Episode 108: On Skepticism and the Paranormal

Episode 108: On Skepticism and the Paranormal

Author: SpectreVision Radio October 13, 2021 Duration: 1:20:31
Modern skeptics pride themselves on being immune to unreason. They present themselves as defenders of rationality, civilization, and good sense against what Freud famously called the "black mud-tide of occultism." But what if skepticism was more implicated in the phenomena it aims to banish than it might appear to be? What if no one could debunk anything without getting some of that black mud on their hands? In this episode, Phil and JF discuss the weird complicity of the skeptic and the believer in the light of George P. Hansen's masterpiece of meta-parapsychology, The Trickster and the Paranormal. REFERENCES George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal James Randi, stage magician and paranormal debunker Michael Shermer, American science writer CSICOP, Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer Rune Soup, Interview with George P. Hansen Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell Weird Studies, Episode 89 on Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure Wouter Hanegraaff, Dutch professor of esoteric philosophy Shannon Taggart, Seance Society for Psychical Research Weird Studies, Episode 44 on William James’s Psychical Research G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy Robert Anton Wilson, American author Aleister Crowley, Magic Without Tears Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the heart of Weird Studies, a podcast from SpectreVision Radio, you’ll find long-form conversations between Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel. Their discussions aren’t simple reviews or straightforward analyses; instead, they wander through the tangled undergrowth where art and philosophy meet, giving generous time to concepts that resist easy understanding and to creative works that fracture our ordinary sense of the world. This podcast deliberately lingers in that ambiguous space, treating the “weird” not as a genre but as a particular mode of experience-one that reveals the cracks in what we comfortably assume is real. Each episode feels like joining a deep, meandering dialogue between two friends who are both deeply knowledgeable and endlessly curious, covering a vast terrain that includes literature, film, music, and esoteric thought. It’s a show for anyone who suspects that the most profound truths are often found in the shadows, the anomalies, and the strangely beautiful. As part of the SpectreVision Radio network, which specializes in content that explores the uncanny edges of creativity, Weird Studies builds a unique community of listeners who are eager to think differently. You won’t find pat answers here, but you will encounter compelling questions and a shared sense of exploration that makes each installment a distinctive journey.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 230

Weird Studies
Podcast Episodes
Episode 74: A Luminous Parasite: Jung on Art, Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:11:53
In this second part of their exploration of C. G. Jung's essay "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," JF and Phil try to discern the psychological and metaphysical implications of the great Swiss psycholog…
Episode 73: Carl Jung and the Power of Art, Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:42
This is the first of two conversations that Phil and JF are devoting to C. G. Jung's seminal essay, "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry," first delivered in a 1922 lecture. It was in this text that Jung m…
Episode 72: Morning of the Mutants: On the Castrati [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:28
For over two centuries in early modern Italy, boys were selected for their singing talent castrated before the onset of puberty. The goal was to preserve the qualities of their voice even as they grew into manhood. The p…
Episode 71: The Medium is the Message [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:25:35
On the surface, the phrase "the medium is the message," prophetic as it may have been when Marshall McLuhan coined it, points a now-obvious fact of our wired world, namely that the content of any medium is less important…
Episode 70: Masks All the Way Down, with James Curcio [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:19
James Curcio is an American multidisciplinary artist and nonfiction writer whose works include the novels Join My Cult, The Party at the World's End, and the upcoming Tales from When I Had a Face. Recently, Curcio edited…
Episode 69: Special Episode: On Some Mental Effects of the Pandemic [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:38
What is there to say about the COVID-19 virus that hasn't already been said, over and over again, all around the world, in quaratined houses and on TV and social media and countless Zoom chats ... what can we say that yo…
Episode 68: On James Hillman's 'The Dream and the Underworld' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:44
In 1979, the American psychologist James Hillman published The Dream and the Underworld, a polemical meditation on the nature of dreams. Rejecting the orthodoxies of both Freud and Jung, Hillman argued that the the "nigh…
Episode 67: Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On 'Hellier' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:23:34
On the night before this episode of Weird Studies was released, a bunch of folks on the Internet performed a collective magickal working. Prompted by the paranormal investigator Greg Newkirk, they watched the final episo…