Friends, On Thursday, March 28, myself and journalist & organizer UNA MULLALLY, presented the event THE BEGINNING IS NEAR in Dublin, where we talked about the end of the world and what comes after that with frequent AEWCH guests: philosopher and activist SREĆKO HORVAT, and cultural critic and writer MARK O’CONNELL. The event marked Srećko’s first speaking engagement in Ireland, and also my first attempt at creating an “AEWCH event” in Ireland. I’d love to do many more.
The night was broken into halves: first, we talked about apocalypse. Then we had a short break and spoke about renewal.* What arose was a challenging set of indications and prospects, failures and pathways.
Some questions that came up:
Is the apocalypse always happening?
What does the esoteric tell us about how to live beyond apocalypse?
What is the role of art in renewal?
Why is it important to evade the political realm?
What is the use of hope?
I’m so proud to have set up this event with Una and to share it with you!
*We also engaged with the audience via exercises which I may bring to the show down the line, but which are edited out here… So if you want the full experience, come to the next event in person or via online! I’d love to see you there!
Friends, In this deeply personal episode, my friend – journalist, artist, and organizer, Una Mullally – and I look at how proximity to death and collapse in our own lives can renew our commitment to and understanding of truth. It’s especially important now, with the sense of claustrophobia and the real world deaths happening on the screens in front of our eyes. How do we see the image of death, feel the presence of violence against others, and bring that into a project of renewal?
This is, in a way, a partner episode to my upcoming event with Una, Srećko Horvat, and Mark O’Connell, THEBEGINNINGISNEARwhich is an immersive discussion on apocalypse and renewal happening in Dublin AND online. The in-person tickets are basically dold out, but you can still by streaming tickets and be a part of it, as well as watch a recording after if you’d like.
MORE ON UNA Una has a weekly, challenging, column in the Irish Times. Some of Una’a other great appearances on AEWCH include AEWCH 230 on how to stop catastrophizing, and AEWCH 192 which featured us speaking about my novel Hawk Mountain and fiction more broadly.
A BOOK YOU SHOULD READ in conjunction with this episode is Susan Sontag’s excellent Regarding the Pain of Others.
THE BEGINNING IS NEAR: An immersive discussion on apocalypse and renewal Dean Arts Studio, Dublin 2, Thursday March 28th, 7pm – 9.30pm + Streaming Online €15-€35 (pay what you can afford, ticket includes a complimentary refreshment) + ONLINE STREAMING TICKETS
Feel like everything is collapsing and decaying? What would it feel like to consider everything is about to begin and flourish?
Join me and a host of AEWCH guests – Croatian philosopher and organizerSrećko Horvat, journalist and activist Una Mullally, and Mark O’Connell, for a unique opportunity to dissect and create new pathways amidst both global turmoil and solidarity-building!
War, and the nihilism of over-consumption, are in a fever-pitch struggle with visions of peace, contentment, and connection. In THE BEGINNING IS NEAR, our four speakers will explore the polar opposites of disaster and renewal, inviting the audience into the discussion to create a broader vision for Dublin, Ireland, and the world at large.
THE BEGINNING IS NEAR marks Srećko Horvat’s first speaking engagement in Ireland. His knowledge in philosophy, school-building, and political organizing, conjures a spirit of resonance, which reveals what feels like ‘the end’, across so many fronts, can also mark a real beginning.
TICKETS are available on a sliding scale: pay what you can at €15, €25, or €35. Space is limited, buy your tickets early! Complimentary beverages provided.
LIVESTREAM TICKETS ARE ALSO AVAILABLE to watch the event remotely for a flat fee of €15 (about $16.50 USD), and comes with limited-time access to a recording of the event. When you buy a livestream ticket, you will receive the link 12-24 hours ahead of the event via the email you supply at point of purchase.
All ticket holders will receive access to a recording of the event for a limited time.
Join us at the edge of death and birth, truth and love.
Advertisementsfromsponsorsdon‘tfitwiththemissionofthis podcast.SoIasklistenersifthey‘dliketosupporttheshowbysharingwhattheycanviapatreon.Thebestwaytosupportthisshow,my writing, my events & courses, is to give an annual or monthly pledge to Patreon.com/connerhabib.You can also subscribe to the show and give it a 5-Star writing on Apple Podcasts, as well as buy my novel Hawk Mountain.
When you use patreon, you’re not only supporting me, but accessing an economic model that isn’t about paying people for their labor, and instead showing care and appreciation of who they are.
Friends, Are you seeing a terrible future ahead? So many of us are catastrophising – a gesture that has become exacerbated in the post-pandemic landscape. When we have a fear, rather than allowing it to rise and fall in time, it consumes more time than it should, it becomes a fantasy of the future.
We come up with scenarios in which something we thought could be stable is now laid to waste. Whether you do this by catastrophising the environment, imagining landmasses underwater, feeling a tightness over your thoughts of fascism overrunning all governments, or seeing your own beloved social movements fall to pieces…
or maybe it’s more personal? You feel a pain that you begin to conceive of as a terminal disease; your partner’s phone binging with texts signals cheating, lies, and the end of the relationship; you notice your social media posts aren’t getting likes which must mean no one is interested in what you have to share anymore.
In all of these motions, we create an image of the future and feel its resonance in the present. Catastrophising can be paralyzing, terrible, and it doesn’t help that we’re all preyed upon by various catastrophe industries, not to mention the fact that we are facing real challenges!
To talk us away from catastrophe and towards a healthier world, I asked my friend Una Mullally on to the show. Una is my closest collaborator in Ireland and has been on the show multiple times, most recently in conversation with me and author Sara Gran on AEWCH 200, pt 2.
We talk about catastrophe first, and then take apart four of the biggest challenges of our time:
fascism
climate change
AI
“groomer” moral panics
considering how we might see them differently.
This is a transformative conversation. I hope it reinvigorates your knowledge that you can change things.
SHOWNOTES
WHAT OTHER AEWCH EPISODE YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO? AEWCH 83 with Franco “Bifo” Berardi on how to breathe in an apocalypse – which we recorded in Bologna just a few months before the pandemic began. It is one of my very favorite episodes.
WHAT BOOK SHOULD YOU READ? I think, to go along with AEWCH 83, a great book to prefigure our moment is Bifo’s Breathing: Chaos and Poetry.
MORE ON UNA Una has a weekly, challenging, column in the Irish Times. Some of Una’a other great appearances on AEWCH include AEWCH 151 on how the world is changing (slowly!) for the better, and AEWCH 192 which featured us speaking about my novel Hawk Mountain and fiction more broadly.
FRIENDS! I’ll be giving a lecture and workshop (complete with spiritual exercises) on Rudolf Steiner and the Western esoteric tradition here in Dublin on Saturday January 28, at the amazing spiritual spot – The Space Between!
It’s a 3 hour long workshop with some snacks and coffee in the break, along with lots of Q&A and community discussion.
The event is moderated by AEWCH guest and frequent collaborator Una Mullally.
Description of the event below.
Unfortunately because this is a collaboration with The Space Between, I can’t offer patreon patrons discounts, but your presence will of course be acknowledged and appreciated. And I’ll try to think of SOMETHING special to pass along to you, so if you DO sign up, let me know.
You can attend in person, by watching the event streaming, or by watching a recording afterwards!
Below is the description.
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“Love is the only passion which must not be discarded in the pursuit of truth.” – Rudolf Steiner (1861 – 1925)
If you haven’t heard Rudolf Steiner’s name you might know about his many efforts – including Steiner schools (AKA Waldorf schools), biodynamic agriculture, Weleda, Camp Hill communities, Community Shared Agriculture (CSAs) – and more.
Or maybe you’ve heard that his occult explorations were the inspiration for Marvel comics’ Dr. Strange; that he influenced Rachel Carson’s writing of Silent Spring; that he inspired artists as diverse as Cy Twombly, Wssily Kandinsky, Saul Bellow, Andrei Tarkovsky, and the literary group the Inklings, which includes J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis.
But getting into Steiner and his esoteric work – called anthroposophy – can be daunting, to say the least. With thousands of lectures and dozens of books filled with esoteric terms and gestures that would make a philosopher blush, it’s difficult to find a way into his vast body of work.
Join author and podcaster Conner Habib in this plain-language daytime workshop on Rudolf Steiner and the Western esoteric tradition. Together we’ll enter multiple doorways into Steiner’s work, engage in anthroposophical thought exercises, and create pathways for further exploration. It’ll be fun and deep, complex and weird, respectful and irreverent all at once.
Conner Habib is the author of the international hit novel Hawk Mountain, and the host of the podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib, a podcast which covers topics as diverse as occultism, punk rock, and radical politics.
Una Mullally is an Irish Times journalist, author, and activist.
This workshop goes from 11am to 2.30pm with a tea, coffee and snack break in the middle.
Hosted by The Space Between, whose mission is to lean into the edge of the emergent, and navigate the unknown with a lightness and depth.
Friends, Part two of the massive, mighty AEWCH 200 is upon us! AEWCH 200 is three episodes over three weeks, featuring six conversations, each conversation has two previous guests of AEWCH in conversation with me on a theme. Here’s part one, in case you missed it!
These are people I’ve loved talking to (most of them have been on the show more than once) in conversation with someone they might never talk to without AEWCH bringing them together. The idea is a sort of conversational alchemy. What happens when people in different disciplines speak? What sort of new substances arise?
For instance:
What happens when a paranormal expert talks with a mortician? What happens when an occult teacher talks with a mystic comedian podcaster? What happens when a new age scholar talks with an anarchist organizer?
This time it’s Part 2: IMMORTALITY and ART Transhumanist critic Mark O’Connell talks with radical Lacanian theologian Peter Rollins + horror/mystery writer Sara Gran talks with journalist/artist Una Mullally!
Being up to 200 episodes means AEWCH is in a tiny tiny percentage of podcasts that have lasted this long – something like 2%. I can ONLY keep doing this show if people support it on patreon.
I know post-pandemic times and economic roller coasters are affecting everyone in different ways. That said, the art and culture you love are great places to center support and love.
If you don’t already, please do the following to keep AEWCH going:
Tell people about the show and, if it feels okay, to support it on patreon (especially if you already know your pals are fans of the show but don’t support it).
Give the show a 5 star rating and positive review on Apple Podcasts.
Tweet and Insta quotes from and thoughts inspired by episodes!
Thank you so much for everything, and enjoy all this big talk. Love, CH
Hey there friends, Wanted to let you know that there are three Hawk Mountain events coming up in Dublin, and each one is very different.
1. A book launch at the legendary Hodges Figgis with my friend Una Mullally on WEDNESDAY, JULY 27 This is a reading in the standard sense. I read the book, I answer a few questions, we hang out, we drink wine! To go to this FREE event, email ldermody@penguinrenadomhouse.ie and say you’re coming by! (you can cut and paste/ use this text – just include your name: Hi I’m excited to attend the Conner Habib event on the 27th. Thanks!)
2. I’ll be talking horror and darkness in fiction with author, podcaster, and tarot reader Sarah Maria Griffin, on FRIDAY, AUGUST 5 at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI). Here’s the link! The event is FREE and will be awesome.
3. My event on THURSDAY, JULY 28 with Caitlin Doughty and Mark O’Connell is SOLD OUT! But go to one of the other two with the also awesome AEWCH guests here!
Friends, Hawk Mountainis now available in the US in book and audio formats!
(Irish/UK/Australian readers, you have a couple more weeks to preorder/wait until it comes out on the 21st!)
So…I made myself the guest, and my friend and collaborator Una Mullally, who is an expert interviewer, asked me the questions. This was an extremely satisfying conversation — the kind of experience I always hope my guests will end the show feeling — and I’m honored to have had it. What comes up? The horror of high school, Kate Bush, the mystical presence of animals, Meister Eckhart, the soundtrack to my novel, time and manipulation, and more.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a better interview, to be honest.
And? THERE ARE NO SPOILERS! Somehow she managed to turn this into a great conversation about literature without messing with it.
The US tour starts next week, and I’ll post a normal ep then too. Until then, enjoy, and go get the book and come to the readings and tell your pals and say hello!
One of the New York Times’s 12 Books To Read in July 2022
“Hawk Mountain is a suspenseful, shocking and ultimately poignant study of anguished conflict, both domestic and internal. Incisively written and intensely imagined, it’s the novelistic debut of a real original.” – Ramsey Campbell
“The opening lines of HawkMountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won’t let up until the final, shocking moments.” – Caitlin Doughty
“A moving and unflinching portrayal of a man caught in a trap of his own making, but willing to do almost anything―to almost anybody―if it will keep him from having to face up to himself. HawkMountain is a wonderfully bleak and beautifully written debut.” – BrianEvenson
“A brilliantly disturbing, expertly crafted literary noir that will stick with you long after you put it down. Conner Habib has written a flawless meditation on the fruitless, but eternally human, effort to kill off the parts of ourselves we cannot love―literally and metaphorically. I love this book.” – Sara Gran
“HawkMountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!” – Andrea Lawlor
“Tender, horrifying, utterly transfixing.” – Kelly Link
“Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling. Brilliantly written with homoerotic undertones, this savage tale is uncompromising in its reflection of teen friendships and isolation, and unflinching in its examination of the delicacy of the human body. There is gold among the gore. I found it compelling, shocking, and beautiful.” – Liz Nugent
“Conner Habib writes with an hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears-Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy-are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness.” – Mark O’Connell
“A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won’t soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn’t look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers.” – Paul Tremblay
SUPPORT THIS PODCAST! Against Everyone With Conner Habib is free for everyone, but it only exists via of support of listeners. If you like this show, if it has meaning for you, support it by using Patreon! Thank you so, so much.
FRIENDS:
Here’s a live episode of AEWCH, featuring one of my main collaborators, Una Mullally (AEWCH 151 & AEWCH 87) plus one of her main collaborators, Andrea Horan, who co-hosts their podcast, United Ireland.
In this live event, Una, Andrea, and I discussed Utopia with a live audience, and then got them to dream up utopia as well. The audience appears on this episode, expressing what they’ve dreamt up. It’s a messy and wonderful moment: Dream big, dream now, dream together with strangers. I’m so happy with how the evening turned out.
To that end, when you listen to this episode, please do the exercises we suggest (and the supplements to the exercise) as best you can.
No real show notes here, but plenty of references to Rudolf Steiner & social threefolding, Grant Morrison, Jacques Lacan, magic, self help, and of course, utopia.
In the midst of the loneliness and fear of 2020, Una Mullally (AEWCH 87 & 151) and I noticed something profound: people were helping each other. They were looking out for each other. We both had the same thought at the same time: if we could wash our hands, and stand far apart, and buy groceries for our neighbors, and live each day with concern in our hearts for one another, we could make a better world, too.
And it didn’t have to be complicated, we’d just need the right starting point. And that starting point was and is:
What do you want?
Instead of asking questions of what’s practical, what came before, or what’s expected next, we thought, why not really ask what people are imagining.
So we started a project just for people living in Ireland in the summer of 2020: Utopia Ireland. We asked people what their idea was for a better Ireland they’d think a better Ireland looked like. We got well over a thousand answers in just a few months with almost no marketing.
What we found was that people in Ireland are ready for something: not “new” not “old” but something connected.
When the National Concert Hall contacted Una and said they were curating new series of events that would take place just at the turning point of the pandemic, we knew that this was a way for us to ask the question again.
What did we want? In this case, what did we want from cultural and music events?
We wanted events that had a sense of risk, a sense of uncertainty, and a sense of vision.
We wanted a concert – Murmuration – that drew from the culture of buskers in Irish cities and from the unpredictability of nature. At the concert — which features Gang of Youths frontman Dave Le’Aupepe (AEWCH 31), Gemma Doherty from Saint Sister, Irish folk star Daoirí Farrell, and more — each musician “passes off” the stage to the next musician, sharing the space and working with the musical director Ben Castle. The show will be dangerous in the best sense of the word. Instead of a polished production, it will move like the light of birds it’s named after.
We wanted a celebration of one of the most profound visionaries in Irish history, John Moriarty. John’s work is praised by Irish writers and celebrities. But he’s still largely unknown. He wrote about Ireland that was in touch with its eternal landscape, ancient mythology, and artistic present, all at once.
We wanted to present a merging of our podcasts, Against Everyone with Conner Habib and United Irelandto talk about utopia – and social threefolding – with each other and with the audience.
We wanted a room where sound was immersive, penetrating, and healing. A “sound bath” run by DJs and sound artists that passes the vibration through you as you enter; messing you up in the best way possible.
We wanted the unrehearsed, un-contained energy of rap music, with the spirit of a battle and freestyle. Music and lyrics that are craved from the air in the room by Irelands’ most innovative hi[p hop artists: Rebel Phoenix, Strange Boy, DJ Replay, Dyramid, and more.
We wanted something that felt involving. We learned in the pandemic that we saved each other. That participation, not spectating in the world is what got us through. So Utopia is a series of events that brings every audience member into a space of vision, anticipation, contemplation, creativity, and movement.
Conner Habib 