Spiritual courage for a breaking world.
Accidental Gods treats social breakdown, climate anxiety, and spiritual practice as parts of the same unfinished question. Through long-form conversations and occasional solo reflections, it looks for ways people might rebuild moral, ecological, and communal life.
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Accidental Gods is a long-form conversation series about the inner and outer work of social transformation. It begins from a stark premise. The systems that shaped modern life are failing, and another way of living has to be imagined with moral seriousness, ecological humility, and practical courage. Manda Scott brings guests into expansive conversations about what people owe each other, what people owe the living world, and what kinds of stories might help a culture move toward life rather than extraction. The show is spiritual without becoming vague. It is political without sounding like campaign messaging. Recent episodes consider Stoicism as a living path of wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. They also follow empathy into public storytelling, puppetry, visual art, and the work of building social tissue. With Jeremy Lent, the conversation reaches toward the Symbiocene, citizens' assemblies, common wealth, and eco-civilisation. With Sam Crosby, lostness becomes a way to think about belonging, elders, myths, maps, and the meta-crisis. With Matt Golding, stories become tools for restoring trust in human kindness and collaborative instincts. With Alain Gauthier, eldering is treated as an opening of heart and mind rather than a fixed social status. With Jonas Søvik, integral altruism names a convergence of regenerative, systems-thinking, and liminal approaches inside and around effective altruism. The show can be tender. It can also be blunt about predatory capitalism, ecological harm, and the fear of a world being driven toward danger. Solo reflections bring a more personal current, moving through fear, astrology, vocation, and the strange timing of inner change. The pacing is unhurried, and the conversations are allowed to breathe. Questions often arrive full of context, memory, and argument, then widen into ethics, governance, spirituality, and the web of life. The show does not offer easy optimism. Its hope is earned through attention, grief, imagination, and the repeated insistence that human beings can choose better stories. Accidental Gods suits listeners who want future-facing philosophy with emotional honesty and a willingness to stay with complexity.
Made for: For listeners drawn to climate ethics, social transformation, spiritual practice, and deep systems thinking. It especially suits people who want long, reflective conversations rather than quick answers.
What sets it apart: Accidental Gods joins ecological crisis, myth, governance, spirituality, and personal transformation in one searching frame. Its strength is the way moral urgency and intimate conversation sit together without becoming polished certainty.
Another World is still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose and now it has gone- and it's never coming back. We have the power of gods to destroy our home. But we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine, and by doing so, lay the foundations for a future we would be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn. What happens if we commit to a world based on generative values: compassion, courage, integrity? What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things...
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Accidental Gods connects spiritual formation with ecological repair, political power and the practical work of building more resilient communities.
Accidental Gods turns spiritual inquiry toward collective life, asking how inner values can shape power, economics and ecological repair. Manda Scott usually works through extended guest conversations, pressing broad visions toward mechanisms: citizens' assemblies, regenerative…
This is the show that asks you to stop meditating around power and learn how it actually works.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Empathy is treated as something to build, not just feel.
The episode frames empathy as something made and maintained, not just felt in passing. It connects that idea to Joseph Beuys and social sculpture, then widens into PhD-era work across puppetry, visual art, storytelling, and public storytelling.
A grounded case for common wealth, collective repair, and a future worth building.
Accidental Gods asks a blunt question: what would it take to build an eco-civilisation while the old system keeps collapsing under its own weight?
A year-end meditation on gratitude, systems change, and the work still ahead.
Amanda Scott uses the final day of 2025 to take stock of what the year has asked for and what still needs to be built. She begins with gratitude, then makes a steady case for rebuilding the systems around us, bringing democracy, economics, currencies, food and farming,…
A clear-eyed case for power with, not power over, and for changing the game without losing the point.
It frames power as something to understand plainly: the weaponry, the systems, and the ways public opinion gets shaped. The present is treated as an existential struggle, but the answer is not denial; it is a different strategy, different roles of engagement, and a willingness…
A steady, demanding case for building a different future inside the present wreckage.
Jeremy Lent and Amanda Scott anchor the episode in a clear, unsettling proposition: set the conditions for all beings to thrive on a regenerated earth.
A season-by-season history show pairing dramatized Rasputin and Salem narratives with historian interviews.
Two Bible translators unpack Scripture's hardest passages, from Revelation's 666 to the Witch of Endor.
Weekly Portuguese-language sermons from Pastor Pedro Bastoge on scripture, end times, and church life.
MJ Dorian's solo deep dives trace genius through Blake, McQueen, da Vinci, and Jung's Red Book.
Two Methodist pastors and guests work through forgiveness, control, and grief in scripture.
This episode explores Stoicism as a practical philosophy for living a good life through cardinal virtues like wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance, emphasizing moral decision-making for collective flourishing.
Accidental Gods host Manda Scott interviews Dr.
Another world is possible.
This episode explores the concepts of belonging and becoming lost in modernity through a conversation with Sam Crosby of Recalling Fire, examining how stories shape our future and multigenerational responses to societal wounds.
This episode explores how storytelling can reveal and reinforce our innate human values of compassion and collaboration, challenging individualistic cultural narratives to build a better future.
This episode explores the concept of regenerative eldering with Alain Gauthier, discussing how elders can maintain open hearts and minds to facilitate personal transformation and lifelong learning.
This episode explores integral altruism as a growing movement within effective altruism that emphasizes regenerative, systems thinking approaches to creating a better future.
The host reflects on honoring fear as a mentor while discussing astrology, personal transformation, and creating a better future through collective vision.
The episode unpacks the concept of 'network states' and how tech billionaires' ambitions are influencing Trump's interest in Greenland.
The host discusses developing intuitive awareness of nature and sensing the presence of predators through heightened perception, then introduces the podcast's mission to build a better future.
This episode discusses citizen-led water testing efforts and the importance of clean water for systemic change.
A discussion on cultivating quiet romanticism with nature as a form of activism, and the need to extend legal rights to the more-than-human world.
The episode discusses working with indigenous tradition bearers to offer plant medicine modalities in Peru, emphasizing responsibility and cultural continuity.
On the last day of 2025, Amanda is alone.
Power is the hard word here.
Exploring how the crypto economy can support regenerative biodiversity projects through the Sovereign Nature Initiative.
Manda Scott explores the concept of becoming a life-enhancing species through generative values and true vows.
Another world is still possible.
Manda Scott interviews a guest about rewilding horses and oneself as a path to decolonization and building a generative future.
Host Amanda Scott discusses folk tales and art as portals to a generative future, featuring a conversation with Jackie and Tamsin about their creative work.
A discussion on intervening in the conditions that shape narratives and offering belonging and liberation as pathways to systemic change.
Exploring core questions of existence, consciousness, and the nature of reality through a spiritual and philosophical lens.
This episode discusses degrowth economics as a way to reduce consumption and production within planetary boundaries while promoting human and more-than-human flourishing.
The host discusses the need for inner healing and facing the crisis to enable systemic change and build a better future.
This episode explores how dreams serve as spiritual guidance in indigenous cultures, featuring author Hilary Giovale discussing practices like dream-sharing among the Atchewar people and contrasting trauma culture with initiation culture.
This episode explores how to spread new ideas through storytelling across mediums to shift cultural narratives.
The host discusses moving from cognitive neuroscience to heart intelligence and the importance of 'lights off' for hidden potential, introducing a vision for a generative future.
An interview about the importance of soil health and regenerative farming practices for a sustainable future.
The host discusses building systems and technology to create conditions for a flourishing future, emphasizing generative values and the importance of water.
This episode discusses building a new vision of democracy based on generative values and collective imagining, moving away from the current kleptocratic system.
A discussion on embodying authenticity and integrity as a path to a post-capitalist future.
Host Manda Scott introduces a guest who leads courses and meditations to help people find grounded stability and embodied connection in a chaotic world.
This episode explores building a bioregional world through regenerative design and community stewardship with Joe Brewer, a transdisciplinary scientist working on earth regeneration across five continents.
This episode explores the transformative potential of the solstice as a moment to envision a new, communitarian system emerging from the breakdown of the old Western paradigm, drawing on indigenous wisdom.
This episode features an interview with Rob Hopkins about his new book and music project, exploring how visions of the future can inspire positive change.