What if depression isn’t an illness to cure but a collective mood that reveals the soul of a broken world? In this episode, Mark Fisher meets James Hillman in a conversation that bridges depth psychology and cultural theory, asking how melancholy and mania shape life under late capitalism. Joined by Emma Stamm, we explore the intersections of acid communism and archetypal psychology—from Fisher’s politics of despair to Hillman’s vision of a polytheistic psyche. Together we ask what happens when sadness becomes privatized, and how imagination might restore the collective body of the soul. This is a dialogue on melancholy, manic culture, and the end of capitalist realism—a descent into the psychic undercurrents of our time.
Patreon listeners get access to our extended conversation on ritual, weirding, and the rebirth of imagination in an age of digital exhaustion.
Emma's Substack: https://elftheory.substack.com/
Emma's Website: https://www.o-culus.com/
Latest Acid Horizon updates at the time of this episode: https://splitinfinities.substack.com/p/acephalous-vintagia-and-new-thresholds
Correction: Durations Festival is in November (not October) of 2025
Support the podcast:
Current classes at Acid Horizon Research Commons (AHRC): https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/ahrc-main
Website: https://www.acidhorizonpodcast.com/
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/acidhorizon
Acid Horizon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/acidhorizonpodcast
Boycott Watkins Media: https://xenogothic.com/2025/03/17/boycott-watkins-statement/
Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast: https://pod.link/1512615438
Merch: http://www.crit-drip.com
Subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform: https://pod.link/1512615438
LEPHT HAND: https://www.patreon.com/LEPHTHAND
Happy Hour at Hippel's (Adam’s blog): https://happyhourathippels.wordpress.com
Split Infinities (Craig’s Substack): https://splitinfinities.substack.com/
Music: https://sereptie.bandcamp.com/ and https://thecominginsurrection.bandcamp.com/
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