Gods, Ghosts & UFOs

SpectreVision Radio
SpectreVision Radio
  • 5.0 (121)
  • Philosophy
  • Updated Weekly

This is a show about all the things they said weren't real. Guided by strange headlines and ancient mysteries, Jordan and Mal explore the paranormal, metaphysical, and supernatural with all the earnestness and insight two big-hearted nerds can muster. If you don't have a good time, then you don't know what a good time is. 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. ⁠spectrevisionradio.com⁠ ⁠linktr.ee/spectrevision⁠

  1. 6d ago

    Daniel Noah on the memory of rocks

    Daniel Noah co-founded SpectreVision with Elijah Wood, and then spun up SpectreVision Radio Network. Also, he thinks rocks are alive. This episode is full of wonderful stories. Rocks are alive! But what does that mean? Jordan’s first Hare Krishna chant, and meditating on a polished moonstone Nothing gets simpler the closer you look Empaths, clairsentience, and emotional wallpaper Elder Joshua Tree boulders A stone triangle revealed by moonlight His wife felt it. So did Ryan Singer of Late Night on the Astral Plane The Tongva: a creation myth about harmony, and elders who pass into rock The Doors lived in Daniel’s house The Doors of Perception and Death by Astonishment Why did so many musicians move to Laurel Canyon at once? The boy who collects rocks on The Telepathy Tapes Autistic kids don’t feel less Daniel shows us some rocks Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor Stone tape theory (and the 1972 BBC film The Stone Tape) “Pseudo” science Mystical traditions are soul technology (thanks Kelly Chase) “Unintelligible intellectually but fully resonant emotionally” Animism Negotiating with the spirits of a haunted house Things vanish, some of them reappear The trickster gives you enough to keep you guessing, but never enough to convince a skeptic Robin Lassiter’s Earth: A Love Story and the synchronicity addiction We are attractors Hellier and Operation Trojan Horse Book encounters Daniel’s books are pulling themselves off the shelves Attention as magnetism Alters One-downing Jordan’s experience at Old North Bridge 20 years ago Attention must be trained Meditation before “cosmic encounters” High Strangeness And in the epilogue… Daniel’s stories of contact with NHI What are “aliens”? Deceit and biological envy Want to come on the show and share a story? Or do you have recommendations or requests for future guests? Send an email to GodsGhostsUFOs[at]gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. Sep 25

    Can consciousness exist without a body?

    We discuss a recent claim by a prominent scientist that consciousness can't exist outside a flesh-and-blood body, whether uploading your mind would capture you or just a copy of your cognition, why we understand death about as well as we understand sleep (barely), and whether the first person to live to 500 would be lucky or cursed. Jordan makes the case that immortality might be monstrous. Mal says death is the salt of life. A scientist claims consciousness can’t exist outside a body “You are more than your body” — but you are also your body “How the hell do you know what happens when you die?” Prize goes to the first person to die, turn to mulch, then come back and tell us what happened The pharmacy of the body The kids in The Telepathy Tapes Energy bodies, astral bodies, and the limits of Western materialism (round and round we go) If we don’t understand sleep, how do we understand death? Uploading cognition vs awareness Every human project is an immortality project BJ Miller on why we treat the disabled as angels or monsters Dracula is a class narrative People have been saying the first person to live to 500 has already been born Immortality is monstrous because death is what makes us human Adam Miller on the unexpected spiritual consequence of “transhumanist” longevity Oliver Burkeman on the freedom of limits What the body knows, and the risks of resisting resistance Mormon stuff And in the epilogue… How to protect the part of yourself that creates Rebecca Black (yep) Not the Bible (oops) Want to come on the show and share a story? Or do you have recommendations or requests for future guests? Send an email to GodsGhostsUFOs[at]gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. Sep 21

    Is certainty a type of psychosis?

    This week we’re joined by a bonafide listener! Elliott Chadwick emailed us a story about a young man on anti-psychotic meds who turned out not to be psychotic. We had to know more, so we invited him on the show. Mal also tells us about her brother, and the strange and beautiful world he inhabits, and we talk about how to tell the difference between numinous experiences and psychotic episodes. It’s a doozy. Elliott is a psychiatric nurse practitioner turned bodyworker, and co-host of The Glimmerance — a show about creativity and spirituality against the materialist overculture What do most people think isn’t real, but Elliott does? “Not all hallucinations are psychiatric symptoms” Nearly an atheist a few years ago The dark figure in the young man’s room “Have you ever tried to ask this guy to go away?” What antipsychotics meds do to a brain that isn’t psychotic Trauma, fight-or-flight, and the brain filling in the corners “Magical thinking” What’s the difference between people like Robin Lassiter and Kelly Chase and psych patients? Mal’s brother, and the mind he calls “Chuck” (Charles Bonnet syndrome) “Sometimes I swear he’s connected to something beautiful” “Certainty is a kind of psychosis” Too much certainty about death, poverty, or God is delusion Maturity is the capacity to hold two opposing truths at once An arsonist who believed he owned the building Thin places A case against absolutism “dead with daddy” (from Taylor Tomlinson’s Netflix special) And in the epilogue… Drugs Anti-materialism conversion story A story about telepathy between his grandparents Subscribe now Want to come on the show and share a story? Or do you have recommendations or requests for future guests? Send an email to GodsGhostsUFOs[at]gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. Sep 14

    Mike Clelland on Owls and Death

    Mike Clelland is the owl guy. For fifteen years, people have been sending him their stories — owls and UFOs, owls and meditation, owls and mushrooms, owls and shamanic initiation. “That’s my research,” he says. “I get up and open my email inbox.” And now he’s writing a book about owls and death. We had Mike on the show over a year ago, and this is his long overdue return to Gods, Ghosts & UFOs. Mike’s novel The Unseen How mythic, archetypal symbolism wells up in the world Death by Astonishment by Andrew Gallimore — how the brain builds worlds out of noisy sensory data “All points in time and space are connected” Thank God for filters The five owl symbolic relationships: UFOs, meditation, psychedelics, shamanic initiation, death The owl isn’t connected to UFOs, it is a totem of transformation “I took a truckload of mushrooms and saw a 30-foot glowing owl in my bedroom.” Mike’s story about his mom, Alzheimer’s, and a black-footed ferret “I know there’s an afterlife, and I know because of an owl” Sometimes an owl is just an owl What makes a sign a sign? A stranger’s prayer Mechanisms vs. magic Mallory’s owl story (which happened very soon after our first episode with Mike) God speaks in a language you understand Resist firmly defining the meaning of synchronicities Awe pushes us toward bravery and hope How Mallory got the fire back for writing Owl biology Can you invite mystical experiences? More amazing stories One owl, two completely different synchronistic experiences And in the epilogue… Mike’s new book (and a sequel to The Unseen) Mallory’s screenplay Jordan’s novel Want to come on the show and share a story? Or do you have recommendations or requests for future guests? Send an email to GodsGhostsUFOs[at]gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. Sep 7

    Do religious people actually believe in the unseen?

    Kelly Chase (Inquiry with Kelly Chase) is back, which makes her the default president of the GGU returning-guests club. This week, we ask the question we’re asking everyone: what do most people think isn't real that you do? She gives a spicy answer. She claims that most people behave like materialists, even if they go to church. From there, we talk about what the evidences of belief actually are, and how it relates to “conversion.” Kelly explains how her own experience rewrote her whole value system in a matter of seconds five years ago. As usual, we figured everything out and solved all the world’s problems. You’re welcome! Most people behave like materialists, even the religious ones Religion as lava that cools into obsidian The reemergence of the feminine “Tell me what music is.” “The greatest evidence it happened is me” Great evidence for an individual, terrible evidence for the collective The old version of Kelly is horrified, tied up in a back room somewhere Molly Drake — “I remember firelight, and you remember smoke” Conversion is what you do, not what you say All behavior is downstream of belief “I think my job is fake” Is everyone waking up? AI is literally sociopathic And in the epilogue… Kelly tells us about how she recently maybe saw fairies (possibly our best paywall-bait yet) Want to come on the show and share a story? Or do you have recommendations or requests for future guests? Email godsghostsufos[at]gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. Sep 4

    Scientism Is Anti-Science | Robert Frederick on Francis Bacon

    Our guest today, Robert Frederick, studies Sir Francis Bacon — the Elizabethan lawyer, spy, and philosopher usually credited as the father of modern science. Robert claims that Bacon is the father of both modern science and scientism. If you’re thinking, “What the hell is scientism?” then this is the episode for you. We talk about why saying “trust the science” is motivated by the same thing that makes people say “trust in God,” and how Francis Bacon was both a once-in-a-generation polymath, and also a pompous idiot who stripped culture of metaphysics. Jordan also contends that true religion and real science should be the same thing, but that they both get corrupted in basically the same way. Guys it’s a good one. (Isn’t it always?) Shout out to the God’s Eye View podcast Science and scientism Bacon vs. Aristotle Deductive vs. Inductive reasoning Scientism is anti-science How Bacon got rid of metaphysics Bacon might have been Gnostic (and what that means) You can’t build a government out of data Effective altruists are “a special kind of stupid” We’re already post-scarcity Yuval Noah Harari is the latest and greatest Bacon booster We’re definitely coming back for a Part 2, in which Robert will explain how he knows Bacon was actually Shakespeare Find Robert Frederick’s work at The Hidden Life is Best Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. Aug 31

    Are soulmates real?

    Mal asks: Is there such a thing as soulmates, or love at first sight? Are we doomed to magical thinking on the subject of love? The conversation turns toward revelation, relationships, and the perils of privilege. “Hopeless” (the essay) Love as both particle and wave The point of marriage is to make divorce expensive Cate Hall, “You Can Just Do Things” (again) Logan Ury, “How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love” — loganury.com “No matter what you choose, it will be wonderful and you will regret it” Were you a victim of your soulmate? “If you want to touch the stove that badly, maybe you’re supposed to” The Book of Humans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. Aug 26

    Richard Hatem thinks therapy is real

    This week, the return of Richard Hatem, the screenwriter behind The Mothman Prophecies and host of Richard Hatem’s Paranormal Bookshelf. In response to THE QUESTION (what’s something they said wasn’t real, etc), he gives us a couple of answers nobody expects from a guy who runs paranormal podcast: therapy. Oh, also, the wacky idea that you can make your dreams come true. From there we explore the typical human ping-pong between self-loathing and grandiosity, why so many great artists get better after they get sober, and Richard’s pretty slick grand unifying theory of paranormal activity. The returning-guest club Richard has never had a supernatural experience Therapy is real (according to him) Jordan is a “maximalist realist” “You don’t need to take the conservative route in the career of your life” The Magellan of his family You Can Just Do Things by Cate Hall / Useful Fictions Vascillating between self-loathing and grandiosity Does sobriety kills your creative edge? (NO.) Tom Waits and the Sex Pistols Belief vs. faith :: Salieri vs Mozart Richard’s theory of psychokinesis The writers’ room is actually the same thing as a séance Why writers can’t bill for hours Richard Hatem on tour with a secret episode + The Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV And in the epilogue… The root causes of Hollywood’s ongoing implosion (shop talk) Why AI can’t replace storytellers Streaming service endgame Want to come on the show and share a story? Or do you have recommendations or requests for future guests? Email us: GodsGhostsUFOs[at]gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is a show about all the things they said weren't real. Guided by strange headlines and ancient mysteries, Jordan and Mal explore the paranormal, metaphysical, and supernatural with all the earnestness and insight two big-hearted nerds can muster. If you don't have a good time, then you don't know what a good time is. 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. ⁠spectrevisionradio.com⁠ ⁠linktr.ee/spectrevision⁠

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