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.

Lucifer: Praxis! 

Peter Grey joins the show once again to talk about his explosive new book. We explore who the being of Lucifer is, his relationship to western magic, western magicians' relationships to him and how the current of liberty, individualism and legitimate rebellion have shaped centuries of culture.

An excellent discussion about a milestone achievement in western occulture.

Get the damned book here.

Enjoy!

I spent way too much time trying to shoehorn a Warhammer 40K reference into this episode title, and it devolved into something that would make a Chaos Marine blush. So we're keeping it professional (kinda) and diving straight into the space weather for 2025's back 9.

Watch along on YouTube here, if you like. This is what we cover.

Space Baby Update & Good Enough Goals 
Austin's 30-pound toddler is harder to carry than heavy deadlifts, and "good enough" is our 2025 achievement mindset

Failed 40K References & First Half Lookback 
From the eternal Mars season to the Carnival of Chaos that delivered perfect tariff confusion

Iran & Playing for All the Marbles 
Why this could mark the start of World War III and how it connects to the Jupiter-Saturn square

Uranus Enters Gemini: The Pilot Episode 
The seven-year transit that historically reshapes America, plus the flying wedge formation of outer planets

The Bow and Arrow Configuration 
Peak craziness in August with Mars-Saturn tension creating a cosmic weapon aimed at change

The Pause That Does Not Refresh 
September's retreat into swampy Pisces energy—like WWI trenches where your feet rot in gross water

Pisces-Virgo Eclipse Season 
The tail of the dragon's Buddhist letting go vs. the head's overwhelming hunger for the dream

Neptune in Aries & Individual Glory 
From woke-era uniformity to the pursuit of personalised excellence and looking combat-ready

Jupiter in Cancer Magic 
Learning what you really need and how to ask the divine for surgical beneficence

Personal Updates & H2 Plans 
Austin's book progress, Gordon's Peru trip for the Festival of the Sun, and preparing for a louder 2026

Poet, author, taiji instructor and intentionist (this will make sense shortly), Brian Wilkins joins the show this week, on the occasion of the publication of his book, A Wheel of Small Gods.

We discuss how poetry can be a container or place for spirits, different methods of experiencing and understanding energy, healing magic, magic-as-time-travel as well as the how's and why's of coming into relation with star spirits.

Super fun discussion. Enjoy!

• Get A Wheel of Small Gods.
• Brian's website.

The Q3 premium member course beginning shortly is on energy healing and -to go alongside it- we'll be doing a series of dialogues with practitioners from various energy modalities.

First cab off the rank is fellow Newcastle boy, Lance Baker, to talk about certainly the most well-known (and perhaps the least understood?) modality, Reiki. Lance is a Reiki Master, hypnotherapist, author and teacher.

Definitely the right person to talk me through it!

• Lance's website and business, Branches of Healing.
• Lance's YouTube channel.

The one and only Matawhero Lloyd returns to the show this week. More specifically, while I am in New Zealand, I returned to Whetu Ariki to spend some time with Matawhero and to see what's been happening with his pā project over the past couple of years. This is a project many of you will be familiar with from Ani.Mystic, where it gets a whole chapter of its own.

I'm releasing this one as an audio version as well as the video tour because -while I definitely think you should actually watch it so you can put images to the words- Matawhero goes really deep on Maori metaphysics, indigenous philosophy and all kinds of powerful topics. So there's still a lot to pick up just in the conversation.

But if you do want to watch it, jump over to YouTube and watch it there.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Get Ani.Mystic.

It's that time of half-year again! Forecastapalooza. With returning champ, Austin Coppock.

You know you want it. Get in.

Note: This was a video show so you can watch along on YouTube if you prefer.

Enjoy!

An Amazonian solo show this week, exploring the one-year anniversary of providing shamanic energy healings.

One of the things I mention during the episode is how I consider some of the seemingly bolder claims of shamanic healing from a different perspective having been in the jungle a number of times now. There's certainly a shared underlying metaphysics there.

Note: As mentioned at the top of the episode, this is a video one. So you may want to jump over to YouTube instead.

Show Notes

• Register to be notified for the next availabilities for healing sessions here.

Something different -and personally very exciting- this week. In the few days in between my Ecuadorian ayahuasca retreat and a return to my Peruvian jungle dieta, I got to visit the art school founded by my favourite artist, Pablo Amargino. Even better… I got given the tour by Pablo's son, Juan!

Juan is himself an artist, so I also got to see some of his work, and some of the work of Pablo's students. Plus I got the opportunity to ask some questions about Peruvian shamanism and curanderismo, and have some of the amazing concepts depicted in the painting spelled out.

This is very much a video episode, rather than an audio on, so be sure to head over to YouTube and check it out. 

Enjoy!

The one and only Jenx returns to the show to discuss his latest book, Supernatural Thailand. And so of course we discuss graveyards, Naga caves, boy spirits, dying for one's city and a whole bunch more.

Then we end the show looking at some of Adjarn Apichai's forecasts for the next few years and where they precisely align with our own.

Great stuff, as always! Please note I'm still in the Andes so there are a few audio dropouts. Also this was recorded as a live video discussion if you would prefer to watch rather than listen.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• The Thai Occult.
• Get Supernatural Thailand.

A solo show this week, in which I explore Ani.Mystic now that it's about two months out from launch, and how it has been immensely helpful in coming to terms with Mexican and explicitly Mayan sense making.

As I have basically been travelling since the thing came out, I've been remiss in sharing some of the shows that have kindly had me on to discuss the book.

So let that be your show notes for this week. Each episode is remarkably, remarkably different in a way that shows I've done for Star.Ships or The Chaos Protocols or Pieces of Eight weren't. And I genuinely think that's down to the material in the book.

Which means, if you are so inclined, you have hours of material to enjoy! (And hopefully that makes up for the travel-based radio silence.)

This week's solo show is the audio of my presentation and discussion with the guys from Watkins -the most recent discussion of the book- for reasons spelled out in the opening of the episode.

Show Notes

• Gordon talking Ani.Mystic on The Higherside Chats.
• Gordon talking Ani.Mystic on Coffee and Divination.
• Gordon talking Ani.Mystic on Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio.

I joke at the beginning of the episode that James wrote the best book I read this year that I didn't write. But actually, it's true.

Ways of Being is an excellent book that toils in many of the same vineyards as Ani.Mystic. So James and I discuss our notions of technology, artificial intelligence, publishing, language and how these all interrelate and are interdependent.

We also have an excellent discussion on the true significance of randomness as well as speculating on political and technological futures.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Get Ways of Being.
• Get Ways of Being on audiobook.
• James's website.

The one and only Gary Lachman returns to the show this week.

And the topics of the hour are dreams and time: precognition, sacred time, time slips, machine time and what even am dreams in the first place? Definite food for thought here.

Always a pleasure!

• Gary's latest book, Dreaming Ahead of Time.
• Gary's website.

I've been revisiting Ursula K. Le Guin's brilliant essay "The Child and the Shadow". Le Guin was defending fantasy against the sterile modernism of her era—but what happens when that defence needs to evolve? We're no longer fighting a battle between "good" and "bad" fantasy. Instead, we're caught in something potentially more insidious: the tension between authentic imagination and the ersatz.

From the disaster of Rings of Power to the destruction of Star Wars, from AI-generated Jung content flooding YouTube to the Soviet-style creative orthodoxy dominating our cultural institutions—we're witnessing the systematic neutering of the imaginal. But here's the thing: they can't actually touch the real. They break upon authentic creativity like waves upon rock.

Through Le Guin's profound analysis of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Shadow" and Jung's psychology, I explore why confronting our shadow isn't just personal development—it's the key to understanding why authentic fantasy endures while corporate imitations crumble. Plus, I reveal how Bulgakov got there first in The Master and Margarita, showing us exactly what happens when the vital imaginal meets bureaucratic control.

This isn't just about books or movies. It's about the difference between surface-level engagement and the depths where real creativity lives.

Chapter Timestamps:

0:00 - Opening: The Shift from Good vs. Bad to Ersatz vs. Genuine
3:45 - Le Guin's Defence of Fantasy in the Modern Era
8:20 - The Rings of Power Problem: When Creators Think They're Fans
12:15 - AI Jung Slop and the Corruption of the Imaginal
16:30 - Bulgakov's Prophecy: The Master and Margarita's Cultural Critique
22:10 - Reading "The Child and the Shadow": Andersen's Dark Fairy Tale
28:45 - Jung's Psychology: Ego, Shadow, and the Collective Unconscious
35:20 - The Ethics of Fairy Tales: Why Gretel Can Push the Witch
42:15 - Tolkien's True Complexity: Frodo, Sam, and Gollum as Psychic Journey
48:30 - Why Fantasy is the Language of Moral Truth
52:40 - The Problem with "Realistic" Children's Literature
57:25 - Luke in the Cave: Star Wars as Genuine Imaginal Work
60:10 - Closing Thoughts and Shadow Project Tease

Wait a minute. Gordon of all people is giving advice about what now?

Relax. I truly would never dream of it. Think of it more like Advice To A Young Wife From An Old Mistress. It's a dramatic frame that allows us to explore ways of being with this moment that -oh, just a thought- don't contribute to a field of war that brings everyone closer to nuclear annihilation while somehow assuming doing so gives you the moral high ground.

So it's not actually (just?) for professional astrologers and other fortune tellers. It's for any of you looking around at the entire planet losing its mind and working out what role -in your profession, in your family, in your friendship group, in your communities- you are being called to step into. It's my offering to you, delivered in the form of a presentation given to a strictly hypothetical group of professional astrologers.

Yeah, it's long. I mention at the beginning that the personal reason for sharing this is a healing one, around finding transformative ways of being with anger and defence. It may be challenging to watch or listen to for some of you. Healthy anger is a useful warning that situations or people are approaching important boundaries (physical or otherwise). And it is not that it means these boundaries must never be crossed or must always be defended. Anger simply calls you to an urgent awareness that boundary business is afoot.

For instance, being wrong about something or some position you have taken in which you have invested a lot of emotional energy. When someone points this out or when you begin to realise it yourself, the anger signal is there. But this is probably one instance where you allow that signal to draw your attention to the boundary and, rather than defending it, allow that pent up energy to dissipate across it.

I sincerely hope you come to your own understanding of the sentiment in which this presentation is offered, why it is offered at this time, as well as my intention that you find whatever medicine is meant for you in it.

Note: This is a video presentation with slides and such. It is only available on Rumble. Though it will still work fine as an audio offering if that is what you prefer.

• War and the Hyperreal. Rhyd Wildermuth.
• Tears for Ukraine, Sanctions for Russia, Yawns for Yemen, Arms for Saudis: The West's Grotesque Double Standard.
• The Overton Window Is Being Shoved Toward Warmongering Extremism. Caitlin Johnstone.
• Defending Freedom And Democracy Sure Requires An Awful Lot of Censorship. Caitlin Johnstone.
• The Field of Peace. Charles Eisenstein.
• Bunny Rabbits and the Big Bad Wolf: Ukraine and Russia through the lens of Western reporting. Gilbert Doctorow.
• The Tom Woods Show episode I truly hope you watch.
• Ukraine Neo-Nazis Infiltrate EVERY LEVEL Of Military & Government. Jimmy Dore.
• Ukraine War Driving Rampant Censorship At Home. Jimmy Dore.
• There's More To This. Russell Brand.

Everyone's favourite expat druid and substacker, Rhyd Wildermuth, returns to the show this week.

His latest book, Being Pagan: A Guide To Re-Enchant Your Life, forms the through-line of a wide ranging discussion on beingness, paganism, embodiment and the general state of the world.

Electrifying stuff, as ever. Enjoy!

• Rhyd's latest book.
• Rhyd's substack.
• Rhyd's website.

Everyone's favourite Swedish polymath returns to the show for a discussion about the Black Pope, Anton LaVey, himself.

This is on the occasion of the release of Carl's latest book, Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan. It's the biography LaVey boths needs and deserves. So we talk a little bit about his life but mostly we examine his legacy, what he might think of today's cancel culture and whether or not the ol' devil has got his dues yet.

It's a great chat and had both Carl and I reminiscing about our own wayward youths.

Enjoy!

• Get the book here. (It's also available as an audiobook.)
• Follow Carl's work here.
• Trapart Publishing.

Here is the next of the free or publicly available modules of the latest premium member course, Protection and Malefica. It is a discussion on morality frameworks and how, when and we we might magically intervene.

The one and only Peter Grey of Scarlet Imprint joins us for a deep dive on one of Jack Parsons's most important texts, We Are The Witchcraft.

This is a video discussion with slides and such, but if you would prefer to listen to it like a normal podcast, this audio version is eminently followable.

• Download a PDF of We Are The Witchcraft.
• Peter Grey reading We Are The Witchcraft.

The one(s) and only(s) Miguel Conner of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio and Chris Knowles of The Secret Sun join the show this week for a discussion of all things astro-gnostic.

We discuss the true antiquity and use of star lore, stars in the Bible, gnostics in history as well as a gnostic study of history as well as which components of gnosticism may or may not be universal.

This chat was arranged in honour of a conference that Miguel is arranging that Chris and I will both be speaking at next month (March 20 - 22) in Playa del Carmen called the Astro Gnostic Conference. We discuss the event during the show and you can find out more, including details on tickets, accommodation and excursions in the show notes.

• The Astro Gnosis Conference website.
• The Secret Sun.
• Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio.

This week, we welcome to the show astrologer, philosopher and shamanic practitioner, Michael Ofek.

Michael and I have a great chat about topics very near and dear to our hearts: star lore, star magic, and the true antiquity of what we can broadly call astrology, or perhaps coming into relation with Sky Country.

Along the way, we also talk about the metaphysics of light, the shamanic origins of Greek and European civilisation, hag attacks and spontaneous OBEs.

Good times!

(Note: This is a repost as there was an error with the file. This is another live video episode so if you would prefer to watch it rather than listen, jump over to YouTube or Odysee.)

• Michael's website and upcoming course.
• Book a reading with Michael.
• Michael's Facebook page.

This week we complete our revisitation of classic blog post series from back in the day. And we have saved my favourite for last: Apocalypse Pharmaka.

It's my favourite for a bunch of reasons that I explain in the episode. But, basically, the contested landscape of medicine and power and the body is where the witch and the cunning person has always lived. (Not that you'd know it from looking around in the past couple of years, although the shrillness is mercifully receding.) So if you want to say you are a participant in the 'western' understanding of magic or witchcraft in any capacity and have the people around you keep a straight face, one way or the other you need to 'come to terms' -in the animist sense- with this contested landscape that is our homeland. It really is as simple as that.

Of course -and this is pretty much the whole point- we have all been pushed off these homelands over the past two years and into both literal and metaphoric quarantine camps. Which is to say these discussions are even more fraught than at the time I wrote the series. So you won't find this episode on YouTube. You can listen to the audio version as per usual, or you can watch along on Odysee or Rumble.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• The Apocalypse Pharmaka series.

Researcher, energy healer and fellow Scarlet Imprint author, Peter Mark Adams, returns to the show this week. We discuss his book, The Power of the Healing Field.

We also have a fantastic chat about what the field even am, and why it is an idea and framework whose time has come. We explore various energy-based healing modalities and pause to consider that we should not even be using the word 'alternative' for such disciplines, as the majority of the population of the planet incorporates them into standard medical practice. It is us in the west who are the 'alternative'.

Excellent stuff, and a great discussion to for the first month of the year!

(Note: This episode was first livestreamed on YouTube, should you wish to watch it instead.)

• Get The Power of the Healing Field.
• Peter's website.
• Mind Connection Healing.

We begin the new year with the traditional podcast catch-up with Conner Habib.

This time around we explore the full cosmic significance of the heart, the metaphysics of blood and blood sacrifice and then spend a lot of time with the notion of prophecy: What it is, what it isn't, which medicines it holds, what it says about time and what it can say about our moment.

Then we turn to 2022 and thrash out some frameworks for sin, trauma and forgiveness. A splendid start to the year!

Show Notes

• Conner on Patreon.
• Conner on Twitter.

Austinmas comes but twice a year!

Yes, it's the traditional half-yearly forecast with the one and only Austin Coppock.

Join us as we explore the space weather for the next six months, as well as a discussion on how to be with said space weather. (And stick around for the amusing tech fails on both sides of the call.)

Enjoy!

Last night I got halfway through a Substack post on a related issue to some of the subjects that came up on my appearance on the Disintegrator podcast. When I went to link to it, it suddenly dawned on me I had only shared it on the Rune Soup Premium Members Mighty Network. (Join below.)

So here it is! We recorded this soon after my arrival in Paraguay, so I think it was early February. It's an excellent discussion, so I'm pulling an Alex Hormozi and sharing it with my own listeners. (Sub to Disintegrator, too.)

Here is why AI thinks you should listen:

In this high-energy episode I sit down with Marek and Roberto to talk about why barrels are meant for rolling and why reality is much bigger than the academic cubicles that try to contain it. We start with the ancient tale of the Watchers (the OG tech-bros from the Book of Enoch) and use it to kick open a door marked Technology, Magic & the Human Experiment. From there we dive straight into animism, the "community-of-beings" cosmos, and why a living universe renders most hand-wringing over "anthropocentrism" moot unless you're prepared to vault clean out of the academy's marble-floored worldview.

What you'll hear me unpack

• Barrel-Rolling Out of Academia – how to exit the cathedral politely, become "invincible," and treat academic credentials like LinkedIn endorsements in a living cosmos.

• Markets, Magic & Capitalism – capitalism viewed as a resonant tool of a larger Ahrimanic being; why the market is archetypal, but turning it up to 120 % comes with karmic interest.

• Mineral Intelligence & AI – awakening the silica, ayahuasca visions of stones teaching in a galactic lecture hall, and why "artificial" intelligence might be a mis-nomer in an ensouled universe.

• Comparative ≠ Colonial – embracing perspectivism (à la Viveiros de Castro) as the clean way to decolonise knowledge without the usual Protestant guilt trip.

• Astrology & World Politics – the U.S. Pluto/Uranus returns, fourth-turning turbulence, and the astrological case for an amicable national "divorce" over a civil war redux.

• Practical Magic – why Ouija boards, jungle dieta, and good old-fashioned ghost stories still outperform peer-reviewed PDFs when it comes to proving the universe is alive.

 Join the world's leading online magical training community, Rune Soup, here.

This week, we are joined by essayist and filmmaker, Niles Heckman. Among other things, Niles is the co-creator of the Shamans of the Global Village series. So we talk about that, obviously.

And we also talk about creativity, filmmaking, the power of the essay format, as well as how -or if it's possible- to participate in cross-cultural learning in non-extractive ways.

Great chat.  Enjoy!

• Niles's website, podcast and blog.
• Watch Shamans of the Global Village.
• Trailer for Episode 1.
• Trailer for Episode 2.

Continuing our revisitations this week, we turn to the archonology series -a long running exploration of power and conspiracy.

And you know what? A lot of these have held up pretty well. I especially like how so many of the videos shared in the posts are now gone from YouTube, and how many links have died. It's like burning the edges of a pirate map. Adds character.

Enjoy!

The Archonology Series

• Things That Persist: Archonology (Part 1).
• While We Pray For A Long Summer: Archonology (Part 2).
• Spook Tech: Archonology (Part 3).
• The Money: Archonology (Part 4).
• Collaborators: Archonology (Part 5).
• The Weapon of the Enemy: Archonology (Part 6).
• Knives in the Dark: Archonology (Part 7).
• Fate of Empires: Archonology (Part 8).
• Dispatches From The Front: Archonology (Part 9).
• Force Majeure: Archonology (Part 10).
• Listening to Demons: Archonology Redux.
• Pointing Out Devils: Archonology Redux.
• Section 31: Archonology Redux.
• The Syndicate: Archonology Redux.
• Offers Unrefused: Archonology Redux.

A bumper episode this week and a veritable romp through the Fortune's Fools project as the finish line appears over the horizon.

I was told going into a project like this that it would show up in your life in strange ways: seeing a cardiologist the week of the Heart card, having a friend lose is eyebrow ring at your house the week of the Ring card, taking ayahuasca the week of the Tree card.

None of these things were planned out beforehand but if you read cards, you know these things tend to happen. They just seem a little extra when you're creating a deck.

So artist extraordinaire Colin Alexander returns to the show in order to reminisce and commiserate on this wacky journey so far.

This episode will probably work better as a video, but it still works audio only, especially if you want to download this large image of all the cards we discuss in the episode. Otherwise you can jump over to YouTube and watch it there.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Watch the episode on YouTube.
• Pre-order the cards and the book.
• Join the Fortune's Fools Telegram group.
• The Fortune's Fools playlist on Spotify.
• Colin on TikTok.
• Colin on Instagram.

Continuing our whistle-stop tour of classic blog series, this time we revisit a term I lifted from the (pre-cancelled) Joss Whedon film, Serenity.

It's the term I use to better frame the totality of digital systems and social media in the context of how they see the world and what it is they seek to do to ours. For people who may be unaware, I had a career in digital media and publisher strategy before doing whatever it is you call what I'm doing now. And I've long been interested in that overlap between communication and magic.

These posts weave all of that together. And it's necessary to continue the revisitations with this series next, because it gives us the context for why probably the rest of the revisitations won't be found on YouTube.

• "I'm Going To Show You A World Without Sin."
• The First World Without Sin.
• Worlds Jurassic and Without Sin.
• World Without Sin: Farming Spies.
• Blowing Filter Bubbles: World Without Sin.

NOTE: Last week's revisitation didn't push out an MP3 file, so this week you are getting two. Add them together and it's almost a podcast!

Based on some suggestions that came out of the recent solo show on the story of Rune Soup, I'm going to be revisiting the classic blog post series from back in the old timey bloggy days of yore.

The first such series is The Whisky Rant: where the name came from, the benefits and shortcomings of alternate history, which UFOs are actual aliens and which of the various rants stood the test of time.

For new people, this was a series that covered off all the exciting hits like ruins on Mars and the Moon, the location of Atlantis and my own version of the stoned ape hypothesis.

It's that time of year again!

And for the traditional Halloween special, we are joined by astrologer, witch and counsellor, Sasha Ravitch. Sasha joins us to talk about star spirits, astrology and the dead, and what sort of ancestral curses and blessings can show up in your natal chart.

Awesome stuff. 

• Sasha's website.
• Sasha's Linktree.
• Sasha's Instagram.
• Sasha's Twitter.
• Sasha's Patreon.
• AstroMagia conference website.

This week, we welcome to the show author, teacher and herbalist, Seán Pádraig O'Donoghue.

Seán joins us today to talk about his journey to animist herbalism, how he defines it, and what constitutes health in a living framework.

Really good, timely stuff. Enjoy!

• Seán's website, Otherworld Well.
• Seán's course, Holistic Pharmacology for Herbalists.

A long-overdue solo show this week, telling the story of Rune Soup from its beginnings as a blog in Bristol, through the books, through the development of the podcast, and the membership and the events and so on.

At the end, there is also some discussion of where to next.

• Subscribe to Rune Soup on Rumble.
• Subscribe to Rune Soup on Odysee.
• Check out Fortune's Fools.

Author, magician, returning guest and friend, Ivy Bromius, joins us again this week on the occasion of the publication of her completely free book, The Cancer Grimoire.

We talk about her experiences treating and overcoming cancer, blending allopathic and holistic methods, and finding meaning in our own health crises. An important discussion at the best of times. Probably more so now.

Download the episode directly here or watch along on YouTube below.

• Find everything Ivy has going on at Circle Thrice.

This week, we are joined by the hosts of one of my very favourite podcasts, Fucking Cancelled.

Clementine and Jay talk to us about their own journey to activism, through what they call the nexus -that toxic combination of social media bullying and neoliberal group thing- and out the other side to a genuine left they call 'socialism with freaky options'.

Along the way we discuss what cancellation is, how old it is, why it works and whether or not its efficacy is fading.

Super fun show with some super fun people!

• Fucking Cancelled on Patreon.
• Fucking Cancelled on Libsyn.
• Fucking Cancelled on Instagram.
• Clementine's website.
• Clementine on Instagram.
• Jay on Instagram.

Magical objects aren't just forged—they're found. In this solo episode, I explore the secret life of enchanted tools: the knife with a story, the crystal touched by a world-mountain, the wand bought in a witch town that still summons fairy queens.

What gives an object its power? Sometimes it's planetary timing and whispered invocations—but sometimes it's stranger tales than that. This is a medium salsa reflection on self-initiation, storycraft, and the agency of objects that choose you.

Note: Here's a link to the YouTube video about self-initiation I mention in this episode.

1. Who Chose Whom?

   Opening questions on agency, destiny, and magical initiation.

2. What Makes an Object Magical?

   Beyond grimoires—why backstories matter as much as consecrations.

3. Salsa Scale and Self-Initiation

   How this podcast fits into your current content taxonomy.

4. Denethor, Pippin, and the Agentic Object

   Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon worldview and the power of mythic artifacts.

5. Crystals in the Andes

   Live tale-weaving on sacred mountains and magical stones.

6. The Library Angel & YouTube Algorithms

   Synchronicity, digital spellwork, and unexpected transmissions.

7. Strange Tales and Warped Realities

   How magical items—and magical people—bend the world around them.

8. Grimoires vs. Found Objects

   Cutting Hawthorn at dawn vs. fairy queen summoning from a witch-town wand.

9. Your Life Already Has Strange Tales

   Suburban magic, Red Cross births, and the imperative to gather and weave.

This week, we welcome back to the show Dr Matthew Segall. Matt joins us to talk about his recently released book, Physics of the World Soul: Whitehead's Adventure in Cosmology.

So we chat about the shortcomings of materialism, what science could be like and how it could be done. We also discuss the concept of the Anima Mundi -or World Soul- and what the point of the universe might be.

• Get Matt's book, Physics of the World Soul.
• Matt's blog.
• Matt's YouTube channel.

This week we welcome to the show Karen Johnson.

Karen is a shaman, healer, and former judge. She was catapulted into the life of a healer when her son died suddenly of a heroin overdose at the age of twenty seven. Leaving her old life behind, Karen embarked on a multi-year spiritual quest around the world, ultimately discovering -among many modalities and sources of spiritual nourishment- shamanic energy medicine. (Karen is actually my teacher at the Four Winds Academy, which comes up a couple of times in the show.)

She joins us today to talk about her brand new book, Living Grieving: Using Energy Medicine to Alchemize Grief and Loss.

A really great chat about a really powerful topic. Enjoy.

Show Notes

• Living Grieving: Using Energy Medicine to Alchemize Grief and Loss.
• Karen's energy medicine website and blog.
• Karen's Instagram.

Christmas only comes but once a year, which makes the half-yearly astrological forecasts twice as good as it!

Big thanks to the one and only Austin Coppock -as well as the premium members and patrons who join the call. As is now tradition, we look at the previous six months, the upcoming six months and situate our discussion in the context of longer cycles.

I always look forward to these chats!

Something a bit different and exciting this week in lieu of a normal show. One of the things the premium members will be doing over the coming month is participating in calls and Q&As with thinkers who have something to share or contribute to this notion of operating at the level of the living field.

First cab off the rank is none other than Rhyd Wildermuth. Finding The Ekumen gets its name from Ursula K. Le Guin's space utopia, effectively an anarchist version of Star Trek's far more militant United Federation of Planets. So if we are going to have a series of discussions beyond traditional politics, we should begin with a discussion of what politics is, what it isn't and where it might be that you come in. I can think of no one better than Rhyd for that chat, so here it is!

Big thanks to Rhyd and the members for participating! This is obviously a video discussion if you would prefer to watch on YouTube or Odysee.

• Rhyd's Substack.
• Rhyd's essay, Here Be Monsters.
• Saul Newman's Anarchism and the Politics of Ressentiment.
• The works of Silvia Federici.
• Human Scale.
• Postmodern Anarchism in the Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin.
• Against Identity Politics.

Comedian, author, ceremonialist and healer, Nick Sun, joins us this week.

Back in January, Nick wrote a piece on Medium called Watch Your Dreams Die And Be Happy Now. It's about how childhood dreams in general and the insistence we all follow them is not always a good thing. In fact, it can even be pathological.

Obviously that sort of piece has Big New Year Energy given the world is awash with resolutions at the time. But it is also good and insistent medicine for now -particularly for younger readers. There is a lot about this in the wealth magic course in the members area, but desire is very poorly understood and even more poorly experienced in the modern world.

Given the dramatic changes to how society functions we have all been through these past sixteen months have barely begun to be felt, the work of sitting with, parsing and simply showing up to your dreams, desires, goals -as well as how they all differ- takes on a different form of urgency.

So that's what Nick came on to discuss ostensibly. We also talk about a bunch of other stuff too, I hasten to add. Encountering different plant spirits, prophecy, healing from trauma, all very good times.

Show Notes

• Nick on Medium.
• Nick's Patreon.

This week, we welcome to the show the author of Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The World -genuinely one of my favourite books ever- Tyson Yunkaporta. In addition to being an author, Tyson is a poet, an artist, a wood carver, a linguist and and is senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University.

I had a fantastic time with this chat. We talk about ceremony, metaphor, the pitfalls of the new age, right relation and all that good stuff. We also talk about communicating via body odour, getting fat and 80s movies.

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Get Sand Talk.

Author, speaker and Scarlet Imprint co-founder, Peter Grey, returns to the show this week to talk about his latest book, The Two Antichrists.

This means we explore the Babalon Working(s), the influence of Jack Parsons on science fiction and science fiction's influence on Jack Parsons, the sophistication in Parsons's later work, L. Ron Hubbard's fascination with Aleister Crowley -as well as some of the ways he managed to out-Crowley the Beast himself.

We also talk about what witchcraft could and should do now, as well as the urgent necessity of coming into relation with the stars.

Enjoy!

• Get The Two Antichrists.
• Scarlet Imprint on Instagram.

This week, we are speaking with Danish historian and animist, Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen.

Animism is the main topic of our discussion, inevitably. We talk about what it looks like in the doing, and what academic work does and still might come from operating within an animist framework rather than a materialist-naturalist one.

We also examine both some of the opportunities and risks inherent in learning from and with indigenous ways of thinking and being.

Absolutely killer chat. Enjoy!

• Rune's website, Nordic Animism.
• Nordic Animism on YouTube.
• Nordic Animism on Patreon.

Microbiologist, teacher and ritualist, Dr Siobhan Watkins joins the show this week.

We have a really great chat about the how and why of coming into right relation with the microbial world, what all forms of biology look like from an animist perspective and the ancestral implications of being a composite being.

Awesome discussion. Enjoy!

• Microanimism website.
• Thinking Like A Plague course.
• Siv on instagram.

Ethnobotanist, ecologist, author and teacher Jonathon Miller Weisberger joins us this week.

We talk about growing up in Ecuador, living among various Amazonian nations, ecology, eco-spirituality, environmental activism and the difference between ayahuasca and yagé -among many, many other topics (including being dispatched by Terence McKenna to buy a paddleboat).

This is an amazing and lengthy chat which I have wanted to have since reading Jonathon's book, Rainforest Medicine, a few years ago. And we are having the conversation now because Jonathon is convening three upcoming series of yagé ceremonies at his amazing facility in Costa Rice known as Ocean Forest Ecolodge in April, May and June 2021. I mention it at the opening of the audio-only version of the show and then we discuss it again toward the end of the episode in both the audio and video versions.

Details and dates in the show notes!

Show Notes

• Details on Rainforest Medicine the book, as well as the yagé ceremonies.
  • April 24 – May 1 (option to add 3 days til May 4)
  • May 29 – June 5
  • June 6 – June 12
• Learn more and book your ceremony.
• Don Pablo's copal ceremony.
• Ocean Forest Ecolodge video tour.

Hello from Cusco, where the streets are laid out like a puma and hawkers offer massages on every corner. I've been thinking about Huáscar, the last true Sapa Inca, who willingly took sacred knowledge into the underworld until the time was right for its return.

What if the strange convergence we're witnessing - the grimoire revival, the sudden value of grandmother's recipes, and yes, even the rise of what I'm calling "orthodank" online - are all manifestations of the same archetypal energy? Things coming up from below, returning from the shadows at this precise moment in time. The question is: which returns will we embrace?

1. The Temple City of Cusco - Exploring the ancient capital and how authentic experience lurks just beneath tourist traps

2. The Tale of Two Brothers - The story of Waskar and Atahualpa, the civil war that weakened the Inca Empire, and how Waskar preserved sacred knowledge

3. Three Stories of Waskar's Fate - Drowning, beheading, or escape: tracing the different narratives through history and oral tradition

4. The Return of Waskar in the 90s - Alberto Violdo's observations and the rising indigenous pride in Peru

5. The Fortean Dominant - How things pushed into the underworld are returning in our time

6. Conservative Returns - The relationship between rising conservatism and the return of things worth conserving

7. Grandmother's Foods - How millennials became the generation that values heritage foods and traditional ways

8. Magic's Return - The grimoire revival and the return of ancestral magical knowledge

9. Shadow and Integration - How to navigate the darker aspects of what returns from the underworld

One of our most popular returning guests joins us again this week.

Denmark's very own Queen of Swords is back to talk about the latest book in her Read Like The Devil series, which is about something near and dear to my own heart (and diamonds), fortune telling with playing cards!

So we discuss the in's and out's of the various suits, how significators work in playing card readings, which questions might be better 'suited' to playing cards and which ones to tarot, which spreads play to their various strengths and weaknesses and what can happen when, you know, you just read the damned cards.

A great chat with a great person about a great book. Enjoy!

• Get Read Like The Devil: Playing Cards.
• Camelia's website.
• Camelia's cartomancy blog.

This week, my Fortune's Fools cohost and Lenormand deck artist, Colin Alexander joins the show. Inevitably, we discuss fortune telling, and Madame Lenormand herself, as well as creativity, growing up weird in the 90s, comics and that other magical comic creator from the Glasgow area you may or may not have heard of.

And, naturally, because we are launching a live video show in a couple of days, this one is best consumed on YouTube, but you can certainly download it here instead.

One thing I keep forgetting to mention is that the Telegram group for Fortune's Fools is already up and kicking and you should definitely join us there. (Also in the Rune Soup one for main blog banter.)

• Fortune's Fools Telegram group.
• Fortune's Fools Episode 0. Hit the bell icon so you know when we're live!
• Fortune's Fools main site.
• Colin's main site.
• Colin on Instagram.

Life coach, author, teacher, athlete and host of the Inspire Nation show, Michael Sandler is our guest this week. Michael joins us to discuss his latest book, AWE: The Automatic Writing Experience.

Along the way, we also explore different forms of spirit contact, what it's like to have had two Near Death Experiences, the importance of ceremony, sweat lodges and -topic du jour for the premium members- angels and how to contact them.

Quick note if you're listening to the audio version, this was in fact recorded as a video discussion. So if you like looking at people while they talk, this is one to watch on YouTube. 

Enjoy!

Show Notes

• Get AWE: The Automatic Writing Experience, along with bonus material.
• Michael's podcast, Inspire Nation.
• Inspire Nation on YouTube.
• Michael's training programmes; Inspire Nation University.