

of what people experience is real, and in doing so it puts us in touch with the radical mystery

of existence.

That radical mystery, of course, is something that we've been leaning into lately on weird studies,

particularly as it manifests in mystical experiences involving what psychologists call

derealization and depersonalization. The intuition that finding out what's going on in this universe requires a total abandonment of everything we think might be going on is when we've been circling a lot.

Given that this is where the conversation wants to go, and we're only too eager to follow, we invited Matt back on to discuss a theme that he's been developing in his fiction and nonfiction for decades.

And that is Dark Awakening, to use the title of one of his books, the idea that deep insight

into the nature of reality, most importantly the nature of the self, might be, to put it plainly,

terrible.

Here is a poignant passage from Matt's essay, Scratches on the Universe's universe's utmost rim from his new collection of nonfiction, what the demon said.

Quote,

Behind the brain, behind the breath, below the deepest layers of the personal unconscious, with its skeleton closet of rapacious, Freudian idness,

in the place where we reach Jung's and Hillman's archetypes, and then beyond even that, delving into the demonic substratum of the

...