Erik Davis - The Weirdness of Being

"To understand psychoanalysis, you have to understand the uncanny. But to understand psychedelics, you have to understand the weird. The weird is more than the uncanny’s low-brow country cousin. Nor is it simply a domain or style of cultural production. The weird is a mode and category of being. We may enjoy weird tales, but the world is telling us one all the time–and we can respond in kind. There are many reasons to heed Alan Watts’ advice to 'follow your own weird.' In this talk we will try to add some ontological heft to this peculiar but persistent term, which is widely used in a casual way but rarely analysed, historicised, and granted its own singular if sometimes disturbing substance. Tracing the etymology and use of the world through literature, pop culture, anthropology, and physics, we will end that the weird forms a Möbius strip between the spookiness of fate and necessity, and the eccentric, aberrant twist of deviance. Weirdness is the cause and costume of anomaly. It thus provides a naturalistic—if sometimes esoteric—way of understanding and talking about 'supernatural' phenomena, as well as the fringes of our own experience." - Erik Davis

https://techgnosis.com/

https://expandingmind.podbean.com/

https://rice.academia.edu/ErikDavis

High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experiences in the Seventies: https://amzn.to/2HapCZT

TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information by Erik Davis: https://amzn.to/2PMdPRB

Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica by Erik Davis: https://amzn.to/2PJXj4N

The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft: https://amzn.to/2CfID7G

Supernatural Horror in Literature by H. P. Lovecraft: https://amzn.to/2SLCXch

The Philip K. Dick Collection: https://amzn.to/2SMTehe

The Weirdo Years by R. Crumb: https://amzn.to/2H821ZR

Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays by Bronisław Malinowski: https://amzn.to/2M5lBF3

Art by Luke Brown: https://www.instagram.com/luke_brown_spectraleyes/