Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, talks with host Mitch Wagner about how occult beliefs played a role in American history from before the Revolution to today. Horowitz describes how spiritualism and other mystic beliefs drove feminism and racial and religious equality in America. We also talk about the history of Halloween in America, medium Edgar Cayce, Christian Science, the recent, tragic deaths of participants in a mystical sweatlodge ceremony, and more.

Pamela Brown, national policy director of Marriage Equality USA, discusses the organization's work to get same-sex marriage legalized all over the United States.

Avedon is a passionate progressive blogger at The Sideshow. She was a vocal critic of President Bush, and is no great fan of Obama either. We talked about why she thinks the current healthcare proposal is a massive ripoff of the American people, why we should have a national healthcare system like in the UK, 9/11 hysteria, her career as a Second Life stripper, and more. Avedon is Avedon Sideshow and Avedon Andel in Second Life.

Creating a compelling build in Second Life and other virtual worlds—a theater, exhibit, or business area that people will want to return to again and again. The Copper Robot talked with two of the best builders in Second Life and OpenSim: John Jainschigg of ZiffDavisEnterprise, creator of many business builds in Second Life, as well as Jon Himoff of Rezzable, creator of the Greenies in Second Life, King Tut exhibit on Heritage Key, and more.

Barry Ritholtz is author of the book Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy. He blogs at The Big Picture, and offers quantitative investment analysis through his firm, FusionIQ. We talked about the Great Recession we're now in—how we got here through a culture of government bailouts, foolish de-regulation, and shortsighted greed, as well as the outlook for pulling out and returning to prosperity.

If you're using Google Reader, or some other RSS reader, to read this blog, you're going to have to change your subscription. Delete the current subscription, and instead subscribe to:

http://copperrobot.com/?feed=rss2

I apologize for the inconvenience. I'm not doing this because I'm a self-centered jerk who likes to make trouble for other people—well, that's not the only reason.

The reason I'm asking you to subscribe to that other feed is that this feed, the one you're looking at right now, is going to be used only for the podcasts. From now on, you should only subscribe to this feed... read more

  The Copper Robot is moving to a new hosting company. If I pressed all the buttons and turned the cranks and pulled the levers correctly, this'll mean pretty much nothing to you, except you'll have a better-looking blog.

The copperrobot.com domain will point to the new blog in the next day or so. Your RSS and iTunes subscriptions should automatically carry over.

Old posts will continue to live here, but they'll have a new URL: libsyn.copperrobot.com+whatever -the-rest-of-the-old URL. External links and bookmarks should automatically redirect.

That's if everything goes well. Yeah, what's the likelihood that's going to happen?

If you... read more

The Copper Robot talks with Scott Rosenberg, co-founder of Salon.com, about his new book, Say Everything: How Blogging Began, Where It's Going, and Why It Matters.

We talked about the history of blogging, from its early days in the 90s through the "warbloggers" of 9/11, to the national elections of 2004 and 2008. Scott describes how blogging has become a tool for personal expression, political change, and holding the mainstream news media's feet to the fire of public scrutiny. Scott also talks about the history of Salon Magazine, and what social media sites like Facebook and Twitter mean to... read more

We talked with Scott about the subject matter of his book, Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, And Why It Matters, which went on sale a few days ago. Our conversation ranged from proto-blogger Justin Hall, who lived his life publicly, online, until his girlfriend made him choose between her and the blog, to the warbloggers of 9/11, and the relatively recent wave of political bloggers. We also talked with Scott about his career at Salon.com, where he was co-founder, and what he's working on now.

Scott blogs at wordyard.

Watch the video here. As always, this... read more

Wilson discusses his latest book, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, which is the most fun novel you'll ever read about the collapse of Western civilization and the end of religious freedom and democracy in America.

It's an adventure story about the son of pious snake-handling parents in a small town, who leaves home in the company of the nephew of the President of the United States, and goes off to war and New York. The novel has adventure and romance and comedy and sea voyages and rooftop foot-chases and leaping from building to building. It's great fun.... read more