1
00:00:16,309 --> 00:00:21,310
Welcome to Mind Escape. 
Are you ready? 

2
00:00:24,550 --> 00:00:28,470
Are you ready to escape your 
mind? 

3
00:00:48,290 --> 00:00:51,690
Hello Mind Escapees, if you have
not already, please go check out

4
00:00:51,690 --> 00:00:54,210
my other channel Masters of 
Rhetoric. 

5
00:00:54,210 --> 00:00:56,690
I will have the link down below.
It's also part of the Mind 

6
00:00:56,690 --> 00:00:59,970
escape link tree link. 
It's something I'm very 

7
00:00:59,970 --> 00:01:04,650
passionate about where I dissect
the origins of Western thought 

8
00:01:04,650 --> 00:01:08,760
through the pre Socratic 
thinkers all the way to 

9
00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:10,520
Aristotle. 
And I'm probably going to go 

10
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:12,280
beyond that as well at some 
point. 

11
00:01:12,640 --> 00:01:16,880
But right now I'm focused on the
Ionian physicist all the way to 

12
00:01:16,880 --> 00:01:19,560
Aristotle. 
So please support Masters of 

13
00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:22,240
Rhetoric. 
Go check out our YouTube channel

14
00:01:22,240 --> 00:01:24,320
and subscribe. 
There's tons of shorts on there 

15
00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:27,640
already as well as episodes, and
there's a bunch of episodes 

16
00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:30,520
lined up. 
I'm on all audio platforms with 

17
00:01:30,520 --> 00:01:32,160
it. 
And if you're on TikTok, 

18
00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:35,760
Instagram X, or any of the 
social media platforms, please 

19
00:01:35,760 --> 00:01:37,560
go check out our page on there 
as well. 

20
00:01:38,080 --> 00:01:39,920
I'd really appreciate it. 
Thank you. 

21
00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:43,200
Tonight we have an amazing 
episode, something a little 

22
00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:46,920
different, a little out of my 
own wheelhouse, but I love that 

23
00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:50,920
and I love learning new things. 
I am joined by Doctor Richard 

24
00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:55,120
Kaczynski, who is a 
psychologist, author and 

25
00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:57,720
historian of Western 
esotericism. 

26
00:01:58,280 --> 00:02:01,160
He's the author of the book 
Purdue Rabo, which is the 

27
00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:05,440
biography of Aleister Crowley. 
He recently re released The 

28
00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:09,840
Sword of Song with Inner 
Traditions and he just released 

29
00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:13,200
Mind over Magic, which is 
available right now. 

30
00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,480
So please go click the link down
below and get yourself a copy. 

31
00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:20,040
This is going to be a 
fascinating conversation on the 

32
00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:22,360
intersection between mind and 
magic. 

33
00:02:22,800 --> 00:02:26,080
Enjoy the show. 
All right, Richard, how are you?

34
00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:29,360
I'm doing great. 
How are you this fine evening? 

35
00:02:29,880 --> 00:02:33,160
Great, great. 
So anybody listening, this is 

36
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:38,080
Doctor Richard Kaczynski. 
He's an author of many books. 

37
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:40,760
One we're going to talk about 
tonight called Mind Over Magic. 

38
00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,520
That's Magic with Aki. 
Thought that this would be a 

39
00:02:43,520 --> 00:02:47,480
great conversation and if you 
haven't checked it out already 

40
00:02:47,480 --> 00:02:50,720
please go check out Mind Over 
Magic and shout out to Inner 

41
00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:53,760
Traditions as well and I will 
have the link down below all the

42
00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:55,640
way at the bottom if you are 
interested. 

43
00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:57,600
So welcome on the show, how are 
you? 

44
00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:00,240
I'm great. 
Thank you for that lovely 

45
00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:02,640
introduction and for plugging 
mind over magic. 

46
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:07,680
Oh, of course, of course. 
So just as a little bit of a 

47
00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:11,960
background, how did you get into
this field as like a historian 

48
00:03:11,960 --> 00:03:15,280
of the occult and magic and 
things like that? 

49
00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:17,680
Because like mind over magic 
kind of you, you get into like 

50
00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:19,640
more of the psychological 
aspects of it. 

51
00:03:21,040 --> 00:03:25,480
Do you think that there's 
anything too magic in terms of 

52
00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:28,320
ritual magic, or where do you 
stand on that all? 

53
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:31,760
Right. 
Well, starting with the first 

54
00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:35,960
part, how I got into this as a, 
as a historian, I, I guess I 

55
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:38,840
came into this originally as 
someone who from a very young 

56
00:03:38,840 --> 00:03:41,240
age was very interested in all 
this stuff. 

57
00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:45,760
I was, I just grew up in a time 
where this was just, it was in 

58
00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:50,040
the air every place, you know, 
there were magazines and books 

59
00:03:50,040 --> 00:03:54,720
and TV programs and movies, game
shows and everything centered 

60
00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:58,200
around this idea of, you know, 
what could probably be recalled 

61
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:04,400
the occult or metaphysics, you 
know, UFOs, Bigfoot, CSP, magic,

62
00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:09,640
the unexplained everything. 
And so I've always had that kind

63
00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:14,800
of interest and later came 
specifically into contact with 

64
00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:20,560
like the the Golden Dawn, which 
was a British like initiatory, 

65
00:04:20,560 --> 00:04:23,560
you know, mystical society, 
which then led to Aleister 

66
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,720
Crowley. 
And one day while I was 

67
00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:31,240
traveling, I came across a a new
biography of Aleister Crowley 

68
00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,080
that came out and it was just 
terrible. 

69
00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:37,680
And, you know, at this point I 
had been studying for about 10 

70
00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:40,920
years, you know, his works and, 
you know, other related things. 

71
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:44,560
And I just thought, man, this is
so bad. 

72
00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:46,920
I, I could do better a job than 
this. 

73
00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:49,720
And so this little voice in the 
back of my head said, why don't 

74
00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:53,640
you? 
And then I was off to the races.

75
00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:57,200
Then it was no longer like 
writing about or reading about 

76
00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:01,000
this kind of from an interested,
you know, observer or 

77
00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,040
participant sort of thing. 
But now it's just like changing 

78
00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:09,280
gears into writing about this in
a more rigorous historical 

79
00:05:09,280 --> 00:05:12,160
academic context. 
And for me, that was very 

80
00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:16,400
important to talk about Aleister
Crowley's life in the context of

81
00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:19,320
the times he lived, in the 
context of the people that he 

82
00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:23,560
knew, which for me was also a 
great learning experience. 

83
00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,000
Cause a lot of the people that 
Crowley knew were, you know, 

84
00:05:27,520 --> 00:05:30,560
Theodore Dreiser and folks like 
this were not folks that I 

85
00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:34,360
actually had learned about 
myself like in grade score in 

86
00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:36,360
college. 
So, you know, I had to kind of 

87
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:38,800
rich myself about that context 
as well. 

88
00:05:39,280 --> 00:05:43,160
And it just kind of spilled out 
from there to kind of 

89
00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:46,520
researching kind of the 
historical background of the 

90
00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:50,040
whole esoteric milieu of the, 
you know, the late 19th century,

91
00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:54,080
early 20th century occultism. 
And so from there I wrote books 

92
00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:57,160
like Forgotten Templars and the 
Origins of OTO. 

93
00:05:57,160 --> 00:06:02,600
And recently about last year, I 
put out a book about the 

94
00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:05,120
foundations of Thelema, which 
primarily were looking at 

95
00:06:05,120 --> 00:06:07,640
Aleister Crowley and his 
colleagues, Viktor Noiberg and 

96
00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:11,840
JFC Fuller, and how their 
approach to this new religious 

97
00:06:11,840 --> 00:06:14,960
movement was informed by 
agnosticism. 

98
00:06:15,760 --> 00:06:19,520
So the OR the, you know, the 
culture of doubt and how, how 

99
00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:22,480
one would approach, you know, 
esotericism from that 

100
00:06:22,480 --> 00:06:25,920
standpoint. 
So that's kind of my origin 

101
00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:29,840
story as a historian of, you 
know, the occult and occult 

102
00:06:29,840 --> 00:06:35,160
ideas and writing about that. 
But my interests in the occult, 

103
00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:40,600
it also led me to pursue 
psychology as a degree when I 

104
00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:45,480
went to university, thinking 
that A, that this would be a 

105
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:50,240
good career path for me and B, 
that I was hopeful that I would 

106
00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:53,040
find some answers to what is 
this stuff all about and how 

107
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:57,760
does it work? 
And I really didn't find those 

108
00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:02,840
answers if there wasn't a 
psychology, psychology of magic 

109
00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:05,400
or how all this worked at that 
time, even though there were 

110
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:09,080
theoretical people like, you 
know, Carl Jung was very 

111
00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:11,280
popular. 
That was that was more like a 

112
00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:13,960
theoretical model or 
perspective, but it wasn't 

113
00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:17,720
really a testable theory in 
these and kind of in the 

114
00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:23,560
empirical, scientific sense. 
But kind of looking back on my 

115
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:27,800
career as a psychologist or just
the field, you know, and my my 

116
00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:31,320
encounters with literature over 
my professional life, I can 

117
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:35,480
realize that while there isn't 
like a study where people are 

118
00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:39,680
doing real time imaging or, or 
anything like that on people who

119
00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:42,040
are dressed in their robes doing
magical rituals. 

120
00:07:42,320 --> 00:07:47,520
There are a lot of psychological
studies on personality traits 

121
00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:50,760
and characteristics and how we 
interact with the world that do 

122
00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:54,800
in fact have bearing on what 
people do when they engage in a 

123
00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:57,000
ritual. 
And when I talk about people 

124
00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:01,520
doing magic, I'm using a very 
broad term here or broad 

125
00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:03,600
definition. 
I'm not speaking specifically 

126
00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:07,640
about say, you know, Golden Dawn
cereal ceremonial magicians, but

127
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:12,880
any practitioner who in her 
spiritual works engages in some 

128
00:08:12,880 --> 00:08:18,120
sort of a, a routine of 
spiritual practice. 

129
00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:21,160
So that can can include people 
who participate in witchcraft. 

130
00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:26,640
It could be certain magicians, 
it can be Freemasons, it can be,

131
00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:29,400
you know, it can be pretty much 
any denomination if you're 

132
00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,120
engaged in some sort of a 
regular spiritual practice. 

133
00:08:32,679 --> 00:08:35,720
And I wanted to explore what 
psychology could tell us about 

134
00:08:35,720 --> 00:08:39,919
that. 
And as to whether I believe in 

135
00:08:39,919 --> 00:08:41,799
magic, I guess that's the last 
part of your question. 

136
00:08:42,520 --> 00:08:45,000
So I'm sorry to be rambling on. 
I'm trying to remember all all 

137
00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:46,520
the things you asked me. 
No, you're good. 

138
00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:48,600
I should have parsed that out, 
but go ahead. 

139
00:08:51,440 --> 00:08:55,560
You know, it kind of depends on 
your definition of magic and 

140
00:08:55,560 --> 00:09:00,040
what you mean by magic. 
And one thing I'm very careful 

141
00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:04,080
about with as a book, because I 
don't try to address this 

142
00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:10,360
question of how magic works in 
the, in the broader sense. 

143
00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:13,560
You know, I think of again, 
Aleister Crowley's definition of

144
00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:17,520
magic as the art and science of 
causing change to occur in a 

145
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:21,560
conformity with will. 
And so since there's, there's 

146
00:09:21,560 --> 00:09:25,080
two pieces to it, there's art 
and there's science, and I'm 

147
00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:27,720
talking about the science part 
of it, there's still like an art

148
00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:30,360
to it as well. 
So I'm not trying to just chalk 

149
00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:33,640
all this up to being mental 
gymnastics or it's all happening

150
00:09:33,640 --> 00:09:36,760
in your head. 
But I think there's something to

151
00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:41,040
be said for what is happening in
your head because we are human 

152
00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:43,560
beings with minds existing, you 
know, in the world. 

153
00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:47,360
And everything we do involves 
psychology to some extent or 

154
00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:50,200
another. 
And, you know, my approach to 

155
00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:54,360
this book is to say, here's the 
psychological factors that play 

156
00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:57,040
a part in what happens when 
somebody does ritual. 

157
00:09:57,560 --> 00:10:01,760
And beyond that, I leave that up
to the reader to decide if they,

158
00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:05,240
you know, I, my hope is that a 
skeptic can pick this up and 

159
00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:09,000
read this book and say, OK, I 
can see why people feel there's 

160
00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:11,680
a powerful effect from doing 
ritual. 

161
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:16,200
But they also kind of leave 
this, leave that question, leave

162
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:18,720
this book at the doorstep to 
that question, you know, the 

163
00:10:18,720 --> 00:10:23,840
idea that through these various 
practices you can facilitate 

164
00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:26,440
entering this liminal state of 
consciousness. 

165
00:10:27,720 --> 00:10:31,920
And it's in that liminal state 
of consciousness that something 

166
00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:34,640
called magic can't happen. 
But I kind of stop at that 

167
00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:36,680
threshold to say we can get into
this liminal state of 

168
00:10:36,680 --> 00:10:41,440
consciousness. 
But that said, there are lots of

169
00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:46,440
studies that support this idea 
that the practice of magic can 

170
00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:49,840
be an effective tool for 
personal transformation. 

171
00:10:50,840 --> 00:10:52,960
And that is one other definition
of magic. 

172
00:10:52,960 --> 00:10:54,800
You know, the Golden Dawn, for 
instance, you know, has this 

173
00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:57,640
idea of we're doing high magic, 
you know, as opposed to low 

174
00:10:57,640 --> 00:10:59,560
magic, which is for like 
personal gain. 

175
00:10:59,560 --> 00:11:04,040
You know, the idea of high magic
is that you're trying to improve

176
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:07,480
yourself, become a better human 
being, become more spiritually 

177
00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:11,760
aware and, and again, go through
this process of inner alchemy of

178
00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:14,840
self transformation. 
And in that sense, I think 

179
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:18,720
absolutely what we're talking 
about with the psychology of 

180
00:11:18,720 --> 00:11:21,360
magic. 
That's these tools that 

181
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:25,600
magicians use absolutely do 
facilitate putting people in 

182
00:11:25,600 --> 00:11:29,360
that sort of a a state where 
that transformation is possible.

183
00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:33,520
Interesting. 
Yeah. 

184
00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:38,160
And you, you said something in 
there about people not trying to

185
00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:43,800
create science or quantify the 
outcomes or something along 

186
00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:46,960
those lines. 
I did read a book I want to say 

187
00:11:46,960 --> 00:11:50,440
like 7 years ago I think it was 
Dean Raiden real magic where he.

188
00:11:50,440 --> 00:11:52,240
Goes. 
Yeah, Yeah. 

189
00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:54,960
So it's like noetic sciences and
things like that. 

190
00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:57,960
What do you think about that 
where it's like these very 

191
00:11:57,960 --> 00:12:05,240
nominal changes is kind of like 
the, the idea behind that or 

192
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:09,480
like a Rupert Sheldrick or 
somebody like that where they're

193
00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:11,920
talking about things like 
somebody looking at your back, 

194
00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:14,800
the back of your head and you, 
you know, picking up on that. 

195
00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:16,960
So you turn around or something 
along those lines. 

196
00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:18,560
What do you think about that 
kind of stuff? 

197
00:12:18,760 --> 00:12:22,840
Yeah, Yeah, I think I have like 
a two-part answer to that 

198
00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:28,440
question. 1 is that in writing 
this book, I was trying to be 

199
00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:34,200
very careful to stick to 
generally accepted peer reviewed

200
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:37,840
studies in psychology. 
And as I mentioned earlier, 

201
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,720
again, my hope is that even like
a skeptic could read this and 

202
00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:44,160
kind of go, OK, I see what 
you're saying, I can buy that. 

203
00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:52,160
And I made a conscious decision 
to not go too deep into the ESP 

204
00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:55,800
or psychical research. 
I didn't talk about it a little 

205
00:12:55,800 --> 00:13:00,960
bit because I think the 
skeptical position poses some 

206
00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:06,280
problems to talking about this, 
but by and large, I don't dive 

207
00:13:06,280 --> 00:13:09,600
too deep into that as a subject.
I figure there's people like 

208
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:12,920
Dean Raiden who do a much better
job than I could because that's 

209
00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:14,720
basically what he's dedicated 
his life to. 

210
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:19,480
That's sad. 
I I'm a big fan of Dean Raiden. 

211
00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:23,360
I remember reading his book The 
The Conscious Universe many 

212
00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:29,000
years ago and what he does it is
he does the statistical 

213
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:32,440
technique called meta analysis, 
which is something that is very 

214
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:37,520
common in medical research. 
And the idea being that being 

215
00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:40,640
able to make statements about 
the universe or the world, A 

216
00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:43,840
cause and effect relationship, 
whether you know this causes 

217
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:48,480
cancer or what have you, often 
relies on a large amount of data

218
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:50,720
to be able to get a good picture
of the world. 

219
00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,480
The problem is any kind of a 
study. 

220
00:13:53,520 --> 00:13:56,200
And again, this is true whether 
it's medical research or whether

221
00:13:56,200 --> 00:14:03,000
it's ESP research is limited by 
funding and so or, or the 

222
00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,720
availability of people with a 
particular disease, you know who

223
00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:07,480
to enroll in your study, for 
example. 

224
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:11,440
And So what statisticians have 
done, they've come up with this 

225
00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:15,360
way of taking multiple studies 
have been published and then 

226
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:18,920
averaging together the results 
to make it kind of artificially 

227
00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:22,600
this large study. 
And this is a very accepted 

228
00:14:23,240 --> 00:14:28,240
statistical method in in in 
research in medicine and 

229
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:32,040
psychology, never fields and 
Dean Raiden basically does this 

230
00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:37,920
with, you know, literature, ESP 
and the results of those of 

231
00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:40,080
these meta analysis. 
And I do talk about this a 

232
00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:45,000
little bit in, in mind over 
Magic as well, concludes that 

233
00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:48,200
when you average all these 
studies together, some with 

234
00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:52,320
positive results, some with 
negative results, you do get a 

235
00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:57,760
statistically significant, 
although pretty small deviation 

236
00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:01,760
from chance. 
It's like like a percentage. 

237
00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:04,200
I don't remember the exact 
amount off the top of my head, 

238
00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,080
but it's it's like, it's not 
like this is going to guarantee 

239
00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:10,160
you success or anything like 
that, but it's kind of like 

240
00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:13,120
shifting the odds slightly in 
your favor. 

241
00:15:13,760 --> 00:15:19,240
And I often think about a line 
from Mr. Spock from Star Trek 

242
00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:22,280
saying that, you know, chance 
favors a prepared mind. 

243
00:15:22,840 --> 00:15:27,520
You know, so to the extent to 
which, you know, there may be a 

244
00:15:27,520 --> 00:15:30,280
psychic component involved in 
this magic stuff, it doesn't 

245
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:34,440
necessarily guarantee you a 
result, but just it's greases 

246
00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:37,960
the wheels. 
And I think, you know, if if 

247
00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:41,960
that's true, you're not going to
get a result just by kind of 

248
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:44,040
sitting back passively and 
waiting for the universe to 

249
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:48,280
knock on your doorstep. 
I think the idea here is that if

250
00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:51,600
the odds are shifted slightly in
your favor, you still need to be

251
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:54,360
going out there and kind of 
advocating for yourself to the 

252
00:15:54,360 --> 00:15:57,160
universe. 
You know, it's for things to go 

253
00:15:57,160 --> 00:15:59,960
your way. 
Yeah, absolutely. 

254
00:15:59,960 --> 00:16:03,160
It's like somebody watching The 
Secret and then expecting 

255
00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:09,360
everything to happen for him. 
Yeah, so I mentioned off here I 

256
00:16:09,360 --> 00:16:12,080
have OCD. 
I'm very familiar with ritual. 

257
00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:16,280
If anybody who has OCD does, 
whether it's organizing 

258
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,840
something, washing your hands a 
certain amount of times, or you 

259
00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:23,400
know, some people count, there's
like a whole different array of 

260
00:16:23,400 --> 00:16:26,760
ritual associated with having 
OCD and stuff. 

261
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:31,760
I told you, I've never gotten 
anything positive other than 

262
00:16:31,760 --> 00:16:37,440
like to self soothe or you know,
satisfy my own mind temporarily 

263
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:44,120
or something like that. 
But do you think that obviously 

264
00:16:44,120 --> 00:16:47,760
we're talking about mind over 
magic here, Mind as it relates 

265
00:16:47,760 --> 00:16:50,760
to magic, Do you think it's the 
intention? 

266
00:16:50,760 --> 00:16:53,440
Like that's what I kind of take 
away from when people talk about

267
00:16:53,440 --> 00:16:54,640
that. 
It's like the intention. 

268
00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:58,520
Like if you put the intention 
behind something, you know, your

269
00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:02,560
energy, whether it's creating 
art or whatever, there's 

270
00:17:02,560 --> 00:17:05,920
something going into that that 
otherwise wouldn't be there. 

271
00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:09,119
But you're putting your focus 
and your time and your heart and

272
00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:13,839
your energy into it as opposed 
to, just like you said, sitting 

273
00:17:13,839 --> 00:17:16,440
back and like waiting for 
something good to happen or 

274
00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:18,800
something. 
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 

275
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:23,040
And there certainly rituals that
we engage in as human beings 

276
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:25,720
every day. 
I mean, we brush our teeth, you 

277
00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:29,920
know, you know, we, we take 
showers, we commute to work. 

278
00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,040
And these are things that we 
tend to do very automatically. 

279
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:35,520
We don't really have to give too
much thought to them. 

280
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:38,280
And that's good, you know, I 
mean, they, they, you know, 

281
00:17:38,280 --> 00:17:40,520
think about this idea of your 
decision fatigue, you know, 

282
00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:42,520
people just kind of wearing 
themselves out, thinking too 

283
00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:45,280
much about what shirt they're 
going to wear today and every 

284
00:17:45,360 --> 00:17:48,120
little decision. 
And so being able to go on 

285
00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:52,920
autopilot for basic human 
functions is a good thing. 

286
00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:59,240
But in terms of having a result,
you know, having a change, 

287
00:17:59,240 --> 00:18:03,080
having an effect from a ritual, 
there needs there does need to 

288
00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:05,400
be an intention of some sort. 
There needs to be some 

289
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:10,280
mindfulness about it. 
And in in mind over magic. 

290
00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:12,200
There's a there are we on in the
book. 

291
00:18:12,200 --> 00:18:16,320
I talk about a big part of magic
is establishing kind of a 

292
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:20,000
routine of doing a regular sort 
of practice of some kind. 

293
00:18:20,000 --> 00:18:23,360
And that may be journaling. 
It may be doing something like 

294
00:18:23,360 --> 00:18:28,000
some sort of a cleansing or a 
banishing every day or, or what 

295
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:30,960
have you, or some sort of 
grounding and centering. 

296
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:35,920
And or, you know, another 
example I talk about is that 

297
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,920
there, there, there may be some 
sort of words you might say over

298
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,160
a meal, you know, in, in our 
Christian traditions, you know, 

299
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:47,320
it's like a blessing of the food
and the Thlemic tradition that, 

300
00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:49,400
you know, Aleister Crowley 
created, it's not so much about 

301
00:18:49,400 --> 00:18:53,000
blessing the food, but it's 
about pausing, saying, why am I 

302
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,600
eating this? 
You know what, to what end am I 

303
00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:57,840
eating? 
It's to sustain myself to do 

304
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:02,200
this great work of, you know, 
discovering my true will and, 

305
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,400
you know, transferring myself in
accordance with that to become 

306
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:07,080
the best version of myself 
possible. 

307
00:19:07,640 --> 00:19:11,800
And if you do that ritual and 
you don't really think about the

308
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:14,040
words and you just say them 
automatically and then you eat 

309
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:17,760
kind of automatically, you're 
not getting the effect of that 

310
00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:19,960
ritual. 
I mean, I, I argue that ritual 

311
00:19:19,960 --> 00:19:24,560
does involve mindful engagement 
with what you are doing. 

312
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:28,800
And while it's easy to go on 
autopilot with a lot of things 

313
00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:31,600
in your life, magic is not one 
of those. 

314
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:35,480
You need to be plugged in and 
attending to it every time you 

315
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:37,480
do it, or you're just you're 
not. 

316
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:39,680
You're not going to get the 
results or the effects. 

317
00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:45,160
Interesting. 
What was your hypothesis going 

318
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:48,840
into writing this book, Mind 
Over Magic, and did it change at

319
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:52,040
all after you finished writing 
it through your research I. 

320
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:57,280
Don't know if I had like a 
hypothesis in like the 

321
00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:01,960
experimental sense, but I think 
I just had this sense that over 

322
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:06,000
the years I would be reading a 
paper and I would say, oh, hey, 

323
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:11,480
that kind of relates to this 
thing, this about psychology. 

324
00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:13,240
You know, I love the psychology 
of magic. 

325
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:16,240
And while it wasn't specifically
about magic, it's like, oh, OK, 

326
00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:21,840
this this relates in some way. 
And I just got to this point 

327
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,120
where I realized that while 
there may not be this. 

328
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:28,360
Overarching theory of the 
psychology of magic out there. 

329
00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:32,800
You know, in the experimental 
literature, there were pieces 

330
00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:37,280
that that did explain this. 
And so I can approach this more 

331
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:41,160
as a puzzle to put together the 
pieces. 

332
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:47,040
So I kind of went through, you 
know, the prevailing theories 

333
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:49,840
and the research areas in 
psychology and, you know, 

334
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:54,960
personality theory and social 
psychology and started to think 

335
00:20:55,200 --> 00:21:00,280
how, how, if at all any of these
relate to the the psychology of 

336
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:02,200
magic. 
Whether you're talking about, 

337
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:06,760
you know, daily ritual habit 
formation, for instance, 

338
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:13,120
mindfulness, being in the zone, 
you know, cognitive dissonance, 

339
00:21:13,480 --> 00:21:17,000
attitude change, and all of 
these things and where these 

340
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:22,160
would plug into and inform 
practices that magicians go 

341
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:23,920
through. 
And then I just did this huge 

342
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:29,520
WIT review where I pulled, you 
know, like 1300 articles, you 

343
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:33,120
know, on these different topics 
and kind of went through them 

344
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,240
and put together the narrative 
that's in this book. 

345
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:41,800
So it's not so much I had a 
theory, but I had an inkling 

346
00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:45,440
that if we put all these pieces 
together, it would make a 

347
00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:46,800
picture. 
And I didn't necessarily have 

348
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:48,520
the picture in mind when I 
started. 

349
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:51,640
But as I, again, sort of putting
together a puzzle, you know, the

350
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:53,560
book just kind of took kind of 
life of its own. 

351
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:56,480
And as I filled in the pieces, 
you know, I kind of saw the 

352
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:59,240
picture take shape, which was, 
you know, very exciting and 

353
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,640
gratifying for me since, again, 
I came in into psychology 

354
00:22:04,360 --> 00:22:07,920
looking for these answers. 
Felt like I didn't find them in 

355
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:13,000
Graduate School, but then again,
30 years later, you know, I've 

356
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:15,360
kind of filled in the picture 
for myself. 

357
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:17,920
So that was a very gratifying 
feeling. 

358
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:22,440
I'm so I'm not, you know, I've 
had people on where we've talked

359
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:25,920
about magic or people that are 
familiar with Aleister Crowley 

360
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:31,120
or, you know, some of the more 
esoteric people for throughout, 

361
00:22:31,360 --> 00:22:34,600
you know, the different eras and
things like that. 

362
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:42,720
When you do magic or like 
perform rituals or things like 

363
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:47,160
that, what are, what are these 
people expecting and do they 

364
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:48,840
expect to get something out of 
it? 

365
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,880
Cause for me personally, the 
only thing I've ever experienced

366
00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:55,480
that was like, I don't want to 
say supernatural because it's 

367
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,400
not supernatural. 
But the only thing I've ever 

368
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:02,560
experienced in like a waking 
state that was completely 

369
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,480
transformative would be like a 
psychoactive compound or a 

370
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:07,600
psychedelic or something along 
those lines. 

371
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,120
You know, I've meditated. 
I used to be a huge meditator 

372
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:14,960
and sometimes I'd meditate for 
two hours and you can get to 

373
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:18,160
some pretty deep states. 
But it's still people that claim

374
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:21,720
it's the same. 
I I don't agree with those 

375
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:22,560
people. 
So. 

376
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:28,080
Yeah, what people expect, I 
think depends on what they're 

377
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:32,800
doing. 
I think again, the the person 

378
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:37,080
who engages in the meditation 
practice, you can experience 

379
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:41,480
ecstatic states doing that, you 
know, these ideas of, you know, 

380
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:44,520
samadhi, you know, the, the 
union with the Godhead sort of 

381
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,880
trance experiences. 
There's also research which 

382
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:53,120
shows that engaging in these 
sorts of yogic and meditation 

383
00:23:53,120 --> 00:24:02,600
practices actually increases the
the brain volume and the neural 

384
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:05,840
connections in your brain. 
And the theory there is that 

385
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:09,200
this will in some ways protect 
against the effects of aging 

386
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:11,880
because as you age, you will 
lose, you lose brain matter. 

387
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:13,360
That's kind of a known 
phenomenon. 

388
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:17,760
So that if you basically bulk up
your brain volume, you know, as 

389
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:21,920
an older age, you know, you will
suffer the effects of, you know,

390
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,880
cognitive effects of aging to a 
lesser degree. 

391
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,960
And there is a chapter in mind 
over magic about that. 

392
00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:33,000
But otherwise there's other 
rituals people might do, like a 

393
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,600
part of a daily practice might 
be something some sort of 

394
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:39,400
grounding, you know, kind of 
visualizing yourself, you know, 

395
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,400
sinking into the earth or you 
know, growing, being a tree, 

396
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,680
growing into the sky and drawing
an energy from the sun and from 

397
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:49,880
the earth. 
Or the Middle Pillar exercise, 

398
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:51,720
which is kind of a similar 
thing, but just more 

399
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:55,800
kabbalistic. 
And the intent of that is just 

400
00:24:55,800 --> 00:25:01,320
kind of again, grounding, 
settling in, feeling, you know, 

401
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:04,880
whatever energy or whatever 
flowing through your body and 

402
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:09,000
kind of feeling kind of, you 
know, not distracted, but 

403
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:13,560
centered and empowered. 
But a vanishing or a cleansing 

404
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:16,680
ceremony of your space, you 
know, might have a different 

405
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:18,000
intention. 
It might, you know, the 

406
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,480
intention. 
There might be the kind of clear

407
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:24,240
away distractions to kind of 
purify your environment that 

408
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:26,240
you're going to do some kind of 
work again. 

409
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:31,880
You know, one might do some sort
of a consecration of a Talisman,

410
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,520
for instance. 
You know, Talisman would be 

411
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:38,600
something some, I don't know, 
some object that you were trying

412
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:44,680
to impress with an intention to 
bring something into your life. 

413
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:47,720
But that's going to again be 
have a very different 

414
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:54,360
expectation from someone who is 
perhaps trying to invoke some, 

415
00:25:54,360 --> 00:25:57,120
some deity or some spirit. 
You know, often times people 

416
00:25:57,120 --> 00:26:01,320
will invoke or someone into 
themselves, like the quality of 

417
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:06,320
some, you know, some God, 
goddess, spirit, whatever 

418
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,920
saying, you know, I could really
use some more generosity in my 

419
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:11,880
life. 
I'm going to invoke the spirit 

420
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:17,960
of Jupiter to to kind of, you 
know, help me identify with that

421
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,880
sort of feeling. 
But that's again, going to be 

422
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,280
very different from from if you 
do E vocation, which is to try 

423
00:26:24,280 --> 00:26:28,680
to summon something to visible, 
you know, appearance before you.

424
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:31,640
So again, the difference between
are you trying to bring some 

425
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,000
quality into yourself when 
you're trying to interact with 

426
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,000
something out there in the world
in front of you? 

427
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:41,480
Or, you know, just going doing 
some sort of like a astral 

428
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:46,680
vision or a vision quest or some
sort, You know, the kind of 

429
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:49,880
similar to meditation, but 
you're like, you know, you can 

430
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:52,560
be meditating in the tarot card 
and let your mind take you on a 

431
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:54,920
journey somewhere. 
Or, you know, you might 

432
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,720
literally astral project and 
leave your body and go on, you 

433
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,320
know, some kind of adventure. 
And then what you are going to 

434
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:05,880
encounter often times is really 
kind of in the spirit of, you 

435
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:07,640
know, adventure. 
You know, you don't know what 

436
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,360
you're going to expect. 
It's investigation and often 

437
00:27:11,360 --> 00:27:15,840
times people who pursue that 
will engage in the kind of this 

438
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,360
process of reality checking, you
know, saying is what I'm is what

439
00:27:19,360 --> 00:27:23,920
I'm getting adding up is what if
I've encountered something 

440
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,280
that's talking to me, you know, 
does does what it look like 

441
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,800
match what it's telling me? 
If I asked for its name, does it

442
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,600
does that name match? 
You know, if I ask what's your 

443
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:36,200
favorite color? 
Does it match, you know, the 

444
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,280
entity that you're claiming to 
be and so on. 

445
00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:44,720
So I guess the the summary of 
all that is that what you might 

446
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,160
expect from doing ritual really 
kind of depends on the kind of 

447
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,400
ritual that you're doing and 
what your intention is. 

448
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,720
Yeah, that's interesting. 
We've talked a lot about like 

449
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:58,240
ancient cultures and 
civilizations on the show. 

450
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:03,240
When you look back at like 
ancient summer and ancient Egypt

451
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:05,920
and stuff, there was a lot of 
magic and spells and things like

452
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:07,960
that. 
How, how much do you think 

453
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:13,200
belief plays into whether you 
get a result or not? 

454
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:15,760
Like meaning that like if you 
fully believe in what you're 

455
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:19,840
doing, will it yield a different
result as opposed to somebody 

456
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:26,960
that's maybe more hesitant or, 
you know, maybe doesn't believe 

457
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:28,760
it as much? 
I mean, I just think about like 

458
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:32,160
religion too. 
I remember when I started this 

459
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:34,520
podcast, I was kind of got go, 
you know, eight years ago, kind 

460
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:36,040
of going through a spiritual 
awakening. 

461
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:39,240
And I was connecting a lot of 
dots and things were romantic 

462
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:42,080
and fun and there was good vibes
flowing. 

463
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,880
And then you start to like read 
a lot more and you start to 

464
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,440
realize, like peel the veil and 
the layers back a little bit and

465
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:52,760
you start to realize, oh, 
there's, you know, maybe there's

466
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,840
not a whole lot to that. 
So how much does belief play 

467
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,800
into magic and does it change 
the results? 

468
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:07,480
I I, I agree with you, I think 
belief is a critical piece of 

469
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:10,400
it. 
And before we talk about like 

470
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:14,280
the science of it, I've got a 
couple of anecdotal examples I 

471
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:18,360
can provide. 
I remember one time bumping into

472
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,840
a person who was an avowed 
ceremonial magician, but his 

473
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:29,760
grimoire or working manual of 
magic was literally the Dungeon 

474
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,120
and Dragon's Dungeon Master's 
Guide. 

475
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:36,360
And he told me about how we went
on to the astral plane and then 

476
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,800
fought through all 666 levels of
the abyss and blah, blah, blah. 

477
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:45,560
But it was all D&D terminology. 
And again, I don't doubt that 

478
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:49,960
this person had experiences, but
you know, the experiences were 

479
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:53,800
framed by this belief in this 
system. 

480
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,920
Similarly, there's this very 
popular texts called the 

481
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:02,840
Necronomicon. 
Now, this was a text that 

482
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:08,640
Lovecraft invented for his, you 
know, you know, Krulu mythos, it

483
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,160
does not exist. 
And it was just this, you know, 

484
00:30:11,160 --> 00:30:15,600
mystery text that you can call 
upon to as the the background 

485
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:20,160
for these, you know, ancient, 
you know, horrible beings that 

486
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,760
existed, you know, before time 
and outside our universe. 

487
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:27,400
But back in the 70s, someone put
together a bunch of like 

488
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:32,440
Sumerian, Cacaidian, Kabbalistic
Crowley stuff and came up with 

489
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:36,160
his mishmash and released it as 
a book called The Necronomicon. 

490
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,520
And it's, you know, it's a 
modern invention. 

491
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,480
You know, it's not an actual 
text, even though there's this 

492
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,920
mythical story about how, you 
know, it was given to the editor

493
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:49,880
and all of that. 
But people in the intervening 

494
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,920
decades have picked up this 
book, used it and sworn they've 

495
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,920
gotten results from it. 
And so I think the, the idea 

496
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:01,960
here is that, you know, a lot of
these practices at some point in

497
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:06,760
history are made-up, you know, 
and it's through practicing and 

498
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:11,400
refining and belief that these 
things do work. 

499
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:14,080
You know, why? 
If you didn't believe in 

500
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:18,240
something, you know, when you, 
you know, click your heels three

501
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:20,520
times and say there's no place 
like home, but you don't believe

502
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:22,600
it, why would you expect 
something to happen? 

503
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:29,200
You know, and it's similar in 
psychological research, you 

504
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:37,160
know, for instance, there's, 
there's a study looking at like 

505
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:41,600
Joseph Campbell's hero 
archetype, you know, that, that 

506
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,960
that cycle of myth for and, and 
they, and there's actually 

507
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:48,720
psychologists who've done 
studies where they looked at 

508
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:52,440
whether people saw themselves as
the main character in their 

509
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:56,480
story of their life or whether 
they just saw themselves as an 

510
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:03,240
NPC or non player character. 
And developing exercises to kind

511
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:08,040
of cast yourself in your own 
small life, you know, or not so 

512
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:13,480
small life in terms of this, you
know, hero's journey and people 

513
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:18,520
who do this have a better sense 
of self and, you know, 

514
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:24,600
psychological being and so on. 
The thing I would caution though

515
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:31,040
about is that I think belief and
credulity needs to be balanced 

516
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:36,880
with a good deal of inquiry, 
doubt, skepticism, you know, 

517
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,360
verification. 
You know, I think that this 

518
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,840
whole idea of truth, 
particularly in this area is 

519
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,240
kind of a double edged sword. 
And again, in in minor Magic, I 

520
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:55,000
talk about this, that skeptics 
will criticize practitioners or 

521
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:02,480
believers as being gullible, as 
susceptible as believing in 

522
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:06,440
things uncritically. 
But there is similarly research 

523
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:09,400
on the flip side, saying that 
people who are excessively 

524
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:15,160
skeptical are more inclined to 
misinformation and not see 

525
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:20,640
patterns and, you know, reject 
information when it is in fact 

526
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:22,920
valid. 
And so, you know, I would 

527
00:33:22,920 --> 00:33:26,360
advocate that, you know, you 
kind of find that middle ground,

528
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:31,120
you know, be be open, but, you 
know, also verify. 

529
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:34,560
And again, a lot of that verify 
happens through your own 

530
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:36,520
experiences. 
You know, does does something 

531
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:37,440
work for you? 
It doesn't. 

532
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:41,760
Not if it doesn't work for you. 
You know, after a few tries, you

533
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,520
know, try something else. 
Yeah. 

534
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:48,680
Do you think that there's this 
like, you know, most of what 

535
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,800
we're talking about just to me 
feels like metaphysics, like 

536
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,720
just stuff we just don't really 
fully understand yet, whether 

537
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:01,080
it's philosophy of mind or, you 
know, the nature of reality, 

538
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:06,160
consciousness, things like that.
But do you think that to your 

539
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,520
point, what you just said, that 
there is this thin sliver of 

540
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,719
like it could go kind of either 
way and if you're open to it, it

541
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,719
might work in your favor. 
But if you're closed off and 

542
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:27,760
let's say, a dogmatic 
materialist scientist who's 

543
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:32,239
looking for the most empirical 
outcome might miss something 

544
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,480
that could inform, you know, on 
a deeper level or something like

545
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:38,840
that. 
Yeah, absolutely. 

546
00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:41,400
One of the things I, again, I 
talk about in the mind of a 

547
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:46,639
magic because my dissertation in
psychology actually looked at 

548
00:34:46,639 --> 00:34:50,000
the psychology of metaphysical 
beliefs. 

549
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,920
One of one of the things I had 
AI took issue with when I was 

550
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:59,680
reviewing the literature at this
time was that a lot of the 

551
00:35:00,240 --> 00:35:03,320
studies that were being done 
were being done on, you know, 

552
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,640
Psych 101. 
Well, Psych 101, you know, 

553
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:10,680
students and you know, I was a 
Psych 101 student at one point. 

554
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,720
And I think other than myself 
perhaps, or is my only maybe a 

555
00:35:13,720 --> 00:35:17,200
handful would actually wrestle 
with these metaphysical 

556
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:21,560
questions. 
And so to be asking a classroom 

557
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:26,760
of 300, you know, 18 year olds 
what they think about karma or 

558
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:30,800
reincarnation or stuff, these 
are quite, quite likely ideas I 

559
00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:35,680
never really thought too much 
about, let alone actually 

560
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:37,600
engaged with in a meaningful 
way. 

561
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:43,360
And so I wanted to survey people
who were actually practitioners 

562
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,560
of some sort. 
So I went to conferences and 

563
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:50,120
conventions and, you know, 
camping events that were kind of

564
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,560
geared toward, you know, the 
Pagan occult community and talk 

565
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,200
to those people and the people 
were actually doing this stuff. 

566
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:01,480
And one of the things I was 
interested in was this idea of a

567
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,520
transformative religious 
experience, this idea that you 

568
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,240
had this, again, a peak 
experience. 

569
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:12,000
You know, there's lots of terms 
for it, but that's that moment 

570
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,200
where everything in your life 
kind of shifts. 

571
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,840
You know, this transformative 
thing where you the way you see 

572
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,200
the world is forever changed and
you're forever changed as a 

573
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:24,000
person. 
You know, you, you mentioned the

574
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,800
psychedelics earlier. 
A lot of people have that sort 

575
00:36:27,800 --> 00:36:32,640
of reaction to 1st psychedelic 
experiences like they, they, 

576
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,040
their view of the world is 
forever changed. 

577
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:40,600
And in that research they did, I
found that the best predictor of

578
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,000
having this kind of a 
transformative religious 

579
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:48,840
experience or spiritual 
experience was that you were 

580
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:54,360
open to new experiences. 
So this idea that if you felt 

581
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:56,960
you had all the answers and this
this applies not just to 

582
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,960
science, you know, saying I'm a 
skeptic and I, you know, science

583
00:36:59,960 --> 00:37:03,400
tells me everything I need to 
know, but also, you know, refers

584
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,200
to, you know, your spirituality 
or religious beliefs too. 

585
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,960
If you're a person who says this
is, you know, this is my, my 

586
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,840
holy book or this is, you know, 
what my preacher tells me, or 

587
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,480
this is what, you know, the 
religious leader in my community

588
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,560
tells me. 
And I don't need to think about 

589
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:21,520
it anymore because I've been 
giving the answers. 

590
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,640
And that's it. 
You're not really going to be as

591
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:27,840
open to an experience as people 
are saying. 

592
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:29,800
Oh, you know, I'm kind of 
curious to find out about the 

593
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,320
world or to, to, to learn more 
about my faith or my beliefs. 

594
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:37,000
And it's that openness that's 
kind of the key to having these 

595
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,080
sorts of transformative 
experiences. 

596
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,000
Yeah, that's interesting. 
Yeah. 

597
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,960
And to the the point about the 
psychedelic stuff, I mean, if 

598
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:49,880
you go throughout history, most 
of the cultural, aside from like

599
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:53,840
the people partying and just 
doing it, whatever, most of the 

600
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,640
cultural uses you go the 
loosening mysteries, there's a 

601
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,040
lot of ritual associated with 
that. 

602
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:02,680
You go to South America, the 
ship people or the Watoto. 

603
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:07,160
These tribes in Amazon have 
these rituals with ayahuasca, 

604
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,360
the Native Americans path of 
souls. 

605
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:16,680
You can go all over the world 
and you know, soma homa all over

606
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:20,640
and there's ritual associated 
with the, you know, the use of 

607
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:24,880
these psychoactive compounds. 
So, and I mean, even the average

608
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:27,320
Joe that I know that's using 
psychedelics, they have some. 

609
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,120
So they might not think about it
that way, but they have some 

610
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:35,200
level of ritual associated with 
the experience set setting. 

611
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,920
Everything's going to be a 
certain way, that kind of a 

612
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,520
thing, so. 
Yeah, yeah. 

613
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,200
And, you know, and in the 
interest of fairness, I should 

614
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:47,320
say that I the the use of 
psychedelics and ritual is 

615
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,360
something that I really don't 
get into in this book. 

616
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,760
So again, that that could be a 
whole other book in and of 

617
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:55,760
itself and. 
You should write that one too. 

618
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,440
Over again, there's other 
people, you know, out there who,

619
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,800
for whom that is, you know, 
their, their passion. 

620
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,720
And I think, you know, that 
like, you know, like I talked 

621
00:39:06,720 --> 00:39:09,360
about Dean Rayden earlier, you 
know, he's the person to write 

622
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,440
about ESP researchers, other 
people like, you know, PD Newman

623
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,440
and you know, and so on, who 
could do a better job of talking

624
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:20,960
about this than than I. 
So, you know, again, the, this 

625
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:25,040
kind of the book I've written 
kind of sticks pretty close to 

626
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,880
kind of standard psychological 
theory, but it's just a real 

627
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,720
easy step into the ESP or some 
other related area. 

628
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:35,720
You know, Rupert Sheldrake who 
had mentioned earlier all this 

629
00:39:35,720 --> 00:39:40,000
stuff, you know, people can 
easily integrate this into the 

630
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:41,880
the bigger puzzle if they will 
so choose. 

631
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:47,440
Yeah, for sure, yeah. 
Shout out to PD, shout out to 

632
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,320
Chris Bennett, a couple people, 
you know, connected on that 

633
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:53,520
topic that we've had on the show
in the past. 

634
00:39:55,520 --> 00:40:01,360
Yeah, I consider PDA friend too.
Shout out as far as let's talk 

635
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:05,040
about like flow states for a 
minute or like, you know, 

636
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:09,320
integrating the stuff into kind 
of like practice and even. 

637
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,960
Like stage magic for that, you 
know, like I obviously we think 

638
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,320
of like sleight of hand and 
things like that When you say 

639
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,000
magic, you know, obviously your 
books with the K and that can, 

640
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:25,920
you know, obviously insinuate 
ritual, but what about like 

641
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:29,280
stage magic and performative 
magic flow states, things like 

642
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:35,560
that. 
I think stage magic or sleight 

643
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:40,000
of hand, that sort of practice 
is something different from flow

644
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,840
state, but there is definitely 
stuff that we can learn from the

645
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:48,640
psychology of stage magic. 
There's actually a whole field 

646
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,440
of psychologists and magicians 
kind of collaborating to talk 

647
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,720
about the psychology, you know, 
that's that is used in 

648
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:59,600
misdirection or these sort of 
forced choice tricks and things 

649
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:03,040
like that. 
There's an, one of the 

650
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:06,880
interesting things I, I get into
is this idea of psychological 

651
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,200
priming. 
And there's, there's a study 

652
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:14,720
there where a magician takes 
somebody, you know, on a walk 

653
00:41:14,720 --> 00:41:17,960
through town, they go into a toy
store and they ask pick out a 

654
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,040
toy and they pick out the toy 
and the magician pulls out a 

655
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:25,280
card and it says giraffe and the
other person had picked out a 

656
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:29,760
toy giraffe. 
But what they talk about is the 

657
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:34,920
setup to this study is that 
along that path they walk to the

658
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,000
toy store. 
There's various things. 

659
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:43,680
There might be a giraffe picture
down like a bus stop poster or a

660
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:48,680
picture of a giraffe, you know, 
and chalk on or some graffiti or

661
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,040
something. 
And so they might pass various 

662
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,240
things along the way that 
feature a giraffe and they don't

663
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,480
point it out, but it's they're 
kind of subliminally. 

664
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:02,240
And so it kind of prompts your 
mind to think along those lines 

665
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,200
and so that when you get to that
toy store, the person is more 

666
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,000
likely to gravitate toward this 
giraffe because they've been 

667
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:10,960
kind of psychologically primed 
to do so. 

668
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:17,520
And this idea of priming is 
something that also can be used 

669
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:21,640
in magical ritual, You know, 
with AK, the idea that if you're

670
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:25,560
going through some sort of a 
retirement or a period of 

671
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:29,920
preparation for some kind of a 
ritual work, that you are in the

672
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,880
sense kind of priming yourself 
for the experience you're about 

673
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:36,000
to have. 
You're kind of meditating on and

674
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:37,960
preparing yourself and shaking 
yourself up. 

675
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,800
And in that sense, I think we 
kind of get into this idea of a 

676
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:49,680
flow state because that's 
generally defined as this sort 

677
00:42:49,720 --> 00:42:55,200
of slippery and hard to get into
state of mind where you, the 

678
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:59,280
thing that you're doing, while 
it may involve some technical 

679
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:03,720
skill, just flows effortlessly. 
And that can be whether you're 

680
00:43:03,720 --> 00:43:06,240
playing sports or whether you're
playing a musical instrument or 

681
00:43:06,240 --> 00:43:08,520
so ever. 
But it's just, it just happens 

682
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:12,680
effortlessly. 
And it's just this like really 

683
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:17,880
calm Zen experience. 
And getting into that flow state

684
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:20,200
is not something you just say, 
OK, here we go. 

685
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:26,880
And they're actually people who 
train athletes to get into flow 

686
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:29,360
States. 
And the training regimen for 

687
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:37,800
this looks remarkably like the 
sorts of preparation people do 

688
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,680
in ritual magic. 
It's like, get a diary, 

689
00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,280
meditate, you know, do these 
exercise, do these 

690
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:48,000
visualizations. 
And, you know, it just backed me

691
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:50,400
out looking at those, these 
articles about here's how we, 

692
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,160
you know, how these spark 
psychologists train athletes and

693
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:54,840
get into the zone. 
I'm just like, that's, that's 

694
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:58,880
exactly, I mean literally 
exactly what magicians do. 

695
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:03,840
Like manipulating kind of 
attention or perception kind of 

696
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:05,480
a thing. 
Yeah. 

697
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,440
I mean, yeah. 
Or just, you know, kind of 

698
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:14,440
again, priming those 
expectations and practicing 

699
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:17,160
getting into that flow state, 
you know, this idea that the 

700
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:21,400
more you do this, the easier it 
is to kind of enter that flow 

701
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:26,960
States and sort of sort of like 
priming or setting yourself up 

702
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,560
with like psychological cues. 
You know, like, you know, 

703
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,000
there's also to be said for some
like the superstitions that 

704
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:37,360
people in sports engage in, Like
I've got to wear my magic 

705
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:41,720
underwear or my special socks or
the special jersey, you know, 

706
00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:43,560
when I when I go out onto the 
field. 

707
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:49,280
And that's again, that's true in
a lot of other field, you know, 

708
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:54,400
areas, you know, actors can go 
through the same sort of process

709
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:59,760
of trying to get into the shoes,
literally or figuratively, of 

710
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:04,680
the role of her playing. 
I in the book, I talk about how 

711
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:09,080
Isabella Rossellini when she was
doing table readings for Blue 

712
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,680
Velvet, even though so again, 
you're not really acting out the

713
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:14,800
roles physically, you're just 
kind of sitting around the table

714
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:17,720
reading your part. 
But she talks about how she 

715
00:45:17,720 --> 00:45:22,640
needed to have the nail Polish 
on her fingers so that she could

716
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,120
look at her hands and believe 
that she was that character. 

717
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:29,160
And she and and so the asserts 
of cues, you know, that we kind 

718
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,800
of train ourselves in whether 
you're an athlete, actor, 

719
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:36,520
magician, can facilitate getting
into the sort of flow states 

720
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:41,120
where things just work more more
effortlessly. 

721
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,680
How do you personally 
distinguish between like 

722
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:55,560
psychological efficacy and like 
of like ritual versus, let's 

723
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:59,000
say, like metaphysical claims? 
How do you parse that out? 

724
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,880
Can you elaborate? 
Just like the difference between

725
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:10,680
how it affects somebody versus 
what they're claiming it's 

726
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:18,520
having an effect on them if. 
That yeah, I mean, for me, I, I 

727
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,880
don't try to explain what the 
phenomenon is. 

728
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:26,440
I I think that phenomenon is 
kind of an open question and 

729
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:30,680
the. 
The book, you know, starts with 

730
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:36,120
this idea that unusual 
experiences really are not that 

731
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:42,280
unusual, that many people, most 
people perhaps at some point or 

732
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:46,880
never in their lives, will have 
some sort of, you know, WTF 

733
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,040
moment in their life, you know, 
something they can't explain or 

734
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:56,240
go, what is that? 
And yeah, I, I, I'm trained as a

735
00:46:56,240 --> 00:47:00,120
statistician and in statistics, 
you know, you never have a cut 

736
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:05,040
and dry yes or no, you have 
probably true or probably false,

737
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,160
but there's always that chance 
that that could be wrong. 

738
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:12,000
And so I'm kind of 
constitutionally used to living 

739
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:13,960
with a certain amount of 
uncertainty. 

740
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:20,640
And, you know, so with a lot of 
the sorts of phenomenon that 

741
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:25,720
people might experience doing 
ritual, I mean, if they are 

742
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:33,600
evoking something to visible 
appearance, for example, is a, 

743
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:37,720
is a spirit or a deity or 
whatever literally appearing in 

744
00:47:37,720 --> 00:47:42,800
the room in front of them? 
Or is this the idea of the third

745
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,880
man phenomenon or the sensed 
presence that we talked about in

746
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,840
psychology and nothing more than
that. 

747
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:53,480
I, I just don't go there, you 
know, 'cause I, 'cause I think 

748
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:58,720
the end result is people do 
practice these practices and 

749
00:47:58,720 --> 00:48:04,680
they experience things that 
transform them as individuals. 

750
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:12,040
And what that is that transforms
them to me is not as important 

751
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,480
as the fact that they are 
experiencing transformation. 

752
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:21,120
So again, I, I try not to dip my
toe into the metaphysics and I 

753
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:24,360
don't think the metaphysics is 
really something that psychology

754
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,640
could answer anyway. 
So, you know, again, I I can't 

755
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,600
leave that to a reader to kind 
of interpret for themselves or 

756
00:48:32,720 --> 00:48:38,080
to pursue again, further studies
in, you know, Rupert Sheldrake, 

757
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,120
you know, Dean Rayden and you 
know, all these other folks 

758
00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,720
we're talking about Chris 
Bennett, PD Doom and never a way

759
00:48:44,720 --> 00:48:47,120
there is. 
Awesome. 

760
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:49,640
I want to pivot a little bit 
here. 

761
00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:53,520
I did. 
I listened to you. 

762
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:56,760
I think you're reading when your
books is it panic in Detroit 

763
00:48:56,760 --> 00:49:02,320
about Aleister Crowley coming to
Detroit and causing kind of a, a

764
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:05,880
whole hoopla. 
Can you give us a little bit of 

765
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:07,600
a background on that as 
somebody? 

766
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:11,320
I I'm from the Detroit area and 
I love history and historical 

767
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:15,200
things that relate to the city. 
I think that would be a great a 

768
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:18,160
great little piece here. 
Yeah, absolutely. 

769
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,280
And as someone who hails me 
Detroit myself, this period is 

770
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:27,000
especially fascinating to me. 
But what happened was during 

771
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:31,320
World War One, Carolee wound up 
moving from England to the 

772
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:35,360
United States, living here for 
those five years. 

773
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:41,240
And at one point, toward the end
of his stay, he wanted to 

774
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:45,200
publish whatever issue of his 
periodically Equinox, which is 

775
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:47,680
really like a book length sort 
of publication. 

776
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,400
But he had kind of suspended 
doing that when he, you know, 

777
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:55,200
left the UK. 
And right about that time, some 

778
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:59,760
people from Detroit got in 
contact with them because they 

779
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:01,880
were they were, you know, 
antiquarian and used book 

780
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,960
dealers who were interested in, 
you know, occult and other 

781
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:08,920
physical topics. 
And they were also members of, 

782
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:13,160
you know, the Masonic fraternity
and they knew that Crawley was a

783
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,960
head of this sort of the English
head of this organizational 

784
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:21,080
order template Orientis, which 
was kind of a offshoot of 

785
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:22,720
Freemasonry. 
And they were interested in 

786
00:50:22,720 --> 00:50:25,320
knowing more. 
So they brought Crawley to 

787
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:30,640
Detroit to on the on the offer 
of, you know, hey, you know, not

788
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:33,240
only do I have this bookstore, 
but, you know, we can publish 

789
00:50:33,240 --> 00:50:36,480
this book, you know, the Equinox
that you want to do, but we also

790
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:38,680
want to know more about this OTO
group. 

791
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,640
We might be interested in 
starting a branch here in in the

792
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,200
Motor City. 
And so Crowley saw an 

793
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:47,400
opportunity. 
He came out and he met with some

794
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:52,360
of the local Mason folks and got
the book published. 

795
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:58,200
But when it came time to forming
the group, there was a lot of a 

796
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:01,160
jockeying for position about, 
you know, who would be on the 

797
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:07,440
Supreme Grand Council and who 
would not be, and quarreling 

798
00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:10,960
ensued. 
And then when Crowley's equinox 

799
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:15,680
came out, you know, there with, 
you know, the him in the pan and

800
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,800
things like this, some people 
are like, oh, my gosh, this is 

801
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:20,680
not at all what I imagined it 
would be. 

802
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:26,720
And, and things just kind of 
blew up, you know, the people 

803
00:51:26,720 --> 00:51:32,240
who invested in the bookstore 
suddenly or got cold feet about 

804
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,800
this investment in the the book 
and they wanted their money 

805
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:37,520
back. 
And the people who wanted to 

806
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:41,960
start this Supreme grand Council
service get cold feet and backed

807
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:44,640
out. 
And when this bookstore and the 

808
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:49,120
publishing company had financial
troubles and went bankrupt, the,

809
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:53,640
these the Masonic people who 
were like involved tried to 

810
00:51:53,640 --> 00:51:58,000
blame Crawley for it. 
And this is, you know, patently 

811
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:04,240
false cause the amount of debts 
that this company, it was under 

812
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:09,280
far, far, far exceeded the cost 
of printing the Equinox. 

813
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:15,120
But in the eyes of, you know, 
the press at that time, this was

814
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:18,880
a juicy and salacious story. 
So it became the story of how 

815
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,760
Aleister Crowley tries to start 
this love cult in just in 

816
00:52:22,760 --> 00:52:27,520
Detroit and this obscene volume 
was shipped around the country, 

817
00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:33,120
including the Hollywood where it
inspired drug fueled orgies and 

818
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,800
things like this. 
And it was all wild. 

819
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,120
I mean, I, I can remember when I
was first researching this, 

820
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:44,240
sitting at the Burton Historical
Collection at the Detroit Public

821
00:52:44,240 --> 00:52:48,920
Library, going through 
microfilms of the Free Press or 

822
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:51,720
the Renews at that time. 
And this is like front page 

823
00:52:51,720 --> 00:52:54,320
news. 
And it just blow my mind 

824
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:57,360
thinking that this, like his is 
like a moral panic, this 

825
00:52:57,360 --> 00:52:58,840
hysteria. 
Yeah. 

826
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,200
At this point, by the time this 
bookstore was like having the 

827
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:03,320
bankruptcy and stuff crowing 
already moved back to England, 

828
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,840
he was long gone. 
But, you know, people were still

829
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,720
trying to, you know, vilify and 
blame him for these things 

830
00:53:09,720 --> 00:53:13,600
because, you know, there his 
book was too spooky for them. 

831
00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:18,280
Yeah, that's interesting. 
Yeah. 

832
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:22,960
And I think we mentioned off 
there that the Detroit Masonic 

833
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:24,560
Temple, I've seen some concerts 
there. 

834
00:53:24,560 --> 00:53:29,320
It's a beautiful building. 
And I think that was built in 

835
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:35,040
mid, mid to early 1920s, I 
believe. 

836
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:38,760
Yeah, I think about 1924, so 
that that that building was 

837
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:43,000
actually built shortly after 
Crowley left the area. 

838
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:46,000
Gotcha. 
That his his kind of right man, 

839
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:51,520
right hand man or field manager 
Charles Stansfeld Jones actually

840
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:56,080
took his Blue Lodge Masonic 
initiations at the former Grand 

841
00:53:56,080 --> 00:54:01,080
Lodge building in Detroit, which
was again raised to make the the

842
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:03,360
new one, you know in the in the 
1920s. 

843
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:07,480
But Jones took his initiations, 
you know, around 19/18/1919. 

844
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:09,880
Interesting. 
Yeah. 

845
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:14,960
And I know actually Jack White's
mom used to be like, she used to

846
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:17,760
work at the Masonic Temple, I 
think cleaning it or something, 

847
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:20,520
being a custodian. 
And he's actually, he's the one 

848
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:23,760
that saved it because I know 
that they were considering, you 

849
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:26,080
know, demolishing it or getting 
rid of it at some point. 

850
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:27,880
But yeah. 
That was so cool. 

851
00:54:28,240 --> 00:54:32,920
Yeah, that's the problem with a 
lot of these Masonic temples 

852
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:40,200
around is that they were built 
at a time when belonging to 

853
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:44,160
social clubs like the Masons was
a thing that basically everybody

854
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:47,560
did. 
And so they had these large 

855
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:49,520
memberships. 
And part of the membership is 

856
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:53,480
you're paying dues, and the dues
help with the upkeep of the of 

857
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:56,960
the building. 
And in the years, you know, they

858
00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:01,240
had this idea, over decades, the
idea of people belonging to 

859
00:55:01,240 --> 00:55:03,720
groups has become less and less 
appealing. 

860
00:55:03,720 --> 00:55:06,560
There's a book called Bowling 
Alone that deals with this 

861
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:09,520
phenomenon that like bowling 
leagues have kind of disappeared

862
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:12,320
for the same reason. 
People don't just don't do this 

863
00:55:12,320 --> 00:55:15,280
the way they used to. 
And so now that these Masonic 

864
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:19,720
buildings are, you know, they, 
they have, they still need new 

865
00:55:19,720 --> 00:55:23,880
roofs, you know, as the Masonic 
Temple did, and other sorts of 

866
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:26,200
maintenance. 
And, you know, finding the money

867
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:29,960
to do that is very hard. 
I remember a number of years ago

868
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:35,800
there was a Masonic Temple in 
Ferndale that was bought and 

869
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:38,960
turned into like a nightclub, 
you know, because they just 

870
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,280
couldn't afford to upkeep the 
building anymore. 

871
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:45,920
So that's kind of the 
unfortunate reality that a lot 

872
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,960
of Masonic bodies face. 
You know, some of them may have 

873
00:55:48,960 --> 00:55:53,480
like money and trust from the 
past, but it was really, really 

874
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:57,400
cool and very generous of Jack 
White to kind of save the 

875
00:55:57,400 --> 00:56:00,480
Masonic Temple 'cause it's, it 
is, it's the largest Masonic 

876
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:02,680
temple in the world. 
I believe it's kind of like over

877
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:04,840
1000 rooms and it's really quite
a. 

878
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,720
Yeah, like I said, I've seen. 
One-of-a-kind thing. 

879
00:56:07,720 --> 00:56:10,720
Yeah, I've seen concerts there. 
They have the Acacia room right 

880
00:56:10,720 --> 00:56:13,440
there too. 
Yeah. 

881
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:17,520
I mean, I, my cousin who's a 
photographer, he said he went 

882
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:19,840
all throughout there taking 
pictures for some event or 

883
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:20,320
something. 
He said. 

884
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:23,280
It's unbelievable, the 
architecture and everything so. 

885
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:25,800
Yeah, they do chores. 
I haven't had the pleasure 

886
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:27,760
myself. 
I know a lot of people who have 

887
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:31,000
and it's, it's great. 
And I also have not had the 

888
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:34,920
pleasure of seeing a concert at 
the Masonic Hall, but my older 

889
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:36,840
sister I know has. 
I believe she saw The Rolling 

890
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:39,880
Stones there actually. 
Nice. 

891
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,120
Yeah, I'd have to look. 
I wonder if Jack White in any 

892
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:45,640
capacity, whether it was White 
Stripes or before, has ever 

893
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:48,800
played a concert there. 
I wonder if that impacted aside 

894
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:51,320
from his mom being connected to 
it and stuff. 

895
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,000
I wonder if that played a, a 
roll into it. 

896
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:58,400
I want to ask you too, how does 
Detroit's like a cult history 

897
00:56:58,720 --> 00:57:03,080
fit into the broader, broader 
American esoteric history? 

898
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,200
You know, when we're talking 
about like the 20th century and 

899
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:09,840
Aleister Crowley and all these 
kind of movements and stuff like

900
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:13,120
that, Is it, is it, is it kind 
of important? 

901
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:16,240
Is it not important when it just
happened to be Detroit or? 

902
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:22,040
Well, at the at the time that 
Crowley came to Detroit, Detroit

903
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:24,920
was basically the New York City 
of the Midwest. 

904
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:28,000
I mean, because Chicago kind of 
replaced that, you know, a 

905
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:30,800
little bit later. 
But Detroit was, you know, 

906
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:35,240
basically the buzzing metropolis
of, you know, in the early 1910s

907
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:37,080
or, you know, turn of the 
century there, you know, the 

908
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:40,560
turn of the 20th century, you 
know, you had the auto industry 

909
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:44,560
and, you know, just this great 
amount of, you know, wealth and 

910
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:49,240
prosperity happening. 
And and then you kind of see 

911
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:53,640
that transition happen with sort
of the, the Crowley circle 

912
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:57,280
because they, a lot of those 
people came to Detroit to 

913
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:00,240
support, you know, the 
publication of this Equinox 

914
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:04,360
volume and also the 
establishment of a Supreme grand

915
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:05,960
Council. 
And when that kind of fell 

916
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:11,680
apart, a lot of these people 
wound up drifting to Chicago, 

917
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:13,280
which again, was kind of up and 
coming. 

918
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:15,480
And that's, you know, in 
Chicago, for instance, you do 

919
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:20,480
see, you know, a lot of I don't,
you see this occult work from 

920
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:23,320
Charles Stansville Jones, who 
had been centered in Detroit and

921
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,960
was giving talks in around town,
you know, at the Rosebud Club 

922
00:58:26,960 --> 00:58:29,160
and the Theosophical Society and
things like that. 

923
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,360
Now he was like publishing 
things out of Chicago and he had

924
00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:34,480
the New Thought movement kind of
taking roots. 

925
00:58:36,280 --> 00:58:40,360
But Detroit was has always been 
kind of an interesting place. 

926
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:47,000
You know, during the late 1800s,
early 1900s, there was this, you

927
00:58:47,000 --> 00:58:51,040
know, sort of rogue splinter of 
the Masonic fraternity called 

928
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,640
the Egyptian Rite of Memphis and
Misery. 

929
00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:57,320
And that had a a foothold here 
in in Michigan. 

930
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:01,040
And one of its leaders, you 
know, lived here and was, you 

931
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:04,640
know, writing about that. 
So it's, yeah, there's, there's 

932
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:08,000
a lot of interesting weird 
history about Detroit. 

933
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:12,640
One of one of my favorite facts 
factoids is the fact that the, 

934
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:17,840
the Fisher Mansion down on the 
riverfront was actually donated 

935
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:22,200
by, you know, the Fisher heiress
to the Bhaktavidanta Center. 

936
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:26,000
And so it's now like a, you 
know, a Hari Krishna temple. 

937
00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:28,840
And they've tried to like 
restore it and preserve its 

938
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:32,080
historical nature. 
But they also have like, you 

939
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:34,480
know, Knights where I do free 
vegetarian feasts and things 

940
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:36,240
like that. 
So it's kind of wild to go to 

941
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:40,440
this place where here's the 
secret boat launch where they 

942
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,960
used to illegally run liquor 
across the border to Canada, you

943
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:46,880
know, across the Detroit River. 
Now let's go upstairs and have 

944
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:49,760
our vegetarian feast. 
Nice. 

945
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:51,560
Yeah. 
Have you seen how they restored 

946
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:55,920
the old train station? 
No, I haven't, but my 

947
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,760
brother-in-law used to work 
security there when they were 

948
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,840
doing that work, so it sounds 
amazing you. 

949
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:03,520
Should check it out. 
I mean it's beautiful, they did 

950
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:06,360
an amazing job. 
What a great building too, you 

951
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:07,960
know, the architecture and 
everything. 

952
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,400
Everything that Detroit I'm 
reminded of is my sister when 

953
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:15,000
she was in junior high school, 
actually interviewed and did a 

954
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:19,360
like a class project on gondola,
the green witch who was very 

955
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:22,280
famous in the Detroit area in 
the 60s and 70s. 

956
01:00:22,280 --> 01:00:26,200
So yeah, we've definitely got, 
we've got, we got our history 

957
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:28,920
there in Detroit and and 
roundabouts. 

958
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:34,160
Yeah, yeah, for sure. 
I I want to talk about Aleister 

959
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:36,920
Crowley a little bit too. 
Aside from the Detroit stuff, 

960
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:40,400
you wrote a book called 
Purdurabo. 

961
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:42,360
Is that pronouncing it 
correctly? 

962
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:50,760
Is that basically like a 
biography or what 'cause I 

963
01:00:50,760 --> 01:00:52,840
haven't checked it out yet. 
I do want to check it out. 

964
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,920
Yeah, Purdurabo is, you know, 
subtitled The Life of Aleister 

965
01:00:56,920 --> 01:00:58,360
Crowley. 
So it's a biography. 

966
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:04,560
Purdurabo is the motto that 
Crowley took when he joined the 

967
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:06,200
Chromatic Order of the Golden 
Dawn. 

968
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:09,520
The idea is that everyone who 
initiated chose some sort of a 

969
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:12,400
motto to kind of express again 
their intentions. 

970
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:15,120
As we're talking about earlier, 
you know what, what is your goal

971
01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:18,080
as an initiate or as a 
practicing magician? 

972
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:22,200
And you know, pergorabo came 
from a biblical verse. 

973
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:26,160
Crowley's father was a preacher,
so it was a very well versed in 

974
01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:29,880
his Bible. 
And, you know, pergorabo is a 

975
01:01:29,880 --> 01:01:32,840
Latin word that means I shall 
endure to the end. 

976
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:38,120
And that was sort of Crowley's, 
you know, aspiration. 

977
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:43,400
And I think he very much 
descriptive of what his life was

978
01:01:43,400 --> 01:01:45,400
like. 
And so I think it's a very 

979
01:01:45,480 --> 01:01:47,960
apartment title for the book, 
even though it might be a little

980
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:52,720
bit of a mouthful to say. 
But, you know, he was someone 

981
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:57,640
who went out looking for 
spiritual truth, found his 

982
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:01,800
version of it in this channel 
text called the Book of the Law.

983
01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:06,400
And like his preacher father 
before him, he spent his life 

984
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:11,240
trying to spread the word to 
anyone who would listen and 

985
01:02:11,600 --> 01:02:15,600
basically burn through the 
fortune that he inherited trying

986
01:02:15,600 --> 01:02:19,240
to do so. 
And, you know, kind of lived, 

987
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:23,040
you know, on a, you know, 
stipend, you know, a trust fund 

988
01:02:23,040 --> 01:02:26,760
from from leftover from his 
parents, you know, and and from,

989
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:31,760
you know, support from his, you 
know, friends and followers in 

990
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:34,640
his later days. 
But at no point did he ever 

991
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:39,720
waver from his sense of purpose 
and trying to transmit what he 

992
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:43,080
thought was spiritual truth. 
And so this idea of I will 

993
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:47,600
pursue, you know, I will endure 
to the end really very much 

994
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:50,680
fits, you know, the the big, the
big life story of Alistair 

995
01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:53,040
Crowley. 
Interesting. 

996
01:02:53,400 --> 01:02:55,920
Why do you think people 
considered him to be like, you 

997
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:58,840
know, a long time ago before I 
knew anything about any of this 

998
01:02:58,840 --> 01:03:01,000
stuff? 
You hear the name, you hear all 

999
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:03,960
he's dangerous or evil or 
something along those lines. 

1000
01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:07,520
You think it was just because it
was, you know, counterculture 

1001
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:10,120
movement or something that 
people just didn't understand. 

1002
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:14,600
Like, why do you think he got 
that moniker or the people 

1003
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:17,960
having that perception of them? 
Well, one thing that probably 

1004
01:03:17,960 --> 01:03:24,760
was really notorious for was 
pushing against standard, you 

1005
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:28,240
know, norms, societal norms, 
particularly like Victorian, you

1006
01:03:28,240 --> 01:03:34,160
know, propriety and prudishness.
He was, you know, a sexually 

1007
01:03:34,160 --> 01:03:37,840
liberated person. 
He was, you know, a queer person

1008
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:44,440
and and he was also practicing 
spirituality that didn't fit 

1009
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:46,960
into the category of, you know, 
Christian. 

1010
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:52,200
And so, you know, the press just
had a field day, you know, 

1011
01:03:52,320 --> 01:03:55,200
claiming that he was trying to, 
you know, revive Pagan 

1012
01:03:55,200 --> 01:03:58,320
religions. 
And, you know, it was a bad 

1013
01:03:58,320 --> 01:04:00,720
influence, you know, that people
want to call him a devil 

1014
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:02,720
worshipper, you know, because of
course, anything that's, you 

1015
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:05,760
know, not Christian can only be 
one other thing, you know, 

1016
01:04:05,880 --> 01:04:08,320
that's, you know, devil worship.
You know, there's no there's no 

1017
01:04:08,320 --> 01:04:11,640
in between or no other category 
for some people. 

1018
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:19,080
And so Crowley became a popular,
I don't know, popular figure to 

1019
01:04:19,080 --> 01:04:23,640
beat up on in in the in the 
tabloids because it sold papers 

1020
01:04:24,040 --> 01:04:31,120
and, you know, even his, you 
know, early biographers, you 

1021
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:35,240
know, spared, you know, no, no 
punches and kind of, you know, 

1022
01:04:35,240 --> 01:04:37,240
they, you know, befriending him 
while he was alive and then 

1023
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:41,240
while he was dead, doing him 
dirty, you know, and talking 

1024
01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:43,840
about what a, you know, terrible
person he was. 

1025
01:04:43,840 --> 01:04:49,480
And spreading, you know, in some
cases misinformation and, and in

1026
01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:52,840
many ways, this is what inspired
me to write Per Durabo in the 

1027
01:04:52,840 --> 01:04:56,840
1st place, is that a lot of what
has been written and said about 

1028
01:04:56,840 --> 01:05:02,520
Crowley has been very 
sensational, untrue, misleading,

1029
01:05:03,040 --> 01:05:05,160
etcetera. 
And I just wanted to tell the 

1030
01:05:05,160 --> 01:05:09,840
factual story. 
And whether you read, and if you

1031
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:14,360
read that book and you get to 
the end of it, whether you like 

1032
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:16,640
him or loathe him is fine with 
me. 

1033
01:05:16,640 --> 01:05:20,840
I just feel like people should 
be able to make a decision based

1034
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:24,320
on their own judgement of the 
facts. 

1035
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:28,880
Whereas most other biographers 
by the biographer was telling 

1036
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:30,760
you what you should think about 
Crowley. 

1037
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:32,440
And I just, I didn't want to do 
that. 

1038
01:05:32,440 --> 01:05:35,680
I want to say here's the facts. 
You make up your own mind. 

1039
01:05:38,040 --> 01:05:39,520
Interesting. 
Yeah, I'll have to check that 

1040
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:41,840
out. 
Like I said, this is kind of 

1041
01:05:41,840 --> 01:05:43,800
like a little out of my 
wheelhouse. 

1042
01:05:43,800 --> 01:05:46,560
It's kind of, you know, all this
stuff's kind of fringe, but at 

1043
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:51,080
the same time, you know, I've I 
come from a different view on a 

1044
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:55,760
lot of this stuff. 
But it when you So what was the 

1045
01:05:55,760 --> 01:05:58,000
connection? 
I did read what was it called 

1046
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:02,040
Strange, Strange Angel about 
Jack Parsons. 

1047
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:06,040
So what was that connection all 
about? 

1048
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:09,040
What was? 
Is that in Purdue? 

1049
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:11,840
Rabo too or? 
Yeah, I mean, a little bit. 

1050
01:06:11,840 --> 01:06:16,320
I mean, it's obviously strange. 
Angel is a biography of Jack 

1051
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:20,400
Parsons, who was one of the 
fathers of rocket science in the

1052
01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:23,120
United States. 
And so I don't go into as much 

1053
01:06:23,120 --> 01:06:26,440
detail as, you know, this book 
that's all about Jack Parsons. 

1054
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:30,240
But Jack Parsons has turned up 
and the story there is that 

1055
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:34,840
toward the end of Crowley's 
life, he was, you know, still 

1056
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:37,480
head of this organization. 
OTO or or the Temporary 

1057
01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:42,480
Orientis, but the only group 
really acting active under him 

1058
01:06:42,480 --> 01:06:45,920
at that time was his group of 
folks in Los Angeles. 

1059
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:51,720
And one of the members was Jack 
Parsons, who kind of, you know, 

1060
01:06:51,720 --> 01:06:54,600
came into them through there's 
there's an overlap you can 

1061
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:57,200
imagine, you know, the in a lot 
of communities, there's these, 

1062
01:06:57,520 --> 01:06:59,320
you know, overlapping pancake 
stacks. 

1063
01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:01,800
And in those days, you know, the
sci-fi community and the occult 

1064
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:04,640
community had a lot of 
overlapping membership. 

1065
01:07:06,040 --> 01:07:08,200
That's. 
How I heard about all that too 

1066
01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:11,840
was like through the UFO online 
community, because they're 

1067
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:14,240
talking about all they're 
contacting entities and they're 

1068
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:17,720
trying to create, you know, 
portals and things. 

1069
01:07:18,520 --> 01:07:22,080
Yeah, so it's so it's, you know,
just as true then as it is today

1070
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:26,240
that, you know, these, you know,
Renaissance festival people, you

1071
01:07:26,240 --> 01:07:29,880
know, sci-fi people, you know, 
occult people or whatever, you 

1072
01:07:29,880 --> 01:07:32,600
know. 
Yeah, They're they, they tend to

1073
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:36,600
fit into multiple categories. 
And so Jack Parsons got involved

1074
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:40,760
in this group through people in 
the OTO who are also part of the

1075
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:44,640
science fiction community. 
And this included a fellow by 

1076
01:07:44,640 --> 01:07:48,960
the name of Grady Mcmurtry, but 
also, interestingly enough, the 

1077
01:07:49,600 --> 01:07:51,840
sci-fi rather by the name of L 
Ron Hubbard. 

1078
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:54,880
So you know which is a whole 
other. 

1079
01:07:55,080 --> 01:07:59,520
He's not famous at all. 
Yeah, but, and probably more 

1080
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:04,480
than we can get into here, but 
yeah, Jack Parsons was a wild 

1081
01:08:04,480 --> 01:08:08,080
guy. 
He he had kind of an intuitive 

1082
01:08:08,080 --> 01:08:12,840
understanding of how explosives 
work and he worked for like a 

1083
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:16,960
company that packed explosives. 
And then while he didn't have a 

1084
01:08:16,960 --> 01:08:21,520
lot of formal education, 
training and engineering, he 

1085
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:23,960
kind of just through his own 
experimentation kind of 

1086
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:32,080
developed a sense of these ideas
of these combustible materials 

1087
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:36,800
and how to channel that into 
rocketry, which was, you know, 

1088
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:38,600
again, science fiction at the 
time. 

1089
01:08:39,840 --> 01:08:43,640
But you know, he and his, you 
know, the suicide clubs, they 

1090
01:08:43,640 --> 01:08:49,479
were called back at, you know, 
the university there and 

1091
01:08:50,120 --> 01:08:55,720
Stanford and Caltech, you know, 
help develop, you know, the the 

1092
01:08:55,720 --> 01:08:59,920
first solid rocket fuel Genesis 
to take off and things like 

1093
01:08:59,920 --> 01:09:04,120
that. 
And the other stories are that, 

1094
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:07,359
you know, Jack would sometimes, 
you know, recite, you know, 

1095
01:09:07,359 --> 01:09:11,720
Crowley's him in the pan before 
rocket launches, kind of as his 

1096
01:09:11,720 --> 01:09:14,880
own ritual to ensure things went
smoothly. 

1097
01:09:16,560 --> 01:09:17,880
Interesting. 
Interesting. 

1098
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:21,439
Yeah, I'll have to go. 
I'll have to check out Purdue 

1099
01:09:21,439 --> 01:09:25,880
Rabo and maybe go back and 
revisit Strange Angel as well. 

1100
01:09:27,080 --> 01:09:31,319
Yeah, the book is really cool. 
The TV show takes it's well, 

1101
01:09:31,319 --> 01:09:34,760
it's good entertainment TV show.
Oh, yeah. 

1102
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:37,800
There were two seasons of 
Strange. 

1103
01:09:37,800 --> 01:09:40,240
It called Strange Angel, so it 
took its name from the book, but

1104
01:09:40,240 --> 01:09:43,439
it took a lot of liberties with 
the facts. 

1105
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:49,640
So don't don't watch it like 
expecting the history of either,

1106
01:09:49,960 --> 01:09:53,439
you know, the occults or of. 
So just don't watch it then. 

1107
01:09:53,760 --> 01:09:56,280
So none of it's none of the 
juicy stuff's in there then? 

1108
01:09:57,040 --> 01:10:00,800
Oh, I mean that's that's other 
juicy stuff that they make up, 

1109
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:04,720
you know, but so, you know, 
there are various things that 

1110
01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:07,320
happen out of sequence and 
there's things that people that 

1111
01:10:07,320 --> 01:10:10,720
didn't exist, but that's kind of
just serve the story moving 

1112
01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:13,600
along. 
So it's entertaining television,

1113
01:10:13,600 --> 01:10:17,480
but if you really want the true 
story, read the book rather than

1114
01:10:17,480 --> 01:10:19,880
watch the TV show. 
That would be my intense. 

1115
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:22,000
But if you want entertainment, 
watch ATV show. 

1116
01:10:23,320 --> 01:10:27,720
All right, all right, before we 
get to this segment, Mike's mind

1117
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:32,320
melters, is there anything else 
you wanna, you know, put out 

1118
01:10:32,320 --> 01:10:35,520
there about Mind Over Magic? 
It is of if you're listening to 

1119
01:10:35,520 --> 01:10:37,320
this, it's been available for a 
week. 

1120
01:10:37,320 --> 01:10:40,520
We're recording this on the 7th,
which is released today. 

1121
01:10:41,200 --> 01:10:45,280
Congratulations. 
But if you're listening, it'll 

1122
01:10:45,280 --> 01:10:47,640
already be out a week. 
So please again, click the link 

1123
01:10:47,640 --> 01:10:53,080
at the bottom, pick up a copy. 
And is there an audio copy by 

1124
01:10:53,080 --> 01:10:55,080
chance to do you have did you do
the audio book? 

1125
01:10:56,040 --> 01:10:59,600
It's currently available as 
print and e-book. 

1126
01:11:00,360 --> 01:11:03,920
We are working on an audio book,
but I don't really have a date, 

1127
01:11:03,920 --> 01:11:05,760
at least not available. 
OK. 

1128
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:07,920
All right. 
Well, yeah, go check out, pick 

1129
01:11:07,920 --> 01:11:10,760
up your copy. 
Got the link down below and 

1130
01:11:10,760 --> 01:11:15,440
again, congratulations on that. 
And if you'd be most gracious to

1131
01:11:15,440 --> 01:11:19,000
enter Mike's mind melters, let's
do this. 

1132
01:11:20,240 --> 01:11:24,000
OK, I'm ready. 
Mount my mind. 

1133
01:11:40,520 --> 01:11:43,400
All right, Richard, I'm going to
ask you 5 philosophical 

1134
01:11:43,400 --> 01:11:46,160
questions. 
Please just answer them the best

1135
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:50,440
that you can. 
Number one, what is something 

1136
01:11:50,440 --> 01:11:55,160
you believe in that you know is 
probably wrong or logical, but 

1137
01:11:55,160 --> 01:11:57,360
you are just not being honest 
with yourself? 

1138
01:12:03,120 --> 01:12:14,560
Something that is. 
Gosh, that's tough. 

1139
01:12:14,560 --> 01:12:18,360
I think maybe what I'll, what 
I'll, I'll pose as that answer 

1140
01:12:18,360 --> 01:12:26,200
is the reason it's hard is that 
I like to think that I being 

1141
01:12:26,200 --> 01:12:30,960
trained as a scientist and kind 
of being in my head sort of 

1142
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:34,200
person, you know, I've always, 
you know, admired, you know, Mr.

1143
01:12:34,200 --> 01:12:36,120
Spock, I'm more Vulcan than 
human. 

1144
01:12:37,760 --> 01:12:41,360
You know, that I've like to 
think of myself as being 

1145
01:12:41,360 --> 01:12:44,880
capable, being more detached and
analytic and objective about 

1146
01:12:44,880 --> 01:12:49,640
things. 
And I suppose being human, I'm 

1147
01:12:49,640 --> 01:12:54,720
probably not as detached and as 
objective as I like to think 

1148
01:12:54,720 --> 01:12:57,120
that I am. 
And that's potentially a, you 

1149
01:12:57,120 --> 01:13:00,440
know, blind spot for me. 
I like it. 

1150
01:13:00,920 --> 01:13:07,520
Cognitive bias. 
We all have them all right #2 Do

1151
01:13:07,520 --> 01:13:11,480
you think there is an objective 
purpose for humanity, and if So,

1152
01:13:11,480 --> 01:13:20,960
what? 
That's a tough one I meet. 

1153
01:13:20,960 --> 01:13:27,640
Me personally, I really kind of 
like a lot of the Eastern ideas 

1154
01:13:27,640 --> 01:13:35,320
that the universe is all a bunch
of interconnected stuff and you 

1155
01:13:35,320 --> 01:13:37,400
know, I don't want to get like 
woo about, you know? 

1156
01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:40,080
Like an Indra's net? 
Or like a Alan Watts? 

1157
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:41,440
Kind of. 
A yeah, yeah. 

1158
01:13:41,840 --> 01:13:45,120
And, you know, and, and, you 
know, again, not getting really 

1159
01:13:45,120 --> 01:13:47,520
woo about like, you know, the, 
the physics of things, but, you 

1160
01:13:47,520 --> 01:13:51,960
know, even most matter is more 
space than it is particles, you 

1161
01:13:52,640 --> 01:13:56,880
know, and but there's particles 
connect, you know, between 

1162
01:13:56,880 --> 01:14:01,600
everything in the universe. 
And so this idea that everything

1163
01:14:01,600 --> 01:14:07,320
is kind of connected and one 
thing and that we perceive 

1164
01:14:07,760 --> 01:14:14,400
differences because of our 
incarnation on this planet, but 

1165
01:14:14,400 --> 01:14:19,680
that sense of separation is an 
illusion. 

1166
01:14:19,680 --> 01:14:22,880
And there is a state of mind or 
a state of progress and 

1167
01:14:22,880 --> 01:14:25,280
evolution, you know, associated 
with, you know, burning off your

1168
01:14:25,280 --> 01:14:29,520
karma and becoming enlightened 
and kind of entering the, the 

1169
01:14:29,520 --> 01:14:33,880
ocean of reality. 
And then that standpoint, the, 

1170
01:14:35,040 --> 01:14:42,200
the goal here is for all of us 
to kind of get to the ocean as 

1171
01:14:42,200 --> 01:14:44,760
it were, you know, kind of like 
the baby turtles, you know, 

1172
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:48,520
hatched trying to get to the, to
the ocean before the birds eat 

1173
01:14:48,520 --> 01:14:51,200
us or something. 75 seagulls 
come in and eat them all. 

1174
01:14:51,640 --> 01:14:54,240
Yeah, exactly. 
No, I I like that to. 

1175
01:14:54,440 --> 01:14:57,200
Get there and to, you know, help
other people get there as well. 

1176
01:14:58,000 --> 01:15:03,760
I like that #3 Do you think 
humans are special or separate 

1177
01:15:03,760 --> 01:15:08,360
from Nate the rest of nature? 
If yes, give me your best 

1178
01:15:08,360 --> 01:15:15,520
example or explanation of why. 
No, I I think we are part of 

1179
01:15:15,520 --> 01:15:21,920
nature being how humans 
certainly perceive themselves as

1180
01:15:21,920 --> 01:15:23,880
special. 
I think kind of the history of 

1181
01:15:23,880 --> 01:15:28,520
science has been kind of also 
the history of taking humanity 

1182
01:15:28,520 --> 01:15:31,760
now down a notch. 
You know, the idea that, you 

1183
01:15:31,760 --> 01:15:33,840
know, the Earth is the center of
the universe. 

1184
01:15:34,160 --> 01:15:36,280
Oh, no, we just, we revolve 
around the sun. 

1185
01:15:36,600 --> 01:15:38,760
The sun is the center. 
Oh, it's not the center of the 

1186
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:40,320
universe. 
It's the center of our solar 

1187
01:15:40,320 --> 01:15:43,600
system, which is just part of a 
Galaxy, which is one of many 

1188
01:15:43,600 --> 01:15:45,320
galaxies in the universe and so 
on. 

1189
01:15:45,320 --> 01:15:46,960
Oh, you know, humans are unique 
now. 

1190
01:15:46,960 --> 01:15:53,400
We're descended from apes, you 
know, You know, Oh, but humans 

1191
01:15:53,400 --> 01:15:55,760
are the only ones who build 
tools is like, no, no, you know,

1192
01:15:55,760 --> 01:15:58,320
lots of other animals build 
tools as well. 

1193
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:02,120
Yeah, I mean that argument you 
could say like recursive tool 

1194
01:16:02,120 --> 01:16:06,080
making, but even that there's 
proto tool making, so it's not 

1195
01:16:06,080 --> 01:16:08,720
like that's a completely 
original thing. 

1196
01:16:08,960 --> 01:16:12,520
Yeah, I, I remember I used to 
have a Chihuahua who would at 

1197
01:16:12,520 --> 01:16:15,840
the most inopportune times, like
when company was over and having

1198
01:16:15,840 --> 01:16:18,880
dinner, this Chihuahua would 
fold his bed and have like a 

1199
01:16:18,880 --> 01:16:22,480
burrito and have sex with it. 
But I would say he's, he's 

1200
01:16:22,480 --> 01:16:25,760
making a tool. 
He is not using the bed for what

1201
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:27,720
it's intended for. 
He has turned it into something 

1202
01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:29,640
else. 
And that that is tool making. 

1203
01:16:31,320 --> 01:16:37,040
Good point, good point #4 what 
do you think happens when we 

1204
01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:44,560
die? 
No idea. 

1205
01:16:44,640 --> 01:16:53,560
I mean, for this, I think I will
kind of punt to something that 

1206
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:58,520
Crowley writes in a ceremony of 
his called the Gnostic Mass, 

1207
01:16:59,440 --> 01:17:04,120
where he has this these sections
talking about birth, life, 

1208
01:17:04,120 --> 01:17:08,600
marriage and so on. 
And there's a section on death. 

1209
01:17:08,600 --> 01:17:10,800
And then there's a little 
reading that has to do with what

1210
01:17:10,800 --> 01:17:18,920
he calls the end and talks about
may you be granted the 

1211
01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:21,880
accomplishment of your true 
will, whether it be incarnation 

1212
01:17:21,880 --> 01:17:28,560
on this planet or another, you 
know, and, and various other 

1213
01:17:28,560 --> 01:17:32,000
options. 
You know, the, the, the, the 

1214
01:17:32,040 --> 01:17:37,560
idea basically being that we 
don't know what happens, but we 

1215
01:17:37,560 --> 01:17:43,800
hope that whatever you hope for 
yourself at the end of all this,

1216
01:17:43,800 --> 01:17:47,600
we hope you get that, you know, 
and I find that kind of 

1217
01:17:47,600 --> 01:17:49,960
intriguing, you know, A, it's 
just acknowledging we don't 

1218
01:17:49,960 --> 01:17:54,200
know, but B, it almost kind of 
implies, you know, this again, 

1219
01:17:54,200 --> 01:17:57,360
getting kind of out there, but 
we're kind of mine and we're in 

1220
01:17:57,360 --> 01:18:00,360
the mind melt, melt area. 
So let's, let's melt some minds 

1221
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:05,200
here, you know, kind of makes 
you wonder if, you know, again, 

1222
01:18:05,200 --> 01:18:08,880
reality is a little bit more 
plastic than we think it is. 

1223
01:18:08,880 --> 01:18:14,400
And that, you know, just as our 
beliefs can shape the results 

1224
01:18:14,400 --> 01:18:19,880
that we get doing magic, do our 
expectations of what happens 

1225
01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:25,000
after we die. 
Is what happens shaped by what 

1226
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:28,960
we think is going to happen? 
I don't know. 

1227
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:30,680
I like it. 
No, I like that. 

1228
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:32,840
That's good. 
Yeah, so some person might 

1229
01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:35,800
reincarnate, some people might 
go to another planet, some 

1230
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:39,360
people might be absorbed into 
the infinite, you know? 

1231
01:18:41,040 --> 01:18:43,440
Yeah I mean, if there's if 
there's infinite possibilities, 

1232
01:18:43,440 --> 01:18:46,560
why wouldn't there be infinite 
possibilities when you also die 

1233
01:18:46,600 --> 01:18:51,920
too, right I mean yeah all right
last one. 

1234
01:18:52,080 --> 01:18:53,360
I think I'm sticking with this 
one. 

1235
01:18:53,360 --> 01:18:55,640
I this the the 5th question 
since I've. 

1236
01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:57,600
Started mine is still inside my 
ears. 

1237
01:18:57,720 --> 01:19:00,600
That's good. 
This is, I think this one's 

1238
01:19:00,600 --> 01:19:04,040
sticking, but so this is my 
favorite quote. 2 possibilities 

1239
01:19:04,040 --> 01:19:06,000
exist. 
Either we are alone in the 

1240
01:19:06,000 --> 01:19:09,080
universe or we are not. 
Both are equally terrifying. 

1241
01:19:09,200 --> 01:19:14,160
Arthur C Clarke So that being 
said, do you think there is life

1242
01:19:14,320 --> 01:19:17,240
elsewhere in the universe or do 
you think we are alone? 

1243
01:19:20,120 --> 01:19:24,160
I think it's almost certainly a 
statistical certainty that 

1244
01:19:24,160 --> 01:19:26,880
there's other life in the 
Galaxy. 

1245
01:19:26,880 --> 01:19:30,720
I mean, whether it's, you know, 
human, whether it's evolved or 

1246
01:19:30,720 --> 01:19:33,000
what have you, you know, we 
don't know. 

1247
01:19:33,000 --> 01:19:38,240
But you know, just if you ever 
you just look at, you know, the,

1248
01:19:38,240 --> 01:19:40,920
the odds, you know, there's, 
there's an equation out there 

1249
01:19:40,920 --> 01:19:44,120
for calculating the odds. 
And while people can debate the 

1250
01:19:44,120 --> 01:19:48,280
values of these various 
parameters in the equation, you 

1251
01:19:48,280 --> 01:19:53,480
know, it's almost certain that's
in this massive universe of 

1252
01:19:53,480 --> 01:19:56,320
ours, there is. 
And particularly now that we 

1253
01:19:56,320 --> 01:20:02,080
have the capability to not only 
identify stars, but can 

1254
01:20:02,080 --> 01:20:05,680
identify. 
Planets revolving around those 

1255
01:20:05,680 --> 01:20:12,320
stars and get a measure of the 
composition of their atmosphere,

1256
01:20:12,800 --> 01:20:17,080
how close or far they are from 
that star and actually identify 

1257
01:20:17,080 --> 01:20:23,160
Earth like planets is just super
exciting, you know, to think 

1258
01:20:23,160 --> 01:20:25,760
about. 
And that's also based on the 

1259
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:29,680
idea that we're talking about, 
you know, carbon based life, you

1260
01:20:29,760 --> 01:20:32,120
know, that there might not be 
some some other sort of thing 

1261
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:35,520
out there. 
So yeah, I'm, I'm pretty 

1262
01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:38,720
confident that there's other 
things, other other forms of 

1263
01:20:38,720 --> 01:20:42,960
life out there in this vast and 
infinite universe of ours. 

1264
01:20:44,000 --> 01:20:47,440
Yeah, I thought you might 
subconsciously I was thinking 

1265
01:20:47,440 --> 01:20:51,240
he's going to take that, his 
statistical background and apply

1266
01:20:51,240 --> 01:20:53,520
it here. 
The Drake equation. 

1267
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:57,040
We actually, I think we need 
like an updated Drake equation. 

1268
01:20:57,040 --> 01:21:00,160
Maybe AI can really dial it in. 
So every time we discover 

1269
01:21:00,160 --> 01:21:03,960
something new, it's like a 
evolving equation each time 

1270
01:21:03,960 --> 01:21:05,280
something comes into the 
picture. 

1271
01:21:05,280 --> 01:21:07,760
Kind of like the the Doomsday 
Clock. 

1272
01:21:07,760 --> 01:21:09,640
Right. 
Yeah, yeah, Intelligent place. 

1273
01:21:10,440 --> 01:21:13,720
That'd be cool. 
So listen, man, I really 

1274
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:15,280
appreciate you answering all 
those. 

1275
01:21:15,280 --> 01:21:18,120
I know some of them, you know, 
like that first one really 

1276
01:21:18,120 --> 01:21:20,880
throws people off because you're
basically saying what's 

1277
01:21:20,880 --> 01:21:24,120
something that you believe in 
that's probably wrong. 

1278
01:21:24,120 --> 01:21:26,280
You know, I don't think most, 
you know, most people aren't 

1279
01:21:26,280 --> 01:21:28,720
willing to admit, you know, I 
maybe if you were. 

1280
01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:31,720
Like. 
Yeah, but maybe if you're super 

1281
01:21:31,720 --> 01:21:34,760
religious or something like that
and you really did, you know, 

1282
01:21:34,760 --> 01:21:37,640
deep down you thought, oh, maybe
there's nothing to this, 

1283
01:21:37,640 --> 01:21:40,240
whatever religion it is or 
whatever, you know, something 

1284
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:43,920
like that I could see. 
But no, I really appreciate it. 

1285
01:21:43,920 --> 01:21:45,000
I really appreciate you coming 
on. 

1286
01:21:45,000 --> 01:21:47,920
This was totally kind of like I 
said, like outside my 

1287
01:21:47,920 --> 01:21:49,480
wheelhouse. 
I know a lot of stuff like 

1288
01:21:49,480 --> 01:21:54,160
adjacent to these topics. 
So I love kind of putting myself

1289
01:21:54,160 --> 01:21:57,080
in, you know, these kind of 
positions where I'm learning 

1290
01:21:57,080 --> 01:22:00,480
something new. 
And you, you definitely shed 

1291
01:22:00,480 --> 01:22:02,760
some light on some stuff that I 
had no idea about. 

1292
01:22:03,120 --> 01:22:08,720
And I look forward to checking 
out Purdue Rabo and all your 

1293
01:22:08,720 --> 01:22:11,640
future stuff. 
And Mind Over Magic is available

1294
01:22:12,000 --> 01:22:13,600
right now. 
Check it out. 

1295
01:22:13,600 --> 01:22:16,600
Links down below. 
Is there anything else you want 

1296
01:22:16,600 --> 01:22:19,080
to say or plug before we wrap 
this up? 

1297
01:22:21,240 --> 01:22:23,960
I'm just say thank you so much 
for the opportunity to come on 

1298
01:22:23,960 --> 01:22:27,800
the show and talk with you. 
It's always a pleasure for me 

1299
01:22:27,800 --> 01:22:33,440
too, to have this kind of a 
chance because having written a 

1300
01:22:33,440 --> 01:22:37,920
lot of really heady sort of 
historical for the esoteric 

1301
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:42,520
stuff, Mind Over Magic is a 
little bit more geared to a 

1302
01:22:42,520 --> 01:22:45,920
wider readership than just this 
sort of really Crowley centric 

1303
01:22:45,920 --> 01:22:50,440
sort of stuff. 
And it's it's good practice to 

1304
01:22:50,440 --> 01:22:55,480
kind of talk about this stuff in
a, you know, more jargon free 

1305
01:22:55,480 --> 01:23:00,520
and approachable sort of way. 
So yes, please do pick up Mind 

1306
01:23:00,520 --> 01:23:02,520
Over Magic. 
And you know, again, as you 

1307
01:23:02,520 --> 01:23:05,280
mentioned, if you're interested 
in, you know, my other work for 

1308
01:23:05,280 --> 01:23:08,920
Crowley stuff, you know, 
Perdurabo, the Life of Aleister 

1309
01:23:08,920 --> 01:23:13,600
Crowley is the biography I 
mentioned earlier, the book I 

1310
01:23:13,600 --> 01:23:16,760
wrote about his interaction with
agnosticism. 

1311
01:23:16,760 --> 01:23:19,120
And that's a book called 
Friendship and Doubt. 

1312
01:23:19,680 --> 01:23:22,720
And also earlier this year for 
also for my publisher in your 

1313
01:23:22,720 --> 01:23:27,760
traditions, there was a, they 
released a critical edition of 

1314
01:23:27,760 --> 01:23:31,360
Aleister Crowley's book, The 
Sword of Song, which is his 

1315
01:23:31,360 --> 01:23:35,600
first like really magical book 
that I edited, annotated and 

1316
01:23:35,600 --> 01:23:37,920
added a lot of explanatory 
footnotes too. 

1317
01:23:38,320 --> 01:23:42,320
So those are all places or ways,
you know, you can follow my 

1318
01:23:42,320 --> 01:23:44,840
work. 
And I'm also, you know, online 

1319
01:23:44,840 --> 01:23:47,080
through my website, but I'm all,
you can also find me on social 

1320
01:23:47,080 --> 01:23:52,200
media, Facebook, Instagram 
threads, blue sky. 

1321
01:23:52,440 --> 01:23:55,840
So come look for me, let me know
why you like the book. 

1322
01:23:56,720 --> 01:23:58,160
Awesome. 
Sounds good. 

1323
01:23:58,160 --> 01:24:00,960
And like I said, this episode 
will be released. 

1324
01:24:01,240 --> 01:24:04,440
If you're listening to this, it 
is October 14th. 

1325
01:24:05,800 --> 01:24:09,600
We're speaking from the past. 
No, but please check out Mind 

1326
01:24:09,600 --> 01:24:13,360
Over Magic and all the other 
wonderful books this gentleman 

1327
01:24:13,360 --> 01:24:15,760
has written. 
And I would like to, you know, 

1328
01:24:15,760 --> 01:24:19,640
if I can get a chance to get the
Purdue Rabo in here sometime in 

1329
01:24:19,640 --> 01:24:21,400
the next few months or 
something, maybe I can have you 

1330
01:24:21,400 --> 01:24:24,200
back on the future and we can 
really just talk about Crowley 

1331
01:24:24,200 --> 01:24:29,800
and Crowley's stuff. 
And but yeah, listen, man, I 

1332
01:24:29,800 --> 01:24:33,400
really appreciate your time. 
And you, you seem to be really 

1333
01:24:33,400 --> 01:24:35,720
well researched and read into 
these topics. 

1334
01:24:35,720 --> 01:24:39,440
And I love talking with people 
that, you know, really put a lot

1335
01:24:39,440 --> 01:24:41,400
of time in this stuff because it
it shows. 

1336
01:24:41,400 --> 01:24:43,240
So I just want to say I 
appreciate that. 

1337
01:24:44,280 --> 01:24:46,880
Thank you so much all. 
Right, everybody. 

1338
01:24:46,880 --> 01:24:50,080
Well, we're going to end this 
episode the same way we end all 

1339
01:24:50,080 --> 01:24:53,000
episodes, which is we love 
everybody. 

1340
01:24:53,000 --> 01:24:55,400
Stay safe out there and we'll 
catch you next time. 

1341
01:24:56,000 --> 01:24:58,840
IECE. 
If you would like to support 

1342
01:24:58,840 --> 01:25:01,760
Mind Escape, there's many ways 
you can do it, but the best way 

1343
01:25:01,760 --> 01:25:04,200
to do it is to click the link 
tree link down below. 

1344
01:25:04,200 --> 01:25:10,040
I have everything from merch to 
our Patreon page, Our Patreon by

1345
01:25:10,040 --> 01:25:14,400
the way, I archived a lot of the
Mind Escape 1.0 episodes on 

1346
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:16,880
there. 
There is still some available on

1347
01:25:16,880 --> 01:25:20,480
our YouTube channel and our 
Spotify and Apple podcast. 

1348
01:25:20,480 --> 01:25:23,200
However, like I said, if you're 
looking for a specific older 

1349
01:25:23,200 --> 01:25:26,720
episode, it might be on our 
Patreon, which has been archived

1350
01:25:26,720 --> 01:25:30,320
and it's $2.00 a month and 
there's also exclusive content 

1351
01:25:30,320 --> 01:25:33,920
on there as well that was never 
released to any other platform. 

1352
01:25:33,920 --> 01:25:36,080
So please go check that out. 
You can also check out our 

1353
01:25:36,080 --> 01:25:39,120
documentary that Maurice and I 
made a few years ago called As 

1354
01:25:39,120 --> 01:25:43,160
Within So without from UFOs to 
DMT, that is available on there 

1355
01:25:43,160 --> 01:25:45,240
as well. 
There's also a director's cut. 

1356
01:25:45,280 --> 01:25:48,360
Please click the subscribe 
button and follow us. 

1357
01:25:48,360 --> 01:25:51,560
And if you're listening on an 
audio platform like Spotify, we 

1358
01:25:51,560 --> 01:25:53,600
do have video on Spotify as 
well. 

1359
01:25:53,600 --> 01:25:55,720
And please leave us a nice 
review. 

1360
01:25:55,720 --> 01:26:36,270
We would really appreciate that.
The.