Hi, this is Against Everyone with Connor Habib, a weekly podcast featuring my conversations with

countercultural figures and presenting the intersections of spirituality, philosophy, and politics

in an engaging and accessible way. So, friends, I was talking with a long-term front of mine,

who lives in New York, who does work with prison abolitionist movements

and the BDS or boycott divestment and sanction movement for Palestinian rights.

And she said this really interesting thing to me, which was, you know, when did so many leftists, especially in New York, she was saying,

when did some leftists start using de taro and talking about astrology and numerology and

that sort of thing? She said, I guess I missed that memo. Like, when did that, or that moment,

when did that happen? And I found it'd be a really interesting question, you know,

because although I have seen that happening more and more,

on the other hand, there's also been this really strong leftist push

to purge leftist communities of spiritual impulses and practices like that.

So what is up with that tension? And it's come up many times, especially since the beginning

of this year, with the so-called capital insurrection.

And all the people there who some people were seen to be spiritually inclined.

There's this idea.

So there's that tension that we need to purge the leftist spiritual and especially occult impulses,

since that doesn't belong to leftist projects and is seen to be fascist,

and that also that we somehow need to re-enchant the world using these techniques like taro and astrology and all that.

But neither of these projects are, to me, the purging or the re-enchanting,

neither of them really reflect reality in any sort of meaningful way that gets us anywhere.

So before I get into this episode with religious studies scholar, philosopher, and author,

...