Spirit Levels
Jenny Valentish and Frank Magree
In this weekly show, Frank Magree and Jenny Valentish explore wellness claims. With the help of experts and enthusiasts, the pair road-test disciplines and experiences such as cuddle clubs, facilitated breath repatterning, tantra, motivational techniques, extreme weight cutting, saunas, fasting, colonics, and radical couples therapy, to see if they can extract practical benefits from the more out-there concepts. Now meet your hosts.
Journalist Jenny Valentish considers herself to have a healthy sense of scepticism. She’s a former amateur bodybuilder and amateur Muay Thai fighter (a professional amateur, if you will), with a tendency to treat her body mean to keep it keen. Her book Everything Harder Than Everyone Else delves into what drives athletes who push their bodies to extremes, while her Walkley-nominated memoir Woman of Substances examines a bigger picture about addictive behaviour and gender, crunching 300 studies and interviewing 30 experts in the process.
She has the perfect foil in actor Frank Magree, a cold water therapy and breathwork devotee, keen to go deeper into new age and anti-ageing activities. The tennis player in him is fascinated by peptides and recovery hacks. The performer in him harbours a not-so-secret desire to become more guru-like. Frank is an award-winning filmmaker 12 times over and as an actor specialising in bad dudes has been murdered 10 times by his estimation. Hopefully his obsession with longevity books and biohackers will preserve him as a fighting-fit fella in real life.
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Top 10 Spirit Levels Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Spirit Levels episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Spirit Levels for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Spirit Levels episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Is Vipassana Dangerous or an Antidote to Tech?
Spirit Levels
02/19/24 • 47 min
Vipassana is an intensive, 10-day form of meditation often likened to taking a heroic dose of a psychedelic trip, in terms of the profound realisations an individual can reach. And just like with hallucinogenic drugs, those with a predisposition to mental health issues, or who are at a vulnerable point in their life, can experience adverse effects – as the podcast Untold: The Retreat has found. Frank and Jenny talk to three people who completed a 10-day retreat and had very different experiences. Our lead interviewee is neuroscientist, AI engineer and 'extremophile' Dr Jack Allocca, who has found himself completely reassessing his life.
LINKS
Jack Allocca in Jenny Valentish’s book Everything Harder Than Everything Else.
Jenny’s Australian Financial Review article about Jack Allocca speaking to mastermind groups.
Jack Allocca on Instagram including a poignant post he made post-Vipassana retreat.
Untold: The Retreat podcast.
Vipassana subreddit.
Further reading #1: Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. #2 Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark. #3: A romantic rebellion against the tech era (The Guardian).
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Make Me a Life Coach
Spirit Levels
10/10/23 • 18 min
As of 2023, the life coaching industry is worth $1.5 billion, with almost 23,000 coaches in the US alone. In Bali that figure is unknown, but if you've been to Ubud or Canggu lately you'll know it's quite possible that life coaches outnumber bottles of Bintang.
This episode is not about any coach who has actually conscientiously trained themselves to provide a specific, solid service. It’s not about coaches who are mindful about duty of care, or who will refer people on to medical or mental health professionals when faced with issues outside of their skillset. Nope. It's the frauds and the flakes we’re coming after. The coaches who are tapped into a system designed to instil fear that you’re not enough, and con you into thinking they're earning six or seven figures. Every Instagram post follows some nonsensical word-salad script. They've got a big emphasis on abundance and manifesting wealth, but offer no tangible advice. They come up with an absolutely astronomical price for their coaching and then urgently reduce it (for two days only!) to make it seem like a bargain. They use trauma (often in inverted commas) as a hook, and quite likely they'll be living and working illegally in a cheap country that's long had the boot of white people on its neck.
Our guest this week is Marko Randelovic. He’s a documentary maker who has lived in Bali for years and has made it his personal mission to mercilessly meme the local life coaching industry. You can also check out his excellent reel, The Birth of a Bali Life Coach, inspired by The Coaching Masters' self-confessed psychopath life coach Lewis Raymond Taylor, who comes under discussion.
Hey, we all wish we could have someone to make our decisions for us sometimes, or to be our personal cheerleader, particularly when we’re at a crisis point. But listening to this episode might help you to choose that person wisely...
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Spirit Levels trailer
Spirit Levels
09/18/23 • 1 min
In this weekly Acast show, launching October 3, 2023, journalist Jenny Valentish and actor/filmmaker Frank Magree pressure test the wellness industry, from the weird to the wonderful to the WTF. Jenny is a former amateur bodybuilder and amateur Muay Thai fighter (a professional amateur, if you will), with a tendency to treat her body mean to keep it keen. Her book Everything Harder Than Everyone Else delves into what drives athletes who push their bodies to extremes, while her Walkley-nominated memoir Woman of Substances examined addictive behaviour and gender.
She has the perfect foil in Frank, a cold water therapy and breathwork devotee, keen to go deeper into new-age and anti-ageing activities. The tennis player in him is fascinated by peptides and recovery hacks. The performer in him harbours a not-so-secret desire to become more guru-like. Frank is an award-winning filmmaker 12 times over and as an actor specialising in bad dudes has been murdered 10 times by his estimation. Hopefully his obsession with longevity and biohacking will preserve him as a fighting-fit fella in real life.
The pair will road-test disciplines such as rebirthing, tantra, motivational techniques, NLP, cuddle therapy, extreme weight cutting, saunas, fasting, colonics, DMT and MDMA couples therapy, to see if they can extract practical benefits from the more out-there concepts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Fetish of Muscle Worship
Spirit Levels
02/12/24 • 36 min
Have you ever had your head scissored? Have you been piggybacked, by a muscular woman in a bikini? Fireman-carried across a five-star hotel room? Choked gently to sleep? If not, you can. Muscle worship sites are full of bodybuilding, tough-as-fuck women who are ready to arm-wrestle you into humiliation for a price.
Kortney Olson is larger-than-life in every way. A hoot, a scream, a boss – in fact, a motherfucking CEO – and a bodybuilder who’s smashed watermelons between her thighs on television shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live. That she hasn’t yet become President of the United States of America pains her. Even so, she’s like a superhero. In fact, the creator of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee, dubbed her ‘the woman with the world’s deadliest thighs’. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger snapchatted about her: ‘Now, that woman is definitely fit.’
Kortney is Frank and Jenny’s guest this week, talking about her hectic high school years, her former meth addiction, and her pathway into muscle fetish – including some really close that we shouldn’t laugh at, but with her permission, we will.
LINKS
Kortney’s fitness apparel Grrrl
Kortney’s Insta
Kortney’s coaching programs
Kortney crushing watermelons
This episode’s source material, Everything Harder Than Everyone Else, audio book via Audible
Photo credit for Kortney cover art: Olga Filatova
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Nudity and Naturism
Spirit Levels
03/18/24 • 32 min
The English and the Australians – of which we here at Spirit Levels represent both – are notoriously prudish when it comes to nudity, so Frank and Jenny want to know if they can break their conditioning. This episode takes us from tischtennis halls of Berlin to the secret beaches of Australia. Listen along:
01.16 Frank slept in his mum and dad’s bed till he was six.
02.33 Titillation is not the same as nudity (yeah, Frank).
03.56 Lucian Freud: Oh my god.
04.20 Are all nudists = perverts or is that just an English equation?
05.48 Nude sport options in Berlin.
06.35 Visiting Stadtbad Neukölln.
08.41 Freikopterkultur (FKK) and ‘free body culture’ in Germany.
10.15 Ela, from Frankfurt Oder, tells us about FKK when she was growing up.
16.18 How Bravo magazine freaked out Ela’s sister’s host family in the US.
18.21 Finally! Time for the nude table tennis.
20.01 Naturists and conservation (featuring a cameo from a rare orchid).
22.35 Jenny and Frank go ‘beyond the wire’ in Portsea.
25.02 A sad story about jetskis.
29.44 Ritualistic nude events, like Dark Mofo’s Winter Solstice Swim and the Sydney Skinny.
30.20 Yoni sunning – the kinda Taoist practice that draws in solar energy and Vitamin D.
LINKS
Leave us a voice message for a future episode on Speakpipe
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ASMR for ever and ever
Spirit Levels
01/22/24 • 38 min
ASMR. Never before have four letters divided people into two camps so soundly: The “What’s that?” camp and the “Yes, I watch girls in Ohio pretend to give me a cranial nerve exam all the time” camp.
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response videos are commonly credited with helping people sleep and helping with anxiety. ASMR was only coined as a phrase in 2009, but those who get the ‘brain tingles’ will tell you they’ve experienced triggers their whole life – most commonly through whispering, clicking noises, hair brushing and quiet personal attention. Our beautiful interviewee Rea Moon is one such person, and now this Dallas grandmother has a super-successful channel of her own.
But let us tell you, there’s a WHOLE weirder world out there, including ASMrotica, mortuary-themed ASMR and the assembly of sniper rifles. You’re going to have to listen to find out.
Side note: just as you can order custom porn these days, surely there’s a market for custom ASMR? As Jenny is OBSESSED with ASMR, Frank comes up with his own recording, utilising her three favourite things: laundry, hankies and actor Ben Mendelsohn.
OH MY GOD, SO MANY COOL LINKS
Rea Moon ASMR (We love her series of videos doing makeup for young folk going to Pride, and of course you’ll want to see her famous lady on a plane one.)
Here’s Steve, from SRP ASMR, doing an eye examine. And he is indeed an optometrist.
Two of Jenny’s favourites, Sarah Lavender (here she is as the bored art student we mention in the episode) and Diane from Moonlight Cottage.
Here’s Julien Miquel, whose beautifully sonorous French accent tells you how to pronounce things.
Here’s the ASMR Live Lounge in Southsea, England, which we are 100% going to visit next time we’re over there.
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Ecstatic Dance Like Nobody's Watching
Spirit Levels
12/18/23 • 23 min
What’s the difference between 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance and Contact Dance? We crack open a cacao in Melbourne and Bali to find out. Over the melancholic cry of sound bowls, Frank wistfully recalls a few near-orgies he’s attended in Ubud and Canggu, but Jenny finds her experience pleasingly more like an old ravers’ home without the drugs.
Our guests this week, 5 Rhythms teacher Chloe Stuart and ecstatic dance DJ Jazzy O, explain how dance can provide therapy, connection, community, free us from judgmental behaviour and – if the stars align – give us an orgasm on the dance floor.
Thanks to James Ballard for the composition and production of outro banger Frankie Flowers. He makes heaps better music than that with his project September 87.
LINKS
Feel the ecstasy at Jazzy O’s Soundcloud.
Experience 5 Rhythms and yoga courtesy of Chloe Stuart and Sam Pawson at Studio Paradise.
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Run Before You Can Walk
Spirit Levels
10/16/23 • 25 min
Is throwing yourself full tilt into a physical activity a noble leap or a nosedive? It's marathon season in Australia, inspiring many of us to leap from 5k to much grander feats of endurance. And runners aren't the only culprits! In the recent past, Jenny has hurtled headfirst into Muay Thai fighting and competitive bodybuilding like the world is about to end, while Frank has found himself in seriously gnarly surfing and rockclimbing situations, but believes who dares wins.
This episode, we look at Strava show-offs, the gospel of David Goggins and the influence of figures like the Liver King, in our bid to weigh up short cuts versus mastery. Let's say you decide to make the leap into a sport or event. What tests can you get so that forewarned is forearmed? Frank and Jenny get a barrage of them done and tell you how you can do the same. We're helped in this mission by Doc Adrian Jury and our friends from the Stronger Stride podcast as well as the team at La Trobe University Bendigo's Rural Health School/Holsworth Research Initiative.
LINKS
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
01/15/24 • 35 min
Whether or not our bodies need help detoxifying is a hotly debated topic. Feeling sluggish after a bumper holiday season, Frank decides to try a 16:8 fast, then ups the ante to a five-day juice cleanse with a course of colonics. That’s all very well when you’re paying for the privilege in a luxury resort, but how hard is it to commit under your own steam, on home turf?
Jenny chips in by offering a sexual incentive if Frank can stay the course. As for the colonics? Frank hasn’t been beaten by a pipe like that since he was in Romper Stomper. Be sure to go to our Instagram to see what came out.
We also talk to more seasoned fasters, including one trooper who did a 10-day water fast.
LINKS
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
MDMA Couples Therapy (and Other Intimacy Ideas)
Spirit Levels
10/23/23 • 22 min
Australia looks set to be the first country to run an MDMA-assisted couples therapy trial. What is it about ecstasy that researchers and couples therapists found promising back in the 70s and 80s, before it was made illegal?
Frank and Jenny talk to ‘late-bloomer Boomer’ Charley Wininger about his regular use of ecstasy in his marriage (he’s now 74 and they’ve “rolled” around 80 times, which he likens to 80 honeymoons), and how as a couples psychotherapist he views ecstasy as “emotional superglue”.
Jenny and Frank recall their own Pammy Anderson/Tommy Lee-style first date that wound up with big promises being made and eyebrows being intensely groomed, and they get some advice on how to achieve such intimacy without the use of drugs, through the 36 Questions That Lead to Love, developed by groovy husband and wife researchers Arthur and Elaine Aron.
This episode was mixed by Ally Kallis. A Sonder X Production. Episode released 23/10/23.
LINKS
Frank’s film Sengatan on Prime Video.
Jenny’s latest book, Everything Harder Than Everyone Else: Why Some of Us Push Our Bodies to Extremes, on Audible. In paperback.
Jenny’s article on MDMA couples therapy in the Australian Financial Review.
The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.
Charley Wininger. and his book Listening to Ecstasy.
Sex educator Eleanor Hadley.
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FAQ
How many episodes does Spirit Levels have?
Spirit Levels currently has 33 episodes available.
What topics does Spirit Levels cover?
The podcast is about Health & Fitness, Australia, Mental Health, Personal Development, Wellness, Fitness, Podcasts, Melbourne, Self-Improvement, Education, Relationships, Health, Sexuality and New Age.
What is the most popular episode on Spirit Levels?
The episode title 'Make Me a Life Coach' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Spirit Levels?
The average episode length on Spirit Levels is 29 minutes.
How often are episodes of Spirit Levels released?
Episodes of Spirit Levels are typically released every 6 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of Spirit Levels?
The first episode of Spirit Levels was released on Sep 18, 2023.
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