Tag Archives: Una Mullally

EVENT! OCCULT PHILOSOPHIES: An immersive workshop on Rudolf Steiner & the Western esoteric tradition. Live in Dublin or streaming/recorded! JANUARY 28!

12 Jan

TAKE ME TO THE TICKETS! 

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. 

Tickets:In studio: €35 early bird / €45 late bird 

Online: €15 early bird / €20 late bird 

Early bird pricing until 20th.

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AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB 200: PART 2 – MARK O’CONNELL & PETER ROLLINS on IMMORTALITY + SARA GRAN & UNA MULLALLY on ART!

4 Oct

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor

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!

SHOW NOTES GUEST WEBSITES & SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Sara’s website • Come Closer • The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Una’s website • Una’s column for the Irish Times

Mark O’Connell’s website • To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death

Peter’s website • The Divine Magician: The Disappearance of Religion and the Discovery of Faith

SUPPORT AGAINST EVERYONE WITH CONNER HABIB

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:

  • Give via patreon – Patreon.com/connerhabib
  • 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

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EVENTS: Three (very different!) Dublin HAWK MOUNTAIN happenings! With special guests Caitlin Doughty, Sarah Maria Griffin, Una Mullally, and Mark O’Connell

25 Jul

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!

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HAWK MOUNTAIN IS NOW AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE IN THE US! Listen to Una Mullally interview me about it on the latest episode of AEWCH!

5 Jul

Friends,
Hawk Mountain is 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!

Love, CH

ORDER HAWK MOUNTAIN

Bookshop.org US  • Amazon US  • Barnes & Noble • IndieBound • Hudsons

PREORDER HAWK MOUNTAIN in IRELAND/UK/AUSTRALIA RELEASE DATE, JULY 21

Amazon UK • bookshop.uk  • The Gutter Bookshop

COME SEE ME ON TOUR:

PRAISE FOR HAWK MOUNTAIN

Starred reviews in Kirkus  • BookPage  • Publisher’s Weekly  • BookList

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 Hawk Mountain 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. Hawk Mountain is a wonderfully bleak and beautifully written debut.” – Brian Evenson

“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

“Hawk Mountain 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

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Nothing is off the table. We can turn this world into a utopia now. A LIVE episode of AEWCH, talking utopia at the National Concert Hall with Una Mullally & Andrea Horan.

17 Nov

LISTEN HERE VIA SOUNDCLOUD OR ON Apple Podcasts • Spotify • Breaker • Anchor

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 October, Una and I were asked to curate a series of events at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Naturally, we decided to link the events thematically around out main concern: UTOPIA.

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.

For more on Una visit her column in The Irish Times.

And here’s her episode of United Ireland about imagining utopia in Dublin.

For more on Andrea, here’s her TEDxTalk.

Love.
CH

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Join me + Una Mullally, Gang of Youths, Saint Sister and more at UTOPIA- in person or streaming from the National Concert Hall in Dublin OCTOBER 20-24!

14 Oct

BUY TICKETS NOW 

Friends,

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 Ireland to 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.

Anyway, COME TO IT AND LET’S MIX OUR UTOPIAN MOLECULES.

XO
CH

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Our hearts vs The neoliberal capitalist tech imperialist nightmare. Una Mullally on AEWCH 87!

23 Oct

AEWCH87 Title CardFriends,
In a nearly double-length and incredibly wide-ranging, I talk with journalist, editor, activist, and podcaster Una Mullally about the erosion of old structures and the possibility of new ones. Not just the government, but the environment, our relational structures, our spiritual structures, and more.
We talk at length on how neoliberalism and tech imperialism is eating the soul of Dublin, but our talk is by no means Ireland-specific. What we’re discussing at the core is how we fight against the consuming algorithms of neoliberalism and capitalism with our hearts and humanity. The reason we talk for so long isn’t merely because she’s Irish! It’s because we keep going deeper and deeper.
I was so excited to have this conversation with one of Ireland’s great minds.
Una is one of Ireland’s best known journalists, and one of the most incisive. She’s also the co-creator of the great podcast United Ireland, which chronicles the current landscape and history of Ireland, county by county. I can’t recommend a more accessible intro to this place I love so much.
On top of being an extremely prolific author, Una is also an activist, and much of that activism features in her work, including the book Repeal the 8th, which Una edited – an anthology work by women resisting misogynist abortion laws in Ireland (which features an essay by AEWCH 72 guest Sinead Gleeson!) Plus she’s written (briefly) about leprechauns, so how could I not be excited to speak with her?
Also on this episode:
  • When and why Una left the Catholic church
  • The tech gentrification of Dublin and everywhere
  • The cruelty of ugliness
  • Why Irish meter maids are the best
  • The ways neoliberals pretend to be the drivers of progress
  • Equality vs freedom
  • The uses and dangers of nationalism
  • The feeling of Ireland, and Irish people laughing at me for moving here
  • The mystic pulse of the Irish land
  • Why we need to fight oppression and heal trauma simultaneously
  • The zombification of party politics
  • Why relationship is the most important part of activism
  • Why facts no longer matter
  • How self indulgent emotional performativity holds back change
  • Giving conflict over to the angels
  • The problems with Extinction Rebellion

Want to go deeper? Look at the SHOW NOTES!

XO

CH

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