Episode 99: Curing the Human Condition: On 'Wild Wild Country'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 26 May 2021 10:00:00 -0400

In this never-before-released episode recorded in 2019, Phil and JF travel to rural Oregon through the Netflix docu-series, Wild Wild Country. The series, which details the establishment of a spiritual community founded by Bhagwan Rajneesh (later called Osho) and its religious and political conflicts with its Christian neighbors, provides a starting point for a wide-ranging conversation on the nature of spirituality and religion. What emerges are surprising ties between the “spiritual, not religious” attitude and class, cultural commodification, and the culture of control that pervades modern society. But they also uncover the true “wild” card at the heart of existence that spiritual movements like that of Rajneesh can never fully control, no matter how hard they try.

REFERENCES

Chapman and Maclain Way (dirs), Wild Wild Country
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste
Carl Wilson, Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste
Peter Sloterdijk, German cultural theorist
Weird Studies, Episode 47, Machines of Loving Grace
Slavoj Žižek, On Western appropriation of Eastern religions
William Burroughs, American writer
Gilles Deleuze, “Postscript on the Societies of Control”
Bhagwan Rajneesh/Osho, Speech on friendship
Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha
Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith
James Carse, The Finite and Infinite Games

Episode 69: Special Episode: On Some Mental Effects of the Pandemic

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 25 Mar 2020 13:00:00 -0400

What is there to say about the COVID-19 virus that hasn't already been said, over and over again, all around the world, in quaratined houses and on TV and social media and countless Zoom chats ... what can we say that you haven't heard? Well, probably nothing. But we are now at the point where we realize that the real importance of the things we say is not their content, but the mere fact of saying them. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and at a time when we have been driven into separate solitudes, we are discovering that the real meaning of our utterances might be something like "hello, are you there?" and "I am here, talking to you." In that spirit, Phil and JF have a conversation about William James's essay "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake," partly to discuss the ways that it's relevant to our present circumstances and the ways it's not, but mostly to make human connections, both with each other and with Weird Studies listeners.

As JF says, stay close, but keep your distance.

REFERENCES

William James, "On Some Mental Effects of the Earthquake"
William James, Writings 1902-1910
Noel Black (director), "To See the Invisible Man", 2nd segment of episode 16 of The Twilight Zone (1985-86)
Weird Studies no. 29, “On Lovecraft”
Weird Studies no. 64, “Dreams and Shadows: On Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea”
Weird Studies no. 67, “Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On Hellier”
Martin Heidegger, “‘Only a God Can Save Us’: The Spiegel Interview"
Bruno Latour, "An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns"
H.P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlathotep”

Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “Spirituality”

Episode 99: Curing the Human Condition: On 'Wild Wild Country'

Episode 69: Special Episode: On Some Mental Effects of the Pandemic