The Nonsense Bazaar

54 - The Black Knight Satellite

Right now there is an object of unknown extraterrestrial origin in polar orbit around Earth transmitting signals to somewhere, something else. It's called the Black Knight satellite and it's been watching us for 13,000 years. Or so you'd be led to believe if you hung out in the same dumb places on the internet that we do. The Black Knight is some of the lowest hanging fruit of UFO conspiracy theories, but it's also truly weird. See, the Black Knight is an example of truly emergent folklore. It doesn't come from one place and no one has a good answer for how it came to be named "Black Knight". The origins of the myth go back as far as 1899 with Nikola Tesla losing his mind over weird radio signals and from there involve amateur Norwegian radio engineers, a Scottish science fiction writer, a literal wet blanket, and a very real cold war government cover-up.  Weirder still, there might just be a hint of ancient alien evidence buried deep under all the nonsense. 

53 - Project Chameleo

Have you ever thought that your neighbors might be acting a little stranger than normal? That your house suddenly appeared bigger on the inside than the outside?  That invisible dwarves were following you on your madcap escape from various intelligence agencies out to ruin your life, specifically? Well you might, unfortunately, be entirely correct. This week we're looking at Robert Guffey's book Chameleo: A Strange but True Story of Invisible Spies, Heroin Addiction, and Homeland Security, an entirely bizarre and perhaps completely accurate account of what happens when the military industrial complex decides to test out their fancy new future-tech gadgets on you. We've got heroin soaked flop-houses, stolen night-vision goggles, invisible dwarves, invisible Jeeps, invisible robots, esoteric Freemasonry, and more than one food fight. All this and more as we unpack the quite possibly real Project Chameleo.

52 - The Saint Germain Foundation

It's time to catch up with our favorite villainous magicians. Between 1934 and 1939 Guy and Edna Ballard brainwashed and robbed blind upwards to a million Americans through the "'I AM' Religious Activity" using hypnosis, parlor tricks, force of will, and a bunch of members of William Dudley Pelley's Silver Legion - the most successful American Nazi organization - with the stated goal of overthrowing the government and installing Guy Ballard as ruler of America in Saint Germain's "Seventh Golden Age". The teachings of the I AM Activity are some of the primary influences on both New Age spirituality (twin flames, ascension, ascended masters, the violet flame, Mount Shasta, etc.) and Q Anon. Guy died at the tail end of 1938, but the story doesn't end there. Edna Ballard, son Donald and the parent corporation of the "I AM" Activity, The Saint Germain Foundation, would go on to operate from the shadows for decades, co-opting and subverting American spirituality up to and through the present day. The Saint Germain Foundation owns hundreds of perfectly manicured properties in extremely desirable locations, does no active recruiting, and is just generally incredibly creepy. This week we go over the nearly 1000 pages of declassified FBI documents relating to the SGF, testimony of former members, the strange death of Donald Ballard, and whatever is going on currently at Mount Shasta.

51 - Ted Rice & The Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

This week we're bringing you a classic tale of aliens guiding a man named Ted Rice on his life's journey from rising in the ranks as a young professional at an exclusive Idaho resort to living in a trailer in Shreveport, Louisiana with a cat named grandma and yelling at lizard people. Ted Rice was a UFO experiencer since childhood, but coming from a psychic and spiritualist paradigm Ted didn't realize he might be dealing with aliens until much later in life with the help of his new age book club and a hypnotherapist named Barbara Bartholic. And if you've followed us, you know the Nonsense Bazaar has strong opinions on both those subjects. This story has it all, and a lot of it: hypno-regression, spiritualism, haunted houses, spirit guides, shadowy people and strange coincidences. And lots of weird alien abductee incidents. It's bizarre, it's disturbing, it's dense, it's Ted Rice.

50 - Aleksandr Dugin and Traditionalism But it’s a Tribute to The Big Lebowski

Are evil Nazi wizards running the world? No. Are a bunch of scumbag fascist occultists in positions of power trying to run the world? You betcha. This week we look at Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes referred to as "Putin's Rasputin", as well as a few other greasy occultists in positions of power such as Steve Bannon (seriously, dude describes himself as a mystic), Olavo De Carvalho, and Julius Evola. All of these terrible people fall under the philosophical banner of a confusing and stupid authoritarian philosophy called Traditionalism, and Dugin, Bannon, and Carvalho were or are senior advisors to incredibly powerful people who all share the same flavor of authoritarianism: Russian President Vladimir Putin, former U.S. President Donald Trump, and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. This wasn't how we planned to cover these guys, but our hand was forced. And these dudes are just not funny, so we loaded up a soundboard of clips from The Big Lebowski to help the medicine go down. It works surprisingly well!

49 - The Oneida Community Part III: Whoops, We’re a Sex Cult

Concluding our series on the Oneida Community we finally find John Humphrey Noyes and the rest of all those sexy bible "communists" moving to Oneida, New York and setting up their utopian estate. Or is it a corporation? Or is it a sex cult? Whatever it is (definitely a sex cult), things go off the rails. With early eugenics experiments, the ghoulish worship of capitalism and money, trying to erase the concepts of romantic love and families, and glorifying sex while heavily regulating it (all sexual "interviews" had to be approved by committee and recorded in a weird book), the Oneida Community goes full Brave New World. And they also introduce some objectively very good ideas about sexual health. Such is the duality of man.

48 - The Oneida Community Part II: Like Sand Through The Hourglass

It's an 1840's Quaker soap opera as we continue the story of the Oneida Community, the free love endorsin', romantic love despisin', silverware makin' (eventually, we promise, there will be forks) Perfectionist sex cult. This week we're taking a look at the small sexually repressed dramas of the members of John Noyes' Putney Community, the trial run for what would eventually turn into a capitalist nightmare and what sounds like the worst place in the world, and how they tried to navigate human relations with dignity and honesty (really though, they gave it a solid try) before being run out of Putney, Vermont for being just too groovy for New England. We also listen to a bunch of really awful Shaker music for some reason. 

47 - The Oneida Community Part I: Free Love and Bible Communism

Have you ever wondered where your forks come from? Ever suspect they might come from a polyamorous, religious utopian commune in the mid 1800's? Or that your silverware might be the remaining legacy of hundred of self-described "Bible Communists" and their weird attempt at a nineteenth century Methodist sexual revolution through something called "complex marriage"? Probably not, right? Well if you've ever used Oneida silverware, that's exactly where tit came from. In Part I we look at the early life of John Humphrey Noyes, and how a bad breakup led him to starting a utopian community of "Perfectionists" which tried to bring about heaven on earth through intentionally-loveless polygamy, early eugenics experiments, lots and lots of really weird Methodist sex. This series is is going to be a weird journey through many unexpected places, but somehow it ends with silverware. And it's really gross, to be perfectly honest. 

The State of The Union Bizarre 2022

Just what exactly are we doing here? What is this? Who are we? Where have we been? And where are we going? This week we're taking a pause, taking a deep breath between two big miniseries to reflect on the weird world we've inadvertently found ourselves in, ponder the meaning of life and The Spooky, fill you all in on the investigations that have been happening under the radar, and to illuminate where we see The Nonsense Bazaar going from here. Where might that be? To the stars, through hardship and through poop jokes. 

45 - Jack Parsons Part IV: Ad Astra, Per Aspera (To The Stars, Through Hardship)

Concluding our look at the life of rocket scientist, occultist, and fascinating human being Jack Parsons, this week we see Jack actually summon a storm to deal with L. Ron Hubbard from a cheap Miami hotel room, writing one of the best essays on spiritual and political liberty that has ever been written, (briefly) declaring himself the anti-christ, and developing a new philosophy and magickal system in close collaboration with his wife Marjorie Cameron. And we learn about Jack Parson's truly tragic end in an explosion in Pasadena and the undeniable legacy he left behind.