Weird Studies

Mid-Hiatus Bonus: A Door in the Fourth Wall

Episode 218 will drop at the end of our summer break on September 9, 2026. Today, enjoy this recent audio extra, originally released for members of the Weird Studies Patr

Episode 217 – Books, Spirits, and Hysteria, with Asti Hustvedt

Researcher Asti Hustvedt joins Phil and JF to discuss a talk she gave at the Lily Dale Symposium this year entitled "Bibliophantoms." The question: What does it mean to "

Episode 216 – Artworks Are People Too

"Now and then, a mysterious life and potency will flicker out of an artwork and confront you." So began "Artworks Are People Too," a talk Phil presented at the Diverse In

Special Episode: Make Art!

Owing to circumstances preventing us from releasing a new show this week, we are offering you one from the archives. This episode was originally released on our Patreon i

Episode 215 – Where No One Can Hear You Scream: On Ridley Scott's 'Alien'

In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi/horror blockbuster Alien. Together, they wipe off the patina of familiarity that beclouds the film, restor

Episode 214 – Fortune's Fools: On Gordon White's Philosophy of Fortune-Telling

It was with heavy hearts that Phil and JF learned of Gordon White's passing. Gordon was a force to be reckoned with: as an author and podcaster on all things occult, he o

Episode 213 – Comics, Surf Rock, and the Weirdness of Time: On Tom Manning's 'Eric'

Tom Manning's 2018 graphic novel Eric is that rarest of gems: the self-published masterpiece. Available only on the author's website, it's the story of a washed-up surf r

Episode 212 – Beyond Music and Back Again: On Glenn Gould

The pianist, composer and sound artist Glenn Gould once wrote: "Art on its loftiest mission is scarcely human at all." What becomes of art and humanity when they are allo

Episode 211 – You've Always Been the Caretaker: On Kubrick's 'The Shining'

In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining. That they are doing this eight years after starting the podcast is

Special Episode: M.C. Richards's "Wrestling with the Daimonic," read by Phil Ford

We regret that we were unable to release a new episode this week. Episode 211 will drop on Wednesday, April 29, and will be devoted to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a fi

Episode 210 – Angels & Daimons, with Cristina Campo and M.C. Richards

In this episode, JF and Phil bring together two visionary essays on the daimonic and the imaginal: Cristina Campo’s “On Fairy Tales” and M.C. Richards’s “Wrestling with t

Episode 209 – At Home in the Labyrinth, with Murakami and Borges

In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Haruki Murakami’s “Cream,” from First Person Singular, alongside Jorge Luis Borges’s classic tale, “The Garden of Forking Paths.” Tog

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

Kenneth Batcheldor was a British clinical psychologist who, during the final two decades of his life, investigated the paranormal through direct experiments in table-turn

Episode 207 – Magic Mirror: On J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Fellowship of the Ring'

This is the first of three episodes on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to be released in the course of the next several months. Focusing here on The Fellowship of

Episode 206 – On Ken Russell's 'Altered States': Live at Indiana University Bloomington

This episode was recorded before a live audience at Indiana University Cinema as part of Weird Academia, a series of events that brought much high strangeness to Blooming

Episode 205 – Discipline and Delight: On the Hierophant Card in the Tarot

In this episode of Weird Studies, we turn to the fifth Major Arcanum, the Hierophant, symbolizing tradition, instruction, and the exoteric aspect of spiritual practice. D

Episode 204 – The Perilous Realm: J.R.R. Tolkien's 'On Fairy Stories'

For Tolkien, fairy stories are not stories about fairies, but stories that take place in Faerie. And in doing so, they make Faerie present. They are not escapist fantasie

Holiday Bonus: Scavengers in the Ruins of Heaven

To tide us over as we prepare for a new season of Weird Studies, here is an "audio extra," originally recorded for our Patreon supporters, wherein we discuss imposter syn

Episode 203 – Distant Early Warnings: A Return to Marshall McLuhan's 'Book of Probes'

Back in episode 112, Phil and JF devised a gimmick for a show: randomly select one of the many aphorisms in The Book of Probes, a compendium of Marshall McLuhan’s prophet

Episode 202 – The Human is Two: On 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'

In this episode, JF and Phil discuss Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic classic, the tale that conjured the fog-shrouded London hellscape that has haunted the modern imagina