Episode 208 – Unbridled Creation: On Kenneth Batcheldor's Theory of the Paranormal

Episode 208 – Unbridled Creation: On Kenneth Batcheldor's Theory of the Paranormal

Author: SpectreVision Radio March 11, 2026 Duration: 1:19:51
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. 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  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 27: Weird Music, Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:32
In this first of two episodes devoted to the music of the weird, Phil and JF discuss two works that have bowled them over: the second movement of Ligeti's Musica Ricercata, used to powerful effect in Stanley Kubrick's Ey…
Episode 26: Living in a Glass Age, with Michael Garfield [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:17
Stone, bronze, iron... glass? In his recent thought and writing, transdisciplinary artist and thinker Michael Garfield defines modernity as an age of glass, arguing that the entire ethos of our era inheres in the transfo…
Episode 25: David Cronenberg's 'Naked Lunch' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:20:36
JF and Phil head for Interzone in an attempt to solve the enigma of Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg's 1991 screen adaptation of William S. Burroughs' infamous 1959 novel. A treatise on addiction, a diagnosis of modern ills…
Episode 24: The Charlatan and the Magus, with Lionel Snell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:53
As Lionel Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, observes in his seminal esoteric essay, "The Charlatan and the Magus" (1984), the series of trumps in a tarot deck doesn't begin with the noble Emperor or august Hierophant, b…
Episode 23: On Presence [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:43:49
Phil stops by JF's Canadian homestead for a raucous IRL conversation on the idea of presence. The range of topics includes objects of power, the magic of books, the mystery of the event, modernity's knack for making myth…
Episode 22: Divining the World with Joshua Ramey [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:37
American philosopher Joshua Ramey, author of The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and the Spiritual Ordeal, and Politics of Divination: Neoliberal Endgame and the Religion of Contingency, joins Phil and JF to discuss a philo…
Episode 21: The Trash Stratum - Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:06:11
The writings of underground filmmaker Jack Smith serve as a starting point for Phil and JF's second tour of the trash stratum. In their wanderings, they will uncover such moldy jewels as the 1944 film Cobra Woman, the ex…
Episode 20: The Trash Stratum - Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:15:42
Is the Holy Grail a crushed beer can in the gutter? JF and Phil consider the implications of Philip K. Dick's line, "the symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum." Gnosticism, Aleister Crowley's Thoth…
Episode 19: Intermezzo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:28
After announcing that Weird Studies will be going to a bi-weekly release schedule for the summer, Phil and JF talk about how the podcast has gone so far and what's on the horizon (more guests!). Before long, they're digg…
Episode 18: Does 'Consciousness' Exist? - Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:31
JF and Phil finally get down to brass tacks with William James's essay "Does Consciousness Exist?" At the heart of this essay is the concept of what James calls "pure experience," the basic stuff of everything, only it i…