This Podcast is a Ritual

How to Find the Magic in Games (w/ Dr. Jeff Howard)

From d20-powered fireballs to point-and-click quests, magic is an essential ingredient in many games, while games themselves offer some intriguing ideas about the practic

How to Summon an Interdimensional Trickster (preview)

From Q to the Great Gazoo, the Wizard calls upon a variety of extra-dimensional imps and tricky ideas to illustrate this meta-archetype, laying the groundwork for even mo

How to Play Against Fascism (w/ Max Haiven)

If you've been feeling lately like life is an unfair game, you're not alone. And game designer, author, and anti-fascist scholar Max Haiven knows why. In his la

How to Flip a Coin (preview)

Using chance to make choices has a long magical history, from complex divination systems to mythologies that imagine the gods gambling and throwing dice to determine huma

How to Change a Village (w/ Kàri Viđarsson)

In the tiny fishing village of Rif, out on the coast of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland, you'll find an unlikely cultural hub: The Freezer. Built in a f

How to Feel Bad (preview)

Sometimes things suck. Sometimes we feel bad, can't get what we want, or just plain don't know what to do. And that's hard. But there's a cultural nar

What is Play? (theory)

Magic can be a lot of work. But does it have to be? What if there was a way to use magic, not to bend the world to one's will, but to transform reality into an open

Stranger in a Strange Land (preview)

The Wizard has arrived in the Netherlands and is ready to embark on his quest to become "Amsterdam's #1 Wizard," but first, he has to figure out what the heck is goi

How to Engage with Animism (w/ Aidan Wachter)

Aidan Wachter, author of Six Ways, Weaving Fate, and Changeling, joins the ritual for a spirited discussion with the Wizard about the lively world we live in and how magi

A Total Eclipse of a Total Eclipse

As the moon slides in front of the sun while Icelandic clouds obscure them both, the land grows dark and the Wizard takes a moment to reflect on art, creativity, festival

Dawning Insight

Good things come to those who wait. As the Wizard wades deeper into the THIS PORTAL IS A RITUAL's many mysteries, he continues to encounter new understandings about

Rising Tension

THIS PORTAL IS A RITUAL descends deeper into madness as the Wizard navigates eternal day, dive bombing birds, organizational challenges, and the unavoidable messiness of

Opening the Portal

Why did the Wizard go through the Portal? To get to the other side! And all jokes aside, the Wizard is currently in a literal, metaphorical, and deeply magical portal whi

A Special Re-Quest (re-release)

America's #1 Wizard is taking the leap and embarking on a magical quest to relocate to the Netherlands and become Amsterdam's #1 Wizard. To honor this momentous

What is Power? (practice)

Magic has long trafficked in fantasies of power and control. This is the tantalizing idea that there are certain secrets one can master that will raise a person above the

How to Let Go of Control (preview)

Before the Wizard reveals his magical praxis for working with the various Powers-that-be, he felt it important to take a moment to address the elephant in the occultural

What is Power? (theory)

Something brought you to this moment. A long sequence of personal choices and cosmic chance collaborated to bring you to this exact moment. But why? That's a questio

How to Wander Like a Wizard (preview)

The Wizard is on the move, somewhere between Here and I-Don't-Know-Where, so it felt like the right time to take a little walkabout within the concept of "wandering,

What is a Person? (practice)

How do we practice becoming a Person? Doing his best to evade the usual traps of self-optimization, the Wizard offers a humble contemplative practice designed to help us

How to Be an Imperfect Person (preview)

Before we get into the practical magical follow up to What is a Person? (theory), the Wizard wanted to acknowledge the paradoxical problem of trying to be a better person