Weird Studies

With the next flagship show set to drop on January 8, 2025, we thought we'd tide you over with this conversation on the art and craft and writing, originally recorded for Listener's Tier patrons on the Weird Studies Patreon. To join our Patreon community, please visit www.patreon.com/weirdstudies. To purchase tickets to Phil and JF's winter solstice celebration, happening on Weirdosphere on Thursday, December 19, at 8 pm Eastern, please visit www.weirdosphere.org. We wish you a happy and safe holiday season! The journey continues in 2025.

Chris Carter's The X-Files is weird on its face: a dramatic series that, from the start, presented itself as more than drama, an exploration of the reality of the paranormal using the tools of fiction, a fantasy posing as reality (or is it the other way around?). Strangely prescient, undeniably zany, and truly "hyperstitious," the series is likely to strike contemporary viewers as equal parts naive and prophetic. In this episode, music scholar and Weird Studies assistant Meredith Michael joins Phil and JF for a deep dive into the archival sublime of the filing cabinet marked "X." To purchase tickets to JF and Phil's December 19th solstice event on Weirdosphere, with live music by Pierre-Yves Martel, to to weirdosphere.org (http://www.weirdosphere.org). Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies). Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2), on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com) page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Cut-up technique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique) Phil Ford, “The View from the Cheap Seats at the UFO Show” Richard Dawkins, [Unweaving the Rainbow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UnweavingtheRainbow) Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

The Magician card likely graces more front covers of books on the tarot than any of the other major arcana. In many ways, it symbolizes the tarot itself, or the individual who has mastered the art of manipulating the cards to divine their meanings. Yet, the Magician is a profoundly ambiguous figure. From one perspective, he is the Magus, piercing through the illusions of ceaseless becoming to glimpse the hidden depths of reality. From another, he is all surface without depth, a carnival huckster ready to empty your coin purse while you’re transfixed by his crystal ball. In this episode, JF and Phil continue their on-again, off-again journey through the major trumps with a discussion of the card that—deservedly or not—proudly calls itself Number One. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies). Buy the Weird Studies soundtrack, volumes 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2), on Pierre-Yves Martel's Bandcamp (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com) page. Listen to Meredith Michael and Gabriel Lubell's podcast, Cosmophonia (https://cosmophonia.podbean.com/). Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! REFERENCES Our Known Friend, Meditations on the Tarot (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781585421619) Weird Studies, Episode 24 on “The Charlatan and the Magus” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/24) Weird Studies, Episode 109 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/109) and Episode 110 (https://www.weirdstudies.com/110) on The Glass Bead Game Weird Studies, Episode 179 with Lionel Snell (https://www.weirdstudies.com/179) Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Geneology of Morals (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780141195377) Louis Sass, Modernism and Madness (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780198779292) Gilles Deleuze, Pure Immanence (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781890951252) Richard Wagner, Parsifal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsifal) William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780312160623) Participation mystique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_mystique) Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780877282686) Leigh Mccloskey, Tarot Re-visioned (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780877282686)

One of the great rewards of "weirding" the world is learning that boredom may be a kind of ethical transgression—the world is simply too strange to allow for it, and if you're bored, you're at least partly to blame. Few have put this notion to the test as rigorously as Lionel Snell, whose work as a magician celebrates the wonders of everyday events, from a walk in the park to a moment of car trouble. Unlike the pursuit of the extraordinary that often defines occult practice, Snell's approach reminds us of the magic in the mundane. In this episode, Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, shares the insights he's gained over his decades-long career as one of the leading figures in contemporary magical theory and practice. For an exclusive Vimeo link to Aaron Poole's film Dada mentioned in the intro, go to Instagram and send @aaronsghost the direct message "movie link please". REFERENCES Ramsey Dukes, Thundersqueak (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780904311129) Weird Studies, Episode 141 on “SSOTBME (https://www.weirdstudies.com/141) Weird Studies, Episode 24 with Lionel Snell (https://www.weirdstudies.com/24) John Crowley, Little, Big (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780061120053) Arthur Machen, “A Fragment of Life” (https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700361h.html) David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780316074223) Max Picard, The Flight from God (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780316074223) Lionel Snell, My Years of Magical Thinking (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780904311242) Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780692710609) Henry Bergson, Matter and Memory (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781420937800) Russell’s Paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox) Special Guest: Lionel Snell [Ramsey Dukes].