In this episode of Spirit Box, I sit down with Chad Andro, host of the podcast Radical Elphame, to talk about his journey into witchcraft, animism, and the search for right relation while living inside an imperial system. Chad reflects on an early entheogenic awakening and his eventual move away from chaos magic toward traditional witchcraft, fairy lore, and a more primal, land-rooted practice shaped by initiation rather than belief.

We explore animal encounters as genuine moments of spiritual threshold—bears appearing during ritual, deer as initiators, and the presence of wolves, foxes, and owls in magical work. Our conversation moves through symbolism, shamanic experience, and the difficulty of maintaining spiritual seriousness in a modern, distracted world. We also reflect on what it means to practise witchcraft beyond self-improvement, and how magic can force a reckoning with fear, responsibility, and moral consequence.

In the Plus episode, our conversation turns to Chad’s work as a winemaker and his experience of creating talismanic wine as offerings. Chad explains how wine, intention, labour, and land become inseparable in devotional magic, and shares the thinking behind a recent occult-focused wine release designed to be worked with rather than collected.

From there, we move into podcasting and writing as acts of discipline and devotion, Chad’s Substack work, and the writers currently shaping his thinking, including Lee Morgan’s A Deep Without Name. We end by talking frankly about empire, exhaustion, and the uneasy possibility that real transformation—personal and collective—may only come through collapse, and what it means to try to remain in right relation as that process unfolds.
Show notes:
Chad on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radicalelphame/
Chad's substack: https://thefoliatehead.substack.com
A deed without a name: https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/deed-without-a-name-a-unearthing-the-legacy-of-traditional-witchcraft-book-lee-morgan-9781780995496?sku=GOR006392626
Radical Elphame podcast

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In this episode of Spirit Box, I’m joined by Robert Peter to talk about what it actually means to work with angels—beyond dogma, aesthetics, or blind faith. Robert shares his journey into angelic practice and how consistent guidance, personal resistance, and hard-earned sincerity shaped the way he works today. What emerges is a grounded, practical approach to angelic contact rooted in discernment, self-knowledge, and emotional stability.

We talk about angelic encounters, synchronicities, prayer, and communication without assuming a fixed religious framework, alongside the importance of personalisation, skepticism, and virtue as an active magical principle rather than a moral performance. Robert reflects on how angels often redirect our desires toward what we actually need, not what we think we want, and why sincerity consistently outweighs technique.

In the Plus Show, we go deeper into the risks of angelic work: spiritual inflation, obsession, misinterpretation, and the very real danger of losing grounding. We speak frankly about spiritual psychosis, misplaced certainty, and the ways online magical culture can amplify delusion rather than understanding. We also get into therapy as a magical tool, the importance of keeping some practices private, and how to stay human while working with forces that don’t always encourage that.

This episode is less about summoning angels and more about becoming someone capable of listening to them without losing yourself in the process.
Show notes:
https://robertpetermagi.substack.com
https://www.instagram.com/robertpeterservices/

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In this episode I’m joined by author and Scarlet Imprint founder Peter Grey for a wide-ranging conversation around his book Lucifer Praxis—a work that approaches Lucifer not as a static figure or moral symbol, but as a living current of rebellion, imagination, and spiritual authority.

We explore the deep mythic roots of Lucifer and the fallen angels, tracing them from ancient sources and early biblical material—where these beings were associated with the transmission of magic and forbidden knowledge—through their later demonisation under Christianity. Peter explains how John Milton’s Paradise Lost radically reshaped the image of Lucifer, transforming him into a defiant figure whose influence carried forward into Romanticism through writers like Blake, Shelley, and Byron, helping to form the foundations of modern Luciferian thought.

Our conversation moves through early Christian exorcism and its relation to grimoire magic conjuration and Pauline theology. We also spend time on Peter’s argument that the French Revolution of 1789 marked a decisive cultural rupture—a symbolic regicide and deicide that signalled the death of God and the emergence of a modern Luciferian worldview. Paris itself becomes part of this story, reshaped through monuments, symbolism, and revolutionary ritual.

Peter also outlines his approach to magical practice and teaching: drawing on ancient traditions while deliberately avoiding rigid systems or prescriptive methods. We discuss the importance of personal gnosis, the risks of over-identifying with deities, and the need for open structures that allow practitioners to find their own way into the spirit world.
Show notes:
Get the book: https://scarletimprint.com/publications/p/lucifer-praxis
John Milton - Paradise Lost: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost
William Blake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
Percy Bysshe Shelly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
Lord Byron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron
Romantic poetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_poetry
The Book of Enoch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
The French Revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
Louis XVI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI
The Spirit of Liberty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Column

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In this episode, I sit down with paranormal investigator, researcher, and author Kate Ray for a conversation that wanders through fear, folklore, and the many strange beings that linger just outside our line of sight.

Kate begins by telling me how she stumbled into paranormal investigation almost against her will — starting with a night at St Breville’s Castle that absolutely terrified her, but ultimately broke the lifelong fear of ghosts that had held her back. That moment pushed her into Barry Guy’s events team, and set her on the path to becoming the investigator she is now. As we talked, she traced how her understanding of the supernatural shifted over the years, shaped by experiences in both her childhood home and a deeply haunted house she lived in throughout the late 90s.

We found ourselves comparing notes on haunted properties. Kate spoke about the oppressive atmosphere, strange smells, and constant noises she lived with for years, and I shared some of my own memories and we reflected on how that atmosphere can feel suffocating until, eventually, fear gives way to curiosity.

Then the conversation took a fascinating turn. Kate outlined her theory that many poltergeist cases may actually be fairy activity rather than the spirits of the dead. She talked about the electrical nature of fairies, the mischievous, non-human logic that underpins coin drops and strange object movements, and how these behaviours align with centuries of folklore. She’s noticed more people reporting this kind of activity, and attributes that partly to her efforts to reintroduce fairy lore to the paranormal community.

Kate recounted a chilling case she investigated — a family plagued by rippling walls, frantic footsteps, and coins dropping out of nowhere. She had gone there just to interview them, but ended up witnessing things that are astonishing.

Kate shared more of her personal cases, including working as a psychic artist on Help My House Is Haunted. She described remote impressions of a grumpy spirit and dark masses, the moment something grabbed her coat on location, and the uncanny realisation that her sketch matched a photograph of a former homeowner.

We finished with the story of her book on the Wollaton Gnomes, the 1979 incident where children encountered hovering gnomes in cars in a deer park. The idea arrived while she was writing for Dr. Simon Young, and the book practically wrote itself within seven days, through what she describes as automatic writing.

This episode is a weave of hauntings, folklore, high strangeness, and the strange intelligences that share the world with us — and Kate’s insights remind me again and again just how thin the veil really is.
Show notes:
Kate's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kateharegirl/?hl=en-gb
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HareGirlparanormal/
Hare in the Hawthorn Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kateharegirlray
Woolly Snotts: The Curious Case of the Wollaton Gnomes: https://amzn.eu/d/3TUzJ5f

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In this episode, Finnish folklorist, artist, and pagan practitioner Niina Niskanen joins us to explore the ancient waters of Finnish mythology and the animistic worldview that shaped her homeland. We dive deep into her upcoming book Soul of Vellamo Journey with the Finnish Gods of the Sea—a work that traces the evolution of Finland’s sea deities from their Neolithic, shamanic roots to the later poetic, song-based traditions that survive today.Niina guides us through the three-layered Finnish cosmos, where sea goddesses like Vellamo and the thunder god Ukko still ripple through the culture, and where every element—fire, earth, air, and water—holds its own väki, a sacred animating force. We talk offerings, sauna rites, hair magic, and the rituals woven into daily life by fishermens, hunters, and healers who lived in relationship with the spirits around them.From underwater kingdoms and cows of the sea, to the boundary-walking goddesses of healing and travel, Niina offers a rare glimpse into the living heart of Suomenusko, Finnish pre-Christian belief. She shares personal experiences with deities like Vellamo, Loviatar, and Mielikki, and reflects on how modern environmental spirituality echoes these ancient traditions.We also explore the deep cultural importance of the sauna as a liminal, ritual space—birthplace, death house, and magical threshold—and uncover surprising resonances between Finnish folklore and Irish, Baltic, Slavic, and Scandinavian traditions.Show notes:https://fairychamber.org/en-eurhttps://www.instagram.com/fairychamberart/

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In this episode, I sit down with Aidan Wachter and Tommie Kelly for a long, searching conversation about the state of modern magic and how our practices—and our lives—are changing under cultural and personal pressures. We start with the sense that magic doesn’t always work the way it used to. Aidan shares his thoughts on why: the sheer difficulty of magical training, the problems with visualization-heavy systems, and how easily magic becomes another cog in the productivity machine. Together, we look at how these pressures strip practitioners of depth, patience, and wonder.From there, we challenge the “scout badge” approach that creeps into contemporary magic, where achievement replaces mystery. We talk about how capitalism, Catholic symbolism, and our own preferences quietly shape the language we use for spiritual experience, often without our noticing.Rest and downtime become a major thread in our discussion. After dealing with injuries myself, I’ve come to understand rest as a crucial—if neglected—aspect of spiritual work. Tommie and Aidan echo this, speaking about burnout, financial pressures, and the emotional cost of manifesting major life changes. We compare fast, results-oriented magic with slower, more traditional spiritual paths, and consider why the latter often produces more sustainable transformation.We then turn to the digital world and how constant stimulation affects our sense of wonder. Aidan reflects on practicing Chaos Magic in the 1980s with almost no external influence, and how that solitude fostered originality. In contrast, today’s nonstop feed of content makes deep practice and introspection much harder. That leads us into a conversation about authenticity, personal flaws, and how childhood—and identity—now unfold under the surveillance of social media.I share how aligning my life with seasonal rhythms has shifted my work and well-being, especially as I’ve moved toward agricultural patterns.In the Plus Show Aidan and Tommie talk about stepping back from the news cycle to protect mental health while still being ready to act when real crises arise. This naturally leads us into discussing global events, helplessness, empathy, and the balance between what concerns us and what we can actually influence.The conversation also takes on the broader societal picture: eroding trust in institutions, the fragility of rights, government overreach, and the unsettling realization that much of the order we rely on is more fragile than we’d like to believe. Aidan speaks to the need for public witness when legal and civic norms break down, and we look at the strange impotence of a world where everything is documented yet little changes.We return to animism as a lived practice. Aidan shares his approach to maintaining balance within a wider ecosystem of spirits, people, and land, rather than chasing specific outcomes. We also talk about our societies structural problems and the uncomfortable truth that sometimes things must fall apart before they can be remade.Show notes:https://www.patreon.com/cw/aidanwachterhttps://www.patreon.com/c/tommiekelly/postsKeep in touch?https://linktr.ee/darraghmason

In this episode of Spirit Box, I sit down once again with Emmet to explore the work of William G. Gray, a complex figures in modern Western occultism. We dive into Gray’s writings and his book An Outlook on Our Inner Western Way, discussing how his ideas about spiritual attainment still hold power despite his very human flaws. Emmet speaks candidly about Gray’s complicated legacy and we talk about the challenge of engaging with material that’s both insightful and uncomfortable.

Emmet shares how the idea of the “outer court” influenced his approach to teaching, and we explore the strange value of misleading or flawed material in spiritual traditions — how even the wrong turn can lead you somewhere meaningful.

In the Plus Show, we go deeper. We talk about magic as a living practice — the role of vibes and intuition, and how real teaching often happens through non-verbal transmission rather than formal instruction. Emmet reflects on his own experiences with magical schools, the lessons learned from conflict, and how discernment becomes a crucial tool in finding the right teachers.

We also discuss how personal and cultural symbols intertwine, how to interpret your own visionary language, and how sincerity cuts through the aesthetic traps that often surround esoteric work. The conversation winds through 19th-century occultism, folk magic, and the literary imagination of that era — all the ways the past continues to whisper through our practices today.

It’s a rich and honest discussion about what it really means to walk the Western Way — with all its contradictions, revelations, and moments of magic in the mundane.
Show notes:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2884410-outlook-on-our-inner-western-way
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/outlook-on-our-inner-western-way-william-g-gray/1012354701;jsessionid=A81241F159DB9A9D62A460E4E302382D.prodny_store01-atgap18

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In this episode of Spirit Box, I’m joined by Gary Lachman — musician, writer, and author of twenty-six books on Western esotericism — for a conversation that spans from the Bowery to the astral.Gary was the bassist for Blondie during their early New York years, and shares his journey from a childhood fascination with comics to his time living in a loft with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, where a flamboyant biker artist introduced him to Aleister Crowley. That encounter, and a fateful read of Colin Wilson’s The Occult, set him on a lifelong path through the hidden corridors of consciousness, mysticism, and philosophy.We talk about precognitive dreams and telepathy, the strange electrical accident that may have opened psychic doors, and how a shared dream with his girlfriend became the Blondie song “Touched by Your Presence.” Gary reflects on his shift from rock and roll to writing, his time as a science journalist, and his enduring fascination with thinkers like Gurdjieff, Robert Anton Wilson, and Arthur Koestler.The conversation also explores Gary’s “naturalist” approach to magic — a focus on direct experience rather than dogma — and his philosophy of daily writing as an esoteric practice in itself. Along the way, we touch on David Bowie, near-death encounters, and the lasting influence of Colin Wilson on his work.

Show notes:
https://www.gary-lachman.com
https://www.instagram.com/gvlachman/
https://www.innertraditions.com/touched-by-the-presence

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