Weird Studies

This is the first of three episodes on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to be released in the course of the next several months. Focusing here on The Fellowship of the Ring, our hosts discuss the first leg of Frodo's journey into darkness, paying special attention to Tolkien's prose style, his modernism, his commitment to a truly magical realism, and his penchant for the weird and the tragic.

Image: "Lothlorien" by Tessa Bronsky, via Wikimedia Commons.

References

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring  

Algernon Blackwood, English writer  

Weird Studies, Episode 204 on “On Fairy Stories” 

Peter Jackson (dir.), The Lord of the Rings 

Ursula K. LeGuin, A Wizard of Earthsea 

Friedrich Nietzsche, History in the Service and Disservice of Life  

Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel

Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives 

Carl Jung, The Red Book  

Lord Dunsaney, The King of Elfland’s Daughter  

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto  

David Foster Wallace, “E Unibus Pluram”  

Steven Chow (dir.), Kung Fu Hustle 

Donna Tartt, The Secret History  

Lost Lakes, YouTube Channel 

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This episode was recorded before a live audience at Indiana University Cinema as part of Weird Academia, a series of events that brought much high strangeness to Bloomington, Indiana, in January 2026. The discussion followed a screening of Ken Russell’s 1980 cinematic fever dream, Altered States. In it, JF and Phil explore the weird intersection of mysticism, psychedelics, and institutional science, and they close with a brief Q&A with members of the audience.

Visit Weirdosphere to enroll in Phil Ford's upcoming course, A Musical Tarot.

References

Weird Academia and the Center for Possible Minds

Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Roger Penrose, physicist and mathematician

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

Samuel Delaney, Dhalgren

Henri Bergson, Introduction to Metaphysics and Matter & Memory

H. P. Lovecraft, American writer

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

Clement Greenberg, American essayist

G. K. Chesterton, English writer

David Cronenberg (dir.), The Fly

Michael Garfield, podcaster, writer, musician

Weird Studies episode 205 on the Hierophant

Victoria Nelson, The Secret Life of Puppets

Neil Gaiman, American Gods

J. R. R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories"

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In this episode of Weird Studies, we turn to the fifth Major Arcanum, the Hierophant, symbolizing tradition, instruction, and the exoteric aspect of spiritual practice. Drawing on Meditations on the Tarot and other sources, we question the easy opposition between tradition and revolution, exploring instead how inherited forms can foster genuine inner growth, and how an interior revolutions may renew traditions from within.

To reserve seats for Weird Academia events, visit the website of the Center for Possible Minds.

References

Johann Sebastian Bach, F# minor Fugue from The Well Tempered Clavier Book 1 (played by Rosalyn Tureck) 

Richard Wilhelm (trans.), The I Ching

J. R. R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings

P. D. Ouspensky, The Symbolism of the Tarot 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

Our Known Friend, Meditations of the Tarot

Plato, "The Seventh Letter"

Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Way of Tarot

Dogen, Instructions for the Cook

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition

Weird Studies, Live at Illuminated Brew Works 

Franz Liszt, Hungarian pianist 

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria vol. 1 
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For Tolkien, fairy stories are not stories about fairies, but stories that take place in Faerie. And in doing so, they make Faerie present. They are not escapist fantasies but disclosures of a real mode of being and invitations to live in that mode. In this episode, Phil and JF explore the great writer’s radical claims about the nature of story, life, and reality.

Upcoming Events

Erik Davis and JF's six-week course on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick begins on January 20th. For details and to enroll, visit the Weirdosphere.

For information on the upcoming Weird Academia events in Bloomington (Jan 27-29), visit the symposium web page at the Center for Possible Minds.

Music in this Episode

"What a Load of Gnosis," from Weird Studies: Music from the Podcast, Volume I

"Springtime on Ganymede," from Weird Studies: Music from the Podcast, Volume II

References

J. R. R. Tolkein, “On Fairy Stories” 

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 

Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea 

Franz Liszt, Transcendental Etude No. 4: Mazeppa (played by Lazar Berman) 

Dogen, "Instructions for the Cook"

Jeff Kripal, Mutants and Mystics 

Eric Wargo, From Nowhere

J.F. Martel, Review of “From Nowhere” for Journal of Scientific Exploration

Richard Wagner, Parsifal 

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To tide us over as we prepare for a new season of Weird Studies, here is an "audio extra," originally recorded for our Patreon supporters, wherein we discuss imposter syndrome, the eternal inadequacy of the intellect, the perils of playing with swords, and the role of trust in
creation.

A new episode will drop on Wednesday, January 14th, 2026. Happy New Year to all.

To join our Patreon, go to www.patreon.com/weirdstudies

To enroll in the upcoming Moby Dick course starting on January 20th, visit www.weirdosphere.org.

For information on the Weird Academia conference in Bloomington, Indiana, visit www.possibleminds.org/weird-academia

Episode image: Caspar David Friedrich, Abtei im Eichwald (1808-1810).

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