Episode 201 – On James Whale's 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein,' with Peter Bebergal

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by independent scholar Peter Bebergal, author of Strange Frequencies, Season of the Witch, and other books on the intersections of culture, religion, and the occult. The topic is Frankenstein—not Guillermo del Toro's latest but James Whale's 1931 talkie along with its 1935 sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, both starring Boris Karloff. The conversation touches on Gnosticism, alchemy, modern techno-hubris, the Gothic, and much more. Peter's new online course, Hacking the Invisible: At the Intersection of Technology and Magic, begins on November 20th, 2025, and runs for three weeks on Weirdosphere. Visit the Weirdosphere website for details and to enroll. References James Whale (dir.), Frankenstein Tobe Hooper (dir.), Texas Chainsaw Massacre James Whale (dir.), The Bride of Frankenstein Justin Sledge, Esoterica Henry Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order Mary Shelley, Frankenstein John the Apostle, The Apocryphon of John Stuart Gordon (dir.), Stuck Jennifer Kent (dir.), The Babadook Stephen T. Asma, On Monsters Thomas Paine, “The Age of Reason” Jean Gimpel, Medieval Machine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Strange Familiar's is a weekly podcast which explores the weird corners of the world.
0:13.1	From Bigfoot and other cryptids to ghosts, UFOs, folklore, and forgotten history.
0:20.0	We don't just talk to authors and researchers.
0:22.8	We talk to actual witnesses of the paranormal.
0:25.7	As he came in, the power flickered off again.
0:28.4	I don't think I had ever been as scared of anything.
0:31.2	It flickered back on and he was right beside me.
0:34.1	And he got really close to my face and he said,
0:37.1	stay away from things you don't understand.
0:39.5	We don't just talk about haunted places and spooky forests. We go there, and we take the
0:45.2	listeners with us. It's like it's right up on us, but there's nothing there. I know. You just hear that?
0:51.7	Yeah, I totally heard that. It's right there. Strange Familiar, coming to you from Spectrevision Radio, wherever you listen to podcasts,
1:01.0	or at strangefamiliers.com.
1:04.0	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martell. For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weirdstudies.com. Hi, welcome to Weird Studies. This is Phil.
1:53.4	This week, J.F. and I are joined by Peter Babigau, author of such classics of weird
1:58.9	nonfiction as Seasons of the Witch, How the Occult Saved
2:02.5	Rock and Roll, and Strange Frequencies, the extraordinary story of the Tatanological quest for the
2:08.5	supernatural. He is a thinker of a kind that is native to the intellectual sphere of the weird,
2:15.3	one that owes as much to psychedelics, old school movie monsters, and
2:19.6	role-playing games, as to a graduate degree from the Harvard Divinity School. In this episode, he joins
2:26.3	us to talk about the 1931 James Whale film Frankenstein and its 1935 sequel, Bride of Frankenstein.
	...

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