For Episode 13 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome Shannon Taggart, an American photographer, writer, researcher, and curator known for exploring how photography can navigate boundaries between the seen and unseen. Her book, Séance (Fulger Press, 2019), offers hundreds of photographs documenting contemporary Spiritualism across the U.S. and Britain. We discuss (3:26) what sparked Shannon’s interests in Spiritualism, the intersecting histories of photography and Spiritualism, ectoplasm, what inspires people to become mediums, and the techniques she developed for photographing the invisible.

Shannon Taggart
Website
Seánce
Lily Dale Symposium, 2025

CSWR Events
May 1, 6-8pm EDT: Peripheries Launch Event, Volume 7
May 15-17: Thinking with Plants and Fungi Conference

For our 12th episode, we welcome the philosopher, artist, and musician Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix. Haela is best known as the songwriter and singer behind the black metal band, Liturgy, which has released 1 EP and 6 full-length albums. We discuss Haela’s early relationships to Christianity and metal music, the growth of her philosophical interests, and her recent conversion to Orthodox Christianity. In the second part of our chat (42:33), we explore her philosophical system of Transcendental Qabalah and how it informs records such as H.A.Q.Q., Origin of the Alimonies, and 93696.

LINKS
Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix
Substack
YouTube Channel
"Transcendental Black Metal essay"

Liturgy records
H.A.Q.Q.
Origin of the Alimonies
93696

References
Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism
Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus
Sergius Bulgakov, The Sophiology of Death

For Episode 11 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome Jennifer Higgie. Jennifer is the author of several books, including Bedlam, a novel about the artist Richard Dadd; The Mirror and the Palette, a history of women’s self-portraits; and The Other Side: A Story of Women in Art and the Spirit World, a beautiful and personal study of the relationship between spiritual experience and art in the lives of modern women. In this career-spanning chat, Jennifer and I discuss her early career in painting, what inspired her to write Bedlam, and how the art world changed during her time at Frieze magazine. Then we dive into Jennifer’s latest book, The Other Side: A Story of Women in Art and the Spirit World. We discuss the spiritual and artistic lives of women like Georgiana Houghton (20:35), Hilma af Klint (34:06), Ithell Colquhoun (46:09), and Hildegard of Bingen (52:53). Along the way, we touch on topics like fairies, Spiritualism, gardening, Carl Jung, spiritual ecology, Theosophy, ascended masters, angels, and much else.

LINKS
Jennifer Higgie
The Other Side: Women, Art, and the Spirit World
The Mirror and the Palette: Revolution, Rebellion, Resistance: 500 Years of Women's Self-Portraits
Bedlam

Others
Georgiana Houghton's Evenings at Home in Spiritual Seánce
Amy Hale's Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully
Julia Voss's Hilma af Klint: A Biography

For episode 10 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome the musician, composer, and producer Trey Spruance. We discuss (3:42)Trey’s early musical and occult explorations and how reading the philosopher Henry Corbin changed the course of his life. Trey then takes us through the esoteric dimensions of Secret Chiefs 3 (22:59) and how albums like Book M and Book of Horizons are filled with correspondences to Kabbalah, astrology, Hermetic magic, and Pythagorean musicology. Along the way, we touch on Trey’s work with John Zorn and Kronos Quartet, his conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and the afterlives of Saint Cyprian the Mage.

LINKS
Web of Mimicry website
Book M
Book of Horizons
Book of Souls: Folio A
The Book Beri'ah, Vol. 10: Malkhut
Xaphan: Book of Angels, Vol. 9
Perichoresis
Link to the G.I. Gurdjieff Conference at Harvard Divinity School, Dec 4-5th

For episode nine, we welcome to the show Diana Pasulka, Professor of Religious Studies at UNC – Wilmington. Her books American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology and Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences are both classics in the field of Religion and Technology studies. We discuss how Pasulka’s early work on Catholic purgatory led her to the study of UFOs, the spiritual practices of experiencers, and the role of government (dis)information and popular culture in the rise of UFO religion. On the way, we touch on A.I., revelations, St. Teresa of Avila, sleep paralysis, and the perils and possibilities of new technologies.

LINKS
Diana Pasulka's Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic Devotional and Popular Culture
American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology
Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences
"From Purgatory to the UFO Phenomenon: The Catholic Supernatural Goes Galactic"
Keith Cantu's Om-gnosis video podcast

For our eighth episode, we welcome the author Eric Wargo to the show. Eric is perhaps the world’s foremost expert on precognition. His most recent book, From Nowhere, examines precognition in its relationship to creativity in the lives of major authors and artists. We discuss the nature of time, dreamwork, memories from the future, and the four-dimensional brain. Along the way, we discuss figures like Virginia Woolf, Philip K. Dick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Sigmund Freud, and the sculptor, Michael Richards.

NOTES

Eric Wargo's work:

• Blog "The Nightshirt"
• From Nowhere: Artists, Writers, and the Precognitive Imagination
• Time Loops
• Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future

An exhibit of Michael Richards' Sculpture

For episode 7, we welcome the writer and scholar Erik Davis (4:06) to reflect on the journey that led to his new book, BLOTTER: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium. We discuss Erik’s writing for the Village Voice in the early 90s, his breakthrough monograph Techgnosis, and how his home state of California informs his oeuvre. In the second half of the interview, we discuss the academic study of “the weird,” perils and possibilities for the psychedelic renaissance, and how BLOTTER is a love letter to LSD.

LINKS

• Blotter book launch event 4/30
• Erik's website
• Burning Shore
• Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium
• Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information
• High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies
• Led Zeppelin IV 33/13
• Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica
• Visionary State

For our sixth episode, we welcome the spirit channel, teacher, and playwright Paul Selig. In this conversation 8:14, we explore Selig’s early career as a playwright and professor, his spiritual awakening during the Harmonic Convergence of 1987, how he cultivated his mediumship abilities, and the twelve books Selig has channeled from “the Guides.” On the way, we explore what happens to Selig in the channeling state and the metaphysics of mind that make these states possible.

LINKS
Paul Selig's Website
Selig, I Am the Word
A Course in Miracles
Ann Braude, Radical Spirits
Ed. Cathy Gutierrez, Handbook of Spiritualism and Channeling
Taves, Revelatory Events
Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks