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There's a meme that's been evolving since 2021, and in its current chaotic incarnation, it's become accidentally magical—even if the people using it don't realise it. In this episode, I'm unpacking "do it for the plot" as a practical framework for the year ahead. Not just as permission to take risks, but as a way of activating synchronicity and maintaining agency when things inevitably go sideways on the way to your goals. I'll walk you through how to use this alongside your existing magical toolkit—your amulets, your enchantments, your divination practice—and share the diagnostic story I keep coming back to for checking where I'm actually at versus where I think I am. I'm also introducing a new project I've been wrestling with: hospicing modernity's magic. Because the late twentieth century gave us some genuinely powerful techniques wrapped in a frame that insists magic isn't real. I want to find a way to respectfully retain the useful stuff and jettison the less-than-useful. There's practical advice here for interrogating your intentions for 2026, plus some thoughts on why the slacker-era re-enchantment is officially over and what needs to replace it. Happy new year, kids!

At this time of year, when many of us are rudely awoken from our hard-earned slumber by multiple ghosts wanting us to support their gofundme or something, I thought we might look at ghosts. What are they? Are they even real? And if they're not, what are they for? And the exploration is framed by a series of strange experiences I had recently at Australia's most haunted site and possibly the cruelest place in the entire British Empire, Port Arthur. Enjoy! PS - Let me also take the opportunity to sincerely thank you for listening, watching, supporting and sharing the various Rune Soup offerings in 2025. Have a wonderful Christmas.

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!

Synchromystic raconteur, author, and pattern seeker Christopher Knowles returns to the show, as well as the wheelhouse, for this one. Not that we would ever need one, but the flimsy excuse for Chris coming back this time is so that we can discuss his amazing new book, XF-ULTRA: The X-Files, Conspiracy Culture, and the National Security State. Can a 90s genre TV-show both explore AND generate high strangeness What happened to our ancient mythology? Who is called to tend the flame of our culture's sacred stories through the chaos all around us? Even if, almost ESPECIALLY if, you've never seen The X-Files before, this journey down to the underworld and back up through the trash stratum of popular culture has wider metaphysical implications that make it essential listening. Show Notes The Secret Sun on Substack. Get XF-ULTRA: The X-Files, Conspiracy Culture, and the National Security State.  

In this episode, Dr Radin returns to the show to talk to us about his amazing new book, The Science of Magic. We look at Meta-analyses with trillion-to-one odds. Hotel poltergeists that target specific researchers. Spoons that bend without force. Sigils. Always, always sigils. Radin explains why materialist skeptics have run out of arguments, how belief literally structures the universe, and why your unconscious mind might be doing magic right now. If you liked Real Magic, this one takes the conversation even further. The dominant of wider inclusions has surely arrived. Show Notes Pre-order the new book Dr Radin's website

Filmmaker Richard Stanley joins us to unpack his incredible book "Otto Rahn: Grail Hunter" - the true story of a gay Jewish medievalist who became the SS's chief grail hunter in Nazi Germany. We explore Stanley's own supernatural experiences on Montségur (getting trapped by lightning), the brutal genocide of the Cathars, and why this whole story feels disturbingly relevant right now. From Lucifer's emerald diadem to disappearing treasures to Stanley's decades-long quest through the most mysterious corners of southern France. Good times! Show Notes Get the book here. Previous documentary trailer mentioned in the episode.

Vanese McNeill, co-producer of the Magical Egypt series, returns to the show. In this episode, we explore the hows and possible whys of spirit involvement in history, from the super-elite level down to the everyday. And also across to some of the sillier claims about AI floating in the air like so many plasma entities. And all of this was inspired by a post Vanese wrote on the Magical Egypt substack about ontozoology back in June. So that's where we begin, and this is where we go after: 1. The Ontozoology Framework What invisible beings actually exist in the ecosystem Moving beyond Christian binary (demons vs. angels) to animist complexity The difference between malevolent, benevolent, and simply non-human agendas 2. Catherine Austin Fitts & Demonic Capital The exact quote about interdimensional intelligences controlling capital Why this is being discussed now by credible people The problem with oversimplifying complex entities as "Satan" 3. Conscious vs. Unconscious Elite Collaboration How much is deliberate ritual worship vs. unconscious possession The decline of magical literacy among modern elites Why materialist worldviews make people more vulnerable to influence 4. Historical Magic & Modern Mind Control Ancient Egyptian spirit relationships as information exchange How modern "operations" are rituals without the practitioners knowing it Predictive programming as contemporary magic 5. The AI & Slop Demon Problem Why "The Architect" and similar AIs aren't sentient but are dangerous How AI creates mental conditions ripe for spiritual colonisation The difference between AI hosting demons vs. AI making minds available for possession 6. UFOs, Aliens, and Interdimensional Beings The reframing of UFO phenomena as spiritual rather than extraterrestrial Catherine's invitation to meet "aliens in human bodies" Distinguishing between visiting organisms and native invisible ecology

Back on the farm, jetlagged and hustling. I've been sitting with this question since I decided not to renew my lease in Asunción. So today, I want to give you my thoughts. There's some frosty farm pics over on my Substack. Enjoy!  

Or why our horrible internet is good, actually. Sick in an AirBnb in Paraguay, I make the case for co-creation still being the best way to exist with our ever-enhorribling media landscape. Show Notes End The Day With Ceremony, Not Distraction. Two things to watch or listen to with your lunch (of brains)? Gordon on THC. Kelly Brogan on THC.

Dan Waites joins us to discuss the literal long view, which is to say the things we can see and the frameworks we can find when we widen our perspective out to millennia-long cycles and epochal shifts. We explore: The Kali Yuga and why it may have ended THIS year. The Age of Aquarius and how it turns out to be both real and totally fashionable. (You heard me.) The long cycles of outer planets and their role in birthing new religions. UFO Disclosure, Mayan Apocalypses and the 'true' astrology of Atlantis. Show Notes Find Dan at: On Youtube. At World Astrology Report. On Substack.

Note: Before we begin, my six-week Shadow Work Intensive, The Shaman's Devil, Is Now Live. There are only a few spaces left, so if you think you might be interested, move quickly. If you know me, you'll know this is a pretty big deal for me. The one and only Dr Alberto Villoldo joins the show this week. We discuss Why you came to earth in the first place. What healing is and how to achieve it. How the academy and culture's understanding of shamanism has changed in the five decades he has been working in the field. Bio Dr. Alberto Villoldo is a medical anthropologist, psychologist, and shamanic teacher who has spent decades studying the healing practices of the Amazon and Andean shamans. He founded The Four Winds Society to bring ancient energy medicine into dialogue with modern neuroscience. His work bridges worlds—science and spirit, biology and ceremony—to help people remember who they truly are. Show Notes This is the interview with Andre Duqum I reference at the end. The Shaman's Devil.

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  

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

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.