Here’s a treat for fans of classic occult horror in the vein of Dennis Wheatley (author of the iconic/legendary novel The Devil Rides Out): Teeming Brain columnist Stuart Young has edited a volume of five stories in this vein for Hersham Horror Books. Here’s the publisher’s description: Hersham Horror Books presents five original stories from…
Eckhart Tolle on enlightenment, ego, and apocalyptic collapse
Eckhart Tolle I have sometimes wondered about the reactions of my readers whenever I mention the writings of Eckhart Tolle with approval, as I have done several times. Tolle is a best-selling writer whose books occupy the same general “mind/body/spirit” publishing niche as those of Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, etc. He’s a speaker who has…
Called to academe: The university’s monastic ideal in a neoliberal age
Here’s media studies scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan making the case for recognizing the reality of an academic/scholarly calling — in the authentic religious vocational sense — in the midst of a neoliberal age obsessed with the economic and political concerns of the so-called “real world”: In the United States, and increasingly in the world at large,…
Teeming Links – April 25, 2014
We’re entering an age of energy impoverishment. Richard Heinberg explains: “It’s hard to overstate just how serious a threat our energy crisis is to every aspect of our current way of life. But the problem is hidden from view by oil and natural gas production numbers that look and feel just fine. . . ….
The bias of scientific materialism and the reality of paranormal experience
In my recent post about Jeff Kripal’s article “Visions of the Impossible,” I mentioned that biologist and hardcore skeptical materialist Jerry Coyne published a scathing response to Jeff’s argument soon after it appeared. For those who would like to keep up with the conversation, here’s the heart of Coyne’s response (which, in its full version,…
Life guidance from Edward O. Wilson: ‘Search until you find a passion and go all out to excel in its expression’
Edward O. Wilson, 2003 Edward O. Wilson is of course most famous as the seminal thinker, author, scientist, and figure in the field of sociobiology, which he defined in his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis as the “systematic study of the biological basis of all social behavior.” Although there are many valid criticisms to…
Weird Fiction: The Passing of the Generational Torch
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last year, in the wake of the NecronomiCon Providence convention, I posted a video of S. T. Joshi’s keynote address in which he focused on the long and winding history of H. P. Lovecraft’s literary reputation. These many months later, a video of much higher quality, with multiple camera angles and nice production…
Teeming Links – April 18, 2014
Washington, DC as a corrupt inferno of reality distortion (WARNING: Reading this may make you profoundly ill): “The resulting offspring of this confluence of industry, politics, and pop-culture has produced a wide range of hybrid permutations of all three partners: the celebrity operative (Carville-Matalin, Stephanopoulos), the cable news partisanship industry (Fox, MSNBC), the Hollywood revisionist/fictional…
Video: An uncanny and beautiful illusion by French juggler Lindzee Poi
Part of me is still wondering if this was faked with the help of CG, but after watching it twice, I’m inclined to think it’s real, and that’s also the consensus among the zillion sites where this viral video has already proliferated. Even if it’s fake, it’s an amazing concept, beautifully executed, and frankly mesmerizing….
Anthony Hopkins on philosophy, shamanism, and ‘a landscape of darkness and horror’ in ‘Noah’
“The Flood” by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld (1634/35) Via Art and the Bible, Fair Use I recently saw the Noah movie, and I’m pleased to report that I really liked it. The angle taken by writer-director Darren Aronofsky and his co-writer Ari Handel struck me as deeply engrossing and just right for our collective cultural moment….