In the late 1950’s, two high school friends, Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley would regularly meet at their local bowling alley in East Whittier, California to hang out and talk long into the night about the issues of the day and the limits of the world that they lived in – one they felt was based all to willingly on order and control. What if there was a different way of engaging with the world, something more chaotic, unpredictable and fun?
These conversations and an affection for a certain Greek Goddess led them to create the joke religion – or religious joke, depending on your perspective – called Discordianism, which included a text called the Principia Discordia. It’s creation would see Greg and Kerry become entangled with Lee Harvey Oswald and the aftermath the JFK assassination, confuse the authorities with ‘Culture Jamming’ and play a pivotal role in influencing conspiracy theory culture as we know it today.
My guest is paranormal researcher Matt Hopewell, who is an aficionado of Discordianism and it’s prodigiously strange history.This is probably as unusual a Sphere as we’ve explored so far.
Matt's blog is now up and running and can be found here.
For more information on Discordianism, I recommend visiting Adam Gorightly's excellent website 'Historia Discordia'.
Episode 116 - Laura Lewis-Barr - Psyche's Cinema
Episode 115 - Sharon Hewitt Rawlette - Coincidence, Synchronicity and Life after Death
Episode 114 - Dr Josh Bullock - Weekday Worldviews
Episode 113 - Gary Opit - An Introduction to Australian Cryptozoology
Episode 112 - Dr Richard Sugg - Ghosts, Fairies and Wonder Dogs
Episode 111 - Charis Cotter - Ghost Stories from Newfoundland
Episode 110 - Natalie Doig - Weird in the Wade
Episode 109 - Sue Terry - Esoteric Fiction and the work of Alan Garner
Episode 108 - Dr Diana Walsh Pasulka - Experiences with Non-human Intelligences
Episode 107 - Victoria Jaye - The Demon Folklorist
Episode 106 - Claire Casely - The Faery Whisperer
Episode 105 - Fred Andersson - High Strangeness in Sweden
Episode 104 - Simon Miles - The Map and the Manuscript
Episode 103 - AP Strange - Master of Mystical Flapdoodle
Episode 102 - Lionel Fanthorpe - Renaissance Man of the Paranormal
Episode 101 - Emily Leon - Esotericism, Modern Art and Hilma af Klint
Episode 100 - Shannon Taggart - Séance: Spiritualist Ritual and the Search for Ectoplasm
Episode 99 - Emma Kathryn - Wild Witchcraft
Episode 98 - Emma Heard - Weird Wiltshire
Episode 97 - Gregory Forth - Between Ape and Human
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