Leafbox Podcast

Talking with Tom Murphy , professor emeritus of the departments of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of California, San Diego, passionate astronomer, author of the Do the Math blog and the Metastatic Modernity series on mapping the intersections of thermodynamics, ecological limits, and the long arc of civilizational collapse… On species-level growth versus the fantasy of the...

Talking with James Van Lanen , anthropologist, re-wilding advocate, and author of Human Rewilding in the 21st Century, mapping the intersections of species-level fitness, ecological embeddedness, and the long arc of civilizational collapse… On species-level fitness versus civilizational fitness, on Herbert Spencer and the colonial roots of survival of the fittest, on aggrandizing agents and the al...

Talking with Charles Hugh Smith, writer, self-employed economic critic, and author of the long-running blog Of Two Minds, mapping the intersections of capitalism, self-reliance, and moral decay from his homestead in Hilo, Hawaii… Twenty-plus years of writing against the grain, on questioning the incentives that hold our systems together and the fragilities hidden beneath them. His work challenges...

Talking with Michelle Horsley , autistic researcher, artist, and writer of the Aut Naught Aut, mapping the parapolitical architecture of the autism industrial complex… From her personal experiences growing up autistic to her extensive research into the historical and current narratives surrounding autism. Her insights challenge mainstream as well as alternative perceptions and reveal layers of pol...

Talking with writer, reader, wanderer Znore , anonymous author of the blog Group Name for Grape Juice and his essay collection exploring imagination across philosophy, religion, literature, conspiracy, culture, a name plucked from Finnegans Wake , a pseudonym as portal, a thumb raised to the Dao of ideas. On hitchhiking as a philosophy of life, on synchronicities, on conversations continuing betwe...

Talking with former Marine signals intelligence operator and security consultant Matthew John Heath, decorated for valor in Iraq and detained in Venezuela for 752 days, on intercepting morse code and decrypting the invisible, on doing hard things because they’re hard, on being in Kuwait when the towers fell, on Nasiriyah with 33 Marines wounded in a single firefight, on thirteen years of boots on...

Talking with psychotherapist, guitarist Matt Baldwin on his collection How to Play Guitar, an “anarchist cookbook for the creative process, an heirloom seed library of underground values and culture, a map of inner and outer edge places” (Tartantula Press 2025) On motivation from V. Vale, the philosophical underpinnings of punk, on Nassim Taleb’s anti-fragile thinking and auto-didactic survival st...

Speaking with Guy Duperreault, writer, yoga teacher, COVID refugee, and uncompromising seeker of truth. Guy speaks from Oaxaca, Mexico, where he landed after refusing a vaccine mandate cost him his engineering career in Canada and set him walking across the U.S. border with four suitcases and a partner. Years later these changes have materialized into what unfolds into a discussion that is part sp...

Speaking with writer, collapse philosopher, novelist, and blogger Ran Prieur in a conversation that unfolds with a slow, organic rhythm, a pleasurable meandering walk through modern life and its ruins. Ran, as always, is philosophically rich, grounded, and quietly radical. In line with his long-held ethos of anti-industrial, post-collapse thought. I enjoyed reengaging with this contemplative tone...

Talking with writer, garage mystic, and Lotus Sutra enthusiast, Jigoku — anonymous poster and publisher — on Buddhist intellectual responses to civilization shift. On his treatise Theory of the End, on shitposting, on Buddhist white pills, on the Lotus Sutra, Nichirenism, utopianism, and modernity, on his analysis and response to Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, on Devadatta...

Talking with J.J Montagnier, writer, traveler, and scholar of cycle science, the systems on the hidden rhythms of history, the meta physical energy trends that shape civilizations and that that help us navigate moments of collapse and renewal. On the Mayan calendars, Vedic Yuga cycles, and the mimetic rivalry and the Jungian archetypes that move beneath politics and culture. On liminality and tran...

Beyond the Bad Trip: Psychedelics, Myth, and the Rediscovery of Spiritual Health Talking with Dr. Thomas Cook, psychiatrist, writer, on navigating the crossroads science, spirituality, and myth. On psychedelics (“bad trips”) as way markers back to the natural state, as tools for dissolving the walls of modern state, on genuine religious connection. On depression ego inward-facing, a comforting pup...

A conversation with Canadian independent journalist Byron Christopher, exploring the shadows where public narratives meet private truths. Byron shares his unlikely path from small-town disc jockey to frontline reporter, reflecting on the pivotal moments that shaped a career spent chasing stories others wouldn’t touch. Known for what he’s called an “ Armageddon-like, blood-and-guts ” style of crime...

Talking with Luke Dodson , writer, mythographer, seeker, navigator of sovereign archetypes on cycles of collapse and renewal, on Jungian echoes, Campbellian journeys, and the sovereign myths that guard and dissolve empires. On the lawful sovereign who consolidates, the terrible sovereign who expands, and how their endless duel haunts the present moment. On his transition from writing on socio-poli...

Talking with The Ungoogleable Michaelangelo , author, mythmaker, visual artist, and a self-described Bardo Bard on his new book Lore Spores: Tales & Tools for Enhanced Enchantment . On parasitic possession as pedagogy, the protean potential of mimicry, and language as both spell and vessel. On sculpting the soul through shape shifting, the value of taking on personas, DMT in pair with Vipassana me...

Talking with HSURAE , artist, educator, bio-researcher on embodied questions, the art of making glass phantom limbs, mirror box therapy as speculative philosophy, and why the body is already a site of perpetual augmentation. On weaving high heels out of softened bone, gut microbiome colonialism, intergenerational sequencing with her grandmother, karaoke as mistranslation engines, and the limits of...

Talking in-depth with writer, linguist, and anon AMRX Mark II , a dissident voice from the Pacific on escaping the cults of ideology, the yearning for identity in a " no place " like Hawaii, and what it means to walk away from ideological affiliations. Political beliefs as personal alibi, the sickness of escapism, the craving for heroes, identity formation and linguistics, cultural alienation and...

In conversation with Buddhist nun, scholar, and activist Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo , tracing her remarkable arc from surfing in 1950s Malibu to ordination under the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. On hitchhiking through Southeast Asia, surf contests in 1960s Japan, Zen and copying the Heart Sutra. On women’s traditions within Buddhist orders, surfing as meditation. On Vipassana , near fatal snake bites,...

Talking with poet, editor, and literary trickster anon Jasper Ceylon on the art of aesthetic sabotage and poetics in the age of algorithm. From anonymous pen names to deliberate hoaxes published to destabilize the contemporary poetry scene, Jasper dissects the decay of literary standards, using his surreal, very funny and on point fake poetry journal Echolalia , as a critical manifesto serving as...

Talking in-depth with author, publisher, and academic Udith Dematagoda , on his intellectual journey from post-punk bands to postwar literary writers, from international development contracts to pursing a PhD on Nabokov, from Scottish council estates to the specter of Marxist ghosts. A romantic, Udith shares his biography, the crossroads of class, diasporic experience, being driven not by ideology...

Talking with novelist ARX-Han on the optimistic outcome, the counterbalance to techno-feudalism, the shifting Overton window, on deep ( racial ? / psychosexual ?) anxieties of Western elites over China’s technological rise, transhumanist cults, the internet as a pathologization engine, the problem of male agency in a world trending toward simulation, the accelerating breakdown of ideological coher...

Kevin Dolan AKA Bennett's Phylactery joins me to discuss the drive for sovereignty as a generational project, building parallel institutions with the EXIT group, doxxing and digital resilience, the perils of modernity, the limits of incentives in shaping human behavior, the existential crisis of demographic collapse, the Natal Conference , the social cost of depopulation, Korea’s demographic time...

Talking with repeat guest, author and local Hawaii resident Charles Hugh Smith on the importance of living in the real world, insights from the scientific process, experimentation for incremental change, building your own utility, self reliance, behavioral modification, questioning the mythology of progress, anti-progress, technology worship, the value of something, economic externalities,  Aina ,...

Talking with British historian and folklorist Dr. Simon Young on the enduring presence of supernatural experiences in human life, with a focus on his folk lore project, the Fairy Census—a vast collection of contemporary fairy encounter accounts. We explore the shifting nature of fairy lore across time, the interplay between cultural perception and the supernatural, and the deeper psychological and...

I had the pleasure of speaking with George Lee , creator of Chez Jorge and author of A Gong's Table , to uncover the profound connection between food, culture, and identity. His book, a stunning collaboration with photographer Laurent Hsai , takes readers on a heartfelt journey through Taiwanese cuisine, deeply influenced by his grandfather, Buddhist traditions, and his experiences navigating life...