Rune Soup

The one and only Peter J Carroll has completed his incarnation. I wanted to get down some thoughts about what he and his work meant to me.

You can also watch this one.

In this side quest from the Hospicing Modernity's Magic series, I make the case that

• Synchromysticism is modernity's best available form of omen logic.
• And that getting good at it is one of the more reliable ways to get good at magic.

We'll cover

• Seneca's distinction between the candle and the comet
• The rise and decline of synchromysticism as a subculture.
• Jung on the I Ching and psychoid archetypes.
• The Māori concept of wairua.
• And the practical toolkit.

Show Notes

• Chris Knowles on Cosmic Connections: Mystical Practices & Reality's Hidden Language.
• Wearing Jung's Skin Like A Pelt.
• Jake Kotze on The Higherside Chats.

Ayahuasca's peak cultural moment has been and gone.

So what does she do now? And what are the lessons for western magic in the complex journey of this incredible plant teacher?

I have some thoughts on all this mid-dieta, in the Upper Amazon.

As usual, this one is also a YouTube video. You can see it here.

• Here's the link to the Santa Rosa centre. (The website is a little weird but this is the place!)
• Here's the piece I wrote after my first piñon blanco experience.

It's the anniversary of the reception of the Book of the Law. Joining me to explore the questions of

• What to make of it?

• How to think about it?

• What, if anything, to do with it

Are two very special guests: Alan Chapman and Peter Grey. Now, like me, neither of them is a Thelemite. But what they do have is an encyclopedic knowledge of the era, the material, and the magic behind it. So if you've ever wondered whether the Book of the Law has anything to say to you if you're not already one of Crowley's followers, this is that conversation.

Alan's essay, Is A God To Live In A Dog? is referenced several times in the episode. You can download a copy here.

• Peter Grey's Substack.

• Alan Chapman's website.

Is magic just a less sophisticated form of psychology? That is probably the cornerstone claim of what I am calling 'Modernity's Magic'.

And in the next instalment of our series 'Hospicing Modernity's Magic', I want to look at:

• How psychology diverged from magic and why.
• Jung's role during his lifetime.
• What the magicians of modernity did with the 'legitimacy umbrella' they received from Jungian thought.
• Which parts of this journey do we take with us into the magic of today?

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:11 Wearing Jung's Skin Like a Pelt
• 01:57 The 19th Century & Roads Not Taken
• 07:56 The Red Book 10:50 Active Imagination
• 15:26 Jung & Astrology
• 17:59 Is Magic Just Psychology?
• 22:09 Synchronicity
• 29:17 The Yi Qing & Moments in Time
• 33:08 Synchromysticism as Omen Logic
• 35:26 Psychoid Archetypes & the Unus Mundus
• 43:00 The Post-Jung Pelt-Wearers
• 49:27 What to Hospice, What to Keep
• 52:32 Use Magic to Legitimise Jung

What continues to exist from the 'safe' and 'quirky' magic of the twentieth century that finally needs to die? And what has maybe been left behind that might even belong better in our current era of magic?

This is the beginning of a little project exploring what we should take with us through this fourth turning. You can, of course, watch this one on YouTube.

00:00 - Remember When Magic Was Safe?

01:50 - The Golden Age We Just Lived Through

05:19 - Eating the Wrapper, Throwing Away the Candy

06:34 - What Is Modernity?

09:54 - Why "Hospicing Modernity's Magic"

11:24 - The Hospicing Framework

13:00 - Nothing Is Going Wrong

14:54 - A Telling, Not a History

17:32 - The Series Roadmap

21:18 - What We Carry Forward

22:47 - Join the Conversation

Here are the videos I reference:

• At Work In The Ruins | Dougald Hind
• Alan Moore's Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic

What is ours to do during the putrefactory collapse of Western civilisation? Let's find out!

At the very least, it is choosing the right story to live in so that we can nudge the trajectory of this ghastly moment more and more toward the good.

Here are some off-the-cuff thoughts on how we might do that.

There's a meme that's been evolving since 2021, and in its current chaotic incarnation, it's become accidentally magical—even if the people using it don't realise it.

In this episode, I'm unpacking "do it for the plot" as a practical framework for the year ahead. Not just as permission to take risks, but as a way of activating synchronicity and maintaining agency when things inevitably go sideways on the way to your goals.

I'll walk you through how to use this alongside your existing magical toolkit—your amulets, your enchantments, your divination practice—and share the diagnostic story I keep coming back to for checking where I'm actually at versus where I think I am.

I'm also introducing a new project I've been wrestling with: hospicing modernity's magic. Because the late twentieth century gave us some genuinely powerful techniques wrapped in a frame that insists magic isn't real. I want to find a way to respectfully retain the useful stuff and jettison the less-than-useful.

There's practical advice here for interrogating your intentions for 2026, plus some thoughts on why the slacker-era re-enchantment is officially over and what needs to replace it.

Happy new year, kids!

At this time of year, when many of us are rudely awoken from our hard-earned slumber by multiple ghosts wanting us to support their gofundme or something, I thought we might look at ghosts.

What are they? Are they even real? And if they're not, what are they for?

And the exploration is framed by a series of strange experiences I had recently at Australia's most haunted site and possibly the cruelest place in the entire British Empire, Port Arthur.

Enjoy!

PS - Let me also take the opportunity to sincerely thank you for listening, watching, supporting and sharing the various Rune Soup offerings in 2025. Have a wonderful Christmas.

Austinmas 2025! Can you even believe it? Legendary astrologer, Austin Coppock, returns to the show for a look at what 2026 has in store for you.

Here's what we cover:

🪐The end of "nothing ever happens" energy 🪐 What war looks like in the Age of Air 🪐 January's hidden assemblies and the parade before Pluto 🪐 Neptune's 13-year sign change 🪐The Saturn-Neptune conjunction and its strange history with Russia 🪐 Why March could see dangerous confusion and technical disasters 🪐 April's straightforward brutality 🪐 The sweet spot worth planning around 🪐 Late June's triple switcheroo 🪐 Mars-Uranus in Gemini and American history 🪐 August's grinding square with both malefics in their fall 🪐 The shadow over November's "jolly conqueror" 🪐 What 2026 sets up for early 2027 🪐 Solar eclipses and kings who bump their heads

🪬🪬How To Use The Astrology in Your Life🪬🪬

January's Gift Use the hidden assembly energy for genuine visioning. Where does your capacity for struggle go? What's actually worth anything? What are your sneaky little moves? Get trajectory set before the crazy train.

April's Pressure Mars-Saturn conjunctions every two years aren't new—but this one's in Aries with Neptune. Being pushed beyond reasonable limits. A week's work in a day and a half while already burned out. Endurable, but genuinely shitty.

The May-June Repair Window Not just absence of destruction but actively sweet and reparative. Build here what you couldn't build in the storm.