Pop Apocalypse Matthew J. Dillon, Center for the Study of World Religions

For episode 7, we welcome the writer and scholar Erik Davis (4:06) to reflect on the journey that led to his new book, BLOTTER: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. We discuss Erik’s writing for the Village Voice in the early 90s, his breakthrough monograph Techgnosis, and how his home state of California informs his oeuvre. In the second half of the interview, we discuss the academic study of “the weird,” perils and possibilities for the psychedelic renaissance, and how BLOTTER is a love letter to LSD.

For our sixth episode, we welcome the spirit channel, teacher, and playwright Paul Selig. In this conversation [8:14], we explore Selig’s early career as a playwright and professor, his spiritual awakening during the Harmonic Convergence of 1987, how he cultivated his mediumship abilities, and the twelve books Selig has channeled from “the Guides.” On the way, we explore what happens to Selig in the channeling state and the metaphysics of mind that make these states possible.

For episode five of the pod, we are honored to welcome Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Chair of Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. In this career-spanning chat [10:36], we discuss Kripal’s Catholic upbringing, psychoanalysis, and the ecstatic experience in Calcutta that changed the direction of his career. From there, we touch on Jeff’s role at Esalen, historical mystics and paranormal powers, telepathic insects, and how the study of religion and popular culture come together in film, comedy, and comics.

For episode four, we welcome the acclaimed novelist and scholar Victoria Nelson. Nelson is the academic doyen of what is today labeled Occulture Studies. Her first monograph on the supernatural in popular culture, The Secret Life of Puppets (2001), practically willed the field into existence. The follow-up book, Gothicka (2012), theorized shifts in popular culture that we are living through today. In this interview we discuss Victoria’s early life, her first forays into fiction, and explore expressions of what Nelson terms the “repressed supernatural” in androids, vampires, and hyperreal religions.

Victoria Nelson is a writer of fiction, criticism, and memoir. Her books include The Secret Life of Puppets, a study of the supernatural grotesque in Western culture that won the Modern Language Association’s Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literary Studies in 2002, and Gothicka, which won the Association of American Publishers PROSE (Professional and Scholarly Excellence)Award in Literature in 2012. A novel, Neighbor George, came out in 2021. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016 and teaches in Goddard College’s MFA creative writing program.

For our third episode, we welcome the #1 New York Times best-selling author Whitley Strieber. Whitley discusses his boyhood as a Roman Catholic, the erotic dimensions of alien contact, his lifelong meditative practice, evolving views of the afterlife, and the recent U.S. Congressional testimony concerning Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).

For episode two, we welcome Laurence Caruana, one of the leading figures in the European visionary art world. We discuss the ontology of dreams, Henry Corbin, ayahuasca visions, the language of images, Jesus in the Nag Hammadi Library, the ascent of the soul at death, and Laurence’s plan for an Apocryphon Chapel based on the ancient gnostic scriptures.