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 followed a screening of Ken Russell’s 1980 cinematic fever dream, Altered States. In it, JF and Phil explore the weird intersection of mysticism, psychedelics, and institutional science, and they close with a brief Q&A with members of the audience.
Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in Phil Ford's upcoming course, A Musical Tarot.
References
Weird Academia and the Center for Possible Minds
Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Roger Penrose, physicist and mathematician
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Samuel Delaney, Dhalgren
Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics and Matter & Memory
H. P. Lovecraft, American writer
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception
Clement Greenberg, American essayist
G. K. Chesterton, English writer
David Cronenberg (dir.), The Fly
Michael Garfield, podcaster, writer, musician
Weird Studies episode 205 on the Hierophant
Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets
Neil Gaiman, American Gods
J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"
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