Against Everyone with Conner Habib

AEWCH 310: THE PARANORMAL IS NORMAL with BEN MACHELL / THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS, PT 4

Friends, This is the fourth episode* in a series called The Spirit-Era and Its Aftermaths in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today, and in fact, being echoed by our own time. This time, we’re moving closer and closer to our present age, away from the Spirit-Era and into its aftermaths, tracking the ways that paranormal investigations, and paranormal phenomena themselves, changed as they emerged from that era. And I look into all of the with my guest, journalist ⁠BEN MACHELL⁠, author of the compulsively readable and also illuminating book ⁠Chasing the Dark: A 140-Year Investigation of Paranormal Activity⁠. One thing I’ve noticed again and again in researching and recording this series of episodes is that the so-called esoteric, the miraculous, the paranormal are all common. Whether it’s a haunting, someone who is able to accomplish a feat of endurance, or the ways in which the world is simply very strange if we just look at it without taking it for granted: these are not aberrant occurrences. We have all experienced them, or heard about someone who has, or have shared stories about them, or have found some evidence for them or theorized about them. So when we tell stories about the paranormal, we are really just telling stories about the normal world. In Ben’s book, he takes a long and thoughtful journey following the life and work of paranormal investigator Tony Cornell, a member of the Society for Psychical Research who appeared on TV, wrote books, and even was featured in a computer magazine for building a device to try to detect paranormal phenomenon. But unlike the performative ghost conjurers of the late 19th century or the fakirs in the early 20th, Tony (1924 - 2010) wasn’t trying to create spectacular performance, and wasn’t motivated purely by egotistical posturing as a debunker either. Rather he sought to understand what was really happening in people’s lives. Through following Tony, Ben depicts a fascinating alternate history of the everyday: people simply living their lives, but then experiencing something they don’t understand and can't explain, something that feels out of place to reality itself. Sometimes the unexplainable isn’t the phenomena, but a feeling, a need to cry for help. So a picture begins to emerge - the paranormal as the presence of motivators - whether in our own behavior or in furniture and dishes flying through the air that we can’t grasp, that we need help with. What a change from where the Spirit-Era started, with the frightening glamour of the table rapping spirits and the ectoplasmic bonds of spiritualist gatherings. And what a difference, also, from the spiritual thinkers who sought to create coherent theories. Here, the theories fell away in the face of spontaneous phenomena for which there were no experts. But if there were an expert, Tony Cornell would be the best of them; and his approach was to live with the uncertain, the unknown. Support the show: ⁠PATREON.COM/CONNERHABIB [https://gate.sc/?url=http%3A%2F%2FPATREON.COM%2FCONNERHABIB&token=b566b3-1-1765392667577]

AEWCH 309: FAKIRS AND FAKERS with RAPHAEL CORMACK / THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS, PT 3

This is the third episode in a series called The Spirit-Era & Its Aftermaths in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today, and in fact, being echoed by our own time. The Spirit-Era is marked by occultists, paranormal investigators, and magicians... But it is also marked by performances of all kinds: stage magic, but also actual magic. Stage magic passing as real magic, real magic posing as trickery. There were the performance of spiritualism, of charismatic theologians, and of feats of incredible endurance. As in our own time, People had difficulty parsing out what was real and what was illusion. And there was no shortage of advice on how to attain magical aptitude and ability, or promises of unlimited health and vitality.  Beyond this difficulty distinguishing  truth from fantasy, there was a thrilling draw to the ambiguity, and whatever power might be there, in the spot in between what was and what might be. This negative space, this open area of reality, affected people all over the world, including the middle east. These tensions - between genuine and the spectacular, strengthening and the seducing, are the themes of this installment in the series - on Fakirs & Fakers with DR. RAPHAEL CORMACK [https://www.instagram.com/raphaelcormack/], Assistant Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University, and author of the highly readable, eye-opening, and excellent book Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult [https://bookshop.org/a/4714/9780393881103] Raphael’s book, and our discussion connects us to two figures who were emblematic of their time: The performer-fakir, Tahra Bey, an Armenian performer who achieved fame in the 1920s as a man of incredible talents; not only to drive sharp objects through his skin, to be buried alive and survive, or to lie down on a bed of nails; but also to beguile huge audiences. Tahra Bey, who fooled the world into thinking he possessed both heritage and secrets from Egypt, and that he could teach anyone to do what he did. The other figure is Dr. Dahesh, Palestinian-born mystic and teacher, founder of the spiritual current known as Daheshism, which still has adherents today. Dr. Dahesh was said to be able to take off his own head, to spring back to life after execution, and to understand the workings of the cosmos. He was also an art collector, for whom a museum in New York is named. He remains a well-known figure in Lebanon where he was both celebrated and persecuted, but eventually moved to Connecticut, where he died in at the age of 74 in 1984. As Raphael says in this episode, “Writing a history of the occult is writing a history of something that doesn’t quite fit into the box of history, even on its on terms.” So how do we interpret the performance from the truth? And what does it mean to desire not just the miracle because it astounds us, but the lack of miracles because it allows us to be complacent? I’m so excited to share this episode with you. 8 years. 300+ episodes. All free. SUPPORT THIS SHOW: patreon.com/connerhabib [patreon.com/connerhabib ]

AEWCH 308: LITERATURE AS OCCULTISM with ALLAN JOHNSON / THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS, PT 2

This is the second episode in a series called THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today. In the second installment in the series, I talk with ALLAN JOHNSON Professor of English Literature at University of Surrey, meditation coach, and author of the excellent book, The Sacred Life of Modernist Literature: Immanence, Occultism, and the Making of the Modern World In that book, Allan states: “The occult has always walked the perilous line between desiring a textual form while resisting the possibility that this form can ever be completely achieved.” One of my big frustrations with spiritual influencers is that most of them don’t seem to have a good grasp of art, but particularly literature. They do something like this: they read literature that has magical CONTENT and create metaphors and analogies that - all-too conveniently - mirror the lessons of their own esoteric view. And they generally reach for the usual suspects: Tolkien, Le Guin, Coehlo, etc. But the location of esoteric strength in literature is less in the content and much more in its FORMS and STYLES. These forms were brought to us most prominently in modernist fiction - in James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka, and more. But also by poets like TS Elliot, Ezra Pound, and WB Yeats. In the works of modernist writers, the reader’s involvement is demanded to complete the text. These are writers who initiate us as we read their works. This conversation with Allan offered the chance to explore ideas I'd been longing to talk about for years, I'm so excited to share them with you here. SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON [Patreon.com/connerhabib] Buy Allan's book [https://bookshop.org/a/4714/9781350255340]

AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 307: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF GHOST HUNTING with ALICE VERNON / THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS, PART 1

This is first episode in a series called The Spirit-Era and Its Aftermaths. Across the next few installments of AEWCH, I’ll be investigating the way the spiritual, technological, and occult flourishing at the turn of the 19th/20th century is affecting our lives to this day. The Spirit-Era was a time marked by spirits, of course. But also miracles, hucksters, paranormal investigators, and genuine spiritual teachers. There were seances and fakirs, performances of incredible feats in private and on stages both which were thought to be revelations of different worlds, or worlds that could be possible. The intelligentsia of the time might go to see spirits materialize in dark rooms. They might write novels inspired by meeting  notorious occult figures. Or maybe they would decide to form societies to investigate the afterlife. Many of the Spirt-Era's most famous artists and writers found themselves inspired by and even joining occult orders. New occult organizations and forms - some with anarchist aspirations, others connecting to labor rights movements, still others taking fascist turns, - were rising and falling. Like in our own era, new technologies emerged and others became popularized. The telephone became more available, and so, later, did the car  and motion picture with sound. But also there was the fortune cookie, bringing a sort of precogniostic levity to the everyday. These innovations marked changing experiences of time and space across the planet. Plagues, wars, sinking ships. It seemed like there was never a moment of rest. I’m sure you can relate. Two themes ran through the Spirit-Era: the shifting relationship of the spiritual and material, and the deep understanding that everything was changing, so anything might be possible. In these episodes, we won’t just be trying to learn from history to avoid repeating it, but rather to deeply consider the Spirit-Era and conjure its best aspects. Because within the spectacle, there were many revelations to be had. Some of them we take for granted in our everyday lives, and forget they were handed to us by people who took the great risk or the absurd plunge into the era's spiritual possibility. We’ll look at the ways paranormal investigations pushed on science, how esotericism informed advancing literature and performance. We’ll even investigate whole world views with their own coherence, that developed at the time, and see why we can learn so much from  them. And we'll look at why so many of these boundary-pushing advances are stigmatized today. One reason I’ll mention now: The Spirit-Era is difficult for us because it isn’t part of the past, but something beyond us. A future where we allow ourselves to think in ways that dissolve the material realm as we know it, and try to understand the forces - whether social, dialectical, economic, or spiritual - fully anew. The Spirit-Era reflects the past and the future through smoke and mirrors. Yes, the tools of illusionists and frauds. But amongst the trickery, the truth of light and surface is there. In the aftermaths of the Spirit-Era, we continue to use its insights and gestures to figure out what we think is real, what is solid, and where illumination comes from. Welcome to this series. On the first episode, I talk with ALICE VERNON, author of Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting, and Why We Keep Looking. The book is vast in scope, and considers the many emotional resonances we have with paranormal investigation, ghost-hunting, and why it is important to us. We start in the 1st century, and go all the way to AI in this wide-ranging conversation about the topic. But the Spirit-Era here is unavoidable. People grieving, hustling, debunking, and believing all surround the seance tables, inviting new presences, new technologies, and new methods of investigation. I’m so happy to present this series and episode. SUPPORT THE SHOW VIA PATREON [patreon.com/connerhabib] Buy Ghosted: A History of Ghost Hunting, and Why We Keep Looking [https://bookshop.org/a/4714/9781399418706] by Alice Vernon

AEWCH 306: WHAT IS HORROR? with PHIL FORD & J.F. MARTEL of WEIRD STUDIES

Friends, When I was on my book tour for Hawk Mountain, I did an event with Andrea Lawlor [https://www.patreon.com/posts/27721011] where we spoke, at length, about horror. In the Q&A, someone raised a hand and asked: WHAT IS HORROR? Andrea and I both laughed. We found ourselves at a loss. Horror : Once you consider it, it’s not clear. There’s the assumption that horror is scary. Sometimes that’s true. But obviously what’s scary for you might not be scary for me, and vice versa, so that can’t define the genre. We say horror has certain elements, but there are different kinds of horror to define its contours, whether it's body horror, slasher horror, cosmic horror... We might turn to the familiar face of horror - the monster - to see what they reveal to us. But while vampires, werewolves, zombies express, through their differing powers and weakness, different theories [https://www.patreon.com/posts/21948871] about horror, they can't give us a picture of what it is really. They're contained by it. Horror: Always on, always available, always around us. So… what is it? I asked my friends PHIL FORD and J.F. MARTEL - the cohosts of the WEIRD STUDIES PODCAST [https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies] - onto the show to walk into the dark - or is it the blinding, malevolent light? - with me, and with you, to see what we would find there. Weird Studies is, in my experience of it, anyway, a horror podcast. In fact, my last conversation with Phil and J.F. was on Weird Studies and about horror: on Weird Studies 144 [https://www.weirdstudies.com/144], we looked into Clive Barker's Hellraiser [https://letterboxd.com/film/hellraiser/] and the book it's based on, The Hellbound Heart [https://bookshop.org/a/4714/9780061452888]. But it's not a horror podcast because it’s always focused on horror; many episodes are about topics and artworks that seem less than horrific (their series on each card in the major arcana of the tarot, for instance, or their episode on Herman Hesse’s novel about enlightenment, Siddhartha [https://bookshop.org/a/4714/9780553208849]). But there is a quality on each episode - a quality which we discuss in this conversation - of the threat of art, philosophy, image and sound. The way they invade our lives. Rearrange our organs Destroy the world we knew.  In other words, we might think of horror as a position in time, something approaching or orbiting. Or as something creates shadows by blocking the light, or by creating a void where an object once was.  You can hear me going in many directions again. Conversation with Phil and J.F. inspires that in me - being pulled in many directions at once. That's another way of thinking of horror: horror as blob; as spreading epidemic, as destroying giant, vaster than the safety of our shelters. This is what I love about talking with Phil and JF and about Weird Studies, and also why I often think of their podcast as the only true sibling to mine. In conversation with them, everything a springboard for everything. A web of connections. Or maybe better said, a transforming activity, everything metamorphosing into everything else through membranous, visceral, and expansive moves. Please support this show on patreon. PATREON.COM/CONNERHABIB [patreon.com/connerhabib] You can also find an almost complete list of the books, movies, etc we mention on this episode there.