Mythic Existence with Jack Daly

Today’s episode is about hauntology, a concept created by the french philosopher Jacques Derrida and later adopted by the cultural critic Mark Fisher. Over the course of the episode, we’ll hope to see how we are haunted by our lost futures and by our imagined pasts. Mythic existence is now on Patreon, so take a look at our site if you would like to donate. Also, be sure to follow the podcast’s Instagram and Twitter pages, as well as the YouTube channel. Thanks for listening, see you next time.

On this episode of Mythic Existence, we have our first guest speaker: Natalie Christensen. Natalie has a master’s degree in folklore from Utah State University where we were graduate students together. She wrote her thesis about rumor and misinformation, and on today’s episode we talk about the spread of rumors, question how culpable tech companies are in their spread, and how folklorists can combat dangerous misinformation. So sit back and get ready for another great episode of Mythic Existence. 
Mythic existence is now on Patreon, so take a look at our site if you would like to donate. Also, be sure to follow the podcast’s Instagram and Twitter pages, as well as the YouTube channel.

Welcome to another episode of Mythic Existence! On this episode, we discuss Terence McKenna and his concepts of the archaic revival and Gaian holism. Like McKenna, this episode will strive to be a sort of meme replicator to challenge us to re-evaluate our own assumptions of contemporary life and to imagine a more ideal future. Perhaps after you listen you might agree with McKenna’s premise that we need to reinvigorate our lives with the archaic values of cooperation, reverence for the goddess and nature, and freedom to explore oneself with our plant helpers. Of course, the main issue is that their legalization inherently threatens the dominator culture. If this episode could be a call to anything, it would be a call to question at every turn, on an individual level, the logic of our patriarchal, aggressive, ego driven culture. 

Welcome to this episode of Mythic Existence. On this episode, we talk about legends, and in particular what folklorists call "contemporary legends." We will try to reach an agreement on what a legend is, talk about what makes legends traditional in the folkloristic sense, and what it means for a legend to be contemporary. We will see how legends are believable stories set in a historic place and time often with a supernatural element, that they give a marginalized experience a voice, that they often express fears and anxieties, and are constantly being repackaged for new contexts. 

On this episode of Mythic Existence we talk about Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and alchemy. We’ll discuss some of the precepts of Hermeticism and look at some of it’s seminal works which include the Corpus Hermeticum; we’ll journey to Egypt, where the Nag Hammadi scriptures re-birthed an interest in Gnosticism, and we will dive into alchemical thought which permeates the history of both these philosophical inklings. Hermeticism, Gnosticism and alchemy have certainly played an important, if not decisive role in the advancement of western thought. Today, they serve as a provocative alternative to the dogmatic teachings of religion, and offer a course to personal gnosis that for seekers often proves to be a much deeper route. 

On this episode of Mythic Existence, we dive into the folklorist’s perspective on conspiracy theories. My research for this episode is mostly informed by a book that recently came out called COVID 19 conspiracy theories: QAnon, 5G, the New World Order and Other Viral Ideas, as well as Richard Hofstadter’s seminal work The Paranoid Style in American Politics. We are going to hope to deconstruct why conspiracy theories exist, why they are appealing, and to whom. Conspiracy theories often feed in to confirmation bias. This manifests itself in a number of ways –through the desire to understand ambiguous phenomena, the wish of having a larger role in the world than you really do, or ethnocentric biases. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t actual conspiracies going on, but its best to think critically. So, sit back and get ready for another episode of Mythic Existence.

This episode of Mythic Existence is part 2 of our Shakespeare power rankings, and we will be listing off numbers five through one. We’ll check in with a crazy king, a powerful sorcerer, the fairy kingdom, three witches, and a certain prince of Denmark. So settle in and get ready for another great episode of Mythic Existence. 

Today's episode is about randonauting, a phenomena that has gained popularity in online spaces, particualry Twitter. While randonauting, you travel to a random location sent to you by a bot, with the intention of exploring the hidden places around you. Randonauting can serve as an example for folklorists of how digital spaces create offline ostensive practices. By using random data points, randonauting allows for an individual to forge their own complicated simulacrum trip by creating their own meaning out of a random environment. Similarly, randonauting shows how digital memetics move offline. The rules of the game are learned through social media, are enacted in real life, and are often brought back to the digital sphere. In this regard, randonauting displays the intricate relationship that memetics and ostension have in conjunction with digital and “IRL” constructed personas. 

On this episode, our host and resident folklorist Jack Daly gives an overview of what folklore is. This amazing field is characterized by variation and tradition, meaning that folklore is mutable, changeable, and adaptable, and is spread through non-institutional means. Many people may be surprised to learn that we are the folk, and that we create lore, as folklore comprises what we believe, make, say, do, and know. Listen in to another fascinating episode of Mythic Existence, and tap into your inner folklorist. 

Today's episode is a discussion of Joseph Campbell's book: Myths of Light, which serves as an introduction to Eastern philosophy and had a profound influence on my spiritual journey. The ineffable mystery of the East is summed up by a short phrase in the Upanishads: tat tvam asi, that art thou. You are what you want to know, you are the world, and the world is you. Everything is connected, everything is one. From this base point, we launch into a fascinating discussion of Taoism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Listen in to another fascinating episode of mythic existence, and remember what Schopenhauer said after discovering the wisdom of the Orient: "man is the truth above all truths; there is nothing above that."