Weird Studies

Phil and JF first explored the mysteries of walking back in episode 59. That episode felt like a mere introduction—a tentative first step on a long and winding path. Now, 133 episodes later, they return to the theme as they prepare to lead a six-week course on the art of walking and its affinity with the Weird. This conversation touches on meditative walking, walking as dventure, psychogeography, wilderness mysticism, and more. References Weird Studies, Episode 59 on Walking Frédéric Gros, A Philosophy of Walking Kinhin, walking meditation Henry David Thoreau, “Walking” Randonautica, walking app Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 June 2025

This conversation was originally recorded in August 2024 and released for our Patreon supporters. Weird Studies will be back with a new episode on June 25, 2025. What is cultural theory? How is philosophy "a preparation for death?" What sort of planet is Phil Ford from? These burning questions and more find answers in this free-wheeling conversation, originally exclusive to members of the Weird Studies Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 June 2025

This conversation was originally recorded in August 2024 and released for our Patreon supporters. Weird Studies will be back with a new episode on June 25, 2025. What is cultural theory? How is philosophy "a preparation for death?" What sort of planet is Phil Ford from? These burning questions and more find answers in this free-wheeling conversation, originally exclusive to members of the Weird Studies Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 June 2025

This special release is a Patreon extra we’re making available to all listeners, in lieu of the official episode originally scheduled for today. As explained in the introduction, we will be back with a full episode later in the month. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this conversation about how art transforms experience, making the mundane mythic, calling images out of the flux of life, and shaping what is in us to think, feel, and live. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2025

Best known as the wife and partner of Timothy Leary, Rosemary Woodruff was in fact a central figure in the psychedelic movement in her own right—a political radical, underground fugitive, and neglected architect of the counterculture. In this episode, Phil and JF speak with journalist and author Susannah Cahalan about Woodruff Leary’s life and legacy. Cahalan’s new book, The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary, brings its subject into focus as a complex and courageous individual whose story has been overshadowed for too long. The conversation follows the threads of the biography while branching into the weirdness of biographical writing, the ongoing relevance of the 1960s counterculture, the troubling figure of Timothy Leary, and the enduring promise—and peril—of psychedelics. Susannah Cahalan is the New York Times bestselling author of Brain on Fire, a memoir about her experience with autoimmune encephalitis. Her second book, The Great Pretender, which investigated a seminal study in the history of mental health care and diagnosis, was shortlisted for the the Royal Society's 2020 Science Book Prize. She lives in New Jersey with her family. Photo from the Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection at UCLA, via Wikimedia Commons. REFERENCES Susannah Cahalan, The Acid Queen Weird Studies, Episode 189 with Jacob Foster Marion Woodman, Canadian feminist author Peter Braunstein and Michael William Doyle, Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s & '70s Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture Eric Davis, TechGnosis Lutz Dammbeck, The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet Robert Greenfield, Timothy Leary: A Biography Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay Blanche Hoschedé Monet, French painter Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 May 2025

In this episode, JF and Phil paddle into the marshlands of Algernon Blackwood’s 1907 masterpiece The Willows, a tale Lovecraft once called the finest weird story of all time. They explore how a narrative in which almost nothing happens can conjure a cosmic dread more potent than a legion of monsters, and how Blackwood’s genius lies in revealing the spiritual horror latent in landscape itself. Topics include zones, the limits of human reason, and the terror of brushing up against an otherworld that lies just beyond the riverbank—near at hand, yet somehow separated from us by an unbridgeable gulf. Photo by Derek Dye, via Wikimedia Commons. REFERENCES Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows”   Weird Studies, Episode 55 on “The Wendigo”   SCTV Algernon Blackwood, “The Psychology of Places” in The Lure of the Unknown Weird Studies, Episodes 14 and 15 on Stalker Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols Sue Clifford and Angela King, England in Particular Michael Dames, Pagans Progress J. G. Ballard, English fiction author Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 May 2025

In this episode, JF and Phil are joined by Jacob G. Foster—sociologist, physicist, and researcher at Indiana University Bloomington and the Santa Fe Institute—for a conversation about their recent collaboration in Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Their co-authored essay, “Care of the Dead,” explores how the dead continue to shape our cultures, languages, and ways of being. Together, they discuss the process of writing the piece and what it means to say that the dead are not gone—that they persist, and that they make claims on the living. The article is available here: https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article/154/1/166/127931/Care-of-the-Dead-Ancestors-Traditions-amp-the-Life **References** [Peter Kingsley,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kingsley) English writer  Weird Studies, [Episode 98 on “Taboo”]) https://www.weirdstudies.com/98)  John Berger, “12 Theses on the Economy of the Dead” in _[Hold Everything Dear](12 Theses on the Economy of the Dead)_  Bernard Koch, Daniele Silvestro, and Jacob Foster, ["The Evolutionary Dynamics of Cultural Change”](https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/659bt_v1)  Gilbert Simondon, _[Imagination and Invention](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781517914455)_  William Gibson, _[Neuromancer](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780441007462)_  [Phlogiston theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory)  George Orwell, _[1984](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780451524935)_  HP Lovecraft, [“The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”](https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cdw.aspx)  Weird Studies, [Episode 187 on “Little, Big”](https://www.weirdstudies.com/187)  [John Dee,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee) English occultist  Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, _[The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780195320992)_  Robert Harrison, _[The Dominion of the Dead](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226317939)_  Gilles Deleuze, _[Bergsonism](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780942299076)_  Elizabeth LeGuin, _[Boccherini’s Body](https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780520240179)_  Elizabeth LeGuin, [“Cello and Bow thinking”](http://www.echo.ucla.edu/cello-and-bow-thinking-baccherinis-cello-sonata-in-eb-minor-faouri-catalogo/)  Johannes Brahms, _Handel Variations_  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

In this continuation of their non-linear journey through the tarot, Phil and JF discuss the ninth Arcanum: the Hermit. Walking through darkness with his lantern and staff, the Hermit invites us to break from the collective and seek a direct relationship with the Real. This is the card of the seeker, the misfit, the sage, and the wanderer. As tends to happen in these tarot episodes, the hosts take the opportunity to range across many topics, connecting the Hermit to Jung’s Red Book, the Desert Fathers, angels and demons, the I Ching, contemporary politics, and more. Support us on Patreon Order Christian Bunyan's Weird Studies poster here. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast,Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau REFERENCES Carl Jung, The Red Book Stanley Kubrick, American filmmaker Samuel Beckett, Irish writer Emily Dickinson, American poet Temptation of Saint Anthony Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot Weird Studies, Episode 103 on the Tower card The Gnostic Tarot Nigel Richmond, Language of the Lines Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back John Minford, The I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming" Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of the Tarot Wolfgang Petersen (dir.), The Neverending Story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2025

In this continuation of their non-linear journey through the tarot, Phil and JF discuss the ninth Arcanum: the Hermit. Walking through darkness with his lantern and staff, the Hermit invites us to break from the collective and seek a direct relationship with the Real. This is the card of the seeker, the misfit, the sage, and the wanderer. As tends to happen in these tarot episodes, the hosts take the opportunity to range across many topics, connecting the Hermit to Jung’s Red Book, the Desert Fathers, angels and demons, the I Ching, contemporary politics, and more. Support us on Patreon Order Christian Bunyan's Weird Studies poster here. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast,Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau REFERENCES Carl Jung, The Red Book Stanley Kubrick, American filmmaker Samuel Beckett, Irish writer Emily Dickinson, American poet Temptation of Saint Anthony Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot Weird Studies, Episode 103 on the Tower card The Gnostic Tarot Nigel Richmond, Language of the Lines Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back John Minford, The I Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Oracle and Book of Wisdom William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming" Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of the Tarot Wolfgang Petersen (dir.), The Neverending Story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 April 2025

John Crowley’s Little, Big is, at once, a family saga, a fairy tale, an occult thriller, an idyll, a dystopia, as well as a meditation on myth and history, the real and the fantasy, memory and imagination. Little, Big is also a book that JF and Phil have been planning to discuss for as long as Weird Studies has existed. In this episode, they are joined by writer and scholar Erik Davis to explore the enduring charms and mysteries of one of the greatest—and most underrated—American novels of the late twentieth century. Order Christian Bunyan's Weird Studies poster here. Visit Weirdosphere for more details on Erik Davis's ongoing course, The Three Stigmata of Philip K. Dick. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES John Crowley, Little, Big Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Eric Davis, interview with Neil Gaiman and Rachel Pollack David Lynch (dir.), Lost Highway America, “The Last Unicorn” John Cooper Powys, A Glastonbury Romance J. R. R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality Lord Dunsany, Irish novelist Special Guest: Erik Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2025

In this episode, JF and Phil continue their conversation on the wedge, their figure for the epistemological divide between approaching reality from the heart and exploring it with the mind. As the discussion unfolds, the wedge begins to reveal itself not as a rigid binary but as a spectrum—one that stretches from ultimate thickness to ultimate thinness. Could thinking, then, may be the art of navigating this epistemic gradient, seeking the sweet spot where the self meets the world, each on the other's terms? Visit Weirdosphere for more details on Erik Davis's upcoming course, The Three Stigmata of Philip K. Dick. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Weird Studies, Episode 155 on ‘The Unbinding’ Alan Chapman, Advanced Magick for Beginners Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude The Principle of Sufficient Reason Baruch Spinoza, Ethics Weird Studies, Episode 139 on the power of art Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats” Arnold Schoenberg, Austrian composer Jaques Vallee, Passport to Magonia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2025

"The Wedge" is a key concept for Phil and JF. When exploring weird phenomena—from artworks to ghosts, and everything in between—one tends to emphasize one or the other "end" of the event. At the thin end of the Wedge, the focus is on subjective experience: how it felt, what it was like, and its personal significance. At the thick end, the emphasis shifts to what actually happened, independent of how it was experienced. Though their roles sometimes switch, Phil generally thinks from the thin end, while JF approaches things from the thick. In this episode, they begin unpacking the implications of the Wedge for making sense of reality’s stranger aspects. Header image by SavidgeMichael via Wikimedia Commons. _ Join the Weirdosphere, our online learning platform Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, _Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Weird Studies, Episode 184 on David Lynch Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show” Scene by Scene, 1999 Interview with David Lynch Weird Studies, Episodes 76 on Henri Bergson’s Metaphysics Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution Phil Ford, Dig Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2025

Due to scheduling conflicts and a series of unforeseen events, JF and Phil have had to push the release of the next official episode of Weird Studies back by one week. To tide you over, we're unlocking a bonus episode previously available only to our Patreon supporters. It serves as the perfect preface to Episode 184, which will be released on February 26, 2025. Apologies for the delay, and thanks for your patience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2025

David Lynch passed away on January 15th, 2025, leaving behind a body of work that reshaped the landscape of cinema and television. Few artists have delved as deeply into the strange, the beautiful, and the terrifying as Lynch, and few have had as profound an influence on Weird Studies. His films have long been a touchstone for JF and Phil's discussions on art, philosophy, and the nature of the weird. To honor his memory, they decided to devote an episode to Lynch's work as a whole, with special attention paid to Eraserhead—the nightmarish debut that announced his singular vision to the world. A study in dread, desire, and the uncanny, Eraserhead remains one of the most disturbing and mysterious works of American cinema. In this episode, we explore what makes it so powerful and how it connects to Lynch’s larger artistic project. To enroll in JF's new Weirdosphere course, It's All Real: An Inquiry Into the Reality of the Supernatural, please visit www.weirdosphere.org. The course starts on Thursday, Feb 6, at 8 pm Eastern. A video for the piece For David Lynch is available on Pierre-Yves Martel's YouTube channel. REFERENCES David Lynch, Eraserhead David Lynch: The Art Life Victorian Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets Norman Mailer, An American Dream Laura Adams, "Existential Aesthetics: An Interview with Norman Mailer” George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal Carl Jung, The Red Book Jack Arnold (dir.), The Creature from the Black Lagoon Noel Caroll, The Philosophy of Horror Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense Jack Smith, “The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez” David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch Keeps his Head” in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never do Again Arthur Machen, The White People William Shakespeare, Macbeth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 5 February 2025

Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is one of the great novels of the twentieth century and a prime example of literature that transforms the deeply personal into something universal. For Phil and JF in this episode, the novel serves as the foundation for a discussion on spiritual journeying, the ideal of enlightenment, and the challenge of living in an ensouled universe. Sign up for JF's new Weirdosphere course on the supernatural, starting on February 6th, 2025. Purchase tickets to the Weirdosphere screening of Aaron Poole's Dada on February 1st, 2025. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Herman Hesse, Siddhartha Christopher Theofanidis and Melissa Studdard, Siddhartha Gustav Holst, The Planets Richard Wagner, Parsifal G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Colin Wilson, The Outsider Adam Kirsch, “Herman Hesse’s Arrested Development” Dogen, Genjakoan Chögyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 January 2025

In this episode, JF and Phil examine the myth of the vampire through the lens of Robert Eggers' latest film, Nosferatu, a reimagining of F. W. Murnau's German Expressionist masterpiece. Topics covered include the nature of vampires, the symbolism of evil, the implicit theology of Eggers' film (compared with that of Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula), the need for shadow work, as well as the power of real introspection and self-sacrifice. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Robert Eggers (dir.), Nosferatu F. W. Murnau (dir.), Nosferatu Mel Brooks (dir.), Dracula: Dead and Loving It Francis Ford Coppola (dir.), Bram Stoker’s Dracula Bram Stoker, Dracula Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde David James Smith, “The Archaeologist Couple who Unearthed a Field Full of Vampires” Robert Eggers, The Witch Richard Strauss, Salome Weird Studies, Episode 156 on “The Secret History” Rudolf Steiner, “Lucifer and Ahriman” Richard Wagner, Ring Cycle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 January 2025

With the next flagship show set to drop on January 8, 2025, we thought we'd tide you over with this conversation on the art and craft and writing, originally recorded for Listener's Tier patrons on the Weird Studies Patreon. To join our Patreon community, please visit www.patreon.com/weirdstudies. To purchase tickets to Phil and JF's winter solstice celebration, happening on Weirdosphere on Thursday, December 19, at 8 pm Eastern, please visit www.weirdosphere.org. We wish you a happy and safe holiday season! The journey continues in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 18 December 2024

Chris Carter's The X-Files is weird on its face: a dramatic series that, from the start, presented itself as more than drama, an exploration of the reality of the paranormal using the tools of fiction, a fantasy posing as reality (or is it the other way around?). Strangely prescient, undeniably zany, and truly "hyperstitious," the series is likely to strike contemporary viewers as equal parts naive and prophetic. In this episode, music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael joins Phil and JF for a deep dive into the archival sublime of the filing cabinet marked "X." To purchase tickets to JF and Phil's December 19th solstice event on Weirdosphere, with live music by Pierre-Yves Martel, to to weirdosphere.org. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Cut-up technique Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show” Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow Special Guest: Meredith Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 4 December 2024

The Magician card likely graces more front covers of books on the tarot than any of the other major arcana. In many ways, it symbolizes the tarot itself, or the individual who has mastered the art of manipulating the cards to divine their meanings. Yet, the Magician is a profoundly ambiguous figure. From one perspective, he is the Magus, piercing through the illusions of ceaseless becoming to glimpse the hidden depths of reality. From another, he is all surface without depth, a carnival huckster ready to empty your coin purse while you’re transfixed by his crystal ball. In this episode, JF and Phil continue their on-again, off-again journey through the major trumps with a discussion of the card that—deservedly or not—proudly calls itself Number One. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot Weird Studies, Episode 24 on “The Charlatan and the Magus” Weird Studies, Episode 109 and Episode 110 on The Glass Bead Game Weird Studies, Episode 179 with Lionel Snell Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Geneology of Morals Louis Sass, Modernism and Madness Gilles Deleuze, Pure Immanence Richard Wagner, Parsifal William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light Participation mystique Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Leigh Mccloskey, Tarot Re-visioned Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 November 2024

One of the great rewards of "weirding" the world is learning that boredom may be a kind of ethical transgression—the world is simply too strange to allow for it, and if you're bored, you're at least partly to blame. Few have put this notion to the test as rigorously as Lionel Snell, whose work as a magician celebrates the wonders of everyday events, from a walk in the park to a moment of car trouble. Unlike the pursuit of the extraordinary that often defines occult practice, Snell's approach reminds us of the magic in the mundane. In this episode, Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, shares the insights he's gained over his decades-long career as one of the leading figures in contemporary magical theory and practice. For an exclusive Vimeo link to Aaron Poole's film Dada mentioned in the intro, go to Instagram and send @aaronsghost the direct message "movie link please". REFERENCES Ramsey Dukes, Thundersqueak Weird Studies, Episode 141 on “SSOTBME Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell John Crowley, Little, Big Arthur Machen, “A Fragment of Life” David Foster Wallace, The Pale King Max Picard, The Flight from God Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising Henry Bergson, Matter and Memory Russell’s Paradox Special Guest: Lionel Snell [Ramsey Dukes]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 November 2024

Earlier this month, Phil and JF recorded a live episode at Indiana University Cinema in Bloomington following a screening of John Carpenter's film In the Mouth of Madness. Carpenter’s cult classic obliterates the boundary between reality and fiction, madness and revelation—an ideal subject for a Weird Studies conversation. In this episode, recorded before a live audience, the hosts explore the film’s Lovecraftian themes, the porous nature of storytelling, and how art can function as a conduit to unsettling truths. Special thanks to Dr. Alicia Kozma and the IU Cinema team for hosting and recording the event. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES John Carpenter, In the Mouth of Madness John Carpenter, Prince of Darkness* John Carpenter, The Thing Joshua Clover, BFI Film Classics: The Matrix Philip K. Dick, Time Out of Joint David Cronenberg, Videodrome Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)" Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer Nick Land, English philosopher H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" Jonathan Carroll, The Land of Laughs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 23 October 2024

Fairy tales are among the most familiar cultural objects, so familiar that we let our kids play with them unsupervised. At the same time, they are also the most mysterious of artifacts, their heimlich giving way to unheimlich as soon as we give them a closer look and ask ourselves what they are really about. Indeed, these imaginal nomads, which seem to evade all cultural and historical capture, existing in various forms in every time and place, can become so strange as to make us wonder if they are cultural at all, and not some unexplained force of nature — the dreaming of the world. In this episode, JF and Phil use "Rapunzel" as a case study to explore the weirdness of fairy tales, illustrating how they demand interpretation without ever allowing themselves to be explained. Sign up for the upcoming course "Writing at the Wellspring" October 22-December 1 with Dr. Matt Cardin on Weirdosphere.org Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! SHOW NOTES Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller" in Illuminations (Hannah Arendt, ed.; Harryn Zohn, trans.). Novalis, Philosophical Writings. (Margaret Mahony Stoljar, trans.). Cristina Campo, The Unforgivable and Other Writings (Alex Andriesse, trans.) William Irwin Thompson, Imaginary Landscape Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment Marie-Louise von Franz,, Swiss Jungian psychologist Sesame Street, “Rapunzel Rescue” Disney’s Tangled The Annotated Brothers Grimm Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index Marina Warner, Once Upon a Time W. A. Mozart, The Magic Flute Dante Alighieri, Il Convito Panspermia hypothesis Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature John Mitchell, Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist Clint Eastwood (dir.) The Unforgiven Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 9 October 2024

Comics, like cinema, is an eminently modern medium. And as with cinema, looking closely at it can swiftly acquaint us with the profound weirdness of modernity. Do that in the context of a discussion on Charles Burns' comic masterpiece Black Hole, and you're guaranteed a memorable Weird Studies episode. Black Hole was serialized over ten years beginning in 1995, and first released as a single volume by Pantheon Books in 2005. Like all masterpieces, it shines both inside and out: it tells a captivating story, a "weirding" of the teenage romance genre, while also revealing something of the inner workings of comics as such. In this episode, Phil and JF explore the singular wonders of a medium that, thanks to artists like Burns, has rightfully ascended from the trash stratum to the coveted empyrean of artistic respectability—without losing its edge. BIG NEWS: • If you're planning to be in Bloomington, Indiana on October 9th, 2024, click here to purchase tickets to IU Cinema's screening of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, featuring a live Weird Studies recording with JF and Phil. • Go to Weirdosphere to sign up for Matt Cardin's upcoming course, MC101: Writing at the Wellspring, starting on 22 October 2024. • Visit https://www.shannontaggart.com/events and follow the links to learn more about Shannon's (online) Fall Symposium at the Last Tuesday Society. Featured speakers include Steven Intermill & Toni Rotonda, Shannon Taggart, JF Martel, Charles and Penelope Emmons, Doug Skinner, Michael W. Homer, Maria Molteni, and Emily Hauver. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Charles Burns, Black Hole Clement Greenberg’s concept of “medium specificity” Terry Gilliam (dir.), The Fisher King Seth, comic artist Chris Ware, Building Stories “Graphic Novel Forms Today” in Critical Inquiry Raymond Knapp, The American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity Vilhelm Hammershoi, Danish painter Ramsey Dukes, Words Made Flesh G. Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form Dave Hickey, “Formalism” Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art Chrysippus, Stoic philosopher Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 September 2024

Every off-week, listeners who have chosen to support Weird Studies by joining our Patreon at the Listener's Tier get to enjoy a bonus episode. These episodes are different from the flagship show. Less formal and entirely improvised, they offer Phil and JF a different way of exploring the weird in art, philosophy and culture. To tide our listenership over until the next new episode drops on September 25th, 2024, here is a recent example of a Weird Studies audio extra, recorded as your hosts were finishing up their first Weirdosphere course, "The Beauty and the Horror." The conversation ended up centering on cultural works we experienced in childhood, and that are all the more magical for being only vaguely remembered. To enroll in JF's upcoming Weirdosphere course, "Whirl Without End: Fairy Tales and the Weird," please visit www.weirdosphere.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 August 2024

Daphne du Maurier was a prolific English writer of novels, plays, and short stories resonant with what she termed "a sense of unreality." In this episode, JF and Phil discuss her great short story "Don't Look Now," which Nicholas Roeg famously adapted to the screen in 1973 in a film starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. Recorded live at Shannon Taggart's Lily Dale Symposium on July 25th, 2024, the discussion takes a number of turns, exploring the ghost as an "image of itself," the phenomenon of "deathishness," the experience of derealization, the human capacity to break time, and grief as a rift in time. Visit the Weirdosphere and sign up for JF's upcoming course of lectures and discussions, "Whirl Without End: Fairy Tales and the Weird," starting on September 5th, 2024. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Daphne du Maurier, "Don't Look Now" Nicholas Roeg (dir.), Don't Look Now Weird Studies, Episode 66 on “Diviner’s Time” Chuck Klosterman, "Tomorrow Rarely Knows” Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Peter Medak (dir.), The Changeling Philip K. Dick, “Schizophrenia and the Book of Changes” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 August 2024

Phil and JF are joined by Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford – practicing magicians, podcasters, and co-authors of the newly released Baptist's Head Compendium: Magick as a Path to Enlightenment, a collection of essays and reports from their famous occult blog, The Baptist's Head. Duncan and Alan are accomplished practitioners with deep insights into the nature of magic(k). The conversation touches on a number of subjects, including the parallels between magic, mysticism, and religion; form and formlessness; the nature of truth; the primacy of devotion; and the quest to converse with one's Holy Guardian Angel. To purchase The Baptist's Head Compendium at a 20% discount, go to http://www.spirit.aeonbooks.co.uk and enter the code given in the introduction to this episode. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Occult Experiments in the Home, Duncan Baford's blog and podcasts. Barbarous Words, Alan Chapman's Substack. WORP FM, a ten-part podcast series with Alan and Duncan. The Abremelin working Illuminates of Thanatos (IOT) Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law Buddhist Geeks, “The Great Work of Western Magic with Alan Chapman” Aleister Crowly, John St. John Special Guests: Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 July 2024

In this computerized age, we tend to see memory as a purely cerebral faculty. To memorize is to store information away in the brain in such a way as to make it retrievable at a later time. But the old expression "knowing by heart" calls us to a stranger, more embodied and mysterious take on memory. In this episode, Phil and JF endeavour to recite two poems they've learned by heart, as a preamble to a discussion on poetry, form, and the magic of memory. Details on Shannon Taggart's Symposium @ Lily Dale (July 25-28). Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Musical Instrument” Dave Hickey, “Formalism” from Pirates and Farmers Weird Studies, Episode 109-110 on “The Glass Bead Game” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria Weird Studies, Episode 42 with Kerry O Brien Francis Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 July 2024

The Hanged Man is arguably the most enigmatic card in the traditional tarot deck. Divested of any archetypal apparel – he is neither emperor nor fool, but just a man, who happens to be hanging – he gazes back at us with the look of one who harbors a secret. But what sort of secret? In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the card that no less august a personage than A.E. Waite, co-creator of the classic Rider-Waite deck, claimed was beyond all understanding. The musical interludes in this episode are from Pierre-Yves Martel's recent album, "Bach." Visit his website for more. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REREFENCES Welkin/Gnostic Tarot Sally Nichols, Tarot and the Archetypal Journey Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom Yoav Ben-Dov Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot Richard Wagner, ”Sigmund” from Die Walkure Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Star Wars John Frankenheimer (dir.), The Manchurian Candidate Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot MC Richards, “Preface” to Centering Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace Alan Chapman, Magia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 26 June 2024

This week on Weird Studies, Phil and JF explore the intersections of the beautiful and the terrible in art and literature. There is a conventional beauty that calms and placates, and there is a radical beauty which, taking horror’s pale-gloved hand, gives up all pretense to permanence and fixity and joins the danse macabre of our endless becoming. This episode is a preamble to a five-week course of lectures and discussions starting June 20th on Weirdosphere, JF and Phil’s new online learning platform. For more information and to enroll in The Beauty and the Horror, visit www.weirdosphere.org. REFERENCES JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, the audiobook, with a new introduction written and read by Donna Tartt. Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two William Blake, “The Tyger” Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark Walter Pater, The Renaissance David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return Anna Aikin, “On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror Donna Tartt, The Secret History Keiji Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness Charles Baudelaire, “Le Voyage” Franz Schubert, “Death and the Maiden” Quartet Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata in C major, D. 840 J.R.R. Tolkein, The Hobbit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 14 June 2024

Orson Welles made F for Fake in the early seventies, while still bobbing in the wake of a Pauline Kael essay accusing him of being cinema's greatest fraud. Ostensibly a documentary on the famous art forger Elmyr de Hory and his biographer Clifford Irving (a talented faker in his own right), the film blurs the line between fact and fiction in an effort to explore art's weird entanglement with illusion, magic, and ultimately, the search for truth. This is a film unlike any other, and it is arguably Welles's most important contribution to the evolution and theory of film aesthetics. Join the Weirdosphere online learning community by enrolling in Phil and J.F.'s inaugural course, [THE BEAUTY AND THE HORROR](www.weirdosphere.org), starting June 20th. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! RERERENCES Orson Welles, F for Fake Gilles Deleuze Cinema 2 Elmyr de Hory, art forger Clifford Irving, American writer Howard Hughes, American aerospace engineer David Thomson, Biographical Dictionary of Film David Thomson, Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles Pauline Kael, Raising Kane “War of the Worlds” radio drama The Farm Podcast, “Horror Hosts, Films & Other Strange Realities w/ David Metcalfe, Conspirinormal & Recluse” Orson Welles - Interview with Michael Parkinson (BBC 1974) Geoffrey Cornelius, Cornelius Victoria Nelson, Secret Life of Puppets Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking Sokal affair, hoax Werner Herzog, “Minnesota Declaration” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 29 May 2024

The ongoing crackdown on protests at many American universities prompts a discussion on the politics, ethics, and metaphysics of free expression. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic George Orwell, The Prevention of Literature George Orwell, Inside the Whale New York Times, “At Indiana University, Protests Only Add to a Full Year of Conflicts John Stuart Mill, On Liberty Indiana Daily Student, “Provost Addresses Controversy” Official government page for the Proposed Bill to address Online Harms in Canada. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals GK Chesterton, Orthodoxy Daryl Davis, American musician and activist DavidFoster Wallace, Just Asking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 May 2024

There are artists who express the vision of a place, person, or thing so vividly and originally that it sets the bar for all future imaginings. With his four Mad Max films, this is what George Miller did with the image of the Wasteland. No one has been able to capture the stark, raw energy and chaotic beauty of a post-apocalyptic desert quite like Miller. His portrayal not only defines the aesthetic of a cinematic world but also prompts us to think about the meaning of civilization, technology, humanity, and how they intertwine. In this episode, Phil and JF discuss how Mad Max challenges our perception of civilization, and our conception of the human. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES George Miller (dir.), Mad Max George Miller (dir.), Mad Max: The Road Warrior George Miller (dir.), Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdrome George Miller (dir.), Mad Max: Fury Road Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk Stanley Kubrick (dir.), A Clockwork Orange Sam Raimi (dir), The Quick and the Dead Joe Bob Briggs, movie critic Phil Ford, “The Wanderer” Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze, Nomadology Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 1 May 2024

Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) was a British painter, poet, and occultist, long identified as a pioneer of the Surrealist movement in the UK. While her work is increasingly recognized for its mystical themes and innovative use of automatic techniques, deeply influenced by her esoteric studies, it also inspired extensive research on its broader cultural and spiritual contexts. Amy Hale, an anthropologist, folklorist, and author, has dedicated much of her career to exploring Cornwall, the fabled region of southwest England that became Colquhoun’s spiritual home. Hale’s book, Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern-Loved Gully, published by Strange Attractor Press, offers a profound biographical study of Colquhoun, examining the historical and spiritual forces that influenced her work. In this episode, she joins JF and Phil to discuss Colquhoun, Cornwall, and the transformative power of research and writing. REFERENCES Amy Hale, Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern-Loved Gully Agnes Callard, I Teach the Humanities, and I Still Don’t Know What Their Value Is Steven Feld, Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking Special Guest: Amy Hale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2024

In culture and the arts, labeling something you don't like (or don't understand) "pretentious" is the easy way out. It's a conversation killer, implying that any dialogue is pointless, and those who disagree are merely duped by what you've cleverly discerned as a charade. It's akin to cynically revealing that a magic show is all smoke and mirrors—as if creative vision doesn't necessitate a leap of faith. In this episode, Phil and JF explore the nuances of pretentiousness, distinguishing between its fruitful and hollow forms. They argue that the real gamble, and inherent value, of daring to pretend lies in recognizing that imagination is an active contributor to, rather than a detractor from, reality. Pierre-Yves Martel's EPHEMERA project It isn't too late to join JF's upcoming course on the films of Stanley Kubrick, which goes until the end of April, 2024. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Brian Eno, A Year with Swollen Appendices Dan Fox, Pretentiousness: Why it Matters Ramsay Dukes, How to See Fairies Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition Weird Studies, Episode 49 on Nietzsche’s idea of “untimely” Sokal Affair, scholarly hoax Weird Studies, Episode 75 on ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Stanley Kubrick, “Notes on Film” Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Uses and Abuses of History Vladimir Nabokov, Think, Write, Speak Mary Shelley, “Introduction to Frankenstein” Matt Cardin, A Course in Demonic Creativity Playboy interview with Stanley Kubrick Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2024

"Let the red dawn surmise / What we shall do, / When the blue starlight dies / And all is through." This short poem, an epigraph to "The Yellow Sign," arguably the most memorable tale in Robert W. Chambers' 1895 collection The King in Yellow, encapsulates in four brief lines the affect that drives cosmic horror: the fearful sense of imminent annihilation. In the four stories JF and Phil discuss in this episode, this affect, which would inspire a thousand works of fiction in the twentieth century, emerges fully formed, dripping with the xanthous milk of Decadence. What’s more, it is here given a symbol, a face, and a home in the Yellow Sign, the Pallid Mask of the Yellow King, and the lost land of Carcosa. Come one, come all. Join JF's upcoming course on the films of Stanley Kubrick, starting March 28, 2024. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow Weird Studies, Episode 100 on John Carpenter films Algernon Blackwood, “The Man Who Found Out” Susannah Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, Thought Forms Weird Studies, Episode 140 on “Spirited Away” Vladimir Nabokov, Think, Write, Speak Charles Taylor, A Secular Age David Bentley Hart, “Angelic Monster” M. R. James, Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to you my Lad” William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2024

What is expressionism? A school? A movement? A philosophy? At the end of this episode, Phil and JF agree that it is, above all, a sensibility, one that surfaces periodically in history, punctuating it with occasional bursts of frenetic colour and eruptions of light and shadow. Whenever it appears, expressionism challenges our tendency to divide the world up into neat quadrants: mind and matter, subject and object lose their legitimacy as they start to bleed into one another. Prior to recording, your hosts agreed to focus on two pieces of writing: Victoria Nelson's The Secret Life of Puppets and a recent Internet post on eighties and nineties American films entitled "Neo-Expressionism: The Forgotten Studio Style." Though focused on a number of films, the conversation includes forays into the world of the visual arts, literature, and music. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES comrade_yui, “neo-expressionism: the forgotten studio style” Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets Francis Ford Coppola, Bram Stoker’s Dracula Weird Studies, Episode 161 on ‘From Hell’ Bram Stoker, Dracula E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art Jean-Francois Millet, “Gleaners” Kathe Kollwitz, “Need” Robert Weine, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Arnold Schoneberg, Pierrot Lunaire Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1 Peter Yates (dir.), Krull Wilhelm Worringer, German art historian Weird Studies, Episode 136 on ‘The Evil Dead’ In Camera The Naive Visual Effects of Dracula Kenneth Gross, Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life Weird Studies, Episode 121 ‘Mandwagon’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2024

"The Devil's finest ruse," Baudelaire wrote, "is to persuade you that he doesn't exist." In this episode, JF and Phil peer through a buzzing haze of lies, illusions, and mirages, in hopes of catching a glimpse, however brief, of the figure standing at its center. With a focus on the fifteenth major arcanum of the tarot, they try to make sense of this archetype which feels, at once, remotely distant and uncomfortably close to us, all while heeding the warning from the anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot that one ought not look too deeply into the nature of evil, which is "unknowable in its essence." Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot The Gnostic Tarot Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust, Part 1 Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME Edgar Allan Poe, The Imp of the Perverse Aleister Crowley, Magic, Book 4 Leigh McCloskey, Tarot Re-Visioned Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth The Library of Esoterica, Tarot Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2024

In this second of two episodes on "scenes," Phil and JF set their sights on Greenwich Village in the wake of the Second World War. Focusing on two works on the era – Anatole Broyard's Kafka Was the Rage and John Cassavetes' Shadows – the conversation further develops the mystique of urban scenes and explores the weirdness of cities. The city, long considered the human artifact par excellence, comes to seem like something that comes from outside the ambit of humanity. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Anatole Broyard, Kafka Was the Rage John Cassavetes, Shadows Kazuo Ishiguro, An Artist of the Floating World Phil Ford, Dig Weird Studies, Episode 90 on “Owl in Daylight” Kult, role-playing game Tom Delong and Peter Lavenda, Secret Machines: Gods, Men, and War Chandler Brossard, Who Walk in Darkness Yukio Mishima, Japanese artist Anatole Broyard, “Portrait of the Hipster” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2024

Listener discretion advised: This episode delves into the disturbing details of the Whitechapel murders of 1888, and may not be suitable for all audiences. Serialized from 1989 to 1996, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel From Hell was first released in a single volume in 1999, just as the world was groaning into the present century. This is an important detail, because according to the creators of this astounding work, the age then passing away could not be understood without reference to the gruesome murders, never solved, of five women in London's Whitechapel district, in the fall of 1888. In Alan Moore's occult imagination, the Ripper murders were more than another instance of human depravity: they constituted a magical operation intended to alter the course of history. The nature of this operation, and whether or not it was successful, is the focus of this episode, in which JF and Phil also explore the imaginal actuality of Victorian London and the strange nature of history and time. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Daniel Silver, Terry Nichols Clark, and Clemente Jesus Navarro Yanez, “Scenes: Social Context in an Age of Contingency” Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, From Hell Floating World, Edo Japanese concept Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture John Clellon Holmes recordings Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes Collection Yacht Rock, web series Stephen Knight, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution Colin Wilson, Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor Weird Studies, Episode 89 on “Mumbo Jumbo” Charles Howard Hinton, mathematician J. G. Ballard, Preface to Crash William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 24 January 2024

Every off-week, listeners who have chosen to support Weird Studies by joining our Patreon at the Listener's Tier get to enjoy a bonus episode. These episodes are different from the flagship show. Less formal and entirely improvised, they offer Phil and JF a different way of exploring the weird in art, philosophy and culture. To tide our listenership over until the next new episode drops on January 24th, here is a recent example of a Weird Studies audio extra, recorded as the holiday season was getting under way. Happy New Year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 10 January 2024

As a horror movie, John Carpenter's The Thing seems to have it all: amazing practical effects, body horror, psychological drama, Kurt Russell ... Indeed, there is only one element this movie lacks, and that is anything at all corresponding to the titular villain. There is no thing in The Thing! What we have instead is a process, a pattern, a way for which the term "thing" is as good as any other. (What is a thing anyway?) In this episode, Phil and JF, having decided that Carpenter's film qualifies as a Christmas movie because there is snow (and a dog) in it, explore the metaphysical implications of a cult classic. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES John Carpenter, The Thing Weird Studies, Episode 100 on Carpenter Films Weird Studies, Episode 157 on Videodrome Ridley Scott, Blade Runner Ridley Scott Alien Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence Haecceity Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Characters as a Medium for Poetry Weird Studies, Episode 89 on ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ Weird Studies, Episode 127 on ‘The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity’ Wikipedia, “Quiddity” Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish painter Jez Conolly, The Thing Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation Dylan Trigg, The Thing a Phenomenology of Horror Plato, The Timaeus Lucretius, “On the Nature of Things” Clive Barker, The Great and Secret Show Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2023

Every once in a while, JF and Phil like to do a “song swap.” Each picks a song, and the ensuing conversation locates linkages and correspondences where none was previously thought to exist. In this episode, they are joined by the music scholar Meredith Michael – Weird Studies assistant, and co-host of Cosmophonia, a podcast about music and outer space – to discuss songs by Lili Boulanger, Vienna Teng, and Iron & Wine. Before long, this disparate assortment personal favourites occasions a weirdly focused dialogue on time, impermanence, control, (mis)recognition, and the affinity of art and synchronicity. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Iron and Wine, “Passing Afternoon” Vienna Teng, “The Hymn of Acxiom”, (and here is the live version) Lili Boulanger, Vieille Priére Bouddhique Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Karol Berger, Bach’s Cycle Mozart’s Arrow William Shakespeare, Hamlet Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Vladimir Jankelevitch, Music and the Ineffable Hector Berlioz, Fugue on “amen” from La Damnation du Faust Slavoj Zizek, A Pervert’s Guide to Idiology Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic Shepard Tone Rudolf Steiner, The Influces of Lucifer and Ahriman Special Guest: Meredith Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 6 December 2023

In this episode of Weird Studies, we delve into the mysterious depths of Plato's Timaeus, one of the foundational texts of our civilization. In his characteristic brilliance, Plato blends cosmology and metaphysics, anatomy and politics to tell a creation story that rivals the most fantastical mythologies, yet he does it while remaining grounded in a philosophical rigor that announces a radically new way of thinking the world. Here, Phil and JF try unravel the layers of the dialogue, revealing how Plato's vision of a divinely ordered cosmos echoes through the corridors of esoteric thought from antiquity to modern times. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Plato, [Timaeus](https://hackettpublishing.com/history/history-of-science/timaeus](Donald Zeyl Edition) Earl Fontenelle, The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast The Book of Thoth Graham Hancock, British journalist Hesiod, Theogony Hermes Trismegistus, {Emerald Tablet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet) Pierre Hadot,, scholar of classical philosophy Eugene Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences” Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought Lionel Snell, SSOTBME Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 22 November 2023

"Death to Videodrome! Long live the New Flesh!" It was perhaps inevitable that the modern Weird, driven as it is to swallow all things, would sooner or later veer into the realm of political sloganeering without losing any of its unknowable essence. David Cronenberg's 1983 film Videodrome is more than a masterwork of body horror: it is a study in technopolitics, a meditation on the complex weave of imagination and perception, and a prophecy of the now on-going coalescence of flesh and technology into a strange new alloy. In this episode, recorded live after a screening of the film at Indiana University Cinema in Bloomington, JF and Phil set out to interpret Cronenberg's vision... and come to dig the New Flesh. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES David Cronenberg, Videodrome Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible Paul Virilio, The Information Bomb Weird Studies, Episode 75 on “2001: A Space Odyssey” Richard Porton and David Cronenberg, "The Film Director as Philosopher: An Interview with David Cronenberg" George Hickenlooper and David Cronenberg, "The Primal Energies of the Horror Film: An Interview with David Cronenberg" Weird Studies, Episode 144 with Connor Habib William Friedkin (dir.), The Exorcist Plato, Timaeus William Gibson, Idoru CBC, Yorkville: Hippie Haven Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2023

There are works of weird fiction that dispense their strangeness so subtly that many readers never pick up on it, books that allow themselves to be pass for mundane, the better to haunt us after we put them down. Donna Tartt's debut novel The Secret History, published in 1992, is such a work. On the surface, it is a brilliant, yet completely naturalistic, telling of the lead-up and aftermath of a murder. But The Secret History is also a work of the depths, and readers who go in seeking the Weird will find it lurking on every page. More than a masterpiece of psychological exploration, it is a story about the resurgence of the old god Dionysus, and a chronicle of fate; fate conceived, in the manner of the Ancient Greeks, as a cosmic force. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Donna Tartt, The Secret History Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist Weird Studies, Episode 98 on Exotica M. R. James, English author Weird Studies, Episode 3 on “The White People” E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational Jean Cocteau, La Machine Infernale John Crowley, Little, Big Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Outrageous Okana” Weird Studies, Episode 110 on “The Glass Bead Game” Gabriel Faure, Nocturne No. 11 Pierre-André Boutang, L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 25 October 2023

One of the most surprising aspects of paranormal experience is how often it takes on a storylike form, unfolding exactly as you would expect it to in, say, a Hollywood horror film. Viewers of Karl Pfeiffer's film The Unbinding will get a sense of this in the early sequences of Greg and Dana Newkirk's latest occult adventure. The haunting comes on strong and takes rather familiar forms. But the almost too-good-to-be-true frights -- effective as they are in an almost fairy-tale way -- soon give way to a procedural that invites us to ponder the ethics and methodologies of paranormal investigation in the age of Global Weirding. What do we owe the Others we encounter? What do they owe us? In this episode, JF and Phil discuss some of the questions haunting this brilliant documentary from the creators of Hellier. Support us on Patreon. Buy the Weird Studies sountrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! REFERENCES Planet Weird, The Unbinding Weird Studies, Episode 67 on “Hellier” Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO” Duncan Barford, “Magick Versus Content” Gilles Deleuze, Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 11 October 2023

William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land is without a doubt one of the weirdest entries in the annals of weird fiction. Set in the earth's distant future, after the sun has gone out and the planet has been cleaved in two by an unspecified disaster, a telepathic scientist dons his armour and weapons to brave the monster-haunted yet strangely monotonous wastes that engirdle the massive pyramid in which the last humans took refuge, hundreds of thousands of years earlier. If Samuel Beckett tripped hard on ayahuasca, he might have come up with something like Hodgson's genre-defying novel, which reads more like a report to committee of 17th-century heretics than a piece of speculative fiction from the early twentieth century. MIT Press recently released a (blessedly) abridged edition of The Night Land as part of their Radium Series. Journalist, scholar, and lecturer Erik Davis, who penned a brilliant foreword for the new edition, was kind enough to join Phil and JF to discuss this underrated masterpiece. Support us on Patreon and gain access to Phil's podcast on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Download Pierre-Yves Martel's new album, Mer Bleue. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! SHOW NOTES William Hope Hodgeson, The Night Land Weird Studies, Episode 37 with Stuart Davis Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy Charles Taylor, A Secular Age William Hope Hodgeson, House on the Borderland Samuel Beckett, Molloy Sumptuary Laws Arcosanti, arcology Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men Pierre Schaeffer, “Traité des objets musicaux” Schitzophonia H.G. Wells, The Time Machine Special Guest: Erik Davis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 27 September 2023

Even learned commentators on the tarot are likely to point out at the fourteenth major arcana, Temperance, is a bit of a boring card. At least, it comes off as dull until you look at it closely, as JF and Phil do in this episode. What they find is that the Temperance card is actually a diagram, a kind of blueprint for a celestial machine that underlies human technology, beckoning us to restore even the most mechanical contraption to the raw weirdness at the source of everything. Header image by Rolf Dietrich Brecher via Wikimedia Commons It's not too late to join JF's Nura Learning course, ["Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence."](www.nuralearning.com) Support us on Patreon and gain access to Phil's podcast on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia. Download Pierre-Yves Martel's new album, Mer Bleue. Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! SHOW NOTES Anonymous, Meditations on the Tarot Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth Adrien Lyne, Jacob’s Ladder Weeping Angels, Dr. Who creatures Joel Schumacher, Flatliners Lawrence Halprin, The RSVP Cycles Gregory Bateson, Steps To an Ecology of Mind Hesychasm, monastic practice Yoav Ben-Dov, Tarot: the Open Reading The Gnostic Tarot Jeffrey Kripal, Authors of the Impossible Nagarjuna, Verses of the Middle Way Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 13 September 2023

In this bonus episode, originally released on July 26th on the Weird Studies Patreon, Phil and JF explore a few ways in which artificial intelligence will impact the arts. The podcast returns with a new official episode on September 13th. Enjoy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 8 September 2023

A bonus offering to break up the summer hiatus, this episode contains a conversation on the virtues of affectation originally available only to third- and fourth-tier members of the Weird Studies Patreon ("Putting on the Bow-Tie," Apr 5, 2023). The episode opens with a short piece on JF's upcoming Nura Learning course, Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, starting on September 12th. Enjoy. [Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence](www.nuralearning.com), a seven-week online course with JF Martel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcribed - Published: 15 August 2023