Alle afleveringen
244 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Episode 221 – On 'The Exorcist'
21 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 21 min
In this episode, long overdue, Phil and JF discuss one of the great American horror films: WIlliam Friedkin's 1973 adaptation of Willam Peter's Blatty's _The Exorcist_. Lees meer
Music: "Nascent Red," from PY Martel's Weird Studies Vol. 1.
For details on Quentin S. Crisp's upcoming Weirdosphere talk on literature and the supernatural, visit Weirdosphere. The event takes place on October 31 at 3 pm EST.
Support Weird Studies on Patreon.
References
William Friedkin (dir.), The Exorcist
Richard Donner (dir.), The Omen
Fulton J. Sheen, On the Demonic
William Blatty, The Exorcist
Gyrus, North
Don Siegal and Clint Eastwood (dir.), Dirty Harry
Weird Studies, Episode 88 on Mr. Punch
Joe Bob Briggs, American film critic
Matt Cardin, "Teeth"
Ryan Duns, The Theology of Horror
Norman Mailer, "The White Negro"
Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man"
Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
John Lennon, "Imagine"
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Episode 220: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man: Live at the Dream Mapping Symposium
7 oktober 2026 · 1 uur 55 min
On September 26, JF and Phil took part in the Dream Mapping Symposium, a three-day event organized by the Dream Mapping Project and the Dream Library Foundation, and held at the Brooklyn Public Library. Their mission was twofold. First, Phil was to read Dostoevsky's short story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," and then, he and JF were to have one of their conversations about it. Despite inclement weather, exploding lighting equipment and the labyrinthine NYC subway system, it went off like a dream. In this episode, we offer you the full recording of the event. Lees meer
Special thanks to Alisa Minyukova and Kelly Bulkeley for a thought-provoking weekend.
To support Weird Studies, become a patron of the show.
It's not too late to sign up to Erik Davis's Weirdosphere course, Do Androids Dream of Reading PKD? The first of two live Q&As with Erik is on Sunday, October 11, 2026.
Music in this episode: "Springtime on Ganymede" from PY Martel's Weird Studies vol. 2.
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Episode 219 – Composing the Cosmos, with Meredith Rigby
23 september 2026 · 1 uur 25 min
In this episode, JF and Phil are joined by their beloved assistant and invaluable collaborator Meredith Rigby (formerly Meredith Michael) to discuss her recently completed doctoral dissertation, Composing the Cosmos: 20th Century Musical Mythologies of Outer Space. Meredith explains how classical music, in the last century, became a privileged zone for exploring the meaning, threat, and promise of the starry void after the collapse of the old cosmologies. Lees meer
Music: "Fogcutter" from Pierre-Yves Martel's Weird Studies Vol 3.
Support Weird Studies on Patreon.
Upcoming Events
Registration is open for Erik Davis's course on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , starting October 1, 2026, on Weirdosphere.
On September 26, 2026, join JF and Phil at the Brooklyn Public Library for a live recording on dreams and Dostoevsky. Part of the Dream Mapping Symposium, organized by The Dream Mapping Project and the Dream Library Foundation.
On October 3 and 4, HitchCon 26 will feature talks on Hitchcock and David Lynch. Speakers include JF and Victoria Nelson.
References
Meredith Rigby, "Composing the Cosmos: 20th Century Musical Mythologies of Outer Space"
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution
Jerry Goldsmith, Theme from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Richard Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra
Gustav Holst, "Mars" and "Neptune" from The Planets
Lili Boulanger, "Les Sirènes"
Alan Leo, The Art of Synthesis
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Episode 218 — A Mighty Matter of Legend: On J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Two Towers'
9 september 2026 · 1 uur 15 min
Having taken up the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in episode 207, Phil and JF turn to part two, The Two Towers. Together, they peel back the husk of familiarity to reveal the strange object underneath: a story about stories, about life and destiny in a storied world. Lees meer
Music: "Wotan Hangs" from Weird Studies Vol. 1 and "For the Sun" from Weird Studies Vol 3.
Support Weird Studies on Patreon.
Upcoming Events:
JF's course on the metaphysics of the horror genre, The Awful Truth, starts September 17, 2026, on Weirdosphere.
Erik Davis's course on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? starts October 1, 2026, on Weirdosphere.
Click here for details on JF and Phil's appearance at the Brooklyn Public Library on September 26, 2026. Part of the Dream Mapping Symposium, organized by The Dream Mapping Project and the Dream Library Foundation. Attendance is free.
References
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Viktor Schlovsky, “Art as Technique”
Arthur Machen, “A Fragment of Life”
Joshua Cutchin, Fourth Wall Phantoms
Cristina Campo “On Fairy Tales”
J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
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Mid-Hiatus Bonus: A Door in the Fourth Wall
26 augustus 2026 · 45 min
Episode 218 will drop at the end of our summer break on September 9, 2026. Today, enjoy this recent audio extra, originally released for members of the Weird Studies Patreon. In the intro, JF announces two important Weirdosphere events: a talk on language in the age of AI by Emma Stamm, and a new six-week course on the idea of truth in horror cinema and literature. To learn more and enroll, visit Weirdosphere. Lees meer
The musical piece following the intro is "Hypnagogic," from PY Martel's recent album Weird Studies Vol. 3.
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Episode 217 – Books, Spirits, and Hysteria, with Asti Hustvedt
5 augustus 2026 · 1 uur 18 min
Researcher Asti Hustvedt joins Phil and JF to discuss a talk she gave at the Lily Dale Symposium this year entitled "Bibliophantoms." The question: What does it mean to "get lost" in a book? Asti's answer, drawing on her research in nineteenth-century neuroscience and spirit mediumship, amounts to a genuine weirding of the act of reading. Lees meer
Asti Hustvedt is an independent scholar and writer with a PhD in French
literature. Her work examines the entangled histories of science,
psychology, literature, and the occult, with a particular focus on
hysteria and Spiritualism. She is the author of Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris, named an Editors' Choice by the New York Times and a Book of the Year by The Independent, and the editor of The Decadent Reader: Fiction, Fantasy and Perversion in Fin-de-Siècle France.
She is currently writing a book on hysteria and the supernatural that
examines how Eusapia Palladino and other mediums challenged—and helped shape—the emerging sciences of the mind.New Course! To learn more on JF's upcoming online course on truth in horror literature and cinema, visit Weirdosphere.
Image: Detail of The Reader by Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942)
Music: "L'Esprit d'escalier" from Weird Studies vol. 3, and "Distant Early Warning" from Weird Studies vol 2.
REFERENCES
Asti Hustvedt, Medical Muses
Jean-Martin Charcot, French physician
Pierre Janet, French physician
Lon Milo DuQuette, It’s All in Your Head
Saint Catherine of Siena, Italian mystic
Saint Augustine, Confessions
Paul Auster, American writer
Julia Kristeva, Bulgarian French philosopher
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Lionel Snell, Introduction to Freya Aswynn’s Power and Principles of the Runes
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Episode 216 – Artworks Are People Too
22 juli 2026 · 1 uur 34 min
"Now and then, a mysterious life and potency will flicker out of an artwork and confront you." So began "Artworks Are People Too," a talk Phil presented at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute earlier this summer. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss the implications of this idea that some artworks break the mould of the inanimate and act as persons in the world. Are artworks mere creations, or creatures too? Lees meer
To enroll in Questionable Cinema, our live summer series happening in August 2026, visit Weirdosphere.
Music: "Hypnagogic," from Weird Studies Vol. 3.
References
Henri Corbin, Alone with the Alone
Alfred Hallowell, "Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and Worldview"
Martin Buber, I and Thou
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
Rainer Maria Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo”
Peter Sloterdijk, You Must Change Your Life
Carl Jung, “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry”
Alejandro Jodorowsky, Pyschomagic
Dan Sperber, “The Causal Chains of Culture”
Paul Stoller, In Sorcery’s Shadow
Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
Holly Cusack-McVeigh, Stories Find You
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind
Ikea lamp commercial
Sam Raimi (dir.), Evil Dead II
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Special Episode: Make Art!
8 juli 2026 · 41 min
Owing to circumstances preventing us from releasing a new show this week, we are offering you one from the archives. This episode was originally released on our Patreon in March 2026. In it, we discuss the splendour and squalor of Victorian London, kung-fu bobbies, the (mis)alignment of society and technology, post-apocalyptic optimism, the emancipating genius of tabletop roleplaying games, the human after AI, and a reason for creating works of art. Lees meer
A new episode of Weird Studies will drop on July 22.
For more information on Questionable Cinema, Phil and JF's upcoming online course, visit Weirdosphere.
To listen to more tracks from Weird Studies Vol. 3 and purchase the download or LP, visit Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp.
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Episode 215 – Where No One Can Hear You Scream: On Ridley Scott's 'Alien'
24 juni 2026 · 1 uur 29 min
In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi/horror blockbuster Alien. Together, they wipe off the patina of familiarity that beclouds the film, restoring it to its original weirdness. What is the organism that terrorizes the Nostromo? What's its relation to technology, evolution, industry? How does it differ from the monsters of older horror classics? How does one interpret without explaining away? Lees meer
Music in this episode: "Hypnagogic," from Pierre-Yves Martel's Weird Studies Vol. 3.
Events
Shannon Taggart's Lily Dale Symposium (July 23-25, 2026Transcendence in the Age of AI, a Weirdosphere chat with Michael Garfield and JF Martel, hosted by Joel Gunz - June 25, 2026
Kickstarter campaign for Artist as Astronaut: The Otherworldly Art of Ionel Talpazan from Strange Attractor Press. The campaign closes June 27!
References
Ionel Talpazan, Romanian experiencer and artist
Ridley Scott (dir.), Alien
Peter Bebergal, All Our Famous Monsters (forthcoming)
Malachi Martin, Hostage to the Devil
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish painter
H. R. Giger, Swiss artist
Simon-Max, French entertainer
Eric Wargo, Passion of the Space Jockey
Weird Studies, Episode 213 on “Eric”
Mel Brooks (dir.), Spaceballs
Howard and Emerson, “Hello, Ma Baby”
Beowulf
Eugene Thacker, In the Dust of This Planet
Graham Harman, Weird Reality
Pierre Schaeffer, French musician
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Episode 214 – Fortune's Fools: On Gordon White's Philosophy of Fortune-Telling
10 juni 2026 · 1 uur 15 min
It was with heavy hearts that Phil and JF learned of Gordon White's passing. Gordon was a force to be reckoned with: as an author and podcaster on all things occult, he offered unique perspectives and provocative interpretations at every turn. In this episode, your hosts discuss Gordon's thoughts on divination—or fortune-telling, as he preferred to call it... Lees meer
Click here to purchase tickets to the 2026 edition of the Lily Dale Symposium (July 23-25), organized by Shannon Taggart and closing this year with a live recording of Weird Studies.
References
Rune Soup
Fortune’s Fools Oracle Deck
Duns Scotus, Scottish priest
Marshall Sahlins, The New Science of the Enchanted Universe
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
Ithell Colquhoun, Taro as Colour
Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegana
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Episode 213 – Comics, Surf Rock, and the Weirdness of Time: On Tom Manning's 'Eric'
27 mei 2026 · 1 uur 19 min
Tom Manning's 2018 graphic novel Eric is that rarest of gems: the self-published masterpiece. Available only on the author's website, it's the story of a washed-up surf rocker who stumbles into a cosmic conspiracy involving elite cultists, post-apocalyptic cowboys, renegade magicians, and three-eyed djinn. In this episode, Manning's work serves as a shining example of what makes comics such a unique and potent art form. There's no need to have read the book before listening—but know that you'll probably want to do when you're done. You're welcome. Lees meer
Visit the Weirdosphere website to sign up for the Weird Studies Vol. 3 listening party on May 30, 2026.
Join the Weird Studies Patreon and support the show.
References
Tom Manning, ERIC
Leslie Stevens, “So So Surreal”
“Beach Bum #1”
Mike Relm, “Change the Channel”
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy?
Sarah Heston, “Magical Los Angeles: An Interview with Tom Manning”
Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
David Mamet, On Directing Film
Richard J. Lewis (dir.), Whale Music
Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski
Darren Aronovsky (dir.), The Wrestler
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego
David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return
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Episode 212 – Beyond Music and Back Again: On Glenn Gould
13 mei 2026 · 1 uur 24 min
The pianist, composer and sound artist Glenn Gould once wrote: "Art on its loftiest mission is scarcely human at all." What becomes of art and humanity when they are allowed to vary independently of one another? Which serves which, and to what end? In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Glenn Gould's style and vision of music through the lens of François Girard's memorable 1993 film, Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. Lees meer
For details on the upcoming Weird Studies Volume 3 listening party, and to register for the event, go to the event page on the Weirdosphere website. The album will be released on May 22, 2026, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page.
Click here to support Weird Studies on Patreon.
REFERENCES
Francois Girard (dir.), Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Rob Reiner, This is Spinal Tap
Weird Studies, Episode 31 on Gould’s “Prospects of Recording”
"The Shining Recut"
"Glenn Gould Interviews Glenn Gould About Glenn Gould"
Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture
Glenn Gould, "The Idea of North"
Weird Studies, Episode 124 with Duncan Barford
Francois Girard, Production of Wagner’s Parsifal
Richard Wagner, Parsifal (clip from performance conducted by Reginald Goodall)
Spear of Longinus
Header image by Ana Pismel, via Wikimedia Commons.
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Episode 211 – You've Always Been the Caretaker: On Kubrick's 'The Shining'
29 april 2026 · 1 uur 27 min
In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining. That they are doing this eight years after starting the podcast is weird in itself, so fundamental is Kubrick's "chamber epic" to the modern weird in general, and the hosts' specific interests in particular. Well, as the Overlook Hotel's former caretaker Delbert Grady might put it, consider the situation corrrrected. Lees meer
Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in JF's upcoming course on Deleuzian philosophy, starting May 7 2026.
Support Weird Studies on Patreon
Interstitial Music: "Corridors" from Pierre-Yves Martel's Weird Studies Volume 2.
REFERENCES
Stanley Kubrick, The Shining
Jan Harlan, A Life in Pictures
Stanely Kubruck, Killer’s Kiss
Alberto Giacometti, “The Palace at 4am”
Gilles Deleuze, What is Philosophy?
Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism”
Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie
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Special Episode: M.C. Richards's "Wrestling with the Daimonic," read by Phil Ford
22 april 2026 · 58 min
We regret that we were unable to release a new episode this week. Episode 211 will drop on Wednesday, April 29, and will be devoted to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a film we have long wanted to revisit in depth. In the meantime, we are pleased to offer Phil’s spirited reading of M. C. Richards’ essay “Wrestling with the Daimonic,” discussed in our previous episode and available only to Patreon members until now. Lees meer
This recording is shared with kind permission from Wesleyan University Press. Visit their website for details on The Crossing Point and other works by M.C. Richards.
To support Weird Studies and get access to exclusive essays and bonus episodes, visit our Patreon page.
And go to Weirdosphere to learn more about JF's upcoming course on Deleuzian philosophy, which starts on May 7th, 2026.
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Episode 210 – Angels & Daimons, with Cristina Campo and M.C. Richards
8 april 2026 · 1 uur 33 min
In this episode, JF and Phil bring together two visionary essays on the daimonic and the imaginal: Cristina Campo’s “On Fairy Tales” and M.C. Richards’s “Wrestling with the Daimonic.” What emerges is a conversation about imagination, personhood, and a world shot through with meaning. Notably, this episode opens with a discussion of what your hosts mean by "imaginal." Lees meer
Phil’s reading of Richards’s essay can be found on our Patreon page. Thanks to Wesleyan University Press for permission to share this with our listeners.
Go to Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page to preorder his marvellous new album, Weird Studies Volume 3.
Click here to sign up for JF's seminar on Henri Bergson, happening on the Mutations learning platform on Saturday, April 11, 2026.
Click here for details on JF's upcoming Weirdosphere course, "What is Philosophy?".
Music in this Episode
"Scavenger," from Weird Studies Vol. 3
"Domes and Spires," from Weird Studies Vol. 2
References
M. C. Richards, American artist and philosopher
Cristina Campo, Italian poet and essayist
M. C. Richards, “Wrestling with the Daimonic”
Cristina Campo, “On Fairy Tales”
Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory
William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
Weird Studies, Episode 8 on Graham Harmon
Susan Chang, The Tarot Podcast
Ramsey Dukes, The Little Book of Demons
“The Boy Who Knew No Fear,” fairy tale
Una Voce, Catholic movement
Franz Liszt, Hungarian Pianist
Walter Benjamin, The Storyteller
William Shakespeare, Othello
M. C. Richards, Centering
Robert Duncan, American poet
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Episode 209 – At Home in the Labyrinth, with Murakami and Borges
25 maart 2026 · 1 uur 33 min
In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Haruki Murakami’s “Cream,” from First Person Singular, alongside Jorge Luis Borges’s classic tale, “The Garden of Forking Paths.” Together, these two stories occasion a meditation on time, perplexity, and the strange possibility that meaning isn't found at the end of the maze, but discovered only in the course of wandering it. Lees meer
Photo by DMzlC via Wikimedia Commons.
Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page, home of Weird Studies Vol. 3 (to be released May 22, 2026).
Joel Plaskett's website and Substack
References
Geoffrey Cornelius, “Chicane: Double-Thinking and Divination among the Witch-Doctors,” in Divination: Perspectives for a New Millennium, ed. Patrick Curry (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 119– 42.
Joe Leduc's Blood Oath
Jorge Luis Borges, “The Garden of Forking Paths”
Haruki Murakami, “Cream”
Marc Augé, Non-Places
Federico Campagna, Technic and Magic
Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show”
Nicholas of Cusa, “On the Quadrature of the Circle”
Ethan Weed, “A Labyrinth of Symbols”
Kids in the Hall, “Premise Beach”
David Lynch, Twin Peaks: The Return
David Lynch, Lost Highway
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Don Giovanni
Weird Studies, Episode 66 on “Diviner’s Time”
Gottfried Leibniz, Theodicy
Quentin Meillasoux, After Finitude
Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot
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Episode 208 – Unbridled Creation: On Kenneth Batcheldor's Theory of the Paranormal
11 maart 2026 · 1 uur 20 min
Kenneth Batcheldor was a British clinical psychologist who, during the final two decades of his life, investigated the paranormal through direct experiments in table-turning. The final fruit of that work was an essay, compiled from Batcheldor’s notebooks by Patric Giesler, entitled “Notes on the Elusiveness Problem in Relation to a Radical View of Paranormality.” Published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1994, it remained unknown to JF and Phil until Shannon Taggart called their attention to it quite recently. Since the theory Batcheldor presents here with admirable lucidity is deeply attuned to ideas they have been discussing on Weird Studies for nearly a decade, they decided to devote an episode to it. The core idea is by far the weirdest of all—in a sense, it is the weird itself. Lees meer
Read Batcheldor's essay on the Weird Studies Patreon.
Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in Phil's upcoming 5-week course, "A Musical Tarot."
Pierre-Yves Martel's Weird Studies: Volume 3 will be available for preorder on March 13. Visit his Bandcamp page for details.
REFERENCES
K. M. Wehrstein, “Kenneth Batcheldor” in Psi Encyclopedia
Kenneth Batcheldor, “Notes on the Elusiveness Problem in Relation to a Radical View of Paranormality,” ed. Patric Giesler, The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 88, no. 2 (1994): 90-116.
Kenneth Batcheldor, “Contributions to the Theory of PK Induction from Sitter-Group Work,” Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research 78 (1984): 105-122.
George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal
Quintin Meillassoux, After Finitude
Joshua Ramey, “Contingency Without Reason: Speculation after Meillassoux”
Kenneth Batcheldor, Videos of Table Tipping
Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell
David Lynch, Wild at Heart
William James, The Principles of Psychology
Tom Cheetham, Imaginal Love
A. Irving Hallowell, Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View
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Episode 207 – Magic Mirror: On J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Fellowship of the Ring'
25 februari 2026 · 1 uur 32 min
This is the first of three episodes on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to be released in the course of the next several months. Focusing here on The Fellowship of the Ring, our hosts discuss the first leg of Frodo's journey into darkness, paying special attention to Tolkien's prose style, his modernism, his commitment to a truly magical realism, and his penchant for the weird and the tragic. Lees meer
Image: "Lothlorien" by Tessa Bronsky, via Wikimedia Commons.
References
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Algernon Blackwood, English writer
Weird Studies, Episode 204 on “On Fairy Stories”
Peter Jackson (dir.), The Lord of the Rings
Ursula K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Friedrich Nietzsche, History in the Service and Disservice of Life
Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel
Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives
Carl Jung, The Red Book
Lord Dunsaney, The King of Elfland’s Daughter
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
David Foster Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram”
Steven Chow (dir.), Kung Fu Hustle
Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Lost Lakes, YouTube Channel
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Episode 206 – On Ken Russell's 'Altered States': Live at Indiana University Bloomington
11 februari 2026 · 1 uur 21 min
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. Lees meer
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"
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Episode 205 – Discipline and Delight: On the Hierophant Card in the Tarot
28 januari 2026 · 1 uur 33 min
In this episode of Weird Studies, we turn to the fifth Major Arcanum, the Hierophant, symbolizing tradition, instruction, and the exoteric aspect of spiritual practice. Drawing on Meditations on the Tarot and other sources, we question the easy opposition between tradition and revolution, exploring instead how inherited forms can foster genuine inner growth, and how an interior revolutions may renew traditions from within. Lees meer
To reserve seats for Weird Academia events, visit the website of the Center for Possible Minds.
References
Johann Sebastian Bach, F# minor Fugue from The Well Tempered Clavier Book 1 (played by Rosalyn Tureck)
Richard Wilhelm (trans.), The I Ching
J. R. R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings
P. D. Ouspensky, The Symbolism of the Tarot
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Our Known Friend, Meditations of the Tarot
Plato, "The Seventh Letter"
Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot
Dogen, Instructions for the Cook
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
Weird Studies, Live at Illuminated Brew Works
Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria vol. 1
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Episode 204 – The Perilous Realm: J.R.R. Tolkien's 'On Fairy Stories'
14 januari 2026 · 1 uur 16 min
For Tolkien, fairy stories are not stories about fairies, but stories that take place in Faerie. And in doing so, they make Faerie present. They are not escapist fantasies but disclosures of a real mode of being and invitations to live in that mode. In this episode, Phil and JF explore the great writer’s radical claims about the nature of story, life, and reality. Lees meer
Upcoming Events
Erik Davis and JF's six-week course on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick begins on January 20th. For details and to enroll, visit the Weirdosphere.
For information on the upcoming Weird Academia events in Bloomington (Jan 27-29), visit the symposium web page at the Center for Possible Minds.
Music in this Episode
"What a Load of Gnosis," from Weird Studies: Music from the Podcast, Volume I
"Springtime on Ganymede," from Weird Studies: Music from the Podcast, Volume II
References
J. R. R. Tolkein, “On Fairy Stories”
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
Franz Liszt, Transcendental Etude No. 4: Mazeppa (played by Lazar Berman)
Dogen, "Instructions for the Cook"
Jeff Kripal, Mutants and Mystics
Eric Wargo, From Nowhere
J.F. Martel, Review of “From Nowhere” for Journal of Scientific Exploration
Richard Wagner, Parsifal
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Holiday Bonus: Scavengers in the Ruins of Heaven
31 december 2025 · 33 min
To tide us over as we prepare for a new season of Weird Studies, here is an "audio extra," originally recorded for our Patreon supporters, wherein we discuss imposter syndrome, the eternal inadequacy of the intellect, the perils of playing with swords, and the role of trust in
creation. Lees meerA new episode will drop on Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. Happy New Year to all.
To join our Patreon, go to www.patreon.com/weirdstudies
To enroll in the upcoming Moby Dick course starting on January 20th, visit www.weirdosphere.org.
For information on the Weird Academia conference in Bloomington, Indiana, visit www.possibleminds.org/weird-academia
Episode image: Caspar David Friedrich, Abtei im Eichwald (1808-1810).
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Episode 203 – Distant Early Warnings: A Return to Marshall McLuhan's 'Book of Probes'
10 december 2025 · 1 uur 26 min
Back in episode 112, Phil and JF devised a gimmick for a show: randomly select one of the many aphorisms in The Book of Probes, a compendium of Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic quips designed by David Carson, and see what happens. It proved lively enough that they’re trying it again nearly a hundred episodes later. The resulting conversation touches the weird across a range of themes: tourism, the two kinds of truth, advertising, Kubrick’s marketing savvy, technology, orality versus literacy, and much more. A fitting feast for the mind as the year draws to a close. Lees meer
From all of us at Weird Studies, happy holidays.
• Sign up for JF Martel and Erik Davis's upcoming course on Moby-Dick.
• Join Phil, JF, and composer Pierre-Yves Martel for Weirdosphere's Solstice Story Hour on December 21.
• For dates, venues, and the full slate of Weird Academia events in Bloomington this January, visit the Centre for Possible Minds website.
• To participate in the Weird Academia Colloquium, email organizers Emma Stamm and Michael Garfield at elfthoughts@gmail.com
Header Image: NASA.
REFERENCES
Marshall McLuhan, Distant Early Warning Deck
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Plato, The Seventh Letter
Marshall McLuhan, The Book of Probes
Toronto School of Communication Theory
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy
Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
Plato, The Republic
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media
Jonathan Crary, 24/7
H. P. Lovecraft, The Color out of Space
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Episode 202 – The Human is Two: On 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'
26 november 2025 · 1 uur 22 min
In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic classic, the tale that conjured the fog-shrouded London hellscape that has haunted the modern imagination ever since. Though written as a quick “Christmas crawler” to earn a bit of money, the novella has exerted an incalculable influence on art and literature. It also proved strangely prophetic, anticipating Freud and others who would soon make the fragmentation of the human psyche a defining concern of the new century. Lees meer
"The human is two" is a recurring refrain in the work of the scholar of religious thought, Jeffrey J. Kripal.
References
Dan Ericson, Severance
Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
David Lynch (dir.), Mullholland Drive
John Frankenheimer (dir.), The Manchurian Candidate
Galen Strawson, British philosopher
Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols
Jeff Kripal, How to Think Philosophically
Rouben Mamoullian (dir.), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Weird Studies, Episode 161 on “From Hell”
Sigmund Freud, “The Ego and the Id”
Arthur Machen, Hieroglyphics
Arthur Machen, “The White People”
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Episode 201 – On James Whale's 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein,' with Peter Bebergal
12 november 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
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. Lees meer
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
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Halloween Special: A Reading of Arthur Machen's "The White People"
31 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 40 min
Originally released in 2018 but remixed for your listening pleasure, here's Phil reading Arthur Machen's classic weird tale, "The White People." Happy Halloween! Lees meer
Machen's "The White People" was discussed all the way back in Weird Studies episode 3.
Earlier this week, JF and Phil joined Conner Habib on his podcast to talk all about horror. It was a great conversation and we hope you'll give it a listen.
Image: Photo of doll from Auckland War Memorial Museum, via Wikimedia Commons.
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Episode 200 – On 'The Call of Cthulhu'
29 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 28 min
For their 200th episode, JF and Phil turn their attention to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” a story foundational not only to modern horror fiction but to the very idea of the Weird. In revisiting this tale of forbidden knowledge and cosmic ambiguity, the hosts reflect on Weird Studies itself as a “slow piecing together of dissociated knowledge” that mirrors the work of Lovecraft’s own bewildered protagonists. Lees meer
Image by Antoni Espinosa via Wikimedia Commons.
Upcoming Events:
Peter Bebergal teaches on Weirdosphere starting November 20, 2025
JF Martel speaks at Back to Haunt Us in East London on November 8, 2025
Phil Ford speaks at the Durations Festival in NYC on November 7, 2025
Phil Ford hangs out at Archestratus Books and Food on November 8, 2025
References
H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Weird Studies, Episode 2 on Garmonbozia
Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy
Phil Ford, “The Wanderer”
H. P. Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep"
Weird Studies, Episode 74 on Jung
Phil Ford, Jacob Foster, and J. F. Martel, “Care of the Dead”
Weird Studies, Episode 110 on The Glass Bead Game
Weird Studies, Episode 101 on Tanizaki
Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy
Weird Studies, Episode 156 on Donna Tartt
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Episode 199 – On Michael Jackson, with Shannon Taggart
15 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 15 min
Photographer and paranormal researcher Shannon Taggart joins JF and Phil to explore the phenomenon that was Michael Jackson. One of the most brilliant and successful musicians of the modern era, Jackson was also a liminal figure sans pareil, a shapeshifter who defied the binary categories through which we order the human world. His art and persona together enacted a transformation that can only be called shamanic. Lees meer
About Our Guest:
Shannon Taggart is a photographer and author based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her photographs have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal, and have been recognized by Magnum, Nikon, and the Alexia Foundation. Her monograph Séance was first published by Fulgur Press (2019) and reissued in a second edition by Atelier Éditions. Shannon is currently developing an illustrated history of SORRAT (the Society for Research on Rapport and Telekinesis) and hosts an annual symposium on the weird and the paranormal in Lily Dale, New York.
Image by Daniele Dalledonne, via Wikimedia Commons.
References
George Hanson, The Trickster and the Paranormal
Robert Chambers, The King in Yellow
Rogan Taylor, The Death and Resurrection Show
Pier Paolo Pasolini (dir.), Teorema
Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show”
Michael Jackson, Moonwalker: A Memoir
J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
Miguel Connor, The Occult Elvis
Tim Powers, Last Call
Weird Studies, Episode 186 on The Wedge
Raymond Moody, Elvis After Life
Sub Rosa, Spectra Ex Machina: A Sound Anthology of Occult Phenomena 1920-2017 Vol.2
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Episode 198 – Breaking the Frame: On the High Priestess in the Tarot
1 oktober 2025 · 1 uur 20 min
Since 2020, Phil and JF have been creating an on-again, off-again series on the major trumps, or "arcana," of the tarot. In this episode, they continue the series with a discussion of the second arcanum: the High Priestess, also known as la Papesse, the female pope. One of the most enigmatic and powerful cards in the deck, the High Priestess symbolizes duality, contemplation, and manifestation. Lees meer
Support Weird Studies on Patreon.
Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page.
Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop
Find us on Discord
Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau.
Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia.
REFERENCES
Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot
Plancia Magna, Roman priestess
Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth
Leigh McCloskey, The Tarot Revisioned
Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory
Moina Mathers, French occultist
Sallie Nichols, Tarot and the Archetypal Journey
Rachel Pollack, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom
Yoav Ben-Dov, The Marseille Tarot Revealed
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Episode 197 - Sounding the Otherworld: On Bryn Chainey's 'Rabbit Trap'
17 september 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
In a rare surfacing in the contemporary world, JF and Phil discuss a film that has just been released. Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap is psychological horror in the tradition of Repulsion, Jacob’s Ladder, and Angel Heart. But it is more: a metaphysical film exploring the mystery of sound and the Otherworld of Faerie—an excursion into that weird country, so deftly explored by Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood, where wonder and terror perform their eldritch duets. Lees meer
Sign up for JF's new Henri Bergson course, starting September 18, 2025.
Support Weird Studies on Patreon.
Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page.
Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop
Find us on Discord
Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau.
Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia.
REFERENCES
Bryn Chainey, Rabbit Trap
Weird Studies, Episode 190 on “The Willows”
Alan Crosland (dir.), The Jazz Singer
Weird Studies, Episode 150 on “A Fragment of Life”
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
Vladimir Jankelevitch, Music and the Ineffable
Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound and Music
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
J. R. R. Tolkein, The Silmarillion
Giles Deleuze, Cinema II
Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth
Weird Studies, Episode 120 on Radical Mystery (story of the anti-sound starts at 52 minute mark)
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Weird Studies Trailer
7 september 2025 · 2 min
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Mid-Break Bonus: On Trust
3 september 2025 · 57 min
We're breaking up our late-summer pause with an audio extra originally recorded for our Patreon supporters. This episode also includes an essay JF wrote on the philosophy of Henri Bergson. A whole course on Bergson's philosophy begins on Weirdosphere later this month. Lees meer
Weird Studies will be back with a brand-new episode on September 17th.
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Episode 196 – Lost and Never Found: On 'The Blair Witch Project'
13 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 32 min
Of all the flavors of horror, few are as dreadful as that of being lost in the wilderness. In this episode, JF and Phil revisit The Blair Witch Project, the classic 1999 found-footage film that inspired a thousand imitators. What makes this film so gripping, they argue, is the way it lingers over the subtle stages of disorientation in a hostile place, from blithe denial to devastating gnosis. The Blair Witch Project isn't a ghost story so much as a work of cosmic horror. Ultimately, the woods themselves—vast, indifferent, inescapable—are the monster. Lees meer
Support Weird Studies on Patreon.
Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 and 2, on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp page.
Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop
Find us on Discord
Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau.
Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia.
References
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez (dirs.), The Blair Witch Project
Gus Van Sant (dir.), Gerry
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Weird Studies, Episode 195 on John Keel
Gilbert Simondon, Imagination and Invention
Georgio De Chirico, Italian artist
Arthur Machen, The White People
Jack Zipes, literary scholar
Weird Studies, Episode 150 on Arthur Machen's “A Fragment of Life”
“Schizophonia”
Stanislav Lem, Solaris
Andrei Tarkovsky (dir.), Solaris
Beyond Yacht Rock Podcast
Shirley Clarke (dir.), The Connection
Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image
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Episode 195 – On John Keel: Live at the Lily Dale Symposium, with Erik Davis
6 augustus 2025 · 1 uur 51 min
This marks the third year that Weird Studies is honoured to open the Lily Dale Symposium, organized each summer by photographer Shannon Taggart in the upstate New York community famed for its roots in Spiritualism. While J.F. wasn’t able to attend this year, Erik Davis joined Phil on stage for a conversation about the life and work of John Keel, the iconoclastic writer and investigator best known for The Mothman Prophecies. They were later joined by Keel’s friend, the writer and musician Doug Skinner, for a candid discussion of Keel’s legacy and style. Lees meer
If you enjoy Weird Studies, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Upper-tier goodies include exclusive writings, regular bonus episodes, and monthly hangouts with JF and Phil.
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Episode 194: Animal Songs, with Meredith Michael
23 juli 2025 · 1 uur 23 min
In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Meredith Michael—musicologist, podcaster, and Weird Studies production assistant—for a conversation about animal songs. The phrase is intentionally slippery. Are we talking about songs about animals, or songs by animals? Both, as it turns out. Beginning with three very different human compositions—The Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey,” Hovhaness’s And God Created the Great Whales, and Björk’s “Human Behavior”—the hosts discuss the roles animals play in human music, mythology, and mind. Along the way, they touch on Pink Floyd, the Beatles' trip to India, heroin addiction, the indeterminacy of singing and screaming, the messiness of inter-species communication, the discovery of whale song, the problem of (not) projecting humanness onto animals, the Book of Genesis, and the porous boundary between the human and non-human worlds. All that (and more) for two of the songs! Phil’s pick will be explored in a forthcoming episode. Lees meer
Meredith Michael is a PhD candidate in Musicology at the Indiana
University Jacobs School of Music. She is working on a dissertation
about musical mythologies of outer space in the twentieth century. In
her spare time she loves making art of all kinds, going for long walks,
making friends with cats, and watching cartoons. Meredith hosts the Cosmophonia podcast with Gabriel Lubell.References
Victor Shklovsky, “Art as Technique”
Pink Floyd, Animals
Neko Case, "People Got a Lotta Nerve"
The Beatles, "Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and my Monkey"
Gavin Steingo, Interspecies Communication: Sound and Music beyond Humanity
Little Richard, "Long Tall Sally"
Alan Hovhaness, And God Created Great Whales
Roger Payne, Songs of the Humpback Whale
Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
Olivier Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time
Weird Studies, Episode 181 on “The X Files”
Kate Altizer, Piano Dogs and Whale Theaters: Paranoid Relations and Affect wit…
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Episode 193: On Conversion, or Arousing the Bodhi-Mind
9 juli 2025 · 1 uur 29 min
How do you become religious? What is a conversion experience? Does it happen all at once or gradually? What's the point of religion, anyway? These are questions that JF (a Catholic) and Phil (a Zennist) have often been asked since starting Weird Studies, and in this episode they attempt some answers. Lees meer
Image: "Small Candle Flame" by Le Priyavrat, via Wikimedia Commons
Sign up to attend Shannon Taggart's Lily Dale symposium, July 24-26
REFERENCES
Ross Douthat, Believe
Dogen, Shobogenzo
New Atheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism
Weird Studies, Episode 99 on “Wild, Wild Country”
William James, Varieties of Religious Experience
George Steiner, Real Presences
Patrick Curry, Art and Enchantment
Max Picard, The Flight from God
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
Richard Wagner, Ring Cycle
Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense
Weird Studies, Episode 183 on “Siddhartha”
Charles Sanders Peirce, American philosopher
Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”
Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot
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Episode 192 - A Dream of Landscape: On Walking
25 juni 2025 · 1 uur 14 min
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. Lees meer
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
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Special Episode: Theory, Philosophy, and Uranus
18 juni 2025 · 1 uur 2 min
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. Lees meer
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
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Special Episode: Myth, History, and Form
4 juni 2025 · 47 min
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. Lees meer
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Episode 191 — The Acid Queen, with Susannah Cahalan
21 mei 2025 · 1 uur 28 min
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. Lees meerSusannah 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
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Episode 190 – Here Be Shrubs: On Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows'
7 mei 2025 · 1 uur 15 min
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. Lees meerPhoto 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
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Episode 189: Care of the Dead, with Jacob G. Foster
23 april 2025 · 1 uur 36 min
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. Lees meer
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/18799/978094… -
Episode 188: Pioneers of the Untimely: On the Hermit Card in the Tarot
9 april 2025 · 1 uur 23 min
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. Lees meer
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 BureauREFERENCES
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
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Episode 187: The Affirmation of Imagination: On John Crowley's 'Little, Big,' with Erik Davis
26 maart 2025 · 1 uur 34 min
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. Lees meer
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 megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 186: Meeting at the Center: The Wedge, Part Two
12 maart 2025 · 1 uur 29 min
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? Lees meer
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 MagoniaLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 185: Intuition and Reality: The Wedge, Part One
26 februari 2025 · 1 uur 17 min
"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. Lees meer
Header image by SavidgeMichael via Wikimedia Commons.
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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 LifeLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Special Release: Poltergeists, Fairies, Skeptics, and the Managerial Class
19 februari 2025 · 34 min
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. Lees meer
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 184: On David Lynch
5 februari 2025 · 1 uur 42 min
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. Lees meer
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, MacbethLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 183: On Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha'
22 januari 2025 · 1 uur 22 min
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. Lees meer
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 MaterialismLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 182: Providence of Evil: On Robert Eggers' 'Nosferatu'
8 januari 2025 · 1 uur 21 min
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. Lees meer
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 CycleLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices