The Obscure Occult Book Report (TOOBR)

Oct 07 2024 7 ep. 37 mins 14
The Obscure Occult Book Report (TOOBR) Podcast artwork

The departure point for each episode is an occult-themed book so obscure that not only is it our hope you've never read it, but that you've never even heard of it, and you never would've, without deciding to tune in and join us today. Welcome!
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Glimmers from the matrix of ideas

Oct 07 2024 35 mins  
The seeds of chaos magic, uncovered in the unlikely context of a 1975 children’s book on chance and probability. We take a nostalgic romp through some of the fascinations and shortcomings of a scientistic take on magic, which seems to have formed a significant current in the 70s zeitgeist.Our text for this episode is Chance, Luck & Destiny, by Peter Dickinson (London: Victor

Ghosts haunt places but poltergeists people

Sep 03 2024 44 mins  
An obscure and possibly much underrated poltergeist case, from 1938, is our springboard into issues concerning how a psychoanalytical approach to paranormal investigation radically recontextualises the notion of “faked” versus “genuine” psychical phenomena.The text under discussion is On the Trail of the Poltergeist, by Nandor Fodor (New York, NY: Citadel, 1958).For more ab

Disembodied voices trying to hypnotize

Aug 12 2024 32 mins  
Can discarnate entities take possession of human beings? We consider an academic text that attempts to build a serious case by drawing on the work of Frederic Myers and considering evidence offered by the nature of dissociative states and hypnosis.The text under discussion is The Science of Spirit Possession, second edition, by Terence Palmer (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars). Av

A microcosm in no sense separated from reality

Jul 08 2024 33 mins  
In a change from the promised episode, a search for an intriguing-sounding text prompted by a half-remembered reference in a letter by Aleister Crowley leads us into an exploration of how language facilitates expression of what lies beyond sensory perception.The main text under discussion is: Anatole France (1908). Aristos and Polyphilos on the Language of Metaphysics. In: The Gard

Subjectivity is only a body that hasn't yet formed

Jun 08 2024 40 mins  
Our book, this time, is by a meditation master and former NASA engineer, who presents a mental technique for alleviating all forms of physical and emotional pain. We describe and explore his method, its origins, and confront the question of how it could possibly work, if, as its author insists, it's a mental technique that involves neither imagination nor visualisation.The book pro

Salvation is not an evidence-based intervention

May 10 2024 37 mins  
In this episode we discuss a memoir of a mental health support worker who works with clients in the most deprived areas of London. We consider the issues arising from its author's deep interest in esotericism and the occult, and his attempts to redress what he perceives as the repressive shortcomings of the UK mental health system by resisting consensus models of mental health inte

The damned tend to stick around

Apr 23 2024 35 mins  
In this episode we set some parameters for the podcast as a whole, concerning the kinds of relationships that occultists might have with books and reading. The book under discussion concerns contemporary paranormal investigation: we consider some of the specific characteristics of the author's approach to communicating with the dead within this cultural context, and the light it ca