Parapsychologist Dr Brian Laythe joins the show for a discussion on ghosts and haunted places. We explore definitions: what IS a ghost? That's a slippery question right there. We look at what makes a place 'haunted'. Are they haunted because they have ghosts or do they have ghosts because they are haunted? And we investigate how ghost encounters fit into the wider ecosystem of High Strangeness. Can anyone really be 'just' a witness or are we at least co-creating these contact events? A great cha...
Jan 26, 2023•1 hr 22 min
After last year's Astro-Gnostic conference and some extended jungle experience, I want to revisit some comparisons between 'gnosticism' and 'animism' -whatever they happen to be. And in particular I want to make the case for how the assertion that the cosmos is a prison built by an evil God and the cosmos is a community of beings can share co-presence in the same overall framework. So this is a gathering of thoughts in that general direction. Show Notes There is a Higher Soup meetup in Wellingto...
Jan 19, 2023•43 min
This week we welcome to the show hunter, leather maker, tracker, artist and educator Harmony Cronin. Over the course of her career, Harmony has been a big game skinner, she has convened and continues to convene women's hunting groups, she provides support for Indigenous buffalo hunts and has lived in a tent she built herself beside Yellowstone, where her neighbours were a wolf pack she fed with road kill. Harmony joins the show for a powerful conversation about the roles and obligations of being...
Jan 12, 2023•2 hr 2 min
Join me for the first solo show of the year! In this episode, we walk through a presentation that can help best situate you to achieve and transform in 2023. Extreme ownership. Correctly setting priorities. How to build a map of both official reality and reality. Stepping into an attitude that thrives in chaos. Using time magic to shift from 'goals' to 'sites of magical transformation'. Oh, and if you want to have a play around with the fun little AI presentation creator I used, here's an invite...
Jan 06, 2023•46 min
Tis the season once more for our annual chat with the one and only Conner Habib. We started by discussing Christmas and then ended up having quite a detailed exploration of ceremony, place and context that set the theme for the rest of the chat. So this one is a little different from our usual new year chats. Enjoy! Show Notes Conner on Patreon . Conner's debut novel, Hawk Mountain ....
Dec 30, 2022•1 hr 37 min
Continuing our End-of-Year run, the legendary Lynne McTaggart returns to the show to talk about working with The Field and the Power of Intention for healing, manifestation and transformation. We catch Lynne up on some of the work of the Rune Soup Premium Member intention groups, compare notes and experiences and speculate as to how all this stuff might 'work'. Always a good time. Enjoy! Show Notes Lynne's website . Get on the waiting list for the 2023 Power of Eight masterclass here ....
Dec 18, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Welcome to the 300th episode of Rune Soup! They grow up so fast, eh? To celebrate the occasion, I had two options: The first was to hold a big party and then slip on a magic ring mid-speech, vanishing before your very eyes. The second was to invite onto the show perhaps the most-requested guest, John Michael Greer. And really this timed very well because John has a new book out called The Occult Philosophy Workbook: A One Year Course In The Secret Wisdom . Plus we're looking at a whole new year ...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 18 min
A Christmas tradition to rival eggnog and embarrassing yourself at the office party, this week we once again have the astrological forecast for the first half of 2023 with the incomparable Austin Coppock . Enjoy!
Dec 12, 2022•2 hr 2 min
Greg Carlwood from The Higherside Chats joins the show for a countdown of the 10 best conspiracy books of all time. UFOs, technocracy, CIA coups, predatory capitalism, ancient aliens, Big Pharma, elite networks… here's the list! Some you might expect. Others you most definitely will not. And half the fun is hearing the justification for why one book made it into the list and another didn't. I had a blast with this one. Enjoy!
Nov 30, 2022•1 hr 47 min
The one and only Julio Cesar Ody returns to the show for our annual Halloween special! Julio joins us from his native Brazil for a fascinating romp through his country's magical landscape: Spiritism, Umbanda, Quimbanda, Candomblé. The impact of Diaspora African frameworks, Amazonian plant spirits, ayahuasca. The impact of Catholicism and the role of the saints. The disastrous impact of modern, evangelical Christianity. It's all here! Spooky season's greetings to you all. Thank you so much for li...
Oct 30, 2022•1 hr 37 min
The good Doctor Knowles makes a welcome return to the show this week. We talk about the presence of nineteenth century occultism in the pulps, how those pulps influenced the superheroes of the twentieth century, Watcher cults, imperial worldviews and the synchromysticism of the apocalypse. A freewheeling romp for all! Show Notes The Secret Sun . The Secret Sun on Patreon ....
Oct 10, 2022•1 hr 55 min
This week we have the first triple-header of the energy healing dialogues. Brian Wilkins returns to the show with first-time guest, Jess Waters. Jess and Brian are principally responsible for creating and maintaining a weekly intention group based on the principles outlined in Lynne McTaggart's Power of Eight . So we discuss their respective paths through various healing modalities, how they came to intention-based work, what it's good for, how it might work and what its efficacy implies for the...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 21 min
This week, returning guest Brandt Stickley joins us for another instalment of our energy healing dialogues series. We discuss how Chinese medicine sees the human energy body/ies, the antiquity of the system, how it works, what it works best with and the attitude or ways of thinking that characterise TCM. In particular, we look at what even am meridians, how TCM understands human organs, polarity and all that good stuff. Enjoy! Show Notes Brandt's website . Brandt's Patreon ....
Sep 28, 2022•1 hr 13 min
One of my favourite books of the year is Jerry Kantor's Sane Asylums . He joins us this week for an equally-scintillating episode. We explore how homeopathy works, the 19th century heyday of homeopathic psychiatry -including the successful treatment of Abraham Lincoln's widow's 'incurable madness' with three months of homeopathy. And we find out just how it was homeopathy was erased from history and why. (Spoiler: Money.) Really great stuff. Show Notes Get Sane Asylums . Jerry's website, Vital F...
Sep 12, 2022•1 hr 4 min
The legendary Eileen McKusick joins us this week for the next Rune Soup Energy Healing Dialogue. We discuss the origins of biofield tuning, how it and other forms of sound healing work, what it's best for and what other modalities it best supports. A fantastic discussion with a true healing pioneer. Enjoy! Show Notes Biofield Tuning Store . Biofield Tuning Website ....
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Jenx returns to the show with his latest and best book, The Thai Occult 2 . We catch up with what's been going on with Jenx's ongoing cultural survey and research on and with various Ajarns, we talk about global candle magic, Thai astrology, talisman, doll magic and why you might want to live in a graveyard for a month. He also explains that this latest book is a 'living' book. Get the PDF once and you will automatically receive all ongoing updates, additional material and interviews. Great stuf...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 9 min
Continuing the energy healing dialogues this week, we welcome to the show Kenzie Q. Adams. Kenzie is a Reiki master and teacher, professional healer, industrial engineer and the creator of Mind Connection Healing. She also happens to be the better half of Scarlet Imprint author, Peter Mark Adams. MCH is a healing and trauma release system incorporating meridian therapy, Reiki and several other modalities into an holistic synthesis. Kenzie and I discuss her own journey as a healer, the road to de...
Aug 30, 2022•1 hr 15 min
This is one of my favourite shows of the year so far! Continuing our dialogues with energy healers as part of the Rune Soup Premium Member course on energy healing, this week we welcome to the show Stella Osorojos. Stella is a mother, a writer, an acupuncturist and multi-disciplinary healer, and the creator of a powerful healing modality called Resonant Attention. We discuss the origins of Resonant Attention in her own miraculous health journey, working with and learning from 'non-western' syste...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Continuing our dialogues with and about different energy healing frameworks, this week we welcome to the show Pranic Healer, Trisha White -who also happens to be my mother. We chat about the origins of Pranic Healer, Trisha's career as a professional healer, how the system works and what it works best for. And if you would like to participate in the energy healing course, join the Rune Soup Premium Membership here . Enjoy!...
Aug 14, 2022•51 min
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! Show Notes Get A Wheel of Small Gods . Brian's...
Aug 07, 2022•1 hr 34 min
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! Show Notes Lance's website and business, Branches...
Aug 04, 2022•1 hr 14 min
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...
Jul 22, 2022•1 hr 23 min
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!
Jul 02, 2022•2 hr 8 min
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 ...
Jun 28, 2022•42 min
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...
Jun 06, 2022•5 min
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 prefe...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 13 min
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.Ship...
May 01, 2022•1 hr 23 min
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 technolog...
Apr 11, 2022•1 hr 16 min
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! Show Notes Gary's latest book, Dreaming Ahead of Time . Gary's website ....
Mar 12, 2022•1 hr 19 min
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 oth...
Mar 06, 2022•1 hr 57 min