Episode 63: Faculty X: On Colin Wilson's 'The Occult'

Episode 63: Faculty X: On Colin Wilson's 'The Occult'

Author: SpectreVision Radio January 8, 2020 Duration: 1:19:35
At its simplest, what Colin Wilson calls Faculty X is "simply that latent power in human beings possess to reach beyond the present." Yet its existence is evinced in all those phenomena that modernity files under "supernatural" or "occult." As difficult to explain as it is impossible to omit from any honest survey of human existence, the occult haunts the modern, not just as a vestige of the past but also, perhaps, as a promise from a time to come. For Wilson, magic isn't the living fossil the arch-rationalists would like it to be, but a "science of the future." Faculty X is an evolutionary power, innately positive, inseparable from the will to live and the unshakeable conviction that, somehow, this world has some real, ineffable meaning. In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Wilson's concept of Faculty X as elaborated in his monumental 1971 work, The Occult. REFERENCES Colin Wilson, The Occult: A History Rick and Morty, American sitcom Colin, Wilson, Dreaming to Some Purpose Colin Wilson, The Outsider Gary Lachman, Beyond the Robot Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence Making Sense, episode 107: Is Life Actually Worth Living? Peter Wessel Zapffe, Norwegian philosopher Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race Francisco Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters Emil Cioran, Franco-Romanian essayist Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, Library of America collection Joe Frazier, American pugilist Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory Edouard Schuré, [The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religions](Edouard Schuré, _The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religion Weird Studies, episode 8: On Graham Harman's "The Third Table" Thomas Merton, American monk Gary Snyder, American poet 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 160: The Way of All Flesh: On John Carpenter's 'The Thing' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:16:12
As a horror movie, John Carpenter's The Thing seems to have it all: amazing practical effects, body horror, psychological drama, Kurt Russell ... Indeed, there is only one element this movie lacks, and that is anything a…
Episode 159: Three Songs, with Meredith Michael [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:31:04
Every once in a while, JF and Phil like to do a “song swap.” Each picks a song, and the ensuing conversation locates linkages and correspondences where none was previously thought to exist. In this episode, they are join…
Episode 158: As Above, So Below: On Plato's 'Timaeus' [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:36:52
In this episode of Weird Studies, we delve into the mysterious depths of Plato's Timaeus, one of the foundational texts of our civilization. In his characteristic brilliance, Plato blends cosmology and metaphysics, anato…
Episode 154: Into the Night Land, with Erik Davis [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:24:02
William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land is without a doubt one of the weirdest entries in the annals of weird fiction. Set in the earth's distant future, after the sun has gone out and the planet has been cleaved in two by…
Episode 153: Celestial Machine: On the Temperance Card in the Tarot [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:19:34
Even learned commentators on the tarot are likely to point out at the fourteenth major arcana, Temperance, is a bit of a boring card. At least, it comes off as dull until you look at it closely, as JF and Phil do in this…
Summer Bonus #2: Art and AI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:36
In this bonus episode, originally released on July 26th on the Weird Studies Patreon, Phil and JF explore a few ways in which artificial intelligence will impact the arts. The podcast returns with a new official episode…
Summer Bonus: On Affectation, with a Special Announcement [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:23
A bonus offering to break up the summer hiatus, this episode contains a conversation on the virtues of affectation originally available only to third- and fourth-tier members of the Weird Studies Patreon ("Putting on the…