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 already-established, politicized worldviews.

This includes political pundits and secularized media ridiculing spiritual perspectives as a distraction from their failure to scrutinize 60 hour work weeks, economic bamboozling, or outdated attitudes about gender.

I've done my best to mediate this, because I could see it all coming (not bragging, promise, you can hear me discuss it on early episodes!). I’ve tried to occupy a sort of cultural position that was largely held in the past by de-witchers, fairy doctors, alchemical scientists and more, people who separated what's true and false when it came to spiritual paths, critiques, and pursuits. They constituted a whole classes of laborers people largely disappeared by the materialist, academic, and professional world.

But we can’t wait any longer, we need experts in this field. An expert I trust and appreciate so deeply on these matters is Thomas Waters, lecturer in history at Imperial College London (and AEWCH 98 guest)

So we talk together about magick’s role today, and the new magickal realm we find ourselves in.

I’m so excited to share this episode with you.

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buy Magick: Decoding the Visual Culture of Spells, Illusions and Psychic Powers by Thomas Waters from an indie bookshop

buy Cursed BritainA History of Witchcraft and Black Magic in Modern Times by Thomas Waters from an indie bookshop

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.

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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