0:00 · Unknown · Podcast Intro & Guest Introduction

All right, welcome to another episode of the Etherica podcast for the modern philosopher magician. I'm Sky Matthysse today joined with Ike Baker. How's it going? >> Howdy. >> Good, good, good. I'm very, very happy that we're here together doing this again. Um, it's been too long and it's been like two weeks since we said that. >> It has. You've been a busy man as usual, burning the midnight candle. >> That's right. We don't we don't use oil

0:36 · Unknown · Overview of Dion Fortune & Key Texts

here. I have wax candles. >> Working on amazing things though that will soon come to fruition. Um so tonight we're going to talk a little uh Dion Fortune going to get into a couple books in particular uh the mystical cabala as well as the circuit of force. So maybe probably to open up. I know that we've touched a little bit on her background, who she was before, but I guess it'd probably be good just to give a brief overview of that before we get into the subject matter. >> Sure. Oh. Oh, you want me to do that?

1:12 · Unknown · Dion Fortune as a “Teacher from Beyond the Grave”

>> I mean, I could try, but I would don't think I would do it any justice. >> Um, yeah. Well, I I think I've said it before on on this podcast. I consider Deion Fortune to be a teacher from beyond the grave. And I don't I don't necessarily mean that in the you know Isaac Lauran sense of the word where I'm communicating with her dead spirit. I just um she's early on in my my trajectory within initiatic societies specifically the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn. She

1:44 · Unknown · Her Influence & Study Within the Golden Dawn

uh her work was something that I studied very closely. I think I've read like 21 of her books and um you know uh so I I value her work extremely highly like look she was a human being right the work isn't perfect there is no such thing as perfect work but I would say that the the information the insight that she was available to combine with um sort of the cabalistic you hermetic cabalistic magical cabalistic systems of her day was um absolutely brilliant. So she was uh a um uh early 20th century

2:32 · Unknown · Background: Initiate, Author & Early Psychologist

initiate um of the alpha and omega and she uh she was an author and a a lay a practitioner of lay psychiatry or psychology. There was a period when psychology was such a new um field of study and and it was it was like sort of trying to get mainstream acceptance at least within the academic institutions as as a proper science proper you know field of study. Um that it didn't just kind of appear fully formed on the scene. um and they were just giving classes about it. There were lay practitioners. There was no

3:22 · Unknown · Early Psychology & Its “Wild West” Phase

licensing. You could just learn about it through a couple of books and start practicing and and collecting money. Um which I feel like that's basically what self-help is now. These, you know, Instagram influencers who are telling you about, you know, love and light and calling every like literally creating this narcissist boogeyman that's out there. Everyone's a narcissist, you know. you know, if every if everyone else is a narcissist, guess who the [ __ ] narcissist is. But anyway, um it was

3:55 · Unknown · Connection to Israel Regardie & Psychological Framing of Magic

kind of like that. Uh so it was like the wild west. But she she involved herself heavily in that something that she that she studied and that she did for several years. She was also uh a friend to an associate of Israel Reggery who we all know uh another initiate living in London for a time. I believe he he actually stayed with her and her husband for a little while. But um they were both practitioners of psychology and they both through the works of you know Carl Jung um uh obviously Freud was like

4:33 · Unknown · Connection to Israel Regardie & Psychological Framing of Magic

the big guy um I want to say uh I'm forgetting his name. There was one more one more dude who was like tremendously influential in the occult uh from his his sort of work in psychology. if I remember it, I'll I'll I'll I'll shout his name out later. But um they were influenced by his work and they did a tremendous amount of work to psychologize uh or frame within a psychological context a lot of the cabalistic uh you know the cabalistic models that were the uh the underlying basis for

5:14 · Unknown · Psychologizing the Qabalah vs True Occultism

their uh their orders and and their work which wasn't done before that wasn't it really wasn't in in the the early uh the founders of the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, they weren't re they were still looking at things in a in a very very well I will say less scientific way. Now here's the thing. You know what that produces via the new age and via our sort of like postmodern positivistic skepticism is a completely psychologized version of magic. Um that's not what they were

5:53 · Unknown · Limits of Purely Psychological Interpretations

doing. They weren't saying that these things are psych psychological and ancient peoples just in you know they they mythologized psychology. That's not what they were saying. They were saying psychology is definitely a part of it right because that that is subsumed within the soul within the spiritual organism of the being. of course it's a part you know it's like just because my hand is is material doesn't mean it's not a part of everything that I am you know so but there there is more there's

6:26 · Unknown · The Cosmic Doctrine & Early Theosophical Influence

more than just my my right hand um and so uh uh that was extremely influential and defortun so she was an initiative of the the alpha at Omega she was kicked out by uh Moa Mathers she chneled a document in her I want to say her early 20s. It was called the cosmic doctrine and it didn't get released until after she died or or maybe just later later on in her life, but it she didn't she didn't channel it and then release it. And when you read it, it's it's it's extremely baffling and you kind of see that she's

7:04 · Unknown · Scientific Language in Early Occultism

using theosophical, right? That's where a lot of this stuff came from. That's why these these initiates were attempting to like use scientific terminology and and and graft these things or not graft because it's not artificial. It's not arbitrary. They were understanding they were they were realizing the consonances the correlation of one thing to another you know because part of it yes part of it was a lack of scientific vernacular in ancient times but that's there were also spiritual things

7:45 · Unknown · Scientific Language in Early Occultism

you know that that was also a component um but during the the the end of the 1700s and throughout the 1800s, right around um right around the end of the 1800s, you know, and uh going into the 20th century, find uh London and Paris, you had the the Theosophical Society and the uh towards the end of the um or I want to say the middle of the 1800s, but but what was also going on was this burgeoning new scientific community that was being, you know, by way of enlightenment, positivism, uh being really shuttled very quickly,

8:32 · Unknown · Rise of Scientific Worldview & Cultural Shift

um into into the mainstream um in general, you know, not just uh because you you also have to understand the mainstream was very different back then. There was still a tremendous division between the working class and um I mean there is now too, but I mean there were like there were still kids working in factories and stuff like that. Uh I guess there are now too in in certain parts of the world. But um but so but the the I would say the literate the literate mainstream um that had really uh power to to accept or reject ideas.

9:16 · Unknown · Rise of Scientific Worldview & Cultural Shift

um they were being, you know, they were very quickly uh consuming and accepting and sort of converting everything to the the burgeoning scientific uh terminology and worldview. The perspective lens basically took over then. Um and it's just been tightening its grip around our neck like a [ __ ] an anaconda ever since then. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Um but so they were trying to compete with this uh you know everybody knew the world had changed completely. The industrial

9:51 · Unknown · Rise of Scientific Worldview & Cultural Shift

revolution and things were just radically different. the world was tra changing world government, you know, you had the Bolshevik revolutions and and Karl Marx and all this sort of stuff and the, you know, uh, monarchy being deposed, you know, Zar Nicholas and his family, you know, slaughtered just an overturn, you know, the there was the French Revolution and the American Revolution that happened 100 years or so before. So the world was changing and and a lot of these people really knew that and they were

10:29 · Unknown · Theosophy & Attempt to Modernize Esotericism

attempting to be a part of this new world and and v for prominence within the sphere of public ideas and identity and ideology. Um so that's that's when you see you know the theosophical society kind of I wouldn't say that it happened so much with Bllovadsky. I mean, yeah, she definitely set the tone, but with with Basant and and even Alice Bailey and especially with Lead Beater, you seeing his stuff on the chakras and and uh his stuff on the etheric body, you know. Um there's one other guy, too.

11:08 · Unknown · Pseudoscience & Evolution of Occult Thought

I forget his name. I want to say it's like Powell or something, but it just gets very like pseudoscientific. like looking back at it, you're just like, "Ooh, no, that didn't age." You know, it just didn't. And so Dion Fortune was um a young intellectual uh in the beginning of the 1900s and you know obviously for a woman right to be engaged in a lot of this stuff um and and uh talk you know lay psychology she was really at the forefront of of I want to say in you know the frontiers

11:44 · Unknown · Dion Fortune as a Pioneer of Consciousness Studies

of the of the exploration of consciousness in every possible way. um spiritual, scientific, but she channeled this work called the cosmic doctrine that sounds a lot like um theosophical stuff. particularly it resembles the stanzas of Jan um that are in the beginning of uh Bllovatzk's um secret doctrine and it's basically a cosmogonical uh model that has various uh um really so uh in Bllovadsky's translation well I mean we don't have the extent documents she claims that she that these documents were found in like

12:31 · Unknown · The Cosmic Doctrine & Eastern/Scientific Blend

a cave in Tibet in some you know monastery. Uh whereas um we don't have those documents. Uh you know she just claims to have translated them. They use a lot of abstract eastern vernacular mixed with this kind of pseudocientific language. uh very very kind of mystical and you see that in the cosmic doctrine that uh that Dion Fortune supposedly channeled but she throws in you know they were using Greek terms you know I would say Christian theological terms neoplatonic cosmological theoplatonic terms like

13:08 · Unknown · The Cosmic Doctrine & Eastern/Scientific Blend

logos logoy and and uh that's logos and logos in the plural they were throwing those things in there too but at the same time they were talking about corpuscals and talking about Adams and so it's a very strange thing to read to be honest with you. It's not my favorite. It's hands down it's my least favorite of her work and I think truly it was the least inspired. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact she was very young when she channeled it. >> Yeah. >> But um essentially she showed it to Moa

13:39 · Unknown · Conflict with Moina Mathers & Golden Dawn Split

Mats and Moa Mats was like what is this? what do you want me to do with this uh kind of thing and it led to this fight and this argument and Dion Fortune uh she kind of says it without saying it but everybody knows uh in a book called Psychic Self-Defense towards the end I believe she recounts this tale of basically Moina Mathers like astrly attacking her uh so she split with that um and then I believe at some point she was in the uh Stella Matutina that's how she get got in touch with with Israel Reggery who was a

14:19 · Unknown · Stella Matutina & Further Initiatic Work

member of the Bristol temple for a little while so she was an initiate um within that millu specifically the hermetic order of the golden dawn transmission right because those are the two splinter orders the alpha and omega and the stella matutina she was in both of them but uh she started writing books She started her own um she moved to Glastonbury and started her own uh initiatic uh order and mystery school type of thing called fraternity of the inner light that was later renamed to Society of the Inner Light. And she embodied uh

14:57 · Unknown · Founding the Society of the Inner Light

or she incorporated a lot of the Arthurian mythos. Uh she was a huge proponent of okay, what's your ethnic background? Okay. Whatever they're doing there, if you can't move there and study it, then go somewhere like it and and uh and and study that. She she was very much about um uh getting in the stream, realigning with ancestral traditions, ancestral places. And so for her that was, you know, uh um British Celtic, uh you know, the Arthurian mythos. And so that's why she moved to Glastonbury. Obviously,

15:41 · Unknown · Arthurian Myth & Ancestral Spirituality

there's there's a um well, that's assumed, but it makes sense that she would move to Glastenbury and set up shop there because that's, you know, the supposed island of Avalon, uh according to legend and stuff like that. But she she was also involved in um she wrote a lot. I mean for the society of inner light she had a a periodical that went out where she she would write articles on everything uh for the various initiates in her school. And that's actually that's where uh the book the

16:14 · Unknown · The Circuit of Force & Published Teachings

circuit of force comes from. She basically started a uh a rolling column I guess you could call it. uh um a regular column and released a series of articles called the circuit of force and then her student um uh Gareth Knight he uh postumously collected them and added some commentary and published them as the circuit of force. Her big work though was the mystical cabala and to this day that is a classic that is a classic of of of that era. It's one of the most reliable books um for uh for occultism. And then the last thing that

16:59 · Unknown · The Mystical Qabalah as Her Defining Work

I want to say about her is that uh well two things. She during World War II and the Blitzkrieg, the bombing of London by um by by the Germans across the English Channel, uh she gathered a group of initiates and they did some magical work. um in an effort to combat that which was very interesting. Um uh I'm not saying one way or another. I'm just saying we have the papers of them meeting uh um I think there's a book about it but um it was like mantra work. it was visual visualization things like this and uh

17:45 · Unknown · WWII Magic & Group Ritual Work

you know much much to everybody's surprise uh Germany never invaded England now that could be to like political ties right because the monarchy of England are Germans they changed their name after World War I from the Saxobs to the Windses but um they're Germans the rulers of of of the United Kingdom are Germans They're not English. Um, but so who knows? It could have could have had something to do with that. I I don't I don't really know. I can only speculate. But um and then the last

18:23 · Unknown · Transition to Discussion on Theosophy & Lucifer

thing uh is that um well [ __ ] I I completely forgot. So let's let's uh what do you think about everything I just said? >> I think it's beautiful. I think that's a great overview. Um there was a question. And this is like kind of an off-topic thing from Dion Fortune, but um still I kind of related because we're talking about Bvatsky and like the theosophy of Bvatsky and all of that and you mentioned like um a little bit which made me think of these thoughts um like with her theosophy

19:01 · Unknown · Blavatsky, Theosophy & Misconceptions

would you would you consider it any along any like Luciferian lines or or was she just kind of use utilizing that word in that term in the sense of like light and illumination. Like some people will some people talk about uh and draw um correlations with this sort of esoteric illumination of Lucifer leading to the inspiration of like the United Nations with Levatsky. And there's like this perspective that theosophy sought like a universal world initiation of sorts and would restore like ritualis

19:36 · Unknown · Blavatsky, Theosophy & Misconceptions

ritualism and um >> no absolutely not >> like this. >> Absolutely not. Blletski was against ritual. >> She basically she basically said yes. Are there adepts? Absolutely. Do they practice? Do they have what we would call, you know, magical powers, CDs? Absolutely. Is that you? [ __ ] no. Are you going to do that? No. Do I recommend the practice of magic? Absolutely not. That's why the Golden Dawn, you know, Wescott and Mathers also working with Anna Kingsford who was much

20:13 · Unknown · Blavatsky’s Stance Against Ritual Magic

more hermetic, much more western, you know, uh, Bllovadsky relocated the locust of of the the source, the seed ground of Western occultism. She reoriented it for many, many years. It was Egypt, it was Greece, it was Alexandria, it was Athens, it was Syria. She moved it all the way the [ __ ] to India, you know, and said, "No, no, no. This is where your traditions come from." She's very, she was very anti-Christian, but I want to say not against Christ, against Christians. Um, I wouldn't say that she was

20:48 · Unknown · Blavatsky’s Stance Against Ritual Magic

adversarial in a way that was like pmical. She wasn't telling people going out to like protest Christianity, but she'd like poke fun at them as basically like sheeple. Um, and she not really wrong, but uh, in a lot of instances, especially at her place in time, but everybody wants to paint everybody else as a [ __ ] spy because it's much more interesting for people to think that there has to be from our worldview, from our perspective, the way that we we we're it's incapable of most people to

21:21 · Unknown · Misinterpretations & Conspiracy Thinking

uh, for most people to step out of the world we live in and realize that all of this this there are some similarities ities, but people were not like this for most of history. For, you know, we were, you see it in the things they did, the things they built, the things they said, the things they wrote. Um, the things they gave us that we now have that we can't understand, so we need to dismantle them like a [ __ ] toy. I can't get to work, you know. Um, it's that's so, you know, I don't care, you

21:52 · Unknown · Misinterpretations & Conspiracy Thinking

know, like uh about what evidence people say, "Well, we know she was a spy." You don't know [ __ ] you don't know anything, you know, like you have to study the work and meet that on its own. How could somebody be as passionately prolific? I mean, look at this. You know, this is like this is the secret doctrine. You know, this is her second, but she ran a society. She wrote this massive tone. You know what I'm saying? And I I don't even know if this is a bridged. I know that most like people come to me

22:29 · Unknown · Complexity of Theosophical Texts

and they're like, "Oh yeah, I read ISIS Unveiled." You definitely didn't because it's like five volumes. You know, you read the abridged version, the one that's this big, but Isis Unveiled is bigger than this, you know? So, uh, but they it abridged because people can't read like that anymore. And so, the thing is most people when they talk about Lucifer then and now, no [ __ ] clue. no clue what they're talking about because it's it's something people ran wild with.

23:02 · Unknown · Misuse of “Lucifer” in Modern Narratives

That's all it is. It's just I'm not and I'm not one to say I'm not one to say well if it's in the Bible then it's there is no spirituality to it because these people were just I'm not one of these you know socialistinincing postmodern atheists positivists literalists who have to reduce everything down to some sort of [ __ ] power struggle. People meant things. people believed in things you know before us and it's I I mean if you if you can't bring you if you can't

23:36 · Unknown · Misuse of “Lucifer” in Modern Narratives

understand that I feel sorry for you you know um uh have being completely devoid of any passion and understanding um uh of of your subjective experience and and the the validity of that you um but the luciferian thing is weird I mean you know you see it in Pike You see Crowley I think about it. You see uh you know Blovatzky named like the Theosophical Journal for a long time was just Lucifer magazine but they they looked at it in the context of of Lightbringer Lightbearer. You know this it was not uh

24:18 · Unknown · Lucifer as “Light-Bringer,” Not Satan

a satanic um uh conflation. She didn't she didn't think Satan was the the savior. She just didn't think Lucifer was Satan. Um and uh and that was true also. You know, Levy talked about that, but he's another one where it's like you you can barely make heads or tails of like I would say 60% of the things that he was writing because it was so cryptic and sensational, you know. Um and there was no other writing like it at the time, you know. It was like one person came out of the

24:58 · Unknown · Lucifer as “Light-Bringer,” Not Satan

woodwork and started talking about this secret world, the secret society and the secret practice. And he claimed to have been a part of it and behind him was this impenetrable wall. You know, I you can't see what's behind the wall. I've been behind the wall. I can't tell you everything I've seen behind the wall, but I'll I'll tell you a little bit about what I've seen behind the wall. And so then you read his books and you're just like, what the [ __ ] does any of this mean? You know, I've been an

25:25 · Unknown · Eliphas Levi & Cryptic Occult Writing

oultist. I've been studying this stuff for 20 years, you know, and I still look at Levy and I'm like, some of it's like really solid. Some of it's brilliant. Some of it is like you can tell he's writing between the lines. >> Mhm. But some of it is just it's just it's just downright I feel like he used this cryptic voice to hide things or areas that he didn't know anything about. You know, I think that there I don't think he his knowledge was quote unquote perfect. So

25:59 · Unknown · Eliphas Levi & Cryptic Occult Writing

I think he hid that behind a lot these veils of he might have been you know at a certain point in his initiatic trajectory where he had been given symbols and he had studied symbols but he wasn't it hadn't been revealed to him. he hadn't had the revelation of of of the the larger meaning and you know but you're a young man and you're a journalist and you decide to go write you know three books you know two books on on this stuff uh and but I guess you know that's the price you pay uh for for for putting

26:31 · Unknown · Biblical Origins of Lucifer Term

your stuff out there um but the luciferian thing it comes from the book of Isaiah um where essentially the prophet Isaiah is denouncing a king of uh of Babylon and he calls him uh well in the original Hebrew it's uh hell um the lightbearer you know having to do with an epitet of the king because everything all the lines leading up to that are talking about a king of Babylon and how he's going to fall because he's he has oppressed you know the the the the the uh the Israelites, you know, um the Hebrew people. And he

27:18 · Unknown · Translation History: Hebrew to Greek to Latin

talks about that and at a certain point he says, you know, oh, how far you've fallen uh h in the Greek. So in in uh henistic Egypt, there were Jews, lots of them, huge community. And from that period of platonic influence in Egypt and in Hebrew communities, we derive or what emerged really as a consequence was henistic Judaism. And henistic Judaism gave us two really important things for the western esoteric tradition. It gave us merba mysticism and it gave us the septuagent. and the Septuagent are the 70 books that were

28:10 · Unknown · Translation History: Hebrew to Greek to Latin

translated from Hebrew to Greek at that point. And so it gets translated from hal meaning like shining one to aos uh which means like dawnbringer of the or lightbringer of the morning really um dawnbringer really because uh aos is dawn right that was the goddess of dawn um dawn light of the morning aos for topo um But that then later gets translated to the Latin Vulgate version of the the Old Testament as Lucifer lightbearer and due largely to the well you know the unfortunately you know doctors of the church and saints really

29:08 · Unknown · Lucifer as a Title, Not a Name

like Augustine of Hippo was a big one and you know uh there are others that started this hermeneutical which means you know exoggetical hermeneutics is basically interpretation of the Bible. Um they started this hermeneutical sort of narrative that Lucifer was this was a passage referring to Satan because but the thing that it was reverse engineered so here's two points of interest in the second letter of Peter P the the the apostle Peter right um that was like who who would become the first pope

29:53 · Unknown · Lucifer as a Title, Not a Name

He refers to Christ in the Vulgate as Lucifer lightbearer. It's an epet for Jesus. So there's two completely different you uh because it's not a name. It's a word. It's a title, you know, it's it's a descriptor, you know, that that they're just it's interchangeable. Like if I call you, hey guy, that doesn't mean that you're the only guy, right? >> You know, that's not your name. you're sky, you know, like and so if somebody else mentions guy, they're like, "Oh,

30:22 · Unknown · Satan’s Evolution in Biblical Interpretation

wait. I know him." You know, it's not it's not the same thing. Um and and and so >> then another important point is that >> the reason it the entire reason it gets conflated with s with Satan is this >> in the book of right because in the in the Old Testament, Satan is kind of like this prosecutor in the court of L. He's he's an adversary and he's an accuser. That's what that word means. Shatan, uh, accuser, adversary. And that's what he does. Especially, you

30:54 · Unknown · Satan’s Evolution in Biblical Interpretation

look at the book of Job and and things like that in the New Testament book of Revelation written by St. John the Divine in a cave on Patmos, the Greek island, right in exile. He writes this book of Revelation which is basically his vision of the future and the second coming of Christ and everything that has to happen before that and it's terrifying. Christ didn't say any of this according to the gospels. It came Christ speaks to St. John the Divine through Revelation. But you know it's it's not a it's not a

31:36 · Unknown · Revelation & the Fall Narrative

canonical gospel. It's not speaking of Jesus while he was alive. um you know his life and works. Granted, none of the the gospels were written when Jesus was alive, but it's it's a completely different uh species of text um the book of Revelation. And in that book, it describes Satan's fall from heaven. That's where like the wars of the angels are really um conflated with with uh with with Satan being an angel kind of falling and and and being cast out of heaven and all this stuff. Uh so

32:17 · Unknown · Revelation & the Fall Narrative

essentially the the issue with that is that it's it's it's anacronistic. It's it's a retrofitting. It's saying like, "Oh yeah, uh Satan was a fallen angel. That's who he was." But but the these books were written, you know, 500, 600, 700 years before before we had that interpretation of who and what Satan was. So why how are we going back and now what mental gymnastics are we playing to kind of, you know, pull this one [ __ ] line that is very clearly talking about a

32:52 · Unknown · Misinterpretations & Occult Paranoia

king, a living king with an actual kingdom and uh and now just pulling a line. So, this is where this [ __ ] can get really hairy and and right, how much paranoia, how much wasted time has this whole Luciferian thing, you know, uh, created. So, when when you're when you're getting involved in the occult, >> you know, you you that's why you need to take an an aerudite path as well. You need to study the history and the hermeneutics and the literature just as much as you practice.

33:31 · Unknown · Importance of Studying Source Material

>> Yeah. And that's why exactly why I keep bringing it up because I want to drill it into people's heads. Um because >> So you've got you got a personal vendetta against somebody, don't you? Well, I I just I listen to a lot of podcasts and in you know these days when people are talking about esoteric subject matters from uninitiated perspectives are just uh they're just stringing together and picking little tidbits out of all different kinds of sources to create whatever nar narrative they

34:17 · Unknown · Critique of Modern Esoteric Misinformation

have and or they're trying to form like and they don't usually back it up with any actual valid points. It's I mean they kind of just gloss over everything and then they hit these like hot button keywords that get people emotionally triggered and then lump these things in, lump certain terms in with certain people and draw all these conclusions about this is what the occult is. And that's part of the problem and one of the things that drives me crazy because it gives and it paints a bad image and

34:55 · Unknown · Critique of Modern Esoteric Misinformation

it doesn't represent the actual the wholeness of what these things are. So, I don't know. I just always like to get you to get hyped up on that stuff. >> You know how you know how to push my buttons. No, but the thing is that it's it's great, right? It's great that um it's great that you are open to this, right? Because there's I've been on a lot of podcasts and and done a lot of writing and there are people in the comments section who are like, "He's one of them. He's lying."

35:32 · Unknown · Addressing Conspiracy Accusations

You know? It's like like it's a whole like it's a whole like cover job that I'm doing. I don't get paid to do any of this [ __ ] You know what I'm saying? I'm losing money. So, it's like why why why am I going to waste my time trying to make [ __ ] up? I'm I'm I'm in the same position you are where the whole reason I decided to pipe up was because like of how wrong uh a lot of people have it and and that's fine, right? But the the clincher is how vocal they are.

36:04 · Unknown · Thoughtforms, Tulpas & Imaginal Reality

>> Yes. >> And and the the the size of their audience. Now, here's the other side of the coin though about Lucifer. There's a certain occult sort of doctrine that says when you create a form, a thought form, right? They're called in the in in in I think Zogchan they call them tulpas. >> Uh when you create a thought form and that thing is is a is a mixture of of of astral and etheric energy, which is to say subtle physical energy and and a mental image, right? That's not to say

36:40 · Unknown · Thoughtforms, Tulpas & Imaginal Reality

that it's fake. That's another issue that people have. I I don't talk about it as the imagination. I call it the imaginal faculty. It's a spiritual power. And people don't just don't realize it's happening in a dimension that is is co-terminal. It it's coexistent and interpenetrative with all this stuff. But we don't experience it as physical until it manifests. Then we experience it as phys physical. But it's it's it's an actuality. The great line

37:11 · Unknown · Reality of Non-Physical Phenomena

in Harry Potter when uh you know um when Harry dies and he looks at Dumbledore in like this and for any for any people that that don't know Harry Potter and aren't going to understand what I'm about to say, go watch the movie. Don't talk to me until you have >> um >> they're amazing. But um >> yes, they are. >> Particularly if you know magic. But uh there's there's a t point where Harry dies and he's talking to uh you know the spirit of of his mentor and he says is

37:38 · Unknown · “Real vs In the Mind” – Nature of Experience

this all h is this is this real or is this happening in my head and he says my dear boy uh of course it's happening in your head but why should that mean that it isn't real so that's that's the crux of magic you know and we don't mean that in a poetic way it's this these have actual existences that are non-physical um people who can embrace that just have the mental wherewithal to be able to embrace uh the idea that hey you know maybe there are things certainly I know there

38:14 · Unknown · Limits of Materialist Explanations

are things that I cannot ex explain with the positivistic materialistic paradigm um it's you can't explain most things so we limit our discussion to things that we can and that makes us comfortable. But when you really look at the the the breadth of of lived experience that is recorded and attested is way more than we're willing to talk about. Um because we can't explain it. We can't fit it into our neat little paradigm. Uh you know, and too [ __ ] bad. I think we're really getting to the

38:50 · Unknown · Embracing Unexplained Phenomena

point now where like, yeah, it's cliche and it's a meme, but I agree with it. If if if you know if the truth sets it on fire, then let it [ __ ] burn. >> Indeed. All right. A couple terms that I've come across in reading or not so much reading kind of just came through. Um the unfortunate uh procriti and perushia. What are these terms and what do they refer to? So um kriti I believe is matter physical matter. Um I don't I forget what perushia is. I know I remember the perushia suka but I

39:33 · Unknown · Prakriti & Purusha Explained

don't remember what that word um ah okay so I get it now. Um so I know priti is is is uh sort of the vdic or or I guess they would call it like Sanskrit word for um for physical matter and priti is uh right it's the same thing in every uh elemental or ontological cosmology it changes is it's the same thing in the in the Platonic stuff. If it can change, it's not real. What is changeless and what is deathless, that's our philosophical definition of reality. And anything that doesn't meet th those

40:25 · Unknown · Change vs Changeless Reality

criterion and and what what what that needs what it means that it needs to not be existent within time. It has to be outside of time because time is evidence of change. That's all it is. Doesn't actually exist. Time is a is the way that our our five sense limited consciousness bound to the material vessel and fooled by the illusions of procriti >> exper experiences change. In reality, time is an anomaly. We cannot go backwards and we cannot go forwards in it as a as a as a as a a tool of

41:01 · Unknown · Time as an Illusion of Perception

measurement. We can only be now and that's the only thing that exists. the ever present. Now, that's very eastern, but it's also [ __ ] true. I don't care if it doesn't fit neatly into uh the western paradigm, and in fact, it does in the neoplatonic uh philosophy of of Plutinus. Um but and likely his his teacher ammonia Sakus. But so the reality of eternity requires uh no change um and changeless and therefore deathless. And so that is uh purusha. Purusha is the changeless whereas

41:44 · Unknown · Eternal Now & Philosophical Reality

proriti is the material which is constantly changing. And these are these are these are words that um I mean I've probably like when I first got into this stuff that's all there was. You know the eastern words and and vernacular and stuff. But since then I've I've the the good thing is that I've been because I went so deep and really did my best to understand it and I had like decent teachers at least of the philosophy when I did start delving more you know explicitly or exclusively towards the

42:19 · Unknown · Eastern vs Western Philosophical Parallels

western stuff I understood it better because they're really on the on a philosophical level they're talking about the same thing. It's just their their way of dealing the working out of the cosmological sotiological dilemma is just different. But the the underlying like what this is and what we believe about it is is I mean it's exactly the same thing. >> Definitely. And so in regards to existence, there's this concept of negative existence and the three veils of negative existence. Maybe you can

42:54 · Unknown · Three Veils of Negative Existence

shed some light on those a little bit. Sure. Uh essentially so the three veils of negative existence that is a term that that's an idea that comes out of um uh many versions of cababalism. I believe it's out of the Zohar actually. Um that that is taken from the Zohar. Uh but it's developed right you you've got three. So you have the tree of life and the tree of life embodies everything that um that exists and therefore can change. Even Kather um I would say Kather is the the the most

43:40 · Unknown · Ain, Ain Soph & Ain Soph Aur

changeless but even Kether is is not Kether's the monad. Kether is not negative. Kether is one. And so the negative existence are the three veils that we that are above keter uh that are um uh called uh an which is uh nothing. And then uh sort of like um unchangeable or unbreakable nothing or limitless nothing. And then uh and or the addition of or it being light makes it like um limitless, unchangeable or unbreakable light. Uh which is interesting because you're constantly we're constantly seeing it referred to

44:33 · Unknown · Ain, Ain Soph & Ain Soph Aur

uh the creative substrate of all of everything is constantly being referred to as light in every tradition. Um but so that um that that comes from and I I don't care who is willing to you know debate me about otherwise because uh it's just not there. Um that comes from helanized Judaism because it's directly neoplatonic. Platinus talked about this before it was anywhere in Judaism. That's a fact uh according to the historical record. Now, the whole idea of Cabala is that it's an

45:12 · Unknown · Neoplatonic Influence on Qabalah

oral tradition and it was never written down until Moses de Leon did it in the in, you know, in the um the Middle Ages in in Toledo, Spain. But you can't prove that anybody can say anything. Show me, show me the paper trail for this. Otherwise, let's not try and play the game of who did it first. You know, that that's the whole thing for me. I understand in the validity of subjective experience, but if you're going to talk about it as if it's objective, then you you you've lost me

45:42 · Unknown · Neoplatonic Influence on Qabalah

because it's that's not you. You know, I for instance, and I've said on this podcast before, I can have an experience that is objectively true to me and I'm never going to because I if I can't if I can't verify it in some, it's not worth me talking about with somebody else. That's for me. That's for me to guide my life and my actions. has nothing to do with me trying to tell you, oh, look, no, you got to you got to do it this way. Um, I feel strongly about things, don't get

46:12 · Unknown · Subjective vs Objective Spiritual Truth

me wrong, but, um, we don't have any Cabala before, uh, I want to say, uh, the the 10th or 11th century. >> Yeah. We have merkaba. We have merkoba mysticism which is very very it's theurgicnosticism. It has the same cosmology asnosticism. The the mystic would travel in vision to seven planetary spheres. That's the the right there. That's the the platonic cosmology. And at each one he would meet an entity, an angel that was hostile and would try to prevent him from from reaching beyond the agdoad the eighth

46:54 · Unknown · Merkaba Mysticism & Ascent Through Spheres

sphere. Again, that's from Plato and Plato's student Udoxis, right? Ududoxis came up with that idea like the same time that Plato wrote the myth of in the Republic. Um, it's amazing. It's it's just an incredible fact. Um, so that entire cosmology literally comes out of the Platonic tradition and it was the dominant way of looking at the world for about 2,000 years, 1500 years. >> Yeah. So, so um so mysticism, you know, they want to go and and behold the throne of God outside

47:28 · Unknown · Merkaba Mysticism & Ascent Through Spheres

the realm of causality and they have to go through these eight spheres and and at each of the seven planetary spheres, they meet an angel that tries to knock them back down. It's [ __ ] nasticism. It's theoricnosticism. And they learned all this stuff. This stuff came directly out of the Maraba literature. Um uh maraba meaning chariot. It came out of this stuff in helanized. We the records we have are from helanized uh Egypt. You know all this stuff was Alexandria was Egypt right in that

47:57 · Unknown · Alexandria as Esoteric Crossroads

neighborhood. The Gnostic gospels the Nagamadi cotices that include uh a Platonic tract or two Platonic tracts and two uh hermetic tracks all found outside of Alexandria Egypt 1945. Something was going on there. you know, it's also one of it's it's a very early place of the importation of Christianity. But the according to according to legend, um the uh um or tradition, I should say, uh the the evangelist Mark brought Christianity there in 42 CE. That's very early. That's very early. We you don't see that

48:34 · Unknown · Early Spread of Christianity & Esotericism

a lot that Christianity was being brought to major cities like that. I mean, maybe Rome, you know, with St. Peter. But anyway, so um they get that idea from uh Platinus's three hypotheses which which is also where the the holy trinity of Christianity gets its >> theological basis. Yeah. So you you have for for Plutinus he he conceived of the absolute as a three-fold unity and it couldn't be otherwise. Um so you had Then right the one that was beyond contemplation. It was everything

49:17 · Unknown · Plotinus & the Three Hypostases

in an empty pleum an empty fullness. Everything in a potential state and it's unthinkable. It's unthinkable. You can't you cannot think about it. Uh you can't talk about it. The only way to talk about it is by saying what it's not because if something is literally everything at the same time, right? Kind of like that eternal now we were talking about. then you can't you can't call it one thing at all. It's completely undifferentiated. Uh now he conceived of the divine news

49:49 · Unknown · Plotinus & the Three Hypostases

or intellect the divine mind that was an aspect of this you know hypoatic trinity that could it it contemplated it was the aspect of the the of the absolute that contemplated the forms inherent inside the one. So if the one was everything in undifferentiated potential, the divine news contemplated each of those things giving them form. >> And then the see the uh the third um hypothesis uh was um soul and it wasn't an individual soul. It was more so the the overarching archetype of soul you know kosu the soul

50:33 · Unknown · The One, Nous & World Soul

of the of the world. and um of the universe and that essentially objectified those images and moved towards them in an act of desire and that is how the soul falls into materiality. Uh and then you see Tertullian the early church father and neoplatonist he was trained in neoplatanism. I believe he studied with ammonia sakus. I'm not 100% sure off the top of my head but I know he was a neoplatonist. He invents or imports the doctrine of the holy trinity. Uh he calls it um persona substantia three persons one

51:15 · Unknown · Influence on Christian Trinity

substance >> pulls that directly out of platinian >> platinian philosophy uh you know so so this is how these these ideas have have have penetrated through time they exist. It's you got a lot of scholars that'll get super granular and say, "I'm going to give well right now, just so you're aware and everybody else that might be listening, I'm going to give probably the worst analogy you've ever heard." And you're going to chuckle, but it's [ __ ] true. Um,

51:45 · Unknown · Transmission of Esoteric Ideas Through History

the thing about scholars is that they dial in at such a [ __ ] granular level because they have to, you know, their papers don't get supported unless like you need to be that weird kid who listens like it's like, yeah, okay, you you there's some people who listen to rock, there's some people who listen to like R&B, and then there's like the kid who listens to like German [ __ ] marching band music from the 1800s, and then there's somebody who just listens to like Swedish [ __ ]

52:13 · Unknown · Critique of Academic Over-Specialization

sea mammals playing like clown horns. Like that's what you have to be in academia to write a [ __ ] paper that anyone cares about. You have to be the most obscure son of a [ __ ] you know? Because it's like, we've covered it all. We've covered everything. There's no [ __ ] stone that's unturned anymore. So, it's like, yeah, I'm going to write about this particular style of like chair feet that they were making in [ __ ] Denmark, uh, you know, for three hours in 1934. You know, it's like, and

52:43 · Unknown · Critique of Academic Over-Specialization

you got to write papers on that [ __ ] It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And what they do, >> what they do is they take a [ __ ] Right, this is the terrible analogy. At least that one was funny. This one won't be. You take a [ __ ] sausage. All right, you know what this thing is? It's a unified thing. Granted, it's got different parts. It's got the skin, it's got the interior, all this stuff, but the whole the overarching definition, the archetype sausage, right? And they just keep cutting it

53:13 · Unknown · “Sausage Analogy” – Losing the Big Picture

into smaller [ __ ] pieces. And they cut it into smaller pieces. It's like, and you get the end over here. Well, this one has a slightly different shape. So, this might not be sausage because if this one over here is sausage and it doesn't have the same contour, then they can't be they shouldn't be related. But if you know, and it's like, guys, guys, Like this is dehumanizing. It's funny, but it's [ __ ] dehumanizing. This is what we we exist in a world of [ __ ] confusion because like we're obsessed

53:42 · Unknown · “Sausage Analogy” – Losing the Big Picture

with going taking that kind of thinking as far as we can pushing the [ __ ] envelope of discursive positivism, you know, and granular hyper granularity in our exesis and our examination of things to the point where you can't tell the forest from the [ __ ] trees and people are wondering like like it it's you know everything is breaking down because of this, you know, like there has to be some semblance of like, okay, come back. Look at it, right? Really look at it. It's one [ __ ] thing. There's there's

54:17 · Unknown · Archetypes vs Over-Analysis

of course there's differences. We live in the material universe, you know, like things change, people change, they morph, but like there is some overarching like ar, you know, there's an ar the Greeks would call it. there's a foundational archetype to it that is is constantly expressing what it is. And though the exterior presentation may differ, it's still expressing like this this internal tilos, this unity. And and when you constantly constantly zoom in so that you're looking at things so

54:51 · Unknown · Dangers of Hyper-Granular Thinking

microscopically that you you you've completely lost the the picture, you that's why we end up in this place. And I I feel very passionate about that because there's some brilliant [ __ ] people who's like their talents are kind of wasted if you ask me. Uh um but you could be doing great [ __ ] work if you pull your head out of this gigantic academic ass.