VYS0063 | Animaxxing at the End of the World: The Return of Aidan Wachter Show notes

For the final episode of season 4, Hine and Buckley welcome back an all time favourite guest to discuss an all time favourite topic, as Aidan Wachter returns to Vayse to talk about how and why the world is turning to shit right and now, and, importantly, what we can about it.

The day after this episode was recorded, tech-fascist, crap-preaching, man-child, Elon Musk briefly became the world's first trillionaire. Two weeks after recording this episode the UK was in the middle of a three day run of record breaking peaks of June heat. Twenty-three days after recording this episode, convicted felon, professional liar, friend of Jeffrey Epstein and current president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, hosted a narcissistic, self-aggrandising, nationalistic $45 million party whilst the US Military continued strikes on Iran, the constitution continued to be eroded by organised governmental corruption and the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool stagnated in an undeniably on-the-nose visual metaphor.

In this conversation Aidan sets out some of the myriad issues that the world is facing in 2026, his ideas for how animism may be able to point the way towards a better future and how it may be possible to encourage people to discover, commence on and commit to the multi-generational project, whatever it may look like, that may lead humanity out of the dark and frightening mess that it currently finds itself in... (recorded 11 June 2026)

Adiain Wachter Links

VYS0042 | Grinding Out Some Low-End - Vayse to Face with Aidan Wachter
Aidan’s Website
Aidan on Instagram
Aidan’s Patreon
Glymmering (Aidan's Podcast)

Aidan Wachter Backstory Catch-up

Spirit Box #31 / Aidan Wachter, dirt sorcery, Six Ways, Weaving Fate, & Doing what works for you
Spirit Box #62 / Aidan Wachter, on writing, the somnambulist self & the authentic self
Spirit Box #78 / Aidan Wachter, Changeling: A book of Qualities
What Magic Is This? - Spirits With Aidan Wachter
Glitch Bottle #060 - Dirt Sorcery and Six Ways with Aidan Wachter
Glitch Bottle #061 - Sigils, Vessels and Doors with Aidan Wachter | Glitch Bottle
Glitch Bottle #077 - Weaving Fate with Aidan Wachter

Animaxxing at the End of the World

The Gimmering by Elizabeth Hand - Goodreads
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchet - Goodreads
VYS0061 | Talking About Talking About Talking About UFOs
Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems by George Monbiot - The Guardian
Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals by Martin Lukacs -The Guardian
The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change by Nathaniel Rich - The New York Times
Climate Migration Coalition
The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse by Douglas Rushkoff - the Guardian
Planet Critical
The LILI Project
The Truly Sustainable Alternative | Julia Steinberger - Planet Critical
Billionaires and poverty should not coexist - High Pay Centre
Why U.S. Debt Is Incomprehensible by Tom Purcell (gives an idea or orders of magnitude in terms of large sums of money) - Jackson Sun
Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World by Paul Levy - Goodreads
Who is really to blame for climate change? by Jocelyn Timperley- BBC Focus
'I was moderating hundreds of horrific and traumatising videos' by Zoe Kleinman - BBC News
The disturbing rise of Clavicular: how a looksmaxxer turned his ‘horror story’ into fame by Elle Hunt - The Guardian
Andrew Vachss - Wikipedia
Animism - Wikipedia
Aidan Wachter - Animism & Magic
Donald Hoffman on Consciousness and Conscious Agents | Closer To Truth Chats - Youtube
What USAID did, and the effects of Trump's cuts on lifesaving aid - Oxfam
Grace Blakeley - Wikipedia
Vulture Capitalism: Corporate Crimes, Backdoor Bailouts, and the Death of Freedom by Grace Blakeley - Goodreads
Jason Hickel - Wikipedia
Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel - Goodreads
George Monbiot - Wikipedia
The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchinson - Goodreads
Clara E. Mattei - Wikipedia
Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention by Clara E Mattei - Goodreads
Solarpunk - Wikipedia
Afro-punk -Wikipedia
Why does Nigel Farage get to play British politics on easy mode? by Andy Beckett - Guardian UK
Tyson Yunkaporta
Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen
Mythic Serpents & Right Story, Wrong Story with Tyson Yunkaporta - Youtube
Dr. Adder - Wikipedia

Vayse online

Patreon
Website
Youtube
Instagram
Bandcamp (Music From Vayse)
Bluesky
Email: vayseinfo@gmail.com

Special Guest: Aidan Wachter.

Support Vayse

The truth is out there... sometimes... maybe... well, Hine and Buckley just aren't sure. UFOs, UAPs, Flying Saucers, Alien Spacecraft, whatever you think they are, you don't know for sure - and if you think you do know for sure, it's a sure sign you don't.

What you do know for sure is that you are told a lot of different things about them by a lot of different people: abductees spinning stories of high strangeness, senators pressuring whistle-blowers for information in congress, devoutly religious authors telling tales of angels and demons, folklorists and scholars of comparative religion painting vivid pictures of ancient beings dressed up in the skin of Technicolor sci-fi nightmares... no-one agrees and everyone is out to prove that their interpretation is the right interpretation - but what does any of it actually mean?

In this episode Hine and Buckley don't analyse the verisimilitude of the stories or the veracity of the storytellers but instead examine the discourse around the phenomena or more accurately the discourse around the discourse around UFOs. The mechanisms with which people might think about this topic and the reasons that they may think in that way.

The conversation around UFOs is big business, a lot of people making a lot of money - but who are these people and what happens to that money? Where did it all start? Was it Peter Levenda that stealthily laid the ground work over the last 50 years to shape the UFO movement as we know it today? Why would people lie about this stuff? Why should you believe some conspiracy theorist warning you of the terrible dangers of the existential crisis that UFOs pose anymore than you should trust some conspiracy theorist warning you of the terrible dangers of vaccines and their link to childhood autism?... and if the people who are trying to take control of the discourse are lying, overly-gullible or deluded, then is there really any truth out there at all? (recorded 23 April 2026)

Whitley Strieber - Wikipedia
UFOlogy - Wikipedia
2 Navy Airmen and an Object That 'Accelerated Like Nothing, I've Seen' - New York Times (Pay Wall)
Pentagon UFO Videos - Wikipedia
To the Stars
Peter Levenda - Wikipedia
Sinister Forces by Peter Levenda - Goodreads
Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult by Peter Lavenda - Goodreads
Tom DeLonge - Wikipedia
Jim Semivan - The Sol Foundation
Hal Puthoff - Wikipedia
Luis Elizondo - Wikipedia
The Necronomicon: A Study of Ancient Ritual Magic and Esoteric Grimoire Traditions by Simon - Goodreads
HP Lovecraft - Wikipedia
VYS0036 | Infinite Game - Vayse to Face with Joseph Matheny
Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon: The Untold Story of Lovecraft's Stolen Grimoire by Simon - Goodreads
Ong's Hat
Sekret Machines by Tom DeLonge and Peter Levenda - Goodreads
Penny Royal Podcast
The Collins Elite/Final Events - Wikipedia
Aleister Crowley - Wikipedia
Helena Blavatsky - Wikipedia
Anton LaVey - Wikipedia
Brandon Sanderson - Wikipedia
Hellier - Youtube
Hyperstition - Wikipedia
ARG - Wikipedia
Kayfabe - Wikipedia
LARPing - Wikipedia
Andrew Collins
Synchronicity - Wikipedia
Cosmic Trigger - Wikipedia
Robert Anton Wilson - Wikipedia
Chapel Perilous - Wikipedia
JFK Assassination - Wikipedia
AP Strange
Steph Quick
Rob Reiner - Who Killed JFK? Podcast
Occam's Razor - Wikipedia
Capitalism - Wikipedia
MrBeast - Wikipedia
Extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis - Wikipedia
Psychosocial UFO hypothesis - Wikipedia
VYS0054 | You Can't Make An Omelette Without Breaking A Few Egregores - Vayse to Face with Joshua Cutchin
Joshua Cutchin
Demonic UFO hypothesis - Wikipedia
Buddhism - Wikipedia
The Diamond Sutra - Wikipedia
Mayahna
Buddhism and Quantum Mechanics by Michael Behrens - Sience and Non-Duality
Reality in Buddhism - Wikipedia
The Matrix
The Matrix Trailer - Youtube
UFO of God: The Extraordinary True Story of Chris Bledsoe by Chris Bledsoe
Diana Walsh Pasulka - Wikipedia
Steven M. Greer - Wikipedia
Meditation - Wikipedia
Flow State - Wikipedia
Mindfulness - Wikipedia
Elon Musk - Wikipedia
Jeff Bezos - Wikipedia
Count to a Billion (How I began to grasp the atrocity of Musk) by Susan Duerksen - The Jumping Off Place
Amazon Breaks Record For Lobbyist Spending Amid Anti-Union Drive by Jordan Zakarin - perfectunion.us
Predator - Wikipedia
Predator Trailer - Youtube
Saul Hudson (Slash)
Slash by Slash and Anthony Bozza - Goodreads
Philip K Dick - Wikipedia
John Nash - Wikipedia
A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar - Goodreads
A Beautiful Mind (Film) - Wikipedia
A Beautiful Mind Trailer - Youtube
Joan of Arc - Wikipedia
The Schizophrenia of Joan of Arc by Clifford Allen
Schizophrenia - Wikipedia
Temperal Lobe Epilepsy - Wikipedia
Focal Seizures - Epilepsy Action (British Epilepsy Association)
living with the rarest form of epilepsy - reddit
Is AI Really Just a Tool? It Could Be Altering How You See Reality by University of Exeter - Sci-tech Daily
Mirage Men - Wikipedia
Mirage Men: An Adventure into Paranoia, Espionage, Psychological Warfare, and UFOs by Mark Pilkington - Goodreads
Mirage Men Trailer - Youtube
VYS0020 | Messages of Deception - Vayse to Face with Mark Pilkington
False or misleading statements by Donald Trump - Wikipedia
L Ron Hubbard - Wikipedia
L. Ron Hubbard's 5 Most Impressive Lies (Besides Scientology) by Kristi Harrison - Cracked
Carlos Castaneda - Wikipedia
Laurens van der Post - Wikipedia
More myth than man by JDF Jones - The Guardian
The Trickster and the Paranormal by George P. Hansen
Voices for Vaccines - Website which helps de-bunk harmful misinformation about Vaccines
Autism, Vaccines and Immunization - Autism Today - debunking misinformation about the link between childhood autism and vaccines - spoilers: there isn't a link
VYSXXXX | The Real Vayse: Halloween 2024

Vayse online

Ko-Fi
Website
Youtube
Instagram
Bandcamp (Music From Vayse)
Bluesky
Email: vayseinfo@gmail.com

Support Vayse

We got one! Before there was Hellier, before there was Twin Peaks there was Ghostbusters. In this special Halloween episode Hine and Buckley take a deep dive into this cherished classic - the movie that launched a thousand ghost hunting expeditions and at least one podcast about weird stuff. At the remove of 38 years and examined through the lens of Vayse, is Ghostbusters a beloved and harmless comedy blockbuster, a Lovecraftian cautionary tale, or a technicolour Reaganite super-dream? See you on the other side. Recorded 26 October 2022.

(Warning: Throughout this episode we operate on an all spoiler no explainer basis. But if you haven't seen Ghostbusters, perhaps it's time to carefully examine your life choices...?)

The Texts

Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II
Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Music Discussed we talk a lot about the music in Ghostbusters in this episode - here are some choice cuts:

Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr (...?)
I want a New Drug by Huey Lewis and the News
Elmer Bernstein's fantastic score
Magic by Mick Smiley (and as a special treat the very 80s MTV Video)
Savin’ The Day by the Alessi Brothers
In The Name of Love by The Thompson Twins
Vayse Soundtrack by Polypores

Other References

Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History by Daniel Wallace
Ghostbusters: The Inside Story by Matt McAllister
Spook Central
Ghostbusters Fandom Wiki
Ghostbusters.net
Ghostbusters.net on Twitter
Welsh Ghostbusters on Twitter - Seemingly random but a really great account
Necronomicon by Simon
Close up of the doors to the temple of Gozer
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories - a fantastic Lovecraft "Greatest Hits".
The Exorcist
The Evil Dead
The Magical Revival by Kenneth Grant - probably the place to start with Grant. Discusses the idea that Lovecraft was, in fact, a psychic and that the Cthulhu mythos was a revelation.
The Real Ghostbusters – The Collect Call of Cthulhu
VYS0004 | The Uncanny Vallée and the Unreal Keel - The Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis Pt.1 and VYS0005 | UFOnauts and Inverted Crosses - The Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis Pt.2 - Our episodes on the Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis
Trinity: The Best-Kept Secret by Jacques Vallée and Paola Leopizzi Harris - Our neoliberal overlords at Amazon seem to be by far the cheapest place to get this book at present.
Speaking of Neoliberal overlords, the New Economic Foundation did a great series of podcasts about neoliberalism which Hine borrowed from heartily to fuel the frenzied final third of this episode.
Life After Death: Eighteen Years on Death Row by Damien Echols - eye opening account of his time on death row following his wrongful and how Magic and love saved his life.
Making Ghostbusters by Don Shay - unfortunately long out of print and now ridiculously expensive.
A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever by Jr. Greene James

Support Vayse