Episode 136: The Things That Were And Shall Be Again: On 'Evil Dead II'
"We are the things that were and shall be again." So a demonic flesh puppet tells Ash and his allies in a memorable scene from the classic splatstick flick Evil Dead II. In addition to being a rollick...
30 Nov 20221h 8min
Episode 135: On 'The Secret Life of Puppets,' with Victoria Nelson
Victoria Nelson saw it first: Popular culture teems with occult ideas, vestiges of bygone belief, fragments of ancient magic disguised as common entertainment. Her 2001 work The Secret Life of Puppets...
16 Nov 20221h 4min
Episode 134: On Federico Campagna's 'Technic and Magic'
In Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality, the philosopher Federico Campagna argues that we moderns have exhausted the reality system we devised at the dawn of our age, a system he calls Tec...
2 Nov 20221h 33min
Episode 133: On Weirding, and the Virtues of Unknowing Everything
With the term "weird studies" gaining currency inside and outside academia, Phil and JF thought it was time to discuss the philosophical method they've been developing on the podcast since 2018. Borro...
19 Okt 20221h 12min
Episode 132: Art Is an Alien Technology: Live at the Supernormal Festival
With his 2010 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog peeled away the veneer of familiarity on the Chauvet cave paintings, restoring them to their original eldritch sparkle. ...
5 Okt 20221h 22min
Off-Week Bonus: On Worlds and Stories, with a Special Announcement
In this bonus episode, originally released for Listener's Tier Patreon supporters, a discussion of the books Phil and JF are reading leads to a debate about the place of plot, story, and worldbuilding...
27 Sep 202257min
Episode 131: Knocking on the Abyssal Door: Live at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
The historian of religion Jeffrey J. Kripal writes, "The world is one, and the human is two." The line captures the riddle of reality. What is it with our species? Equipped with an intellect able to g...
21 Sep 20221h 12min
Episode 130: Holiday Memories
In August, 2022, JF and Phil flew to the UK to attend the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) at the University of St. Andrews and the Supernormal Festival in Oxfordshire. In addition to rec...
7 Sep 20221h 17min
