The Age of Enfrightenment: Recent Episodes
The Age of Enfrightenment
Earth has become a much smaller place. The mysteries of our planet are being slowly killed by the march of progress. Yet fear remains a constant of the human condition. It is the most basic of our emotions. It is what ties us all together and perpetually tears us apart. And we find fear fascinating. Twice a month the Age of Enfrightenment podcast will shed some light on the dark corners of the world and investigate the things that keep us up at night. Come along as we examine mysteries of the past, urban legends, and the anxieties of an ever-looming and unknowable future. We will discuss bizarre and macabre literature and cinema, and its role in society. If you have a passion for the eerie, the esoteric, and the extraordinary, then you have a home with us. Welcome to the Age of Enfrightenment.
On Earth, our past and present are equally bizarre, grotesque, and surprising. This inescapable fact is precisely why The Age of Enfrightenment was founded. Throughout the ongoing Interlude series within the AoE catalog, each of your hosts have introduced eerie vignettes to one another as well as you, the listener. On this particular 3 part episode, the stories come from our distant past, recent past, and events that are unfolding as you are hearing about them now. Within these tales expect to find fire, haunting encounters, and murder, with a sometimes surprising or fascinating cast of characters; be they musicians, tech entrepreneurs, or Commanders in Chief.
On the previous episode of AoE, your hosts explored the brilliant mind and melancholy life of Cosmic Horror maestro Howard Phillips Lovecraft. In Part II, Theo, Dave, and Nick will each retell one of their favorite Lovecraft stories, what it means to them, and the significance of those stories within the greater universe of the writer's expansive lore. You will also learn about some of the greatest, though not always discussed, influences that Lovecraft has had and continues to have on modern creators of strange and terrifying books and film. Please enjoy your second stroll into the maddening cosmic unknown with one of the world's weirdest storytellers.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
These words could easily serve as an introductory statement encapsulating the thesis of this entire podcast. So it is not by mistake that the man who wrote them in his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature", has been referenced in a majority of AoE episodes. Howard Phillips Lovecraft was no stranger to fear and anxiety, especially when confronted with the unknown, both in his corporeal real-world experience, and in the more conceptual realms of time and space.
In this first half of our multi-episode exploration of the weird worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, we look at the man himself three-dimensionally, without smoothing over any of the jagged edges that plague his legacy. He was a myth-maker, a struggling artist, a tortured soul, a virulent bigot, and has left an unmatched impression on over a century of strange and terrifying fiction. He left this world without ever knowing the immensity that his cosmic horror genre would reach. Join us for a trip to where rational thought meets crippling madness in this very special AoE first: an in-depth profile of a true maestro of fear, Lovecraft.
In past episodes, The Age of Enfrightenment has explored the fascinating yet unproven accounts of so many monsters throughout history. Gruesome accounts of mutilation and mayhem draw us in with their horrific nature, but often with the safety net of skepticism and rationalization. From the monsters within this episode though, there is no such safe place to hide from the reality of what they do. We have not only confirmed kills, evidence, and convictions, but also first hand accounts in writing, on tape, and on camera: serial killers explaining in their own calm words their motivations and the brutal details of their crimes.
We as a society have shown over a century of highly publicized serial killings that we are not only able to listen to these accounts, but we are enthralled by them though they make us shudder. Join your hosts and two special guests for an entertaining and eerie discussion about this particular kind of real-life monster, recorded around a single microphone in a remote cabin in the woods.
"When man meets a force he can't destroy, he destroys himself instead. What a plague you are." This line is spoken with the deepest contempt and disgust by the leader of a supernatural gang of predators to one of their victims in the film 30 Days of Night. The story accounts the misfortune of a small Alaskan town when its annual month-long darkness attracts a horde of monsters. They are, of course, vampires.
Vampires are in many ways a perfect totem of human fears. They remove us from our cozy throne atop the global food chain, give us a reason to fear the setting sun, and perhaps most intriguing, they shine a light on the fears we harbor for one another. Vampires, unlike their equally popular mythic cousins, zombies and werewolves, are of completely sound mind. They are as intelligent, if not more so, than any of us and are unbound by the limitations of age or social contracts. And so, as expressed in the quote above, we know they are wise to the pain they cause their victims, have no remorse, and enjoy it.
Their prominence in the early cultures of every continent proves an equally powerful fascination with their bloodlust and terror at the prospect of their existence. In this episode, your personal AoE Dr. Van Helsings will examine the universal power of the vampire myth on Earth and what it might reveal about humans, their simultaneous victims and creators.
For all of our immense achievements of progress throughout history, it seems as though humanity must pay an equally immense price. Every breakthrough in mass communication is twisted by dangerous and false propaganda. Every miracle of humanitarian aid arrives parallel to a new weapon of unimaginable destruction. It isn't the stuff of our common nightmares that reveal this paradox: spiders, zombies, the bogeyman. It is instead the likely most universal and unfortunate of mankind's traditions: war. Those of us who have never experienced it cannot really wrap our minds around it, and those who have are permanently scarred by its bleak brutality. Join the AoE boys on their first and surely not last examination of the most fascinating and real horror shows on Earth.
How do you know that something is real? If you listen to this podcast, it's likely that you are a discerning skeptic like us, and as such you may answer that question by saying "I'll believe it when I see it with my own two eyes." But is that even good enough? Consider all of the things those trusty eyes of yours can't do. They can't look in more than one direction simultaneously. They cannot perceive your surroundings in more than 3 dimensions. There are literally countless shades and hues of light that they are incapable of detecting. Hardwire these severely handicapped bulbs to the fleshy computer in your skull, and now there is another level of corruption to the raw data around you. Human brains, remarkable as they are, lie to us all of the time about what we think we are seeing. It's a slightly terrifying thought, but as all things examined by the AoE, it's terrifically fascinating.
Today there are few packages a story can come in that are more reserved for the realm of children than fairy tales. They are small, simple stories; often cautionary and perilous but ultimately toothless and appropriate for retelling before bed. But in the truth we can mine from history, they are so much more. These are the old tales. The characters and morals that write themselves into the DNA handed down from one society to the next. On this first episode of the new year, each of your AoE hosts will tell you the real versions of well-known and lesser-known tales, shining a light on the gory details that time edited out, and discussing what these stories say about the people who whispered them down the lane of generations.
It is probably safe to say that all people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Whether it is as harmless as brand loyalty to your favorite tech company or as dangerous as giving all of your life savings to a shady organization offering the promise of fulfillment, each of us has exhibited some cult-like behavior in our lives. What is it that makes the lure of history's worst self-proclaimed messiahs so attractive? The possible answers are many, but we ought to begin by studying the most peculiar and chilling cases and considering how rational people such as ourselves, sometimes by the hundreds or more, have been ensnared in the traps of deadly cults.
For time immemorial, humans have looked to the heavens and wondered, "Are we alone in the Universe?" Perhaps though, many are right to have more local concerns. These are the people who ask "Are we alone... on Earth?" Ranging in size, distinction from or likeness to us, and most importantly degree of ill intent, there are too many names for our unseen neighbors to capture them all in one episode. What the AoE boys do present for curious ears is a deeply rooted belief in a clandestine world of both wonder and terror. Join your hosts, a trio once again with the return of Dave from Ireland, as they go looking for those beings it would be unwise to offend, and so we respectfully call... the Fair Folk.
It should come as no surprise that October 31st is deeply meaningful to your AoE hosts. The Age of Enfrightenment was built on the idea that the Universe's many unknown terrors are only matched by our endless fascination with them. There is simply no other night of the year that feels quite as alive with possibility and mystery as the ancient ritual of Samhain that we've come to call Halloween. Much of the Earth celebrates this phantasmagorical banquet of the Fall or something like it around the same time every year. It seems that Autumn herself smells of both death and delight in equal measure. Join Theo and Nick for a night of tricks and treats while Dave and his bride enjoy a much deserved honeymoon in a far off land. Congratulations, Jenna and Dave, and Happy Halloween to all!
It can often be easy for us to feel unintimidated by nature. We go about our daily lives secure in the confidence that we are the uncontested apex species of the Earth. But consider for a moment the lack of concern that you show for every insect that crosses you underfoot. You are not another animal. You are a calamity of Biblical proportion; a force of nature that can snuff out the existence of thousands with each step. Now imagine that you are that insect... Some creatures of myth are so immense, that they defy the standard classifications of the animal kingdom. They are the world-enders, and they are called by many names on every continent: Jotnar, Titans, Kaiju. Join the AoE boys for a trepidatious journey through the world of giants and what our fear of them truly means for humanity.
Perhaps for some it's the garishly colored ill-fitting outfits. For others maybe, the monstrously exaggerated movements. Or the laughing... the laughing that never feels entirely sincere and seems to hide some deeply buried malice. Whatever nuances are woven into the fear, we can all seem to agree on one thing: The face. Whether you find it charming or dreadful, the face of a clown is a solid brick wall to us. It conceals something deeper, possibly darker. On this episode of the Age of Enfrightenment, step up close with your hosts to the painted face; close enough to see through the cracks in the wall, through centuries of more goose bumps than giggles.
From fried tarantulas in Cambodia to jellied moose nose in Canada, human beings have developed quite possibly the most eclectic diet of all living things. It seems there is only one meal across nearly every culture that is so taboo and foul that even the mere mention of it is enough to curdle the blood. We do not eat each other. This is a law so hardcoded into our brains that it feels unnecessary to utter. And yet, people have consumed one another for as long as there have been people to do so, in more ways than you can imagine, and in places you would never expect. Steel your nerves and your stomachs for a delicious episode of the Age of Enfrightenment.
The earliest known "spook tale," as they were called until roughly the 1930s, is Le Manoir du Diable ("The House of the Devil"). Released just before the turn of the 20th century, the film is 3 minutes of black and white editing tricks that make eerie archetypes like bats, ghosts, and witches appear and vanish out of thin air. Since then scary movies have formed into a firm pillar of the movie industry as well as our lives. Without them, it's hard to imagine that your AoE hosts would be so inspired by fear as to bring you this podcast twice a month. In this interlude episode, Dave, Theo, and Nick share their favorite horror films that you might not have seen. The full list is available on the RESOURCES page.
Dear listeners,
Whatever you may think you are doing here, do not listen to this episode of the Age of Enfrightenment. Please come back in two week when we will be posting a perfectly safe and entirely curse-free Episode 14. Ultimately, your decisions are your own and we can in no way police what auditory experiences you partake in, but we simply cannot stress enough that no good will come from listening to Episode 13... of anything really. You've likely already done some damage to your chances of survival just reading this far into our cautionary letter.
Our deepest apologies and best of luck to you,
Dave, Theo, & Nick
P.S. Don't listen to it.
The Universe is unfathomably large, but the Earth is not. We know its circumference and its mass, and even how long it has been around. So it's easy to imagine that if we were ever visited by people from another world, we'd know about it. Where could they hide? After all, this is our house and we know who's been in it, right? Well, there is actually an overwhelming number of human beings who believe quite the opposite; that extra-terrestrials have lived among us throughout history, and on several occasions have made close contact. In a more often than not divided society, aliens, UFOs, and the stories attached to them stand as a strangely unifying fascination for all of us here on Earth. In this AoE intro to E.T.s, your hosts explore the earliest claims of alien abduction and UFO sightings, and the cultural phenomenon that continues to grow around those stories to this day.
There's nothing beneath our feet besides thousands of miles of rock, soil, and molten metal, right? Maybe a handful of wriggling sightless creatures who pose no threat to the likes of us. But what if there is so much more? Rivers, vegetation, even a small star... all of the necessary ingredients for life, and perhaps thriving, advanced civilization. On this episode of The Age of Enfrightenment, your hosts take you on a journey to the center of the Earth,\ and the center of a storied tradition in scientific thought, that seems to be ripped directly from the pages of science fiction.
For thousands of years, stories traveled at the speed of human beings, from one campfire to the next – mouth to ears. Today our stories travel at an average speed of 4 Megabits per second. Among them are an infinitely growing number of tales that are too chilling for common forms of media, and more often than not, claim to be true. Join the AoE for an exploration of the new breed of storytelling hardly old enough to drive in human terms, but which has already nearly claimed lives. After listening, your hosts strongly suggest that you visit the Resources page for further reading.
In a timespan of less than a few decades, video games and other forms of new media have provided entire worlds for humans to immerse themselves in. These worlds have their own laws of physics, rules, and moral codes and need not abide by those of reality. Essentially, they are ripe with the unknown – and where there is the unknown, there is so much to fear. Join the Enfrightenment gang as they welcome friend and guest Justin to explore the darker side of interactive entertainment.
On this very special episode of The Age of Enfrightenment, your hosts learn even more about witchcraft from the first-hand accounts of Lauren, a practitioner of modern magic. The AoE boys ask the questions and Lauren is incredibly generous with her time, stories, and sense of humor. Enjoy!
Looking back as far as ancient myths and as recently as the 1950's, your three hosts each share stories near and dear to their sooty black hearts. On this mixtape of terror episode, prepare to celebrate Mother's Day the AoE way, meet a fiendish figure from 19th Century England, and reach a whole new level of dread toward the secrets of Cold War era Russia.
"Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble." Whether in Shakespeare, modern horror films, adorable Halloween costumes, or ancient religious texts, witches hold a special place in our collective human experience. We've seen them as healers, amusing fads, and as mortal threats, but whatever lens we choose to peek through, the undeniable fact is that they are real. Part of the fabric of history is made up of people who actually lived as either self-proclaimed or accused witches, and in most cases their stories were grim and tragic. On this introductory episode to Witchcraft, your AoE hosts explore where it came from and what it has meant to humanity.
Dare to take a stroll through the wilderness with the Enfrightenment fellas and their friend Jordan? This conversation deconstructs one of our oldest and arguably most logical fears as human beings... the woods.
So far on AoE we have explored some of the fascinating ways that the world, the people, and the technology around us shape our fears. On this episode, look deep within at the beast inside each of us as Dave, Theo, and Nick discuss the universally human concept of shape-shifters.
On the previous episode of AoE, the Enfrightenment seekers digest the ways in which humans can understand and explain our sense of sound. In Part 2, hear stories of the unexplained.
All those with ears to hear know the chilling terror that can be induced by certain sounds. In Part 1 of our two episode series on fear of sound, your hosts explore the science behind auditory phenomena.
The Enfrightenment boys speak with a guest about the fear and fascination we have for the next evolution of intelligent life on Earth... machines.
An introduction in which the Enfrightenment boys each present one of their favorite strange or dark subjects.