Episode 206 – On Ken Russell's 'Altered States': Live at Indiana University Bloomington

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Arts, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode was recorded before a live audience at Indiana University Cinema as part of Weird Academia, a series of events that brought much high strangeness to Bloomington, Indiana, in January 2026. The discussion followed a screening of Ken Russell’s 1980 cinematic fever dream, Altered States. In it, JF and Phil explore the weird intersection of mysticism, psychedelics, and institutional science, and they close with a brief Q&A with members of the audience. Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in Phil Ford's upcoming course, A Musical Tarot. References Weird Academia and the Center for Possible Minds Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Roger Penrose, physicist and mathematician Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy Samuel Delaney, Dhalgren Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics and Matter & Memory H. P. Lovecraft, American writer Herman Melville, Moby-Dick Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception Clement Greenberg, American essayist G. K. Chesterton, English writer David Cronenberg (dir.), The Fly Michael Garfield, podcaster, writer, musician Weird Studies episode 205 on the Hierophant Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets Neil Gaiman, American Gods J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:04.0	I've got a story to tell you.
0:08.0	It might sound unbelievable, but the person who experienced it once fought the same,
0:16.0	until they saw something that changed them forever.
0:20.0	Here we dive into the paranormal, the strange and the unexplained,
0:25.6	from personal supernatural encounters to some of the most infamous unsolved mysteries and history,
0:32.6	all told in an immersive, atmospheric narrative-led style.
0:38.0	Let's hear these stories and try to figure out together what really happened.
0:44.8	The world is a very strange place.
0:48.2	Someone has to record it.
0:50.6	Because after all, everywhere has a ghost story.
1:26.6	Archived in collaboration with Spectrevision and J.F. Martel.
1:29.9	For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weird Studies. This is Phil. Well, weird academia happened, and despite crippling snowstorms, we managed to hold an astonishing week of discussions around art and philosophy at the limits of the thinkable.
2:12.2	Weird academia included the opening of Shannon Tackert's photo exhibition seance, a weird studies live show at the
2:19.1	IU's cinema, and a public conversation among weirdest fear luminaries at the Buskerchumley
2:24.6	Theater. What you're about to hear is a recording of the second of these events, a conversation
2:30.6	between J.F. and myself on Ken Russell's 1980 film Altered States, along with a
2:36.9	lively Q&A with the intrepid audience that braved intense cold and deep snow to come see us.
2:43.9	Before we all watched a screening of the film, I did an impromptu introduction of it, which you
2:48.9	will hear after the next music bumper and before
2:51.8	JF and I start our discussion. So I won't talk much about the film here. Instead, I need to give you
2:59.7	three things. Some bad news, a request, and an announcement. Here's the bad news. Due to a technical error, the Baskirk
	...

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