Gatherings

In this episode of Gatherings, Béa speaks with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Sumit Anand about his journey from medical school in England to decades of work with the “criminally insane,” adolescents, and today’s so-called “worried well.” He traces how a love of story led him toward psychiatry and then back toward narrative, arguing that a patient’s story is data, not decoration. Sumit reflects on the limits of purely biological models, the crisis of meaning in younger generations, the distortions of tech culture, and why real change needs time, presence, and a willingness to sit in the “messy middle” of life. Along the way he shares practical insights from the consulting room: building trust in a system people no longer believe in, creating a genuine container for chaos and grief, reconnecting mind and body, and valuing growth over quick fixes.

You can find Sumit's short videos on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sumit+anand+md

This episode is a wide-ranging conversation on creativity, Jungian psychology, and what it takes to write from the depths. Béa reflects on her novel Invocation as a psychological culmination of years of work, one that braided together cognitive science, mythology, and inner development and ultimately prompted her to step away from her long-running group. From there, the discussion moves into the disruptive symbolism of the goddess Eris and why storytelling remains essential for both personal integration and the wider cultural humanities. Looking ahead, Béa shares early insights into her next project, a historical fantasy shaped by celestial maps and the myth of Parsifal. Throughout the episode, the creative act emerges as a form of inner healing and a living bridge between the rational and irrational dimensions of the psyche.

Link to information about Invocation: Bea Gonzalez Sophiacycles

In this episode, I turn to the Romantics as guides for a world coming apart, viewing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a protest against a mechanistic worldview that devalues feeling. Some questions that emerge from this journey are:   What do we do when technology outpaces our moral framework? Just because we're able to do something, should we? What responsibilities do we incur when we create a new form of life?  Are we repeating Frankenstein's mistake when we build systems and then disclaim any obligation to the creatures we have released onto the world?

Books Mentioned:

Magnificent Rebels, Andrea Wulf
Romantic Outlaws, Charlotte Gordon
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
A Flash of Golden Fire, Thomas Elsner
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Romantics and Us, Simon Schama
BERGHAIN, Rosalia [Lux]
Guillermo del Toro’s, Frankenstein

In this episode of Gatherings, we unpack the enduring power of the vampire archetype. We trace its evolution from the gothic shadows of Dracula to today’s romanticized immortal figures, revealing how the vampire reflects the repressed, unintegrated, and wounded parts of the psyche. Drawing on insights from Marion Woodman and Michael Singer, we explore the vampire as a symbol of psychic energy turned inward—what happens when life force becomes blocked or possessed by the shadow. We also situate the myth in its social context, connecting its late-Victorian rise to cultural fears around feminism, sexuality, and capitalism. The conversation closes by asking why our current moment is again obsessed with the vampire and what this collective fascination might tell us about trauma, desire, and the hunger for aliveness.

What do a Renaissance magician, a modern neuroscientist, and a forgotten philosopher of language have in common? In this episode, I dive into a wild, mythically-informed rabbit hole that took me from the Corpus Hermeticum to the divided brain model of Iain McGilchrist and the linguistic revelations of Owen Barfield. Together, these three worldviews—Hermeticism, brain lateralization, and the evolution of consciousness—seem to be providing us with the same message: that the world is not dead, but alive… if only we remember how to see it.

This is a journey through magic, metaphysics, language, and psyche—a kind of Jungian time-travel into the heart of our disenchanted world. I explore how perception is not passive but participatory, how imagination might just be the bridge back to meaning, and why the way we attend to reality could be the most urgent moral act of our time.

If you've ever felt like something sacred has gone missing, or that the modern world has forgotten how to listen—this episode is for you.

 

Books Mentioned:

• Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances Yates
• The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist
• The Matter with Things by Iain McGilchrist
• Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas
• Poetic Diction by Owen Barfield
• English Words by Owen Barfield
• Saving the Appearances by Owen Barfield
• The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life by Thomas Moore
• Inner Work by Robert A. Johnson