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On Beauty
Episode 52
The idea that beauty might denote an actual quality of the world, something outside the human frame, is one of the great taboos of modern in…
6 years, 5 months ago
Blind Seers: On Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood'
Episode 51
Through her fiction, Flannery O'Connor reenvisioned life as a supernatural war wherein each soul becomes the site of a clash of mysterious, …
6 years, 5 months ago
Demogorgon: On 'Stranger Things'
Episode 50
The Duffer Brothers' hit series Stranger Things is many things: an exemplary piece of entertainment in the summer blockbuster mold, a fresh …
6 years, 6 months ago
Out of Time: Nietzsche on History
Episode 49
In his essay "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life," Nietzsche attacks the notion that humans are totally determined by the his…
6 years, 6 months ago
Walking the Tightrope with Erik Davis
Episode 48
Journalist and historian of religion Erik Davis joins Phil and JF to talk about his latest magnum opus, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, an…
6 years, 7 months ago
Machines of Loving Grace: Technology and the Unabomber
Episode 47
Made in 2003, Lutz Dammbeck's documentary The Net: The Unabomber, LSD, and the Internet is a film about many things, but the gist of it is s…
6 years, 7 months ago
Thomas Ligotti's Angel
Episode 46
In his short story "Mrs. Rinaldi's Angel," contemporary horror author Thomas Ligotti contrasts the chaotic monstrosity of dreams with the c…
6 years, 8 months ago
Jeffrey J. Kripal on 'Flipping' Out of Materialism
Episode 45
"May the present 'you' not survive this little book," Jeffrey Kripal writes in the prologue to The Flip. "May you be flipped in dramatic or …
6 years, 8 months ago
Doomed to Enchantment: The Psychical Research of William James
Episode 44
The great American thinker William James knew well that no intellectual pursuit is purely intellectual. His interest in the "supernormal," w…
6 years, 9 months ago
On Shirley Jackson
Episode 43
Shirley Jackson's stories and novels rank among the greatest weird works produced in America during the 20th century. However, unlike author…
6 years, 9 months ago