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March 26, 2017 — John L. Steadman

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Gene Steinberg

Gene Steinberg

Forum Super Hero
Staff member
A fascinating journey through the world of magick and mystical traditions, focusing on the works of the late horror/sci-fi author H.P. Lovecraft.

Steadman was an entertaining speaker, though we might have wanted to probe deeper into some of his claims.

There's more discussion about this show on the accompanying episode of After The Paracast, the premium podcast that is available only to subscribers to The Paracast+.

You can learn more about our premium service at: Introducing The Paracast+ | The Paracast — The Gold Standard of Paranormal Radio
 
Steadman was very knowledgeable, though I agree with you that his ideas and practices could have been explored more deeply.
I was very impressed with your trivia expertise.
One criticism is that the three of you stepped on each other quite a bit.
 
That was an intriguing interview.

I understand that Mr. Steadman may show up here at the forums, and if so, I'd be interested in Mr. Steadman's thoughts about the following:

Mr. Steadman, you emphasized several times that actual beings, evidently non-human, are involved in magick, and that as far as you know, all real magick is a human engagement of these beings via rituals. You said the film Dr. Strange gave a fair representation of some of these things, but that it lacked the actual engagement of the beings behind the power of magick. Can you describe anything about the nature of the beings with which you are familiar? Does it matter to you what kind of beings they are?

You also said that you use Lovecraft's magick system even though Lovecraft himself was not practicing it and actually did not believe in it as a real magick system. So, in your opinion, did the non-human beings behind magick actually influence Lovecraft to write things about magick that they wanted written? Or, alternatively, do these beings care that much about what kind of magick system regulates human contact with them, as long as humans perform some system of ritual?

In your opinion, could ritual magick be something of an analogy to polytheism, like Hinduism? In other words, you are approaching certain non-human powers via magick rituals, which to me seems similar to a Hindu worshiper who approaches one of their divine beings via rituals and worship. To me, as a theist of the Abrahamic tradition, there seems to be a general similarity between magick, shamanism and Hinduism, in that non-human entities are invoked and petitioned for divine beneficence. Do you think there is any connection?

Thanks.
 
I liked the cultural stuff in this episode, but I have to bring up an old gripe.

A little after the 1:23 mark he says: "... some day those quantum physicists are going to need some way to quantify their speculations, they can't do it right now. ... that's where quantum physics has gone now, it's all speculation."

I suspect he meant string theory. But he brought up Einstein's dislike of quantum (pre-string), so let's take it at face value.

On its face, this is nonsense. No other theory in science has more mountains of supporting evidence than quantum. The guest's Skype connection depends on hundreds of microchips along the way, all built on quantum (transistors). The LHC outside Geneva was built to find a single number, among other things: the mass-energy of the Higgs particle ... approximately 125 GeV. Yada yada, all the usual evidence.

This guest, seemingly all paranormal commentators, Deepak Chopra, etc -- they all get quantum grossly wrong. They seem to borrow the ideas for the sake of riffing on them, nothing more.

If one were to walk the halls of any physics department in the land, all of the above is a joke to them. The paranormal community is the barbarians at the gates, in their view.

Science deniers, paranormal riffing on quantum, etc .. these are a few of the reasons why scientists see themselves as involved in a culture war with some segments of society. Chris has often brought up a great idea: let's start getting paranormal under the big tent of mainstream science. It can't happen until people stop mis-representing them in egregious ways.

End rant.
 
I sympathize ac5, and I'm not justifying the comments of Mr. Steadman. But I will say that human expression at the popular level has never been too exact. Rigorous, qualified language is not usually found on the street, but in peer reviewed stuff. And even among those immersed in science, language choices are sometimes made that, on the surface, seem out of context, such as in the following from this article about five new baryons that were very recently discovered:

Professor Tara Shears, from the University of Liverpool, a leading member of the “beauty” team, said: “These particles have been hiding in plain sight for years, but it's taken the exquisite sensitivity of LHCb's particle detectors to bring them to our attention.”

The five particles are all baryons – subatomic particles made up of three smaller units called quarks.

Quarks, one of the basic building blocks of matter, come in six “flavours” known as up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom.​

So, first of all, the professor says these large particles were unknown prior to this experiment. How much more in the quantum world is "unknown" is anyone's guess.

The very choice of the term "quark" by Nobel prize winner Gell-Mann for a new class of particles was not very scientific. The "flavours" of quarks have nothing to do with taste. And, as I understand it, QCD has nothing to do with colors of particles, but instead, RGB colors serve as an analogy to classify how certain particles interact.

Bottom line for me, conversational language is often too imprecise to get very bent out of shape about misuse. And this is especially pronounced for paranormal subjects where people are trying to describe extraordinary things that are not readily subject to repeated in-depth empirical investigation. YMMV.
 
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WS -- some good points. My mileage did vary.

There's obviously a wide range of language between street and peer review. I don't mind some loose language. I was objecting to a stampede-of-elephants level of misrepresentation. The statement "quantum physics is all speculation" is all-but equivalent to these statements:

"Computers don't exist", or "the electronics revolution of the last 60 years never happened." He might not have noticed that one implies the other, but it does.

Don't worry, no one's requiring peer review on the Paracast.

The quark naming thing: Gell-Mann had a sense of whimsy. They're just names (labels) to refer to things that no one can ever see directly. As usual, it's all super-precise under the hood.

If one camp could abuse the other camp's language a little less, we might have a cease-fire in the culture wars one day. Perhaps get the paranormal "under the tent" too.
 
I enjoyed the episode and would actually like to see Mr. Steadman come back and get more involved with the magick. This is a pretty fascinating subject and both of you, Gene and Chris, appeared to have an interest in it. I have always found Lovecraft intriguing and I thought you did a great job on tying him into this strange world we live in. Kudos!
 
Hey guys, I'm back. I've been gone for a while on the forums, but life happens. I'm still listening to the show religiously, and I'm still a huge fan. You guys still have one of the best Paranormal shows out there.

The Steadman episode was great. I've been a Lovecraft fan for many years, and I too have an interest in learning a bit about magic. I consider myself a spiritualist and want to pursue 'knowledge.'

Could someone please tell me again of what authors to start off reading? And yes, I'm all about taking 'baby steps' when it comes to learning these things.

And yes, I agree that you guys should have Mr. Steadman back on. What a fascinating episode.
 
I enjoyed the show with Mr. Steadman. I am pleased to know there is a university out there employing someone as a teacher and scholar, and which is not be made uncomfortable with that individual's private interest in magickal practice. I'm sure it's not an isolated case, but I always like to know about such instances.
 
Really enjoyed the episode, and I'm one of those damn 'nuts and bolts' UFO guys. I really didn't feel like we got a lot of word salad in this episode. I appreciate that he sounded level headed. Those people talking about different vibrations sound about as interesting as people talking about flavors of quarks. Not to say that their not accurate but boring to listen to. This guy sounded more down to earth.

As far as magic creatures being extraterrestrial wouldn't any creature older than the earth be extraterrestrial? Maybe paraterrestrial?

Ah-oh wrote myself some more word salad. Anyway, great episode, maybe have him back on after the paracast to teach an intro to magic course without commercial interruption.
 
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