Weird Horizon

Continuing our series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. Today we will be discussing probably the most famous and influential vampire in literary fiction, Dracula by Bram Stoker. We will be talking about the myriad of ways the novel complicates and extends the figure of the literary vampire while engaging with its specific contem...

Continuing our series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. Today we will be looking at one of the most influential pre-Dracula vampires in Carmilla, and exploring all the ways Le Fanu extends previous vampire writings and imbues them with a distinctly contemporary and literary impetus. We will continue in the coming weeks to discus...

Continuing our series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. Today we will be looking at a sample of the literary vampire treatments before Dracula, and particularly the ways in which they expanded on the vampire as product of the Enlightenment to create a figure with drives and motivations, as cursed as much as it curses others. Man...

Continuing our series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. Looking today at the myriad of religious, social and political associations around blood and the body in the Age of Enlightenment. As our views of our interior world changed, own body and how it functioned, they interacted with our view of our exterior world of society and...

Continuing out series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. Looking today at some of the most famous and influential historic 'vampire' cases and panics, as well as the discourse and reporting surrounding them. These cases would form the foundation of the evolving vampire myth, and continue to this day to serve as the most c...

Back with a new series exploring the vampire, the ever-popular figure and symbol against which we can define our own humanity. We will be beginning by attempting to find the origin of the word 'vampire' as well as exploring some of the folklore that melded with and was absorbed into the figure of the modern vampire. In the coming weeks we will take a deeper look at some historical 'rea...

Starting a new series on AI or Artificial Intelligence by beginning to question how we measure for 'human level' or general Artificial Intelligence. Does simply 'talking' or responding like a human imply understanding and therefore machine intelligence? Exploring some of the 'classical' AI theories which seek to answer how we would practically measure this. Is understanding...

Concluding our series discussing the phenomenon of Reality Shifting, a practice part spirituality, part supernatural, and rising to prominence in the perfect storm of covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns and the rise of TikTok. We have discussed whether we can see it as a response or an answer to a world in the midst of a global pandemic, a form of expression for (predominantly) school age adolesce...

Continuing our discussion (still) on the phenomenon of Reality Shifting with a question of where it falls on the spectrum between 'normal' imaginative escape, and something more damaging. Exploring a related (and seemingly overlapping) phenomenon that surged in severity during covid, maladaptive daydreaming, and questioning once again the long term effects of the global pandemic. Exploring...

Continuing our discussion on the phenomenon of Reality Shifting by exploring some of the potential psychological underpinnings of an emergent practice. Can we view Reality Shifting as an evolved form of Tulpamancy and explore it from the same psychological standpoint? Are there certain traits that make one more susceptible to a belief in 'shifting', such as hypnotizability or one's lev...

Continuing our discussion on the phenomenon of Reality Shifting by looking at some of the ‘symptoms’ that may indicate being close to, or achieving a shift, as well as a deeper look at ‘scripting’ for shifting. What are the kinds of thing people desire to ‘script’ for in their Desired Reality, ie: what kind of control do people wish to have over their new reality in order to hopefully shield thems...

Continuing our discussion on the phenomenon of Reality Shifting by looking at some shifting techniques, certain behaviours and habits thought to enhance the brains innate ability to shift, and some of the overlap between shifting practices and existing spiritual and pop culture beliefs.

We are beginning a new series today on the topic of ‘reality shifting’, RS or simply ‘shifting’. It is a method of transferring one’s consciousness to a desired reality in the multiverse. This is a method used by mostly teens to try to transport themselves to fictional universes to spend time there and have a form of escape. Today we are going to look as some of the scientific proofs offered by th...

Rounding out (for now) our exploration of the history of witchcraft with a look at New Religious movement and esoteric order Wicca as well as the unfortunate truth that witchcraft accusations persist into the current day…

Continuing our discussion on the witch and witch hunt throughout time by exploring the witch in colonial New England. What was crucial to Salem, Massachusetts that resulted in one of the most ferocious witch hunts in modern history? We will be looking at the use of spectral evidence in law and the belief in the convicted witches’ accusations to implicate others… We will round out the series with o...

Continuing our discussion on the witch and witch hunt throughout time by exploring the witch in colonial New England. What transformed the satanic witch as it existed in Europe into demonic witch conspiracy of Salem? What influences fanned the flame of a fire which had largely burnt itself out in Europe? Looking at Puritan theologian William Perkins on witchcraft, as well as the debate around spec...

Deeping our discussion on the satanic witch panic by exploring a few influential European witch trials. Witch trials from their inception have a startling level of uniformity, aspects of even the earliest organised trials would be echoed in later ones, across Europe and beyond. At the same time, responses to the trials, both good and bad influenced the shape of them as they were happening... We wi...

Continuing our series on witchcraft by exploring the transformation which took the idea of the 'witch', a magical practitioner with varying cultural contexts and qualities, and turned it into an archetype of a person capable of being hunted... Where the Witch Trials inevitable, or part of a process by which a demographic is intentionally marginalised and demonised? Let's find out... Next week we w...

Continuing our series on witchcraft, by taking a deeper look at what social and literary ideas merged to form the idea of the 'witch'.  We also begin to answer the question of why the idea of the witch came into being at this time, if, as some believe, it is a reflection of an innate archetype or a reaction to Christianity in general.  Next we will be exploring what specific legal and po...

Back with a new season, we are beginning a new series exploring the history of witchcraft, with a particular focus on the vulnerable women whose treatment by society at large informed the kinds of magic they were often accused of. We will be covering the topic in more depth in coming weeks, but this week serves as a foundational knowledge from which to build up. Glad to be back and excited for the...

Concluding (for now) a lengthy series exploring the various things Bigfoot, Sasquatch and related creatures mean to various peoples and in various contexts. Today, rounding out our investigation with a look at the overlap between Bigfoot and UFO or UAP encounters. Are they connected, are they one and the same? Or is there something else that can explain the universality of experience inherent to t...

Continuing a two-part series on the oral history and legends of Sasquatch-like creatures. Following on from a look at the context around how the stories reach non-indigenous peoples, and looking at some more specific creatures and the many many ways they differ from the Sasquatch or Bigfoot we’ve known so far… Bibliography and transcript coming soon.

Continuing a series on Cryptozoology by looking at the changing context in which Native American and First Nations legends were re-interpreted by European audiences. Exploring some of the ways in which the personhood of Sasquatch-like encounters was downplayed for an ‘ape-like’ creature more suited to pop culture audiences.  Bibliography coming soon, check out ‘Raincoast Sasquatch’ by J. Robe...

Continuing a series on Cryptozoology by looking at an overview of some of the potential explanations for the Bigfoot/Sasquatch encounter experience. Are they some form of hallucination, a simple hoax, or some other animal encounter misinterpreted? Or are they a blend of all the above? Bibliography coming soon, check ‘The Locals, A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phenomenon’ by...

Continuing a series on Cryptozoology by looking at a selection of the more notable hoaxes that dogged the community from day one. Ultimately though, many hoaxes turn out to be as hard to prove as hoaxes as they do the real deal… Bibliography coming soon, check out Jeff Meldrum’s analysis of the Patterson-Gimlin prints here: https://youtu.be/VLL48HkSgqE, with special reference to ‘Searching for Sas...