The Nonsense Bazaar

This week we're looking at the reign (and dysfunctional family) Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, the sadboi emperor. Rudolph II was a patron of the arts while also showing a keen interest in alchemy and the occult. A good emperor, however, he was not, preferring to amass a monstrous collection of curiosities in art, science, alchemy and esoterica to actually doing anything. We look at where Rudolph came from and what may have lead hi...

We're here. The finale and Aum Shinrikyo's Armageddon extravaganza. Aum has now fully transformed itself into a true paramilitary death cult with commando units, an  "Intelligence Ministry" multiple weapons factories for all the different types of weapons, conventional, chemical, biological, you name it. Most importantly, they have "The Wizard", a chemical weapons factory that, among other implements of death, produced two of the m...

Look, we warned you it was going to get bad. Following their totally unpredictable complete loss in the parliamentary election and the murder of the Sakamoto family, Shoko Asahara and Aum Shinrikyo begin the full-on militarization process that would ultimately lead to the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks. But we're not there yet. First they need to experiment with other chemical and biological weapons, like botulism and anthrax. We als...

This week we're beginning the darkest story we've ever told here on The Nonsense Bazaar,, that of legendary Japanese death cult Aum Shinrikyo. But don't worry because it's as absurd as it is harrowing. And it is both to an extreme degree. Between 1987 and 1995, "blind" yoga instructor and quack medicine salesman Shoko Asahara did the hard work of turning a yoga school franchise into full-on sci-fi death cult that manufactured drugs...

We're back! Join us for a cosmic exploration of David K. Miller's Group of Forty, a meditation collective that promises a journey to the fifth dimension through…shimmering? Along with his wife Gudrun, Miller and his Group of Forty have pioneered techniques like "bio relativity" to heal Mother Earth and restore our personal feedback loop systems. From inconsistent accounts of channeling experiences to highly questionable Native Amer...

I wanted to do a remaster episode or two this week, but apparently my backup game is simply weak. So you're getting another Corkboard. Next week I might talk about UFOs while I drink whiskey If I can figure out what I even want to say other than like a muffled sob-scream. I can't wait to get back to regular episodes. 

This week on the Corkboard, Willow auditions a new theme song, we learn about the seemingly common phenomenon of e...

This week we're unlocking another episode of our bonus series, The Corkboard Bizarre and taking a look at the super spooky totally real and definitely not made up text at the core of Theosophy, the Stanzas of Dzyan. Referenced throughout Helena Blavatsky's magnum opus The Secret Doctrine, the Stanzas of Dzyan is allegedly the real, actual, secrets of how the universe was formed and functions. As a literary device, it's pretty cool ...

This week we're unlocking an episode of our Patreon bonus series The Corkboard Bizarre on the insane, highly detailed, and mind-numbing "Awakening Your Light Body" course that was mentioned in our episode on "The Bodysnatchers" that may have been the catalyst for driving Jennie Gosbell over the edge. We get some personal affirmations from the spirit world, listen to some brainwashing music, and maybe even learn something. You can ...

Intelligence agency recruitment tool? Alternate reality game? Cult indoctrination? Masonic conspiracy? Nerds being nerds? Non-lethal weapons testing? Cicada 3301 is one of the strangest of all the internet mysteries. In 2012 a picture was posted on 4chan claiming that a shadowy organization was looking for "highly intelligent people" and that there was a message hidden in the picture, from there internet sleuths were led down a see...

Join us on today’s episode as we enter the confusing world of Susan Reed, a woman who was drawn into a web of extraterrestrial intrigue and danger, as detailed in her revealing book, 'The Body Snatchers: A Real Alien Conspiracy.' Her saga started innocently in a Spanish class where she met Brian, a host for interdimensional reptilian entities, and culminated in a questionable pilgrimage to meet John of God, the disgraced psychic su...

We're taking a summer break this week so instead of a regular episode, Sequoyah read Jack Parsons' essay "Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword" which he completed in the year following the famed Babalon working. It remains one of very few completed pieces of writing by Parsons and if you look past some needed edits (due to excessive horniness, mainly) it's absolutely fantastic. However because we are technically on vacation, Sequoyah didn'...

We’ve all heard about the things that supposedly happen at the moment of death: the life review that flashes before your eyes, the tunnel of white light, etc etc. But what if all of that truly does happen except…it’s a trap. Meant to keep us stuck on the wheel of life and death feeding our tasty loosh energy to the evil reptilian archons again and again and again, forever. Yeah that’d suck, for sure. And that’s exactly what some po...

Returning to our enlightening study on Jane Lead, today we’re delving into the pivotal years from her first vision in 1670 to her demise in 1704. We'll probe into how, as her physical sight failed, her spiritual visions proliferated, igniting both intrigue and devotion among a growing body of followers. This clandestine group, the Philadelphian Society, subscribed to Lead's prophecies of an impending era of universal brotherly love...

We’re turning back the hands of time to 17th-century England to learn about the eccentricities of post-Reformation life and Jane Lead's spiritual metamorphosis from rich girl to old blind weirdo. Learn how she journeyed from her Norfolk upbringing to marry her cousin and eventually become a conduit of Sophia, the mysterious embodiment of divine wisdom herself. She was inspired by the enigmatic teachings of Jakob Böhme and the Behe...

Join us as we embark on a spiritual exploration to discover what connects the tale of Rapunzel with the ancient tradition of alchemy. We’ll deconstruct the metaphorical tower and examine Rapunzel's encounters with the witch and prince as expressions of the seven stages of alchemy: calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, and coagulation. It's a tapestry of history, philosophy, myth, and persona...

Roadworn and weary, battered and bruised, this week we're finishing the series that actually might have been trying to kill us. It's Andrija Puharich part III, and it is completely insane. We find the good doctor Puharich after the publication of his book about how Uri Geller is the baby Jesus, convinced that the Soviets have mind control cannons pointed at the world, and now that even Uri Geller has distanced himself, trying to fi...

In the continuing saga of trying to record this series, not only did we have to re-record this episode, but Sequoyah lost his voice. So enjoy laughing at that. This week we find Andrija Puharich in Israel to research the powers of the international spoon-bending psychic superstar Uri Geller, and the truly psychotic misadventures that ensue after the mysterious voice of a time traveling artificial intelligence on board a spaceship n...