Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “Synchronicity”

Episode 131: Knocking on the Abyssal Door: Live at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 21 Sep 2022 11:00:00 -0400

The historian of religion Jeffrey J. Kripal writes, "The world is one, and the human is two." The line captures the riddle of reality. What is it with our species? Equipped with an intellect able to grok the basic laws that govern the physical universe, we seem unable to wrap our heads around as simple a question as "What is real?". Recorded live before a learned audience at the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) in August of 2022, this episode approaches the enigma by teasing the Weird out of the very idea of intellection. If the architects of DISI are right to say that mind, far from being confined to human skulls, enjoys wide distribution across nature, what might such ideas as magic, synchronicity, and prophecy tell us about intelligence and meaning?

DISI is a three-week interdisciplinary event held each year at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. The hosts are grateful to Jacob Foster and Erica Cartmill of UCLA for inviting them to speak at the institute.

**Header image: **Detail of The Ancient of Days by William Blake.

SHOW NOTES

Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI)
Earlier iteration of Jacob Foster's talk, "Toward a Social Science of the Possible"

Pauline Oliveros's Tuning Meditation
Norbert Wiener, American mathematician
Joshua Ramey, "Contingency Without Unreason: Speculation After Meillassoux"
E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande
Aristotle, Physics and Metaphysics
Jeffrey J. Kripal, "The World is One, and the Human is Two: Tentative Conclusions of a Working Historian of Religion"
Jeffrey Kripal on Weird Studies: episodes ## and ##
Aleister Crowley, See The Vision and the Voice and Magick in Theory and Practice
The "Unwritten Doctrines" of Plato
Plato, Republic, "Seventh Letter" & Phaedrus
Phil's prophetic dream report (Patreon supporters only)
H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (for description of Azathoth)
C. G. Jung, Synchroncity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, Alchemical Studies & Mysterium Coniunctionis
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
New York Times article on 2022 UFO hearings

Episode 67: Goblins, Goat-Gods and Gates: On 'Hellier'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 04 Mar 2020 11:30:00 -0500

On the night before this episode of Weird Studies was released, a bunch of folks on the Internet performed a collective magickal working. Prompted by the paranormal investigator Greg Newkirk, they watched the final episode of the documentary series Hellier at the same time -- 10:48 PM EST -- in order to see what would happen. Listeners who are familiar with this series, of which Newkirk is both a protagonist and a producer, will recall that the last episode features an elaborate attempt at gate opening involving no less than Pan, the Ancient Greek god of nature. If we weren't so cautious (and humble) in our imaginings, we at Weird Studies might consider the possibility that this episode is a retrocausal effect of that operation. In it, we discuss the show that took the weirdosphere by storm last year, touching on topics such as subterranean humanoids, the existence of "Ascended Masters," Aleister Crowley's secret cipher, the Great God Pan, and the potential dangers of opening gates to other worlds ... or of leaving them closed.

REFERENCES

Karl Pfeiffer (director), Hellier
Philip K. Dick, Valis
Weird Studies episode 12 - The Dark Eye: On the Films of Rodney Ascher
John Benson Brooks, American musician
Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture
Thelema
Allen H. Greenfield, The Complete Secret Cipher of the Ufonauts
Secret cipher online tool
Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law
Gematria
John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies
Eric Wargo, Time Loops: Precognition, Retrocausation, and the Unconscious
Grant Morrison, The Invisibles
Genesis P. Orridge, American artist
Alex Reed, Assimilate: A Critical History of Industrial Music
Helena Blavatsky, Russian theosophist
Annie Besant, British theosophist
Peter J. Carroll, British occultist
Kenneth Grant, British occultist
C. G. Jung, The Red Book
Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, "Chinese Whispers: The Origin of LAM" in The Blood of the Saints
Richard Sharpe Shaver, American writer and contactee
James Hillman, Pan and the Nightmare
Occultist Paul Weston's blog post on Hellier
John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies
Peter Kingsley, Catafalque
Eric Voegeln, The New Science of Politics: An Introduction and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
Auguste Comte, French philosopher
Colin Wilson, The Occult: A History

Episode 40: On Jonathan Glazer's 'Under the Skin'

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 13:00:00 -0500

In Jonathan Glazer's loose screen adaptation of Michel Faber's novel Under the Skin, a creature of mysterious origin drives around Scotland in a white van, collecting lonely men and spiriting them away to an otherworld where they are turned into food.... or something. Drawing on a deep well of literary, visual, and musical tradition, Glazer (with help from his score composer Mica Levi) create a vivid work of tragedy and horror, masterfully executed for maximal weirdness and unwaveringly true to the auteur's intent to reveal our world from an "alien perspective." In this episode, Phil and JF discuss some themes and ideas they've pried from this exquisite tangle of image and sound. Along the way, they discuss the role that serendipity, coincidence, and fate play in both art-making and scholarship.

REFERENCES

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
Other films by Glazer: Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004)

Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Iannis Xenakis, Greek composer
Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, 2017)
Ligeti, Atmosphères
Stranger Things (The Duffer Brothers, 2016)
Screen shot of "Space Invader" Easter egg in Under the Skin
Weird Studies Episode 37: Entities, with Stuart Davis
John August, American screenwriter
Phil Ford, "The Devil's On Your Side: A Meditation on the Perennially Disreputable Business of Hermeneutics" (unpublished)
Room 237 (Rodney Ascher, 2013)
William Irwin Thompson, Imaginary Landscape: Making Worlds of Myth and Science
Interview with Mica Levi, who composed the score for Under the Skin
Atar Arad, American violist
David Caspar Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog