Occulture

Pam Grossman is the author of “Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power” and the host of The Witch Wave podcast.   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture Pam’s experience with the darker side of witchcraft & what she learned from it The witch’s appearance in allegories about youth Female sex drive as a “satanic” force & why we fear sexualityca The taboo of women not having children WItchery in Mary Poppins Witches as healers Pam’s hot take on the film The Craft Female friendship The relationship between art, creativity & magic   RESOURCES Waking the Witch on IndieBound Waking the Witch on Amazon The Witch Wave podcast Phantasmaphile - Pam’s blog Pam on Instagram Pam on Twitter   DONATE If recurring monthly support via Patreon isn’t your thing, we do accept one time-donations via PayPal, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Every little bit helps.   MERCH Tees, tanks, hoodies, hats. Check ‘em out on our website or at our Etsy shop.   SOCIAL Twitter Instagram Facebook Tumblr

Janaka Stucky is a mystic poet, performer, and founding editor of the award-winning press Black Ocean. He’s here to talk about his latest book of poetry, Ascend Ascend, recently released by Jack White’s publishing imprint, Third Man Books. Ascend Ascend was written over the course of twenty days, coming in and out of trance states brought on by intermittent fasting and somatic rituals while Janaka secluded himself  in the tower of a 100-year-old church. The book is rooted in the Jewish mystical tradition of merkabah literature, chronicling an ascent up the kabbalistic sefirot. Janaka noted in his description of the book that traditional merkabah prose tends to be rather dry and focused on preparations for the journey while sort of avoiding descriptions of the experience itself. But Ascend Ascend skirts that norm and Janaka instead has chosen to document the entire journey, which he describes as the ecstatic destruction of the self. There is a 25-minute Patreon extension with Janaka, and more on that after the

Michael Joseph is back in the house for the third time to wade into the deep end of his most recent YouTube series that centers around a conflict that he describes as the Old versus the New World Order in relationship to a Catholic or Universal doctrine. And that phrase, New World Order, conjures many ideas and images, but with it comes a question not asked by many: if there’s a New World Order, what then is the Old World Order? And that is a question Mike has sought to answer, and it’s an answer that will spiral out in directions that question the occult and esoteric doctrines we’re all familiar with, and it examines where they may have came from, who may be the true authors of them, and what secret doctrine they might be trying to impart onto us, the profane masses.   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture The Golems of the Pharisees What a golem is and how it’s used by Qabalist “adepts” to attack their enemies   How HP Blavatsky and Theosophy views the Talmud and its teachings How the teachin

AUDIO QUALITY WARNING: NOT THE BEST.   This is a clip of a recent RAW chat that was posted for $5+ patrons on Patreon with graphic novelist & manga author Sean Michael Wilson, who joined the show to talk about his recent visual interpretation of the Tao Te Ching, a classic Chinese philosophical and religious text.  In this clip, we chat a bit about anarchism and how it relates to the Tao Te Ching.   Apologies for the audio quality here, as Sean’s connection was a bit on the bad side. Still, good stuff, I think. If ya dig it, Patreon.com/occulture at the $5 level is the place to hear more chats like this. 

Michael Wann is the founder of the independent research project Susquehanna Alchemy. He returns to the show for the fourth time to discuss symbolism and synchronicity found in the recent fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, atmospheric transitions and weather changes, and something he’s put together called the Starboard and what that is and how it works. (And keep your ears tuned into the Starboard chatter because one of you will be able to experience that first-hand.)   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture Notre Dame fire symbolism in the “I, Pet Goat II” video Fire as purification and destruction Mike’s view of fire as the uncomfortable vs the comfortable The grand fire trine that took place right before the Notre Dame fire The esoteric/synchromystic connection between Ashland, Oregon and Ashland, Ohio, & how it relates to Mike’s work on The Susquehanna Mystery   RESOURCES Mike’s website Book a Starboard session Mike on Instagram Mike on YouTube Mike on Facebook   DONATE If recur

Peter Bebergal drops by the show to chat about "sci-fi's difficult genius" Gene Wolfe in the wake of his death last month. We talk sci-fi, fantasy, religion in literature, literary tropes (including my favorite, the unreliable narrator), and Peter's thoughts on season 8 of Game of Thrones. Peter's 2015 article on Gene Wolfe for The New Yorker Peter on Twitter

Hopefully you’ve got your creativity caps on, because our guest this time around is Carl Abrahamsson. He’s making his third appearance on the show, and much like the previous two, this one is rooted in human artistic expression. Carl was here twice last year talking about his book Occulture, but he’s here this time to rap about a recent documentary he put out called Cinemagician: Conversations with Kenneth Anger, which is about exactly what it sounds like it’s about. Carl recorded a couple conversations with highly regarded independent filmmaker Kenneth Anger about his life, his work and the artistic process that is filmmaking. Good stuff, and you will hear all about it, as well as some tidbits on an upcoming documentary Carl’s producing about Anton LaVey, a conference he’s putting on at the end of May in the Italian Alps, and a juicy Patreon extension about what Carl calls our human poetry. So if that sounds like your tune, then let’s jam.   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture Our human poetry

Derek Hunter from Love Chaos talks with us about Terry Gilliam’s recent film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.     Get more by upgrading to the $5 tier at patreon.com/occulture

Jeremy Johnson is the author of Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness. Seeing Through the World introduces the reader to the work of German-Swiss philosopher, poet, and intellectual mystic Jean Gebser. Writing in the mid-20th century during a period of intense cultural transformation and crisis in Europe, Gebser intuited a series of mutational leaps in the history of human consciousness, the latest of which emerging was the "integral" structure, marked by the presence of a concept Gebser called time-freedom. Jeremy says that Gebser's structures of consciousness are as significant an ontological insight as Carl Jung's "reality of the psyche." Yet, until now, very little secondary literature has been available in the English-speaking world as it relates to Gebser and his work. And, until now, very few podcasts have been recorded about Gebser and his work, but that is why Jeremy is here: to guide us through these structures and to show us how this integral structure of consciousness is

David Gunderson calls in to chat about his thesis, which studied diet choice as a predictor of personality. He set out to clarify the personality trait differences between a sample of vegetarians and a sample of non-vegetarians through an investigation of cooperativeness and competitiveness as well as the Big Five personality traits, which is explained during the chat.   David on Facebook 

Sandor Katz in the house to talk to us a bit about the art and alchemy of fermentation. Sandor is a New York Times bestselling author. His books include Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, both of which we drew on for the chat here. Fermentation is one of the steps in the ancient alchemical process, both the material and spiritual versions. It’s also an easy and practical way to reclaim your food and your health, because fermented foods are easy to make yourself and can help revitalize your gut microbiome, which has become quite the hot topic in health and wellness circles in the last couple years. And we get into that as well, this war on bacteria that a lot of us are unknowing participants in. Hopefully after this chat we’re a bit more comfortable with the culture growing inside and on us.   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture The potential energy efficiency benefits of fermentation The spiritual aspect of fermentation The alchemy of fermentation and what we can learn about ourselv

Welcome to part two - let’s call it P2 - of a continuing conversation with blogger Recluse. This one is long overdue, which is my fault not scheduling it sooner. Recluse blogs at visupview.blogspot.com, where he explores topics such as mind control, deep politics, the occult, the supernatural, high weirdness and Forteana in all of its fucked-up forms. This chat builds off our chat from last June, which we recap at the start of our conversation so I won’t repeat all that here, but this is about one of the lesser known and lesser discussed sources of power in times both past and present. We started with the Knights of Malta and now we’re spiraling out into some other related groups and their ties to governments, organized religions, banks, multinational corporations, intelligence agencies, killers-for-hire and mafiosos across the world. This is very much still table-setting, just another information dump, but it is chapter two of a story that brings together the church’s historical interest in the occult, popul

The Modern Hermeticist himself in the house. Dan Attrell is here to talk all about translating one of the preeminent texts, maybe the preeminent text, in the history of Western esotericism: the Picatrix. The Picatrix is perhaps the premiere text written on the subject of astrological magic - a manual for constructing talismans, mixing magical compounds, summoning planetary spirits, and determining astrological conditions. Originally composed in Arabic around the 11th century, it was then translated into Latin in the 13th century, and it is that Latin translation that Dan and his co-translator David Porecca have worked to produce this new English version, which offers important insights not only into occult practices and beliefs but also into the transmission of magical ideas from antiquity to the present. Dan is an historian, classicist, philosopher, and musician. He has a Bachelor of Arts in History and Classical Studies, a Masters in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures from the University of Waterloo with a thes

Returning guest Douglas Rushkoff is back to spit some hot fire about his latest book, Team Human, a manifesto written with one goal in mind: to remake society and culture in our image and in our favor; to reconnect with ourselves and with each other; and to return to our roots as the social creatures we truly are, with face-to-face interactions IRL, as they say in the not-so-social media. For those of you don’t know Doug or didn’t hear him way back in episode 17, he is perhaps the most accomplished guest to grace the airwaves with me. He’s an award-winning author, broadcaster, and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age. He hosts the popular Team Human podcast, has written more than twenty books, contributes regular columns to Medium, CNN, Daily Beast, and the Guardian; has made two PBS Frontline documentaries; and has also coined such concepts as “viral media” and “social currency.” He’s also a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Huma

Hopefully by now you’ve heard the last episode with Gordon White and Jay Springett, because it is a great companion piece to the conversation you’re about to hear with our guest, Dr. Kasper Opstrup. Kasper is a writer and researcher of what he calls radical culture, specializing in concatenations of art and literature, radical politics, and occultism as counterculture and underground phenomenon. Kasper published his PhD in book form back in November 2017. It’s called The Way Out: Invisible Insurrections and Radical Imaginaries in the UK Underground 1961-1991. His book charts a hidden history of experiments with cultural engineering, with the hopes of expanding current discussions of art, media, politics, radical education and the occult revival. Along the way, we encounter a series of figures – including William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Genesis P-Orridge and Alexander Trocchi – all of whom blurred the lines between inner and outer, the invisible and the material. But instead of turning things upside down, the

We’ve got a really cool episode here with Gordon White and Jay Springett. Most of you know Gordon. He’s been here before, back in episode 66, and he’s the man behind the magic at the Rune Soup blog and podcast. He’s also the author of three books, StarShips, The Chaos Protocols and Pieces of Eight. And some of you in the Twitterverse surely know Jay. He’s @thejaymo out in those parts. Jay will tell us a bit about himself up front in the chat here, so I won’t repeat any of that, but this chat is focused on one of Jay’s chief concerns and passions - and one of Gordon’s as well - and that is the movement known as solarpunk. What is solarpunk? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like, and we’ll explain it in the discourse you’re about to hear. One caveat before we get to it, though: Jay and Gordon only had an hour to chat, so no Patreon extension here. Gordon and Jay were actually hanging out together down on Gordon’s farm, which Gordon had just returned to after some crazy wildfires in his area, and I did not want

Just when you thought it was safe to turn on the ol’ self-grappling show, we’re venturing back into the dark side of occultism with Jasun Horsley. Jasun was here just a couple episodes ago talking about the first half of his new book, The Vice of Kings: How Socialism, Occultism and the Sexual Revolution Engineered a Culture of Abuse. That chat focused primarily on the Fabian Society and their brand of socialism and how it has shaped, or helped shape, modern society and the culture of abuse that seems to have grown up in it. This time around, Jasun is going to dig a bit deeper into the role occultism plays in this, particularly the brand of occultism made popular by Aleister Crowley. We also touch on the left-hand path as social engineering, and Crowley’s influence on Timothy Leary and Wicca. It is quite a thought-provoking chat, so make of it what you will. Pun intended. Of course, any healthy discourse and discussion is encouraged.   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture Returning to nature &

Hey yo, so this be a clip from a recent RAW chat I had with Darryl Sloan, author of a book called I, Universe: Demolishing and Rebuilding Spirituality for a Scientific Age. We chatted about - well, about the subjects you see in the title: consciousness, the nature of space and time, and Darryl’s view that spirituality must be rebuilt for a scientific age and why. We also touched on high and low magick, and that’s the focus of this clip. If you enjoy it, the full-length RAW episode is available for patrons on Patreon at the level of $5 a month and up. So if you’re at $2 level, it’s easy to increase that to $5 or more, and if you’re not and want to support the show and get access to content like this, the $5 level at patreon.com/occulture is the place to do that.   I, Universe on IndieBound I, Universe on Amazon I, Universe of Barnes & Noble Darryl’s website Darryl’s YouTube channel

Nikki Wyrd is in the house. This chat was inspired by a lecture she gave at the Occulture conference in Berlin last fall on age-old magic and ways to approach death. It was an appropriate theme there, because of the time of the year, and I still think it’s appropriate here in the northern hemisphere because we’re right in the middle of winter, which, if you deal with such seasons, you get it. And it’s also appropriate considering recent space weather. That astrology’s been crazy recently, especially with that recent lunar eclipse. Lot of things changing, lot of things evolving, lot of things ending, lot of things dying. Such is the cycle of life. Nikki doesn’t do a lot of podcasts these days, from what I’ve seen anyway, so for her to make some time for us was much appreciated. And hopefully the content and context of the chat resonates with some of you out there.   RESOURCES Nikki’s website Nikki on Twitter   DONATE If recurring monthly support via Patreon isn’t your thing, we do accept one time-donations v

Hey yo, so I was recently on a new-ish podcast called The Cosmic Keys, co-hosted by former guest Scarlet Ravenswood and her friend Dan Shukis. We covered some of the same terrain that Niles Heckman and I chatted about on his podcast recently, a bit about me and the format of the show, skepticism, conspiracy culture and my birth chart and some astrology. Scarlet and Dan have a tarot and astrology forecast for the week at the beginning and our chat follows. So, please do enjoy. The Cosmic Keys Podcast on YouTube