Shows
The Nonsense Bazaar142 - Creature Feature: Water MonstersAdmit 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...
2024-04-031h 20
The Nonsense Bazaar[Patreon Unlock] The Corkboard Bizarre - Tulpas!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...
2024-03-131h 15
The Nonsense BazaarThe State of The Union 2024We 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
2024-02-281h 06The Nonsense Bazaar[Patreon Unlock] The Corkboard Bizarre #7 - Encounters With The Easter Bunny and Richard DotyI wanted to do a remaster episode or two this week, but apparently my backup game is simply weak. So you're getting another Corkboard. Next week I might talk about UFOs while I drink whiskey If I can figure out what I even want to say other than like a muffled sob-scream. I can't wait to get back to regular episodes.
This week on the Corkboard, Willow auditions a new theme song, we learn about the seemingly common phenomenon of encountering the Easter Bunny, and we pop over to Gaia tv to find out what fresh h...
2023-08-021h 13
The Nonsense BazaarThe Mojito Tapes Vol 1 (life requires a hiatus, but we shall return)Wanted to record something just in case you missed our posts on Friday. Family stuff means we need to take a hiatus from regular episodes for a few weeks. Never fear, however, we shall return and we have episodes both recorded and in the pipes. They ain't got us yet. And as promised, this week Sequoyah is going to mumble at you about God only knows what while he has a drink.
2023-07-1245 min
The Nonsense BazaarSummer Break: Reading Jack Parsons’ ”Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword”We're taking a summer break this week so instead of a regular episode, Sequoyah read Jack Parsons' essay "Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword" which he completed in the year following the famed Babalon working. It remains one of very few completed pieces of writing by Parsons and if you look past some needed edits (due to excessive horniness, mainly) it's absolutely fantastic. However because we are technically on vacation, Sequoyah didn't have his microphones and had to use his phone so please forgive the sound quality (it's not that bad, surprisingly).
2023-06-211h 24
The Nonsense Bazaar106 - Andrija Puharich Part II: Uri Geller!In the continuing saga of trying to record this series, not only did we have to re-record this episode, but Sequoyah lost his voice. So enjoy laughing at that. This week we find Andrija Puharich in Israel to research the powers of the international spoon-bending psychic superstar Uri Geller, and the truly psychotic misadventures that ensue after the mysterious voice of a time traveling artificial intelligence on board a spaceship named Spectra starts speaking through Uri Geller and leads the two on a wild goose chase across the Sinai desert to prevent Armageddon. Also Uri Geller is Jesus apparently.
2023-05-101h 49
The Nonsense Bazaar92 - The Kyle Odom ManifestoThis is the true story of one marine combat veteran who believed he was up against the threat of a lifetime. Kyle Odom knew too much about the flaws in human genetics and the real truth of who controls humanity. That’s why the Martians had to stop him, which is exactly why he had to stop them. After months of building up to the act, Kyle Odom made the single most regrettable decision of his entire life and attempted to take the life of a preacher that he believed was a martian. Today we’ll be looking at the...
2023-02-011h 28
The Nonsense Bazaar91 - Alexander ShulginThis week: drugs! Psychedelic drugs and the man responsible for inventing most of them, Alexander Shulgin. Shulgin was a "psychopharmacologist" who, due to a special arrangement with the DEA, invented, synthesized, and tested on himself and his friends, hundreds of brand-spankin'-new psychedelic drugs, many of which are referred to now as "research chemicals. Alexander Shulgin is also known as the "godfather of ecstasy" for his role in re-discovering MDMA and became a counterculture hero after the publication of his books PiHKAL and TiHKAL, which provided detailed recipes and analyses for over 200 different substances as well as an absolutely insufferable...
2023-01-251h 27
The Nonsense Bazaar90 - The Circus in AmericaLadies and gentlemen! Girls and boys! Today must be your lucky day because here at The Nonsense Bazaar, the Circus is in town. That’s right, imagine it now—the candy striped big top tent, the scent of peanuts and popcorn, the enormous crowd. But where did it all come from? And…where did it go? What do Jumbo Shrimp have to do with anything? In this episode, you’ll learn about how the Circus came to America, about some of the key figures in its development, the utter horror that is the geek show, and about how, in some way...
2023-01-181h 31
The Nonsense Bazaar89 - The Monroe Institute RevisitedWe're getting weird with it this week as we return to one of our favorite subjects: The Monroe Institute. The Monroe Institute uses audio signals to facilitate Out-Of-Body experiences, remote viewing, and other parapsychological phenomena. Mostly known as a vital, if goofy, component of the CIA/DIA psychic spy program (STARGATE et al) due to that document that gets passed around on the internet every 6 months like clockwork about the Monroe Institute's Gateway Experience, the Monroe Institute and Bob Monroe himself are far more interesting than any "How The CIA Proved Manifesting" video will ever lead you to believe. T...
2023-01-111h 39
The Nonsense Bazaar88 - Time Skips & Exotic Vacuum ObjectsThis week we're looking at a couple of examples of the phenomenon of missing time, when things like a drive through a foggy night take much less time than they should, or when 6 hours pass during the time you raise your fork to your TV dinner. Where for either the subject or the outside world, a chunk of time seems to disappear. We also take a look at some research from a couple sources with government funding looking at something called Exotic Vacuum Objects and how these impossible things might be responsible for not only time anomalies, but a...
2023-01-041h 11
The Nonsense Bazaar87 - The Book of The Watchers (The Book of Enoch: 1-36)It's time for some of that old, old time religion as we tell a classic tale of blood, pride, mayhem and divine wrath. The Book of Enoch is one of the most consistently speculated upon books in the entire Judeo-Christian tradition despite not officially being part of the vast, vast majority of Jewish and Christion canons. Just what are they trying to hide? Probably just that God is kind of dick and makes mistakes. But that hasn't stopped people from latching onto the story of Enoch, the Watchers, and the Nephilim as evidence of ancient aliens and the true h...
2022-12-281h 09
The Nonsense Bazaar86 - The Amnesia EpisodeMemory is a strange and slippery thing. Our memories are vital to our understanding of ourselves and the story we tell about our lives. Yet they're imperfect (to put it mildly) and in some cases your entire set of memories and self knowledge can just up and disappear. Who would you be without your memories? Would you have the same morals, the same values? Would you turn a hearse into a mobile bachelor pad, sit on a flagpole for a month, and get a job announcing the evening news? That's what one fellow did and he named himself John...
2022-12-141h 22
The Nonsense Bazaar85 - Project Superman: The Tragedy of Andy PeroAndy Pero was just a normal boy who happened to be the best at everything and only stuttered because of the residual effects of illuminati mind control. Recruited into the secret government program Project Superman, a subproject of Project Montauk. While Andy was under hypnosis he could do 200 pushups in a row and lift 1500 pounds. Also he could jump from planes without a parachute. After the Montauk project was shut down by releasing an astral monster into the facility to slaughter all the workers, Andy was left out to dry. Until, that is, he realized everyone in his life...
2022-12-071h 36
The Nonsense Bazaar84 - Human DesignWho are you? How do you define yourself? What are you genetically equipped to handle? How do the neutrinos generated by the planet Jupiter determine what you're genetically equipped to handle? How can we use this to grow your social media presence? And how does one Canadian advertising executive's psychotic break on Ibiza in 1987 figure into all of this? These are the questions we give up on trying to answer this week as we tackle the most mind melting system of personal growth and categorization this side of the numogram: Human Design as revealed to Ra Uru Hu by...
2022-11-291h 39
The Nonsense Bazaar83 - Jason Shurka & The Light SystemDid you know that for thousands of years, a spiritual CIA has been watching over humanity? They’re called The Light System. They have secret agents in every city worldwide taking part in important missions, like plotting to overthrow the UN or rescuing children from underground tunnels. They’ve finally broken their thousand-year vow of silence thanks to the help of a NYC real estate agent named Jason Shurka. Rising above his tragic past full of shoulder injuries, Jason is making a name for himself in the world of Gaia-adjacent “whistleblowers”. Join us as we try to make sense of his c...
2022-11-231h 54The Nonsense Bazaar[Patreon Bonus Episode] The Corkboard Bizarre #6 - How To Join The IlluminatiThis is an unlocked episode from our bonus series on Patreon. In this episode we're talking about meeting flat earthers at a party deep behind enemy lines, getting strapped with paperback grimoires, a dolphin that grew up to be a fine British gentleman, a new social media site that will actually destroy your mind, and we start looking into maybe the weirdest scam we've ever found on the internet.
If you want more of this nonsense, you can get access for just $5 a month on our Patreon
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar
2022-11-171h 18
The Nonsense Bazaar82 - Leonhard, Togo, & The Great Race of Mercy Part II: The 1925 Serum Run to NomeThis week we're concluding the story of Leonhard Seppala, Togo, and the 1925 serum run to Nome with the story of the actual serum Run to Nome, Alaska. As Dr. Curtis Welch realizes Nome is completely unprepared for the epidemic of diphtheria, the town goes into hard quarantine, which is already entirely too late. A batch of antitoxin is found in Anchorage Alaska and is shipped by rail to Nenana, 674 miles east of Nome across the the Alaskan interior. From there a relay of the most hardboiled men and dogs who ever lived race against time, blizzards, and the coldest...
2022-11-161h 09
The Nonsense Bazaar81 - Leonhard, Togo, and the Great Race of Mercy Part I: Dog CountryIn January of 1925, an epidemic of diphtheria threatened to destroy the very small, very isolated town of Nome, Alaska. Diphtheria is straight up horrifying. And without any antitoxin and completely cut off from the rest of civilization, Nome's only hope was to transport diphtheria serum in a 674 mile relay by dogsled drivers through -80 degree temperatures, blizzards, and pounding winds in a matter of days. The team Nome relied on for the heaviest lifting on this relay was that of a 5'4" Norwegian immigrant named Leonhard Seppala and his 12 year old lead husky Togo, together the most legendary partnership...
2022-11-091h 16
The Nonsense Bazaar80 - Harriet Tubman: Psychic SpyWhat do you know about Harriet Tubman? You probably know she helped slaves flee the South, right? Something about a railroad? Did you know Harriet Tubman was a psychic spy, guided by conversations with God, engaging in actual hardcore espionage deep behind enemy lines? Traveling downriver leading militia units and lighting plantations on fire? Did you know that the CIA has a statue of Harriet Tubman as an example of a model spy? Probably not. Harriet Tubman is one of the coolest people in history. Unfortunately, the supernatural and spiritual side of Harriet Tubman's life has been completely washed...
2022-11-021h 26
The Nonsense Bazaar79 - Halloween Spooky Spectacular II: Tales From The Haunted ForestHappy Halloween! It's the spookiest time of the year so we figured we'd talk about the paranormal phenomenon we actually never talk about on our show, but which we have the most personal experiences with: ghosts! Or things that have been called ghosts! Whatever they are, we crack open some fine IPAs and tell some ghost stories, from our own lives and from the towns we grew up in. Including but not limited to: The Ram Tail Factory, Rhode Island's only officially haunted location (according to the government...sort of), the "Lost Village of Voices" (which may have spoke...
2022-10-261h 21
The Nonsense Bazaar78 - HAARPWe're taking it a bit easy this week and talking about the magical superweapon that will or already has destroyed the world and taken over your mind. And created every single weather event that has occurred since it was built in the early 90's. That's right we're talking about HAARP, or the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project, a big spooky machine in Alaska that has been a mainstay of conspiracy theories for its entire lifespan. But are those conspiracy theories justified? Well, maybe. Just not necessarily in the way most people might think. And while it certainly isn't the...
2022-10-191h 02
The Nonsense Bazaar77 - Mission RahmaFlying hamburgers! Flying bananas! Nerds in the jungle! Lots and lots of chanting! And more UFOs than you can shake a stick at! This week we're telling the story of the Rahma Mission, the Peruvian UFO movement/group/not-a-religion-but-verging-on-that-territory started by Sixto Paz Wells in 1974. Through automatic writing, Sixto made contact with the space-brothers on their mining base on Ganymede. The space-brothers told him and his friends where and when to walk off into the desert if they wanted to see some UFOs. And sure enough, the flying hamburgers showed up. In the years that followed, the group would...
2022-10-121h 41
The Nonsense Bazaar76 - The Saint Germain Foundation IIWell, we're back here again: the I AM Activity, Saint Germain, Mt Shasta, interdimensional vampires, Nazis, mind control, you know, that old chestnut. If you're not familiar with the The Nonsense Bazaar's Saint Germain lore, go back and listen to episodes 23, 24, and 52, otherwise this is going to make absolutely zero sense. If you are familiar, we're sorry but this needs to be done. As we know, the Saint Germain Foundation is the modern heir to the truly evil legacy left behind by Guy and Edna Ballard. We've been looking at the SGF for over a year now and wondering j...
2022-10-051h 24
The Nonsense Bazaar75 - NLP: Scumbag Magic That Works!This week we're talking about Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), the system of brain reprogramming that will allow you too to have a mind as clean and efficient as a hotel conference room in Miami circa 1986. It'll win you friends, lovers, cure every disease known to man, and evidently let you get away with murder. All without ever really developing a personality. NLP is, essentially, a system of magic, that came out of the Human Potential Movement of the 1970s. Developed by linguist John Grinder and psychology student/cocaine enthusiast Richard Bandler as the result of modeling the techniques used by...
2022-09-281h 34
The Nonsense Bazaar74 - John Murray Spear & The New Motive Power Part II: Heaven’s Last, Best, Most Perfect GiftThis week we’re concluding the story of John Murray Spear and the New Motive Power. What’s a New Motive Power, you ask? It’s a big ol’ pile of gizmos and gadgets meant to contain the life-animating power of God, a mechanical messiah to lead humanity into the golden age, complete with wires and knobs and pulsing balls. We pick up our tale as John Murray Spear has left his activist life behind for good and is now taking directions from the disembodied voice of Benjamin Franklin and the other members of the Association of Beneficients, a sort of s...
2022-09-211h 35
The Nonsense Bazaar73 - John Murray Spear & The New Motive Power Part I: Big JohnThis week we begin our look at a man named John Murray Spear, a 19th century Universalist preacher, abolitionist, prison reformer, and rabble rouser who worked himself into madness and left all that to build a mechanical golem to house the spirit of God with the help of the ghost of Ben Franklin. And many other dead founding fathers. But all that is next week. This week we learn about John Murray Spear's ceaseless efforts first on behalf of the abolition movement in the 1840's in which he personally gamed the legal system to secure the freedom of enslaved...
2022-09-141h 13
The Nonsense Bazaar72 - CCRU, Hyperstition, Nick Land, Accelerationism, and the Lemurian Time WarThis week we're taking a look and what happens when you mix theosophy with postmodernism, and philosophy with a diet of dried ramen noodles and amphetamine. CCRU was an experimental counter-culture literature club turned full occultist who discovered "hyperstitions", fictions that create a feedback loop which results in the actualization of the fictions into reality. They lose their minds in a firestorm of amphetamine psychosis and the absolute nonsense that is academic philosophy. The head of CCRU was a dude named Nick Land, the so-called father of accelerationism, a philosophy which advocates taking the breaks off capitalism and letting...
2022-09-071h 39
The Nonsense Bazaar71 - The Benadryl Episode: A Trip to EirielWould it alarm you to learn that in every medicine cabinet in America there lurks a powerful hallucinogenic drug? A drug in the same class of chemicals as datura and amanita muscaria mushrooms which not only sends the user into a bizarre and terrifying nightmare realm of shadow people and time loops, but causes a severe over reaction of the fight-or-flight response and removes your ability to calm yourself, and can cause kidney failure and early onset dementia? Would it further alarm you to know that this incredibly powerful and dangerous anticholinergic has seen recent popularity among the nation's...
2022-08-311h 39
The Nonsense Bazaar70 - C.W. Leadbeater Part III: The Star in the EastIt's the conclusion to the all-too-long life of C.W. Leadbeater. But somehow, the older Leadbeater and Annie Besant get the more ridiculous their lives become. In part III we meet young Jiddu Krishnamurti, who Leadbeater spied one day and decided was going to become the "World Teacher", a thing he and Besant had recently made up. There's so much nonsense in this episode. We've got Besant and Leadbeater stealing custody of Krishna and his brother from their father, Leadbeater faking hundreds of past lives for their followers (including some as monkeys on the moon), joining forces with a s...
2022-08-242h 06
The Nonsense Bazaar69 -C.W. Leadbeater Part II: A Few Good TheosophistsOn part II of our Leadbeater series, it's the most anticlimactic courtroom drama there's ever been! We pick up the story of Leadbeater's rise to become one of the most influential occultists of all time right after the death of HPB and we see how Leadbeater ingratiates himself with the new president of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant. We cover Leadbeater and Besant's "investigations" of "occult chemistry" and thought forms, Leadbeater's ridiculous travelogue of the astral plane (and what he found there), and how Leadbeater's relentless and constant speaking tours catapulted him to the theosophical spotlight and worldwide superstardom...
2022-08-171h 37
The Nonsense Bazaar68 - C.W. Leadbeater Part I: The Man Who Sold the WorldWell, we're doing it. This week we're starting a monster of a series on a real piece of work named C.W. Leadbeater, who is, unfortunately, one of the absolute most influential and important people in Western occultism and spirituality. Leadbeater was a theosophist, and after Helena Blavatsky's death became the most important theosophists and a global superstar. He invented aura reading, the color scheme for the chakras, turned the literary device of the "masters of ancient wisdom" into the superheroes that would become the "Ascended Masters". He completely upended Blavatsky's teachings, was one of the most manipulative, cold, a...
2022-08-101h 48
The Nonsense Bazaar67 - The Ummo AffairThis week we're looking at one of the stranger UFO hoaxes in history: the space people from the planet Ummo. Beginning in 1960s Spain, upwards to 6,700 people started receiving letters from entities alleging to be from a star system 14.6 lightyears from Earth. The aliens wrote of a history with more than a little resemblance to the history of Spain in the 20th century and told a familiar tale of a looming nuclear apocalypse. They even showed up in Spanish skies just long enough for one intrepid photographer to get some shots of their flying saucers, and they left behind...
2022-08-031h 14
The Nonsense Bazaar66 - Holiday in Ukraine with CodyAbout a week after the war in Ukraine broke out, our good friend Cody dropped everything, booked a flight to eastern Europe to volunteer as a paramedic, and spent the next four months as a medic in a special forces reconnaissance unit in eastern Ukraine. His qualifications were that he used to be a paramedic, is currently certified EMT Basic, and is one of the smartest and most truly insane people we have ever known. He did not, however, have prior military experience. We sat down three days after he got back so he could unload as much of...
2022-07-271h 59
The Nonsense Bazaar65 - Fae Encounters in the Modern WorldThis week we're taking a look at some modern fae folklore. And by modern folklore we mean bizarre and disturbing stories from the worst corners of the internet. But that's where you find the real gems. We take a look at a few encounters with something eerily similar to the gancanagh, the Irish "love-talking fairy," who takes on the appearance of whatever his victims will find most attractive, gets said victims to fall in love with him, and then leaves them in despair and madness when he goes to the store for a pack of smokes and never comes...
2022-07-201h 49
The Nonsense Bazaar64 - The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and FairiesThis week we're taking a look at a strange little book detailing the lore surrounding the fae folk of the Scottish Highlands. Written in 1692 by the reverend Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth is one of the earliest works in the same tradition as the work of John Keel and a whole host of other weirdos who put on their Sunday best, go traipsing around the sparsely populated hills and forests, and start asking questions they maybe shouldn't. What's really remarkable about The Secret Commonwealth is just how much of the fairy lore from Scotland in the 600's matches up...
2022-07-131h 04
The Nonsense Bazaar63 - The NineThis week we're once again diving into the realm of hyper-paranoia and New Age conspiracy theories as we tackle the strange and disturbing story of The Nine. In 1953 at the Round Table Foundation lab in Glen Cove, Maine, parapsychologist Dr Andrija Puharich, channeler D.G. Vinod, and eight members of America's oldest, wealthiest, and most intelligence-agency-connected families made psychic contact with an entity or group of entities known only as The Nine. These nine principals of God (as they called themselves) told the ultra-rich and ultra-spooky attendees that they were the new ruling class of this world, and that...
2022-07-061h 41
The Nonsense Bazaar62 - Written By Artificial IntelligenceWe're doing something weird this week. With all the talk about artificial intelligence these days,(whether or not it's sentient, whether or not it will kill us all, and so on) we decided to explore the most important question we could possibly be asking: can AI write a podcast?
AI Dungeon uses a variety of deep learning models to generate or assist in generating scenarios. So we fed it the scenario of "Willow and Sequoyah have an AI write a podcast episode for them." And, well, things get incredibly strange very quickly.
2022-06-291h 08
The Nonsense Bazaar61 - Interlude: The UFOs Are Driving Us InsaneThis week we're doing one of those episodes where we take a deep breath and try to unpack an absurd rabbit hole we fell down. And by deep breath we mean breathless ranting about conspiracy theories and absolutely massacring facts. See, after our psychic spy series we realized there's this whole insane and deeply disturbing web of lore behind the government's involvement with the paranormal. And not the surface level UFO lore either. It turns out that a ton of the people involved in the remote viewing program were involved in quite a lot of other things as well...
2022-06-221h 02
The Nonsense Bazaar60 - Bad Habits: Two True Stories of Twelfth Century NunsThis week we're taking the time machine back to the filthy land of Europe circa 1100 AD to tell a couple stories of that most entertaining class of characters: nuns. Or to put it a cooler way, the stories of two women, Christian mystics and "anchoresses" both, deep in one of the absolute worst times to be alive ever. First we talk about Christina of Markyate, whose mystic visions led her to flee from her abusive family's constant imposition of sin and debauchery on young Christina to join a convent. But first she just lives in some dude's wall for...
2022-06-151h 51
The Nonsense Bazaar59 - America’s Psychic Spies Part III: Goblin ModeIn the weird conclusion to the story of the remote viewers, we see how once the psychic program is a known quantity in the military and intelligence community, things get a bit silly. And very weird. Under the command of INSCOM's director Major General Albert Newton Stubblebine III, and under the magical tutelage of Ingo Swann, the program makes contact with a weird astral projection training center and sound lab in the blue ridge mountains called the Monroe Institute, which uses acoustics to induce trance states and out-of-body-experiences. It's all a bit much for some folks. We also learn...
2022-06-081h 54
The Nonsense Bazaar58 - America’s Psychic Spies Part II: Galactic BarbequeIt's part two of the bizarre story of American psychic spying. This week we learn about some of the actual operational remote viewing conducted by the second group of psychic spies at the Fort Meade army base in Maryland. From 1975 until the mid 1980s, the psychics at SRI and Fort Meade used the GRILL FLAME remote viewers when there was actual stakes on on the line. Or steaks on the grill, if you prefer. We learn about Joe McMoneagle, who would take up Pat Price's mantle as the super-psychic in the program and was awarded the Legion of Merit...
2022-06-011h 25
The Nonsense Bazaar57 - America’s Psychic Spies Part I: CIA ManThis week we're starting our series on the strange, absurd, and true story of Project Star Gate, the C.I.A. and D.I.A. program utilizing "remote viewers" AKA psychic spies which , lasted from 1972 until 1993 under various names and with varying levels of usefulness. Often written off as "that time the C.I.A tried to use psychics", in reality the remote viewing programs had many years of incredible successes and produced some of the weirdest tales of high strangeness we've ever heard. In part one we focus on the genesis of the program at Stanford Research Institute...
2022-05-251h 45
The Nonsense Bazaar56 - Project Monarch Part II: Uncle Sam’s Snuff FactoryOn part II of Project Monarch we learn about the man from whose dumb noggin this whole CIA sex slave nonsense sprang: Fritz Springmeir, a wannabe Christian terrorist and all around piece-of-work. Fritz is anouther one who claims to be an ex-intelligence agent now deprogramming Monarch slaves, and even published a helpful manual outlining just how the mind control programming works. We also see how another real winner named David Icke helped perpetuate the Project Monarch meme. So if you were wondering if the lizard people have anything to do with this, they certainly do. We then check in...
2022-05-181h 21
The Nonsense Bazaar55 - Project Monarch Part I: Uncle Ronnie’s Bedtime StoriesThis one's a doozy, folks. We begin our look at the alleged mind controlled sex slaves of "Project Monarch" by digging in to Cathy O'Brien's book Trance Formation in America, co-authored with her husband Mark Phillips. Cathy alleges that, with the hypnotic help of her husband Mark, she recovered memories of her time in an MK ULTRA subproject in which she was turned in a mind controlled sex slave and victimized by lots and lots of presidents and forced to put American flags in all sorts of places. It's a bit ridiculous. Ok it's extremely ridiculous. But maybe this r...
2022-05-111h 31
The Nonsense Bazaar54 - The Black Knight SatelliteRight now there is an object of unknown extraterrestrial origin in polar orbit around Earth transmitting signals to somewhere, something else. It's called the Black Knight satellite and it's been watching us for 13,000 years. Or so you'd be led to believe if you hung out in the same dumb places on the internet that we do. The Black Knight is some of the lowest hanging fruit of UFO conspiracy theories, but it's also truly weird. See, the Black Knight is an example of truly emergent folklore. It doesn't come from one place and no one has a good answer...
2022-05-041h 13
The Nonsense Bazaar53 - Project ChameleoHave you ever thought that your neighbors might be acting a little stranger than normal? That your house suddenly appeared bigger on the inside than the outside? That invisible dwarves were following you on your madcap escape from various intelligence agencies out to ruin your life, specifically? Well you might, unfortunately, be entirely correct. This week we're looking at Robert Guffey's book Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security, an entirely bizarre and perhaps completely accurate account of what happens when the military industrial complex decides to test out their fancy new fut...
2022-04-271h 25
The Nonsense Bazaar52 - The Saint Germain FoundationIt's time to catch up with our favorite villainous magicians. Between 1934 and 1939 Guy and Edna Ballard brainwashed and robbed blind upwards to a million Americans through the "'I AM' Religious Activity" using hypnosis, parlor tricks, force of will, and a bunch of members of William Dudley Pelley's Silver Legion - the most successful American Nazi organization - with the stated goal of overthrowing the government and installing Guy Ballard as ruler of America in Saint Germain's "Seventh Golden Age". The teachings of the I AM Activity are some of the primary influences on both New Age spirituality (twin flames...
2022-04-201h 44
The Nonsense Bazaar51 - Ted Rice & The Occupants of Interplanetary CraftThis week we're bringing you a classic tale of aliens guiding a man named Ted Rice on his life's journey from rising in the ranks as a young professional at an exclusive Idaho resort to living in a trailer in Shreveport, Louisiana with a cat named grandma and yelling at lizard people. Ted Rice was a UFO experiencer since childhood, but coming from a psychic and spiritualist paradigm Ted didn't realize he might be dealing with aliens until much later in life with the help of his new age book club and a hypnotherapist named Barbara Bartholic. And if...
2022-04-132h 30
The Nonsense Bazaar50 - Aleksandr Dugin and Traditionalism But it’s a Tribute to The Big LebowskiAre evil Nazi wizards running the world? No. Are a bunch of scumbag fascist occultists in positions of power trying to run the world? You betcha. This week we look at Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes referred to as "Putin's Rasputin", as well as a few other greasy occultists in positions of power such as Steve Bannon (seriously, dude describes himself as a mystic), Olavo De Carvalho, and Julius Evola. All of these terrible people fall under the philosophical banner of a confusing and stupid authoritarian philosophy called Traditionalism, and Dugin, Bannon, and Carvalho were or are senior advisors to incredibly...
2022-04-061h 32
The Nonsense Bazaar49 - The Oneida Community Part III: Whoops, We’re a Sex CultConcluding our series on the Oneida Community we finally find John Humphrey Noyes and the rest of all those sexy bible "communists" moving to Oneida, New York and setting up their utopian estate. Or is it a corporation? Or is it a sex cult? Whatever it is (definitely a sex cult), things go off the rails. With early eugenics experiments, the ghoulish worship of capitalism and money, trying to erase the concepts of romantic love and families, and glorifying sex while heavily regulating it (all sexual "interviews" had to be approved by committee and recorded in a weird book...
2022-03-301h 28
The Nonsense Bazaar48 - The Oneida Community Part II: Like Sand Through The HourglassIt's an 1840's Quaker soap opera as we continue the story of the Oneida Community, the free love endorsin', romantic love despisin', silverware makin' (eventually, we promise, there will be forks) Perfectionist sex cult. This week we're taking a look at the small sexually repressed dramas of the members of John Noyes' Putney Community, the trial run for what would eventually turn into a capitalist nightmare and what sounds like the worst place in the world, and how they tried to navigate human relations with dignity and honesty (really though, they gave it a solid try) before being run...
2022-03-231h 25
The Nonsense Bazaar47 - The Oneida Community Part I: Free Love and Bible CommunismHave you ever wondered where your forks come from? Ever suspect they might come from a polyamorous, religious utopian commune in the mid 1800's? Or that your silverware might be the remaining legacy of hundred of self-described "Bible Communists" and their weird attempt at a nineteenth century Methodist sexual revolution through something called "complex marriage"? Probably not, right? Well if you've ever used Oneida silverware, that's exactly where tit came from. In Part I we look at the early life of John Humphrey Noyes, and how a bad breakup led him to starting a utopian community of "Perfectionists" which...
2022-03-161h 29
The Nonsense BazaarThe State of The Union Bizarre 2022Just what exactly are we doing here? What is this? Who are we? Where have we been? And where are we going? This week we're taking a pause, taking a deep breath between two big miniseries to reflect on the weird world we've inadvertently found ourselves in, ponder the meaning of life and The Spooky, fill you all in on the investigations that have been happening under the radar, and to illuminate where we see The Nonsense Bazaar going from here. Where might that be? To the stars, through hardship and through poop jokes.
2022-03-091h 48
The Nonsense Bazaar45 - Jack Parsons Part IV: Ad Astra, Per Aspera (To The Stars, Through Hardship)Concluding our look at the life of rocket scientist, occultist, and fascinating human being Jack Parsons, this week we see Jack actually summon a storm to deal with L. Ron Hubbard from a cheap Miami hotel room, writing one of the best essays on spiritual and political liberty that has ever been written, (briefly) declaring himself the anti-christ, and developing a new philosophy and magickal system in close collaboration with his wife Marjorie Cameron. And we learn about Jack Parson's truly tragic end in an explosion in Pasadena and the undeniable legacy he left behind.
2022-03-021h 49
The Nonsense Bazaar44 - Jack Parsons Part III: BABALONIn part three of our Jack Parsons series we find Jack kicked out of both Aerojet and JPL and turning to what every red-blooded American man turns to in times of crisis: ritual magick. Jack's life is further complicated by the arrival of a smooth talking sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard who quickly becomes jacks closest associate and most bitter rival. He'll also completely ruin Jack Parson's life, very, very quickly. So they do what any two red blooded Americans do: months of intense ritual magick for the purpose of incarnating on Earth the goddess Babalon, mother of...
2022-02-231h 32
The Nonsense Bazaar43 - Jack Parsons Part II: IO PAN!Continuing the saga of John Whiteside Parsons (AKA Jack), this week we see Jack and the rest of the suicide squad get their bonafides as the first official, government funded rocket research group in the USA and found both the Aerojet Corporation and Jet Propulsion Laboratories at Caltech. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Jack and Helen Parsons are officially inducted into the world of magick as Frater T.O.P.A.N. and Soror Grimaud (respectively) in the Agape Lodge of Ordo Templi Orientis. We also meet the ice cream eatin', cartoon reviewin' Great Beast 666 himself: Aleister Crowley. And...
2022-02-161h 54
The Nonsense Bazaar42 - Jack Parsons Part I: The Suicide SquadPioneering rocket engineer, founder of Jet Propulsion Laboratories, occultist, and disciple of Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons is one of the most fascinating, compelling, and misunderstood counter-culture figures of the 20th century. Over the next four weeks, we're going to be taking a deep dive into the incredible, strange, often hilarious, and tragic life of John Whiteside Parsons. In part I we learn about Jack's early life in Pasadena, blowing up rockets in the desert with fellow miscreants and maniacs Ed Forman and Frank Malina and how, despite Jack and Ed not having college degrees and despite rocketry being considered...
2022-02-091h 58
The Nonsense Bazaar41 - Dimensional Breach in the Paris CatacombsIn 2020, a person armed with a flashlight, 4 cans of beans, two bottles of water, a bandolier of vials containing turpentine, blood, and holy water, and no extra batteries allegedly entered the Catacombs of Paris to seal a "dimensional breach" they were led to believe was the source of all the world's misery as well as the voices in their head. They were never heard from again. This week, we're putting on our detective caps and looking into the story of Reddit user u/snappedfingers and the dimensional breach beneath Paris. Is it just some troll's creative writing project? Or...
2022-02-021h 40
The Nonsense Bazaar40 - Harry Horse and Drowned God Part III: A Conversation With a Man in a Gray SuitWay back on episode 10, when we were but babes in the woods, we covered a dude named Harry Horse and the ultra-weird pan-conspiracy adventure game he designed called Drowned God. That story has not gone away, and in fact has only gotten stranger. On this episode, the first of our likely recurring follow-ups, we're joined by friend of the pod, Drowned God expert, and absolutely lovely human being Joseph, AKA Mr. MIGS, to talk about all the things we missed in the game, correspondence he had with Harry Horse detailing the production problems and why the game is unfinished...
2022-01-261h 43
The Nonsense Bazaar39 - Eckankar Part II: The KlempdownThis week we look at the inspiring story of a man who went from stripping naked in an airport and battling demons in a psych ward to becoming not just a living Eck Master, but the last living Eck Master: Sri Harold Klemp, the current leader of Eckankar. According to former members, Klemp spends his days astral projecting himself to the other side of the world to conjure shadow demons and cause poor former eckists to poop their pants while they sleep. Nothing about that is an exaggeration, this one gets kind of weird. At the very least we l...
2022-01-191h 40
The Nonsense Bazaar38 - Eckankar part I: If it Walks Like a DuckThis week we're bringing you spaghetti fights, country music, diarrhea curses, and corn-fed masters as we jump back into the world of American New Age religions and begin our look at Eckankar, which boasted tens of thousands of adherents in its heyday and continues to exist. While Eckankar shares quite a few similarities with some other groups we've covered, it's a bit different. They have Eck Masters, you see. Not ascended masters, Eck masters. And in fact they even have a living Eck Master. On the surface, they seem to be pretty innocuous and just kind of goofy, and...
2022-01-121h 24
The Nonsense Bazaar#37 - The Shaver MysteryIn 1945, Amazing Stories editor Ray Palmer shocked the young world of science fiction by publishing the totally, completely, 100%, absolutely-no-foolin' true story I Remember Lemuria! by the unknown author Richard Sharpe Shaver. The story was allegedly a past life recollection of one Mu-tan Mion, a citizen of the ancient Lemurian civilization some 12,000 years ago. I Remember Lemuria! told of ancient, wise titans, sexy fawn hybrid humanoids, magical "rays", and a mutated, evil race of underground goblins called the "Dero" who, even now, keep humanity imprisoned around a dying, poisonous sun. It was a hit. Soon every issue of Amazing Stories had a...
2022-01-051h 53
The Nonsense Bazaar36 - Journal of an Alien Abductee; or, The Iniquity of Doctor JacobsThis week we're taking a look at a currently unfolding modern day alien abduction case. AJ is a young woman experiencing "classic" symptoms of alien abduction and currently posting about it on Gab. So we made some burner accounts and got the scoop. While it's clear that AJ has certainly experienced something horrible, what's even more frightening is the "support structure" she's found herself surrounded by. A support structure which has her wearing a chastity belt, a leather motorcycle hat, and stilettos to bed to fend off the aliens trying to make AJ a part of their secret ongoing...
2021-12-292h 04
The Nonsense Bazaar35 - Indrid ColdIn November of 1967, on a dark and rainy night night on Route 77 in West Virginia, traveling salesman Woodrow Derenberger had an encounter with a UFO and the odd, overly friendly pilot of said UFO. A man named Indrid Cold. Reported as a side story in John Keel's now legendary book The Mothman Prophecies, which chronicled all the high strangeness happening in West Virginia in those days, the legend of Indrid Cold has taken on a life of its own. And for good reason.
In this episode we focus on Woodrow Derenberger's own book Visitors From Lanulos, which is...
2021-12-151h 37
The Nonsense Bazaar34 - Alien Love BitesHave you ever had a romance that seemed almost fated, where supernatural events and strange occurrences led up to your meeting? As if some force beyond human comprehension was directing events, from those first butterflies in your stomach to the inevitable heartbreak? Maybe it's not your fault, and maybe you aren't a failure as a person and a lover. Maybe it's aliens.
This week we're taking a look at two books by therapist Eve Lorgen: Alien Love Bites and the follow-up The Dark Side of Cupid. Despite the easy jokes, Lorgen is a discerning researcher who's spent deca...
2021-12-081h 52
The Nonsense Bazaar33 - Havana SyndromeThis week we're taking a look at the mysterious phenomenon known as "Havana syndrome." In 2016 a group of American diplomats in Havana, Cuba reported the sudden onset of debilitating physical symptoms accompanied by a loud, metallic buzzing sound. Later Canadian diplomats would experience the same thing. Now, there have been hundreds of reports of Havana syndrome all over the world, including Washington, D.C. While initially reported as "sonic attacks", in years since it seems that no one can agree on what it is. Theories range from microwave espionage devices, pesticides, mass-hallucination, and crickets. So what is it? (It's...
2021-12-011h 13
The Nonsense Bazaar32 - The Case of the Psychic CatfishThis week we're looking at one of the flat-out weirdest things we've ever come across. A 2016 episode of MTV's "Catfish". A Kentucky woman named Kayla is contacted by a woman in Florida who says she's been having regular conversations with Kayla's father. The problem is, Kayla's father has been dead for years and the events surrounding his death are absolutely grisly. You probably think you have this one figured out already, don't you? That's what we thought too. That's what everyone thinks. You don't have this one figured out. Is it a complicated multi-year scam where the only person w...
2021-11-241h 16
The Nonsense Bazaar31 - NESARA: Saint Germain‘s Infinite Money Cheat CodeTo bid farewell to the ascended masters, we're talking about the dumbest, largest, and most terrifyingly prevalent conspiracy theory we've ever heard of: NESARA/GESARA and Saint Germain's World Trust. Combining masters, space saviors, aliens, 9/11, financial scams, and complete ignorance of what numbers are, the NESARA conspiracy theory alleges that a bill was passed in secret in 2001 which, among other things, outlaws all debt, income tax and the United States Government as a whole, sends lawyers to re-education camps, and makes all the good people of the world (read that as you will) multi-millionaires thanks to the "world trust"...
2021-11-171h 53
The Nonsense Bazaar30 - Da Vid Raphael & The Light Party: A Case StudyThis week we're taking a look at one of America's great traditions: the write-in presidential candidate. In this case, it's five-time presidential write-in candidate for The Light Party Da Vid Raphael, the Limberbutt McCubbins of the Ascended Master Teachings. Based out of San Francisco, Da Vid Raphael MD (AKA Dolph Bruce Ornstein) runs on a platform of ascension, "wholistic healing," turning Alcatraz into a "global peace center", and a public TV channel for something called "Artainment" where he just mashes up music with weird madness-inducing visuals. Also, the MD stands for music doctor. Although he did drop out of...
2021-11-101h 28
The Nonsense Bazaar29 - The Ashtar CommandIn 1977, a mysterious voice took over the TV news broadcast across southern England. This voice claimed to be Vrilon of the Ashtar Command, a group of higher dimensional beings which include Lord Sananda (space Jesus) and Ashtar Sheran, and serve as the "Airborne Division of the Great White Brotherhood." Yep. But this wasn't the first time the world met the Ashtar Command or the space brothers. It wasn't even the first broadcast the Ashtar Command interrupted. In this episode we trace the history of the Ashtar Command, the sexy space heroes you channel if you're too groovy for the...
2021-11-031h 46The Nonsense Bazaar28 - The Halloween Spooky SpectacularIt's Halloween! We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming to have some fun and do some weird stuff. On this episode we take a look at a collection of internet rituals for the sole purpose of making weird stuff happen, Willow legitimately hypnotizes Sequoyah, and we crack open an ancient grimoire of black magic and try to discern whether we've grown more or less hardboiled as a species. Enjoy!
2021-10-271h 54
The Nonsense Bazaar27 - The Ascended Masters Inquisition: Interlude (That New Sound You‘ve Been Looking For)While The "I AM" Activity and Church Universal and Triumphant are the leviathans of the Ascended Master Teachings, there are a whole host of others who have done their part in spreading this memetic virus: The Bridge to Spiritual Freedom, Peter Mt Shasta, Lady Master Pearl, The Hearts Center Community and a whole lot more. But the old funeral home vibe of the original Ascended Masters Teachings just doesn't cut it any more, it needs a brand new groove. Something neon colored, something futuristic, something....cosmic. So we're putting the old folks to bed and giving an intro to...
2021-10-201h 19
The Nonsense Bazaar26 - Church Universal and Triumphant Part II: Guru Ma‘s Nuclear SleepoverIn the conclusion to our series on Church Universal and Triumphant, Elizabeth Clare Prophet suddenly in control of the organization after the sudden death of Mark Prophet (now known as ascended master Lanello). Changing their name from Summit Lighthouse to Church Universal and Triumphant (it's a tax evasion thing), CUT only grows bigger, more influential, and more dangerous as Elizabeth struggles with the realities of inheriting someone else's cult as a true believer. This, of course, leads to the purchase of a 12,000 acre ranch in Montana, the stockpiling of guns and ammunition, and building an enormous fallout shelter to...
2021-10-132h 19
The Nonsense Bazaar25 - Church Universal and Triumphant Part I: A Tale of Two ProphetsThis week we're starting the tale of Church Universal and Triumphant AKA Summit Lighthouse and Mark Lyle Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the next two goobers to take up the mantle of Accredited Messengers of the Ascended Masters. Reaching a moderate level of fame in 1990 for stockpiling guns and hiding in poorly constructed bomb shelters in Montana, Church Universal and Triumphant's story is much deeper and weirder than all that. In part one, we learn about how plain talkin' chowderhead Mark Prophet met Ascended Master El Morya, founded Summit Lighthouse, and came into holy matrimony with his "twin ray"...
2021-10-061h 47
The Nonsense Bazaar24 - The ”I AM” Activity Part II: Death Blasts Over The White HouseIt's the bizarre and disturbing conclusion to our series on the "I AM" Activity and the Accredited Messengers Guy and Edna Ballard. It's crescendo of money, madness, masters, and mind control as Guy and Edna wrap their almost one million followers in blankets of total fear and paranoia and set out on their goal of establishing Saint Germain's New Government in America. We learn about Ascension, the "golden particle accelerator chair", a whole rotten slew of new Ascended Masters (and "Lady Masters" too!), the white tuxedo-wearing militant group of bodyguards called the "Minutemen", and ritual assassination magic as the "...
2021-09-292h 09The Nonsense Bazaar23 -The I AM Activity Part 1: Saint Germain‘s Cup of CreamWe begin our look at Guy and Edna Ballard and the I AM Activity who coined the term "Ascended Master" and, although only active for the last half of the 1930's, gained upwards to a million followers, made tens of millions of dollars, and drove their followers insane with a technicolor barrage of paranoia and easy, meaningless answers to life's hardest questions. Oh yeah, they were also literal fascists whose stated goal was to overthrow the United States Government. And you've probably never heard of them. In part one, we look at the early life of Guy (AKA Godfre...
2021-09-221h 23
The Nonsense Bazaar22 - The Ascended Masters, An Inquisition Part 0: PreludeHave you ever heard of the ascended masters? How about angel numbers, ascension, or the violet flame? Has some creep ever told you they're your "twin flame"? Has Saint Germain ever offered you a cup of his golden cream? This week we're introducing a multi-series saga exploring the history of the "Ascended Master Teachings" AKA the I AM movement, an off-shoot of Theosophy which has spawned countless cults, flim-flammers, psychic Nazis, and successful YouTubers making cricket sounds to channel extraterrestrial intelligences. The extremely strange thing about all of this is that no one seems to know that it comes...
2021-09-151h 16The Nonsense Bazaar21 - Connor MurphyWe take a look at the strange, strange trajectory on which a young man named Connor Murphy is currently hurling himself. After becoming a genuine sensation on YouTube for his bodybuilding videos and videos where he takes his shirt off at girls, Connor lost his gains and found a taste for psychedelics and performance art. Shifting into the oh-so-hot sphere of YouTube spirituality, Connor now identifies as God is making some of the weirdest stuff on the internet while he tries to teach the world some valuable spiritual lessons. According to the bizarre world of internet bodybuilders, the boy...
2021-09-081h 38
The Nonsense Bazaar20 -The Count of St. GermainWe look into the life, afterlife, and after-afterlife of one of the great weirdos of history: the Count of St. Germain. Known only by this title, the mysterious count was a staple of the royal courts of Europe during the 1700s. Seemingly never aging, with no real name, he was known in the court of Louis XV as an alchemist, mystic, philosopher, violinist, composer, diplomat, and spy. Contemporaries said he claimed himself to be 500 years old, and after his death some documents claim that he showed up to warn Marie Antoinette of the coming French revolution. Then theosophy and...
2021-09-011h 38The Nonsense Bazaar19 - The Lacerta FilesIt's time for reptilians, the secret history of the world, and what really happened to the dinosaurs! This week we're looking at the "Lacerta Files", a recently re-surfaced series of interviews from 1999 between one intrepid Swede and a...sexy reptilian who calls herself Lacerta whose species lives inside the Earth. Recently gaining a following on the internet it never had when it was released, the Lacerta Files (allegedly) teach us about other lizard people, raccoon people, white people people, and the history of the human race they don't teach in schools.
2021-08-251h 26The Nonsense Bazaar18 - John McAfee Part II: Death and Taxes; or, Freedom is a Two-Edged SwordThe conclusion to the John McAfee saga. In this episode we cover John's escape from Belize and the remaining eight years of his life including meeting his wife Janice, John's two presidential campaigns, his escape from the tax man to Cuba and international waters, and the last eight months of his life imprisoned in a Spanish jail. We hear a lot more from the man himself this week and maybe I've been brainwashed, but this one is surprisingly moving. Cheers to one of the most human humans who has ever lived. John McAfee was both the best and the...
2021-08-181h 55The Nonsense Bazaar17 - John McAfee Part I: Meditations on Love and VanityThis week, we begin our look at the life of John McAfee. Brilliant computer programmer, international fugitive, two-time-presidential candidate, and powerful wizard, John McAfee's life was truly the stuff of legends. In the first part of our series ,we cover the bulk of John's life from his early years through the creation of McAfee Antivirus, and his absolutely insane misadventures down in Belize. There's drugs, there's guns, there's a clandestine jungle laboratory, and a whole lot of nonsense. Enjoy!
2021-08-112h 05The Nonsense Bazaar16 - Upton Sinclair's Nonsense HourUpton Sinclair was one of the first "muckraking" journalists of the 20th century. But we're not really talking about that part. Instead we're mostly focusing on Mental Radio, a book detailing Upton and his wife, Mary's investigations into psychic phenomena and a Polish rabbit-hypnotizing wizard named Jan. We also take a look at the artist commune Sinclair set up to get other people to raise his kid, and his bid for the governorship of California in which his opponent produced the some of the first fake news attack ads, still ripping western civilization to shreds after all these years.
2021-08-041h 36The Nonsense Bazaar15 - Neville GoddardThis week we learn about Neville Goddard, the Mad Mystic of 48th street, who lectured mid-20th century on the power of "mental causation" and the God of the Christian Bible being nothing more than an extended metaphor for your own wonderful, human imagination. Also you're the only thing that exists and you made all of this up by imagining it. Have fun with that burden.
2021-07-2858 minThe Nonsense Bazaar14 - Blood Over Intent Part 2: The Gift of The MadgyIn the thrilling conclusion of Blood Over Intent, Willow gets brainwashed and Sequoyah meets his arch-nemesis. Who is the Grey Magician? What's he doing buying a compound? Do unkempt beards give you magic powers? Why does Satan himself suddenly feel like the good guy? And what are the excellent benefits of eating poop? All of these questions and more will go entirely unanswered as we crash headfirst into the spiritual dead-end of the 21st century.
2021-07-211h 18The Nonsense Bazaar13 - Blood Over Intent Part 1: I Am Satan HimselfWe take a peek into one of the weirder corners of the internet and learn about a modern religious movement with thousands of adherents based around using blood magic to bring heaven on Earth and escape the flat disc we all live on (yep it's one of those) by journeying to the North Pole. Founded unceremoniously with a 2013 Youtube video posted by Florida-based plumber Mark Braun, AKA Satan himself, this is one of the weirdest and most ridiculous currents of belief that you have never heard of.
2021-07-141h 15The Nonsense Bazaar12 - Project Blue BeamOh you're into UFOs, huh? What if we told you that it's all smoke and mirrors, a grand illusion dreamt up by those dirty hippies that run the United Nations to usher in the technological antichrist and assume total control of your inner and outer worlds? Microchipped birds, fake religious revelations, and mind control via common household appliances - welcome to the terrifying, hyper-paranoid mind of the crusadin' Quebecois Serge Monast and his classic conspiracy pamphlet NASA's Project Blue Beam.
2021-07-071h 20The Nonsense Bazaar11 - Harry Horse and Drowned God Part 2: The Drowned GodWe talk about our experience playing as much as we possibly could have of Harry Horse's (in)famous point-and-click adventure game from 1996. We went to weird Stonehenge, spun a couple weird clocks, and met the most infuriating, utterly, worthless drunk sack of bones who ever called himself a Templar Knight. All in all, well, it sure is something. The grab-bag of conspiracy and generally spooky references lead us to a deeper conversation regarding Harry Horse's art, his mindset, and the larger cultural phenomena of conspiracy theories and pathological dot-connecting.
2021-06-301h 21The Nonsense Bazaar10 - Harry Horse and Drowned God Part I: The Life and Death of a PranksterThe point-and-click adventure game Drowned God was released in 1996. Fusing seemingly every conspiracy theory ever invented and the arcane secrets of numerology, tarot, and kabbalah, Drowned God stood out from its contemporaries (other point-and-clicks like Myst and The 7th Guest) simply because of how strange it was. In part one, we look at the surreal and tragic life of Drowned God's creator, the gifted artist, musician, and prankster Richard Horne, AKA Harry Horse. From his early years as a banjo player in the bluegrass punk band Swamptrash, through his career as a children's book author and illustrator, manuscript forger...
2021-06-231h 33The Nonsense Bazaar09 - The Demonic Magic of Solomon The KingThe Ars Goetia of the Lesser Key of Solomon is one of the most famous, or infamous, books of so-called "black magic" in history, providing instructions to those would-be conjurors who would attempt to summon demons to do their bidding. But what exactly are the entities known as the goetic demons? Are demons real? Where does the Lesser Key of Solomon come from, and does it actually have anything at all to do with King Solomon? Where do you find a magic worm to do your masonry work for you? All this and more as we take our first...
2021-06-161h 26The Nonsense Bazaar08 - We Might Have Talked to GhostsAfter learning about a dude who uses "A.I. assisted noise reduction software" to talk to spirits through white and pink noise, we decided to give it a try ourselves. So we took a field trip to Rhode Island's officially haunted patch of woods (as recorded in the 1885 census) the "Ramtail Factory" and interrogated a river. There's definitely some incredibly weird stuff in the recordings. But were we talking to spirits or just losing our minds and yelling at water? That, dear listener, is for you to decide.
Sequoyah's video on the history of the R...
2021-06-091h 07The Nonsense Bazaar07 - Reality TV 2: It's Worse Than You ThoughtWe take a look at a collection of strange, short, and horrible stories: a cult leader is found mummified in colloidal silver and tequila, a scientologist job posting for a nanny is as bizarre as you hope it is, and people are being scammed by fake Keanu Reeves. We also take a longer look at the religious fundamentalism and culture of repression that made Josh Duggar (from that show about having way too many kids) a straight up monster and how TLC just doesn't seem to notice or care.
2021-06-021h 38The Nonsense Bazaar06 - The Gateway ExperienceA mysterious declassified document on the CIA website details the government's investigation of The Monroe Institute's "Gateway Experience" program which purports to teach methods of astral projection, remote viewing, and "patterning" one's reality. Along the way Lieutenant Colonel Wayne C. McDonnell accidently explains how the whole universe works. Army Intelligence's conclusion? Yep, it's all real. The Nonsense Bazaar's conclusion? There's something weird going on here.
2021-05-261h 06The Nonsense BazaarEp 05 Honora BowenWe all know reality television is bad for the audience's brains, but what about the contestants themselves? In this episode, Willow brings in the untold story of one of the most notorious "villains" in reality television history and how the producers of "Naked and Afraid" created a character and reality that simply does not exist, yet which the real Honora Bowen can't escape.
2021-05-191h 44The Nonsense BazaarEp 04 Biosphere Two Part II - Ecological ThingIn the conclusion of our series on Biosphere two, we meet the eight people who lived inside the biosphere for two years during "mission one" and look at the absurd (and completely avoidable) struggles they faced inside, money-man Ed Bass realizes John Allen might not know what he's talking about, and Steve Bannon LARPs as a Navy SEAL.
2021-05-121h 32The Nonsense BazaarEp 03 Biosphere Two Part I—A Johnny Dolphin ProductionWe begin our dive into the truly bizarre story of Biosphere 2, a three-acre mini-Earth in which eight theater nerds sealed themselves for two years in the early 90's. It didn't go great. While you may have heard of Biosphere 2, it's a solid bet that you've only heard one side of the story.
In part one we look at the man behind Biosphere 2, the so-called genius John Allen (also known by his pen-name as Johnny Dolphin), his commune Synergia Ranch, and how they song-and-danced their way into the hundreds of millions of dollars they used to build the...
2021-05-051h 45The Nonsense BazaarEp 02 Procter & Gamble & Satan & UWe take a look into one of the more ridiculous sagas of the "Satanic Panic" in which swaths of scared Christians somehow became convinced that the CEO of Procter and Gamble pledged eternal allegiance to Satan on a secret episode of the Phil Donahue show.
2021-04-281h 15The Nonsense BazaarEp 01—The Pais EffectSequoyah and Willow look into the strange and stupid saga of the bizarre "UFO" patents filed by the Navy between 2016 and 2020 that purport to show operable UFO-like vehicles and technology which defy the laws of physics.
Check out the reporting done by Brett Tingley and Tyler Rogoway for TheDrive.com here:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31798/the-secretive-inventor-of-the-navys-bizarre-ufo-patents-finally-talks
2021-04-2151 min