What happens when you recognize spiritual lessons in Black feminist theory?

* And pardon my voice, I am losing it this week*

This week on Grounded, we're back to a 1:1 conversation, and I'm thinking about what Black feminist theorists have taught me about spirituality, how we see the world, and what it means to be human.

But before we get there, I'm also thinking through something a little more personal: why, as someone who studies religion and spirituality, I sometimes hesitate to speak about my own spiritual life without grounding myself in scholarship. What does it mean to move between being a scholar of spirituality and someone who is actively trying to live a spiritual life? And why am I so worried about sounding like a guru? 😭

Inspired by Jenn M. Jackson's Black Women Taught Us, I'm sharing two lessons from Black feminist thinkers whose work has fundamentally changed how I understand and inhabit a spiritual life. We get into Christina Sharpe's In the Wake and what it means to see the unseen, not just in a metaphysical sense, but in the histories, structures, and forces that shape our everyday lives. Then we turn to Sylvia Wynter, whose work challenges us to rethink what it means to be human and imagine ways of living beyond the values that have historically dehumanized Black people.

This is the first of what I'm hoping will be more conversations about what Black women have taught me about living a spiritual life.

Chapters

00:00 — Teaser: Is Black Feminist Theory Spiritual?

00:49 — Welcome to Grounded + Finding Grounding in Burnout

07:01 — Why I Worry About Sounding Like a Guru

17:11 — Lesson 1: Seeing the Unseen | Christina Sharpe

26:13 — Lesson 2: Imagining New Ways of Being Human | Sylvia Wynter

References mentioned

Carter, J. Kameron. The Anarchy of Black Religion: A Mystic Song. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2023.

Jackson, Jenn M. Black Women Taught Us: An Intimate History of Black Feminism. New York: Random House, 2024.

Pollan, Michael. A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. New York: Penguin Press, 2026.

Sharpe, Christina. In the Wake: On Blackness and Being. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

Wynter, Sylvia. “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation—An Argument.” CR: The New Centennial Review 3, no. 3 (2003): 257–337.

What if some of the practices we associate with modern spirituality have much longer histories in the Muslim world?

This week, I'm joined by content creator, educator, and one of my favorite people to learn from on the internet, Shaif (@hotboyshaif), to ask: What do Islam + modern spirituality have in common?

We get into the histories of astrology, crystals, spirit possession, Sufism, and other practices that complicate the distinctions we often make between Islam and modern spirituality. But we also spend a lot of time thinking about a question at the heart of Religious Studies: What makes something a religion in the first place?

Shaif shares why he prefers to think about Islam as a living tradition and a way of life rather than simply a religion. We talk about the colonial histories of the category of religion, why I think we need better language than “cult,” and how colonialism, reform movements, and globalization have shaped what many of us now understand as Islam.

And, of course, we get into Muslimness. Who gets to decide what makes someone a “real Muslim”? What happens when the Islam you inherited doesn't look like the Islam someone else insists is authentic? And how might studying the history of your own tradition actually deepen your relationship to it?

One of my favorite parts of our conversation is thinking about how much of what gets dismissed as “cultural Islam” is part of a much longer history of Muslim spiritual and intellectual life. And what possibilities open up when we understand traditions as living, changing, and continuously being made.

Chapters

00:36 — Where Are You Finding Grounding?

5:14 — Islam & Modern Spirituality

13:48 — On the Word 'Cult'

22:08 — Black Muslims Labeled a 'Cult'

24:26 — Response to the Videos

36:47 — Hadith & Debate in Islam

44:29 — 'You're Not a Real Muslim'

59:19 — Where to Find Shaif

References

Anidjar, Gil. “Secularism.” Critical Inquiry 33, no. 1 (Autumn 2006): 52–77.

Asad, Talal. “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam.” Qui Parle 17, no. 2 (2009): 1–30.

Kugle, Scott Siraj al-Haqq. Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2010.

McCloud, Sean. Making the American Religious Fringe: Exotics, Subversives, and Journalists, 1955–1993. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Find + Support Shaif

Shaif (@hotboyshaif) is a New York based content creator, educator, and 12th-grade history teacher with a background in Religious Studies. His public-facing educational content explores Islamic history, spirituality, cultural commentary, and popular culture.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotboyshaif/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hotboyshaif

What if astrology, magic, and the occult aren’t as outside of Islam as we’ve been taught to think?

This week, I’m joined by astrologer and student of the Islamic occult sciences Blaze-Maximus Al-Hakimiyya (@AstroByMax) to ask: Where do Islam + the occult meet?

Blaze takes us into a history of Islam and the occult sciences that complicates the idea that astrology, magic, divination, and Islam have always existed in opposition to one another. We talk about what it means that Islam takes the unseen for granted, the difference between licit and illicit magic, and how colonialism + modern reform movements helped change the way many of us understand the occult in the first place.

We get into astrology in the medieval Islamicate world, geomancy as the “science of the sands,” divination, bibliomancy, the astrology embedded in everyday life, and the possibility that some of us are already engaging practices connected to the occult sciences without thinking of them that way.

One of my favorite parts of our conversation is thinking about astrology as an intellectual tradition. Blaze walks us through a history of astrology that decenters Europe and instead takes us through Baghdad, Cairo, Alexandria, Timbuktu, Marrakesh, Delhi, and the larger Afro-Asiatic world. We talk about what gets lost when astrology becomes a consumer product rather than something we actually study, inherit, debate, and learn in community.

Chapters

00:00 — Teaser: Lifestyle Astrology vs. an Intellectual Tradition

00:59 — Welcome to Grounded + Meet Blaze-Maximus Al-Hakimiyya

03:13 — Where Blaze Is Finding Grounding

04:39 — Where Do Islam + the Occult Meet?

12:39 — Magic Is All Around Us

19:31 — How Blaze Discovered Astrology

28:32 — Old Astrology vs. New Astrology

37:59 — Geomancy + Divination

44:56 — Building Intellectual Life in Community

48:53 — Where Do You Start Studying the Occult Sciences?

56:14 — Where to Find + Support Blaze

References

Abū Maʿshar. The Great Introduction to Astrology. Edited and translated by Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

Ali, A. “Head on History.” Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/headonhistory/about

Chireau, Yvonne P. Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Saif, Liana. The Arabic Influences on Early Modern Occult Philosophy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Zadeh, Travis. Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023.

Find + Support Blaze

Blaze-Maximus Al-Hakimiyya is a professional astrologer and student of the Islamic occult sciences whose work specializes in pre-modern astrological traditions from the Hellenistic and medieval Islamicate worlds.

Find Blaze as @AstroByMax across social media.

AstroByMax: Website, Readings + Classes: https://astrobymax.com/

Support Blaze on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/astrobymax?utm