The Skeptical Shaman is taking a break

But don't worry-- it's not the end our podcast!

When I was a young tween in middle school, I briefly fell victim to a terrible social contagion that affected most of the other young girls my age.

This terrible affliction forced me to compulsively and relentlessly said the words “like” and “um” throughout all of my verbal communications.

How was I able to kick this terrible mind virus, you might be wondering?

Well, because my grandmother used some industrial-grade, MK Ultra-level psychological warfare on me to nip that shit right in the bud.

Anytime I said “like” or “um” to her, she would abruptly end the conversation and walk away. When I inquired about it, she would calmly respond by saying, “If you don’t already know what you’re going to say, you shouldn’t be speaking. You sound stupid and I can’t take it.”

Slaps kind of hard, right?!?

But she wasn’t wrong, and some part of me knew it. So, I stopped speaking like that. I remember the feeling of effort that came along with re-learning how to communicate intentionally and intelligently without the Valley Girl verbal ticks, and how strange it was when I would later hear others using the same filler words as they thoughtlessly rambled on.

Now, you might be wondering what this little blast from the past has to do with our podcast, The Skeptical Shaman.

The short answer? If I don’t have anything of substance to say, I just shut up.

Season Break

And this is what we’re about to do with The Skeptical Shaman podcast— at least for a little while!

We’ve had a big year with The Skeptical Shaman podcast, and new episodes are still going to be hitting the scene through the end of August. These still-to-come interviews will detail my harrowing week dealing with a demon, explore the magical (and very sweet) world of psychic animal communication, and even share a special session with the literal Voodoo Queen of New Orleans.

But, as of September 2024, we’re going to go dormant for a bit for a few reasons:

• New podcast tour: I will be on a new podcast tour, getting interviewed by dozens of other podcast hosts instead of being the one doing all of the interviewing. This tour is scheduled for about four months starting in mid-August, and based on my previous podcast tour experience I know it’s going to be a lot of talking and extroverting on top of an already very people-intensive workday. Translation: I’ll be totally spent after a day of chit-chatting, and would likely fall very short of the basic energy requirements— not to mention fundamental cognitive functioning threshold— to be an engaged, thoughtful podcast host myself. The good news? We’ll be sharing all of our interviews with other podcasts here on Substack, on our website, and across our social media accounts in the months to come, so there will be classically black-pilled TOTEM content to consume in the gap.

• Commitment to content: My grandmother’s voice rings loud in my head, even to this day. Which, now that I think about it, might actually be proof of real deal MK Ultra programming, but I’ll have to solve for that another day. Until then, her lesson about not talking until I have something to say holds— and I’m not interested in podcasting every week just to meet some bullshit content creation standard that some idiot on YouTube invented in order to sell their stupid coaching package. So, in the coming months, I’ll be looking for inspiration, great new guests, and filling my tank of interesting stuff to talk about before coming back to deliver the sweet, sweet podcast nectar to your ears.

• TOTEM is really, really busy: When I transitioned to being a working shaman full-time four years ago, I established a handful of key priorities. At the top of the list: clients come first. I’m incredibly grateful to be so busy with actual, one-on-one coaching, mentoring and psychic and healing work, and want to maintain this core belief by giving myself space, time and energy to be fully present with my clients in the months to come. So, if something has to go because the old calendar is filling up, it’s going to be the podcast— if only just for a short while!

Catch Up On Seasons 5 & 6!

If you haven’t checked out all of our episodes from Seasons 5 and 6 of The Skeptical Shaman, it’s a great time to catch up!

Since the beginning of June, we’ve chatted with professional herbalists, disillusioned spiritual seekers, lucid dreaming experts, inner child-focused energy workers, Ayurvedic geniuses, conspiracy theorists (and realists), Libertarian comedians, the designer and artists of our *new* TOTEM Flower Essence Deck, UAP experiencers, and astrologers.

All of these episodes explored our key theme of sitting in the messy middle with all things spiritual, using First Principles thinking and our intuition to discern the signal within all of the noise. I’m super grateful for every guest for showing up and digging into it all with me— THANK YOU!

And, if you are catching up on previous episodes of The Skeptical Shaman, please consider taking a moment to rate and review on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you listen. Ratings and reviews are a huge deal to independent podcasters, and enable us to continue to make this content free to listeners.

A big THANK YOU to everyone that has already rated and reviewed The Skeptical Shaman— please know that you are making all of this possible!

Navigating Scarity— Live Workshops In August!

While I’ll be taking a break from recording new episodes of the podcast, I’ll still be around giving some face time to anyone interested in learning about navigating scarcity, myth-busting the Business of Woo, or simply maintaining energetic health and hygiene in these wild times— in a very, very crazy election year.

Starting Saturday, August 17th, I’ll be facilitating three live online workshops that are donation only— and designed to empower attendees to maintain calm in the eye of this storm. For those interested, here are the details:

Navigating scarcity, on Saturday, August 17th (3-4:30 PM CST)

This first workshop will focus on diving right into the scarcity energy we’re all feeling— and will continue to feel— this year. Whether you’re a Woo-based business owner, someone looking to build your side hustle/ corporate bug-out bag, or simply someone seeking out-of-the-box solutions more generally, this is the workshop for you!

You can learn more and register on Eventbrite HERE.

Myth-busting the Business of Woo, on Saturday, August 24th (3-4:30 PM CST)

With the economic conditions rapidly shifting under our feet, expect the noise and distracting myth-building to grow. In this environment, it can be hard to know what’s real, what’s fake, and what’s downright nefarious! This workshop is designed to empower attendees with some naked real talk, helping to bust the myths around the Business of Woo.

You can learn more and register on Eventbrite HERE.

Self-care and Energetic Hygiene, on Saturday, August 31st (3-4:30 PM CST)

Regardless of whether you’re a Woo-based business owner, practitioner, or just a straightforward busy professional, navigating the manic energy of a scarcity economy is very, very tricky. This workshop is designed to empower the attendees with simple, sustainable and human-scaled tips and tricks to take the edge off of an energetically volatile, draining workday!

You can learn more and register on Eventbrite HERE.

About the donation format

I’ve made these online workshops donations-based in order to make it available to as many people as possible, regardless of any immediate financial issues or limitations they may be having. If you know someone that has been laid off, is struggling and afraid, or maybe wants to launch their side hustle or small business but is intimidated by the market, please forward this info to them and encourage them to sign up!

If we get a LOT of people attending and they go well, I may start offering more donations-based online workshops, and am currently noodling on an idea to do an abundance-centered Feng Shui class in September.

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Running a Woo-based business in these wild times requires conscious handling of the ebb and flow of resources, including personal energy. I’m notoriously bad at managing proportion when it comes to my small business workload, so this short break from The Skeptical Shaman podcast is an outward manifestation of my efforts to, well, not exert such an effort all of the time!

After all: abundance energy is inherently yin. In Feng Shui and I Ching and Chinese Medicine, abundance is considered to correlate to the water element. In this paradigm, we must create space in which to receive abundance— and that space is just as liminal and temporal as it is physical and literal.

So, I’m making space.

All of the magic happens in the in between, anyways.

And The Skeptical Shaman podcast will be back before you know it!

-Rachel