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Weird Studies

Episode 67: Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On 'Hellier'

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8688 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2020

⏱️ 83 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On the night before this episode of Weird Studies was released, a bunch of folks on the Internet performed a collective magickal working. Prompted by the paranormal investigator Greg Newkirk, they watched the final episode of the documentary series Hellier at the same time -- 10:48 PM EST -- in order to see what would happen. Listeners who are familiar with this series, of which Newkirk is both a protagonist and a producer, will recall that the last episode features an elaborate attempt at gate opening involving no less than Pan, the Ancient Greek god of nature. If we weren't so cautious (and humble) in our imaginings, we at Weird Studies might consider the possibility that this episode is a retrocausal effect of that operation. In it, we discuss the show that took the weirdosphere by storm last year, touching on topics such as subterranean humanoids, the existence of "Ascended Masters," Aleister Crowley's secret cipher, the Great God Pan, and the potential dangers of opening gates to other worlds ... or of leaving them closed. REFERENCES Karl Pfeiffer (director), Hellier Philip K. Dick, Valis Weird Studies episode 12 - The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher John Benson Brooks, American musician Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Thelema Allen H. Greenfield, The Complete Secret Cipher of the Ufonauts Secret cipher online tool Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law Gematria John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies Eric Wargo, Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious Grant Morrison, The Invisibles Genesis P. Orridge, American artist Alex Reed, Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist Annie Besant, British theosophist Peter J. Carroll, British occultist Kenneth Grant, British occultist C. G. Jung, The Red Book Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, "Chinese Whispers: The Origin of LAM" in The Blood of the Saints Richard Sharpe Shaver, American writer and contactee James Hillman, Pan and the Nightmare Occultist Paul Weston's blog post on Hellier John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies Peter Kingsley, Catafalque Eric Voegeln, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism Auguste Comte, French philosopher Colin Wilson, The Occult: A History Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Spectrevision Radio

0:02.0

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

0:23.3

For more episodes or to support the podcast, go to weirdst. This is J.F. Martel.

0:53.9

In our intro to episode 65 with Canadian writer B.W. Pow,

0:58.4

we recommended watching the documentary series Hellier in preparation for the discussion that you're going to hear today.

1:04.9

If you haven't watched Hellier, you won't get lost in this episode, which digs deeper into some of the topics that have been coming up a lot on the show lately.

1:13.6

Topics like synchronicity, daimonic entities, and the potential pitfalls of paranormal inquiry.

1:19.9

But you will be depriving yourself of what Phil and I think is a unique and uniquely illuminating example of documentary filmmaking. The series is on

1:29.3

prime video, but you can also watch it for free on YouTube. Over the last couple of months,

1:34.2

I've recommended Hellier to almost everyone I'm in regular contact with. I did this as a kind of experiment

1:39.9

to see how different people would react to the series. And it turns out that in the circles I run in,

1:45.7

Hellier has been as divisive as it appears to be in the world at large. A lot of people love it,

1:51.0

but many roll their eyes after episode two and can't watch any more. Some in the latter camp are

1:57.3

even fans of weird studies and the weird in general. What for Phil and me looked like a real synchronicity storm that the characters were getting

2:05.3

caught up in for them was a prime example of Herodoliac overreach.

2:11.2

But I would argue that even if you decide that nothing in Hellier qualifies as the real thing,

2:16.6

and I think that'll become increasingly difficult

2:19.3

to do the longer you watch. The show is worth watching as a study of what it's like to inhabit

2:25.2

a space of high strangeness, however, quote, subjective that space may actually be.

2:32.2

For our part, we say hats off to Carl Fyfer, Greg and Din and Eukirk,

2:36.8

Connor Randall and Tyler Strand for creating an absolutely singular work that we'd be remiss

2:42.6

not to discuss on Weird Studies. And today's episode's only part of that discussion, because

...

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