Ever wondered if your mind can do more than ruin your life? Did you know at one time you could get a degree in ESP and psychokinesis? This week we're taking a broad overview of the real world of academic parapsychology. From the married-botanists-turned-married-parapsychologists J.B. and Louisa Rhine and the founding of the Duke University Parapsyc…

What do you get when you cross sleeping pills with the tail end of the LSD molecule? Ambien! The miracle cure for insomnia taken by millions of Americans every year that definitely doesn't make your entire frontal lobe completely vanish while the rest of you walks around doing weird stuff. Stuff like perhaps taking a drive down the wrong side of th…

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…

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…

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 t…

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…

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 p…

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 thou…

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'…

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 ac…

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 tra…

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 c…

You know how they say you shouldn't stare at the sun because you'll go blind? Well, what if that's just what they want you to think? What if the secrets to immortality, an enlarged pineal gland, not needing to eat food, and not needing to wear a shirt on your youtube videos were all unlocked by simply...staring at the damn sun? Welcome to the "anci…

Tiny Tim was once one of the most famous men in America. Everything about him was a spectacle. From his trembling falsetto to his odd mannerisms, it's easy to see how he became America's laughingstock. Most people know him as an entertainer but what about as a husband? While tabloids took shots at Tiny, he was taking shots of his own--at the teenag…

This week we're telling a story that is very much not our normal fare here at the bazaar: a ghost story, a true-crime murder case, and a courtroom drama. But it also happens to be exactly what we're about. The story of the Greenbrier ghost is often told in the context of "that time an encounter with a spirit was used as evidence in a trial." But th…

We’re traveling to the past to explore the careers of two game show greats: Ralph “Nobody knows who I am anymore” Edwards and Chuck “They made a movie about me” Barris. Between the two of them, they’re responsible for some of the most famous game shows of the 20th century including Truth or Consequences and The Newlywed Game. We’ll learn how their …

Did you know that all of history is nothing but a bald faced lie? That the entire generally accepted arc of history has been fabricated to keep you, dear listener, from realizing your God-given birthright to fancy architecture, free energy and flying turtles? That there used to be a globe-spanning supercivilization with magic sound technology, stro…

This week we’re taking a look at the curious history of one Charles Entertainment Cheese, a robot who claims to be “America’s favorite rat” and built a cardboard-flavored pizza empire which heralded the cybernetic colonization of our childhoods and traumatized generations with animatronic animals dug straight out of the uncanny valley. We look at t…

We're headed back to one of our favorite centuries to talk about one of the most famous UFO cases in history. Well, at least on the History Channel. The 1561 "celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg, Germany" entered modern consciousness by way of that spooky Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who wrote about this odd woodcut broadsheet describing a day in A…

On today’s episode we’re taking a look at some of the rather silly psychic experiments conducted by the folks over at the Center for Inquiry, a non-profit organization dedicated to stopping the spread of nonsense and promoting reason and skepticism. We’ll learn about the founder Paul Kurtz, secular humanism, ol' James Randi, and their history of le…

This week we're taking a look at one of the oldest and most influential epic poems in the world. Bhagavad Gita is the centerpiece of the much, much longer Sanskrit epic poem Mahabharata and has had a huge influence on culture and spirituality the world over. It's also just wicked cool. Taking the form of a dialogue between the god Krishna and the h…

If you're at all into the paranormal or supernatural you've heard the name Charles Fort. After all, his name has become synonymous with the study of anomalous phenomena, or "Fortean" phenomena. He basically invented the genre. Over the course of four books published towards the end of his life Charles Fort documented hundreds of cases of strange do…

Who the hell is Greta Garbo? From her alleged espionage endeavors with plans to assassinate Hitler to passionate secret lesbian romances, this Old Hollywood icon lived a life worth discussing (although she would hate that we are doing so). Her intense desire for privacy over fame led her to quit acting at a young age but that didn’t stop the media …

We're takin' it a bit easy this week and talking about something close to home: vampires! Specifically, the so-called "New England Vampire Panic" of the 1800s. Before vampires were sexy, they were something else entirely: the reanimated corpses of your friends and family who preyed upon the living and threatened to pull entire communities down into…

It finally happened, we lost our damn minds. In honor of No-Nut November, today’s episode will explore the concept of Semen Retention (aka gaining magic powers and solving all of life's problems by not jerking off) by looking at online communities, exploring the religious foundations behind the idea, and speaking to two individuals who actually pra…

What do you think of when you hear the term "cybernetics"? Well there's a solid chance you're wrong. This week we're taking a high level overview of an intellectual Swiss Army Knife that rewired the way we think about everything from economics to ecology, psychology to semiotics. In this episode, we'll unravel the genius of Norbert Wiener, the surp…

Today we’re taking a look at one of the wildest, most enduring hoaxes of all time—The Taxil Hoax. Ever wondered why Freemasons are a magnet for conspiracy theories? In the 1890s, a French prankster named Leo Taxil tricked the Vatican into believing that Luciferian Freemasons were plotting world domination. We'll trace how Taxil's grand illusion unf…

This week we're taking a look at the stories of three legendary trickster spirits: the ever-sly Coyote of North American folklore, the web-weaving Anansi from West African tales, and the amorphous (but usually rabbit-eared) Nanabozho from Ojibwe legends. What does it mean when something is a "trickster"? Are they always out to steal your lunch mone…

Today we're diving into the multidimensional world of "Path of Sweetness”, one of the strangest books we’ve featured on this podcast. It was written by a woman named Joy Elaine who has had many hobbies throughout her life: body building, orchid growing, and playing the violin to name a few. It wasn’t until later in life when she was introduced to N…

The KLF, aka The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu were the best selling singles band in the world for a period in the 1990s. Their last single featured Tammy Wynette, the "First Lady of Country Music", in what would be her last chart topping hit. They were pioneers in sampling and house music, but you've likely never heard of them. Why? Because in 1992,…

This week we're looking at the reign (and dysfunctional family) Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, the sadboi emperor. Rudolph II was a patron of the arts while also showing a keen interest in alchemy and the occult. A good emperor, however, he was not, preferring to amass a monstrous collection of curiosities in art, science, alchemy and esoterica to …

We're here. The finale and Aum Shinrikyo's Armageddon extravaganza. Aum has now fully transformed itself into a true paramilitary death cult with commando units, an "Intelligence Ministry" multiple weapons factories for all the different types of weapons, conventional, chemical, biological, you name it. Most importantly, they have "The Wizard", a c…

Look, we warned you it was going to get bad. Following their totally unpredictable complete loss in the parliamentary election and the murder of the Sakamoto family, Shoko Asahara and Aum Shinrikyo begin the full-on militarization process that would ultimately lead to the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks. But we're not there yet. First they need to exp…

This week we're beginning the darkest story we've ever told here on The Nonsense Bazaar,, that of legendary Japanese death cult Aum Shinrikyo. But don't worry because it's as absurd as it is harrowing. And it is both to an extreme degree. Between 1987 and 1995, "blind" yoga instructor and quack medicine salesman Shoko Asahara did the hard work of t…

We're back! Join us for a cosmic exploration of David K. Miller's Group of Forty, a meditation collective that promises a journey to the fifth dimension through…shimmering? Along with his wife Gudrun, Miller and his Group of Forty have pioneered techniques like "bio relativity" to heal Mother Earth and restore our personal feedback loop systems. Fr…

Doing that thing again where I ramble at you for way too long. Mostly about how much I hate UFOs. That's not true actually. I love UFOs and I love Uri Geller, but I hate UAPs.By Sequoyah Kennedy and Willow Truman

I 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, Wil…

This week we're unlocking another episode of our bonus series, The Corkboard Bizarre and taking a look at the super spooky totally real and definitely not made up text at the core of Theosophy, the Stanzas of Dzyan. Referenced throughout Helena Blavatsky's magnum opus The Secret Doctrine, the Stanzas of Dzyan is allegedly the real, actual, secrets …

This week we're unlocking an episode of our Patreon bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre on the insane, highly detailed, and mind-numbing "Awakening Your Light Body" course that was mentioned in our episode on "The Bodysnatchers" that may have been the catalyst for driving Jennie Gosbell over the edge. We get some personal affirmations from the spiri…

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…

Join us on today’s episode as we enter the confusing world of Susan Reed, a woman who was drawn into a web of extraterrestrial intrigue and danger, as detailed in her revealing book, 'The Body Snatchers: A Real Alien Conspiracy.' Her saga started innocently in a Spanish class where she met Brian, a host for interdimensional reptilian entities, and …

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…

We’ve all heard about the things that supposedly happen at the moment of death: the life review that flashes before your eyes, the tunnel of white light, etc etc. But what if all of that truly does happen except…it’s a trap. Meant to keep us stuck on the wheel of life and death feeding our tasty loosh energy to the evil reptilian archons again and …

Returning to our enlightening study on Jane Lead, today we’re delving into the pivotal years from her first vision in 1670 to her demise in 1704. We'll probe into how, as her physical sight failed, her spiritual visions proliferated, igniting both intrigue and devotion among a growing body of followers. This clandestine group, the Philadelphian Soc…

We’re turning back the hands of time to 17th-century England to learn about the eccentricities of post-Reformation life and Jane Lead's spiritual metamorphosis from rich girl to old blind weirdo. Learn how she journeyed from her Norfolk upbringing to marry her cousin and eventually become a conduit of Sophia, the mysterious embodiment of divine wis…

Join us as we embark on a spiritual exploration to discover what connects the tale of Rapunzel with the ancient tradition of alchemy. We’ll deconstruct the metaphorical tower and examine Rapunzel's encounters with the witch and prince as expressions of the seven stages of alchemy: calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, dis…

Roadworn and weary, battered and bruised, this week we're finishing the series that actually might have been trying to kill us. It's Andrija Puharich part III, and it is completely insane. We find the good doctor Puharich after the publication of his book about how Uri Geller is the baby Jesus, convinced that the Soviets have mind control cannons p…

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 th…

Psychic powers, mind control, mushrooms, the richest old ladies there's ever been, chemical and psychological warfare, Uri Geller, psychic healing, UFOs, the Dutch, you name it, this story quite literally has it all. We're finally doing it and starting our portrait of the man at the dark heart American high strangeness: Dr Andrija Puharich. While s…

Today's episode takes us on a high-flying adventure as we delve into two infamous balloon hoaxes that took place over a century apart: Edgar Allen Poe’s Balloon Hoax of 1844 and the Balloon Boy Hoax of 2009. From the pages of the New York Sun to the screens of millions of viewers, these hoaxes captivated the public's attention with their seemingly …