Against Everyone with Conner Habib

AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 328: HORROR UPON HORROR PT 2 - DAN CHAON on HIDDEN LIVES and 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE Six authors. Four horror movies. Four episodes of Against Everyone with Conner Habib. This is Horror upon Horror. Friends, we all have hidden lives. From the lives of our internal organs, which are working within you right now, to the lives that we imagine and fantasize for ourselves yet will not achieve. The most obvious, and yet in some ways the most hidden life, is that life of death itself. We carry this death within us every day. The skeleton which lurks just beneath our flesh, washed by fluids and blood each day, is death's emblem. And each of us makes our own deaths the project of our lives. Every step draws us closer, every action has a result, an effect, that shapes the way in which we will change from a living person to a dead one. Inside all of our choices, there lives death. The same is true fro the lives of civilizations, which hide away the seeds of their own demise in…

Six authors. Four horror movies. Four episodes of Against Everyone with Conner Habib This is HORROR UPON HORROR On these episodes, we'll be thinking through the creation, reading, and viewing of the most vital and visceral art: Horror, and I'll be doing it with the frightening luminaries of the genre. People who are unafraid to endure the horrific imagination, and able to bring it to you. On this first episode, I’ll be talking about nostalgia in horror with authors Nathan Ballingrud and Sarah Maria Griffin and then we'll move onto our discussion of the amoebic violent power of Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake of The Blob. Unlike other monsters, the blob has no direction, no real personality. It doesn’t want anything. It’s not even hungry; hunger would imply some sort of desire or longing. Instead, it’s drawn to whatever is close and warm, drawn to incorporate it, to grow with the heat of flesh, bone, and blood. As it gets bigger, it needs more heat, more blood, to keep going. This is Horror upon Horror. The blob.…

AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 326: FELIX JOHN TAYLOR on THE LIGHT OF THE HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN The first time I heard about the Golden Dawn, I was in high school. I was gay, Syrian, reading all the time, shunning sports. My town was filled with neo-Nzis and fundamentalists, celebrated stupidity and football players. I wanted to feel something like power in a disempowering place, so I went to Brentano’s and found the most startling magic book there. On its cover was a person drawing a pentagram of crackling blue light with a wand. In it, instructions on making magical tools and spellcasting. And in its title, the word magick was written with a K. In contrast to the hell of school, the book represented an academy of magic. I found there allusions to The Golden Dawn, a group from almost a century prior, with secrets of not just power, but antiquity and the cosmos. But they also seemed rigid, too elaborate and hierarchical. Plus I didn't like their most infamous member, Aleister Crowley, so I…

Friends, I've been doing this podcast for over eight years and one thing I've noticed since the beginning: guests always want to talk about spirituality. I know, I know, it's self-selecting. I'M the one who wants to talk about it. Sure, that's true. But also, everyone is EXCITED to discuss it when I bring it up. It's like it's on the tip of everyone's tongues and has been for a decade. Now, it's starting to be fully pronounced, like a spell shouted into the air. I’m sure you’ve seen it too: whether it’s the convergence of witchcraft and feminism, the popularization of political wellness which has ritual components, the appearance of crystals in the Los Angeles mayoral race, the conspiratorial intimations about black magick during lockdowns... People have been trying to interpret the world through a spiritual lens that religion doesn't seem up to - but the political realm has so overwhelmed people’s perceptions that instead of being TRANSFORMED by spiritual encounter, they're merely grafting it onto…

I talk with intellectual historian, A.J.A. WOODS , author of the excellent and very readable The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West on to the show to discuss all this. In their book, A.J.A. traces the great movement of blaming everything good and bad - from trans liberation to sexual abuse, from religious plurality to totalizing Satanism, from fighting state violence to supporting gulags - on something called cultural Marxism. If it sounds incoherent, that’s because coherence is not really the point. The illusion of coherence is. And the illusion is created by noise and density. I have my own shaky relationship to the Frankfurt School, and I'm so happy to share this exploration with you in hopes that it will inspire you to rethink and/or revisit these philosophers. Support the show: patreon.com/connerhabib

Friends, “The hour is late. It is time for unwanted guests to leave.” That's a line from this episode's guest, MITCH HOROWITZ, in his latest book, Esoterika: Formulas Against the False Self. The book as I see it, is a book of ethics. And its central question is: how do you navigate who you are and what your ethics are when you touch the continuously transformative fires of spiritual pursuits? In that sense, it is a book for anyone exploring their spirituality. In it, Mitch traces his own inner (and outer) conflicts with spiritual maxims. Particular to Mitch is the conundrum of: How do I get what I want, yet retain my integrity? What do I do when there's a conflict? And where does magic come in? This is a great discussion and one where we navigate our own tensions of belief and disbelief; will and surrender. Support the show via patreon.com/connerhabib

On this episode of Against Everyone with Conner Habib, I talk with esoteric author and scholar MARK BOOTH (AKA Jonathan Black), whose excellent new book, THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE: HOW ANCIENT WISDOM MADE THE WORLD, traces the occult influences found in modern science, especially the science of physics. Mark’s book is not just an outline of confluences. In other words, it’s not one of many books already available which seem to validate spiritual wisdom with modern science. Instead, it is something more singular and more needed for our time. It shows how esoteric ideas and thinkers, seers and magicians, intersected with scientists as they developed the theories that live in our own scientific worldviews. Mark is also the author of one of the best introductions to real esoteric perspectives, The Secret History of the World , as well as The Sacred History: How Angels, Mystics and Higher Intelligence Made Our World and the ebook, The Secret History of Dante: Unearthing the Real-Life Mysteries of the…

Using AEWCH 317-320 as a starting point, I talk with JOSHUA RIVERS, poet and host of the excellent BUSY BEING BLACK podcast + frequent AEWCH guest, SHULI BRANSON (host of the podcast THE BREAKUP THEORY podcast, and translator of Guy Hocquenghem's Gay Liberation After May '68.) about the small task of remaking the world. At the center of the episode is a thought that's something like: We have to lose - via transformation - so much to gain the world. The last time Shuli was on the show was a conversation with a third person, too, with Dean Spade on AEWCH 277 thinking through how to think bigger than the state. On that episode, we each brought a question for the other two guests, and we do that again - but this time prompted by Josh. These are the questions: JOSHUA: How do you care for what you love? CONNER: If you let go of the set of capitalism vs communism (or socialism) what’s left in your view of how to change the world? SHULI: How do you open things up so that you have a new and altered view? Along the…

Like many people, I often feel that I don’t understand economics, but, like everyone, I have my own role to play in the economy. So do you. So does everyone. We are all in economy, so we all have something to offer in understanding it. AEWCH 24 guest Erin Ryan once joked that “Economics is astrology for dudes” Economics feels intentionally mystified, filled with untruths and abstractions, and hopelessly complicated. Those who claim they do understand it are usually people (certain kinds of men, as per Ryan’s joke) who use the economy in a certain way, and are therefore limited to a certain view of it. Because we are kept at arms length from economic understanding, we have to resort to questions like, “Why is this piece of paper worth something?” or , “Why do numbers moving from one account to another mean something?” If we're not outright ridiculed for asking, we are often left without much more than broad answers that are detached from history and that lead us away from doing anything about whatever we’ve…

Friends, we might not feel up to the task, of changing the world, but not only are we up to the task, but we are all engaged with it already. Shaping the world is part of being alive and we all contribute, whether we know it or not. This episode is part of my series on the social art of renewing, rethinking, and revitalizing the social organism: A NEW SPIRITUAL SOCIETY This time, I talk about POLITICS - why politics in our time is about so much more than elections, political parties, protests, and laws. It's about time, utopia, and connection. Support the show today via ⁠patreon⁠ or ⁠Make a one time contribution⁠. Want to work with me on your creative, business or everyday life? ⁠Click here for a list of services⁠.

Friends, we might not feel up to the task, of changing the world, but not only are we up to the task, but we are all engaged with it already. Shaping the world is part of being alive and we all contribute, whether we know it or not. Welcome to my new series of episodes on the social art of renewing, rethinking, and revitalizing the social organism: A NEW SPIRITUAL SOCIETY This time, I talk about CULTURE, what culture really is in our time and what we're being called to do to renew this sphere so it can be strong in its own right and withstand the pressures of politics and economics. Support the show today via patreon or Make a one time contribution. Want to work with me on your creative, business or everyday life? Click here for a list of services.

Friends, We might not feel up to the task, of changing the world, but not only are we up to the task, but we are all engaged with it already. No one who has ever lived, even briefly, has not altered the earth by contributing their own destiny to it, and the way in which that destiny radiated out to affect everyone. Shaping the world is part of being alive. We all contribute. This is often broken down into a clunky simplistic and fundamentally flawed statement that “everything is political.” But the truth is everything in our lives - individually, with each other, and with the whole of humanity not to mention the earth itself - is connected to natural, human, and spiritual laws. How do we bring ourselves out of the automatic everyday ways we shape the world just by merely existing, and into the intentional, purposeful, and true activity of developing a newly spiritual society? Welcome to my new series of episodes on how to start to renew and recreate the social world in our time: A NEW SPIRITUAL SOCIETY Over…

In an episode that is at once political, spiritual, and intensely personal, I talk about why we need to see the Epstein files in the right light to understand what's at stake: for survivors, for abusers, and for the world at large. Support the show: patreon.com/connerhabib

I talk with author, teacher, and cohost of Weird Studies, J.F. Martel about how art is the only way out of our predicament. Support the show: patreon.com/connerhabib Buy J.F.'s book. Listen to Weird Studies.

Asad Haider, the political theorist and philosopher, whose book critiquing identity politics from a (non-class-reductive) leftist perspective, Mistaken Identity: Mass Movements and Racial Ideology remains a powerful contribution and who was on AEWCH 26, died suddenly in December of last year. I’ve reproduced that episode as AEWCH 314*, with a new introduction. To plant a tree in Asad's memory, go here. To support the show, go to patreon.com/connerhabib

In conversation with Pilar Lesko about change, Christianity, the dead, and more. Happy New Year! support the show: patreon.com/connerhabib

Friends, Happy New Year! And welcome to the New Year’s Resolution episode of Against Everyone with Conner Habib, featuring my conversation with esoteric scholar and writer, MITCH HOROWITZ. But this show is filled with special guests, including: Philosopher and writer FEDERICO CAMPAGNA Esoteric teacher ALAN CHAPMAN Bestselling author and death expert CAITLIN DOUGHTY Mystery and horror novelist SARA GRAN Christian Community priest and esoteric christian PATRICK KENNEDY Cap'n Jazz, Joan of Arc, and Kinsella & Pulse front person TIM KINSELLA Spiritual teacher and abundance explorer PILAR LESKO Rapper and cultural theorist VIC MENSA Artist and journalist UNA MULLALLY Writer and Team Human host DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF On this episode Mitch and I talk about the resolutions sent in by these past AEWCH guests, and I hope our discussion inspires you to come up with a meaningful resolution for yourself, whether you’re listening to this before the year turns over to 2026, or in the days, weeks, and months that follow. A New…

In this double-length and in-depth episode, I look at the social-political project of the late 19th early 20th century occultist, philosopher, and social reformer Rudolf Steiner with scholars and academics Aaron French and Henry Holland, who are writing Steiner's biography for SUNY Press, and have just offered the keynote at Harvard University's conference on Rudolf Steiner's life and work. On this episode, we attend to a question Henry asks: “Is a leftist reading of Steiner possible?" Please support this show on patreon: Patreon.com/connerhabib

Friends, This is the fourth episode* in a series called The Spirit-Era and Its Aftermaths in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today, and in fact, being echoed by our own time. This time, we’re moving closer and closer to our present age, away from the Spirit-Era and into its aftermaths, tracking the ways that paranormal investigations, and paranormal phenomena themselves, changed as they emerged from that era. And I look into all of the with my guest, journalist ⁠BEN MACHELL⁠, author of the compulsively readable and also illuminating book ⁠Chasing the Dark: A 140-Year Investigation of Paranormal Activity⁠. One thing I’ve noticed again and again in researching and recording this series of episodes is that the so-called esoteric, the miraculous, the paranormal are all common. Whether it’s a haunting, someone who is able to accomplish a feat of endurance, or the ways in which the world is simply very strange if…

This is the third episode in a series called The Spirit-Era & Its Aftermaths in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today, and in fact, being echoed by our own time. The Spirit-Era is marked by occultists, paranormal investigators, and magicians... But it is also marked by performances of all kinds: stage magic, but also actual magic. Stage magic passing as real magic, real magic posing as trickery. There were the performance of spiritualism, of charismatic theologians, and of feats of incredible endurance. As in our own time, People had difficulty parsing out what was real and what was illusion. And there was no shortage of advice on how to attain magical aptitude and ability, or promises of unlimited health and vitality. Beyond this difficulty distinguishing truth from fantasy, there was a thrilling draw to the ambiguity, and whatever power might be there, in the spot in between what was and what might be.…

This is the second episode in a series called THE SPIRIT-ERA & ITS AFTERMATHS in which I look at the way spiritual, technological, and occult flourishings at the turn of the 19th into 20th century are still with us today. In the second installment in the series, I talk with ALLAN JOHNSON Professor of English Literature at University of Surrey, meditation coach, and author of the excellent book, The Sacred Life of Modernist Literature: Immanence, Occultism, and the Making of the Modern World In that book, Allan states: “The occult has always walked the perilous line between desiring a textual form while resisting the possibility that this form can ever be completely achieved.” One of my big frustrations with spiritual influencers is that most of them don’t seem to have a good grasp of art, but particularly literature. They do something like this: they read literature that has magical CONTENT and create metaphors and analogies that - all-too conveniently - mirror the lessons of their own esoteric view. And…

This is first episode in a series called The Spirit-Era and Its Aftermaths. Across the next few installments of AEWCH, I’ll be investigating the way the spiritual, technological, and occult flourishing at the turn of the 19th/20th century is affecting our lives to this day. The Spirit-Era was a time marked by spirits, of course. But also miracles, hucksters, paranormal investigators, and genuine spiritual teachers. There were seances and fakirs, performances of incredible feats in private and on stages both which were thought to be revelations of different worlds, or worlds that could be possible. The intelligentsia of the time might go to see spirits materialize in dark rooms. They might write novels inspired by meeting notorious occult figures. Or maybe they would decide to form societies to investigate the afterlife. Many of the Spirt-Era's most famous artists and writers found themselves inspired by and even joining occult orders. New occult organizations and forms - some with anarchist aspirations,…

Friends, When I was on my book tour for Hawk Mountain, I did an event with Andrea Lawlor where we spoke, at length, about horror. In the Q&A, someone raised a hand and asked: WHAT IS HORROR? Andrea and I both laughed. We found ourselves at a loss. Horror : Once you consider it, it’s not clear. There’s the assumption that horror is scary. Sometimes that’s true. But obviously what’s scary for you might not be scary for me, and vice versa, so that can’t define the genre. We say horror has certain elements, but there are different kinds of horror to define its contours, whether it's body horror, slasher horror, cosmic horror... We might turn to the familiar face of horror - the monster - to see what they reveal to us. But while vampires, werewolves, zombies express, through their differing powers and weakness, different theories about horror, they can't give us a picture of what it is really. They're contained by it. Horror: Always on, always available, always around us. So… what is it? I asked my friends PHIL…

Friends, Is there any ghost lore in your town or where you grew up? Have you ever seen a ghost? What are ghosts, anyway? Three questions, three different ways to approach (or be approached by ghosts). Ghosts are at the heart of our folktales, our fears, and our fiction. And belief in them is almost universal. Unlike aliens, UFOs, cryptids, and other strange entities, belief in ghosts cuts across all demographics and borders. We're afraid of ghosts and fascinated by them. As you probably know from listening to this show, or if you’ve read my novel Hawk Mountain, horror is deeply important to me: in forming my imagination, my way of thinking, and even my lens on spirituality. To that end, this is one of two podcasts on the topic. This time, I just wanted to be personal, to have fun, to explore the pleasure of horror and the many springboards it gives us for conversation. To that end, I invited the hosts of my favorite movie podcast (maybe favorite podcast ever) THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB onto the show, JUSTIN…

On the second of two back to back episodes on christianity in the world today, I talk with my sister, LAURA SCAPPATICCI, host of the podcast THAT GOOD MAY BECOME. We ask each other three questions about how christianity came into our lives, even though we were raised with no religion... and how that christianity is sometimes at odds with our communities and even, absurdly enough, at odds with the way christianity is itself of perceived today. This is a very personal episode, and I'm so happy to share it with you. Laura was last on the show on AEWCH 225 when she interviewed me about Rudolf Steiner as part of my series on esoteric christianity. SUPPORT THE SHOW VIA PATREON. Thank you!

On the first of two back to back episodes on christianity in the world today, I talk with writer LAMORNA ASH whose latest book, Don't Forget We're Here Forever: A New Generation's Search for Religion chronicles her conversations with christian converts and the newly faithful in the still-secular UK. In the process of writing the book, Lamorna has her own reevaluations of christianity and her own beliefs as a queer person. Of these conversations, Lamorna writes, “They taught me how to believe the belief of others.” It’s a beautiful sentiment and means that Lamorna is untangling the many ways to believe and understand. But it raises questions, too. How to believe others’s beliefs if they are threatening? If they are aimed against you? And what about when those beliefs are aligned with powerful political forces… can they be said to even be beliefs then, and not just coerced behavior? Please support the show via patreon: Patreon.com/connerhabib

I'm so excited to welcome philosopher and author Federico Campagna back to the show! Together, we find the magic in defeat and the strength that it offers, using his new book, Otherworlds: Mediterranean Lessons on Escaping History as a springboard for our wide-ranging and empowering discussion. Federico gives many potent examples of the hidden strength in defeat. Whether it’s through Egyptian gods or the writer Joseph Roth, esotericists or people who felt the mythic effects of being defeated by Alexander the Great. We witness again and again options that become available for seeing and creating new worlds only when - as Federico writes of the people in the book: “Instead of clinging to the values of a vanishing world, or embracing the new rising power, they dared to migrate to the grand zero of the imagination where ideas and values can be extracted anew from the infinite virtuality of the possible.” May this episode bring you strength and magic, even in the most unexpected of places and conditions! SUPPORT…

Friends: We need ideas which are not just radical or "revolutionary." We need ideas, feelings, and actions that work on many levels; that are systemic; that have multiple potentials for realization, and have enough points of articulation that they can touch on their own fabric and maneuver to witness themselves. And what better place to start then the ground beneath your feet: where you live? After all, you see the place you live every day. It's entered you as a daily language of patterns. It's become a set of expectations for your feet as you move through the morning. It lives in your lungs and gives your eyes nourishment. And I'm sure it also frustrates you sometimes, makes you feel blocked and angry. You might feel threatened there or bored. But I hope you also find joy, surprise, and feel held by where you live, greeted by each of its days. When my friend and collaborator - the artist, organizer, and journalist UNA MULLALLY - released her new 10-part podcast series SAVING THE CITY , I found in it a…

Friends, When I started Against Everyone With Conner Habib, there were a few guests I wanted to have on more than just about anyone. Happy to say, now, on episode 300, one of those central figures to my imagination has arrived for the conversation. GRANT MORRISON doesn't need much introduction. He's* a rebel artist, spiritual visionary, comic book writer, magician, novelist, and nonfiction writer. The first time I ever heard of Grant Morrison was here, over twenty years ago. in a talk he gave. And then I met him shortly after (I tell you the story in the intro to the episode). His work, and just his being, has been a guidepost for me since I encountered his work. PLEASE DO SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON GRANT'S WEBSITE *** A note on Grant's pronouns: I talked with him after the episode about his preferred pronouns, and he said that the "they/them" pronouns were often used by other people when identifying him, but that he found himself using he/him just as much because both gender expressions seemed to limit…

Friends, After writing my previous episode, AEWCH 298, where I laid out my thoughts on how to reflect on A.I. to get to beyond the basic, boring conversation, I read ADAM BECKER's excellent book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity . I immediately invited him on the show, and I wish I would've read it before. Even though there is plenty of overlap, Adam's vantage point offer a full vision of tech culture, and reveals just how deeply anti-science is is. That impact comes from the fact that Adam is great writer but also an astrophysicist, and author of the excellent popular book on quantum physics, What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics. We talk about how we got here in science and technology, why technology has been conflated with science, how conspiracy and science intersect, and what physics has to do with all of this. Of course the conclusion is that A.I. is not super smart, not supported by smart…

Friends, One reason I started this show eight years ago was to have big talk instead of small talk, to get us past surface conversations and into thinking more deeply. I hate small talk is because it’s so algorithmic or pre-programmed. It's limited by its connection to the past and expectations. I don’t want to have conversations that could be produced by just anyone in any context with predictable results. I wanted something more living, surprising, vitalizing; conversations that nourished pushing my thoughts and feelings and actions forward. So the mission of this show has always been, in a way, to address to algorithm. The conversations on AI in the public sphere have been so dead and dead-ended even when they’re well-meaning. My big problem is not that people aren't saying brilliant things about A.I. -- I'm not sure I'm up for that task either -- just that everyone is saying the same stupid things over and over. There are phony debates held with unearned urgency, wild projections based on investment…

Friends, Welcome to this massive double-length episode on religion in our time with Diana Young-Peak. You may not know Diana, or if you do, it may be from exactly 200 (!) episodes ago on AEWCH 97: DIANA YOUNG-PEAK or THE GREATEST STRIPPER OCCULT PRIESTESS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF. That episode was recorded BEFORE I had a podcast - back in 2011, when I was part of her small esoteric church, the Church of the Living Christ Order of Melchizedek. That episode is at the end of this one - it gives all the context and background. If you want to listen to it first, you can jump ahead to about 2 hours in. But you can also listen to our latest conversation first. It's both a spiritual assessment of where we are in the world now, and also an assessment of the growing presence of religion and spirituality in people's lives. Two growing presences that are destined to meet: the presence of mutual aid community building, and the presence of RELIGION. I've never, in my lifetime, seen more interest in spirituality and its most…

Lory Widmer Hess is the author of When Fragments Make a Whole, as well as a caregiver and spiritual direction facilitator in Switzerland. Her book chronicles her healing journey with the gospels - through various illness, medical procedures, and emotional and soul challenges - from an esoteric viewpoint. Support AEWCH on patreon: patreon.com/connerhabib Lory's website: https://enterenchanted.com/ Lory's book: When Fragments Become A Whole

Friends, Against Everyone with Conner Habib is eight years old today! Not many media projects last for eight years or make it up to nearly 300 episodes at this point. To celebrate, I talk here about conversation; what it means to all of us. After all, if I asked you if conversation had changed your life, you’d probably say yes. A conversation that set you down a career path, or a new place to move to. An argument that went haywire and ended your relationship. A flirtation that led to the great love of your life. But we forget, too, that other people’s conversations change our lives. What does it mean to do a podcast, and how has the landscaping of podcasts degraded, fallen apart, as well as grown, in the past eight years? What have I noticed? As a bonus, I've attached my very first episode at the end. It's clumsy, personal, filled with insecurity and uncertainty. Please support the show - all eight years and 295 (free!) episodes of it - on patreon. Patreon.com/connerhabib

Episode Description I'm joined by author, teacher, and theorist, Douglas Rushkoff. He’s one of the most important intellectuals of our time, some people call him a futurist, but he's always a step ahead of the future. The is the part 2 of the conversation we had on Doug’s podcast, TEAM HUMAN called "LIVE UP TO YOUR FOOL POTENTIAL". But of course, it also stands on its own and you don't have to listen to them in order. This show is supported through listeners. No ads! Please do support it via Patreon: patreon.com/connerhabib Conner's Website: connerhabib.com Conner's Instagram: https:/www.instagram.com/againsteveryonewithconnerhabib And please also consider supporting Team Human on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/teamhuman Douglas's website.

I talk with co-hosts of the Light in Every Thing podcast, Rev. Jonah Evans & Rev. Patrick Kennedy about meeting the world not as a "problem" to be solved, but as a realm already overcome by spiritual love.

From the archives - I talk with Italian philosopher and author FEDERICO CAMPAGNA about the urgent task of our time... which is nothing less than the recreation of reality itself!

I talk with writer, author, and esoteric health practitioner ARE THORESEN. The language of inevitability is upon us, and it is a cruel language, one that allows no discussion of freedom or our ability to direct things. The future - a terrible future - is filled with AI, the effects of climate crisis, fascisms, and wars. And our present - a terrible present - is only going to get worse. In other words, we're given a unified picture of where we're going and what's happening and how to feel about all of it. Of course, the language of inevitability can only show us relatively little. A narrow look at presumed (or manipulated) outcomes. The future is as wide open as ever. Difference and mutability is closer to the truth: whatever happens will happen differently, to different places, and to each and every one of us. Why? Because material laws and spiritual laws flourish differently in each person's life. We all have our own levels and areas of understanding, aptitude, capacity, and education. We all express…

My guest this episode is writer, scholar, teacher, and astrologer, RONNIE PONTIAC. I've been impressed and informed by Ronnie's esoteric work for awhile now, and finally, we got to have our first conversation. And it's a profound one... We talk about the need for a spiritual path in our moment, and how the alternative is... well, quite grim. We talk about how spirituality can lead us into a path of hatred and personal gain. We talk about my suspicion about astrology, how I think it works, how I think it does’t work, why so much of it is wrong (and why Ronnie is so often right!). And there's so much more on this episode (Including my extended intro on the esoteric aim of being a Friend To Humanity.) Ronnie was a key figure at the Philosophical Research Society founded in 1934 by Manly Palmer Hall. The PRS is still around, and promotes, teaches, and offers research opportunities into the esoteric & philosophical of all societies; with the values of freedom, community, objective study, and inclusiveness at its…

I talk with spiritual teacher and author Lisa Romero about the challenges that are facing us today and an unlikely key to progressing through them: the esoteric mysteries of Ireland.

This is the is the sixth and final episode in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. In other words, tools that don’t merely deaden us in the frantic pursuit of survival, but that assist us in nourishing ourselves, each other, and the world, all together. This time, the theme is READ and my guest is ALEXANDER CHEE. At the end of this episode, the exercise is a little different. First we do a reading for you, the listener, in the world and its anxieties and challeneges. We consider what they are, how to approach them, and how not to approach them. Then, Alex and I do a reading for what you could be reading... We draw a tarot card and let it give book recommendations. Alex the author of three books, most recently his essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, and also two novels, Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night.

This is the fifith in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist.In other words, tools that don’t merely deaden us in the frantic pursuit of survival, but that assist us in nourishing ourselves, each other, and the world, all together. The theme isPEACEKEEP and my guest isCHEYNEY RYAN. Cheyney works withThe Oxford Consortium for Human Rights. He's a a researcher; professor; founder of the Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict at Oxford; and author, most recently, of the excellent book,Pacifism as War Abolitionism and also ofThe Chickenhawk Syndrome: War, Sacrifice, and Personal Responsibility, as well as many articles on peace activism, pacifism, Marxism, and nonviolent action (you can find links to plenty of the here). PEACEKEEP was a word I had to invent for the show because we have such an undeveloped language of peace. While the lexicon of war is extensive, the act of creating true peace in the world…

This is the third in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about. This episode’s theme is DIE and my guest is bestselling author and host of the Ask A Mortician YouTube channel, CAITLIN DOUGHTY.

This is the third in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about. This episode’s theme is CONNECT And my guest is organizer, activist, and writer, DEAN SPADE Our disconnection from each other is the negative space that power thrives in. It's a void that threatens to overtake us with its heavy unfeeling emptiness. Connection is the remedy, but more than that: it's the great meaning we all seek. The connections we form with each other can create networks of mutual aid, solidarity, safety, love, pleasure, and happy engagement with the challenges of our time. Dean's new book, Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together offers a powerful look at connection. And it gives…

This is the second in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about. This episode's theme: PRAY and my guest, ⁠BASTIAAN BAAN⁠. Bastiaan Baan is a teacher, author, and was a Christian Community priest in the Netherlands. His many books include the just-released ⁠Trust in the Future: Facing Uncertain Times With Confidence⁠; his book on the relationship between Christianity and the elemental beings, ⁠Lord of the Elements: Interweaving Christianity and Nature⁠; and his exploration of christian paths of meditation, ⁠Ways into Christian Meditation⁠. He also speaks around the world on spiritual topics.

This is the first in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise - a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise - that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about. That way, you won’t only be participating by listening, but you can actually bring some of the vitality of the conversation forward. The theme and action of this episode is ENVISION. And my guest is ROB HOPKINS. Rob is the author of From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want and the forthcoming Falling in Love with the Future. He's also the host of the excellent 100-episode podcast, From What If to What Next which features a different conversation with big thinkers on each episode. He's also a founder of the Transition Network, which works via multiple initiatives (planting trees, local food…

The task ahead is daunting: We must totally recreate economy, politics, and culture. How can we move forward with help from the three gifts of the magi: gold, frankincense, and myrrh?

I talk with money teacher and listener favorite PILAR LESKO about the spiritual realities of making, spending, and gifting money in challenging times.

Our inner lives do matter, more than ever, in this moment. But how do they matter, and how can we offer them up to the tasks of our time? And what if some of us get those inner conditions properly oriented to the spiritual work of the world we're in, but most people don't? Will any of it make a difference? To discuss this, I welcomed author and teacher Lisa Romero back to the show.Lisa and I talked about these themes before on the show, on AEWCH 257, but now we develop them more deeply here, particularly in relation to how the world is unfolding.

Friends, In the wake of Donald Trump’s second election win, amongst those who didn’t vote for him at least, calls for mourning and grieving have been issued all around. The idea being that something has been lost, that it may be irretrievable, that a brokenness must be felt and that we should honor that feeling. But what if instead of making room to mourn, we notice that we’ve already made plenty of room for feeling — too much, in fact — and what if all that expression of feeling has become part of the problem? On this episode, I look into the problems with our feelings about politics when they don't meet our thinking and action correctly. Rather than make lots of predictions about what's next. or try to figure out who to blame, or even assume that anyone who listens to the show voted one way or the other, I consider 1. The problems with the intense expressions of emotion. 2. How Trump was elected again anyway (with as little speculation as possible). 3. Why the political realm is dead in its current form.…