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.

Camelia Elias makes a very welcome return to the show this week, on the occasion of the launch of two new books, What is Not: Marseille Tarot à La Carte and Divination with Cards: A Short History.

We also talk about meaning versus function, meaning in astrology and new ways to approach all the interpretive arts. An absolutely fantastic show. It's good to be back!

• Get What is Not: Marseille Tarot à La Carte here.
• Get Divination with Cards: A Short History here.
• Join the Lenormand Foundation Class here.
• Camelia's blog, Taroflexions. (Specifically, a classic post describing her method.)
• Camelia's column on Patheos.
• Camelia on Twitter.
• Camelia on Instagram.

This week, novelist, non-ficition author and professor of art and film, Stephe Barber, joins us to talk about about Heliogabalus or The Crowned Anarchist.

Fully translated into English for the first time, this remarkable little book was written by avant garde theatre visionary, Antonin Artaud, and is ostensibly based on the two year reign of a teenage emperor that history records as little more than an orgy of sex and violence. However it is also Artaud exploring power, and magic, and spectacle, and mythology, and how one tells history and why.

Really good stuff. Really good, indeed.

Show Notes

• Get Heliogabalus or The Crowned Anarchist.
• Video primer on Artaud's impact on theatre.

In the July solo show, we look at the possibly bright future of the novel and what thriving independent expression might look like in an era of endless reboots and comic book films.

The only show notes this week is a short film from the featured musician at the end.