Episode 120: On Radical Mystery

Though it is seldom acknowledged in the weirdosphere, there is a difference between weirdness and mystery. Most of the time, the Weird confronts us with a problem, an impersonal epistemic obstacle which we can always believe would go away if we just closed our eyes and whistled past it with our hands in our pockets. Mystery, however, is always personal. It envelops us; it addresses us as persons. Mystery is as present within us as it is out there. It is there when you open your eyes, and even more so when you shut them tight. Maybe it had us in its grip before we were even born. In this episode, JF and Phil make radical mystery the focus of a discussion ranging over everything from unique kinds of tea and spelunking mishaps to antisonic demon pipes and malevolent radiators.

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REFERENCES

For information on JF's new course, Groundwork for a Philosophy of Magic, go to [Nura Learning](www.nuralearning.com).

Phil Ford, “Radical Mystery: A Preliminary Account”

J.F. Martel, “Reality is analog”

John Keel, The Mothman Prophecies

Gabriel Marcel, Being and Having

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

Eugene Paul Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics”

Louis Sass, Madness and Modernism

Peter Kingsley, Catafalque

Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy

Steven Spielberg (dir.), Raiders of the Lost Ark

Dogen, “Instructions for the Cook”

Alan Watts, The Way of Zen

Weird Studies, Episode 56 with Jeremy Johnson