Rune Soup

Is magic just a less sophisticated form of psychology? That is probably the cornerstone claim of what I am calling 'Modernity's Magic'.
And in the next instalment of our series 'Hospicing Modernity's Magic', I want to look at:
How psychology diverged from magic and why.
Jung's role during his lifetime.
What the magicians of modernity did with the 'legitimacy umbrella' they received from Jungian thought.
Which parts of this journey do we take with us into the magic of today?
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Wearing Jung's Skin Like a Pelt
01:57 The 19th Century & Roads Not Taken
07:56 The Red Book 10:50 Active Imagination
15:26 Jung & Astrology
17:59 Is Magic Just Psychology?
22:09 Synchronicity
29:17 The Yi Qing & Moments in Time
33:08 Synchromysticism as Omen Logic
35:26 Psychoid Archetypes & the Unus Mundus
43:00 The Post-Jung Pelt-Wearers
49:27 What to Hospice, What to Keep
52:32 Use Magic to Legitimise Jung

What continues to exist from the 'safe' and 'quirky' magic of the twentieth century that finally needs to die? And what has maybe been left behind that might even belong better in our current era of magic?
This is the beginning of a little project exploring what we should take with us through this fourth turning. You can, of course, watch this one on YouTube.
00:00 - Remember When Magic Was Safe?
01:50 - The Golden Age We Just Lived Through
05:19 - Eating the Wrapper, Throwing Away the Candy
06:34 - What Is Modernity?
09:54 - Why "Hospicing Modernity's Magic"
11:24 - The Hospicing Framework
13:00 - Nothing Is Going Wrong
14:54 - A Telling, Not a History
17:32 - The Series Roadmap
21:18 - What We Carry Forward
22:47 - Join the Conversation
Here are the videos I reference:
At Work In The Ruins | Dougald Hind 
Alan Moore's Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic

What is ours to do during the putrefactory collapse of Western civilisation? Let's find out!
At the very least, it is choosing the right story to live in so that we can nudge the trajectory of this ghastly moment more and more toward the good.
Here are some off-the-cuff thoughts on how we might do that.

There's a meme that's been evolving since 2021, and in its current chaotic incarnation, it's become accidentally magical—even if the people using it don't realise it.
In this episode, I'm unpacking "do it for the plot" as a practical framework for the year ahead. Not just as permission to take risks, but as a way of activating synchronicity and maintaining agency when things inevitably go sideways on the way to your goals.
I'll walk you through how to use this alongside your existing magical toolkit—your amulets, your enchantments, your divination practice—and share the diagnostic story I keep coming back to for checking where I'm actually at versus where I think I am.
I'm also introducing a new project I've been wrestling with: hospicing modernity's magic. Because the late twentieth century gave us some genuinely powerful techniques wrapped in a frame that insists magic isn't real. I want to find a way to respectfully retain the useful stuff and jettison the less-than-useful.
There's practical advice here for interrogating your intentions for 2026, plus some thoughts on why the slacker-era re-enchantment is officially over and what needs to replace it.
Happy new year, kids!

At this time of year, when many of us are rudely awoken from our hard-earned slumber by multiple ghosts wanting us to support their gofundme or something, I thought we might look at ghosts.
What are they? Are they even real? And if they're not, what are they for?
And the exploration is framed by a series of strange experiences I had recently at Australia's most haunted site and possibly the cruelest place in the entire British Empire, Port Arthur.
Enjoy!
PS - Let me also take the opportunity to sincerely thank you for listening, watching, supporting and sharing the various Rune Soup offerings in 2025. Have a wonderful Christmas.