This is the second part of my short notes for every episode of the second season of the Penny Royal Podcast. Here are the notes for the first half of season 2.
Episode 7 (season 2)
Roads facilitate the flow of information and are paths to initiation. This was true for ancient roman roads as it is today with the ‘information super highway’.
While James Shelby Downard’s father was involved in the laying of asphalt roads in the US, Jack Parsons improved rocket fuel by mixing asphalt into it. These rockets now are the equivalent of roads into space.
Roads are present in the sky, on earth, and below as well: not only is the Penny Royal plateau covered with connecting caves, there are rumours of secret roads underneath Penny Royal.
Episode 8 (season 2)
In mythology, descent into earth is considered an initiation, in which the hero returns with hidden knowledge.
There are many different names for who lives beyong the earth: Hades, elves and fairies, reptilian aliens, etc. The concepts for the underground realms vary from Agartha and hollow earth to underground tunnels and secret bases, …
UFOs could possibly originate from this inner spaces, instead of outer space. It has indeed been reported that underground cave systems are related to high strangeness.
Episode 9 ( season 2)
Fascist ideology is lurking around the Penny Royal mysteries as well as other paranormal phenomenons and communities.
While ‘re-weirding’ and ‘re-enchanting’ should and could work as counter narratives to fascism, there is a rise of far-right ideology within the paranormal world itself.
The study of folklore war instrumentatized by far-right ideologies in Europe. Ideologies like traditionalism and perennialism believe in original a-priori truths. They idealize the past and tend to reject science and the future.
In opposition to mummyfying folklore into an idealized past, the mixing and matching of liminality challenges the fixed ideologies of soil and blood.
Episode 10 (season 2)
The Penny Royal mysteries function as an initiation for those who explore them. The experiences with the phenomenon are individual and do not translate to others. Interacting with it changes a person, and changes how this person interacts with the world.
Our attention decides where we go. In other words, we should pay attention to what we want. Engagement with the outside world is required, instead of just waiting for it to manifest. Magic can be defined as inviting synchronicity by visualizing something different than the status quo.
The Penny Royal Podcast started as an investigation into unsolved murders but ended being about the magic of place. The interaction with the phenomenon gives it its definition, as it wants to be observed. Refexitivity and circularity are important aspects of the phenomenon.
Episode 11 (season 2)
We inhabit a world that is watching us too. What we perceive of this world as reality is only a small part of the picture.
Information is at the heart of our reality. It is also hidden from us. This is why we need some sort of codes and devices to decode reality. Magic, like cryptography allows the practitioner to decode reality.
All magic partakes in some form of action in the distance (space or time). Magic consists of a set of techniques intended to deliberately reduce randomness and create synchronicities.