Episode 141: Actual Magic: On Ramsey Dukes' SSOTBME

Episode 141: Actual Magic: On Ramsey Dukes' SSOTBME

Author: SpectreVision Radio February 28, 2023 Duration: 1:24:46
Ramsey Dukes, also known by his real name of Lionel Snell, may be one of the most important thinkers on magic since Aleister Crowley. In the impishly-titled Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians Exposed (or SSOTBME for short), Dukes accomplishes something few writers on the topic have been able to do: he gives us magic without asking us to sacrifice anything that makes us sensible modern people. He makes magic seem like the most obvious thing in the world, and he does it without taking away any of its, well, magic. How he does it and what it means are questions that would take several episodes to unpack. In this one, Phil and JF begin the work by discussing how Dukes situates magic in an epistemic compass that also includes science, art, and religion. This set of tools is as essential to a holistic view of reality as the four suits in a deck of cards are essential to a proper poker game. In other words, when we lose magic, we lose a way of dealing with reality. Sign up for JF's upcoming course on Macbeth Support us on Patreon and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 and volume 2 of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel Find us on Discord Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop REFERENCES David Lynch (dir.), Mulholland Drive Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures Weird Studies, Episode 139 on Art Power Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy “Virtual” and “Actual”, as developed by Bergson and Deleuze Pragmatism, philosophical school Jack Parsons, American rocket scientist Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return William Shakespeare, Macbeth 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 123: Off-Week Patreon Bonus: On Modern Miracles [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:28
Every off-week, JF and Phil record a bonus episode for Patreon supporters. The conversations on that stream are shorter, less formal, and more improvisitory than those of the flagship show. To give the wider public a gli…
Episode 122: Spirals and Crooked Lines: On the Star Card in the Tarot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:21:34
The Star is one of the most iconic of the major trumps of the traditional tarot deck. It is also one of the most ambiguous. A woman is shown emptying two urns of water onto the parched ground. She is flanked by nascent p…
Episode 121: Dream Theater: On 'Mandy' and 'The Band Wagon' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:20
In this episode, each of your hosts bullies the other into watching a movie he would normally not touch with a bargepole. Phil has been (unsuccessfully) trying to get JF to watch Vincente Minnelli's 1953 musical comedy T…
Episode 120: On Radical Mystery [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:17:55
Though it is seldom acknowledged in the weirdosphere, there is a difference between weirdness and mystery. Most of the time, the Weird confronts us with a problem, an impersonal epistemic obstacle which we can always bel…
Episode 118: The Unseen and the Unnamed, with Meredith Michael [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:44
In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael to discuss two strange and unsettling short stories: J.G. Ballard's "The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon" (1964) and Urs…
Episode 117: Time is a Child at Play: On the Mystery of Games [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:01
The topic of games and play has fascinated JF and Phil since the launch of Weird Studies. Way back in 2018, they recorded back-to-back episodes on tabletop roleplaying games and fighting sports, and more recently, they d…
Episode 116: On 'Blade Runner' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:29:29
In his 1978 bestseller The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins described humans as "survival machines" whose sole purpose is the replication of genes. All of culture needed to be understood as a side-effect, if not an epipheno…
Episode 114: On the Wheel of Fortune, the Tenth Card of the Tarot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:35:42
Season five kicks off with a new installment in the ongoing series on the Tarot's twenty-two major arcana. This time, your hosts overcome the trials that fortune has dealt them -- a hangover in the case of Phil, a sleepl…