Podcasts · Arts · Society & Culture

Weird Studies

SpectreVision Radio

244 episodes · Explicit

Professor Phil Ford and writer J. F. Martel host a series of conversations on art and philosophy, dwelling on ideas that are hard to think and art that opens up rifts in what we are pleased to call "reality."

More about the show

SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring the anomalous, the luminous, and the numinous. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions.

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Episodes page 1 of 5

  1. Episode 221 – On 'The Exorcist'

    · 1 h 21 min · Explicit

    In this episode, long overdue, Phil and JF discuss one of the great American horror films: WIlliam Friedkin's 1973 adaptation of Willam Peter's Blatty's _The Exorcist_. Music: "Nascent Red," from PY Martel's Weird…

  2. Episode 220: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man: Live at the Dream Mapping Symposium

    · 1 h 55 min · Explicit

    On September 26, JF and Phil took part in the Dream Mapping Symposium, a three-day event organized by the Dream Mapping Project and the Dream Library Foundation, and held at the Brooklyn Public Library. Their mission…

  3. Episode 219 – Composing the Cosmos, with Meredith Rigby

    · 1 h 25 min · Explicit

    In this episode, JF and Phil are joined by their beloved assistant and invaluable collaborator Meredith Rigby (formerly Meredith Michael) to discuss her recently completed doctoral dissertation, Composing the Cosmos:…

  4. Episode 218 — A Mighty Matter of Legend: On J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Two Towers'

    · 1 h 15 min · Explicit

    Having taken up the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in episode 207, Phil and JF turn to part two, The Two Towers. Together, they peel back the husk of familiarity to reveal the strange object…

  5. Mid-Hiatus Bonus: A Door in the Fourth Wall

    · 45 min · Bonus · Explicit

    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 Patreon. In the intro, JF announces two important…

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

    · 1 h 18 min · Explicit

    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 "get lost" in a book? Asti's answer, drawing on…

  7. Episode 216 – Artworks Are People Too

    · 1 h 34 min · Explicit

    "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 Intelligences Summer Institute earlier this…

  8. Special Episode: Make Art!

    · 41 min · Bonus · Explicit

    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 in March 2026. In it, we discuss the splendour…

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

    · 1 h 29 min · Explicit

    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, restoring it to its original weirdness. What is the…

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

    · 1 h 15 min · Explicit

    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 offered unique perspectives and provocative…

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

    · 1 h 19 min · Explicit

    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 rocker who stumbles into a cosmic conspiracy…

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

    · 1 h 24 min · Explicit

    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 allowed to vary independently of one another? Which…

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

    · 1 h 27 min · Explicit

    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 weird in itself, so fundamental is Kubrick's…

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

    · 58 min · Bonus

    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 film we have long wanted to revisit in depth. In…

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

    · 1 h 33 min · Explicit

    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 the Daimonic.” What emerges is a conversation…

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

    · 1 h 33 min · Explicit

    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.” Together, these two stories occasion a meditation…

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

    · 1 h 20 min · Explicit

    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 work was an essay,…

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

    · 1 h 32 min · Explicit

    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 the first leg of…

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

    · 1 h 21 min · Explicit

    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. The discussion…

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

    · 1 h 33 min · Explicit

    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 Tarot and other…

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

    · 1 h 16 min · Explicit

    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 mode of being and…

  22. Holiday Bonus: Scavengers in the Ruins of Heaven

    · 33 min · Bonus · Explicit

    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 of the intellect,…

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

    · 1 h 27 min · Explicit

    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 Carson, and see what…

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

    · 1 h 22 min · Explicit

    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 imagination ever since. Though written as a quick…

  25. Episode 201 – On James Whale's 'Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein,' with Peter Bebergal

    · 1 h 11 min · Explicit

    In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by independent scholar Peter Bebergal, author of Strange Frequencies, Season of the Witch, and other books on the intersections of culture, religion, and the occult. The topic is…

  26. Halloween Special: A Reading of Arthur Machen's "The White People"

    · 1 h 40 min · Bonus

    Originally released in 2018 but remixed for your listening pleasure, here's Phil reading Arthur Machen's classic weird tale, "The White People." Happy Halloween! Machen's "The White People" was discussed all the way…

  27. Episode 200 – On 'The Call of Cthulhu'

    · 1 h 28 min · Explicit

    For their 200th episode, JF and Phil turn their attention to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu,” a story foundational not only to modern horror fiction but to the very idea of the Weird. In revisiting this tale of…

  28. Episode 199 – On Michael Jackson, with Shannon Taggart

    · 1 h 15 min · Explicit

    Photographer and paranormal researcher Shannon Taggart joins JF and Phil to explore the phenomenon that was Michael Jackson. One of the most brilliant and successful musicians of the modern era, Jackson was also a…

  29. Episode 198 – Breaking the Frame: On the High Priestess in the Tarot

    · 1 h 20 min · Explicit

    Since 2020, Phil and JF have been creating an on-again, off-again series on the major trumps, or "arcana," of the tarot. In this episode, they continue the series with a discussion of the second arcanum: the High…

  30. Episode 197 - Sounding the Otherworld: On Bryn Chainey's 'Rabbit Trap'

    · 1 h 11 min · Explicit

    In a rare surfacing in the contemporary world, JF and Phil discuss a film that has just been released. Bryn Chainey’s Rabbit Trap is psychological horror in the tradition of Repulsion, Jacob’s Ladder, and Angel Heart.…

  31. Weird Studies Trailer

    · 2:00

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  32. Mid-Break Bonus: On Trust

    · 57 min · Bonus · Explicit

    We're breaking up our late-summer pause with an audio extra originally recorded for our Patreon supporters. This episode also includes an essay JF wrote on the philosophy of Henri Bergson. A whole course on Bergson's…

  33. Episode 196 – Lost and Never Found: On 'The Blair Witch Project'

    · 1 h 32 min · Explicit

    Of all the flavors of horror, few are as dreadful as that of being lost in the wilderness. In this episode, JF and Phil revisit The Blair Witch Project, the classic 1999 found-footage film that inspired a thousand…

  34. Episode 195 – On John Keel: Live at the Lily Dale Symposium, with Erik Davis

    · 1 h 51 min · Explicit

    This marks the third year that Weird Studies is honoured to open the Lily Dale Symposium, organized each summer by photographer Shannon Taggart in the upstate New York community famed for its roots in Spiritualism.…

  35. Episode 194: Animal Songs, with Meredith Michael

    · 1 h 23 min

    In this episode, Phil and JF are joined by Meredith Michael—musicologist, podcaster, and Weird Studies production assistant—for a conversation about animal songs. The phrase is intentionally slippery. Are we talking…

  36. Episode 193: On Conversion, or Arousing the Bodhi-Mind

    · 1 h 29 min · Explicit

    How do you become religious? What is a conversion experience? Does it happen all at once or gradually? What's the point of religion, anyway? These are questions that JF (a Catholic) and Phil (a Zennist) have often been…

  37. Episode 192 - A Dream of Landscape: On Walking

    · 1 h 14 min · Explicit

    Phil and JF first explored the mysteries of walking back in episode 59. That episode felt like a mere introduction—a tentative first step on a long and winding path. Now, 133 episodes later, they return to the theme as…

  38. Special Episode: Theory, Philosophy, and Uranus

    · 1 h 02 min · Bonus · Explicit

    This conversation was originally recorded in August 2024 and released for our Patreon supporters. Weird Studies will be back with a new episode on June 25, 2025. What is cultural theory? How is philosophy "a…

  39. Special Episode: Myth, History, and Form

    · 47 min · Bonus · Explicit

    This special release is a Patreon extra we’re making available to all listeners, in lieu of the official episode originally scheduled for today. As explained in the introduction, we will be back with a full episode…

  40. Episode 191 — The Acid Queen, with Susannah Cahalan

    · 1 h 28 min

    Best known as the wife and partner of Timothy Leary, Rosemary Woodruff was in fact a central figure in the psychedelic movement in her own right—a political radical, underground fugitive, and neglected architect of the…

  41. Episode 190 – Here Be Shrubs: On Algernon Blackwood's 'The Willows'

    · 1 h 15 min · Explicit

    In this episode, JF and Phil paddle into the marshlands of Algernon Blackwood’s 1907 masterpiece The Willows, a tale Lovecraft once called the finest weird story of all time. They explore how a narrative in which…

  42. Episode 189: Care of the Dead, with Jacob G. Foster

    · 1 h 36 min · Episode 189

    In this episode, JF and Phil are joined by Jacob G. Foster—sociologist, physicist, and researcher at Indiana University Bloomington and the Santa Fe Institute—for a conversation about their recent collaboration in…

  43. Episode 188: Pioneers of the Untimely: On the Hermit Card in the Tarot

    · 1 h 23 min · Episode 188 · Explicit

    In this continuation of their non-linear journey through the tarot, Phil and JF discuss the ninth Arcanum: the Hermit. Walking through darkness with his lantern and staff, the Hermit invites us to break from the…

  44. Episode 187: The Affirmation of Imagination: On John Crowley's 'Little, Big,' with Erik Davis

    · 1 h 34 min · Episode 187 · Explicit

    John Crowley’s Little, Big is, at once, a family saga, a fairy tale, an occult thriller, an idyll, a dystopia, as well as a meditation on myth and history, the real and the fantasy, memory and imagination. Little, Big…

  45. Episode 186: Meeting at the Center: The Wedge, Part Two

    · 1 h 29 min · Episode 186 · Explicit

    In this episode, JF and Phil continue their conversation on the wedge, their figure for the epistemological divide between approaching reality from the heart and exploring it with the mind. As the discussion unfolds,…

  46. Episode 185: Intuition and Reality: The Wedge, Part One

    · 1 h 17 min · Episode 185 · Explicit

    "The Wedge" is a key concept for Phil and JF. When exploring weird phenomena—from artworks to ghosts, and everything in between—one tends to emphasize one or the other "end" of the event. At the thin end of the Wedge,…

  47. Special Release: Poltergeists, Fairies, Skeptics, and the Managerial Class

    · 34 min · Explicit

    Due to scheduling conflicts and a series of unforeseen events, JF and Phil have had to push the release of the next official episode of Weird Studies back by one week. To tide you over, we're unlocking a bonus episode…

  48. Episode 184: On David Lynch

    · 1 h 42 min · Episode 184 · Explicit

    David Lynch passed away on January 15th, 2025, leaving behind a body of work that reshaped the landscape of cinema and television. Few artists have delved as deeply into the strange, the beautiful, and the terrifying…

  49. Episode 183: On Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha'

    · 1 h 22 min · Episode 183 · Explicit

    Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is one of the great novels of the twentieth century and a prime example of literature that transforms the deeply personal into something universal. For Phil and JF in this episode, the novel…

  50. Episode 182: Providence of Evil: On Robert Eggers' 'Nosferatu'

    · 1 h 21 min · Episode 182 · Explicit

    In this episode, JF and Phil examine the myth of the vampire through the lens of Robert Eggers' latest film, Nosferatu, a reimagining of F. W. Murnau's German Expressionist masterpiece. Topics covered include the…

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