The Skeptical Shaman Season 3

A new season is underway, but there's still plenty to binge!

It’s another year and we’re actively recording another season of The Skeptical Shaman podcast, expected to hit the airwaves (and your earbuds) this March/ April. And I have a bit of good news to share with all of you: we have hit 13,000 downloads across Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Substack!

While this may not seem like a big achievement in a landscape littered with Joe Rogans and True Crime Junkies, these numbers are a really big deal for our *very* small team and nonexistent PR budget. What’s more: we’re now getting ranked on various lists, and I’m super focused on building on the momentum we’ve already established to get these crucial spiritual conversations to the spiritually homeless among us!

Thank you all so much for your support, engagement, and shares of our show; it makes all of the difference in the world, and keeps me going!

What’s next?

This coming Season 3 of The Skeptical Shaman podcast will feature a whole new exciting cadre of psychics, reiki practitioners, practicing witches, small business owners in the world of Woo and elsewhere, and even a chef— who may or may not be married to a cranky shaman. We’ll have a few fan favorites coming back for a round two of conversation and exploration, and we’re going to dig even deeper into the nitty gritty of it all!

While we’re expanding our horizons and chatting with new folks, the mission of the podcast remains the same: to democratize spirituality for the spiritually homeless and empower the individual to use discernment as they explore this often sketchy and suss landscape of life coaches, gurus and fortune tellers.

Catching up

Until our new season of the podcast comes out, please be sure to catch up on the last two seasons on Apple Podcasts HERE or Spotify HERE. You can also find all of the episodes, now unlocked for all subscribers, here on Substack. In the last two seasons, we’ve endeavored to have REAL conversations with REAL people, chipping away at the shiny, promotional bullshit that all too often permeates this landscape.

After all, it’s a podcast and not an infomercial. And, as an avid podcast listener myself, there’s nothing I hate more than someone inelegantly trying to “just the tip” their new product, project, or book when it makes no real sense in an otherwise organic dialogue. The listeners always know who’s being authentic and, perhaps more importantly, who is there for the conversation itself— and not the potential clout that may come along with it!

Seasons 1 and 2 have featured cult survivors, practicing witches, Ayurvedic experts, Buddhist monks, clinical social workers, photographers, tarot card readers, esoteric authors, Feng Shui practitioners, comedians, TOTEM clients and much, much more. While it’s been a diverse group of guests, we always get the heart of the matter: empowering the individual, separating what works from what’s bullshit, and how to embark on a spiritual adventure without falling prey to bullshit artists, cult leaders, or covert narcissists!

Support the show

And, if you feel called to do so, please share a rating and/or review of The Skeptical Shaman podcast on Apple, Spotify and more. These reviews help us get great guests and expand the reach of our mission critical message. If you do write a review, please screenshot it and share it with me via email: rachel@totemreadings.com. I’m sending “thank you” gifts to anyone that takes the time to help us out with this crucial metric.

And I promise, these thank you gifts are not a bribe! Rather, it’s my pleasure to keep the good vibes going by recognizing them in kind. I know it takes time and is kind of a pain in the ass, so THANK YOU to everyone that has shared their genuine experience with the podcast for others to reference.

The Skeptical Shaman podcast may be free to listen to, but it’s not free to make. Every little bit of support from you in the form of ratings, reviews, subscriptions and shares makes our continued efforts possible!

Got a guest?

Dear listeners: do you know anyone that might make a good guest on The Skeptical Shaman podcast? A practitioner or subject matter expert that you think would contribute to an engaging dialogue about the world of Woo? Please shoot me an email at: rachel@totemreadings.com, and please include some key bullet points and links so that, at a glance, I can get a “feel” for the individual, their key differentiators, and how/ why they would be additive for the listeners.

While we may not get them into Season 3, we’ll certainly be releasing a Season 4, so please keep your suggestions and recommendations coming!

The Business of Woo

And keep an eye out for a “capsule collection” of solo episodes I’m currently recording— all around the topic of The Business of Woo! As someone that has helped create more than 100 new brands, services and products in my time in corporate and via TOTEM’s coaching program, I’ve realized that I know a thing or two about how to take an idea out of gestation and root it into material reality.

Also, as someone that has grown a spiritual business in a very challenging three year window marked by black swan events, an exponential rate of change, unprecedented churn, and lots of f*cking noise, I want to share my lessons learned and best practices with those hoping to do the same.

Spoiler alert: there is no secret sauce. There are no magic beans to plant. This stuff hinges on HWB: Hard. Work. Bitch.

The genesis of this Business of Woo concept came from all of you lovely people. In the last year, I’ve fielded a lot of emails and phone calls around “sanity checks” in a landscape that seems to have lost its damn mind! As a psychic practitioner or small business owner, how can you separate fact from fiction? What should you spend your money on, and what should you skip? How do these people get hundreds of thousands of IG followers, and does it really help their bottom line?

There’s a lot of bullshit out there, guys, and while I may not have all of the answers, I am more than willing to share what I’ve experienced, learned and put to use in the last three years!

So excited to see where The Skeptical Shaman podcast takes all of us in the months and years to come— and thank you all for your interest and support!