For our Christmastide special, José Leitão returns to the show. He joins us to talk about the imminent release of his latest book, Opuscula Cypriani, folk magic and witchcraft in Portugal, and all things St Cyprian.

Splendid stuff.

Show Notes

• Preorder Opuscula Cypriani.
• José on Patreon.
• José on Academia.
• José's presentation in Kiev.

This week, we have a very special (emergency?) edition of Storytime with Paul.

Glastonbury psychogeographer extraordinaire, Paul Weston, returns to the show to talk through some of the mythic, archetypal and historic resonances to the recent British election and the looming inevitability of Brexit.

Great stuff, as ever.

• Paul's website and tours.
• Paul's YouTube channel.
• Paul on Twitter.

It's that time of half-year again!

This is the audio-only version of the H1 2020 live video forecast. You can also watch the replay and/or donate to the Christmas fundraiser here.

Enjoy!

The one and only Phil Hine joins us this week for a wide-ranging discussion on tantra, magical experimentation, the history and proper understanding of chakras, the benefits of terrorising yourself and what he has learned over a metaphysical career spanning more than 35 years.

Enjoy!

• Phil's latest book, Hine's Varieties: Chaos and Beyond.
• Phil's website, Enfolding.org.
• Phil on Twitter.
• Phil's recommendations for Tantric poetry books:
  • Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal.
  • A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India.
  • Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary.

Return of the Queen!

The one and only Becca Tarnas joins us again as we dive deeper than ever before into Tolkien's notion of Faërie, Middle Earth's Creation story, and how the man himself understood creative acts.

And, because we are almost at the end of the year, we take what we have learned from this journey into Middle Earth and transform it into some guidelines and inspiration for facing 2020 with our minds on hope and mutual flourishing.

Show Notes

• Journey to the Imaginal Realm: A Reader's Guide to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
• Dr Becca Tarnas's website.
• Dr Tarnas's presentation on Hildegard of Bingen and the Ainulindalë with Jacob Sherman.

This week, the one and only Christopher Knowles returns to the show for amazing mega-discussion around the macro subject of writing about magic, how writing is magic and generally 'magic and this thing we call fiction'.

The principal texts we use to frame this chat are Grant Morrison's legendary series, The Invisibles, and Alan Moore's Providence. Both of these you can read in their entirety for free by following the links in the Show Notes.

Super fun stuff.

• Chris's website, The Secret Sun.
• Chris on Twitter.
• The Invisibles.
• Providence.

Season of the Mitch!

This week, we are very excited to welcome back author, speaker and historian, Mitch Horowitz to the show.

Being Halloween, we explore why this occult revival might be different, we look at the history of Spiritualism, we swap adolescent Ouija board stories and finish off with a little, light Satanism.

Excellent stuff. Happy Halloween, all!

• Mitch's website.
• Mitch on Twitter.
• Mitch's most recent book, The Miracle Club.

The reverend Danny Nemu returns to the show for a fiery and important chat about neocolonialism, plant spirits, modern medicine, ancient medicine, spirit logic and all that very good stuff.

Be sure to check out the show notes for the presentation that inspired our discussion.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Danny's presentation, Prejudice and Neo-colonialism in the Academic study of Ayahuasca.
• Danny's website.
• Danny's book, Neuro-Apocalypse.
• Danny on Twitter.

Author and researcher, Peter Mark Adams, returns to the show this week to discuss his latest book, Mystai.

Along the way we talk orphism, mystery traditions, visuality and the shortcomings of materialist archaeology.

Show Notes

• Get Mystai: Dancing Out The Mysteries of Dionysus.
• Attend the launch of Mystai at Treadwell's in London on October 19th.
• Peter's website.
• Peter on Twitter.

This month's solo show returns to the notion of utopia and our imaginal-relational opportunities.

Stay with that trouble, kids.

Show Notes

• The Donna Haraway documentary, Story Telling For Earthly Survival.
• David Graeber's essay, Hope in Common.