The 3 Best Weird Studies Podcast Episodes
1) Off-Week Bonus: On Worlds and Stories, with a Special Announcement
In this bonus episode, originally released for Listener's Tier Patreon supporters, a discussion of the books Phil and JF are reading leads to a debate about the place of plot, story, and worldbuilding...Show More
2) Episode 89: On Ishmael Reed's 'Mumbo Jumbo,' or, Why We Need More Magical Thinking
Ishmael Reed's 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo is a conspiracy thriller, a postmodern experiment, a revolutionary tract, a celebration, and a magical working. It is a novel that, over and above prophetically d...Show More
3) Episode 57: Box of God(s): On 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'
Raiders of the Lost Ark is more than a Hollywood movie made in the summer blockbuster mold. As Phil says in his intro to this popping Weird Studies episode, the film is "a Trojan horse of the Weird, e...Show More
4) 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-turning. The final fruit of that w...Show More
5) 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 the Ring, our hosts discuss th...Show More
6) 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 Bloomington, Indiana, in January 2026....Show More
7) 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. Drawing on Meditations on the T...Show More
8) 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 fantasies but disclosures of a real mo...Show More
9) 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 syndrome, the eternal inadequacy ...Show More
10) 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 prophetic quips designed by David Car...Show More
Episode 203 – Distant Early Warnings: A Return to Marshall McLuhan's 'Book of Probes'
1:26:30 | Dec 10th, 2025