Leafbox Podcast

LEAFBOX
  • 5.0 (5)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Interviews with Creatives, Artists, Retailers, Entrepreneurs.... -- Full transcripts @ leafbox.com Twitter: @leafbox leafbox.substack.com

  1. Interview: Matthew Heath

    JAN 17

    Interview: Matthew Heath

    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 the ground in Iraq, on war as sacred and force as last resort, on accusations of explosives and phantom planes, on Venezuelan military counterintelligence, on torture and God’s grace, on prisoner swaps, on oil, on Maduro, on biometric IDs and surveillance states, on the internet being free and speech being anonymous, on Mao Zedong, on living like a fish in water, on operational and personal security, on trauma and coming home, on helping others get free. Excerpts On Being Detained by the Venezuelan State  They start screaming at me, pointing guns at me, order me to take off all my clothes. Where are the explosives? Where is the plane? Where’s the CIA base. And I’m in shock. I’m handed over over to the military counterintelligence, and that’s where things got pretty rough.” On Being  I liked the idea of doing something hard just because it’s hard. On The Battle of Nasiriyah In one firefight we had 33 Marines. Seriously wounded. Gunshots and shrapnel, and that’s out of about 120 guys. So we had a 25% casualty in, in one firefight. So when I say we had a pretty, pretty stiff resistance. On War  I don’t believe in using war just as any other policy tool. I believe that the use of force is almost sacred. I think that, if you break the glass and you pull the lever, that should be a big deal. I’m very supportive of the United States… If you cut my finger, I bleed red, white, and blue. On Propaganda  These are all propaganda tools for internal political purposes. Many dictatorships they need an external enemy to unify the domestic political situation. I don’t know, I can’t speak to how many people believe this, but I can tell you that it’s a very common tool in these dictatorships Connect with Matthew @ https://matthewjohnheath.com/ Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 33m
  2. Interview: Matt Baldwin

    JAN 8

    Interview: Matt Baldwin

    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 strategies, on John Fahey psyche, on low-res analog magic, on creativity as automatic cascading thought, on taping paper to paper at the kitchen table, on making art without handholding or explanation, on psychotherapy as edge work for the creative unconscious, on hypnosis and ontological shock, on alien abduction and lost time, on ketamine, on UFOs and the government’s, on synesthetic perception shifts and reality’s mutability, on rescue music, on DJing in therapy, on uncertainty as the engine of therapeutic change, on not-knowing as technique, on urban exploration of the haunted margins, on freight hopping and riding trains into wasteland, on survival and longevity as an artist, on stepping outside surveillance into forgotten spaces where trees grow through living room floors, on being, on enjoying being wrong, on religion and spiritual practice, on practice, on life. Interview Excerpts On Returning from the Edge  I think I say that in the book somewhere, it’s valuable to go crazy if you know how to come back. On Paradigms  What did it destroy? It destroyed something about my reality, and how I think about reality. So it was this kind of weapon against my paradigm that I was holding onto. On End Points I think it’s more a case of, it’s time to face the answer rather than to find the answer. On Music in Therapy It’s all you have to do. Just listen to the music. And that was very reassuring. And if you do that, you realize that the music is this carrier wave that pulls you through the experience. And it can energize the experience or it can make it more tranquil. Interview contains samples from Matt Baldwin’s Album NEW UNIVERSAL SOLAR CALENDAR Intro: Did you See the Eyes Outer: Old Sand Roads Links: Matt Baldwin’s Psychotherapy Practice: https://mattbaldwin.net/ How To Play Guitar by Matt Baldwin Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 28m
  3. Interview: Guy Duperreault

    12/17/2025

    Interview: Guy Duperreault

    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 spiritual autobiography, part civilizational diagnosis. From Edward de Vere to the Bhagavad Gita, from Kundalini practice to the economics of manufactured consent, Guy draws from eclectic sources with the confidence of someone who has stopped caring whether it sounds respectable. His central provocation that all morality is the rationalized removal of compassion opens into a wider meditation on intimacy, anxiety, and what it means to listen to your body when every institution is asking you not to. On the fake and the fabricated, on muscle testing and intuition, on leaving Canada, on synchronicity as guidance system, on economics as fakery, on trauma, on the body as truth-teller, on his critiques of feminism but not the feminine, on accountability, on the relativity of time, on Oaxaca, on expression of God, and more… Connect with Guy Duperreault | Becoming A Refugee in the Time of Covid Excepts On Action Whenever I’m blaming or complaining, I’m giving away my ability to choose action. On Feminism vs Feminine We deny the history through mythology of the power of the female. So one of the great lies of feminism is that women are weak. That’s b******t, right? They’re much stronger than men in many respects, and men respect them much more because women have the ability to create life in a way that men do not have. On Being Victim  I was a victim of a narcissistic mother. And not only she was a narcissistic mother, she was also angry. And it turns out that she confessed to me when I was 18 years old that she had actually killed me as an infant and that I needed to be revived in some way. I have no recollection of that. Michelle has informed me that the way she killed me was by beating me to death, which I didn’t know. Post Script from Guy: Perhaps include a link to my essay on have to and should. That simple change of language has the power to transform life. Spell Breaking Language-Keys to Unlock Language LocksUnseen, We Live Bully Stockholm Syndrome And Other Oddities of Being Alive in a Miss-Spelled See of Words Guy Duperreault. Oct 30, 2023 Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 45m
  4. Interview: Ran Prieur

    10/30/2025

    Interview: Ran Prieur

    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 in moving naturally between personal insight and social critique, offering a model for intimacy that remains intellectually serious and open. From technology as spellcraft, to collapse as ongoing reorientation, to spiritual practice as a form of quiet resistance, on his new novel, on writing, the conversation avoids doomer clichés: it’s not about despair, but about seeing clearly. Ran speaks with a rare patience that reveals thought in motion pausing, circling, revising inviting us to listen more closely to what remains alive, to re-enchant. For an earlier conversation with Ran, I invite you to listen to my 2022 interview with Ran Prieur. Excerpts On Mind and Matter as Play  “Matter is like a game that we’re playing. It’s like you’re playing a board game and if you’re playing a board game, you have to follow the rules of the game. And that’s what matter is. It’s a game. The mind is playing and that we’re all in. And while we’re in it, we have to follow its rules, but underneath it’s all mind.” On Returning to the Non-Human World  “We’ve pulled all this stuff where humans are going deeper and deeper into a world of our own creation, and we’ve lost the vital force which we can get by going back to the non-human made world.” On The Zeitgeist “ We are the fish. And our whole culture is the fish and everything is going faster and brighter as the net closes around us. That’s my sense of the zeitgeist. “  “AI is not the painter, AI is the pallet.” More Ran Prieur Some works / people mentioned in the interview that might not be clear in audio transcription Purse-Seine: a large wall of netting used in fishing to encircle and capture schools of fish Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou by Hitoshi Ashinano Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre John Vervaeke, Ph.D - psychology, cognitive science, and Buddhist psychology at the University of Toronto. Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 6m
  5. Interview: Jigoku / 地獄ケーキ

    09/21/2025

    Interview: Jigoku / 地獄ケーキ

    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 as archetype, on Jacques Ellul and the relentless onslaught of technique, on the esoteric, on on Kishio Satomi and the Nichirenist response to modernity machinery, on Nick Land, on Tetsuo: The Iron Man, on Dan da Dan, on the Hungry Ghost press and sutras on Namu Myoho Renge Kyo… Hungry Ghost Books Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 13m

  6. 09/16/2025

    Interview: J.J Montagnier

    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 transition, peak oil and peak centralization, and the coming age of decentralization and spiritual resurgence. On J.J’s lifelong journey across continents seeking wisdom in ancient teachings and living systems. On his path from Jungian psychology and archetypal studies, on the Tower of Babel as metaphor, on the relationship between material energy decline and spiritual energy ascent, and on how these forces echo through our present moment. On how to prepare for what comes next not through fear or apocalypse fantasies, but by maintain openness, awareness, reverence, and adaptability. Excerpts  We are in a Tower of Babel scenario where we have had convergence for decades and we are now finally, reaching a point where we will have peak centralization, which will be temporary because when we see a major material energy decline, it would be very difficult for the centralization to be maintained and or at the same level.   We are transitioning from a high materialism to a low materialism, more or less. As we enter an era of physical energy declines. We might also enter an era of spiritual energy inclines in terms of we will become more spiritual, less materialistic consciously at the same time when we are, we actually need to adapt and adjust to less energy material energy in reality.  I think the transition we will be going through will require an openness, a greater openness, let's say, to meta metaphysical concepts. Simply because I think life will become too weird really to understand what's going on without having some metaphysical understanding of what's unfolding. J.J’s latest essay discussed: https://energyshifts.net/mimetic-rivalry-in-the-tower-of-babel/ J.J. Montagnier is an independent writer based in the Southern Hemisphere. His main areas of interest are depth-psychology, consciousness, ancient civilisations, mythology, archaeology, anthropology, philosophy and metaphysics. https://energyshifts.net/ For those interested in more depth and information on Mayan systems: Mayan Wisdom Project is a valuable resource: https://www.themayanwisdomproject.com/ Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 7m
  7. Interview: Dr Thomas Cook

    09/10/2025

    Interview: Dr Thomas Cook

    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 puppet show of self-talk, and the bad trip as its opposite: a shattering, outward-facing vision that shocks us back into relationship with the world. On the modern epidemic of skepticism, rationalism, and invisibility, and how psychedelics remove the Ring of Power to return us to childlike awe, returning us to visible beings once again. On demons, entities, and Tolkien’s Sauron as metaphors for the hidden darkness we deny. On Christianity, paganism, and the rediscovery of primal virtues through psychedelic experience. On the failures of the pharmacological model of psychiatry and the limits of mainstream science, on folk medicine and scientific humility, on microdosing and sacredness, and on building a moral framework sturdy enough to contain powerful experiences. On the value of different tools, on the dangers and risks of psychedelics, on other ways. On madness as non ego. On introjection, on family as the root of culture, broken homes as the source of modern illness, on monogamy, jealousy, and the natural laws embedded in the human soul. A conversation discussing Dr Cook’s latest essay on “The Benefits of Bad Trips”, on psychological surgery, psychedelics as spiritual compasses and tools to reconnect with awe.. Dr Cook’s Essay: The Benefits of a Bad Triphttps://beyondmentalhealth.com/the-benefits-of-a-bad-trip/ Dr Cook’s Medical Practice 2022 Leafbox Interview with Dr Cook Excerpts On His Latest Essay  So the original motivation is to give a hardheaded, more traditionally psychoanalytic explanation for why a bad trip in particularly heals depression…  Psychedelics free people not just from rationalism, but also from moralism and depression is a form of moralism. It's a moral disease. It's a moralistic disease, and science is not moralistic. It's ontological…. On Skepticism  I see the atheist skeptical position as similar to the depressed position.  That miraculous, wondrous outwardness that you get from psychedelics, that psychedelics restore people to a genuine religiosity, not a fake one. And they may even break down a person with fake religiosity. I think if they use a psychedelic, it may terrify them that they're not a believer anymore. They now you're back to the square one. Now you're back to where you were when you were a little kid. And you might feel like you're a pagan again. You may go out in the yard and look at the flowers and be tempted to worship them. And that's not a bad thing. That's natural. That's all humanity as it's in its starting point. We, for, that's just the starting point in humanity. You have to have sympathy on it. On Universal Soul  It's hippie dippy, but it's also Native American. It's also Catholic. It's also Pagan. It's also Roman. It's also Viking. It's also Samoan. It's also Eskimo. Just look around the world. What do people value the most is family and their souls and the state of their soul. Dr. Cook does not recommend the use of any federally illegal drug. Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 18m
  8. Interview: Byron Christopher

    09/07/2025

    Interview: Byron Christopher

    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 reporting, Byron speaks about his approach to journalism and his belief in what he terms No News Release Journalism. On the urgent need to diversify news sources in an era of collapsing public trust, and the ethical tightrope every reporter must walk. Byron recounts landmark investigations, from exposing allegations against Canadian oil companies operating in Sudan to tracking the twisting saga of convicted murderer and escape artist Richard Lee McNair. Along the way, he shares stories of being a target of state surveillance, navigating dark and difficult subjects, and working on controversial cases, including UFO investigations, sensitive sexual abuse reports, and his work on Weibo Ludwig. Part memoir, part introduction to fearless reporting, this interview offers a window into what it takes to stay human while holding power to account. Excerpts On Influences in Media Here's the government lying to us. And the media went along with it. And that's what happens when you're on the take, where your bread is buttered and you fall into line. There are many examples of government influencing media, and I ran into that when I worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, very similar to the BBC in England and ABC in Australia. On Interviewees:  I treat them fairly and with respect. And I think that creates a trust, but I don't cover it for them… there's a place where you can draw a line there, but my goal is to get information from them. And you're not gonna get it by being adversarial ever. And that works with crown prosecutors, judges, lawyers, people on the street, any, so I said to him, I'm here. I'm not your friend, not your enemy. Talk. Tell me what's on your mind, what's your point of view on this?” On UFOs and Shattering Beliefs He said, there are UFOs, Byron. And I said, okay. And that kinda shatters your belief because here they are saying that Roswell is not true and nothing crashed there and word comes out over time. Yeah, there were crashes.... Yeah, there's like little doubt anymore that we're not alone in the universe, and I don't know what else we've been lied to. Yeah, it's a strange world, my friend, and the more I delve into it the less I seem to know is totally confusing at times. On Being a Target of State Surveillance That's a surveillance house. I said, on who? He said, you stupid. You've done stories on the oil and gas industry. They'd be doing that to you right away. And I said, I don't believe it. And he said, no, you Canadians are naive about that. He said, I'll tell you how you bust that house. It's a surveillance house. It would be run by the similar to the NSA in the United States. We have our own group here called the Communications Security Establishment, CSC. He said that's who those people are. If they're monitoring you. I said, I don't believe it.” …you should know that the communication security establishment in Canada, that's our NSA, has files on one in four Canadians. That's documented evidence brought up in parliament. Byronchristopher.org/ Byron Christopher on eco-activist Wiebo Ludwig Get full access to Leafbox at leafbox.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 12m
See All (72)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Interviews with Creatives, Artists, Retailers, Entrepreneurs.... -- Full transcripts @ leafbox.com Twitter: @leafbox leafbox.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    LEAFBOX
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    72
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © LEAFBOX
  • Show Website
    Leafbox Podcast

You Might Also Like