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Who’s Weird?

I was browsing through the line-ups of some upcoming skeptical conferences today, and noticed how they regularly get a few ‘notables’ at their meetings who support the cause (for example, magicians Penn & Teller and their support of the James Randi Educational Foundation). Which got me thinking: who are the well-known people out there with a predilection for the weird stuff? Who do you think would enjoy reading The Daily Grail? Let’s crowd-source this and see who we can come up with – add anybody you can think of in the comments, and if a worthy contender I’ll add them to the list below (generally have to show prolonged interest in a topic, rather than just mentioning it off-hand). I’ll start with a few and y’all can bombard me with new additions:

  • Dan Aykroyd (Actor/Comedian) – UFOs, The Paranormal
  • Arj Barker (Comedian) – UFOs
  • Danny Carey (Musician) – Esoterica
  • John Cleese (Actor) – Noetic Science, Afterlife
  • Storm Constantine (Author) – Esoterica
  • Rhys Darby (Actor/Comedian) – Cryptozoology
  • William Gibson (Author) – Forteana
  • Michio Kaku (Scientist) – UFOs
  • Sammy Hagar (Musician) – Alien Abductions
  • David Lynch (Director) – Esoterica
  • Shirley MacClaine (Actor) – The Paranormal
  • Edgar Mitchell (Apollo Astronaut) – UFOs, Noetic Science
  • Alan Moore (Author) – Esoterica
  • Grant Morrison (Author) – Esoterica
  • Kary Mullis (Scientist) – Alien Abductions
  • Jimmy Page (Musician) – Esoterica
  • Katy Perry (Musician) – UFOs, Hidden History
  • Clifford Pickover (Scientist) – Shamanism
  • Josh Radnor (Actor) – Shamanism
  • Joe Rogan (Comedian) – Hidden History, Shamanism
  • Rudy Rucker (Author) – UFOs
  • Ridley Scott (Director) – Aliens, Hidden History
  • Steven Spielberg (Director) – UFOs
  • Guillermo del Toro (Director) – The Paranormal
  • Robbie Williams (Musician) – UFOs, The Paranormal

Who else you got?

Updated (21/5/2012): Added crowd suggestions, and re-organised into alphabetical order by surname.

Editor
  1. Jimmy Page (Led Zepplin) and
    Jimmy Page (Led Zepplin) and Grant Morrison are very interested in Magic with the former very into Crowley and the latter more Austin Spare with sigil magick.

    I am also told the Roman Polanski is by someone who used to hang out with him in the 70s. Given some of his films that is not too surprising, however I cannot find more evidence of that.

    I think George Clooney also maintains a strong interest.

  2. The musician Carl McCoy is a
    The musician Carl McCoy is a dedicated occultist, which he has discussed in various interviews over the years, and which can be seen in the lyrics to many of his songs.

    The SF/Fantasy author Storm Constantine is another occultist, having written a couple of books on the subject as nonfiction.

  3. A few of them
    Robbie Williams, (former?) singer.

    Katy Perry, singer.

    Olivia Newton John, former singer.

    Riddley Scott, film director.

    Steven Spielberg, film director.

    J.J. Abrams, film director.

    Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and Science popularizer.

    Mikhail Gorvachev, former USSR’s head of state.

    David Bowie, former musician and occasional film actor.

    Mick Jagger, musician.

    Sammy Hagar, former band member of Van Halen.

    Muhammad Ali, former heavy-weight boxing champion of the world.

    William Shatner, movie & TV actor.

    Leonard Nimoy, movie & TV actor.

    Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, governor of the Buddhist republic of Kalmykia in Russia and president of the World Chess Federation.

    Christie Brinkley, former super model.

    Sigourney Weaver, actress.

    Paul Hellyer, the former minister of national defense in Canada.

    Fife Symington, former Arizona governor.

    [All these were gathered by Googling “famous people who believe in UFOs”]

  4. David Lynch as well has come
    David Lynch as well has come out with some rather good esoteric lectures.

    There is also the late Barry Letts who was script editor for Doctor Who in the early 1970s. He is behind some of the more overtly occult Doctor Who stories such as “The Daemons” and the positively Typhonian “Planet of the Spiders”

  5. Another one
    Doug Moench, comic writer, who is mentioned by Jeffrey Kripal in both his books Authors of the Impossible, and Mutants & Mystics.

    Also Joe Rogan, comedian who has often mentioned his experiences with DMT.

  6. from the Wierd-Went-Pro-a-Loooong-Time-Ago-Dept.P
    Greg,

    Peter Sturrock, British scientist

    One of my meatspace friends, degreed scientist from the former Soviet Union now living here, UFOs, Forteana, etc etc

    Madonna

    Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw

    The team of Fact or Fiction

  7. John Cleese
    John Cleese (Actor/writer/comedian) – big supporter of the Esalen Center and Survival Research.

    Sir Patrick Moore (TV Presenter of the BBC astronomy program, “The Sky at Night”) – believer in the afterlife.

  8. from the Metric-Truckloads-Dept.
    here are s’more

    Eckhart Tolle

    Oprah Winfrey, uplifter

    Gabor Mate, non mainstream doctor who believes, radical that he is, that people (even drug addicts) should be treated with compassion and not as criminals. also nifty ideas on mind/body health

    Colin Wilson, I don’t think his cred needs to be written here? :3

    Rand Flem-Ath, researcher & librarian promoting crustal displacement theory

  9. Weird Nobel
    Kary Mullis is a science guy whose Nobel laurels allow him to discuss a lot of weird crap 😉

    Other outré scientists would be Frank Tipler, Paul Davies, Roger Penrose, and of course let’s not forget our friend Ruppert Sheldrake 🙂

    And I’m sure Deepak checks on TDG at least once a week 😉

  10. from Here-to-Infernity-Dept.
    David Chalmers, consciousness philosopher

    Jack Sarfatti, radical physicist, one of the hippies who ‘saved physics’

    Rudy Rucker, inventor of ‘Cyberpunk’, author, mathmetician, blogger, artist, “Hylozoist”

    Nick Herbert, physicist, another of the hippies who saved physics, universe lover

    Cliff Pickover, author of many many many books on many many many things, mathematician, computer dude

    Clifford Stoll, astronomer, author, nuclear enthusiasm, klein-bottle blower

    Douglas Hofstadter, polymath, thinker, author, complexity investigator, consciousness studies

    Stanislaw Lem, author of Big Ideas

        1. from the Perspective-is-Everything-Dept.
          [quote=Greg][quote=kamarling]Surprised to see Hofstadter’s name in this list. Isn’t he a CSICOP fellow?

          http://dailygrail.com/Mind-Mysteries/2011/1/The-Future-Psi

          I guess it depends on how you define weird.[/quote]

          Good friend of Martin Gardner’s.

          Think a few people have missed my point about them being well-known people as well. ie. At least some visible presence to the wider public.[/quote]

          That’s another guy that could make my personal list — his mathematical games are a cherished childhood memory :3

          (also his philosophical scrivinings and his Fideism…)

      1. from the 1st-Sin-Dept.
        [quote=kamarling]Surprised to see Hofstadter’s name in this list. Isn’t he a CSICOP fellow?

        http://dailygrail.com/Mind-Mysteries/2011/1/The-Future-Psi

        I guess it depends on how you define weird.[/quote]

        Indeed — if after reading his books you haven’t found him to be deeply cool or weird, then nothing I can do can help you :3

        (and it’s not ‘the list’ — these are just my suggestions — we aren’t part of an occult borg collective here — I know that somebunall here have their automatic associations with CSICOP as ‘the esoteric bad person’…)

  11. Gillian Anderson, actress.
    Gillian Anderson, actress. Apparently it is the other way around in real life, perhaps a bit ironically, while her collegue and former co-star Duchovny would be the one supporting the Randi Foundation.

    Former members of Gong, Steve Hillage and Daevid allen perhaps? They made new agey-stuff already back in the early 70’s. Maybe Nik Turner of Hawkwind-fame? In the late 70’s he made an album with an egyptian theme. What was original was that the flute parts was actually recorded in the King’s Chamber of big pyramid at Giza. Mike Oldfield is another musician who often seems to make albums tending to be a bit new agey too. His album Songs of the distant earth is based on a novel by Arthur C clarke. Maybe Neil Gaiman, but I’m merely guessing here. But his stuff often seem otherworldly.

  12. In other words, the cool and
    In other words, the cool and interesting and creative people are into the weird stuff and boring tools are in the SkepAth stuff.

    1. from the Gag-me-with-an-HKMP23-Dept.
      That’s one narrative, fer shure :3

      (that’s a good one; what one finds boring* is normal, what one finds not boring is weird…)

      * that feeling is the body’s message of ‘you aren’t paying enough attention’ and that which corporations LOVE everyone to feel

    1. Damn
      You’re right.

      Maybe it’s my subconscious due to my being pissed with Guillermo for cancelling At the Mountain of Madness, claiming Prometheus is basically the same movie –Lamest excuse in the story of cinema >:(

      PS: How about Alejandro Jodorowsky? movie director, and the creator of the Psycho-Magic movement.

      And David Lynch should also be added to the list 🙂

        1. from the Absence-of-Greyface-Dept.
          i so want to see this happen to some ghost hunters

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FDxuMW_9FE

          (also, my favourite line from any Lars movie)

          and if Barack turns out really to be from Kenya, then bless the USA for becoming even less Nationalistic & Racist…I look forward to the day (if the “US” lasts that long) for a member from Wolf 358 to become a POTUS :3

          1. If Barack is Kenyan that has
            If Barack is Kenyan that has nothing whatsoever ever to do with race relations and everything to do with simple legality. Letting that stand unexamined just means that the legal system was subverted and that we haven’t the will to enforce the law any more. It wouldn’t matter if Obama was Norwegian. It is a legal question. What’s more it has been used a part of Obama’s “control file” to blackmail him into doing the bidding of the globalists who now have sufficient confidence in their ability to control the mass media and therefore the legal system by media misdirection that they think they can always put compromised people in office from here on and always run the show from that angle. This is a far bigger question that that of racism though of course the Obama people are trying to make it a racial issue.

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