My guest this episode is writer, scholar, teacher, and astrologer, RONNIE PONTIAC. I've been impressed and informed by Ronnie's esoteric work for awhile now, and finally, we got to have our first conversation. And it's a profound one...

We talk about the need for a spiritual path in our moment, and how the alternative is... well, quite grim. We talk about how spirituality can lead us into a path of hatred and personal gain. We talk about my suspicion about astrology, how I think it works, how I think it does’t work, why so much of it is wrong (and why Ronnie is so often right!). And there's so much more on this episode (Including my extended intro on the esoteric aim of being a Friend To Humanity.)

Ronnie was a key figure at the Philosophical Research Society founded in 1934 by Manly Palmer Hall. The PRS is still around, and promotes, teaches, and offers research opportunities into the esoteric & philosophical of all societies; with the values of freedom, community, objective study, and inclusiveness at its core. He's the author most recently of American Metaphysical Religion: Esoteric and Mystical Traditions of the New World. His forthcoming book, which can preorder now, is The Rosicrucian Counterculture: The Origins and Influence of the Invisible Society.

I talk with spiritual teacher and author Lisa Romero about the challenges that are facing us today and an unlikely key to progressing through them: the esoteric mysteries of Ireland.

This is the is the sixth and final episode in a series of episodes on How To Live in 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. In other words, tools that don’t merely deaden us in the frantic pursuit of survival, but that assist us in nourishing ourselves, each other, and the world, all together.

This time, the theme is READ
and my guest is ALEXANDER CHEE.

At the end of this episode, the exercise is a little different. First we do a reading for you, the listener, in the world and its anxieties and challeneges. We consider what they are, how to approach them, and how not to approach them. Then, Alex and I do a reading for what you could be reading... We draw a tarot card and let it give book recommendations.

Alex the author of three books, most recently his essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, and also two novels, Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night.