Accidental Gods

If the death cult of predatory capitalism is based on money as the commodification of suffering (which it is) - how do we create a monetary system that encourages people to help each other, to create communities of place, purpose and passion that are genuinely supportive and to invest where trust and hope lead, rather than simply the hoarding of ever-increasing amounts of value? Stef Kuypers is an...

When we talk about building community, we often get stuck trying to bridge tribal divides, particularly in a media landscape designed to monetise division, amplify hatred, and draw us into cycles of righteous anger. But what if there was a different approach? One that creates a sense of individual and collective agency, that centres the gifts and strengths of everyone in the room in a way that let...

Can we separate politics from democracy? Our political system is wholly corrupt and no longer fit for purpose - if it ever was. What if Citizens' Assemblies could bring agency to the whole of our population, helping people to find empathy with each other, to engage in conversations in good faith and work together to solve the wicked problems of the polycrisis: social inequity, climate chaos, the d...

Contemplatives down the centuries have expressed a sense of unity with the All That Is, the Heart Mind of the Universe, whatever we want to call it. The words may be different, but the sense of non duality, of immanence, awe and inter-being seem universal. Only in our western world do we resolutely decide that the world is made of atoms and nothing really matters.  Except clearly it does, and if w...

Imagine a world where every one of us finds meaning in living a good life - and where 'good' means conducive to the flourishing of all beings. Imagine that this frames our every thought, sensing and action, allowing us to explore and question our triggered responses to the world we are enmeshed with in a way that is resilient and self-regulating, so that we can bring the best of ourselves to the t...

“I think empathy is a creative act. It’s imaginal, it’s an art-making practice, where even just listening is creating a picture and a lifeworld of the other inside yourself in order to get closer to each other.” - Dylan McGarry Empathy is a magical thing.  It lets us do more than just step into another's shoes, it opens the doors for us to step into their heart and soul with the vast generosity of...

Jeremy Lent is a long time friend of the podcast.  His new book, 'Ecocivilization: Making a World That Works for All'  is coming out at the end of April 2026 and so we got together to discuss what an Ecocivilisation is, why we so badly need to become one, and how we might get there. These questions have animated all of Jeremy Lent's writing, from The Patterning Instinct , through The Web of Meanin...

What are the stories we tell ourselves and each other about ourselves and each other and our place in the living web of life—and how do we shape them in service to Life?  This is the central question that animates Accidental Gods: the idea that we are a storied species, that humanity lives and breathes and loves and learns by the rich tapestry of stories that shape our lives.  Everything we do fro...

How do we create stories powerful enough, moving enough, inspiring enough - and grounded enough - to shift the trajectory of our culture onto a totally new pathway?  This week's guest, Matt Golding, has spent his entire professional life exploring what makes stories go viral, gaining awards, big contracts and a deep instinct for how to help people see the best in themselves in ways that can shape...

In a culture where age is, at best, ignored, how do we rebuild a cohort of genuine Elders fit for the rapid transitions of the 21st Century: those who can combine the wisdom of wide boundary perspectives with the humility that allows flexibility of thinking, feeling and being? This is one of the core questions of our time and this week's guest is working to find answers. Alain Gauthier is co-found...

What is Integral Altruism and how could it crowd-source the answers to our meta crisis?   It's a while since I learned about 'reverse mentoring': a young person mentoring someone of an older generation. The idea really took hold, so when a mutual friend connected Jonas Søvik and me, I knew I'd found someone from whom I could learn a huge amount about life, ideas, thoughts and how the world feels i...

In this podcast Manda dives deep into the nature of fear, what it is and how we might find our own resources, resilience and capacity to work with the parts that catch our attention.  Given this, it is recommended that you listen at a time and place where you can give it full attention. We believe that we are in a time of total transformation and the potential is enormous - if enough of us can do...

What is a Network State and how does the concept matter in relation to the Trump administration's attempts to take Greenland - and their 'peace' proposals in Gaza and Ukraine?   This is the question I asked the transnational legal expert Dr Andrea Leiter: Who is trying to set up legal structure that mandate for No Death, No Taxes and No Democracy? And why might the rest of us end up dead or enslav...

As we crest the wave of the Great Transformation, we have choices: we can crash into chaos and extinction - or we can step into our birthright as fully conscious nodes in the Web of Life, offering the astonishing creativity of humanity in service to life. We've said this on the podcast often, but it's not often that we speak with someone whose entire life is given to helping people step into our b...

As we move towards Total Systemic Change, shifting from the death cult of predatory capitalism towards a future we'd actually be proud to leave behind, our absolute baseline non-negotiable foundations must be Clean Air, Clean Water, Clean Soil. We talk a lot about regenerative agriculture on this podcast, and how we can rebuild living soils from the inert growing media we've created in the hellsca...

In the midst of collapse, as we watch our governments lay waste to our social agreements, it can be hard to imagine extending the franchise of legal rights to Nature and the More than Human world.  And yet, if we're to transcend this moment, it must be because we have become something other than we are now - and to do this, we need the roadmaps that show us how to move through, and beyond, the col...

As the old paradigm splinters into rage-filled, grief-stricken fragments, how can we lay the foundation for the total systemic change we so badly need? Even beyond the listeners to this podcast, it is obvious by now that there is no going back. As Oliver Kornetzke wrote in a particularly sharply written piece on Facebook back on 22nd January - before Alex Pretti was murdered by Trump's Federal Age...

Across the world, our legal systems are crumbling, the rule of sane law dismantled in real time. Yet at the same time, rivers, mountains, bees are being granted legal rights in ways that would have been thought impossible even a few years ago.  And in boardrooms around the planet, C-suites and businesses are increasingly looking to the natural world for guidance on how to be in ways that heal the...

We live in an ever-changing world, but it is not always obvious what kinds of evolutionary change we are seeing in the broader web of life: in physiology, behaviour, language - and human responses to these.  How plastic is the natural world? How resilient?  How capable - or not - of adapting to the chaos of the climate emergency, the cascade of toxins in our air, soil and water, to the plastics, h...

If we ever had a genuine democracy (and I would argue we never have) then it is clearly disintegrating now, along with the entire system with which it was entwined.  Everyone agrees we need something new, what we don't necessarily agree on across the board is the design of this new thing.  This week's guests are two people who spend their lives imagining how things might be different, particularly...

Well…2025 was the year the masks came off the old system: nobody is pretending it's there to help us, or that those who have stolen the reins of power have any intention of 'saving the planet', still less resolving the horrors of inequity or anything at all but feeding the ravenously hungry ghost of capitalism. So how do we bring power to those with wisdom and wisdom to those with power?  If we ha...

At the end of a turbulent year that has seen the masks come off the death cult in ways that were probably predictable, but still shocking, we reconvene our December Solstice Traditional conversation. Manda is joined by Della Duncan of the Upstream Podcast and Nathalie Nahai of 'Nathalie Nahai in Conversation' to explore the things that have stood out for each of us in our explorations this year—an...

Here's our December Solstice Meditation for 2025 - please find a place and time where you can relax, take space for yourself, and build the connections to the web of life that will carry us forward. Details of 3iATLAS https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/3i-atlas/3i-atlas-facts-and-faqs/

How do we create the stories that will bring a whole new generation back to the web of life, that will help people find hope again, and lean into their heart's yearning for connection, relationship, being and belonging? This week's guest, Ally Kingston, is a creative facilitator and strategy lead at Purpose Disruptors , where she co-developed the breakthrough Agency for Nature , a pop-up agency br...

Here's Manda's round up of (some of) the best books, poetry and podcasts she's come across this year.   Most of the links are to Bookshop.org in the UK where you can link to an independent bookshop of your choice.  In some cases, we've linked to the authors' website. Fiction Rachel Neumeier - Rihasi, Marag, Sekaran, Hedesa - all four are part of the TUYO series. 8 Doors from Dawn to Midnight is a...