'As a teen, I met a friend every year in a park at midnight on Christmas eve. One time as we were walking, there was a flash of light, and I went away somewhere. It felt like outer space, I didn’t have a body and could not move, and time stopped existing. Then I came back. My friend and I looked at each other, and knew we had both experienced the same thing. We started running, and a torrential rain began pouring down.

'There was tension at home, and school was constant fear. I felt repressed, and wanted intense experiences to break out of my shell. I hitchhiked across the country, worked for a traveling carnival and odd jobs, and was homeless. When you are vulnerable, the system stops protecting you. Looking back, I would have done it more gently and avoid some of the trauma, and be more normal and stable today.

'I kept having supernatural experiences, and I’m still not sure how to include it in my academic work. I once went into shavasana and lost consciousness again. It took me on a journey where I was a wanderer working in various spiritual communities. The universe felt connected to me and spoke to me, but it was sometimes scary to be absorbed in the divine. Most of the time there’s enough interference that my spirit is not in sync with the flow of existence. Magical coincidence is sort of like the extent to which they match up.'

Dr Brent Crosson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches a course called Science, Magic and Religion. He is the author of Experiments with Power, about the clash of politics with the spiritual practice of Obeah in Trinidad, which won the 2021 Clifford Geertz Prize for the best book in the anthropology of religion. Brent’s interests lie in African and Caribbean religions, the intersection of science and religion, and the colonial regulation of religion.

We start with two stories on coincidence, about a motorcycle and an alligator. Then Brent tells me his life story, supernatural experiences, vagabond life, and studying Hinduism in India and the Caribbean. We talk about the connection between science, magic and spiritual practices, and I ask him, ‘what are your religious views, and what do you think will happen to you after you die?’

Intro music: Whale Song by Brent Crosson.