Share
The Paranoid Strain
Reality is an Illusion? Part 2, Philip K Dick
Sorry about the delay, but we’re very pleased to present you, via our brand new podcast feed (which should, from your perspective, be completely indistinguishable from our original feed), the second half of our reality episode. This time, we’re orienting our discussion around the singular perspective of one of the most interesting and influential writers of the 20th century, Philip K Dick. You may know him as the Blade Runner guy, or the Total Recall guy, or just the guy who gets (rightly) credited with inspiring basically every good sci-fi idea you’ve ever heard of. But it turns out that Phil was a strange and fascinating dude, a man who believed the universe’s greatest secrets had been revealed to him in a bolt of pink light, and who then spent the rest of his life figuring out what the hell that light was trying to tell him. In the process of explaining his life and works, we’ll also incidentally delve into gnostic christianity, the modern theory of consciousness, and the work of some other super-influential, similarly mind-expanding writers. Hope you enjoy it. And if you do, let us know at theparanoidstrain at gmail dot com.
Bibliography:
Philip K Dick books referenced in the episode:
Other books and such:
- Divine invasions, A Life of Philip K Dick, by Lawrence Sutin
- Science Fiction: A Hopeless Case, With Exceptions, by Stanislaw Lem
- Beginner’s Guide to Reality, by James Baggott
- What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, by Thomas Nagel
- V.S. Ramachandran:
- Great Courses: Gnosticism, by David Brakke
More episodes
View all episodes
63. New! Unidentified--UFOs as Jungian archetype
39:27||Season 6, Ep. 63We're finished with the mirage men, and now we'll spend a few episodes considering what it all means, you know? And by "it all", I mean "UFOs". We'll start with one of the first books published about UFOs by a major cultural figure. Carl Jung's Flying Saucers--A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky was first published in 1957, at the height of the first UFO craze. He has some interesting things to say, and also a bunch of cranky diatribes and paeans to nonsense, so we'll have a nice time taking a closer look.
62. New! Unidentified--The translator spills the beans on CIA "UFOs"
30:27||Season 6, Ep. 62Thanks to our interviewee Tanner Boyle, we wrap up the story of the fascinating Mr. Nedelcovic and the CIA mission that may have turned into the first modern alien abduction story. Next time, we get philosophical.DON'T MISS: I was a guest on this excellent video--watch it, and I encourage you to subscribe. It's a great channel: Mirage Men - The Real UFO Coverup (it's not what you think)
61. New! Unidentified--The CIA, the Translator, and the first modern abduction
35:04||Season 6, Ep. 61For this episode and the next, we're covering a story I thought we were going to skip. But then, I found out that a very mysterious figure may, way back in the 1970s, have explained this even older story in a way that can shed light on the full extent of CIA-funded UFO fuckery, well beyond the borders of the U.S. Featuring a fantastic interview with perhaps the world's foremost expert on Bosco Nedelcovic. What more could you want? (I promise this will all make sense shortly).
60. New! Unidentified--Project Serpo is disinformation, but can we blame Doty?
31:43||Season 6, Ep. 60As we keep peeling away the many lies of Richard Doty and his Air Force handlers, we come to Project Serpo, a wild and essentially unbelievable story that nonetheless riled up the UFO world in the 2000s. Was Doty behind it? Hart to be sure, but the evidence seems strong.
59. New! Unidentified--The disinformation agent versus Art Bell
41:51||Season 6, Ep. 59In an event that, for our tastes, amounts to Richard Doty's disinformation chocolate landing in Art Bell's kingdom of weirdness peanut butter, we dive deep on a 2005 episode of Coast to Coast AM where the supposedly former disinformation agent faces the music under the intermittently pointed questioning of the normally gregarious host. Next time, we wrap Mirage Men with more evidence that (all? most? a great deal) of the key events of UFOs in the Cold War period were deliberately engineered by government agents.
58. New! Unidentified--How the military destroyed Paul Bennewitz's sanity
34:37||Season 6, Ep. 58We continue our quest to learn how and why the air force's intelligence agents--specifically one Richard Doty--fed the UFO delusions of scientist and entrepreneur Paul Bennowitz until his brain broke. It's a fascinating and sad story. Next time--Doty answers for his crimes.57. New! Unidentified--The Air Force invents a UFO conspiracy
32:51||Season 6, Ep. 57This time, we start telling the sad story of Paul Bennewitz, a brilliant if somewhat eccentric engineer and entrepreneur who shared his UFO findings with the government, only to have them use his fascination with these phenomena to drive him insane. The real object? Confusing the broader UFO community. It's a fascinating story, if a rather dark one.
56. New! Unidentified--Hunting cows from black helicopters
42:54||Season 6, Ep. 56We continue considering cows, contemplating cattle carnage as coordinated by clever cads in copters. In other words, we explore alternate explanations for cattle mutilations, like secret military missions by classified, silent helicopters. Plus more Linda Moulton Howe, who doesn't buy it. Enjoy!
55. New! Unidentified--Why do these ETs keep cutting up our cows?
49:36||Season 6, Ep. 55This time, we wrap on "Storm Area 51", hear Bob Lazar meet his bullshitting match on Art Bell's show, and then learn all about how aliens are sneaking up on our unsuspecting cows in the middle of the night and carving them up for unknown, but presumably nefarious reasons. We also meet Linda Moulton Howe, one of the longest-serving and most dedicated journalists exploring weird UFO crap. More on her, and the fascinating concept of the "Mirage Men" next time.