The Nonsense Bazaar

128 - Bhagavad Gita

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 heroic prince Arjuna right before a massive battle is about to pop off, the Gita has a lot of stuff to say about the right ways to live but also has some of the wildest and most powerful passages you'll hear. So we're going through some selections from the Bhagavd Gita and  talking about what it has to say, as well as how it says it. Support The Nonsense Bazaar on Patreon as an act of worship and with no thought for the fruit of such an action.  There are fruits though. We have a bonus series, as well as a private Discord. And you'll get access to that for just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar 

127 - Charles Fort

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 doings: fish falls, mysterious airships, teleportation, and much more, while arguing for a radically agnostic perspective on life and reality: we don't know anything. But who was Charles Fort? Well he was a soft-spoken weirdo of a writer and a jokester, at times a quiet homebody and at others hopping trains and ships and travelling the world, even dueling a fellow in South Africa. More than anything, though, Charles Fort was a writer and a hell of a writer at that. He was an artist with a love of language who used language to break open people's minds well before they were ready for it. Charles Fort absolutely rules. Because we forgot to say it in the episode, our main source is Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented The Supernatural by Jim Steinmeyer. It's great, go read it. If you like what we do, you can support the show, keep us ad free, and get access to bonus content and our Discord server by joining our Patreon, starting at just $5 dollars a month. That's like one bag of chips and it'll make our day. You know you want to. https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

126 - Garbo

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 from being obsessed with her, particularly her dietary habits, love life, and the adventures she got into with her dietician Gaylord Hauser. Garbo is the paradox of a woman both revered and misunderstood, and you’ll never believe what she kept under her couch.
Give us money so we don't have to sell ourselves to the Jim Henson Company and join our Patreon for our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and access to the Unintelligence Agency on Discord 
 
https://www.patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

125 - The New England Vampire Panic

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 the grave with them. In New England, and very especially in Rhode Island, this type of vampire haunted small villages all the way until the very end of the 1800's. Meaning that even at the time of the "last New England vampire," Mercy Brown, it was played for laughs in the papers. The truth though is that the blood-sucking living dead has always represented the fears that people deal with at any given time, and the macabre rites and rituals to combat the vampires represent our species-wide drive to do something, anything, to keep the illusion of control, even when we know it's only an illusion. If you're a fan of the show, why not fork out some of your own blood to us, metaphorically, by joining our Patreon? Unlike the vampire, we'll actually give you something in return: our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and access to our patron Discord server. Starting at the low, low price of just $5 a month.https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

124: Project Blue Balls: An Unhinged Look at The World of Semen Retention

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 practice it.
Support The Nonsense Bazaar on Patreon and get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and access to our private Discord server starting at only $5 a month!
 
https://www.patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

123 - Intro to Cybernetics

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 surprisingly sympathetic mathematician who gave cybernetics its name and set the course for a science of control and communication. We also dissect the Macy Conferences, where mathematicians like John Von Neuman and anthropologists like Margaret Mead attempted to hash out a universal language for understanding systems across disciplines and may or may not have set the stage for things like, ya know, MK-Ultra and associated devils. Cybernetics is cool as hell though. 
 
By supporting The Nonsense Bazaar on Patreon you provide us with the feedback which prevents us from resorting to…other means. You also get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and our private Discord server. Do it. You know you want to. 
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

122 - The Taxil Hoax

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 unfolded, from his time as a schoolboy to his time pretending to be Diana Vaughan—a fabricated Grand Mistress descended from a 17th-century Rosicrucian. Through pseudonyms and theatrics, Taxil made a hoax so compelling that people today still believe in Palladism, the imaginary secret Luciferian society inside Freemasonry.
 
Keep us ad free, keep us sad free and get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and our private Discord server when you support us on Patreon!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

121 - Trickster Stories: Coyote, Anansi, and Nanabozho

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 money? Why are they always intrinsically linked to humanity itself? Maybe the trickster archetype is less of a con-artist and more of a lesson in how to dance with a chaotic and changing world.Give us your lunch money and keep The Nonsense Bazaar ad-free while getting access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre and our private discord server when you join our Patreon starting at just $5 a month.https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

120 - Path of Sweetness: A Journal of Galactic Romance

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 New Age healing modalities that an entire world opened up for Joy, a world full of ascended masters, angels, fairies, and…a lover in the Ashtar Command. Could your soul mate be waiting for you in a 10th dimensional spaceship? Find out on today’s episode!
 
Keep us on the path of sweetness and advertising free by singing up for our Patreon where you'll get access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre as well as access to our private Discord server starting at just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

119 - The KLF

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, after being honored at the Brit awards, they fired a machine gun full of blanks into the crowd, deleted their entire catalog, and resurfaced a short time later only to tour a film of the two members of the KLF, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, methodically lighting their last one million pounds on fire in an abandoned house in remote Scotland, then they disappeared back into the ether (not exactly, but it's a better story that way). The KLF are, whatever else they might be,  are an example of just what you can get away with when you get wrapped up in Discordianism, the real/fake religion that worships Eris, the goddess of chaos, invented the illuminati, and which some suspect had something to do with the assassination of JFK. It's all very silly. But most importantly, The KLF absolutely rule. We need money to burn, and you can help us do that while getting access to our bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre, as well as our private Discord server where we do most of our online hanging out by supporting us on Patreon
https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar