Long-time readers of this blog are aware that it has gone through several phases — or rather, I have personally gone through several phases — of intense doomerism. Leading up to the global financial crash/panic/mini-apocalypse of 2008, I was fully caught up in the doom meme, with a special emphasis on peak fossil fuels and…
Author: Matt Cardin
Teeming Brain founder and editor Matt Cardin is the author of DARK AWAKENINGS, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, A COURSE IN DEMONIC CREATIVITY: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO THE INNER GENIUS, and TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. He is also the editor of BORN TO FEAR: INTERVIEWS WITH THOMAS LIGOTTI and the academic encyclopedias MUMMIES AROUND THE WORLD; GHOSTS, SPIRITS, AND PSYCHICS: THE PARANORMAL FROM ALCHEMY TO ZOMBIES; and HORROR LITERATURE THROUGH HISTORY.
The Devil Went Down to Texas: A supposed surge in “diabolical cults” and demonic possession in the Lone Star State (and across America)
I still feel like a new Texan even though next month will mark three years since I moved here from my home state of Missouri. But given my personal and authorial focus on religion and horror, maybe I’ll begin to feel more fully at home now that serious talk of demonic possession and official Roman…
From Google’s “in-house philosopher,” a beautiful credo in defense of studying the humanities
Here at The Teeming Brain I’ve gone on at some length about the disastrous/dystopian trends in contemporary American education, including, especially, the rise of the techno-corporate consumer model that assigns a purely economic raison d’etre to higher education. (See, for example, my “America’s Colleges at a Crossroads” series and additional articles.) Today I’m fascinated, and…
The Google Effect: New evidence of the Internet’s impact on brain and memory recalls Plato’s ancient warning
It’s not every day you get to note/observe/say something like this: A 2400-year-old warning from Plato has just been confirmed, or at least inadvertently recalled, by newly published research about the cognitive and neurological effects of our now-ubiquitous culture of Internet searching. Here’s the lowdown: Researchers at Columbia University. . . say Google and its…
Fear and trembling in the medical-industrial complex
I’m tempted to exclaim, “Take that, medical-industrial complex! ” On the heels of a recent Atlantic article about the growing mainstream acceptance of “New Age” or alternative medical treatments comes one from The Wall Street Journal about the verifiable benefits of meditation, cognitive therapy, and other psychological interventions for chronic pain. The establishment, naturally, is…
The muse and the pineal gland
For over a month I’ve been pounding away at the third installment in my “Theology, Psychology, Neurology” series of articles over at Demon Muse. It will look at the third element in the series title by considering several possible biological locations of the muse experience. The section on the pineal gland proved unexpectedly slippery to…
Podcast of my interview about religion and horror on SPIRITUALLY RAW
My interview on the “Raw Factor” segment of this morning’s Spiritually Raw radio broadcast felt like it went well. Hosts Ajay and April proved to be excellent conversationalists as they talked with me about my central focus as an author (and human being) on the convergence of religious experience with horror fiction and film, and…
H.P. Lovecraft, DMT, and the mysteries of the pineal gland
Does Rick Strassman’s DMT research provide a kind of real-world verification of Lovecraft’s fictional hypothesis in “From Beyond”?
Our alien obsession
UFOs and aliens have been a widespread subcultural attraction for decades, but presently they’re bursting the subcultural boundaries and extending into Western society at large to reach the status of a bona fide, near-ubiquitous obsession. Even the (weird, incomprehensible, utterly Philistine) people who aren’t interested in them are now confronted by them at every turn,…
What’s so horrific about religion (and religious about horror)?
In an interesting development, I’ve been selected as a potential “spot light guest” on SPIRITUALLY RAW, a (very) fringe-oriented occult/spiritual/conspiracy/New Age radio show with a 60,000+ daily listener base. I’ll be conducting a “pre-interview screening” live on air during a segment called “The Raw Factor” on July 5. Listener votes will determine whether I’m blessed…