Seconds (1966) is a sci-fi psychological thriller directed by John Frankenheimer. In my eyes, it’s a perfectly made film, and I found it to be a fascinating exploration of several existential themes: identity, choice, desire, fantasy, regret, eternal youth, and the wish to start life again. (The philosopher Slajov Žižek analyses Seconds in his 2006 documentary ‘The…
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I recently rewatched the horror classic Hellraiser (1987), and as well as finding it better on the second watch, I was fascinated with its portrayal of the ‘ecstasy of agony’ or the ‘agony of ecstasy’ (which we could also call ‘ecstatic agony’). I’m currently working on a book on the subject of ecstasy, and despite…
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Part of the appeal of horror films – which is underappreciated, I think – is their capacity to evoke the sublime. This is a curious and complex emotion. It’s a mixture of fear and fascination. It involves feeling simultaneously nervous or threatened by some perceptual phenomenon – because of its vastness or power – and…
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In his latest book Why? The Purpose of the Universe, and in his defence of a heretical form of Christianity, the philosopher Philip Goff makes a case for the ‘limited God hypothesis’. This is the idea that a god with limited abilities best explains what we observe in the universe. The hypothesis, therefore, challenges the…
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I recently heard Alex O’Connor (host of the Within Reason podcast) offer an interesting perspective on the problem of divine hiddenness, or the idea that if God existed, He would make His existence more obvious to everyone. Yet God’s existence is not obvious, and it may be easy to doubt and disbelieve, which is a…
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