For episode 14 of Pop Apocalypse, we welcome the linguist and philosopher Wouter Kusters. Kusters is the author of Pure Madness (2004) and A Philosophy of Madness (2014), both of which won the Dutch Socrates Award for best philosophy book of the year. We discuss (5:26) how the experience of psychotic thinking challenges and illuminates our notions of language, philosophy, and mysticism. Along the way, we touch on the similarities between mystical and mad experiences, apophatic and psychotic uses of language, the phenomenology of time, and the impact of Kusters’ books on mental health specialists.

Wouter Kusters, PhD, is a linguist and philosopher based in the Netherlands. Two of his books received the Dutch Socrates Award for the best and most inspiring philosophy book of the year: Pure Madness (2004) and A Philosophy of Madness (2014). The English version of this latter work was released in 2020 by MIT Press. In 2022, an Arabic version was released, and a Chinese translation is expected this year. Kusters writes on a range of themes in various outlets that explore perennial questions of meaning, madness, mysticism, and language.

LINKS
Wouter Kusters' homepage
A Philosophy of Madness

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