Radical Elphame

The inner experience of magic – the knowledge and gnosis gleaned from somatic responses and inner-eye eruptions – is a feature, not a bug, of engaging with these practices. When magic can be experienced fully, without doubt, it tends to draw us in and lead us to seek even deeper. The mystical applications of magic are a large part of what drew me to it in the first place. The utility of practical magic is important, sometimes even vital, but once your roads are open, your luck is drawn, and your boundaries are set, then these tools can help us ask the bigger questions. Sometimes, this inner exploration can draw practitioners into the hermitage or wizard's tower, and even lead them to retreat from life. Once you've plowed the depths of your shadow or returned from your katabsis or grounded from your celestial ascent, what are you to do with the boons of this experience? Hopefully, lead a richer and more fulfilling life. 
Today's show is a little different than usual. Rather than an interview with a magical expert or a deep dive into a tradition or technique, today, I enjoy the chance to catch up with some friends and let them regale us with all the ways magic can be used to have fun, to seek out some adventure, and foster new friendships. CR and Robert tell us about their chance encounter in the UK, the magical shenanigans they got up to, and CR describes how those same magical currents and spiritual support systems can also guide us through the trials of loss and grief. I thought it would be fun to share this chat with you all. It's very casual, but also heartening, and at times truly poignant. 
SHOW NOTES:
C.R.'s Website: https://lalanomicon.com/
Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction: HBO MAX
IG: @misterxofer
No Hand Path: Robert's Substack
IG: @robertpeterservices

If you had to guess the political persuasion in the land of Faery, what's the first thought that comes to mind? I think for most, it would be hard to separate our preconceived notion of faeries from their titular tales, replete with Queens, Kings, and courts. Although there is no lack of allusions to a Faery adherence to some form of Otherworldly monarchy (or monarchies), there are just as many instances of clear inversions of the etiquette and mores of our human royal courts, in their Faery reflections. In the Early Modern period, we also see a number of social rebellions on the part of the human working classes against the tyrannical excesses of their own monarchs, carried out in the name of faeries. How much of this mirroring of our own realm, that we see askew in Faery, is an expression of their inherent nature, and how much is it actually a form of theatrics or co-creation? When is Faery an interface? In the US today, are there still Faerie Queens, or have they decided to try out the popular mode of democratically elected authoritarian?
In Morgan Daimler's latest book on The Fairy Courts, they challenge many of the pre-conceived notions we have about the social structures of these beings, and the relative morality at play in their pledged loyalties, from the "Seelie" and "Unseelie" Courts in Early Modern Scotland, to their modern adaptations in fiction and pop culture. In our conversation, Morgan unpacks all the nuances of this complex topic and fells some sacred cows along the way. 
And while I have you here, I just want to mention that we have a lively Patreon page you can check out if you want to pledge support for the show. We offer extended bonus interviews for every episode, and I've been offering a Patreon-exclusive deep dive into my approach to seership over there as well. I also have a free Substack called The Foliate Head, where I'm about to post my fifth entry into an essay series on the vast array of theories about the fundamental nature of faeries, and why they might not all be mutually exclusive. 
And if you haven't yet, go forth and rate and review the show. It actually goes a long way in getting us into more ears. All that said, I hope you enjoy my chat with the great Morgan Daimler. 
 
SHOW NOTES: 
Morgan's Books: Author Page
The Fairy Courts: Moon Books
Feed the Fairies Podcast: Spotify Link
Morgan's Patheos Blog: Patheos Pagan
Morgan's Classes: Irish Pagan School
Morgan's Instagram: @morgandaimler

If I go to my rural grocery store today, amongst the tabloids, gossip rags, and boomer nostalgia slop in the magazine section, a strange artifact awaits. There, as it likely has been since the place was built in the fifties, is a row of Old Farmer's Almanacs. Ostensibly a relic of homespun wisdom and a tangible reminder of an agrarian lifestyle that a few generations ago would have been intrinsic to survival, but is now merely a hobby. The Farmer's Almanac can seem like an object of tradition more than function, like Coke in a glass bottle or cowboy boots: a tool to embody and experience the past. Less remarked on, though, is how the Old Farmer's Almanac is essentially a grimoire of agricultural folk magic that is somehow as ubiquitous as the TV Guide. 
In the Old Farmer's Almanac, you'll essentially find half the categories of the New Age section in the bookstore: weather predictions, astrological timing, home remedies, and a lunar cycle planting guide, and somehow it still manages to feel as kitschy as a Norman Rockwell painting. What this apparent dichotomy between content and presentation reveals to me is just how old most of what gets called "new age" actually is. Interestingly, by going back to the land as a form of self-care or hobby, a vocation, or an intentional lifestyle, a hermetic dialectic opens up between that most rooted and embodied experience of growing food in dirt and all the seen and unseen cosmic influences that make it possible. When we remove the barriers between our human lives and the processes and activities that support them–such as agriculture, energy generation, and cooking–we start to realize how much modern life has become almost a simulacrum of living. When we allow ourselves to reconnect with the actions that foster our lives and turn down the distractions and toils of modernity, the "big questions" feel closer at hand. What can feel like interests of fantasy or eccentricity to the modern world–those subjects beyond the scope of what we can quantify, dissect, and extract from–in this more embodied life, take precedence.
This is why I think some form of engagement with the "natural" world is fundamental to what we now call magic, and in the past, we probably experienced as just part of being alive. I think something unlocks when we see ourselves through the lens of the earth, and the ways in which we are grown by it and governed by the same forces that influence it. Magic removed from this gnosis is always going to be handicapped, and any life not guided by it will be stunted. Although I don't think the Old Farmer's Almanac at my local grocery store is a sacred text, the persistence of its metaphysical approach to the most practical of tasks is something I find heartening. But what would an even Older Farmer's Almanac look like? What if it were written by Agrippa instead of Garrison Keillor? What if it could explain the hermetic principles it was emulating? What if it traced these practices to their ancient sources and explored the perennial wisdom of agrarian magic found across the globe? It might look like Todd Elliott's new book, The Cunning Farmer. 
SHOW NOTES:
Todd's Book: The Cunning Farmer
Todd's Substack: The Cunning Farmer

Despite being an eccentric enough person to have a podcast about magic, I find the topic of UFOs and UAPs difficult to talk about. Unlike animism, folk magic, and faeries, the UAP subject is no longer a fringe pursuit. It's making headlines in legacy media outlets and being earnestly discussed by the figureheads at both ends of the US political spectrum. Unlike most of what we cover on this show, UAP phenomena is now a suitable topic of conversation for even the normies in my life. Now, with very few qualifiers, I can dive into a philosophical conversation with almost anyone, about the vast spectrum of implications we're facing if we are to finally find ourselves the recipients of some kind of "official" disclosure. I think my hesitation to bring up these subjects casually has something to do with the ways in which, despite dovetailing with so many of my own spiritual and philosophical interests, the general consensus is that this phenomena can not only be explained within a fundamental materialist worldview, but that it, in some way, supercedes the spiritual, rendering it obsolete. 
When we look at the mainstream coverage of the UAP topic, what we see is a very materialistic spin on what is otherwise a fairly mysterious and aberrant phenomena. This narrative fetishizes the tech of these so-called crafts and presupposes an advanced alien race, perhaps ready to welcome the humans of the 21st century into their intergalactic federation now that we have AI deepfakes and self-driving taxis. For someone like me, interested in the esoteric and arcane, this scenario doesn't feel like progress, nor does it describe what I see when I explore the UAP subject with magician goggles. During my conversation with today's guests, Sinéad Whelehan and Anthony Miller of the Fire in the Cosmos podcast, Sinéad made a fascinating point about how the historically male-dominated field of "UFOlogy" has skewed the narrative of the subject toward the "nuts-and-bolts" paradigm most of us take for granted today. Interestingly, I think you can see echoes of this in a majority of the paranormal fields, where for most of this century, a primacy has been placed on cutting-edge technology being employed to "hunt" and "prove" the tangible reality of these subjects and subdue them into the rational materialist paradigm once and for all. 
It's heartening to see a shift in the conversation around UAP and related fields, and the welcoming of more female voices and perspectives. With this shift, the wider acceptance of the right-brained side of the conversation has finally come, and subjects relating to consciousness, myth, and spirituality are becoming less relegated to the fringes. With this holistic consideration of the UAP topic, suddenly the knowledge and experience of the occultist or magician feels just as relevant to the task of groking this mystery as any cutting-edge science, and with this paradigm shift, perhaps our pre-conceived notions of what science and magic are in the first place can begin to grow and expand. 
SHOW NOTES:
Podcast: Fire in the Cosmos
Patreon: Fire in the Cosmos
Contact in the Desert: May 28 - June 1st

There can be a deep sense of displacement in the experience of the diaspora. Often raised unrooted to ancestral lands and traditions, or even fully rudderless in the vacuum of cultural assimilation. To engage in ancestral lifeways from this position can sometimes give off a palpable sense of imposter syndrome, seeming like a choice between appropriation and a LARP. How can we explore ancestral spirituality as "ancestors in training" rather than merely venerating the past? How can ancient myths make us more engaged in our present? 
The Pennsylvania Dutch, in their many iterations, offer a fascinating example of how a diasporic people can foster a living spirituality, propelled by their traditions, but gracefully in conversation with the adaptations and assimilations that a true connection to the present moment asks of us. The Pennsylvania Dutch have many flavors, but the most interesting to me is somehow at once the most invested in their ancestral ontology, and also the most progressive. Urglaawe is a new vision for working with old Gods. A strain of Heathenry that seeks to adapt ancient wisdom to contemporary life, and root ancestral lifeways in new lands.
SHOW NOTES:
Get the Book: Heathen Traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch
Learn more about Urglaawe: Urglaawe.org
Urglaawe FB Page for event info: Urglaawe
Stacey's Blog: The Accidental Urglaawer
Stacey's Etsy Page: Accidentalurglaawer