Rune Soup

This week, Dr Becca Tarnas returns to the show to discuss two of my very favourite things: Imaginal Journeying -including some really useful practical advice on Active Imagination- and The Lord of the Rings. Why it was written, how it was written, and what even am Middle Earth. Extremely good times. Enjoy! Show Notes Dr Tarnas's new course, Journey to the Imaginal Realm: Reading J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Website of Dr Becca Tarnas. Becca Tarnas on Twitter.

This week, in an ever so slightly delayed show, we have an ever so slightly brilliant guest, Dr Amba J Sepie. I first encountered Dr Sepie's work in Damned Facts, which is a Charles-Fort inspired collection of essays by academics who are exploring or confronting the broadly Fortean, edited by another previous guest, Dr Jack Hunter. We talk about navigating the academy's shortcomings, better ways of thinking with the broadly paranormal and participating in indigenous modes in a non-appropriative way. Show Notes Dr Sepie's article, More than Stories, More than Myths. (pdf download.) Amba on Facebook.

Two solo shows in a row? Why, yes. This is technically the September one if you don't look at a calendar. But it is also a wild ramble through the politics, poetics and metaphysics of walking in public and private spaces. Dedicated with big love to the premium members who are officially embarking on the Q3 Course: Magical Geography and Spirits of Place. Show Notes Skewing the Picture - China Miéville

The August solo show! In the lead-up to the Q3 premium member course on Magical Geography, this month we explore the notion of near and far places, cold places, and imaginal places. Colonial ghosts, Antarctica and Ursula Le Guin ahead. Enjoy.

This week we welcome to the show permaculture designer and theorist, Dan Palmer. Dan is the host of the podcast, Making Permaculture Stronger, where he facilitates fascinating discussions on what's right and what's wrong with permaculture and where it might be headed next. And the tl;dr is that what's wrong with permaculture is, in the main, what's wrong with everything else. So we have a great discussion on the theory of design in general, the shortcomings of western categorisations and their dualist implications and, somewhat improbably, merging with a chicken. It's a truly fantastic chat. Enjoy. Show Notes Making Permaculture Stronger Living Design Process

This week, we speak to James Sullivan. James is a fellow podcaster and -more importantly- a fellow fan of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. So these books form the through-line for a wide ranging discussion on the state of modern philosophy, theories of mind, the role of fantasy fiction and what might be called subversive, anarcho-pacifist self-transformation. Great stuff. Show Notes James the Giant Podcast James on Twitter James on Facebook

This week, we are speaking with Kenric McDowell. Kenric is a musician, public speaker, and AI curator for Google Research. We discuss AI, inevitably, but not from either a lurid 'the world is ending' way or from a 'techno-utopian jibber jabber' way. Instead we look at what the implications of AI are for personhood, a theory of technology and its appropriateness, and whether we're teaching AI to think or AI is teaching us to. Very, very good times. Show Notes Kenric's website Kenric on Twitter Google's Artists and Machine Intelligence Programme Kenric's Gray Area presentation

As promised, and just in time, here's the July solo show. It was gonna be too annoying to have dropped a week for mere illness after 136 episodes delivered rain, hail, or shine in five countries, on boats, in hotel rooms, and so on. So! The broken run has been mended with a Mars Retrograde ghost story. Enjoy.

This week, we welcome the one and only Richard Dolan to the show. As you're very likely aware, Richard is the author and publisher of many books in the UFO field, as well as a radio host, trained historian and gifted public speaker. We actually met out in the central Australian desert in May of this year and had the opportunity to chat about what's right and what's wrong with the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH). For those of you who are unaware, ETH is the model for UFO phenomena that asserts that a majority or possibly all cases -credible ones, at least- are best explained as encounters with beings from other planets… rather than, say, extra dimensional, demonic, spiritual, earth-based or under-earth entities that predate mankind and all the other non-ETH hypotheses. Anyway, splendid stuff. Show Notes Richard Dolan Press Richard Dolan Members Richard on Youtube Richard on Twitter

Another solo show this week, inspired in part by Douglas Rushkoff's recent article on the grimness of the billionaire future. We play around with notions of technology and personhood and agency and morality and AI. Also hobbits. Enjoy.