Right Where You Are Sitting Now

In this long-awaited conversation, I’m joined by magician, author, and teacher Alan Chapman, co-founder of The Baptist’s Head and author of Advanced Magick for Beginners. Together, we explore some of the biggest questions in modern occultism: What is magic actually for? What did the Western magical tradition originally aim to achieve? And why does the pursuit of power so often overshadow the pursuit of wisdom?

Alan discusses his journey through chaos magic, his work with Duncan Barford, the concept of the Great Work, awakening, and the role of direct experience in magical practice. We also dive into the culture of contemporary occultism, from gatekeeping and social media personalities to the importance of recording results rather than simply discussing theory.

Topics discussed:

🔗 People, books, and concepts mentioned:

Alan Chapman – Magician, author, and founder of Magia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ch...

Duncan Barford – Occult author and Chapman’s longtime collaborator

  / 4534977.duncan_barford  

The Baptist's Head Compendium – Collected writings of Chapman and Barford

https://www.aeonbooks.co.uk/product/t...

Advanced Magick for Beginners – Alan Chapman’s influential book on practical magic

  / advanced-magick-for-beginners  

Aleister Crowley – Founder of Thelema and major influence on modern occultism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleiste...

Thelema

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelema

Chaos Magic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_m...

Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) – International Chaos Magic organisation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illumin...

Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) – Foundational texts of the Western magical tradition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_M...

Holy Guardian Angel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Gu...

Ramana Maharshi – Indian sage discussed in relation to awakening and self-realisation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_...

Austin Osman Spare – Artist, occultist, and pioneer of sigil magic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_...

Kenneth Grant – Founder of the Typhonian Tradition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth...

John Dee – Elizabethan magician and occult philosopher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee

Carl Jung – Psychology, the shadow, and occult influence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

H.P. Lovecraft & the Cthulhu Mythos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._L...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu...

Philip K. Dick – Mysticism, hidden realities, and esoteric fiction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_...

Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_...

Ken sits down with Angel Millar — author, esoteric researcher, and former member of the Illuminates of Thanateros — to discuss his latest book, Supernatural Women and the Male Initiate: Bonded Through Dreams. Drawing on mythology, folklore, mysticism, psychology, and his own personal experiences, Angel explores a fascinating and often overlooked phenomenon: the appearance of mysterious feminine figures throughout history, dreams, literature, religion, and the occult. From the Norse fylgja and Valkyries to muses, nymphs, saints, and Jung's anima, these supernatural women appear as guides, inspirers, initiators, and sometimes harbingers of transformation and death. This week:

Main theme by Simon Smerdon (Mothboy)

Music bed by chriszabriskie.com

🔗 People, Books & Concepts Mentioned

Angel Millar https://angelmillar.com

Supernatural Women and the Male Initiate: Bonded Through Dreams https://www.innertraditions.com/super...

Carl Jung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

Emma Jung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Jung

Anima (Jungian Psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_a...

Fylgja https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fylgja

Valkyrie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie

Nymph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymph

Daemon (Classical Concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_...)

Hypnosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis

Sacred Sexuality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_...

Tantra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra

Aleister Crowley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleiste...

Austin Osman Spare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_...

Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illumin...

Gurdjieff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...

🔗 Angel Millar

Website https://angelmillar.com

Books https://www.amazon.com/stores/Angel-M...

Supernatural Women and the Male Initiate: Bonded Through Dreams https://www.innertraditions.com/super...

Beginning with Tobias’s own early spiritual experience, the conversation expands outward into a global survey of how different civilisations have imagined the afterlife — from ancient burial rites and Mesopotamian pessimism to Egyptian moral judgment, Eastern philosophies, and the evolution of heaven as both a metaphysical reality and a psychological projection.

What emerges is a sweeping and often provocative exploration of heaven not as a fixed destination, but as a mirror of human consciousness, culture, and desire. Along the way, the discussion touches on psychedelic interpretations, near-death experiences, religious power structures, and the uncomfortable possibility that our visions of the afterlife reveal more about us than any ultimate truth.

Tobias Churton’s new book Celestial Realms

Tobias Churton – Celestial Realms

Aleister Crowley – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

Plato – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

Carl Jung – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

Jacob Boehme – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_B%C3%B6hme

Nisargadatta Maharaj – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

George Harrison – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison

John Lennon – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon

Gautama Buddha – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha

Vajrayana Buddhism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana

Tantra – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra

Nirvana – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana

Moksha – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moksha

Near-death experience – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience

DMT – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N,N-Dimethyltryptamine

Ancient Egyptian religion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion

Mesopotamian religion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Mesopotamian_religion

Chinese mythology – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_mythology

Comparative religion – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_religion

Afterlife – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife

Heaven (concept) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven

Hell (concept) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell

Collective unconscious – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious

Official Website

Books

Beginning with Greg’s early immersion in Western magical traditions and podcasting, the discussion traces his journey through alchemy, Kabbalah, and ceremonial magic, before confronting their limitations and turning toward the disciplined, teacher-led path of Vajrayana Buddhism.

What emerges is a stark contrast between Western “talking schools” and Eastern traditions rooted in rigorous practice, direct transmission, and the transformation of the practitioner themselves. Along the way, the conversation explores tantra, the left-hand path, taboo as method, the role of the guru, and the uncomfortable reality that the greatest obstacle on the path may be the practitioner themselves.

Greg Kaminsky – Host of Occult of Personality

Vajrayana Buddhism – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana

Tantra – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra

Left-Hand Path – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-hand_path_and_right-hand_path

Nisargadatta Maharaj / I Am That – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_That

Aleister Crowley – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

Kabbalah – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah

Alchemy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy

Gurdjieff – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff

Occult of Personality Podcast

Books and Writing

Ken and Ulysses sit down with Duncan Barford — ritual magician, psychodynamic counsellor, and longtime collaborator with Alan Chapman — for a deep exploration of chaos magic, mystical experience, and the strange territory where occult practice, psychology, and awakening intersect. Beginning with the early days of The Baptist’s Head and the revival of mystical aims within chaos magic, the conversation traces Barford’s journey from teenage encounters with spirit phenomena through intensive magical practice, encounters with entities, and the gradual movement from postmodern magic toward a more direct exploration of awakening and consciousness.

This week:

-Duncan Barford’s background in chaos magic and the IOT

-The Baptist’s Head project and mystical approaches within chaos magic

-Ritual experimentation and magical practice in the early 2000s

-The Holy Guardian Angel as a paradigm for non-dual experience

-Mystical awakening and Daniel Ingram’s stages of insight

-The overlap between mystical experience and psychosis

-Encounters with spirits, entities, and magical phenomena

-Abramelin magic and the psychology of ritual practice

-The occult realism of A Dark Song and ritual in film

-Angels, demons, and the nature of spiritual entities

-Chaos magic, postmodernism, and the search for truth beyond belief

🔗 People, books, and concepts mentioned:

Duncan Barford – Occult writer, magician, and psychodynamic counselor

Alan Chapman – Magician and co-creator of The Baptist’s Head

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Chapman_(magician)

The Baptist’s Head – Early chaos magic blog and body of work exploring awakening

The Abramelin Ritual – Traditional operation to attain the Holy Guardian Angel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Abramelin

Holy Guardian Angel – Central concept in Western ceremonial magic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Guardian_Angel

Peter J. Carroll – Founder of modern chaos magic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_J._Carroll

Liber Null & Psychonaut – Foundational chaos magic texts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Null

Daniel Ingram – Buddhist teacher and author of Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha

https://www.mctb.org

Stages of Insight – Theravada Buddhist map of meditative awakening

The Red Book – Carl Jung’s visionary exploration of the unconscious

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Book_(Jung)

A Dark Song – Occult horror film depicting an Abramelin-inspired ritual

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dark_Song

Aleister Crowley – Occultist and proponent of the Holy Guardian Angel working

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

Chaos Magic – Postmodern magical practice focused on belief as a tool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_magic

The Abramelin Operation – Ritual process of devotion and invocation leading to contact with the angel

Entities and spirits in magic – Angels, demons, elementals, and spiritual relationships

🔗 Duncan Barford

Occult Experiments in the Home

https://oeith.co.uk

Duncan Barford’s main site featuring essays, podcasts, and writing exploring magic, mysticism, psychology, and spiritual experience.

Counselling / Professional Site

https://www.duncanbarford.uk

Information about Duncan’s work as a psychodynamic psychotherapeutic counsellor.

🔗 Ulysses Black

The World of Ulysses Black

https://www.ulyssesblack.com

Ulysses Black’s main site — an archive of his work as a ritual researcher, writer, artist, and performance practitioner.

The Ritualist (Substack)

https://theritualist.substack.com

Ulysses’ Substack newsletter exploring ritual practice, symbolism, mythology, and esoteric research.

Ken sits down with Shira Chess, cultural scholar and author of The Unseen Internet, for a wide-ranging exploration of magic, myth, and belief in digital culture, examining how the internet has become an esoteric system in its own right — a space where technology, occult practice, conspiracy, and spiritual anxiety collapse into one another. Framed from the perspective of chapel perilous, the conversation traces how memes, algorithms, simulation theory, AI discourse, and techno-paganism function not metaphorically, but as active forces shaping belief, agency, and reality itself.

This episode moves through the haunted edges of online life, from meme magic and technognosticism to AI demons, digital egregores, and the slow erosion of consensus reality — asking what responsibility, belief, and magic mean when nothing is true, and everything is permitted.

This week:

The internet as an esoteric and magical system, Chapel perilous as a method for studying belief online, Meme magic, chaos magic, and the Cult of Kek, The destruction of consensus reality and its consequences, Techno-paganism and the occult roots of internet culture, Simulation theory as modern Gnosticism, Algorithms, platforms, and digital spaces as egregores, AI, demons, and the mystification of technology, Belief, practice, and agency in online magical systems, and “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” as an internet condition

🔗 People, books, and concepts mentioned:

Shira Chess – Cultural scholar and author

https://shirachess.com

The Unseen Internet – Technology, magic, and belief online

https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=3…

High Weirdness – Erik Davis on esotericism and modern culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_We…

Technosis – Myth, magic, and mysticism in the age of information

https://erikdavis.com/technosis

Chaos Magic – Postmodern magical practice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_m…

Meme Magic / Cult of Kek – Internet irony and belief systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kek_(my…)

Grant Morrison – Hypersigils and pop-culture magic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_M…

Simulation Theory – Digital Gnosticism and modern myth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulat…

Gnosticism – Secret knowledge and false reality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

AI and Demons – Non-corporeal entities in technological discourse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artific…

Egregores – Collective thought-forms and group entities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore

Dayal discusses his years documenting the scene, the complex relationship between Black Metal and spirituality, and why physical media, authenticity, and seriousness of intent remain vital in an increasingly digital and disposable age.

📖 Get Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult and other titles from Cult Never Dies:

🔗 People, bands, and concepts mentioned:

💻 Follow & Support

Follow Cult Never Dies:

https://www.instagram.com/cultneverdies

https://www.facebook.com/CultNeverDies

Support Right Where You Are Sitting Now on Patreon:

Visit SittingNow for more episodes, articles, and extras:

This week, Ken and Ulysses Black talk to sorcerer and author Lili (Idlu Lili Regulus) about her remarkable book She of the Night(Theion Publishing). We explore the enigmatic figure of Lilith across Mesopotamian myth, Jewish mysticism, folklore, and modern magical practice. Lili shares how Lilith first revealed Herself to her, the challenges of writing about such a fluid and multifaceted being, and how one might carefully approach Lilith in ritual and devotion.

This week:

Get She of the Night from Theion Publishing:

🔗 People, places, concepts mentioned

Lili (Idlu Lili Regulus) – Author of She of the Night

Lilith – Wikipedia (overview of the mythological figure)

Lamashtu – Wikipedia (Mesopotamian demoness, precursor figure)

Ardat-Lili – Wikipedia (Spirit connected with Lilith traditions)

Ninlil – Wikipedia (Sumerian goddess linked with air, winds, and Lilith traditions)

Tiamat – Wikipedia (Mesopotamian chaos goddess, sometimes connected to Lilith)

Ereshkigal – Wikipedia (Goddess of the underworld)

Queen of the Night plaque – British Museum page

Kabbalah – Wikipedia (context for Lilith as Queen of the Qliphothic husks)

Theion Publishing – Publisher of She of the Night

💻 Follow & Support

Follow Lili’s work at Theion Publishing:

Follow Ulysses Black’s Substack:

Support Right Where You Are Sitting Now on Patreon:

Visit SittingNow for more episodes, articles, and extras:

This week, Ken talks to author and cultural provocateur Stewart Home about his explosive new book Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists and the New Order in Wellness (Pluto Press). They dive into the strange, hidden history of yoga in the West, its unexpected ties to fascism, and how those shadows still linger in the modern wellness industry.

This week:

The carnival-barker roots of yoga in the West and the con artistry of Pierre Bernard

How racial myth-making turned yoga into an “Aryan science” for early fascists

Guido Keller, the Rijeka YOGA group, and the bizarre avant-garde politics of proto-fascism

Major J. F. C. Fuller: from Crowleyan yogi to architect of modern warfare

Francis Yeats-Brown, Hitler fandom, and yoga propaganda

How fascist mysticism evolved into post-war yoga evangelism and daytime TV gurus

Why the modern wellness industry still carries the DNA of its darker past

Get Stewart’s book at Pluto Press:

Pierre Bernard – Wikipedia (The “Great Oom,” early yoga grifter)

Support Right Where You Are Sitting Now on Patreon:

This week Ken talks to author and esoteric scholar Peter Mark Adams about his new book Ritual and Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras (Theion Publishing). They explore the deep mysteries of Mithraic initiation, why caves matter, Mithras as cosmic hero, connections to Saturn, and the relevance of true initiatory experiences today.

💡 This week: Origins and roots of Mithras in Indo-European traditions, The bull-slaying scene (Tauroctony) and its deeper meaning, Mystery cult initiations and purification by water and fire, Why Mithraism appealed to Roman soldiers and elites, Connections to Saturn, Orphism, and the non-dual AI in reconstructing ritual processes, Freemasonry, Thelema, and modern echoes of Mithras

📚 Get Peter’s book at Theion Publishing: https://theionpublishing.com/shop/pma-ritualepiphany/

Peter Mark Adams – Official website

Peter Mark Adams – Scarlet Imprint profile

Theion Publishing

David Beth – Wikipedia

Helena Blavatsky – Wikipedia (briefly referenced re: esoteric currents)

Epic of Gilgamesh – Wikipedia

Tiridates I of Armenia – Wikipedia

Nero – Wikipedia

Pleiades (star cluster) – Wikipedia

Plato’s Phaedrus – Wikipedia

Porphyry – Wikipedia

Orphism (religion) – Wikipedia

Saturn (mythology) – Wikipedia

Cronus – Wikipedia

Demiurge – Wikipedia

Vajrayana Buddhism – Wikipedia

Freemasonry – Wikipedia

Thelema – Wikipedia

Mystery cult – Wikipedia (general concept)

Tauroctony – Wikipedia

Pater (Mithraism priest grade) – Wikipedia