For this episode on Black Hoodie Alchemy, we're celebrating the fall and Halloween aesthetic a bit more with our historical overview of the vampire!
As Carl Jung often said: whether or not God exists, the image of God certainly exists, and has propelled humanity thought throughout history in ways both enlightening and catastrophic. Certainly, one could say this to varying degrees about all symbolic aspects of the psyche, especially the particularly old and familiar ones -- and certainly, this mentality has a lot to do with Jung's overall viewpoint. All that in mind, we apply that the notion of the vampire!
Regardless of whether or not a vampire is real in a physical sense, the image of the vampire has been projected by the human imagination since nearly the beginning of human storytelling. Where did the word and belief come from? Why is it so compelling, and what can it tell us about our own psyches?
Join us as we dive into modern New Orleans vampire lore, the origins of the characters throughout comparative religion and folklore the world over, the modern human "vampire" culture that has sprouted up (especially in places like New Orleans and Buffalo, NY), and some of the many historical underpinnings to the vampire mythology that can be related to early medical misunderstandings.
We even get into pieces of American history like the New England Vampire panic -- something extremely similar to the Salem Witch Trials and just as terrifying! And we take a little bit of time to get into some of the key symbolic takeaways in our favorite works of vampire fiction, like the books I Am Legend and Interview with the Vampire.
Enjoy the start of this Halloween season! Embrace your shadow and enjoy the episode.
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This week's music is brought to you by the homies of the Babylon Warchild crew in the Toronto hiphop scene! With bars as enlightening as they are brutal and beats of equal measure, these guys are some of the life-blood of the underground that you're probably sleeping on -- so catch up!
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