Today you will meet the best kind of influencer, Iman Moeinian, whose thoughtful YouTube channel brings depth to philosophical questions. Iman Moeinians core interest is in philosophy, metaphysics, especially traditional metaphysics. I invited him to speak with me about René Guénon and Traditionalism, because he did excellent talks on the topic. TAP in with us as we speak about what has been lost in the modern world, and how the timeless wisdom of the ancient traditions can still orient our lives, like when we choose to slow down.

I wanted a real casual talk so we could meet in our shared humanity, and I believe it succeeded.

The recorder was on from the beginning, and you are with us through everything!

Here is a few notes about what we go through in our little more than an hour together:

-How Guénon has a critique of modern individuality and truth as a personal affair

-Guénons bio which is quite secretive

-Intellectual intuition!! (the kind of intuition that today is dismissed as superstition)

-The traditional view of art where art should surely delight but also point to higher truth and not only pleasure

-Critique of modern psychology! Jung popular, but Iman argues Coomaraswamy is even more important

-The question of the subconscious versus spiritual origin of healing

-What is metaphysics ??

-We have several critiques actually such as modern writers sometimes borrow from older masters without reference

-We have a great Ananda Coomaraswamy spotlight throughout! He was a philosopher, a major thinker, mastered many languages, he had a precise mathematical style, and not widely read, so he is one Iman is bringing to a wider audience these days.

Of course, we also have fun looking at Iman's chart toward the end. We find astrological clues behind his precise craft, his ability to critique where it's needed, and his spirit of careful service for example by reading, editing, writing, and doing the hard work. Through his Uranus–Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius we see some social reform going strong in past incarnations, and with both planets retrograde, a current-life rethinking of the Aquarian progress and revolt.

I truly recommend Iman Moeinian - you can find some of his work here:

https://www.youtube.com/@imanmoeinian

My web is:

https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

Thank you so much for being with us!!

PS if you prefer the video version and you don't know where to find it - Here it is:

https://youtu.be/xHk6zwyXHJI

2026 is a year when the wheel is turning in a big way, and I have the honor of speaking with Gary Lachman shortly after he's turned the big seventy; his own significant turn. Gary is a writer and musician, he was a major influence in mid-1970s as a founding member of the rock band Blondie Blondie and other bands. In the 1990s, he transitioned to full-time writing, producing influential works on mysticism and occultism. This intro is inspired by wikipedia but the book we speak about today is a much more accurate and detailed "presentation" - as we speak of his book that is a memoir of magic, rock and roll, and becoming who you are! It is called "Touched by the Presence: From Blondie's Bowery and Rock and Roll to Magic and the Occult" published november 2025 by Inner Traditions.

In the publishers intro it says about Gary that he is a prolific author and lecturer on consciousness, counterculture, and the Western esoteric tradition. The big question about how we went from big music business to that of an esoteric writer, is what the book we speak about, will answer.

And. Here we are in the beginning of 2026 talking in way about the forces than can be controlled and those which cannot. At least these my after-reflections. Here are some clues about what you will be tapping into with this wonderful interview with Gary Lachman:

-The true self beneath layers of sleep, social conditioning, and optimization

-why Gary wrote this memoir differently than his other books: not commissioned, no plan, written during a difficult period as a way to assert and protect his sense of self

-a key turning point in 1975: discovering Colin Wilson's The Occult while living on the Bowery and playing with Blondie, and how that book became the doorway into consciousness studies and the esoteric

-R.D. Laing and "the sane response to an insane world": family double-binds and gaslighting

-the "false world" theme through existentialism and Gnosticism: gnosis as direct felt knowledge, the demiurge idea, and modern parallels like post-truth

-"You're poking your finger through this paper wall… it was just scenery, but you had accepted it as reality, and suddenly you realized you could do that"

-You might know the name that's on your passport, but who is that person?

-the explanation on Gurdjieff's core teaching that is about waking up from "sleep" or mechanical living:

-The purpose of the Work (also called the Fourth Way) was to break habitual, unconscious patterns that keep people functioning automatically and Gary personally tried this discipline, and also Aleister Crowleys.

-systems of esoteric psychological development

-many people (including himself) first encounter the Work through Ouspensky's writing, not through Gurdjieff directly

-books like "A New Model of the Universe "opened entire fields for him: the idea of an esoteric current running through history

-Gary is honest about having gone through a hard time when writing this book and as a related theme I ask him to pull up a poem he write when teenager, that I (Mannah) relate to personally. I was surprised he had it in his memory, and could recite it so well - look forward to that part of the interview!!! At least if you also know that feeling of "what is there to tell"... The poem is dark and romantic, dealing with death, defeat, and resignation, not necessarily a literal wish to die, but a youthful fascination with world-weariness, sorrow, and the idea of giving up.

-choosing to transcend by writing, by working, by staying alive and engaged

You also get the story of the title of the book "touched by presence" and here is a recommendation from Gary, a short (and super cool!!!) film his son made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=919SNRJtMRc

thank you all for listening, and i hope you're settling into the new year..and into your own power; as you will have noticed, the wheel is already on the move.

-Mannah

LINKS

the book we speak about: https://www.innertraditions.com/touched-by-the-presence

https://garylachman.co.uk/

https://www.gary-lachman.com/

Video version of this podcast: https://youtu.be/Mt1vmWzkuT4

More Mannah:

https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

"A mystic directly experiences the flowing waters of inspiration in moments that seem to transcend space and time. Yet these, the coordinates of astrology, can still help us describe such events. Astrologers may seek out patterns that trace our treasured mystics' meetings with the muses of their ecstasies. If we succeed, their biographies may gain a brilliant new dimension, revealing some of the cosmic architecture through which spirituality flows." Quote from beginning of a chapter by David Leskowitz from the book we focus on today BY THE NAME:

"Sideways from Saturn, Astrological Guidance from the Centaurs"

It has just been published here in january 2026 - a long awaited book about the astrological meaning of Centaurs. Centaur refers to a distinct class of planetoid between asteroids and TNO/KBO*. There are so many of them and this episode is meant to inspire you to -rather than give up in overwhelm- to develop a personal and direct relationship to- well some of them! I recommend the book and no one pays me to do that, I just truly love a book that is both inspiring in message and in its form- and also I think it is really needed as someone like myself who has only been in depth familiar with that one Centaur Chiron - here we get a lot deeper into the Centaur family and paradigm.

Welcome to this episode and now this text written fully by a human, me, Mannah, I write these for every episode, so that you may get some overview of what it is I invite you to tap into with me. It would be easier and more well written if I took the transcript from zoom or asked chatgpt to mix something up, but then again, what would I use my long lonely nights for, if not writing these show notes. I appreciate you reading and caring for the personal touch!

MY GUEST TODAY: David Leskowitz who edited and put the book together is an astrologer, healer, and writer with a BA in religious studies and a decade-long engagement with the Centaurs. He has written for The Mountain Astrologer, The Career Astrologer, and Astro.com, and is the cat-herder of Praesepe Press. (you will learn in the end what it means being a herder of brillant cats)

Tap in with us as we speak about:

-The Centaur Era

-Personal Encounters with the Centaurs

-Wisdom from outside of society

-Centaur-personalities and subcultures and Centaur-astrologers

-Bask in the observations and the messages they bring to us

-The differences between the Planets and the Centaurs

-Forming personal relationships with Centaurs

-Look to your Centaur transits!

-Healing with the Centaurs

-We talk about several but speak mostly of Chiron and Asbolus

-The being behind the symbol

-Becoming a conduit

-The re-emergence of the relational need in astrology

-Observe without agenda

-Therapeutic Astrology as a Chironic Art

(to this, let me add that in one of the chapters in "sideways from Saturn" Melanie reinhart says about the terrain to which the Centaurs guide us, that it is traume-informed both trauma on a personal, but also ancestral, cultural, and historical level.)

-What is the perfect blend of astrology and healing?

-Many inroads to making meaning

-David recommends the important contributions of Philip Sedgwicks work and the late Nick Anthony Fiorenza

-Centaurs unusual rhythm and how it gives a certain weight to a moment

-The experience of an archetype in ones life

-Beyond the Myths for example beyond the WOUND in the WOUNDED Healer

-Asbolus and the myth of Ixion

-Hybridity

-Case studies of James Leininger

-My reading with David 6 years ago

-Ceremonies of healing with the Centaurs

-A glance at David's own chart

Thank you for being with us!! Share this episode wildly with your friends who might also be into asteroids and planetoids and David's term that I love: Visionary Astrology of the Ecstatic Centaurs!

-Mannah

*TNO stands for: Trans-Neptunian object and KBO: Kuiper belt object

LINKS:

Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUxvut7jplo

Website for book: http://praesepe.press/sideways-from-saturn Astrology site http://centaurs.space Healing work http://centaurhealing.earth Mannah: https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

Dr. Steven Farmer is a bestselling author, licensed psychotherapist and somatic therapist, shamanic healer, ordained minister, former college professor, and the creator of many oracle decks (not ORAL I mispronounced when I introduced him )

Tap in with us as we speak about:

-Steven's call to shamanism

-The samness of trauma therapy and shamanism

-Experiences of losing faith in God and later reconnection

-Guidance from spirit guides within the therapeutic process

-The experience of being a "weird kid" — and the need for something different (for example, an Aquarius Moon)

-Inspiring, encouraging, teaching, and healing

-Journaling/soul-journaling

-The ancestral council that speaks with one voice

-Learning to listen to your inner voice

-Finding your own spiritual guidance

-A direct message from the ancestral council, that Steven channels

-Stevens pitch to everybody about how to get in touch with the sacred via the ancestors

-Ancestors as intermediaries

-Family secrets and dark laws in the family dynamic

-"Your dark law is often the result of ancestral patterns with one or more of your most immediate ancestors being shaped by a similar imperative."

-Healing the effects of abuse in the family

-The cure in stretching yourself

-In the astrological perspective, I touch on the Capricorn–Cancer axis and its connection to lineage and I also mention the Aqurius moon because Steven emphasizes community- and the aquarian moon also points to Stevens music.

-Prayers of thanks

-A story of spirit animals (distant ancestors)

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. At 78 years, Dr. Steven Farmer brings wisdom and experience and wonderful suggestions for healing, so much so, that we've already agreed to meet again- just the idea of it during the interview calmed me down, because in the first part I already realised there wasn't time for all my questions. Plus a new meeting makes even more sense when I hear he's already writing another book!

LINKS

video version: https://youtu.be/sh0Zm0bQPB8

(fun fact the photo for this audio version only you are listening to, is from when Steven showed his fingers in a certain way to count ancestors and Zoom let it rain down like this - well I took the interruption out, but fun photo)

Steven:

https://drstevenfarmer.com/

the book we speak of

https://a.co/d/f7h2tMI

Mannah:

https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

Intuitive guide Matt Powers is weaving ancient wisdom and cosmic insight into modern life, and that is exactly what he shares with us about in this episode. Matt Powers is formerly a filmmaker, but found his true calling as a vessel for self-discovery, forecasting, and intuitive guidance. Stay with us for this meaningful and layered conversation starting with the explanation about his major turning point after a parentel loss, opening the door for him to recognize and step into his intuitive abilities. Prior to this those same abilities had been misunderstood greatly...

Tap in as we talk about:

-What it really means to live and work in alignment with one's inner design

-Structures that genuinely align with feelings rather than mere consensus

-ADHD and the pressure to conform to a standardized rhythm

-Patterns, signs, and symbols in the material world as a way of receiving information

-How a regular deck of playing cards can be used as a divination tool

-When therapy can become destructive in its attempt to socialize and normalize

-Inspiration to reflect on your internal design through self-discovery

-How playing cards can tell you about yourself

-What the Mystic Test Book speaks of

-How the cards are a model of the revolution around the Sun

-Ancient wisdom in modern life that stands the test of time

-Cards to simplify and create order (a big theme in Matt's birth chart around exactly order and systems)

-The sensitivity we circle back to several times

-The nodes of the moon

-Forcasting by playing cards

-Attune to your own rhythm

-WHAT mysticism is, the presence of prayer, the language of creation and other jewels, like when Matt shares my card-reading through a love letter!

TAP in and reflect with us about the order of things, the flow of the cycles and listen as Matt gives us a walkthrough of how the place the cards on the place of planets and their meaning.

Rich episode, we might learn something together in this one!!

LINKS:

Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ptYdcIjAys

Matt Powers:

https://www.powers.guide/

https://www.instagram.com/themattpowers/

Mannah:

https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

"As human beings we have experience and we have story. We tend to shape the experience with story into a form that makes sense, is comfortable for ourselves, and presents us in the best light to others. In the case of psychosis, and other exceptional and anomalous experiences, the experience threatens to overwhelm story. In these circumstances, the obvious recourse is to go to the 'experts', perhaps the doctor, who has a ready story based on the medical model. You are ill. We can treat you." (quoted from Isabel Clarke, Conflicted Stories. A case of expanded reality.)

But there is another way..... a way of understanding the mind as permeable, porous and the self being something we create. WELCOME to a rich episode with psychologist Isabel Clarke, who has many years of experience working at the intersection of spiritual emergency and psychosis - with expanded consciousness.

Psychosis and spiritual experience both involve entry into another reality – a reality that is integral and vital to human life. As Isabel Clarke points out, this realm can be loving and expansive, but it can also smash the self. A key factor is the ability to move in and out of these states voluntarily.

In this conversation, we explore schizotypy as a dimension of human experience, involving sensitivity and openness to anomalous experiences. We speak about two ways of knowing: the scientific mode of precision and division, and a more integrative way of knowing through emotion, imagination, and poetry. Tap in with us as we go into what it means that the mind is open and what Isabel calls "Myths of Power" - and also that we need to take serious the shared world, as we can only conduct our lives full time in the shared world. (Her Capricorn Moon is very present, yet constantly balanced by her Libra placements). I also ask her about trauma and openness, and what it means in everyday life what it looks like to be porous.

Isabel Clarke is of a certain age, that is 80 years, and apart from this wonderful meeting, her experience can be found in several books and articles, including:

"Madness, Mystery and the Survival of God"

"Third Wave CBT Integration for Individuals and Teams: Comprehend, Cope and Connect"

"Meeting Mental Breakdown Mindfully: How to Help the Comprehend, Cope and Connect Way"

REMEMBER:

We er more connected than we may think!!!

I would love to hear from you, when you have heard this episode. It was such a joy to speak to Isabel Clarke and meet her heart to heart.

LINKS:

video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqEaLEL6YT0

Isabel: https://www.isabelclarke.org/

Mannah: https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

Okay so the Left-Hand Path is a spiritual philosophy centered on the preservation of an enduring self rather than spiritual dissolution or obedience to an external authority. Listen as Sereptie (Craig) shares how, for him, the term (with ph, lepht hand philosophy) connects to acid communism and the discovery of a portal beyond capitalistic reductionism, opening toward a transcendent renewal. You really have to hear his answer yourself, it will take you on a journey from politics to the inner dream world of truth. You will learn in this episode what he meas by lepht hand philosophy, plus I think a really central theme for ALL OF US CREATORS and ALL OF CONSUMERS of INFORMATION!!! That is: the attention economy - how do we stay true, avoid (being) noise and like "get the best, leave the rest"/try not to be totally destroyed by it? You will get some good suggestions in this episode, plus I think exactly conversations like this are so important, not to just be part of it (the noise) blindly, but reflecting as we are in that nonestop information flood, that we got going on, inside as outside.

Sereptie Craig is so intellectually stimulating to speak to, and so soulful as well as his Gemini Sun and Pisces Moon are really central to everything we discuss- and I mean, anyone who loves philosophy will enjoy when he speaks.

Tune in as Sereptie shares what his philosophical school is about, what his dream would is reaching for, and how he relates to his tarot-deck creations and personal astrological chart where we end up staying for a bit there in the end, because his curiosity turns out to be more fun than a certain scepticism he also carries.

Don't miss this one... I'm telling you... it's some good stuff right here.

-Mannah

LINKS:

video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjliAYaOJas

Sereptie: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon (find all this links through this)

Mannah: https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

John Michael Greer is an award-winning author of over fifty books and an initiate of Freemasonry, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Martinist Order, and several Druid traditions. He also served for twelve years as Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. I'm delighted to be with him to explore some of the themes from, what at this exact moment is his newest book, "Revisioning the Tree of Life; A New Cabala for Magic, Meditation and Pathworking" – it is hard to keep track when you are such an active gemini mind that John is.

Join us as we talk about:

-How John Michael Greer came to take on the work of John Gilbert -Why Western occultism can be understood as Middle Platonism dressed in wizard's robes -Use the Tree of Life as a tool (not a truth)

-Here is a quote that I reflect back to John:

"As I write these words, the Western world is stumbling through a cascade of difficult cultural transformations set in motion by the failure of the cult of progress mentioned earlier, to make good on its promises. The rationalist materialism that provided that cult with its impetus has begun to crumble as it became clear to too many people that the artificial world coupled together by human reason in the service of collective ego has turned out to be unfit for human habitation. The most common response to that realization is to fight back to the dogmatic religious ideologies of an earlier day. Too few people have noticed that it was precisely those belief systems with their inevitable abuses in the hands of entrenched and often despotic hierarchies that made rationalist materialism inevitable and built the foundations for its temporary triumph."

-that leads to us talking about progress.... John says we trust progress like a superstition !

-If archetypes are not only psychological, the implications are .....? Think with us please.. how archetypes move through individuals and manifest collectively, is it energies trying to express themselves through us? John speaks about how Figuration that is a shifting pattern of interdependence formed by human beings – things are not as solid as they seem

-DESIRE (one of my favorit themes that John mentions in his book) Remember: we desire what we do not fully possess....... is all desire for the Divine? Possibly!

-Projections of shadow (can you hear how close occultism and in depth trauma therapy is?)

-The second triad with WILL, IMAGINATION and MEMORY

-the tree of life and archetypes and how it helps to have more control, to have thoughts rather than thoughts having you (again link trauma therapy and....the great Merlin!)

-John's strong Gemini emphasis, which is what I feel he refers to as his two secret weapons

-What lead John to the Kabbalah and to the Golden Dawn Order

-The Aquarian versus Piscean view of community and visions of the future (talking about the ages that last about 2160 years)

-The beautiful Gemini Saturn link that reflects how John Michael Greer became an authority on traditions that raised his curiosity and that he was and still is able to write about in understandable language.

Thank you for being with us and wishing you a wonderful end of the year, we have been through a lot together in 2025 havent we?!? Wishing you a magic transition into the new year coming up – or a lot of good energy to when ever you are, as you read this! I will be back in the new year with authors who influence and inspire us, all coming with different pieces of the puzzle!

Remember... You have a place to call WHOLE.

-Mannah

LINKS

link to video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8p9kEZB0Fo

the book we speak of: https://spirit.aeonbooks.co.uk/product/revisioning-the-tree-of-life/95374

Johns interactive website: https://www.ecosophia.net/

Mannah: https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

It's a real honour to be with Jim Sher, a seasoned astrologer and therapist. He leads a mystery school devoted to a holistic, dialogical approach to astrology and metaphysics. Jim has practiced astrology for over 45 years and has taught it for more than 25 years. His book from 2025 is called "Astrology as a Spiritual Path: Birth of the New Human". In this episode we of course talk about his take on astrology with therapy and how it's an attempt to bring spirit back into modern psychology. We then go on to talk about:

-How astrology is spiritual path

-What is the connection to hermeticism

-Transpersonal psychology/astrology

-The experience of archetypes

-Yet how you are also unique

-Resistance to going onyour spiritual path

-Towards higher levels of consciousness

-Are we still survival-based and what kind of astrology do we yearn for in this time?

-the longing is where it begins

-Awakening to the friction

-Dane Rudhyar and the law of one's being

-The importance of self-actualization

I really hope you enjoy this one, where Jim Sher takes time take us into his work and thinking. In the end I look at his birth chart, in dialouge with the Jim though, and as we both have the south node in scorpio it is not hard to agree on the need for alchemy, therapy and shadow work around the ancestral line - and in the end also disidentification from the chart.

I would love to hear from you if you too enjoyed this episode.

LINKS:

The video version of this episode:

https://youtu.be/UBQ0GVKrUh0

Jim Sher:

https://www.sherastrology.com/

His book: https://www.amazon.com/Astrology-Spiritual-Path-Birth-Human/dp/B0CVSM8SF1

Find Mannah: https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/

Sometimes, in the world of interviewing, a few cancellations suddenly leave you weeks without a new episode woops! So I figured it was time to take matters into my own hands (voice?) and ease into a SOLO episode during this dry spell. And honestly, I'm in the best company with the artist and pioneer in the humanist approach to astrology, Dane Rudhyar(1895-1985).

I start off with a bit of personal chit-chat,,, feel free to skip ahead and then at some point I dive into Dane Rudhyar's book "Astrology of Transformation, A Multilevel Approach" from 1980. I read bits, reference key passages, and occasionally offer my own reflections or sound effects along the way - so it is very unlike an audiobook, more like, let's understand the essence here. With a mix of personal favorites of his quotes. I go through his prologue, first chapter and into his second chapter in which I don't stay long....To be continued!!!

IF YOU UNDERSTAND my pronounciation, then you will learn about what astrology is for, what the transpersonal means, intro to levels of consciousness, psychological investigations at the borderline of consciouness, yin and yang approaches to life (and astrology) and that we all can become MORE than what we are if only defined by our conditions.

Thank you for being here!! You have a place to call Whole

(BTW just a small note: I say "whole" a lot in this episode when reading about his yin approach. I hope you can hear the W in there and don't mistake it for "holes".)

-Mannah

MY WEBSITE HERE:

https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/