Hi, this is Against Everyone with Connor Habebeb. Friends, I usually post a new episode every week,

but this week I'm posting an episode of the show from last year, uh, featuring the host of the

Michael Brooks show and author of Against the Web, Michael Brooks, who died suddenly yesterday at age 37. Michael had a deep commitment to spiritual

questions and questions of meaning and how they were relevant to the left, but he didn't

really get to talk about that that often, so I wanted to give him the chance to talk

about that on the show, and that's exactly what this episode is all about.

And if you knew Michael or you knew his work, you could see in the show that he did, which was

growing exponentially at the time of his death,

that there was an unfolding commitment to spirituality and meaning.

And in fact, shortly before he died, he was talking about why looking at consciousness

was really important as a foundation for our political commitments, values,

and activism. I received a direct message at some point almost two years ago now from

Michael saying, hey, I would love for you to be on my show to talk about the occult and spirituality.

And I knew who Michael was, but we didn't know each other.

And I was rather surprised because I knew that he was a leftist commentator.

And mostly, when I get asked to do stuff like that, I get asked to talk about sex work and sexuality, pornography, that sort of stuff,

which was great, but I also have these other things I was really interested in, increasingly

interested in spirituality and the occult and politics.

And so I was very happy to do that because I don't get the chance to,

which is why I returned the favor to Michael on my show.

We became fast friends after that initial contact,

found out that we both lived in Western Massachusetts,

...