Episode Summary:

The past two weeks, we have absorbed way too much to come up with our own content. And the speakers at the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research and CSI Con 2026 deserve some signal-boosting. So this episode is a recap of these two conventions — one is skeptic-adjacent but starting to move toward the big tent of skepticism, and the other is the original circus that put up the tent back in 1976. Ben recounts interesting tidbits from his colleagues in folklore world, and then we go in-depth on the CSI Con held in Buffalo, New York for the 50th anniversary of the organization. What Paul Kurtz began as CSICOP has evolved and grown over the years, as have the battles the organization is tasked with fighting. From the original skeptical voices to new rising stars, we go into our own personal highlights of the event as well as our main takeaways in terms of the tone and themes that stood out.