Speaker 1: All right, Karen, let me ask you this, what do
Speaker 1: you call someone that mixes Toro cards, functory ancient Sumerian texts,
Speaker 1: and a corporate BS detector in one person?
Speaker 2: Busy?
Speaker 1: Busy? Yeah? Yeah, Well, before I started researching this week's guess,
Speaker 1: I would have said a really confused fortune teller. But noe,
Speaker 1: you actually get the skeptical shaman. And she's here today
Speaker 1: to expose the con artists and cults lurking in the
Speaker 1: WU world while teaching us how to use ancient practices
Speaker 1: to I don't know, boost your business or out negotiate
Speaker 1: your boss.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that would be good. Well, since I'm
Speaker 3: lucky at you because you're sometimes my.
Speaker 1: Boss, I'm just gonna say you're the boss. So how
Speaker 1: does it feel about that? I've actually it actually excites
Speaker 1: me because I'm thinking she might actually be able to
Speaker 1: teach me how to use the Toro cards to help
Speaker 1: me finally win an argument with my boss. But she
Speaker 1: also has functuay tips to avoid the zombie apocalypse, and
Speaker 1: that's something that's really interesting. Or she calls it a
Speaker 1: cosmic rebirth in twenty twenty four, And I mean, who
Speaker 1: couldn't use some cosmic rebirth. I know all right, Well,
Speaker 1: get ready, folks, because this episode is spirituality meets skeptical
Speaker 1: meets shamanic mic drops. If you're looking for a no
Speaker 1: nonsense way to crack into the world of the woo,
Speaker 1: this might just be the episode for you.
Speaker 4: My name is Will, and I'm garous, and unlike Boulder
Speaker 4: and Scully.
Speaker 3: Both want to believe.
Speaker 1: So we've embarked in a journey of discovery.
Speaker 3: We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and
Speaker 3: metaphysical world.
Speaker 1: We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even
Speaker 1: joined a coven of witches.
Speaker 3: And wait, you joined a coven.
Speaker 1: Yep, all on the interest of finding something, anything that
Speaker 1: will prove that there's something beyond this physical.
Speaker 3: Three dimensional world we all live in.
Speaker 4: This is the skeptic metaphysicians.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 1: It's Will just stepping in here for a second ask
Speaker 1: you for a favor. See, the main reason we do
Speaker 1: this show is to help others in their spiritual awakening,
Speaker 1: and nothing makes us happier than to hear or read
Speaker 1: messages from those that are resonating with the messages we're
Speaker 1: sharing on the show. So if you have a moment.
Speaker 1: We'd love for you to contribute to the show by
Speaker 1: heading to Skepticmanaphysician dot com and sending us a voicemail
Speaker 1: or an email from our website, or if you prefer,
Speaker 1: we'd love for you to leave us a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or any other podcasting platform that supports them.
Speaker 1: Karen and I love hearing from those that are moved
Speaker 1: to message us. It truly does fuel our passion. You
Speaker 1: are the reason we do this show, and knowing what
Speaker 1: you like and don't like, well not going to help
Speaker 1: us craft the very best show we can so that
Speaker 1: we can help raise the vibration of the planet together. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've kept you from the interview long enough, so let's
Speaker 1: get to it. Thanks for listening. Hey there, welcome back
Speaker 1: to the Skeptic Metaposition that I'm will and today we're
Speaker 1: thrilled to welcome Rachel White, better known as the Skeptical Shaman,
Speaker 1: to the show. With a unique blend of corporate savvy
Speaker 1: and shamanic expertise, Rachel is here to call out the
Speaker 1: con artists and occults lurking in the world of the
Speaker 1: WU while offering us practical tips to help us navigate
Speaker 1: our own spiritual journey. Now she's a modern rebrand of
Speaker 1: ancient wisdom, combining practices like to row, functuary and shamanism
Speaker 1: with deep insights into ancient texts and even wu based
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. Now Rachel's here to show us how spirituality
Speaker 1: isn't just personal, it can be a powerful enabler in
Speaker 1: business and life, all the while reminding us that thriving
Speaker 1: in a chaotic world isn't just possible, it's our moral obligation.
Speaker 3: I like that. I do feel short.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the perfect episode for you. Then tell
Speaker 1: if you've ever wondered how skepticism and spirituality can coexist.
Speaker 1: Rachel has the answers. Get ready for a conversation that's
Speaker 1: equal parts practical, profound, and downright fast nading. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, Rachel. How are you today?
Speaker 2: I'm much better and I have to take you guys
Speaker 2: with me everywhere.
Speaker 1: We do offer a service where we record our voice,
Speaker 1: our interests. We send them to people. If you're interested,
Speaker 1: we'd be happy.
Speaker 5: I'm going to carry a boom box on my shoulder
Speaker 5: and just play that because you make me sound a
Speaker 5: lot more dynamic and awesome than if you could see
Speaker 5: the reality of what the skeptical Shaman is.
Speaker 2: It would bum you out.
Speaker 5: It's days in sweatpants, making tinctures, answering emails.
Speaker 3: It's I was gonna say, in a lot of little bottles.
Speaker 2: A little bottles. It's not the sexiest stuff all the time.
Speaker 2: But yeah.
Speaker 1: We did mention a couple of mic drops in the introduction,
Speaker 1: and you just dropped the first one. Want wall like,
Speaker 1: how do you go from there? We're suppose just supposed
Speaker 1: to be exciting and a good and uh not hour, Rachel, No.
Speaker 2: Not a bummer.
Speaker 5: It's just it's it's it's interesting. Have you guys ever
Speaker 5: had the experience of it's through the looking glass moment?
Speaker 2: For me?
Speaker 5: Once someone introduces you and lists you know, you're like,
Speaker 5: what does that sound like?
Speaker 2: All those things? And I was like schizophrenic on the bus.
Speaker 1: I like that better than a crazy fortune teller.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's it really is something, and it's
Speaker 5: funny because it sounds very disjointed and it sounds like
Speaker 5: a series of contradictions, just like the skeptical Shawman. I
Speaker 5: picked that moniker for my podcast because I knew it
Speaker 5: was going to confuse people and if something confuses them,
Speaker 5: it intrigues them, and it's not a contradiction actually, And
Speaker 5: you know, skepticism and spirituality are inextricably linked because I
Speaker 5: think skepticism is inherently curious and there's energy there about
Speaker 5: asking questions. And you know, I used to be a
Speaker 5: good little atheist. I worked in corporate real estate and
Speaker 5: at consulting firms like Deloitte, and you know, I thought
Speaker 5: I was smug.
Speaker 2: I thought I knew everything.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, these you know, closed
Speaker 5: minded fundamentalists and these superstitious, magical thinkers. And then I
Speaker 5: had an experience that challenged that, and I knew if
Speaker 5: I didn't invite that data. And I was just disclosed
Speaker 5: minded and fundamentalist in my atheism as I saw the
Speaker 5: religious world at the time. And I always joked that
Speaker 5: that atheism, I think is a natural reaction to Catholic school,
Speaker 5: including college. Right.
Speaker 1: I kicked out after two weeks of Catholic school, So
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know if all Wow filed that bill, but.
Speaker 2: Several of my family members got kicked out of Catholic schools.
Speaker 2: It's a badge of honor, it's a very special merit badge.
Speaker 5: And I joked that I, you know, like I used
Speaker 5: to back in my snug atheism, say I got out
Speaker 5: early on good behavior, like it was prison or something.
Speaker 5: And I'm not Catholic. Now obviously I'm a shaman. But
Speaker 5: it's been a real adventure and a real journey. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and it was fueled by skepticism and curiosity.
Speaker 1: Frank Rain, Well, the first hint that I got that
Speaker 1: you were something different was when we first saw you.
Speaker 1: You were not wearing feathers and bringing sat Before we
Speaker 1: started recording, we talked about the difference between skepticism and
Speaker 1: pragmatism or cynicism. It's important to note the difference, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the name of our show is a skeptic and physicians
Speaker 1: for a reason. We always talk about the fact fact
Speaker 1: that we're not the cynical metaphysicians. We're the skeptic metaphysicians
Speaker 1: because we are open, but we need a little bit
Speaker 1: more than just faith to go on things.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: So I think it's the same with you.
Speaker 5: And nothing that I do is faith based, which again
Speaker 5: sounds nonsense to people. I say, it's direct experience and
Speaker 5: evidence based. Now that evidence isn't pure review, quantitative metrics evidence.
Speaker 2: It's quantitative.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank thank you, And I'm humped about research that's
Speaker 5: happening and it's it's really getting interesting. But yeah, when
Speaker 5: I work, like I have a spiritual transformation coaching program
Speaker 5: and I work one on one with people, and one
Speaker 5: of the things we do is gather what I call data,
Speaker 5: and that data is immersion, it's experiential. And then then
Speaker 5: we go and we do research and then we test things.
Speaker 5: We stress test them, we go into practice sessions, and
Speaker 5: it's really a way for them to empower themselves, to
Speaker 5: trust themselves, to be open minded, but also to use
Speaker 5: discernment and what parts of this are like shiny ball syndrome,
Speaker 5: What parts of this are nonsense versus what's you know,
Speaker 5: the gray, the messy middle, what part of this might
Speaker 5: be real?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So would you say though that, I mean, it's not
Speaker 3: faith based, but you have to have faith to believe
Speaker 3: in some of the outcomes of the testing.
Speaker 2: I don't I go in faith as in like yeah spiritual. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't mean like yeah, like a religious faith, but
Speaker 3: just a belief. I mean, I think it's true for me.
Speaker 5: It's more I'm open minded to the possibility and the data.
Speaker 2: Better impress me.
Speaker 5: For me to pay attention to it, and then and
Speaker 5: then you know, I almost get belief and I go
Speaker 5: to knowing. That's kind of the word I use like
Speaker 5: I know that that was a real experience for me,
Speaker 5: and I think that that's unique to every individual.
Speaker 2: What you will know is like your thing.
Speaker 5: And I don't think there's any way to convince another
Speaker 5: of a arcane spiritual experience you had, right, you can
Speaker 5: tell him about it, but it's.
Speaker 1: An very interesting point, so that I'm dying to find
Speaker 1: out what was it that happened to you that gave
Speaker 1: you that knowing?
Speaker 2: It's creepy. He gause, cool with creepy, creepy?
Speaker 1: Okay, great.
Speaker 5: So I was working at a global real estate company
Speaker 5: in my early twenties, living in a studio apartment in
Speaker 5: what's called the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Chicago, and.
Speaker 2: It was full of interesting characters.
Speaker 5: Shall we say it's buildings full of studio apartments generally
Speaker 5: are and I'll leave it at that. I am happy
Speaker 5: to be out of that building now. And I had
Speaker 5: a neighbor down the hallway. He was actually Native American,
Speaker 5: unpart Native American, and he had a Filipino wife who
Speaker 5: had moved to this country, and he was a drinker,
Speaker 5: and he was such a heavy drinker that he would
Speaker 5: get alcohol delivered from a liquor store that was half
Speaker 5: a block away, right, and so, and these are things
Speaker 5: you just see living in buildings with other people like
Speaker 5: that delivery happening regularly. And there was one that I
Speaker 5: came home and I felt kind of creepy. I don't
Speaker 5: know how to describe it, but just something was uneasy,
Speaker 5: and I was like, double.
Speaker 2: Check the lock in the door before I went to bed.
Speaker 5: And I remember being a little uncomfortable turning my light
Speaker 5: off to go to bed that first night, second night
Speaker 5: or second day rather, I wake up and there's people
Speaker 5: starting to gather outside of that department building and they
Speaker 5: look like they're related to the wife, and I go, oh,
Speaker 5: she's like having a family visit or family or union
Speaker 5: family in town.
Speaker 2: It's Chicago. People have family come stay with them and
Speaker 2: go see the city.
Speaker 5: Right. And that night when I went to bed, much
Speaker 5: creepier feeling. And again, I'm an atheist. I don't believe
Speaker 5: in anything, despite having tons of experiences in childhood that
Speaker 5: I had since dismissed.
Speaker 2: Is like a.
Speaker 5: Psychological reaction of my parents' divorce. You come up with
Speaker 5: all these really clever excuses and explanations. And I slept
Speaker 5: with my light on that night, and I hadn't done
Speaker 5: that since early childhood. Now the third night or the
Speaker 5: third day, there's tons of people in the hallway and whatever,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I don't even know it's on anymore.
Speaker 2: I got to get some sleep tonight.
Speaker 5: So now now the it's starting to building tension, right,
Speaker 5: And I'm laying in bed and I just didn't want
Speaker 5: to go to bed. And I'm watching TV and I
Speaker 5: my light on and I look over and I see
Speaker 5: a man's face. And what's weird of that is he
Speaker 5: wasn't like beautiful as inattractive to me, but I was,
Speaker 5: you know, like beautiful like a statue, like a marble
Speaker 5: statue on the loof saying, like a perfect looking being.
Speaker 5: Next thing I know, I feel something enter my mouth
Speaker 5: and start going down my throat and I go to
Speaker 5: say a word, and I hear a voice right out
Speaker 5: of the exorcist come out of my throat. Oh sorry,
Speaker 5: awake and God, thank God, you know Catholic church.
Speaker 2: Hilarious. I started saying a Hail Mary.
Speaker 5: I was like if there was a time, just instinct
Speaker 5: or conditioning, programming, who knows what. And I felt it
Speaker 5: exit my mouth and I looked around me in every
Speaker 5: cabinet door and this studio Perman had all of these
Speaker 5: little doors and little French glass doors and cabinets. It
Speaker 5: was actually really cute. They were all open at precise
Speaker 5: and I need degree angle. And I called my mother
Speaker 5: and I told her what happened, and she said, get
Speaker 5: out of the apartment. And mind you, it's like midnight,
Speaker 5: between midnight and one am. But we're in Chicago, so
Speaker 5: there's a seven eleven open across the street, and I
Speaker 5: knew it would be open, so I went there drank
Speaker 5: horrible seven eleven coffee until sunrise. And it was summer,
Speaker 5: so sunrise came early and I came back and there's
Speaker 5: early in the morning, tons.
Speaker 2: Of people outside that apartment.
Speaker 5: And I said, finally, maybe because I was so banged
Speaker 5: up and existentially onto logically really in shock, like that happened.
Speaker 5: That's literal. If that's real, and that's literal, what else exists?
Speaker 5: What does this mean for the world? I mean, even
Speaker 5: like sitting in seven eleven and knowing like is this live?
Speaker 5: We have war, like just a whole thing. And I said,
Speaker 5: what's going on here? And she goes, oh, I forgot
Speaker 5: his name. I can't believe I forgot.
Speaker 2: His name, but he had died. And she goes, and
Speaker 2: everybody's coming to see his body. And I go, when
Speaker 2: did he die?
Speaker 5: And it was the night of that creepy the night
Speaker 5: I started to get creeped out was the night he died.
Speaker 5: And I instantly just knew again, not believe, but knowing.
Speaker 5: I said, yeah, whatever that thing was, it was in him,
Speaker 5: and it was looking for a new host, like a
Speaker 5: parasite does.
Speaker 2: I just knew it instinctively.
Speaker 5: And I in that following day ran into other neighbors
Speaker 5: and asked them, like, you know, and by the way,
Speaker 5: side note, I skipped over. Of course I screamed at them,
Speaker 5: which is terrible because someone's dead.
Speaker 2: But I lost my mind. I yelled at them. I said,
Speaker 2: a body is in this building. I called the city.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is like, you can't body was
Speaker 2: just still.
Speaker 3: They a couple three three days. Nobody took it.
Speaker 2: I mean no, no, no, because they were coming to
Speaker 2: visit with him.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is like, I don't know what was
Speaker 5: going on A whole religiously that I'm unaware of. But
Speaker 5: I talked to other neighbors, like on my floor and
Speaker 5: other floors. They all had weird experiences, like literally in
Speaker 5: all different walks of life, and everybody was kind of
Speaker 5: gossiping about it and nightmares and this is like a
Speaker 5: real event and that is that. Yeah, Yeah, that sparked
Speaker 5: just the beginning of a real exploration and what I
Speaker 5: would call like a spiritual journey for me and collecting
Speaker 5: scavengern clues, reading books, working with shamans, going to classes,
Speaker 5: you know, trying to get my bearings. And that really
Speaker 5: drove me and continues to drive me. And it was
Speaker 5: just the weirdest damn thing. And it was not subtle.
Speaker 5: I wasn't asleep, just things that you know, you run
Speaker 5: through your little checklist of could I have or couldn't
Speaker 5: have been this or could have been that, And it
Speaker 5: just was too the data points synced up too much,
Speaker 5: the timing the event two doors down from me, other neighbors,
Speaker 5: and so I decided there's something to this, there really is,
Speaker 5: and you know, went to shaman school eventually and started
Speaker 5: seeing clients myself. I'd been reading tarot cards since I
Speaker 5: was nine years old, and not at that time because
Speaker 5: you know, I was way too intellectual and important for
Speaker 5: such things. And now of course that yeah, brought all that,
Speaker 5: all that got resurrected and really looked at a lot
Speaker 5: of the work I was doing in totem as my
Speaker 5: education as well, right, like so serving clients and things
Speaker 5: like that, but really trying to you know, get to
Speaker 5: the bottom of something that there's no bottom too, honestly, Like,
Speaker 5: the more you learn, the less you know, for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we found that to be the case as well.
Speaker 1: The more we learn, the more we have to learn,
Speaker 1: the more we realize whatever.
Speaker 5: Now you know why that list at the beginning when
Speaker 5: you introduced me is so goddamn long.
Speaker 1: Ah No, But you know what, actually, if I had
Speaker 1: known that story before, I might have introduced you not
Speaker 1: the skeptical chaman, but the learer craft of spiritualism, because
Speaker 1: puzzles and di scavenger and uh, that's pretty that's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Something like that for a lot of people might not
Speaker 1: jumpstart their exploration and might jump start their rush to
Speaker 1: a priest. Yeah, all right, back to religion, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: So how did you manage to go in that direction?
Speaker 1: Versus the other.
Speaker 2: I don't really know.
Speaker 5: I will say that as a kid, I was adamant
Speaker 5: that spiritual things were real and I was very interested
Speaker 5: in it, and I am would ask, you know, priests
Speaker 5: and nuns a lot of questions and they just use
Speaker 5: a lot of thought terminating cliches, right, And so nobody
Speaker 5: really answered my questions. Nobody wanted to dig into it.
Speaker 5: It's one of the reasons I refuse to get confirmed,
Speaker 5: because to me, that's you know, you take a vow
Speaker 5: when you get confirmed to God, it's like you're getting
Speaker 5: married to God.
Speaker 2: And I was like, but nobody can answer my questions.
Speaker 5: I don't really know what's going on here, and so
Speaker 5: I think a part of me still didn't necessarily feel
Speaker 5: like that was going to be an authority of information
Speaker 5: that I could trust.
Speaker 2: In isolation, my gym friends with Catholics.
Speaker 5: I actually am friends with a Catholic exorcist and demonologist
Speaker 5: who hates tarot.
Speaker 2: Thanks all this is silly, but treats me with nothing
Speaker 2: but respect.
Speaker 1: By the way, is very friendly, very interesting coffee conversations.
Speaker 5: Yes, actually they made a movie about him and his
Speaker 5: life story. His name is Ralph Sarci and there's a
Speaker 5: movie called Deliver Us from Evil with Eric Obanna plays him,
Speaker 5: and I think Olivia.
Speaker 1: Isn't it sounds really familiar to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And he's a character you used to be in
Speaker 5: New York City police sergeant. So he's got a bit
Speaker 5: of an edge to him. He's covered in tattoos, he's yells,
Speaker 5: he's got like.
Speaker 2: Angry gym teacher energy, which I love.
Speaker 5: I have a lot of affection for him, and I'll
Speaker 5: join some of his Facebook lives and listen to his
Speaker 5: his you know, sort of messed up apocalyptic Bible study, right,
Speaker 5: because it's actually interesting. And he's theologically literate in a
Speaker 5: way that people when I was a kid asking questions
Speaker 5: were not. And so my thing is, you know, the
Speaker 5: reason I gravitated to Shaman is a number one I
Speaker 5: am Native American, not entirely, but I am. And number
Speaker 5: two is it's the most open minded field or like methodology,
Speaker 5: I guess you could call it, where like we take
Speaker 5: information from wherever it.
Speaker 2: The source is irrelevant.
Speaker 5: So I'll learn things from a Catholic, I'll learn things
Speaker 5: from a Muslim gentleman.
Speaker 2: I'll learn something from an Orthodox.
Speaker 5: Do you actually went to spurt us in Chicago learn
Speaker 5: Biblical Hebrew in part to dig into this stuff. So
Speaker 5: we are intensely heterodox with that, and there's no elitism
Speaker 5: about where the information comes from. And I just for me,
Speaker 5: that's the system that works for me.
Speaker 1: But you do a lot of looking into the WO
Speaker 1: for lack of term, because you don't tolerate the type
Speaker 1: of WO that is set up just to take somebody's money.
Speaker 5: I was blown away by this when I first started
Speaker 5: dipping my toe into teaching and things like that where
Speaker 5: you know, because I worked in corpor and I was like,
Speaker 5: I just assume that where I worked, everybody was like
Speaker 5: openly a demon and really like money motivated, not necessarily
Speaker 5: bad way, but that's sort of corporation companies.
Speaker 1: That is the case. I did mention they argument with
Speaker 1: my boss, right, I'm sorry, They say, sorry.
Speaker 5: Boss, you know, And I just thought, well, all these
Speaker 5: people doing reiki or who owned Yoka Studios, they're going
Speaker 5: to be the nice people, like, they're going to be
Speaker 5: open and trustworthy and sincere, and they're going to have
Speaker 5: integrity because they have these incredible tools and they're like me,
Speaker 5: and they're pursuing true massive naive assumption. You know what
Speaker 5: they say about assumptions. It makes an ass out of
Speaker 5: you and me. And I was blown away by how
Speaker 5: just intense the grifter element is in this. And it
Speaker 5: shocked me because somebody's like, well, go be a grifter
Speaker 5: where grifts are, Why are you doing it here? Like
Speaker 5: it seemed really profane to me.
Speaker 1: It really started from right back in the day, when hey,
Speaker 1: you've got a curse on you, let me go.
Speaker 2: They still do that. They still do that. A client
Speaker 2: told me she had that experienced last week. By the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, people get they get afraid and they
Speaker 3: can't explain things, so they need a reason, and a
Speaker 3: curse or spell or evil eye or something can be
Speaker 3: a reason. Then it'sake advantage of that.
Speaker 1: It's the typical story of praying on the week, right
Speaker 1: the people that to this day, my mother about a
Speaker 1: year ago, got I'm putting over your shoulders, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: your shoulder had She got totally conned. Someone called and
Speaker 1: said that her nephew was in jail and this is
Speaker 1: the only way to get them out, and all the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and she totally fell for she's in
Speaker 1: her aise for God's sake.
Speaker 3: So tens of thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's no different, right, if you're seen as
Speaker 1: someone in need or weak, then it's easy to take advantage.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, well when they're getting incredibly sophisticated. So it's it's
Speaker 5: moving outside of the neon sign, fortune teller nine hundred numbers,
Speaker 5: psychic kind of world. And I don't know how familiar
Speaker 5: you are with Nexium, the cult from Upstate New York.
Speaker 5: Keith Rnary's serving one hundred twenty years of jail.
Speaker 2: That was only where the yeah do nextion?
Speaker 1: But but people who might be listening may not, so
Speaker 1: you want to sure.
Speaker 5: So there's an excellent HBO docuseriies called The Vow about
Speaker 5: Nexium and Keith Nary was the leader of it. He's
Speaker 5: serving a lengthy sentenced think goodness for a very good reason.
Speaker 5: If you watched the documentary series, don't you'll think it's
Speaker 5: not long enough. And that wasn't super wo, it wasn't fringe.
Speaker 5: It was actually personal development using NLP to overcome limitations,
Speaker 5: and it was one of their main subcompanies.
Speaker 2: Was called Executive Success Programs.
Speaker 5: So these you know, I was in corporate, we had
Speaker 5: executive coaching, team building three sixty review processing is so
Speaker 5: this is not fringe stuff.
Speaker 2: And he didn't go for the week in the vulnerable.
Speaker 5: He went to the strong and the attractive because he
Speaker 5: knew that they would run his cult well and they would.
Speaker 2: Be good recruiters.
Speaker 5: So people like they're now my friends. But Bonnie Peace,
Speaker 5: who was in Star Wars movies, she played Luke Skywalker,
Speaker 5: is aunt Beru and she's in the Obi Wan Kenobe series.
Speaker 5: He wanted her and her husband, who directed what the
Speaker 5: bleep do we know? The documentary about quantum mechanics.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: So I'm interviewing Mark who's the creator of that movie
Speaker 5: next week on my podcast.
Speaker 2: He well, he'll come on because he'll talk to you.
Speaker 5: He just I think he's in post production for a
Speaker 5: documentary called Empathy not included, about narcissistic abuse and course
Speaker 5: of control in the world. So it's it's gotten some
Speaker 5: polish to it now that old grift of like I'm going.
Speaker 2: To help you you have blockages.
Speaker 5: They're using terms like spiritual technology, psychological technology, science, the
Speaker 5: science and joy was a phrase that they trademarked in Nexium.
Speaker 5: So what I would say too is you only need
Speaker 5: two people to be in a cult, you only need
Speaker 5: one unethical life coach and use some numerologist. It's all
Speaker 5: over the place, and as the economies contracted and inflation's
Speaker 5: gone up, a lot of people have wanted to get
Speaker 5: in the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not to say the Church of Will is
Speaker 1: not a cult. I'm just saying there are two. There
Speaker 1: are two of us.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, then how does someone figure their way out
Speaker 1: round that? I mean there's so many.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how can you tell? Yeah, someone's taking you for
Speaker 3: a ride.
Speaker 5: This is what inspired my podcast because I wanted to
Speaker 5: talk to ethical practitioners so people could hear what they
Speaker 5: sound like and different modalities that also talk to people
Speaker 5: like Bonnie Susan Doones, my friend Abigail, who left scientology
Speaker 5: when COVID hit.
Speaker 2: Being on zoom broke the spell for her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it just shook up the routine because I don't know,
Speaker 5: cults keep you incredibly busy and so distracted, so you don't.
Speaker 1: Remedy is making a career out of assaulting scientology. So
Speaker 1: I love what she's doing, what she wants while she's
Speaker 1: still doing it now.
Speaker 5: But well, el Ron Hubbard, people don't realize the study
Speaker 5: the LIMA under Alistair Crowley.
Speaker 1: And l Ron Hubbard is a science fiction writer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will practice in his books magic.
Speaker 1: Well, in his books he talked about the best way
Speaker 1: to control people is to create a religion, and he
Speaker 1: talks about it in his books well.
Speaker 5: And what sparked it is he wanted therapy. He had
Speaker 5: mental health issues when he was in the military and
Speaker 5: they denied him.
Speaker 2: So he hated psychiatry.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's all you know when you start to
Speaker 5: peel back the layers and look at this. So I
Speaker 5: talk about on my podcast, I post about it at
Speaker 5: length on my substec This is my favorite thing to
Speaker 5: write about. Like I just watched Breath of Fire about
Speaker 5: Guru Jaga, a documentary series about more bullshit and yoga
Speaker 5: on HBFL and I'm like curiously typing and yelling.
Speaker 2: At the TV.
Speaker 5: But a couple just easy bullet points for people that
Speaker 5: I think are manageable. One is, no practitioner should ever
Speaker 5: just use a fake, made up name like Keith Henery
Speaker 5: made everyone in the cult call him Vanguard. Now, this
Speaker 5: is different from a nom de guerre or a pen
Speaker 5: name like my friend Rebecca host Saxon City podcast. Her
Speaker 5: joke sort of name is card z be because she
Speaker 5: reads tarot cards.
Speaker 2: But everybody knows.
Speaker 5: You can just look on her podcast information, first name
Speaker 5: in her last name, right, so you can look her up.
Speaker 2: Has she been convicted of fraud?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: She run MLMs before you like, so it's a way
Speaker 5: to look into people. And then the other piece about
Speaker 5: the made up name, especially like in the Kundalini yoga community,
Speaker 5: like what this documentary Breath of Fire was about, is
Speaker 5: a way to subconsciously get people to elevate you to
Speaker 5: like an ascended being status. So you're not Katie anymore,
Speaker 5: You're Guru Jagat. You're something other than yeah, than this human,
Speaker 5: this fallible human named Katie, right, and it ships in
Speaker 5: rural pathways. So that's that's one that I personally just
Speaker 5: keep an eye out for. And then another big one
Speaker 5: is they should never ever ever make you feel scared, anxious,
Speaker 5: or disempowered.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Yes, you should never leave a session, whether it's life coaching, yoga,
Speaker 5: tarot card reading, anything like freaked out, feeling like you
Speaker 5: need to come back, you know, that sense of urgency,
Speaker 5: of that latent pain.
Speaker 2: You should work with people that leave you feeling better.
Speaker 2: And the thing they do works, it should last for
Speaker 2: a while. I'm kind of fair.
Speaker 5: I don't let clients read book tairo reading. If I
Speaker 5: see them book a month after I just read for them,
Speaker 5: I cancel it and I email them it's too soon.
Speaker 5: You need let this unfold. You're going to get all
Speaker 5: the same information and you're gonna get confused. And usually
Speaker 5: when people do that, it's because they have anxiety. And
Speaker 5: booking with a psychic is not a heuristic you should
Speaker 5: be seeking to abate your anxiety because we're not mental
Speaker 5: health professionals. We're ill equipped to deal with that. And
Speaker 5: another one is just the MLM structure multi level marketing.
Speaker 5: I don't train trainers to train trainers. You know, if
Speaker 5: you if I sell you something, it's a thing you
Speaker 5: buy it. The money you paid before it is the
Speaker 5: thing you get.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it.
Speaker 5: And there's no structure where I don't people that do
Speaker 5: my coaching programmer do I for it's a joke name,
Speaker 5: but also kind of not business of blu mentoring. Whatever
Speaker 5: money you make, whatever business you start, that's yours. I
Speaker 5: have nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: Go be happy. Then you don't have to give me
Speaker 2: Reddit or like say, oh.
Speaker 5: And thank you, you know, to Guru Rachel, it's like,
Speaker 5: I have nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: That's your creation.
Speaker 5: And so yeah, just someone who's just working with you,
Speaker 5: and what they charge is just an even exchange for
Speaker 5: a very defined scope.
Speaker 2: Of services that they have expertise in.
Speaker 5: And one thing I would look at is there's a
Speaker 5: seeks safely dot org, great organization with tons of resources.
Speaker 5: Their relative died at that sweat lodge run by James
Speaker 5: Arthur Ray, the guy who did the secret.
Speaker 2: You know, was on Oprah, and.
Speaker 5: So they started that foundation, and just check into that
Speaker 5: if you want more detail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then what about finding a good practitioner? Is
Speaker 3: that a source or like, what how do you recommend
Speaker 3: if someone they're looking for something, I want someone who's
Speaker 3: an energy healer, where do they go?
Speaker 1: Skepticmaneposition dot com.
Speaker 3: Well, what's not exact, But yes, I'm talking about it's.
Speaker 5: It's weird because I don't know that there are any
Speaker 5: black and white guarantees.
Speaker 2: Right because you could get.
Speaker 5: A referral from a friend that you think is really
Speaker 5: good at discerning and it's weird for you. And also,
Speaker 5: by the way, just because someone's ethical doesn't mean they're
Speaker 5: a good fit for you, Like I'm not everybody's cup
Speaker 5: of tea, right, So there's.
Speaker 2: All of that.
Speaker 5: I would say, go to Yelp number one and go
Speaker 5: to the filtered reviews.
Speaker 1: Wait, look at theirs to road reader review practitioners.
Speaker 2: I've been on there since twenty eleven.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so go on there, but don't just wrong look
Speaker 5: at the reviews that are visible. Go to filtered reviews
Speaker 5: because they there's a whole rumor, and I have to
Speaker 5: say that for legal reasons, that you can spend advertising
Speaker 5: dollars with Yelp and they'll help you move on savory
Speaker 5: reviews to a certain category.
Speaker 1: I might have heard the same rumor somewhere along the line.
Speaker 3: I have not, and now I have.
Speaker 5: You know, you know destructive gossip can be. So I'm
Speaker 5: glad we're defining it that way. But also I won't
Speaker 5: spend advertising money with them, and every time I say
Speaker 5: no to them, they filter my good reviews. So if
Speaker 5: you go to my filtered reviews for Total Reading, it's
Speaker 5: fifty five star reviews that are invisible, so you can
Speaker 5: do that. The other thing would be, you know, talking
Speaker 5: to people getting referrals. But also one of the other
Speaker 5: reasons I wanted to do a podcast is it's long form.
Speaker 5: You guys know this, you're doing it. People sniff bullshit, right,
Speaker 5: It's not a thirty second Instagram three things you need
Speaker 5: to do to meet your totem animal. You can really
Speaker 5: see the cracks in long form written and oral au content.
Speaker 5: And I would listen to them. I would, you know,
Speaker 5: really get a feel for their stuff and read their stuff.
Speaker 2: Go on their website, look.
Speaker 5: Around and just if it's like if there's something charmed
Speaker 5: jewelry like magical amulets, probably a no, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 3: Or even if they're just on the podcast to promote
Speaker 3: their book or their if that's all they're talking about,
Speaker 3: that to me just is like a bit of a flag.
Speaker 5: It's also a bad way to sell things. So it's
Speaker 5: they're totally shooting themselves in the foot. If you're just
Speaker 5: having normal organic conversation and people like what you have
Speaker 5: to say, they're gonna look into you and what you
Speaker 5: have to offer. Absolutely, the hard, hard cell was over
Speaker 5: a long time ago. Even in corporate people do not
Speaker 5: do that in the business world.
Speaker 1: Coming from the branded content world, production world, I could
Speaker 1: not agree more with that. That shape is sailed unfortunately,
Speaker 1: MLMs or everyone. I just battled someone like literally two
Speaker 1: weeks ago who sounded like she really wanted to help,
Speaker 1: and it just was she just was trying to recruit
Speaker 1: me into her M align and it was really sad.
Speaker 5: To Yeah, one thing I would say, so you can.
Speaker 5: There's a great podcast called The Dream that digs into
Speaker 5: MLMs for like four seasons. And also she had the
Speaker 5: little come to Jesus moment where she ends up getting
Speaker 5: a life coach who's sweet and sincere and she has
Speaker 5: to kind of like take the white pill instead of
Speaker 5: the black pill.
Speaker 2: Which I thought was a cool like story arc.
Speaker 5: But MLMs, you can. You should never buy inventory. Number one,
Speaker 5: that's not normal business practice. So if you have to
Speaker 5: buy inventory and put your own money up at the beginning,
Speaker 5: big red flag. And the second one is it shouldn't
Speaker 5: require you to constantly produce content for social media or
Speaker 5: recruit friends and family. The recruitment thing is a problem.
Speaker 5: That's how you know you're in one problem.
Speaker 1: And that's how I recognize it. Right when she started
Speaker 1: talking about that, and she wouldn't tell me who it
Speaker 1: was or what the company was, but just meet with
Speaker 1: my coach from the UK. Just meet with him for
Speaker 1: a half hour. Sure, get talk to me about what
Speaker 1: the opportunity is, and then maybe y'all meet with your coach.
Speaker 1: But no, no, no, no, you got to you got to
Speaker 1: commit to Jesus.
Speaker 5: Have you seen the meme of Ben Affleck like this, yes,
Speaker 5: smoking a cigarette and Alley. I have one that I
Speaker 5: send people who try that on me, and it just
Speaker 5: it says, hey, can.
Speaker 2: We get on a quick call?
Speaker 5: And I send it back to them and that's my
Speaker 5: response to their nonsense. It's like, if you can't define
Speaker 5: your value proposition to tell me why I should spend
Speaker 5: my time with you, like what it is, I'm not
Speaker 5: showing up to the call.
Speaker 1: It's not right right right right, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And Rachel, I need you to send me that meme
Speaker 1: because I need to start doing It's.
Speaker 5: A good I am a real meme person. So if
Speaker 5: you open that.
Speaker 1: Door, no, you're actually more nice, You're not mean at all.
Speaker 5: Then when people get into the inner sanctum with me,
Speaker 5: I mainly my love language is memes at this stage.
Speaker 3: Of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, we need to take a quick pause,
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back right after these messages. And
Speaker 1: now back to the skeptic metaphysicians. Well, I definitely want
Speaker 1: to talk about the Wood Dragon. So twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: you're the Wood Dragon, right, and.
Speaker 5: We're heading into the Wood Snake now five?
Speaker 1: Yes, good god? Okay, Well you said it's more of
Speaker 1: a cosmic rebirth than a zombie apocalypse. I want to
Speaker 1: get dive into. Yeah, that for us because it sounds
Speaker 1: very intriguing.
Speaker 2: So I love zombies.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a zombie component to it, it's just not literal.
Speaker 2: It might be as creepy though a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So the Wood Dragon year, Dragon years in Funchuei
Speaker 5: and Chinese astrology are years of revolution. And then so
Speaker 5: when we were having the Wood Dragon year, I'm not
Speaker 5: a Western astrologer, but my friends are, and they were like,
Speaker 5: you understand this correlates because Pluto is moving into aquarium
Speaker 5: at the exact same time, and the last time that
Speaker 5: happened were the American and French Revolution.
Speaker 2: And I was like, so we.
Speaker 5: Were getting it from both hemispheres of the astrology brain
Speaker 5: East and West. And you know, dragons are big on
Speaker 5: meritocratic things, on big change, not incremental change, like rapid
Speaker 5: major transformation. And wood element is associated with trees or
Speaker 5: living things. So a wood dragon year is symbolized by
Speaker 5: a redwood. It just grows and grows and grows and grows.
Speaker 5: It doesn't care who it defends. It's not trying to
Speaker 5: be polite. And the minute we entered wood Dragon is
Speaker 5: when Elon Musk to Bob Eiger, you know in the audience,
Speaker 5: says why don't you go f yourself?
Speaker 2: And I was like, here we go, wood dragon snow.
Speaker 5: With all that wood growing, growing, growing, like rapid growth,
Speaker 5: there's change fatigue, There's rudeness fatigue, there's political discourse fatigue,
Speaker 5: you know, like all the things that come along with it. Right,
Speaker 5: So I'm exhausted. I think everybody's exhausted from the wood Dragon.
Speaker 5: You're in my business and in my spiritual practice change change, growth, growth, growth,
Speaker 5: personal growth. At a certain point, you're like, can I
Speaker 5: just watch Real Housewives and like drink. I don't want
Speaker 5: to be a better person all the time. Like I
Speaker 5: don't want to work on that all the time. So
Speaker 5: we're going to get a break. As of January thirtieth,
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five, a little bit the wood Snake is
Speaker 5: like a continuation, but an attenuated milder version where it's
Speaker 5: like implementing the revolutionary energy of twenty twenty four in
Speaker 5: a more sustainable way.
Speaker 2: And it's it just going to be about releasing old things.
Speaker 5: Uh, there's a Chinese astrologies this wild stuff around like
Speaker 5: flying stars of the air, and it's it's a totally
Speaker 5: different kind of astrology. But they have a lot to
Speaker 5: do with greed and not like in bad grief, but
Speaker 5: like letting things go, processing things, releasing that which no
Speaker 5: longer serves us, letting old systems die. Maybe you got
Speaker 5: laid off, you know, and you have to grieve that
Speaker 5: cycle of your life. Maybe you got divorced. In the Woodragon,
Speaker 5: you're that got initiated. Now you're going to go through
Speaker 5: the divorce hearings and settle your assets, and so wood
Speaker 5: Snake will be manageable. In terms of how to visualize it,
Speaker 5: it's like an olive tree or big tree flower to
Speaker 5: the ground to produce this fruit. It's a little more chill. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we don't have to move up so fast.
Speaker 1: So then you're saying, no, no revolution is coming, No
Speaker 1: new American revolution or civil war or anything like that
Speaker 1: is coming.
Speaker 5: I don't I think the revolution happened. It just didn't
Speaker 5: look the way everyone thought it was going to look.
Speaker 5: And now it's like the letting, you know, the wheels
Speaker 5: came up, and now it's like rebuilding. What are we
Speaker 5: going to do next? How are we going to live now?
Speaker 5: So there's gonna be revolutionary things in a cool way,
Speaker 5: like I really think, you know, wood snake yers. There's
Speaker 5: a focus on herbalism, holistic medicine, things like ayer Veda,
Speaker 5: Chinese medicine, acupuncture, regenerative agriculture, shifts in ways of living
Speaker 5: and health, that sort of a renaissance of us reconnecting
Speaker 5: a little bit to things that make sense, that are
Speaker 5: more sustainable. So I don't think, I personally don't think.
Speaker 5: So it doesn't mean it's not gonna get weird.
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna get weird.
Speaker 5: And in particular, I think the UAP phenomenon is really
Speaker 5: going to perforate the mainstream. I really do, yes, And
Speaker 5: I think, you know, boomers are going to be talking
Speaker 5: about it. I think it's going to be undeniable. But
Speaker 5: I don't I just don't maybe on missing the mark.
Speaker 5: I just don't see the the rights and the streets.
Speaker 5: We may have a little bit of it because it's
Speaker 5: plan on. Earth is a big place, a lot of
Speaker 5: people on it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know what from your mouth to wherever universes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because yeah, yeah, we've got a daughter and we need
Speaker 1: to make sure this planet is good enough for her
Speaker 1: to live through. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I think the Wood Dragon we're past the bulk of
Speaker 5: it being really intent, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's interesting because we've heard differently. We heard
Speaker 1: the twenty five is supposed to be the year where
Speaker 1: settle in because it's coming right, and then after that
Speaker 1: things will settle in after that, But one more year
Speaker 1: is what they're saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what happens If everything just kind of.
Speaker 1: Works out, then yay.
Speaker 5: Well, and I think though it'll be psychologically and emotionally
Speaker 5: a challenge year for people who maybe haven't like challenged
Speaker 5: their own perception of reality. Right, So in that way, internally,
Speaker 5: that's more a snake thing. It's a little more in
Speaker 5: and you know, you processing or integrating what do aliens
Speaker 5: if they're real? What does that mean for me, either
Speaker 5: as an atheist or a Catholic or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: If you listened to the show long enough, you know
Speaker 1: I am ready to see the UFOs, the UAPs, but
Speaker 1: not the aliens. So we just keep your distance. And
Speaker 1: I'm good. I mean I do. I'm hoping that the
Speaker 1: UAP disclosure happens now, like I'm ready for it.
Speaker 5: I think it's good for us, but I think it's
Speaker 5: going to freak people out a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what you're saying. That's why the
Speaker 1: government has been keeping it closed mouths right, because it
Speaker 1: didn't want to cause a panic. But I think we're ready.
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 1: I really think we're ready.
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like kind of what you're talking about,
Speaker 3: there's going to be you know, more belief for openness,
Speaker 3: for Ajuveda and things like that. My concern is like
Speaker 3: the opposite. I feel like we're going to go well
Speaker 3: while people are, for lack of better words, you know,
Speaker 3: waking up to all of this more rapidly and more
Speaker 3: and more. I feel like there's going to be something
Speaker 3: trying to shut it down.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, absolutely, you know, Oh yeah, But they're whatever
Speaker 6: magic you know, quote unquote they have is thinging rapidly,
Speaker 6: and I don't know if like they're not making the
Speaker 6: proper sacrifices that the heman grow.
Speaker 5: What's going on, but it doesn't have the umph on
Speaker 5: it that it used to. So I'm I'm cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 5: But also, as shamans are, tolerance for effery if a
Speaker 5: little higher.
Speaker 2: Than other people. So I'm like us yourself.
Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, keeps our family friendly rating on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, but.
Speaker 5: I do what I can and yeah, but so to
Speaker 5: you know, what's maybe like I'm very open to and
Speaker 5: I'm chill about may not be the same for other people.
Speaker 5: But I don't think we're going to see the wood
Speaker 5: dragon has a lot to do with political revolution, would
Speaker 5: snake has a lot to do with like more social
Speaker 5: psychological reframings. And we're now an age of aquaried It's.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, beautiful, that's hoping for I'm hoping for beautiful because
Speaker 1: we could use a little bit of beautiful in these days.
Speaker 5: And by the way, I'm not known for my cock
Speaker 5: eyed optimism, trust me, so well, good.
Speaker 1: Well, I gotta I gotta say, Rachel it Actually it's
Speaker 1: nice to hear some optimism from someone who calls herself
Speaker 1: the skeptical shaman. It's a nice brought the fresh air,
Speaker 1: especially because you've been looking so much into the colts
Speaker 1: and the garbage inside the woo and all that kind of.
Speaker 3: Stuff, And I like how you temper. There's going to
Speaker 3: be a little bit of everything in anywhere. It's either
Speaker 3: one way or the other. From a lot of our guests.
Speaker 3: Now it's going to be greater, now will be terrible.
Speaker 3: There's no in between. But this is kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is going to happen, but there'll be some of.
Speaker 1: This well, I mean, and I think it is. A
Speaker 1: lot has to do with the fact of your own perspective. Right,
Speaker 1: we create on reality, So the perspective is going to
Speaker 1: guide you. If you're feeling the world is the sky's falling, well, hell,
Speaker 1: that sky is going to crush you. But if you
Speaker 1: look at it from the fact fact that, well, now
Speaker 1: it's uncovering something else on the other side of the
Speaker 1: sky maybe.
Speaker 5: And also, if we all find out, let's just say
Speaker 5: that our government is allowing UAPs to abduct people or
Speaker 5: mutilate cattle, that'll be really upsetting to some people. I'll
Speaker 5: just shrug my shoulders and go, yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, you're right. However, along with all things, you
Speaker 1: hear that that whole abduction thing was actually a governmental
Speaker 1: cover up to trying to make people scared of aliens,
Speaker 1: and there's a faction says that aliens are here to
Speaker 1: help us, and oh yeah, and.
Speaker 5: They're they're doing the same thing that everything in religion
Speaker 5: and wound does, which it's one extreme or the other.
Speaker 2: They're all good, they're all bad. They're here to save us,
Speaker 2: they're here to do the us.
Speaker 5: And where Shaman's come from is it. It's complicated. That's
Speaker 5: our constant status. My relationship with spirit is it's complicated.
Speaker 5: And I think there's all manner of flora and fauna
Speaker 5: things that we don't perceive with the visible band of
Speaker 5: life that we have as humans or here people with
Speaker 5: extra sensory perception pick up on some of it some
Speaker 5: of the time, and I don't. I'm never going to
Speaker 5: pretend to know what the hierarchies are, with their political
Speaker 5: affiliations are, who's good, who's bad. I kind of like
Speaker 5: to deal with what's in front of me with that,
Speaker 5: and I'm personally very pumped to discover more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to take a quick pause, but we'll
Speaker 1: be right back right after these messages and now back
Speaker 1: to the show. I could talk to you for flipping ever,
Speaker 1: I really could this has been fascinating. I do want
Speaker 1: to get back a little bit to what you do
Speaker 1: with how you help folks, because we've laid the groundwork
Speaker 1: now for all of the things that you are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you to row functui, ancient texts. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff that you actually dabble into help folks.
Speaker 1: So you talk about the Can you talk to us
Speaker 1: about your totem approgram Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely so. I own a spiritual practice called Totem Ratings.
Speaker 5: It's been around since twenty ten and I had it
Speaker 5: part time off the side of my desk when I
Speaker 5: was in corporate.
Speaker 2: I do it full time now.
Speaker 5: Seeing COVID seemed like a good time to just jump
Speaker 5: in to the maelstrom, a kite and a hurricane. And
Speaker 5: you know, I make flower essences. I have a garden
Speaker 5: in the backyard where I grow everything from seeds. I
Speaker 5: make all these myself. They're all organic. My husband's a chef.
Speaker 5: He would never tolerate chemicals or poisons out there. And
Speaker 5: in terms of the work I do, it's either one
Speaker 5: on one kind of one off sessions with clients or
Speaker 5: I work longer term with them. And the new thing
Speaker 5: that's bubbled up because I've self published a number of
Speaker 5: decks and things like that, and I try and like
Speaker 5: demystify this stuff. People go, I can't do a podcast.
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god, the technology. I'm such an idiot.
Speaker 5: If I could do it, you could do It's fine.
Speaker 5: And so I do the business of lumntoring for people
Speaker 5: who either have a thing they already do.
Speaker 2: Like they know they do it, or they're curious about it.
Speaker 5: And a lot of that's just showing them that they
Speaker 5: have a special skill that can be a value in
Speaker 5: the world and they can get paid for it, and
Speaker 5: how to structure that. And I don't make anybody psychic.
Speaker 5: I don't give them that. I'm not, you know, it's
Speaker 5: not hogwart. I can't do that. I'm not the sorting
Speaker 5: hat either, right, I'm a little bit more of a
Speaker 5: Snape figure.
Speaker 1: Actually, Snape was a hero at the end.
Speaker 5: Cranky people always surprise you in good ways.
Speaker 2: It's the one.
Speaker 1: Motto that is my new motto. Cranky people, creepy, creepy, cranky.
Speaker 2: Cranky he was. He was always just cranky, curmudgeony. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think he played that up.
Speaker 5: I think that was you know, yeah, yeah, and Alan
Speaker 5: Rickman was such an amazing actor.
Speaker 6: I love.
Speaker 5: Loss, but yeah, I love working with clients and the
Speaker 5: coaching and mentoring work. I do it all one on once.
Speaker 5: There's no group work. Nothing's economy of scales. Everything gets
Speaker 5: tailored to me, like I like making things hard on myself. Oh,
Speaker 5: my therapist will have to figure that one out. That's
Speaker 5: above our pay grade here. And yeah, I just I
Speaker 5: love showing.
Speaker 2: People that, you know, spirituality in the rest of their life.
Speaker 5: They don't have to be disconnected and if they want
Speaker 5: to explore this, they don't have to start wearing matching outfits,
Speaker 5: you know, or go vegan or any of these things
Speaker 5: that they're told that they have to do, because I
Speaker 5: don't care. I don't care what your lifestyle is. I
Speaker 5: don't care what your religious beliefs are. If you want
Speaker 5: to get into this, I'll shirpay you up the side
Speaker 5: of the mountain.
Speaker 1: Can you help those that don't have any powers whatsoever
Speaker 1: but have a podcast that talks about powers all the time.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Oh, we're on board.
Speaker 1: We're talking yes, yeah.
Speaker 5: And you know, even just things like meditation, as silly
Speaker 5: as it sounds like shamanic journey, meditation puts your brain
Speaker 5: into a data wave state, which is really good for
Speaker 5: neural pathway redevelopment and neural plasticity. You know. Learning about microdosing,
Speaker 5: you don't have to go to Mexico and take a
Speaker 5: big dose of yahuasca to benefit. It helps of memory retention,
Speaker 5: learning languages, learning music, all of these things.
Speaker 1: I've been actually very called to look into microdosing, but
Speaker 1: I thinking more about microdosing south Hyban is what is called.
Speaker 2: That's what I do, yes, offline, Yes, and it is.
Speaker 5: I have a PTSD diagnosis, and you know, it's pretty
Speaker 5: pretty rough there for a little while. I don't know
Speaker 5: if you guys know, but COVID wasn't in downtown Chicago.
Speaker 5: Wasn't that much fun if you have OCDNPPS. Yeah, And
Speaker 5: so between shamanic journey, meditation and micro dosing, I'm effectively asymptomatic.
Speaker 5: And it's also whatever it's done to my neural pathways.
Speaker 5: Now when I feel myself getting hyper vigilant or getting
Speaker 5: kind of tense in my body, I have now this
Speaker 5: weird objectivity where I go, oh, this is acting up.
Speaker 5: So what I need to do today is and that
Speaker 5: was like not a thing tree microdosing, so it's a
Speaker 5: real medicine. It's been incredible for military veterans and I'm
Speaker 5: really really hoping that we can legalize some of this,
Speaker 5: at least for them initially, because they really need it.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about that with different guests we've found
Speaker 1: on the show. And it's not just those folks, it's
Speaker 1: not just PTSD folks, but in general of people, it
Speaker 1: actually helps them to ground in a very profound way.
Speaker 5: And flower essences are on the other they don't grow
Speaker 5: in the darkness. They're not mushrooms, they don't do that.
Speaker 5: They're much gentler, you know. But they effectively imprint plant
Speaker 5: medicine like herbalism onto you.
Speaker 2: And this is old.
Speaker 5: I I have not innovated an ounce of this work.
Speaker 5: It's what they used to do in Europe five thousand
Speaker 5: years ago. It's what Chinese medicine a Ierveda's based in
Speaker 5: just different plants. Because by the way, I study European
Speaker 5: arbalism to say, I'm not that smart and hard words.
Speaker 5: Well now other languages, man, I was like, this is
Speaker 5: tough enough to memorize. I don't like ashradanga, gol angle.
Speaker 5: I'm not let's just do mint time hard willow bark, Yes,
Speaker 5: I'm here, and so like, there's a lot that can
Speaker 5: benefit everybody.
Speaker 2: And you don't have to get weird.
Speaker 5: You don't have to start wearing crystal jewelry or your
Speaker 5: point like the feathers and the whole affectation aesthetic. You
Speaker 5: don't have to do that. You can be you and
Speaker 5: find what tools in this world worked for you and
Speaker 5: neither the rest.
Speaker 1: I got to jump in, man, you do you do?
Speaker 1: I have too many questions?
Speaker 2: No, and I do too.
Speaker 3: So we talked and this is kind of a slightly
Speaker 3: different topic before the interview started. We talked a little
Speaker 3: bit about testing that you do so that you've got
Speaker 3: proof that helped you know things. And I will know
Speaker 3: about the testing if you would share a little bit
Speaker 3: now with us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and again not pure reviewed, not truly scientific. But
Speaker 5: right now I have two, you know, spiritual transformation coaching
Speaker 5: clients that are actually scientists, like hard science scientists.
Speaker 2: One is an archaeologist out in the field.
Speaker 5: The other one is doing research on bird diseases, specifically
Speaker 5: like chicken diseases, things like bird flu and Merik's disease.
Speaker 5: So there are hyper rational people that are really into
Speaker 5: that you know, can.
Speaker 2: Test, hypothesis, verify, falsify world.
Speaker 5: So what we'll do is immerse them initially into shamanic
Speaker 5: journey meditations, direct experiences, and are to collect ephemera, take notes,
Speaker 5: share the notes with me, I explain like here's the
Speaker 5: context for that, based on what Michael Horner had to
Speaker 5: say about it, like these subject matter experts, right, And
Speaker 5: then we keep going with practice sessions meditations and get
Speaker 5: very quickly discover if they have a latent talent for
Speaker 5: something and start to get them to do it. You know,
Speaker 5: no amount of books or anything else is going to
Speaker 5: do this more for you than you practicing. And you
Speaker 5: know it's a lot like the Silicon Valley. Feel small fail,
Speaker 5: early fail often like beta testing. Getting in there, move
Speaker 5: fast and break things, those phrases and yes, And then
Speaker 5: I set up practice sessions for them with either former
Speaker 5: coaching clients or current ones that are further ahead than them,
Speaker 5: that are going to be kind but also objective, that
Speaker 5: understand they're not there to kiss there you know why
Speaker 5: that you know they really want to get somewhere and
Speaker 5: things come through and that other clientalgo. You have no
Speaker 5: idea how accurate you are let me break this down
Speaker 5: for you or the day after you did this practice session.
Speaker 5: For me, this happened, and so that image you got
Speaker 5: showed up literally from me in this space, and you'll
Speaker 5: kind of start to the goal of the way we
Speaker 5: do it is start to pull it in and constrict
Speaker 5: it after the wide net and try to drill in
Speaker 5: and get greater and greater levels of detail specificity. And
Speaker 5: then if there's things like prophecy literally like channeling, something
Speaker 5: like this is going to happen in the world going,
Speaker 5: let's see it's coming up. Let's take a look, Let's
Speaker 5: see what happens and look at it. And sometimes it happens,
Speaker 5: sometimes it's not. And I always tell them the reason
Speaker 5: not could be manifold, but one of them is free will,
Speaker 5: right in its myriad possible outcomes for anything. And so
Speaker 5: on any given day when I do terror reading or
Speaker 5: anything else, I'm looking at probabilities in the data set.
Speaker 5: I'm not guaranteeing someone this is absolutely going to happen,
Speaker 5: and I explain that to them before I start the reading.
Speaker 2: So that's sort of it's way.
Speaker 5: Looser than science. I don't confuse the two. But my
Speaker 5: clients that are hardcore scientists. Others are fundraisers, political parties, lawyers.
Speaker 5: I've had multiple surgeons and doctors in here, and they'll
Speaker 5: get into things like remote viewing because.
Speaker 2: It's really rigid and there's like.
Speaker 5: A very uniform, repeatable, testable system. I don't do remote viewing,
Speaker 5: but I set them up with people who do, and
Speaker 5: they have fun with that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what remote viewing is, go back
Speaker 1: and listen to the metaphysical moment that where I dive
Speaker 1: into remote view It's super interesting, so.
Speaker 3: Interesting using the science of this. We interviewed someone who
Speaker 3: is a channeller and she's working with Is he a
Speaker 3: brain surgeon? Yeah, and he did scans.
Speaker 1: Of he's a brain researcher.
Speaker 2: Oh, I would love.
Speaker 5: To get scans of my brain for a number of reasons.
Speaker 5: If you guys have that information, please share it.
Speaker 1: Happy to realize.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he did scans of her like oh wait,
Speaker 3: just talking, yes, and then sleeping and then channeling.
Speaker 1: And then healing. He did a couple bunch of different
Speaker 1: ones and you could definitely see a change in her
Speaker 1: brain patterns when and you.
Speaker 5: Can use a flear for temperature like infrared and body
Speaker 5: temperature changes with people who do reiki, both the client
Speaker 5: and the practitioner. You can actually visually see a number
Speaker 5: of these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so things like that kind of show you this
Speaker 1: is real. Stop, this is not just woo that you're
Speaker 1: taking on faith to your point. So I'm a reiki
Speaker 1: practitioner and I couldn't believe it at first, but until
Speaker 1: I felt it. When I got, I mean, you go,
Speaker 1: you get, you get tuned or whatever. You're in a
Speaker 1: dark room and someone's doing crazy things over your head
Speaker 1: and you come out and you're like, I feel nothing different.
Speaker 1: But then the minute you start channeling the energy, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's a game changer. You actually physically feel it. It
Speaker 1: changes everything.
Speaker 5: The more often you do it, the more often. One
Speaker 5: of the reasons I emphasize practice and like practical immersions
Speaker 5: so much is you'll start to learn a feeling that
Speaker 5: comes with it, like a set of distinct physiological ships,
Speaker 5: ships in your visual field, your auditory fie, like all
Speaker 5: of these things that tell you I'm doing the thing.
Speaker 5: And the more you do it, the more of a
Speaker 5: hand feel you get for it. And I think in
Speaker 5: some ways it's a perishable skill. And my husband's a
Speaker 5: shot if he doesn't cut food for a while and
Speaker 5: do prep. His knife skills are not going to be
Speaker 5: a shark. It's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really interesting because when I do, when I give
Speaker 1: reiki to somebody not six months ago something like that,
Speaker 1: went to a reiki retreat again for the first time
Speaker 1: maybe twenty years, and it just all came right back.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of how much I loved giving reiki,
Speaker 1: and yet I haven't done it since. So it's a
Speaker 1: matter of just making a decision and moving forward it
Speaker 1: because it is really probably when I'm very strong.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's it's like when we were dating it
Speaker 3: we were watching TVA seting on couch one time and
Speaker 3: I had hurt my foot, and so he's like, oh,
Speaker 3: break your foot. And I don't even know when the
Speaker 3: last time you had done it, but we're watching television
Speaker 3: and I had a time of like, you're pushing down
Speaker 3: on my foot too hard, and he's like, look at me,
Speaker 3: and his hand was not touching, not even closed, and
Speaker 3: I could just feel that pressure, wasn't.
Speaker 1: Touching at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't believe you just shared that story.
Speaker 5: My husband really hurt his ankle and we don't know
Speaker 5: how but it was black and blue and swum and
Speaker 5: took him to the hospital, got scans. They said there
Speaker 5: was no break. But and he's a chef, he has
Speaker 5: to be on his feet. So this was like a
Speaker 5: real issue being me being the good WiFi and I said,
Speaker 5: I'm going to take you to somebody else to do
Speaker 5: this because I didn't feel like doing it. I know,
Speaker 5: God help me and I but I also knew my friend,
Speaker 5: who was a male practitioner, was his energy work was
Speaker 5: very strong, and he went one time, gone, wow, massive change.
Speaker 2: This is like a very real thing. And that's another
Speaker 2: thing that, Yeah, you can't do it the.
Speaker 5: Way like science does science, Like you can't peer review,
Speaker 5: publish that. But to me, that's evident.
Speaker 1: And that's why I said, yet you can't measure it yet, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hindline or arts C. Clark or forgot who says it.
Speaker 1: But magic to a prune, to society, it was just
Speaker 1: science to someone who's mortgage.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's why they were doing these brain skins
Speaker 3: with the channeling, because when she was sleeping it was
Speaker 3: one her brain scame was one color. The when she
Speaker 3: was just regular conversation, you could see the activity. Then
Speaker 3: she she was channeling, which is involves the same you know,
Speaker 3: mouth movements. It was like she was sleeping.
Speaker 1: It was totally different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 5: It was a theta wave state, so lucid dreams and
Speaker 5: like a shamanic journey or channeling. They look the same
Speaker 5: in scams and it's wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rachel, you, the three of us have got a
Speaker 1: lot more to talk about.
Speaker 2: We do.
Speaker 1: We are running out of time, as much as I
Speaker 1: hate to say that. But if someone wanted to reach
Speaker 1: out to you and connect you one on one or
Speaker 1: or learn more about you, what's the best way for
Speaker 1: someone to reach out to you.
Speaker 5: Totemreadings dot com. My email is on there, or you
Speaker 5: could contact me through a submit form. I'm on Instagram
Speaker 5: and all social media passive aggressively.
Speaker 2: But I'm also on substack and i spend a lot
Speaker 2: more time on thubstack.
Speaker 5: Just because I think it's metior it's it's longer form,
Speaker 5: so it's the totem Reading Substack.
Speaker 2: Check it out and yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 3: You can get those little bottles there too, huh oh yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You go to my website.
Speaker 5: There's a link to my Etsy shop on there, and
Speaker 5: it's super easy to get there, just email me and
Speaker 5: we just do it directly.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, But we're going to add a direct link
Speaker 1: to your website on our show notes, so if you need,
Speaker 1: if you didn't have a pen, just go to skepticmanephosition
Speaker 1: dot com, go to her episode page. You'll see the
Speaker 1: link laden directly in the show notes. There's a lot
Speaker 1: to unpack about Rachel that we haven't even touched on,
Speaker 1: so I encourage you to go visit her. This has
Speaker 1: been so much fun, that way, way more fun than
Speaker 1: I ever imagined. So thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 5: Thank you, and you guys are really good at this,
Speaker 5: and thank you for keeping this conversation going.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, we do love it. And when we meet
Speaker 1: people of like mine, like you, where the conversation just
Speaker 1: flows away. It did. It's just we're gonna be we're
Speaker 1: gonna be in touch, we're gonna be stay connected for
Speaker 1: a long time. So thanks so much for coming on
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 5: They do