Episodes
3 days ago
144 - Terrence McKenna's Timewave Zero
3 days ago
3 days ago
Who among us hasn't had apocalyptic visions with a head full of mushrooms? Terrence sure did. This week we're looking at one of the pillars of the legendary psychedelic evangelist's cosmology: Timewave Zero. After Terrence McKenna and his brother Dennis had their noggins rocked by psilocybe cubensis mushrooms in Colombia, Terrence returned from the jungle with "some funny ideas," ideas around a self-similar fractal waveform, calculated through doing fancy wizard math on the I-Ching, the ancient Chinese divination system. According to McKenna the resulting waveform could be overlayed on top of human history and showed a steady, relentless march towards a point of infinite novelty, infinite newness, the eschaton. And this eschaton, according to Mckanna, was set to arrive "on time and under budget" on...December 21, 2012. Spoiler alert: it didn't. But that doesn't make the ideas within Timewave Zero any less relevant, worth talking about, or poetically true. And hey, maybe the apocalypse did happen in 2012 and this is all just our hallucinatory death dream. You really never know. Increase the density of novelty in our lives by joining our Patreon. You'll get access to bonus episodes, our patron Discord server, and you'll keep The Nonsense Bazaar ad-free. All for just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Apr 10, 2024
143 - The Radioactive Boy Scout
Wednesday Apr 10, 2024
Wednesday Apr 10, 2024
Who among us didn't have at least a touch of the mad scientist fantasy as a kid, right? Most of us, probably. And who among us failed to ever have anything come of it? Most of us, probably. Not David Hahn. David Hahn had himself a notion to build a fast breeder nuclear reactor in his mother's potting shed. And by golly, he did. By cobbling together stolen fire alarms, camping lanterns, and parts financed by selling stolen hubcaps, along with a whole lot of good old-fashioned bullshitting, David Hahn managed to build a small, functional, fast breeder nuclear reactor before he was out of high school. Neighbors said sometimes they'd even see a flashing green glow coming from the old potting shed. Part celebration of mad genius, part tragedy and cautionary tale, the story of the so-called "radioactive boy scout" is a tale of complementarity: it can be all those things, depending on how you look at it. As soon as we get well and truly paid, we too will build a superweapon. If you want to speed up that ticking clock, throw us some Patreon bones. You'll get access to bonus episodes and our patron-exclusive Discord server for just $5 / month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Apr 03, 2024
142 - Creature Feature: Water Monsters
Wednesday Apr 03, 2024
Wednesday Apr 03, 2024
Admit it, there aren't nearly enough creatures in your life. Weird creatures, cute creatures, mean creatures, there's a whole wide world of creatures out there. And today we're talking about three of them. And with a subtitle like "Water Monsters," you might be thinking we're talking mythical beasts, Nessie's or Champ's or the Kraken. Nope. We're talking real live creatures, but these dudes are most certainly monsters. In this episode, we talk about three animals each with attributes that most certainly qualify them as monsters (especially considering the etymological root of "monster" that Willow digs up), the electric eel, the Greenland shark, and the mimic octopus. Why those three? Because they're sweet as hell, that's why. Good creatures, the lot of 'em.
Join our Patreon and help us build our own menagerie. Buy us an octopus and keep us ad-free. You'll get access to bonus episodes and our Patron Discord server all for just $5 a month.
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Mar 27, 2024
141 - Competitive Eating
Wednesday Mar 27, 2024
Wednesday Mar 27, 2024
Sometime during the 20th century, hot dogs became forever linked with an American pastime—Competitive eating—and with the most American holiday, the Fourth of July. One could argue that the business of “major league eating” is everything wrong with consumer capitalism. Because it is. However, today we’ll be taking time to celebrate the absurdity of it all by discovering how Nathan’s Fourth of July hot dog contest began and why it persists.Keep The Nonsense Bazaar ad-free and away from debasement on a Coney Island boardwalk by joining our Patreon! You'll get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and our Patron Discord server for just $5 a month.
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
140 - The Nag Hammadi Codices
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
These days you can't shake a stick without running into some version of Gnostic Christianity. Why is that? Gnosticism is absolutely wild and psychedelic, that plays a part. But did counterculture collectively decide one day that Gnosticism was pretty groovy? Well, apart from fragments of texts, writings about Gnosticism from the Catholic church's perspective (heresy!), and underground currents of mystic knowledge, mainstream culture didn't really know anything about what the Gnostics believed until the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices, a jar of 13 papyrus scrolls containing 52 books from Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and other mystic traditions. The collection was discovered in Egypt, 1946 by a pair of probable graverobbers, and wouldn't be fully translated and published until the 1970s. This week we're going to look at some core texts and definitely get some stuff wrong as we explore Gnosticism and the Nag Hammadi Codices. Help us get a JSTOR subscription and get less stuff wrong by joining our Patreon, where you'll get access to bonus episodes and our patron Discord server, all for just 5 shmucks a month.
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Mar 13, 2024
[Patreon Unlock] The Corkboard Bizarre - Tulpas!
Wednesday Mar 13, 2024
Wednesday Mar 13, 2024
Sequoyah had to deal with some rough stuff this week so in lieu of chaining him to his keyboard and squeezing an episode out of him like an old citrus, we're unlocking an episode of our bonus series where we dive into the weird, disturbing, and hilarious world of internet tulpamancy. What's a tulpa? Well a tulpa (aka "tupper," apparently) is a thoughtform entity created by the power of belief that gains external agency and sentience. It's a concept from esoteric Tibetan Buddhism by way of Theosophy. But we're not talking about that side of it. We're talking about kids on 4chan learning how to break their brains in the pursuit of fun and profit. It's usually neither, in the end.
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
139 - Wait...I Thought You Died (Death Fraud)
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
Who among us can honestly say we've never been tempted to fake our own deaths? You know, get away from it all, start over as fresh as a newborn babe. Today we'll be looking at individuals who were pronounced dead only to miraculously come back or, in the case of Kaycee Nicole Swenson, who never existed in the first place. From England's 'Canoe Man' to the ridiculously dressed Violet Charlesworth to Lil Tay, you'll learn why faking a death is not a very smart thing to do.Pay us so we don't have to commit fraud and you'll also get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarreas well as access to our patron Discord server all for just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Feb 28, 2024
The State of The Union 2024
Wednesday Feb 28, 2024
Wednesday Feb 28, 2024
We had a weird day. So this week we're talking about some of the things we've been thinking about recently: nature, defiant optimism, Catholic UFO propaganda, how Willow thought Sequoyah went missing but he was actually just napping, and much more. The state of the union is strong... and ridiculous. Support The Nonsense Bazaar on Patreon and get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and our patron Discord server starting at just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Feb 21, 2024
138 - Revival Preachin' in America
Wednesday Feb 21, 2024
Wednesday Feb 21, 2024
This week It’s a touch of the ol’ divine madness in Middle America as we take a look at the highly entertaining and very American art form of revival preaching. From the big top on the frontier to Aimee McPherson, the sexiest preacher who’s ever lived, to Oral Roberts’ saying God was going to kill him if he didn’t get eight million dollars, the tradition of the revival is a type of performance art in a league of its own. It also fills a pretty interesting role in culture. We also learn a whole lot about the very, very American form of Christian mysticism: Pentecostalism, AKA the flavor of Christianity closest to being bombed out of your mind on designer drugs at a warehouse rave. That’s just a true statement. Jesus wants you to give us money too. So join our Patreon and for just $5 a month you’ll get our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and access to our patron Discord server. You won’t get healed. You won’t be better off. But we will. And isn’t that what counts?
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
Wednesday Feb 14, 2024
137 - Oneirophrenia
Wednesday Feb 14, 2024
Wednesday Feb 14, 2024
Finding yourself with one foot in reality and the other in dreamland is frightening, especially if you were alive in the 1940s when the solution was to remove all your memories by either drilling a hole in your head or hooking your brain up to the medical equivalent of a car battery. Today’s episode takes us back to that time to explore a book of case studies titled Oneirophrenia and how the author, a physician named Ladislas Meduna, sought treatment for these patients.Know what keeps us engaged in the waking world? Cold hard cash. It also keeps The Nonsense Bazaar ad-free. Join our Patreon for just $5 a month and get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and our patron Discord server.https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar