0:00 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Intro & podcast opening

[Music] All right, welcome to another episode of the Etherica podcast. I am Sky Matthysse here with Ike Baker. And I just wanted to say before we >> get into it, I'm just so honored to be doing these with you. every episode is like I'm in school or in a class with a brilliant um professor of the esoteric. So, it's just an honor for me. So, I just want to say I really appreciate you. >> Yeah, man. I mean, uh, you flatter me, but in the circles I hang out in, you know, I'm, uh, I'm small potatoes, but I'm

0:51 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Hosts reflect on learning, humility, and teaching

happy to I'm happy to, uh, I'm really honored to be able to speak with somebody like you who is not pretentious and uh, somebody who is is humble and and knowledgeable about the things that he takes an interest in and and again professes to understand in any way but still open to learn and that to me makes a good teacher. It makes a good, you know, magician, whatever, philosopher, whatever you want to do it. That is those are the makings of, you know, those are the traits that I aspired to when I was learning a lot of

1:37 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Hosts reflect on learning, humility, and teaching

this stuff and I'm still learning and I'm going to be learning for the rest of my life. So, thank you for giving me the outlet to have these conversations because I learn from them, too. >> Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, with that, let's dive into it. Um, so something very interesting that I've been wanting to touch on is this relationship between the world of the esoteric and occult and cryptography as the art of writing or solving codes. Um, whether it's a mystery school teaching

2:07 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esotericism and cryptography connection

that one, you know, unlocks mysteries or a symbolic uh system of language of some kind. Uh one has to learn certain keys for understanding like a particular text or you know like within alchemy for example or uh even you know modern digital or economic security apparatuses have to do a lot with you know cryptography and decoding things and things along these natures. So, we thought this would be a really fun one to kind of just explore these ideas um with, you know, esoterica and cryptography. And I really think they go

2:48 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Symbolism, sigils, and coded knowledge systems

hand in hand in a lot of ways. And even if you look at figures like Crowley, which I know is your personal favorite cultist, I say that very sarcastically. Um >> he's just overhyped, that's all. I mean, at the end of the day, he's about as harmless as a as a as a horse flag. >> Yeah. And Yeah. He himself, I believe he was involved with British intelligence as well. I'm sure you probably come across that. But um but yeah, even thinking about like sigil creation or things of that nature,

3:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Symbolism, sigils, and coded knowledge systems

kind of piecing together elements of meaning into some kind of unique way uh in a a cryptographical form that one would have to have the knowledge. I'd have to have the knowledge of like what elements are uh included within it that make up the thing to then begin to decode its meaning. And I think maybe like with initiatory orders, speaking from more of my speculation, uh it seems to me like within some orders there, there's a real cryptographic nature to them within maybe the act as perhaps like many

4:02 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mystery schools and layered symbolic understanding

things maybe acting as like a mechanism of preservation of purity andor a structure acting as a multi-layered cryptographic hermetic like distillation apparatus, if you will, like a refining one. And as one individual is kind of moving through, as they begin this sort of inner decoding process, they're kind of unlocking and unveiling codes and/or understandings of of nature. And so, just want to throw that out there. And yeah, two two in particular >> individuals I thought would be cool to

4:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Mystery schools and layered symbolic understanding

look at uh tonight were Trimus and Raymond LOL. Um but yeah, before we do, is there anything that you have in response to all that that I've laid out? >> Yeah. Well, first off, I don't really know too much about Raymond Lol. Um I understand his work within the the context of alchemy which is to say that there really is uh I mean that's not true but he wasn't a big proponent of it. Let's say somebody like Thomas Aquinus was again working within that you know uh monastic Christian

5:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Historical context: monks, scholars, and hidden knowledge

worldview. We tend to forget that that these guys were all like Christian priests and monks, you know, um because that's who was educated uh and interested in any of this stuff there. You weren't taught philosophy if you worked on a farm. Uh and and it wasn't, you know, they didn't have this institution of of of public schooling. That's very recent. you know, it was all private tutors and things like that back then reserved for the nobility who could pay for it and had the time to learn.

5:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Historical context: monks, scholars, and hidden knowledge

But um Tmius is a very interesting character to me. But one of the first things I want to point out is that magic is a and just in general, right? I mean, it all boils back to Plato. He talks about forms. forms are in the Golden Dawn, you know, we say by names and images are all powers awakened and reawakened. You know, in things like rosy Christianism where you you see all of this these diagrams um in Freemasonry, right? A uh beautiful system of morality veiled in allegory illustrated by symbols. The symbols

6:40 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Symbols as teachings in esoteric traditions

themselves are the teachings. That's how they've been able to pass through the ages. Commentary is everything else, but the symbols themselves teach. And it it it relies on this idea that anything that exists in the physical realm the and is intelligible by the senses and the rational part of the human mind is something that is expressing an ideal which is outside of time and deathless. Um they are kind of the dream stuffs of the mind of God. The building blocks uh upon which the or the scaffolding really

7:18 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Symbols as teachings in esoteric traditions

upon which the uh the material forms rely uh merely as vesicle as vehicles of their essence. So um but another point is uh you know you look at something like the sephur kayets and you uh you know it expounds the 22 creative forces of the universe the utterances of the divine uh coming forth as letters right language uh was a miracle it is miraculous it's insane to me it's a it's if it's nothing short of a testament to the inddwelling spiritual self-aware uh you know really see in in the the

8:10 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Language as sacred and symbolic expression

truest the most literal sense of that word the the indwelling soul um attempting to kind of reintegrate right through through through through things like communication and and uh um using these forms and these sounds and really in magic anything and everything is symbolic. You know, it can be and it is symbolic. So um and that's platonic really uh when you get down to it and that's the the dominant paradigm uh philosophical and otherwise this is a general western worldview is based on Plato and these men would have been

8:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Language as sacred and symbolic expression

steeped in it because they came through you know the seminary the the educational uh machine of of Catholicism of their day and that's why they took an interest in this stuff. How else would they have known about it? You know what? Do they watch like a Teal Swan video? No, they didn't. They don't. They learned about this [ __ ] You know, it was either like literally like cow [ __ ] and sheep or you're in a church learning, you know, LA, you know, words and math. So, it's it's uh that's what

9:20 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Language as sacred and symbolic expression

the world was. And we are very lucky, but also extremely spoiled to have, you know, the most powerful informationational tool in the history of creation sitting at our fingertips. it it's you know it can either uh elevate us or destroy us but um so language as symbol and and language as as sacred really I think that that kind of that's the underlying I guess highulutin esoteric idea but I think there was a much more immediate need to deal in cipher and that is to simply like again you're going to pay for this [ __ ] back

10:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Secrecy and danger in historical occult practice

then. It's not like now where people will think you're weird. It'll be a little socially awkward, but because we're basically grown children, it's like, you know, the worst thing that's ever happened to us when back then it was actually the worst thing that ever happened to them is to be found out that they had a real interest in this. I mean, Tremius was constantly falling in and out of favor with with people. You know, I'm pretty sure they moved him around um because of his interest in the

10:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Secrecy and danger in historical occult practice

occult. you know, his his thing was that he kind of collected he made libraries, right? That wasn't really a thing back then. It was, you know, like um maybe Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't until really uh Cardinal Rishelu in the Renaissance created like one of the first public libraries and you had uh you know, you had guys like like like uh John D and Trathamius, you know, kind of having these private collections of texts and things like these mini Alexandrias and uh you know, he was known to have some some weird some some

11:02 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Secrecy and danger in historical occult practice

you know, no no stuff in his libraries. And uh so you had to and he he wasn't like some he was some like off in the the broom closet cleric. He was a bishop, right? He was in or he was an abbey really an abbott, I'm sorry. Um so he was the head. I mean he was the guy in the spotlight. He couldn't be caught doing this [ __ ] really. Um so uh I think that that's that's probably a more immediate necessity, right? Because these guys were all they weren't people that lived in private homes. They were constantly

11:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Trithemius: libraries, cryptography, and suspicion

24/7 under the eye of clerical authority of the Catholic Church. >> Indeed. I will I'll read a brief abstract as a little bit of a primer um for is it do you pronounce it Johannes or Johannes? Trmius Johan. >> I say y I say Johannes because initially like that's what the J was. The J was was um like a different form of of I. >> So Johannes Trmius was an abbott from the Benedicting monastery of Spanh and later the monastery of Orsburg. During his studies in H Highidleberg, he was

12:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Trithemius: libraries, cryptography, and suspicion

involved in learned humanistic societies and later he applied the ideal of human humanistic eloquence in his works. Trius built large libraries like you said and wrote a number of mystical, monastic, historic and biographic writings. He became famous especially due to his book steganograph stegania >> stegan steganographia >> steganographia. Yeah. >> Which dealt um oh lost my place. Hold on. Stegosaurus. >> Stegosaurus which dealt um keep losing my which dealt with cryptography on the basis of natural

13:07 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Influence on Agrippa and hidden teachings

magic and astrology working with angelic med mediations through steganographia remained in manuscript form. It influenced occult sciences in the 16th century and cryptography. Trius was also accused of necromancy and demonic magic. So I was wondering >> there it is. >> There it is. And also I believe he was the teacher uh of a grippa as well as I think Pariselus. Um, do we have any information >> or indications of who Trimus's teachers may have been or any of maybe his close

13:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Influence on Agrippa and hidden teachings

associates or contemporaries or anything along those lines as far as your knowledge is concerned? >> Not to my knowledge. Um, that was that's what makes uh Trius so interesting is that he's just this kind of mystery man. uh at least to people in the occult. I'm sure there's some academic out there that's like squeezed every drop out of his biographical information that is possible at this time, but I'm unaware of it. Um you know he is one of those people who was a master

14:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Influence on Agrippa and hidden teachings

a master when a grippa was so he encouraged to write the um the three books his work do his work and he consulted him you know uh trus was privy to several drafts of the three books as we understand it now the three books is the I mean it's you know not to be disrespectful it's the Bible of western magic uh and it's so little understood because we're reading it from a modern perspective you know we're reading it as if it's like don't get me wrong some of it's a little it's just like my god but um

15:15 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric truth vs personal interpretation

uh with with the you know like uh I don't know the carrot is good I'm I'm making this up but you know something like carrot is good for your sex life cuz it resembles a penis, you know? It's like some of that stuff is like to to a modern person is like not we just can't. It's superstition. But I mean, agria himself says like, "Look, I'm not putting in the the good stuff because I can't. But if you've got your wits about you, you'll figure out what I'm saying."

15:46 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric truth vs personal interpretation

Uh, and that's kind of that was kind of Trmius's MMO, right? like you you want to if you want to get what this says, you got to work for it. And it's um I mean that's evident in things even up like modern secret societ quote unquote secret societies. I I like to call them esoteric orders, but I don't know how esoteric masonry is, but uh it's um everything is kind of a cipher. Everything is a symbol. Everything is one thing outwardly and has different meanings inwardly or in different

16:17 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric truth vs personal interpretation

contexts. So you know to an extent the entire western esoteric tradition can be said to be a cipher right for the for the underlying truth because it can't be communicated in any other way. um you have to come to it for yourself. But that's not to say that so if I say right I'm going to use an analogy right here and I'm I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent but it's late and I'm packing my pipe. If I were to say listen I'm going to give you a few clues on how to get to my

16:55 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric truth vs personal interpretation

house. Okay? I'll be waiting there for you. I'm going to give you a few clues. That's it. You have to do the work to get to my house on your own. You have to find my house. And then you went out and you arrived at my neighbors down the block. And then you said, "Well, you said I had to come I had to find it on my own." Yeah, but that's not my house. It's the same thing with esoteric teaching. By me telling you you have to come to the truth on your own doesn't mean that you come to your own truth.

17:26 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Esoteric truth vs personal interpretation

You know what I'm saying? you you don't get to just say, "Well, this is my truth." Good luck. It's not that's not then you've missed the point of the esoteric order. Um so at least in those preliminary phases. So I think um that tradition of secrecy and diligence and the inability to really say what you mean because what you the the the understanding the the personal nosis of the objective truth that you have experienced is incommunicable via words. So, I can only point you to

18:08 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Psychic communication and message transmission

this direction, but you'll know it. Um, and I'll know it when you've gotten there. I think that that's uh that's incredibly powerful. I think Truthmius instilled I mean that's this is pure speculation, but I think that Tremius instilled that in a Grippa and I think that's why he was such a successful student and why he encouraged Agrippa, right? Why would a man like Trameus encourage Agria to write the three books and then give him notes on his drafts and point him in certain directions if

18:35 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Psychic communication and message transmission

that if those three books didn't have it you know so uh to me that is you know that is the shest sign that if we have if we're not understanding a grippo then we had better try harder. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that uh I was coming across something along the lines of like I think it was like pretty angelically oriented and there's some stuff I'd come across in regards to like basically the art of transmitting of like messages um between people like sending messages like psychically and he had like these

19:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Psychic communication and message transmission

operations. I there was a book I come across called Triian Conjuration. I'm not sure if it was that one because there was a couple different ones I was looking at, but um there was that and then some other stuff along the lines of drawing spirits into crystals. And I don't know if this was a lot of an Nokian based stuff or what, but I was wondering if you had any insights into the uh in regards to like that practice of um sending messages cuz that was very interesting to me like being able to

19:54 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Psychic communication and message transmission

uh have the success with um have doing some kind of operation in order to psychically transmit and send messages between yourself to another individual. or something along those lines. >> Mhm. Um I would say that I've had experiences like that that are more dreambased. Um at least intentionally. I feel like that has happened many times unintentionally um both from both from me and to me from people that I am I'll put it this way energetically and meshed with. uh you know, somebody like a fiance,

20:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Psychic communication and message transmission

somebody like a like a a roommate who's like a close friend of yours, you're going to know what they're thinking sometimes and it's going to scare the [ __ ] out of you. Uh um it's going to scare the [ __ ] out of them if you do it if if that happens often enough. Uh but on like on purpose I've done it with dreams and I think you and I kind of spoke about it and there was a lot of failures and like one repeated success with like this one person and was happening exactly the way

21:08 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Practical experiences with psychic and aura work

I wanted it to. Um I did not utilize I did not avail myself of a angelic intermediary or angelic intercession. Um there are specific techniques that are taught by Golden Dawn and Golden Dawn adjacent people uh and and communities orders. Uh particularly the the stuff I want to say like the beginning of the the the 20th century um Dion Fortune was was good with stuff like that. Uh it's why I really resonated with a lot of Dion Fortune. I'm somebody who enjoys the intellectual stuff for the sake of

21:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Practical experiences with psychic and aura work

context and communication, but at the end of the day, what I'm about is the work, the psychic work, the spiritual work, the scrying, the the all that stuff. That's what I'm about. Um there are certain consequences of broadcasting that stuff to a an audience of of any number. M >> so um I I'll do as much as I can >> uh without violating kind of like it's not not because of oaths you know it's kind of like you if you think about it alchemically like you have to you have

22:31 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Practical experiences with psychic and aura work

to seal the retort you know you you break your Olympic and and that that's what that you're shattering your Olympic when you show it to people and you know when you try too hard that's a huge thing you know that's one thing that I that I respected about I think I I think it was Damen Eckles when he was talking about some sort of ritual and he's just like the best thing you can do afterwards just [ __ ] forget about it for a little while. Get it out of your head. Um go do something different. But

22:58 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Practical experiences with psychic and aura work

um so I I've I've had a little bit of uh experience with that stuff. I'll tell you what I had really good experience with but that I've had very good results with. At a certain point in the Golden Dawn trajectory, there are several exercises that I kind of like extended on my own. Um, I'm not I didn't make a book. I I'm not going to teach anybody this. It's just something that kind of naturally happened. I took the Golden Dawn teachings like you're supposed to do and

23:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sphere of sensation and influencing others

kind of, you know, do your thing with them. Uh, but do them. Don't do a different thing. Don't change them. But, you know, as you kind of intuitively uh progress, you can uh experiment a little bit within the confines of of of safety and the system. And one of the things is the manipulation or control of the sphere of sensation or the aura. You're learning to control your aura. And that is one of the most powerful ways to um like I've made people cry, you know, um and and literally, you

23:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sphere of sensation and influencing others

know, kind of make them think that uh their idea or my idea was theirs. Um not not for any manipulative purposes or anything like that. And a lot of this stuff was happening was happening by accident. That's one thing that you don't really want to do as as a theologist is is be constantly projecting your will onto the, you know, um just like uh willy-nilly. You know, you want to have a a direct purpose. Is this serving a good, you know, not just my good, what I want, what Ike, you know, wants. It's not uh

24:36 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sphere of sensation and influencing others

it's it's not really u not really about that. So uh but the the uh control of the sphere of sensation the aura and then utilizing spheres along the middle pillar and extending uh particularly the tifereth center right um can have a very strong effect on the field or energetic body of those you know within proximity. Now, I've seen stuff like distance healing and raiki go really, really well. And I've done a little bit of that through like, you know, Golden Dawn avenues, things like uh the Rose Cross

25:15 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ethics and risks of manipulating energy

Ritual and certain Martinist uh um and Martinist related groups. I've done some more more healing stuff, but I tend not to try and screw with people cuz that's ultimately what you're doing, you know, at the end of the day after you've kind of experimented experimented to gratify your own curiosity and see if you could satisfy a sense of like accomplishment. But what did it do? You know, if anything, now it's going to take me it's going to take me some time to like work off that pride, you know?

25:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ethics and risks of manipulating energy

>> Sure. >> Yeah. So when I was poking through that book, that trimeian conjuration book, I had also come across something you're probably familiar with, the heptaron or the elements of magic. And seemed like they both kind of had the >> Yeah. looked like they both had a lot of the same similar sort of like sigils within those texts. So, I'm not sure if what came first if the I don't know maybe what do you have a little bit of background on the heptaron? >> Um,

26:26 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Heptameron and angelic magic overview

well, I'm I'm pretty sure it's angelic magic. Uh, I have it. I've not I've not read it yet. Um, it's a short short book, but it's it's basically um spirit summoning. And uh actually what's what's pretty interesting is that I think some of the uh what we were talking about in another episode concerning some of the the diagrams we were looking at concerning the El Cohen and their Christian theology. um draws on some of that stuff uh some of the uh protective circles, magical circles

27:14 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Heptameron and angelic magic overview

and and and things like that. But uh what I what I'm really the overall thing regarding like the thing that is uh at the core of of of the similarities that they have uh whether or not they have them is again this Christian magic um that utilizes angelic forces. And you you I mean we see that even in the Golden Dawn. We see that in the yellow cone. We see that in modern magical orders. You're using angelic forces, archangelic forces to um towards an end of of the uh theology means different things at

27:58 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Heptameron and angelic magic overview

different times for different people. um you know like a I think a theologist in this time was somebody who like summoned spirits and you know worked in the name of Christ and and summoned angels and things like that. Not necessarily somebody that was trying to ascend spiritually. Um I'm not again that's kind of my take on on what I've what I've read and what I've experienced. Uh the is a little malleable. It's definitely different from sorcery because you're you're you're dealing

28:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Heptameron and angelic magic overview

with different intentions. You're dealing with different entities or or at least a different, you know, a different protocol and the way that you that you work and the intentionality that you work in and the current that you work in. But ultimately, you've got all of this boiling down to Christian magic, angelic magic, um, and really the evocation of spirits. And it's a it's definitely a different kind of magic. Uh, one of the things that was pointed out to me by uh, Dr. Skinner was that, you

29:10 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Evocation vs spiritual development

know, by way of conversation and also by, you know, in reading the introduction introductory chapters to his book Greco Egyptian magic is that the magic of evocation does not necessitate that you have that you be spiritually developed, right? and and and adept of of magic of evocation is one that it has learned to call forth specific entities for specific purposes. And to a degree that's even angelic magic, you know, uh angels tend to be a little neutral. It's not like um this love and light, you

29:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Evocation vs spiritual development

know, if anything, it's it's kind of this this foreign disinterest really. It's not typically what you would expect. Um but uh you know, you use various what they would call syntheian kind of neoplatonic theoric uh way. You use incense, you use um color, sound, names, uh right, vibration to get this entity which is real and objective but is does not have a concrete material form um to come forth, you know, or and then command it to do something. um if it's angelic could be help. It could be uh intercession in

30:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Evocation vs spiritual development

somebody's uh health. It could be intercession um you know uh kind of the the purggation of of sin or um you know all that stuff the Christian stuff. Uh, on the other hand, if you have like goetic sorcery, you could be like in the PGM, you could just be calling forth a demon to pull a chicken bone out of your your sister's throat or something like that, you know, like it could be something extremely like like painfully mundane. Um, and that's really the biggest affirmation to me is like, oh,

31:17 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sigils, symbols, and magic squares as ciphers

these magicians were not they weren't these spiritual fear just trying to ascend and awaken this cristic solar force in themselves. They were basically just guns for hire that are instead of contracting people, they're contracting entities to do, you know, mundane things. So, uh, so that that's, uh, working within the Christian millu, you see that a lot, the angelic stuff with, um, Petra de Abano, you see it, uh, again, uh, obviously in in the the things that we're talking about. and and

31:52 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sigils, symbols, and magic squares as ciphers

then you see it in D which is really cool because I've always kind of found D and Tmius to have a lot of similarities uh particularly with with things like okay you had trus who was a master of language and coding and then you had D who literally you know he basically translated an angelic language. So >> yeah, with a lot of these like sort of associated pentacles and or alter glyphs um that are kind of associated with a lot of this sort of thing. It seems like that might be a lot of where the kind of

32:30 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sigils, symbols, and magic squares as ciphers

cryptographic nature of thing comes into play because when you look at a lot of them it they're conglomerations of a lot of there's like Hebrew and then there's alchemical symbology and then there's uh eninoian and uh like these angelic seals and whatnot encoded with some of the stuff and so I think it's right you know these days we have like the ability to research online and look up all these things really quickly. But back then, man, that must have been quite a task to familiarize yourself and and understand

33:08 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Complexity of occult symbols and study challenges

all of the meanings and and uh and really thoroughly be able to organize it all in a comprehensive manner. I mean it's just amazing the fact that like a guy like Trimus and what knowledge he must have had along with John D which I think he had quite a pretty extensive library as well. >> Yeah, John D was the man I I really I think no nobody has done more for the magical arts since then since the But where are you seeing the Nokian? >> You might be confusing that with Steven. Yeah, let me let me pull up a screen

33:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Complexity of occult symbols and study challenges

share. I might you might be right. Maybe it is Deviian. Let me hold Let me get your get your eye on this. Screen share this. >> Well, what context is it? >> Um, it's in a like a pentacle or something. Let me know when you could see my screen. >> I can see it now. I just don't see anything. >> Okay, I'm scrolling through. Hold on one second. Okay. Right here. Is that the or is that >> I can't I can't see. >> Okay. Let me Yeah, let me zoom in

34:25 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Complexity of occult symbols and study challenges

actually and copy this image. East. What is this? So this is first I'll zoom in and we can me zoom in a little bit more. Okay. Is that fairly clear on your end? That's good. That's that's better. >> Okay. So this is second table of practice design based on fr FR WRC with zodiacal angels and god names. Where did you pull this from? >> So, this is from a text called >> reviewing the triian conjuration. >> Yeah, I don't see any in Nokian on there. If anything, I see like

35:25 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Decoding symbolic scripts and Hebrew stylization

>> Okay. >> Yeah, that's that's not Inkian. If anything, it's like this this particularly stylized version of Hebrew. And uh I don't I'm not even sure I see thieban. >> Okay. Yeah, I was thinking like clearly the those three words within that triangle are Hebrew, but this is a stylized version of Hebrew on these outer edges. Is that what you're saying? >> That's what it seems to be uh to me. >> Okay. >> Yeah, I see olive. I see mem, you know,

35:55 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Decoding symbolic scripts and Hebrew stylization

I see I see R. >> Uh I forget what the this what this stylizing is called, but it's definitely >> definitely something that >> new to me. Yeah, it's that you see so you see um do you see the the the the astrological glyph of Taurus on that outer corner at about like 11:30 >> right here or wait that's not >> No, that's that's Cancer. Keep going. That's Taurus right there. >> Right here. Okay. >> Yeah. So, if you look to I guess it's on

36:26 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Decoding symbolic scripts and Hebrew stylization

my left, that's an alf >> right here. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> And next to that looks like a SK. And then after that is a mem. Then you have a vow, ar another alf. And um I'm not sure it might be a a zadi. But yeah, so that's that's a different kind of of of Hebrew. I believe it's definitely not eninokian. Eninoian also wouldn't have been available to trmius because like the eninoian didn't come out for until I think a true and faithful uh relation.

37:02 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Decoding symbolic scripts and Hebrew stylization

Um, so maybe like uh 1700s, 1800s. Um, >> because those were private manuscripts. D never published them. >> Yeah, they're for me. They're all, you know, just so I don't even know what I'm looking at really. So, >> all it kind of speaks to the whole cryptographic nature of it all. And then um I wanted to ask you about this and see if you know anything about let me screen share again. These are called church house type monstrances. I don't know what these are or what

37:43 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Catholic ritual objects and historical context

they're used for. And I wonder if you >> The monstrance is what you keep I believe it's what you keep the host in. >> Oh, okay. I'm not I'm not I I forget like it that's a very it's a very um old-fashioned uh term and like you see all that gold lots of gold. Yeah. >> Very Catholic. >> Yeah. Really gody. So yeah, the the the but the monstrance typically is where the um the conse specifically the consecrated host I'm pretty sure goes in the monstrance. I

38:23 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Catholic ritual objects and historical context

think we've in the the the the the church in which I am a deacon I think we have used something to that effect but we don't we don't always have a monstrance and it never looks uh that goddy. >> Yeah, pretty cool. I hadn't come across those till now. Um, I was going to ask you within any of the traditions that you're currently involved with, is something like spirit like drawing spirits into crystals, is that something that's um, a practice or is that just kind of like a separate

39:00 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spirit work, crystals, and practical skepticism

offside thing? >> No way. Not at my not at my level anyway. Um, my question is why, you know, like >> Yeah. >> What? Let me let me ask question. When you're when you're, you know, maybe you're late for work, maybe you're stopping off at [ __ ] Burger King or something. If somebody came pulled you out of your car, you know, here, come hang out in my closet, you know, like what what's the point? Um, on the other hand, what are we talking about in terms of spirit,

39:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spirit work, crystals, and practical skepticism

right? Like this kind of the biggest problem in the occult and esoteric aside from, you know, just the internet and lazy misinformed people. Um, is that we don't have this like unified specific lexicon. You know, you could say spirit and mean like you know, etheric energy, >> right? Or you could say spirit and you could think like you know uh asodel mik you know any of these these uh you know well whatever it is you could be talking about some of that stuff and so what kind of spirit are we

40:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spirit work, crystals, and practical skepticism

talking about if we're talking about pulling in energy in to consecrate a crystal or amplify it uh for some particular usage then sure. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean that's talismanic magic 101. You you're usually consecrating a stone before you do like a a flashing tablet or a you know a a magic square. So So yeah, you would do that but like to pull a spirit into a stone is just kind of like again it seems very it seems arbitrarily willful. Um, on the other hand, you know, whatever, to each his own, but it's

40:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spirit work, crystals, and practical skepticism

that's not I wouldn't I wouldn't include that specifically on my path. But, you know, touching upon the idea of magic squares, right? Magic squares are another type of cipher. But the ciphers, right, that's where we draw sigils from. A sigil is typically drawn from something else. The sigil is the sigil connects either words either letters or numbers but it forms a word or a pattern that is translated to be the energetic typically the energetic signature in a way right the the the essence a

41:35 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sigil creation and mathematical symbolism

signature of the essence a symbol meant to convey a particular essence and in magic squares that's done so mathematically so there's this con there's this con connection with an abstract essence through mathematics into some kind of um expression of its of its nature. So that in and of itself, a magic square is that's why you have to learn sigils because you could you'll take a sigil, nobody know what the hell it is. It look like a bunch of squiggly lines. Um if it's if it's a if it's a

42:05 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sigil creation and mathematical symbolism

traditional sigil and you'll just all you have to do is take the sigil and place it over the magic square and you can figure out uh you know what it is. Of course, you'd have to know what kind of magic square it is. You'd have to have some clue as to its meaning. Otherwise, you could be working on a square of the sun, which is completely different, you know, than like a square of Mars or Venus, um, you know, uh, or Saturn, right? Small square, tiny square. Uh, you take something like the

42:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Sigil creation and mathematical symbolism

square of the sun, which is fairly enormous, and you're just not going to be able to figure it out. You do have to have some education. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was something I always had kind of been curious about with all like the old sigils that we find was how they were derived. And yeah, I guess magic squares is where it's at in that regard. >> Yeah, there are there are other there are other methods too, but I'm not I don't I don't think I can talk about that.

43:03 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Trithemius’ legacy through students

>> Um, do you have any other particular insights or anything in regards to uh trimus that you would want to speak about? there's I mean there's just so little really written about at least that I had come across. So >> yeah, I mean you know I I'm I'm not certain it would do too good to to to know too much about guys like him. You know, I think that Truthmius was somebody who I think he was a he had to have been a great teacher because he taught the greats, right? Paracelis,

43:47 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Trithemius’ legacy through students

um, Agria, we're still talking about these guys. We're still looking at their books. I think that that's the way he taught the world was through his students, right? I mean, there's even something suggestive about the nature of his secrecy, it being inherent. if he kept the cipher, you know, like it could have been because he he didn't want to ever have anything in writing, you know, it could be because he never wanted to be the author of one of those things. Um, it was just a natural consequence

44:19 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Trithemius’ legacy through students

of, you know, not having hard drives and things like that. You have to write stuff down in that in that context. So, um I think that if we if we play pay close attention to to what his students had to say, we'll inevitably uh encounter at least the essence or the core of his doctrines, which are not nobody owns this stuff. You know, it transcends us. We're we're vessels for it. That's what makes somebody truly um an initiate uh in in in I guess the mundane sense. You become a custodian

45:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Trithemius’ legacy through students

um and a link of transmission for truths that transcend you but that somehow you can only express. It can only come through you in this it can only come out in this way through you. And uh and and so I think that that's that's important to remember when we're talking about the historicity or life details of these people. >> Absolutely. So Raymond Lul, I'm very interested in Raymond Lol or Lully or pseudo Lully and stuff. Um he's just a man of mystery as well. And I'll I'll

45:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Raymond Lull: mystery, alchemy, and speculation

pull up on the screen some significantly cryptic texts that were uh sent to me by a friend of his that I had not come across till pretty recently. >> A friend of who? Raymond lol. >> No, a friend a friend had sent them to me uh these these documents. But um >> I'm like you are you summoning spirits of the dead into crystals? >> No, not there yet. Um, one of the points that he said to me when he sent them was that one really has to ignore all the commentaries and just study the source

46:13 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Raymond Lull: mystery, alchemy, and speculation

works with no uh like you know preconceived notions and >> just that is excellent advice for like pretty much anything in the occult. >> Yeah. you know, just to begin to understand what's really being said instead of kind of grasping on to definitions and whatnot. And uh leaving the code words as open variables and after a while, you'll start to kind of become more familiar and things will become more clear. He he said exactly what you said earlier. They they call it a mystery tradition for a reason and I

46:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Raymond Lull: mystery, alchemy, and speculation

would have to agree with that. Um, but yeah, let me pull up some of these because these are really cool ones. And I think they're they're more uh like alchemical in nature for sure, but there's a lot of other ones that I don't even know. I'm not really familiar with the script type or anything like that. And I'll blow these up so that you can see them better. But um this is >> beautiful >> big book. But yeah, let's like blow one of these up. I mean, there's just so much depth and

47:21 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Analysis of alchemical manuscripts and imagery

detail and information. And it looks like that is >> reminds me of the uh it reminds me of the hierofant card of the tarot. >> Oh, yeah. Is that lat? It's probably Latin. >> I can't see. You'd have to you'd have to get way closer. Zoom >> in. Can you get any closer than that? Oh, there we go. I can still barely see it. >> I can blow it up more. >> Yeah. Can you go up a little bit? Like um Can you scroll up? >> It's cool because because what I can see

48:06 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Analysis of alchemical manuscripts and imagery

of it is uh Yeah, that's Latin. Yep, that's Latin. What what I can see of it kind of reminds me of like Elvish from Lord of the Rings. Oh [ __ ] I [ __ ] lost. >> Yeah, that's Latin. Absolutely. It's beautiful penmanship, too. I wish I wrote like that, man. I And I do a lot of writing with calligraphy pens, too, actually, to try and try and get that. But it's just so consistent. >> Yeah. And then like this one. I think there's a little bit of a lag from when this goes to you. But you see this one

48:43 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Analysis of alchemical manuscripts and imagery

with the tree and the different >> Yeah. >> Are those like phoenix's? >> Looks like it phoenix's or eagles or something. >> Yeah. >> Um some those those crossed keys there, the gold and the silver and then the and the gold on gold. That's also present in the uh the hierofant card too. They're just interesting. It's um >> and then so we got stuff like this these little there's a lot of these pages with they'll have like a letter in the middle

49:15 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Analysis of alchemical manuscripts and imagery

and then surrounding letters and then words surrounding those letters. The the the biggest the biggest thing that you can do best thing that you can do is always view it from the position first of all look at the numbers even if it's just letters count how many segments there are. You always want to do that. I mean, if I had to if I have to put money on it, I'd say I bet there's 12 squares there. >> Let's see. One, two, three. >> No, I think I was off. Maybe like 14.

49:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Analysis of alchemical manuscripts and imagery

>> 7 8 9 10 16 on this one. >> Right. So, so still that that is going to have some significance. It's going to have some bearing on this uh these particular numbers. And then and then you would look at at the letters. I would, you know, always assume that this is kind of in one to one degree or another, this is expressive of of an emanative kind of model. So, in other words, you see something like that with the with the the A in the middle or or here that what you've got going on now, the uh it

50:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Alchemical symbolism and historical debates

looks like a V, but it's in Latin it would be U. Um there's some kind of essential expression, you know, that is the center of of of the universe right there. That is the monad, the figure of the monad of this entire um you know, the generative monad of the entire scheme of the diagram. That would be the first couple things. I'd be counting everything and then uh >> yeah, >> but I mean what's the what's the context around this? And also, I'm interested to know uh what what what really draws you

50:57 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Alchemical symbolism and historical debates

to to to Raymond Lul. I know you said you're super interested. >> Uh I think it's the alchemy, which this document in particular right here, I honestly have no clue. Um there's just lots of very interesting artwork, but there's this other one. And what I find interesting about this one, let me open up. So, like these, he's got a bunch of these. And these are very alchemical like you can see um >> hold on let me find there's the terminology in it which is uh like sakunda you know that's like an

51:33 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Alchemical symbolism and historical debates

alchemical you know the sakunda work and then it has >> uh prima figura uh let me go sakunda figura >> first figure second figure >> tertiary you tertiary sakunda. These are like the alchemical um even like Bartlett. I think he has his named after those for his classes and stuff. But also what's really interesting, especially about this one in particular, is that I've heard a lot of people talk about how Paristelus was the original first individual to bring in the salt

52:14 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Alchemical symbolism and historical debates

principle to with an alchemy. But like in this you clearly see salt, sulfur and mercury in the center and the salt um that salt symbol is used throughout these and it's pertaining to alchemy. And I I think I might be wrong but I think that Raymond Lul was before Pariselus. >> Huh. So that's >> might have been I think he died in the 1300s. Paraselus was what 1500s? Let's see. >> I I think I think Paracelis was technically like right at the beginning of the Renaissance, right?

52:52 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Alchemical symbolism and historical debates

>> Yeah. Raymond L was 1232 to 1315. So if these are authentic, if this document is an authentic document, then that to me is very interesting. >> And and you also well well I mean it's extremely interesting. I actually might have stumbled upon something that's pretty cool. But also don't forget that uh you had mentioned earlier like this pseudo lolian corpus. >> So you know that if that's if that belongs to that if this belongs to that body of work then it it could have been

53:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Authenticity vs pseudo-Lullian works

done at a later date. Um but it is it is I mean it's it's beautiful to look at and uh these something about these looks very rosy cushioned to me. you know, they it doesn't look I'm not I'm not getting the like for the time period. I'm not getting that like extremely Catholic, extremely Christian sort of um expression of these ideas. uh and I I I I wasn't aware that that alchemy particularly in in in diagrammatic form like this was as sophisticated during this time period. I

54:11 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Authenticity vs pseudo-Lullian works

thought it was >> you know be great because in the Middle Ages at that point that's where we are with >> with LOL. It's it's it's kind of been debased. It's it's at least in Europe, right? it was doing really well in uh over in um you know the the PersoArabic uh custodianship at that point, right? I mean I think it's from Jabir who that gives us that really notices the the the the uh mercury and the sulfur principles but um I I don't recall it I don't

54:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Authenticity vs pseudo-Lullian works

recall having read or or heard that it was uh this kind of sophistication. I think at that point they were it was a lot of puffers, a lot of fraudsters. >> Yeah. And I >> But it doesn't it doesn't preclude the possibility that this guy really knew this [ __ ] at a very esoteric level. >> Yeah. And so it it's possible that maybe somewhere along the line someone came along and maybe created all of these based off of his work and their interpretations of it. But I mean, it's just so

55:16 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Authenticity vs pseudo-Lullian works

sophisticated and there's so much depth and detail to all of these. I mean, you could just stare and try to decipher and read all these for forever. >> Yeah. Yeah. And the the thing the thing that that like my understanding um uh of of Raymond Lull uh was that within his actual like academically verifiable authentic corpus of work that he actually was not at heart an alchemist. um in terms of like there was nothing in it to suggest that he actually believed in in uh in actual alchemy because don't

56:05 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

forget at this time right so Fra Albertus um or or I'm sorry Alberta Magnus I apologize Alberta Magnus again working within that Christian millu Thomas Aquinus was his student um he did experiments with alchemy back then it It's extremely literal still. Um he did experiments with under the opaces of the church. You had Thomas Aquinus who was very interested in in whether or not like alchemically produced gold could be sold on the market for at like this the same valuation things like that. But to to my I I was aware that

56:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

there was a a sort of pseudonmously uh attributed um or pseudonmously attributed uh corpus of work to Raymond L, but that his actual um writings on it were were not he was not like uh this groundbreaking or even you know as enthusiastic as his predecessors. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think there's there's different opinions and debates and who knows what's true. I've heard people say that same thing that you're saying and then other people or other opinions are like he was trying to keep it more

57:20 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

occulted or hidden because he on the surface level was more like denouncing alchemical stuff because of his position at the time and he didn't want to make it public but then or you know maybe he just wasn't at all like you're saying. So interesting stuff. Well, the thing the the the thing for me the thing for me is that so this is really where and and this is where I'm willing to take a risk right when you're researching this stuff from the standpoint of a practitioner. So I'm not going to I'm

57:53 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

going to keep both things in mind, but I'm going to I'm going to default in this case to because I don't feel like he was I don't feel like he was like a lynch pin. And I could be wrong. could be just showing my ignorance right now, but I don't feel like Raymond LOL is like the guy that I have to figure out whether or not he actually gave a [ __ ] about alchemy. Um, you know, whereas there are other people that I would need to find that out about where so so I feel like I would default to what is available

58:27 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

because I don't want to lean on speculation, right? Because to right, they could be like the people who were like, "Yeah, he didn't want anybody to know." They could be right, but I mean it's a 50-50 shot because that is purely their you it's just their speculation. Now when it comes to this when it comes to this idea of other stuff in the occult like you know having these encounters and and psychic experiences, spirit experiences, etheric experiences, if you have a personal nosis of that, I

59:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

I think that that's perfectly valid. But when you're going through academic stuff, I think it's important to be like, okay, I you got to draw a line somewhere where it's like, okay, I can't I can't default to something that's like completely unsubstantiated without and I think you're really good at this. Um, and I'm getting better from like listening to you uh when you talk about stuff that's unsubstantiated is you'll make a note. It's like, well, you

59:28 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Academic caution vs speculation in occult history

know, this person said that, but who really knows? I think that that's very important to do and I've been doing it more because you you can't it's you just especially in a public forum you have to throw that in there like well I don't really know and uh but here here's what I think. Yeah, really cool though nonetheless. Whatever that document is, whoever made it, I don't know. Pretty badass. >> Lots of interesting stuff and will probably be explored in the future. But

59:57 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Introduction to Kabbalah and pathworking

um uh any other notes on Raymond Lul that you wanted to throw out there before we move on? >> Um don't confuse him with Will William Lily because I'm pretty sure I did that for like five years. So >> All right. Well, all right. Cobalistic pathworking. Um the Caboa cobalistic path working amazing obviously huge gigantic thing within esotericism. Um so I'm aware of the cabala and the tree of life to a degree and somewhat aware of the conception of its sepharotic nature these spheres uh or

1:00:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Introduction to Kabbalah and pathworking

emanations and so on. And in my current conception, it seems to be like a fractal architecture like perhaps on a a grand uh macrocosmic level. The tree exists and then uh to our light or spiritual body as above so below like a mirror image or fractal counterpart representation. Uh it's kind of embedded within our being kind of cloaked in this physical vessel. Uh so I kind of think about it like this pure crystalline light form um sparks of sufferic divinity you know coated in Maya or the illusion of our

1:01:16 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Introduction to Kabbalah and pathworking

physical makeup and uh as I say in the you know like coated with that materiality. Uh so like the word illusion in regards to the body it can seem probably a little bit counterintuitive and to you know a lot of people cuz we think like this is a very physical real probably for some people it's like the most real thing. Um, so yeah, like uh I've really come to think of what we call physicality as the manifested interactive tangible result made by the creative potentization of maybe mind forces held

1:02:02 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

together by a combination of collective aggregors and celestial hierarchies of beings and so on and so forth. And so like they all kind of hold together and maintain the potentized light quote unquote codes to such a degree with within the confines of their natural uh how do I put this? like like layers of vibration creating densities of interacting waveforms that manifest as what we refer to as tangible andor solid material materiality or what we would call matter. But in reality, the real illusion is the materiality like uh it

1:02:53 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

is and it isn't. It's kind of like a paradoxical thing, I think. But anyway, >> it's it's it's real. It's real here the same way that like uh you know the pain in a dream is real you know like in in a way by by way of analogy right like okay let's I I really I think one of the most important but like secret you know like obscured ways of conceptualizing the way the divine mind creates is is mimicked in dreams right it's like I it's It's within my mind kind of right. Doesn't

1:03:32 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

exist in my mind. It doesn't exist inside my skull. That's not where you know how is where you know what I'm saying? It's not that's not where that's taking place. There aren't people in my skull. you know, when I'm having dreams and I'm dreaming about about friends or family and I have uh suspended my my awareness of sleep, you know, kind of like I've drinken I've I've drank from the river leth. I've I've lapsed into forgetfulness. And that's that kind of,

1:04:03 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

you know, that that that that that period where the the the hypnogogic jerk happens where you're just about falling asleep and and the the physical world of your waking life is beginning to disintegrate. You you're sending into like dream world, that kind of Alice and Wonderland logic, that Louisis Carol absurdity. And then finally, you lapse into this dream state and you kind of resume. It doesn't feel like you've arrived somewhere. you feel like you've just resumed uh your your stream of

1:04:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

consciousness. And so you're there and uh but it's you. It's not the physical you, but you feel like you're in your physical body. And um you are projecting certain things all around you. And but I'm not a I'm not saying that I am not a proponent of soypism. I don't think that all of this is in your head. I think all of it's in God's, you know, in in the noose, you know, the spiritual divine mind which is independent of the physical organism of a brain. Um, and

1:05:09 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

you're creating this, you know, this thing around you, but you you believe in the reality and the the laws of the dream realm are real when you're there. you know, if there's if you're cut, you feel pain, you know, and uh but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's true at a level that transcends the dream cuz the dream ends and you still exist. The exterior reality resumes. And it's kind of the same idea, right? That's how early like early Platonic thought conceptualized it or even before then.

1:05:42 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

It's like, well, how do we know what's what's real and what's not real? Well, something can't be real if it eventually decays and falls apart. >> Yeah. >> And the real stuff, the real stuff does not decay. It lasts forever. It's deathless. Therefore, it has to exist outside of time. How do we access that with our minds? And that's the closest we because our because our minds exist outside of time. It's the psyche. It's the soul. It it it moves forward. um and

1:06:11 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

and it exists kind of in in you know I don't want to say two planes simultaneously because I don't want to I don't want to misconstrue anybody between that whole uh platinian versus emblem uh soul fully descended or partially descended argument. It's kind of not what I'm talking about in this particular thing. But there's, you know, there's an existence where um there's a release from the temporary back to uh the ground, right? There's a reason we say that our waking lives are

1:06:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Nature of material reality and illusion

our real lives because that's, you know, that that is what is consistent. It's like if I in a dream, it's 50/50 whether or not I'm going to walk into the same room twice. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, it's but I know that every day my bookshelves are here, my computer's here in my way. It's like there's a stability there that is less changeable than in my dream. And it's the same it's the same way in terms of us being here and what

1:07:15 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What pathworking is and how it functions

the soul experiences in the realm of forms um beyond causality. It's like these things are unchanging. They don't change. They don't die. They're here forever. >> Yeah. Um so I wanted to ask you about uh pathworking. So my assumption or hypothesis is that the notion of path work revolves around the idea of conscious contact or maybe like focused and directed intentionality in some way, shape or form with migration from one sepharotic sphere to the other and some kind of specified

1:07:56 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What pathworking is and how it functions

manner or like a designed uh like orderly step-by-step fashion of some sort. um in order to get one familiar with the ways in which uh this sort of architecture relates andor can be experienced. Um but yeah, maybe you can paint me a picture and elaborate a little bit more on how you would kind of describe pathworking, its nature and potentially an example or two. >> Sure. Um so pathworking is a method of visualization that is I would say specific to the cabalistic model of the tree of life.

1:08:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What pathworking is and how it functions

Now, this is not C K Cabala with a K, it's Cabala with a Q, right? Because there's all these hermetic astrological uh tarot associations with this. And that's what establishes ultimately in the system of pathworking, what you can expect to find on the paths, right? Okay. If I if I, you know, if I uh traverse the path of of Tao, the 32nd path, um I know that I'm going to be looking at Saturnian underworld imagery. I'm going to be looking at the the you know the um uh the kurubic expressions

1:09:16 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What pathworking is and how it functions

of the um uh the the the pendaton. I I can expect to see those there. or the vision of Ezekiel. Um I know that I can expect to to see uh um all sorts of things associated with the underworld path, the path of Tao and the universe cart. You didn't have that before like you know the 1700s accord and and and uh all those French fellas who decided uh this is the tyrro is Egyptian and um it's because I've got a really good hunch. Uh look it works right? If it works use it. But I I don't know that I can get behind the

1:10:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · What pathworking is and how it functions

philosophy uh of of cord develon and and those people uh you know ate or however you pronounce his name. So um that is prerequisite and that is it's all part of forming a symbolic vocabulary by which to navigate successfully and to little or no detriment to yourself the hinterlands of the astral right that wild >> hinterland >> it's like an unexplored territory it's beyond what is known >> uh you know so um you have to in some way uh but it's this involves a discussion of the astral

1:10:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral realms: lower vs higher planes

and the nature. There's technically the lower astral and the higher astral. The lower astral is where we from our position subordinate to it can influence the realm of images. the the imaginal kind of uh mind space where we are producing we're pulling down forms to manifest them in thought, speech, action, materiality, but we're also generating certain byproducts, certain permutations that exist there and have an independent existence after long enough time or with a strong enough emotion behind them. Now, there's the

1:11:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral realms: lower vs higher planes

higher astral and that's closer to the ideal realm. Okay. So, that's going to be that's not it's not typically like you need to get through the lower astral. I think they would call it like the BO or something like that. Purgatory. You'd have to get through that level in order to be able to ascend because it's there that things like addictions and hauntings, uh, etheric paras, you know, astral parasites and things like that are going to to weigh on you and and, uh, and and that kind of

1:11:53 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral realms: lower vs higher planes

stuff. And I I don't mean it in like a physical sense, but I mean it in a way like they're going to condition your consciousness to a level of very low vibration. You it's going to be very you're going to become quote unquote, you know, to use the term archaically obsessed uh by these things um after separation of the body. Uh whether that happens, you know, after death or in in like an astral uh travel situation. So then there's a higher astral that's closer to the ideal realm, the the the

1:12:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral realms: lower vs higher planes

the causal realm, the realm of mind, pure mind, int uh not intellect, but but abstract mind. Um we're talking here about like you know basically the uh the part of your mind that interacts with the algebra of the universe. Um so uh the part of your your your spiritual organism, your your consciousness. Uh so you you're um what you have to understand is in order to navigate those very plastic malleable realms of the imaginal, you you do have to construct yourself um some kind of model. And the

1:12:57 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral realms: lower vs higher planes

reason why it works is because all images are there, right? It's the treasure house of images. Um it's the the the the astral library. Um the accashic record, the collective unconscious. It's all there. And so, uh, you know, you could see Superman or you could see Daffy Duck. You could see Freddy Hellraiser. These kinds of archetypes are all kind of or permutations of archetypes um are are hidden there. Uh, this is also typically where you find something like the the the dweller of the threshold. Um, a

1:13:33 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral realms: lower vs higher planes

dweller of the threshold. There's not just one. Um but uh so you need to construct something there. Uh if if if if it's a tarot card image, you're not superimposing that because some version of that archetype already exists in the collective imagination. So so you know that this is what I'm going to be working with every time. And one of the best ways to know that you're that the the pathworking has or can go wrong is when you do not observe consonant imagery. So what does this require? This requires that you

1:14:09 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

assimilate these images, these symbols, right? That's why they call it, you know, these are the teachings, these these pictographs, they communicate with that level of our being more immediately and more deep, more profoundly. And that's because this part of ourselves is preverbal not only as individuals but as as a species as a collective that existed there sensory uh sense perception of images of colors of shades and their associations with uh emotion or or abstract thought happened before language. language is kind of

1:14:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

these safe roads that we built into I mean it's amazing they've or organized our world and it's very important um and it can sound when I talk about language like I'm speaking out of both sides of my mouth because I'm just acknowledging that it's a limitation in one sense but it's also helpful in another that's all so it's it's like anything else there's part good part bad but this part of ourselves is preverbal and so it actually language does less good here

1:15:16 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

than images um So, we're going to want to use images superimposed into the astral to lead us where we want to go and not get distracted. So, you have to assimilate the symbolic vocabulary that is necessary and you can't just learn it by wrote. It has to be assimilated into your psyche, your consciousness. You have to constantly see it. You have to essentially burn these things into your sphere of sensation. Um uh so that that is the first choice so that you're not in the middle of a path working and big

1:15:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

bird shows up because it's got you've got some emotional attachment to that from when you were six and now it's it's now intrusive. You have to be able to set that magical space, set your wards, don't let anything in outside of that until you call it. Right? So um and that's magic versus mediumism. Right? mediumism is like I'm gonna open myself up to the universe and the joy and the love and then who the [ __ ] knows what's going to happen. You know, that's not

1:16:10 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

I'm not letting a stranger into my house, let alone, you know, my my inner sanctum, my psyche. So, um again, this is an issue people have. They don't want to believe it's real. They want to believe that it's psychized. Well, God bless you. Good luck. Um but, uh another thing that you need to do is you need to be able to sit. You need to be able to concentrate. You need to be able to focus. If you can't do that, you can't clear your mind, you can't direct your thoughts, you can't hold your

1:16:36 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

attention for longer than 30 seconds, then you have a lot of work to do before you can do a path working. Um, if it is to be more than mere imag, you know, fantasy. Um, so, uh, another thing that you need to do is you need to be able to visualize. Believe it or not, a lot of people can't do that. I've met a lot of people that have convinced themselves they have aphantasia, which means that they can't visualize things in the eye of the mind. the imaginal faculty. I say imaginal because when you say

1:17:04 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Importance of symbolic vocabulary and imagery

imagination, people think it's not real. Imaginal is different. I'm creating images. It doesn't mean it's not real. It's just it's real the way you know um it's real on its own terms in its own realm, you know, and it is just as objective as anything else. Um so you need to be able to do those things and then you need to be you start out typically with pathworking. They're guided. you're listening to somebody. That's just training. You can have I'm not saying you can't have somewhat of a

1:17:34 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Visualization, focus, and preparation requirements

profound experience. Sure. Um but at first it's just kind of the training wheels and then later you learn to traverse the path in a ritual setting and you learn to commune with specific types of entities there and uh that are associated with those paths and eventually they lead you up the tree of life. Right? You could you could really you could look at the path of Ta leading from Malcuth to Yasod as the lower astral. You could look at you know the upper quote unquote part of Yasod as the upper astral and uh you can kind of go

1:18:12 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Visualization, focus, and preparation requirements

from there and it's a map of the psyche. It's the map of the spiritual realms, right? Because you can divide the tree into the four worlds. Um and it it does fractalize. It goes on. There are trees inside spheres. There are it's it's multi-dimensional. It's not just a single thing. And uh at the end of the day, it is a lineal glyph. It's a model that we use. It is one that is geometrically harmonious, geometrically significant. Absolutely. It tells us a lot about the relationship to the

1:18:42 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Visualization, focus, and preparation requirements

macrocosm and the microcosm on a quantum level as we're kind of understanding it now. But again, it's a lineal glyph of the tmic model of the universe. So it's been with us for a really long time way before Moses uh de Leon. Um this this kind of conception of the spheres has been around with us since at least Plato. It just it it either hasn't been this sophisticated or it's been part of the Agra dogmata that Aristotle talks about in the Platonic tradition in his uh physica and and and metaphysics.

1:19:13 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Visualization, focus, and preparation requirements

>> What's that? Agramat is the unwritten teaching. >> Okay. >> So, so there's there are claims and the most the most you know uh I guess legitimate one would be from Aristotle, right? He mentions it twice in physics and metaphysics and he talks about the fact that there was oh yeah absolutely in the Platonic school there was what Plato wrote and there was the [ __ ] that didn't get written down you know and um I think a lot of people understanding that now from from and like look he said

1:19:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Visualization, focus, and preparation requirements

this this is these are authentic works of Aristotle he's not and this was the empiricist right like Aristotle rejected the realm of forms so he's not somebody who's going to mince words or try and lead people on. He's all about precision and uh and and and that kind of stuff. So, empiricism. So, uh for him to say that twice in two major works, it's like you got to take that seriously. There was an unwritten and I'm not he does not imply what that pertained to. So, I don't want anybody to get it twisted and

1:20:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Step-by-step example of a pathworking ritual

think I'm saying they were doing cabalistic path workings in ancient Greece. I'm just saying, you know, this stuff has been around a lot longer than the Hebrew Cabala and or at least contemporaneous with it, right? I think like the period of Plato would have been the same period as like the Psalms and back then they had like, you know, Merkaba wisdom and stuff. So, and and it was a similar thing in Merk in Merkaba mysticism, Merkaba traditions is that typically the the the the Merkaba mystic

1:20:55 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Step-by-step example of a pathworking ritual

would descend. they wouldn't ascend. But the interesting thing about the tree of life is that in order to move upward, you need to first the only path available to you is the path of the underworld. >> So that's a very that's a path of tow. That's very interesting too. >> That is interesting. Yeah. And then so like I I've heard what is there like 32 different paths that one can go about within the different available options or something like that within the path

1:21:29 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Step-by-step example of a pathworking ritual

breaking. >> Yeah. It's got 30 it's got 32 levels and a couple of side missions side quests. um like what it like what would a a path working look like on a maybe just give like a very simple um overview of of going about working a particular path. >> Okay. So you you'll hear basically what a golden dawn path working might look like. And actually, I would highly recommend that people get um I want to say it's the garden of pomegranates, scrying on the tree of life. So that's that's an Israel

1:22:10 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Step-by-step example of a pathworking ritual

regarded book that was then later re-released um and edited and and they added an addendum, a second a second book to the volume by Chicken Tabby uh Cicero. Um so the second half is called Scrying on the Tree of Life. The first half is Israel Regger's Garden of Pomegranates. And there are excellent path workings that you can record um and then play on do it on your phone and then play back while you're in that that meditative visualized state. Um first thing that I would do is I would robe up and then I would uh set my space

1:22:47 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Step-by-step example of a pathworking ritual

uh do all my um my uh prophylactic work, right? I would do my my pentagram rituals, my hexoggram rituals, all that stuff. I mean, it's a lot, but that's the kind of stuff that I do, right? I chose this path. I found that it works. I'm not going to halfass it. I would sit down, do all that outer stuff. I'd place my ass in the west facing east. Uh I would probably select a for me magical work is most effective at the full of the moon interior visualization and meditative work is best done in the

1:23:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

uh the dark of the moon. So um that is typically the time when uh uh less etheric energy is available uh for magical work in the dark of the moon. uh these this has to do with you know the etheric tides and so I would be doing visual I would try and time important visualization work like this during that period and then I would just make sure that uh you know just the chyros was dialed in nothing nothing too crazy going on with Mercury uh you know I I've experimented doing stuff with like moonvoid of course in in the traditional

1:24:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

sense right helenistic astrology meaning that it's not making any any aspects um rather than switching house uh houses um stuff like that. So you can try that stuff out anyway. So I'd get that going. I would get myself to a place where I was ready to visualize. definitely do a middle pillar before then to center myself, balance myself, and activate the we call them galgalim because it's a Hebrew word for, you know, swirling, but really chakras um of the on the the Hebrew, you know, or the abolistic

1:24:36 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

middle pillar version. We're not going to do the uh the vidantic the the uh the Hebrew seven uh chakra middle pillar. Not what I'd do. And then we would uh I'd go into I'd start you always start in Malcuth. Um and it involves a lot of this stuff at a certain point they say you know it's left up to the quote ingenium of the adept. You you by this point you you kind of know what you're doing. So however you need to get yourself there as long as within within the bounds of of of proper safety protocols uh do it

1:25:11 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

that way. But but use your imagination. So, um, you start out in, let's say, the temple of of Malcuth, right? And it's got all the appropriate colors, you know, citrine olive, russet black. You've got the appropriate, uh, archangelic figure there, sandalon. Uh, depending on what lineage you're working in, you might want to give a grade sign or admission badge or a handshake, whatever it is. Start out there. You must know before you go in where you're going and why. Okay? You must know that. There has to

1:25:43 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

be some. You can't just say, "Well, see what's gonna happen." Um, you should know what you're doing, right? I mean, if you've gone to all this trouble, it doesn't have to be crazy. You don't have to go all the way to Gimmel, you know? You could just stay on top. You could move around a little bit. Go to Shin, go to Cove, play around with with those dynamics. Um, I like to stay off the path of pay for anybody who's who knows what that's about. Anyway, so um

1:26:13 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

I would then find a doorway. I would tell Sandalfon I would I would communicate with the archangel of the place and I would say look this is where I want to go. Um having been granted the access for that you know just establishing my contact really is what I'm doing with the with the the the overarching um intelligence of the sphere. Uh I would then pass through either a we call them a shar a gate right I would either go through a door or I would go through a curtain or something like that and and it would have like let's say

1:26:50 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

either like a a T like a like a towel cross or it would have the actual Hebrew letter tao or tav over it go through in a certain manner and on the other side I should expect to see perhaps uh the terrestrial sphere the heaven of Messiah of Saturn, right, with its rings. Or I could see Saturn in the mythological context, whether that be Greek or whether that be Roman. I could see the scythe. You could see symbols of the underworld, you know, uh, uh, Atum Rah and [ __ ] Horus really, but that's the Coptic name

1:27:29 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

is Huri. And, um, and thought on the solar bark of the sun going through the underworld. I could pass through into the belly of Noot into the, you know, the duad. Um, but just all underworld consonants. In other words, if I walked into a clear green field, I probably haven't left Malcuth, >> right? So, you're going to want to rectify that, you know, and how you're going to want to do this, you want to go back through the door you just came through and make sure you're back in

1:27:59 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Navigating the Tree of Life safely

Malcuth. See see if any all the imagery there is is good. Reenter yourself. Invoke the divine. Always invoke the highest first. Aheay and then try and try and make the connection again. If you just can't get it, get out. But don't just open your eyes like waking a sleep walker. Reverse what you did. Walk out the way you would have to if it was a physical location. Um, and bring yourself back slowly. Now, if it works out, you find yourself in the underworld, you got to figure out what the hell you're doing there. You should

1:28:30 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Returning from pathworking and integration

know that ahead of time. Um, if you want to get to Yasod, you need to know all the consonances of Yasod. So, let's say you travel through the underworld, the 12 gates. You go through that. It's not too crazy. You know, maybe you don't maybe you're a little pressed for time as we all are. So, you it's pretty quick. You know, all the doors are open, let's just say. But if you encounter resistance there, don't ignore it. Um, make note of it. Uh, find yourself in Yes. You know, it

1:29:00 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Returning from pathworking and integration

should be uh like um a uh a purple or or of a of a violet hue. Um you know, there should be some symbolism involving uh the number nine. There should be some symbolism involving uh silver or the moon, you know. Um and and then from there you would uh speak with let's say uh Gabriel you know um you would do you would vibrate so grant establishing yourself in this in these spheres typically requires that you vibrate a divine name right so if I were in malcuth I would go down the hierarchies I start out with

1:29:43 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Returning from pathworking and integration

Adonai that's the highest divine name then I would go down you know and contact the archangel contact the angel um talk about you know uh vibrate arets meaning earth you know I would do the same in yod I would do the same in tab too I would vibrate the name of the path we would go through into or you know like so if let's say okay I was in the temple of malcooth and I wanted to enter the underworld maybe maybe that curtain instead of having the the letter T on it if you really wanted to soak in a

1:30:18 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Returning from pathworking and integration

specific type of imagery you could pass through a curtain that that was essentially the the the um the universe or the world card of the tarot and just dive into it, you know. Um you could do that and then you get into Yes. You make contact with Gabriel, vibrate the divine names and then uh see what happens there. Maybe you go into meditation and you meditate in the temple of Yes, right? Maybe you're trying to activate astral travel. Maybe you're trying to um invoke uh lucid dreaming or things like that.

1:30:51 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Returning from pathworking and integration

That's work that you would do in the temple of Yasud. And then uh and you can go you can you know you really go anywhere from there. It's just you've got to take your time. You've got to focus and do it right. And always come back the way you went in as if they were physical places. Come out of it slowly. Stretch. Close down your ritual space. Take a few breaths. and then write everything down immediately. >> Wow, that was [ __ ] awesome. That's incredible. Um, >> I mean, this is the kind of work I that

1:31:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Risks, life effects, and spiritual consequences

I've been doing for, you know, almost a decade. So, it's uh >> I can see and many other things. It's like that's not like that's not even like the main menu item, you know, like that's a that's an appetizer. >> Yeah. And this is obviously why it's so important that somebody becomes so familiar and well-versed in understanding how everything should be in terms of its associations and what to look for and knowing your map before going in because obviously like you were saying you can

1:31:59 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Risks, life effects, and spiritual consequences

go in through the wrong doors or whatever and wow that's just so interesting. >> I mean that that's the whole thing right some people are like well I've had success. Well, good for you. It's kind of like when people eat sushi all the time. It's not if, it's when you get a parasite, you know? It's like it's it's just it's just that's just what it is. So, the thing is like you you may not even be aware of the detriment. It may be and that's the that's the brilliance

1:32:25 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Risks, life effects, and spiritual consequences

of the outer order of the golden dawn, the alchemical order, the salvia coagulas that it forces you. You go through these rituals and then [ __ ] starts happening to you in your mundane life and you're like, "Well, my mundane life isn't my spiritual life." you know, why did I get fired from my job? Well, maybe you're in malcuth and it's time for you to take a reassessment of your ability to lead a stable life. Okay? So, that might not seem spiritual, but you have a [ __ ] problem. So, you know,

1:32:49 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Risks, life effects, and spiritual consequences

you've got to work on these things. And so, it it also draws your attention to the fact that like everything I'm doing spiritually manifests itself physically. They're tied immediately. It's like pulling a string. If I pull one end, I'm pulling the other. So it's, you know, it's you have to learn that it's like, yeah, you might not even know what you're doing because you have this this toggling, this sort of like partitioning between your your magical life and your

1:33:16 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Risks, life effects, and spiritual consequences

your regular life. And sometimes we maintain these blind spots because they're difficult to look at and they put us in a position of aporeia, which is like, I don't know where I stand. I'm struggling, you know, and you got to be there and you should be there regularly. All right. Well, one more thing before we close out is I wanted to talk a little bit about the maybe if you could give like sort of a little comprehensive overview of the levels and layers of the spiritual light body cuz there's a lot

1:33:50 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

of like or there's a lot of terminology with this and I know we kind of touched on this a bit in our last podcast but I was reading something in regards to the levels of density kind of associated with the spiritual light body and I want to say it was actually something of stavishes that I was reading. Um, but yeah, it's like we've got uh the subdal body, the resurrection body, astral body, spirit body, or radiant body, etheric body, all this different terminology. Some of it is the same uh

1:34:24 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

or maybe synonymous. And so I just wanted to see if you could kind of lay it all out. um different levels or layers and um how they kind of interact. >> Sure. Well, I mean everybody every school of thought has its has its differences uh in terms of the stratification of this thing that we're talking about. And one thing that's really important to keep in mind is that they're not distinct. Meaning there it's not it's not like walking from one room of a house to another. It's more like walking from one

1:35:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

end of a hall to the other. So they exist uh sort of co-terminously meaning in the same place. They interpenetrate each other. It's more like a light spectrum. There's no there's no clear visible delineation um between that like liinal space when one is turning into the other. It's all connected, right? Um uh so that's important to to note for conceptualization purposes um especially because of the way that it is talked about highly fragmented. So I tend to particularize these things in terms of

1:35:36 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

the parts of the self or the soul and and so that starts out we know that there were at least nine parts categorized in uh in the the ancient Egyptian conception. Um, you know, some of it makes a lot of sense. The the some of it doesn't. You know, uh, the the three-fold or four-fold system might work better. You know, the um uh uh kit uh uh ba and um a or something like that rather than all these other parts of uh of the soul that um that they recognize. But what's interesting to me is um

1:36:14 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

what has worked for me in correspondence with the model of the four worlds, right? Uh the cabalistic model of the four worlds is kind of basing my idea of or the way that I model these things um on uh the four worlds concept and essentially the interpretation of theosophy which was really in interpreting the the eastern vidantic kind of conception of the way that the soul projects downward into the material. It's projecting in like this quote unquote downward trajectory. Trajectory of density as you put it

1:36:58 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

earlier. It's a trajectory of density. Not one of like spatial location necessarily up, down, left, right. None of that stuff means anything at a certain point of rarification. itself. Um, it's quote unquote projecting, um, from, uh, spiritual realms, excuse me. It comes down from these spiritual realms which are kind of they're absolutely unintelligible by the physical. In order to get there, you have to leave, right? The Rajrushian saying only the only those lightly lightly armed will attain the summit.

1:37:33 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

It's you can't pass the abyss. You can't cross Doth and be inbody. So that's not something that you're going to understand while you're embodied in in incarnation. You can think about it, you know, you can try and conceptualize it, but you will have virtually no understanding of it um while you exist as whoever the hell you are in this lifetime. Um from there, you project down into the causal bodies. And each one of these each one of these bodies, so to speak, they're not necessarily this outline of

1:38:06 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Spiritual light body and layers of consciousness

you, you know, it's just it's it's kind of this field of consciousness, this spectrum of consciousness that becomes more and more dense until it reaches what is your ego, which is the part of you that is the part of your psyche that is most identified with the physical you and the physical occurrences of your daily life. But there are other parts of your psyche. There are it's a broadband spectrum, you know, that that that are affecting you. This is why you have premonitions. It's why you have it's how

1:38:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

you're able to access intuition. It's it's all that stuff is because it's a broad band and you your ego is at the [ __ ] bottom of it. It's the densest part and it's tied to the densest physical part of you. This body, this meat coat and um and where it goes, what it enjoys, what it hates, and how it's going to stay alive. So it descends. You have an upper and a lower level, right? Because we're talking about spectrums. We're talking about we're saying it in terms of levels

1:39:07 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

and partitioning it just for the sake of being able to communicate the analogy. Um but in reality, you're you're at the part of the the the mental causal body that is closest to the spiritual. Then at a certain point you get to the part of the mental causal body that is now morphing into uh the um the astral or or emotional body, you know, something like that. Um and that's more that's more like the realm of intuition. That's more the the realm the lower part of the astral again the astral body the planes

1:39:44 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

and the bodies are a onetoone. So if I'm saying astral plane, I'm also of necessity am explaining astral body. Your astral body or the the the this the segment of the your spectrum of consciousness which can interact with that plane is of that plane. It's on that plane at all times. It doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't descend. It's just where your focus is is how you're going to toggle through it. So part of spiritual training is to broaden your awareness so

1:40:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

that your focus isn't so tight that I can only be here or there. At a certain point you can exist and feel in multiple parts of that spectrum of consciousness all being mediated through the the persona that has come to understand them and learn to deal with them. Um from there you go from the higher astral lower astral um you move into the physical but the higher physical which is a very rarified substance which we callqi or prana the etheric body. Now the etheric body like etheric energy is

1:41:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

tantamount in the cabal cababalistic system with the nephesh. Okay. So it's it's impressionable. It's subject to the emotions. It changes based on your emotions, but it can also be moved by you. And if it's not being moved and directed by you, if it hasn't been linked up with the conscious mind in conscious awareness, and it's basically this appendage that you don't know you have, it's completely atrophying, then somebody else is going to move it for you. So somebody that is

1:41:28 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

more in their in their own will, somebody that has this kind of knack for being uh sort of expanding their field and and and whether they realize it or not can can influence people. They're going to influence your etheric body and by way of that they're going to get into your field and they're going to influence your thought body. and you know whether intentionally or not uh implant those what we were talking about the last time those those uh thought forms in there and a lot of times you think those are your ideas and

1:42:01 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Ego, astral, etheric, and causal bodies explained

those are your feelings but a lot of times they're not. Um and a part again of this spiritual training is learning to differentiate between something is yours originating in you or uh something that is implanted whether intentionally or not. It's not nine times out of 10. So the etheric body is the higher version of uh or the higher per uh aspect of the physical because it is physical. You can feel it when you you can feel it when you do energy work. You can move it through acupuncture and you can see it. So it's

1:42:36 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral vs etheric perception differences

not that's that's where people go wrong. They say okay what's the difference between etheric and astral sight? Astral sight is in my mind. I can sense something that's there on the astral, right? It it's not actually physically here, but it it sort of interenetrates this this broadband field of consciousness. Uh, and I can I can over years of training in various circumstances, I can see that appear, but I know that it's not actually physically in the three-dimensional space. It's just that

1:43:15 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral vs etheric perception differences

I am it's being communicated to the part of me that is on the astral and that part is seeing it. I have now successfully learned. I don't right I don't have to be in in in uh pathworking to be on the astral. I have expanded my consciousness to the point where I can exist on both those planes simultaneously. So what what I'm perceiving on the astral is being mediated to the to the personal version of me. I can see it there, but I know that it's not. And it's it's kind of the same way

1:43:46 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral vs etheric perception differences

when you, you know, let's say you're doing the lesser ritual of the pentagram. You're drawing those pentagrams. After a while, you're projecting them into the room. You know that it's not that that astral vision is not there, but it's it's projected in this kind of like two-dimensional vision that you have. It's very difficult to explain because what you're what I'm talking about here is is is a transcendent holistic uh sort of [Music] grasp on these different levels of your

1:44:17 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral vs etheric perception differences

own consciousness that can seem when you first experience them they can seem completely foreign to your idea of what consciousness is. So then obviously you get to the physical body which is influenced by the etheric which is influenced by the astro which is influenced by the mental which is etc and so on and so forth. Um and so that's how you also have these ways that like you can have psychossematic disease, you can make yourself sick, you you know you you're you can have emotional disease um

1:44:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral vs etheric perception differences

and and things like that and you can have a lot of disease uh that comes from your your nephesh uh uh cabalistically your your yourqi um being blocked or moved in ways that it's are counterproductive to its natural flow. And so that's the entire chain of being there. The light body to me is when you harmonize all of these things, you achieve what the Greeks called the again I was talking about in an earlier conversation. The oopsilon being translated as a U rather than an F or like a V.

1:45:23 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Astral vs etheric perception differences

You have something that people have scratched their heads over for hundreds of years. the agoes and particularly Pfury talks about it. He talks about it as this vehicle. Some people call it the the Merkaba or the the the vehicle of light, the aura, maybe. Um, but he calls it the Augo80s. And people had a really hard time figuring out what that was. But if you realize that the oopsilon is cognate to a V, then you read it as a which means the egg body, the egg form, the egg shape. Avo means egg in Greek.

1:46:04 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · The “egg body” and integrated aura

So he's talking about something that's shaped like an egg. And what does that sound like? That sounds like the aura. And essentially that the um the egg body, this the egg form um that becomes luminous when integrated. for instance, when that is the totality of your microcosm um uh in the in the physical realm and it's composed of astral and etheric energy. Um and when you're able to see etheric energy, the one of the first things that you notice is like I must not be doing this

1:46:38 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · The “egg body” and integrated aura

right because I don't see auras the way they're traditionally depicted. And then over the years you start to realize like most people don't have fully developed enclosed auras. It just doesn't I don't know if that's a consequence of like modern pollutants or the way stress the way we live our life 5G. I have no [ __ ] clue why that is but I've seen maybe three people in my entire life that have a a an intact oric body and that essentially is the body of light and it comes by and that will become

1:47:07 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · The “egg body” and integrated aura

stronger the more you integrate everything that we've talked about. the more you can contain within the the mediating uh center of your personal consciousness while the other parts of your broadband frequency of consciousness are at work in tandem um and and and assimilate and integrate that. And then there's exercises that you do, the visualization, the crafting of the body of the light, the the the etheric and astral simulacum that you can then transfer consciousness to. as some people say is the vehicle

1:47:41 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · The “egg body” and integrated aura

beyond, you know, with which you will be able to leave the causal spheres at death. So, we've gotten very very newagy. Um, but this is, I mean, this kind of [ __ ] does become a core tenant of a lot of uh, you know, the magical worldview at a certain point. It's just something that I think you need a very firm grounding and then go forth. keep an open mind and learn to experience it before you make any decisions. So in other words, my experience, my model of this entire thing is based on my experience. My experience is not

1:48:22 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Closing thoughts on experience vs theory

based on the pre the the pre-igested model. All righty, that concludes another epic episode of Etherica podcast. Thank you all so much for listening. If you want more, check out patreon.com/etherica. Check out and subscribe to the YouTube if you will, please. Um, follow on Instagram, all that good stuff. For myself, um, check me out at Philosophical Minds Podcast. And how about for you, Ike? >> Yeah, that was a uh a tremendous question to ask me at like 1:30 in the morning. >> Okay. Um,

1:49:03 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Outro and podcast sign-off

>> you answered it amazingly. I'm probably not going to be able to go to sleep now. Um, you see, you're keeping me from integrating my astral body. Um, >> no, no, this is great, dude. I love it. Um, if anybody wants to hear more of my craziness, uh, YouTube.com, a ran vm. And uh you can look in the about section of any video or and um I'll have my email, my Instagram uh and all that jazz there. So hopefully uh you guys continue listening into the Etherica podcast. This is a lot of fun and a pleasure and

1:49:45 · Sky Mathis & Ike Baker · Outro and podcast sign-off

I love being here with you in the garden of astral delights. >> Indeed. All righty. Until next time. See >> y [Music]