True and False Magic

Big announcement: I worked on a book with Phil Stutz, and it's coming soon!

I’m doing a second New Year’s workshop on December 29th at 10amPT for paid Substack subscribers with

Satya Doyle Byock

—we’ll be diving into the I Ching again, journaling, setting intentions for 2025, and communing. You’ll find the link to register at the bottom of the newsletter, behind the paywall, as well as the video from last year where Satya took us all through the I Ching. This is worth watching in advance if you decide to join us.

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As many of you may know, I’ve done a lot of ghostwriting projects in my life—and when I got a call about helping Phil Stutz with a project, it was an easy full-body YES. Stutz is the co-author with Barry Michels of The Tools and Coming Alive, author of Lessons for Living, and the subject of the beloved Netflix documentary Stutz. He is legendarily brilliant and funny—and because he has Parkinson’s, he can’t just sit and bang out a book like in the olden days. These are my favorite types of projects, when I’m structuring other peoples’ material and not coming up with it wholesale on my own.

The original mandate was simple: We were going to create a straightforward workbook to correspond with The Tools, a New York Times bestselling book that features five primary concepts for getting creatively unstuck. But after our first formal meeting (I’ve interviewed Phil for Pulling the Thread (“Grappling with Part X”), and we met during my last career stint), it became clear that we would be voyaging way beyond the intended scope. Instead of a simple workbook, we set about to contextualize the tools inside of Phil’s larger spiritual and emotional philosophy: True and False Magic presents the way he understands the structure of the universe and its fundamental forces. You will encounter tools and concepts you already might know—the Life Force, Part X, Realm of Illusion, Safety Zone—along with many you’ve never seen before.

It’s coming on March 25—pre-order it here!

My name is also on this book/workbook hybrid, which I’m happy about—normally I prefer to remain anonymous and buried in the acknowledgments, but Phil wouldn’t have that and so here I am. It feels right because the making of this book was legitimately co-creative in its own way even though the contents are fully Phil—because he spoke the book, it reads as though he’s talking to you. Over the course of more than 30 sessions, we went all over the place, and yet returned to the same place—True and False Magic came together in a completely non-linear, totally surprising way, and we made discoveries together throughout.

This book also wouldn’t be possible without Phil’s right-hand Sarai Jimenez, who dug through Phil’s archives for lost drawings and notes, asked clarifying questions, and built an endless number of large sticky note outlines—the parts, they were a-moving. We were the Three Musketeers, which makes perfect sense as True and False Magic is structured around the magical number Three. (I’ll let you find out why.)

True and False Magic is available to pre-order here—or through your favorite local bookstore. It comes out on March 25 and yes, we’ll be back on the podcast to discuss it with some newsletters to come as well.

THE LATEST FROM THE PODCAST:

ICYMI: