The Nonsense Bazaar

103 - The Kybalion

Get your robes and that old pharaoh costume you bought while drunk at Spirit Halloween that one time, because today we're talking about one of the, unfortunately, most well known books in the entire spooky pantheon: The Kybalion. Check any reddit thread of people wondering where to begin their magical, wonderous journey into the terrible world of occultism and chances are the sentence "I already have The Kybalion" will be in there somewhere. Purporting to be the secrets of Hermetic magic handed down from Hermes Trismegistus, master to student, from the dawn of time all the way to the so-called "Three Initiates", The Kybalion is one of the more egregious examples of just-kinda-sayin'-stuff. But what is Hermeticism? What makes The Kybalion fake hermeticism? And are the three initiates just three kids in a trench coat? These are the questions we're going to try and answer.Support The Nonsense Bazaar on Patreon and get even more fake secrets of ancient wisdom for just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

102 - The Devil’s Rainmaker and the Mississippi Water Witch

On this very wet edition of the Nonsense Bazaar, we’ll dive into the stories of two rainmakers: Don Decker, a man allegedly possessed by the devil who gained the ability to make it rain following a death in the family, and Lillie Stoat, the elderly Mississippi potion maker who caused a stir in the 1940s. She’s the most famous woman in history! We’ll examine the evidence for and against their abilities, hear a lot of silly names and once and for all, make it rain here at the Nonsense Bazaar.
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101 - Criminally Obscene: A Condensed History of Obscenity Law in America

We’re big fans of all things lewd, obscene and filthy here at the Nonsense Bazaar. We enjoy our right to say and do disgusting things, and to hell with anyone who tries to get in our way! That’s why today, we’ll be talking about the century long battle within the American court system over what constitutes “obscenity”. We’ll start after the Civil War when two Foote doctors went up against a nosy Anti-Vice blowhard who went through peoples private mail, explore the Lavender Scare of the 50s as it relates to the anti-LGBT rhetoric of today and end up in the 1970s with the establishment of the Miller Test.Your support keeps The Nonsense Bazaar ad-free and delightfully obscene! Join our Patreon to hear bonus content and get access to our Discord server for just $5 a month!https://patreon.com/thenonsensebazaar

100 - The Bomb

We made it to 3 entire digits! And to celebrate...we’re talking about the history of the hydrogen bomb. Because what says celebration like the explosive power of 500 Super Walmarts stacked 6ft high with TNT, hanging like the sword of Damocles over our heads each and every day? When most people think of nuclear weapons they think of the bombs dropped at the end of WWII, and while most are aware that the weapons humanity has now make the atomic bomb look like a water balloon, we’re not sure most people really feel what that means. The hydrogen bomb is, more or less, on a scale incomprehensible to the human mind. It is a device of true cosmic horror that changed the world and continues to warp reality through its mere being. And this week we’re looking at the decisions (or lack thereof) after the second World War that led to the development of the thermonuclear bomb, the characters involved like Edward Teller the most hateable man in physics, what exactly happened when we set a couple of those suckers off (like right next to where a whole bunch of people lived who had no idea what was going to happen), and we try to answer the question of why exactly this monster was developed. Did it need to be? Could it have been avoided? Or was it inevitable?
 
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99 - Wallstreetbets: A Love Song

Once there was something incredibly rare: a truly honest place on the internet. Despicable, crude, ill-advised, dangerous, unhealthy, and extremely toxic, yes, all of this is true. But it was honest. And it was beautiful. The subreddit Wallstreetbets gained prominence during the GameStop stock fiasco of 2020-2021, but it was much more than that. It is a stock trading forum, on paper, but in practice it is (or was) a truly wretched hive of scum and villainy. Where fortunes were made or lost depending on what side of a fence a dog peed on. Where one could completely destroy their financial future in an afternoon. Or, maybe win and get rich, who knows? In short: r/wallstreetbets was incredible. Today we're taking a look at that wretched hive of scum and villainy and how it relates to the buttoned up world of finance as a whole, and asking what if Wallstreetbets isn't actually that different from, you know, the people managing your retirement account?
 
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98 - Project Mannequin

Today we’re exploring the claims of one man with many identities and fantastic stories about his past. His name is James Casbolt, he’s from England and he’s blowing the whistle on deep underground military bases that supposedly house kidnapped children and the evil shapeshifting reptilians who eat them.  A certified psychic super soldier who met an American supermarket heiress online and married her, a man who rubbed elbows with billionaires only to land in prison for stalking one. Why does James keep lying about being a secret agent even when most people don’t believe him? And…more frighteningly, how come some people do?
 
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97 - Sir Jeffery Hudson AKA Lord Minimus, the Smallest Man in England

Today we're telling a little tale of a man named Sir Jeffery Hudson, court dwarf to Queen Henrietta Marie of England. Jeffery wasn't any ordinary dwarf though, his life is one of the most insane stories we've ever heard. From the wacky psychotic hijinks of 1600s royalty, to pirate captures and English Civil War, the inherent hilarity of a tiny dude and a huge dude together, and a bloody duel in a cold castle in France. If nothing else, the story of Sir Jeffery Hudson is proof that things have always been absolute madness. 
 
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96 - The Parasite Pill

Does the thought of mind-controlling parasites upset you? It should, it’s very likely you have them…apparently almost everybody does! That’s why the world is so messed up! We’re all being piloted by worms thanks to some people who huffed pigeon poop in a cave 15,000 years ago. At least that’s what one document making the rounds online titled “The Parasite Pill” would like you to believe. They claim that parasites are the cause for all human suffering but there IS a cure… find out the antidote on this very sick and twisted episode of The Nonsense Bazaar!
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95 - Michael Aquino’s MindWar

It's time to talk about the man, the myth, the eyebrows Col. Michael Aquino. One of the longtime devils of conspiracy culture, Michael Aquino was an Army PSYOP officer, a Satanist who started his own religion after talking to the Egyptian God set, a goth edgelord of tremendous proportions, a favorite target of satanic panic accusations (which included such totally believable incidents of satanic ritual abuse as "poo-poo baseball") and a military and political theorist whose concept of MindWar has terrified the paranoid element of society for decades. And it's this latter part of Aquino's whole deal that we're focusing on today. It's not what we thought it was when we decided to look into it. Was Michael Aquino a sinister, satanic architect of the New World Order? Or was he a Vietnam veteran, haunted by his experience who wanted to make sure it never happened again? At the very least, he was a deeper character than he usually gets credit for. And a huge nerd.
 
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94 - The Tin Man

This is the tale of Sir Emperor Nicholas Chopper III, aka The Tin Man. Yes. THAT Tin Man. The Wizard of Oz is a classic tale many of us grew up with. Dorothy and her friends met the Wizard…and then what? Let us regale you with the tale of the Tin Woodsman and how he became emperor of the Winkies, how he was transformed into an owl, and how he came to be made of tin.
 
Love. Adventure. Evil curses. Rainbow fairies. Self-mutilating robots. Green monkeys. Transhumanism. Existential questions about what it means to have a soul and a heart. The story of the Tin Man has all of that and more!
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