Speaker 1: You see, something's going to happen.
Speaker 2: What what's going to happen?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 4: I help? And welcome to the Occult Rejects. I am
Speaker 4: your guest host Jim and Ninja, and I'm here with
Speaker 4: my boss Nick, the main man of the Occult Rejects,
Speaker 4: and Lisa, the main mad scientist, and our guest tonight,
Speaker 4: Absidari and Mont who is bringing us the flavor of
Speaker 4: the Islands with some Caribbean folk magic.
Speaker 2: That was great. You're hired. Thank you very much. I
Speaker 2: really appreciate it, isna your fun.
Speaker 5: Thank you for having me on. Jen, I'm really looking
Speaker 5: forward to that episode.
Speaker 6: So mad well, I am, yes, so yeah, I know,
Speaker 6: I really was because at least I know this is
Speaker 6: a well again a topic I don't know anything that
Speaker 6: which seems to be quite often, but I know that
Speaker 6: this is something that you're into yourself, Jen, so at least,
Speaker 6: like you know, it's something that I knew that you get,
Speaker 6: you know, some sort of fun out of covering as well.
Speaker 6: So I'm really looking forward to this And Absidarian, man,
Speaker 6: I'm really glad to have you back on again on
Speaker 6: the show. It's always a pleasure to have you on
Speaker 6: My man. Before we get it started. Just please plug
Speaker 6: your show and let everybody know where they can find
Speaker 6: you stuff.
Speaker 3: Sure, thanks well, thanks again everyone for having me on.
Speaker 3: I could be found on across social media networks. Apsidarian
Speaker 3: or op Sidarian. Mott could also check out link Tree
Speaker 3: and you know Absidaran on there as well.
Speaker 7: I am most active or most most of my.
Speaker 3: Content is on Facebook, Patreon, and a little bit of Gap.
Speaker 3: I definitely recommend a lot of people to check out Gap.
Speaker 3: People sleep on Gap, but there's just so much information
Speaker 3: on Gap that you're not gonna find anywhere else.
Speaker 7: But uh, I believe it at that.
Speaker 2: You know what's funny.
Speaker 6: I thought about going back on there again just every
Speaker 6: once in a while because, believe it or not, back
Speaker 6: in the day, when he should drop some of my
Speaker 6: podcasts on my videos on there, it would actually get traction.
Speaker 7: Yeah, especially like he hasn't been active in a while.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I have like maybe I can go on
Speaker 6: like dropping in some of the groups or whatever. I
Speaker 6: don't know, but there was one point where I did.
Speaker 6: Actually I had a gab TV. Believe it or not,
Speaker 6: we had gab TV at one point on a Cult
Speaker 6: Rejects because we were actually getting so much some traction
Speaker 6: on that platform, not anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a growing it's a grown social media network.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are jumping on there as well.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 6: Nice, all right, So West Indian Magic, what's your thoughts
Speaker 6: on that? Let's kick it off.
Speaker 7: So all right, I'll start off.
Speaker 3: I was I was born in Trinidad, and you know,
Speaker 3: I go there a few times a year often, so
Speaker 3: I'm very connected to you know, the history of the
Speaker 3: folk tradition and it's so much to talk about.
Speaker 7: So we'll talk about some of the.
Speaker 3: Different streams today such as Obia Shango what is it
Speaker 3: called baptism or like spiritual Baptist where they mixed the
Speaker 3: Afro Christian tradition. I'll also talk about tons of real
Speaker 3: life ghost experiences I've had. Some of the ghosts are
Speaker 3: like you know, the vampires, like the Sukenya. We got
Speaker 3: the lajab List, which is the female spirit that lures
Speaker 3: men to walk across water. We got the dwnd unbaptized
Speaker 3: children with backward feet that chases you in the forest.
Speaker 3: We got the Papa Bois, which is the father protector
Speaker 3: of the forest. A lot of hunters experienced this, uh,
Speaker 3: this guardian of the forest per se.
Speaker 7: There's also the gin.
Speaker 3: Of course, the gin, you know that's not only limited
Speaker 3: to the Caribbean, but the Gin has a presence there.
Speaker 7: With some of the Islamic magic.
Speaker 3: We got the Cheryl, which is a female spirit that
Speaker 3: died well given childbirth wonders in Limbo. Well, yeah, we
Speaker 3: just we got a lot to chat about. So that's
Speaker 3: what we could look forward today.
Speaker 7: Gin, you want to add anything, I'll just say that.
Speaker 4: Was like a really great intro. So my background, obviously
Speaker 4: I've sat on the show before. My dad's Indonesian Chinese.
Speaker 4: So you might think, well, how does Jin know anything
Speaker 4: about West Indian poke magic. Well, there's actually a large
Speaker 4: population of Indonesians from Guyana and Surinam who live in Toronto,
Speaker 4: and so you just growing up, you just sort of
Speaker 4: know them and then you kind of I realized very
Speaker 4: early on that our folk tales are almost identical. You
Speaker 4: can actually match one to one. A lot of the spirits,
Speaker 4: particularly the female kind of like tree spirits, what we
Speaker 4: would call like a pontianak, which is like a ghost
Speaker 4: who lives in the trees, and it can be a
Speaker 4: ghost of a woman who died in childbirth or Gunggang Sarah,
Speaker 4: who is also appeers all over North Africa. So there's
Speaker 4: like a clear kind of epistemology of these ghosts that
Speaker 4: or these spirits are these kind of magical practices, and
Speaker 4: a lot of the Islamic stuff that came from the
Speaker 4: Transatlantic slaves from Mali actually is very similar to Indonesian
Speaker 4: folk magic as it is practiced today, so there's a
Speaker 4: great deal of overlap, and a lot of Indonesians in
Speaker 4: the Netherlands as well as Canada practice obaya, so you
Speaker 4: definitely have a lot of crossover. And then tantra, which
Speaker 4: is obviously where I'm particularly strong in that there's a
Speaker 4: layer of that in Trinidad, but also in Martinique, also
Speaker 4: in Surnam, also in Guiana because of the large Cooley population,
Speaker 4: which are ethnic South Asians, but there's also ethnic Chinese
Speaker 4: groups who also engage in these praxices. So I've have
Speaker 4: had exposure, both academically and just socially to a lot
Speaker 4: of this insider, more quiet stuff. So and obviously one
Speaker 4: of the first ways of any magician, I think even
Speaker 4: Nix talked about this, when they first start out, where's
Speaker 4: their first trip? Will they go to the spiritual supply store,
Speaker 4: which are like Botanica supplies, which are very you know,
Speaker 4: it's part of that continuum of like Mexican Cuban and
Speaker 4: sort of like indigenous and Afro syncretic folk magic. So
Speaker 4: it all kind of lives in this syncretic soup. So
Speaker 4: that's pretty much where I'm gonna add to whatever outstarian
Speaker 4: it doesn't add, and I will have a couple of
Speaker 4: my own points. But I think it's gonna be really fun.
Speaker 4: I'm really excited for this, and thank you guys so
Speaker 4: much for inviting me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, thank you. I spake to us.
Speaker 3: There, sure, all right, So I guess it's good to
Speaker 3: define some of these terms so we know what we're
Speaker 3: talking about. One of the most popular popular religious practices
Speaker 3: is obia. So it has its background from West Africa,
Speaker 3: and I don't know much about it, you know, other
Speaker 3: than like secondhand sources, but it seems to be very decentralized,
Speaker 3: as in, you know, there's no set doctrines, canons, deities.
Speaker 7: It's just mixed based.
Speaker 3: On the village or or you know, the local obia
Speaker 3: mand or like the head guy. That's oral tradition that's
Speaker 3: passed on in different practices of healing.
Speaker 7: We're working with.
Speaker 3: Magic, right, there's definitely a lot of black magic, but
Speaker 3: you know, trying to hurt someone, trying to get rich,
Speaker 3: you know, things of that nature. So obia is one
Speaker 3: of the most popular black magic practices. And in turn
Speaker 3: that it's a big melting pot because there's been so
Speaker 3: much different influences throughout history, from the European British influence, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch,
Speaker 3: we have the Chinese, Islamic, we have African, we have
Speaker 3: South Indian and other parts of India that came as
Speaker 3: indentured servants after the slave trade. So my ancestors came
Speaker 3: in the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds from India,
Speaker 3: and you know, they couldn't speak English, and a lot
Speaker 3: of them bought their their folk tradition with them, and
Speaker 3: you know, and they it's what is it called mimesis
Speaker 3: in anthropology, is just you know, it's a mixing of
Speaker 3: different traditions to adapt to the current land. So there's
Speaker 3: a lot of that.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of mixing.
Speaker 3: And another one that's popular, it's pretty powerful, is the
Speaker 3: spiritual Baptists. It's you know, it's mixed of African tradition
Speaker 3: and the Western Christian tradition, and yeah, very very powerful
Speaker 3: some of the these traditions and history, a lot of
Speaker 3: bloodshed in Trinidad, and to Jin's point, there is a
Speaker 3: lot of common ground between the countries and islands in
Speaker 3: that area, because yeah, I have I've tons of stories
Speaker 3: of my family members traveling to Guyana and even some
Speaker 3: from Surinam. Some I'm familiar with some of the similarities
Speaker 3: in the tradition. I must say, there's something about that lant.
Speaker 3: It's just so close to the equator and being close
Speaker 3: to Amazon rainforest as well.
Speaker 7: There's just really.
Speaker 3: Powerful energy in this space. And then another tradition is
Speaker 3: the Indian tradition from the indentured servants that came over
Speaker 3: from India and in some ways, in my opinion, in
Speaker 3: the West Indians meaning Indians that have been relocated to
Speaker 3: the Caribbean and Guyana and South America, in some ways
Speaker 3: they've they've kept the religion and heritage much strong or
Speaker 3: than their East Indian counterparts. Because it's common in India
Speaker 3: when the pundit or the priest is doing a.
Speaker 7: Ritual or a pooja for you, you.
Speaker 3: Just give them the money or you just give them
Speaker 3: whatever offer and you have and he you know, you
Speaker 3: don't touch the deity or you know, you don't go
Speaker 3: really in the in the temple or whatever, but the
Speaker 3: pundit does it for you. So it's very second hand source,
Speaker 3: you need, you know, middleman. But in the Caribbean, the
Speaker 3: West Indians a little bit different. They're more hands on.
Speaker 3: They're fasting for twenty one days, thirty days, you know,
Speaker 3: forty days even, and yeah, they're participating in these these poojas,
Speaker 3: these rituals, which is a lot has to do with
Speaker 3: like offerings of flowers.
Speaker 7: And also there's I should I should clarify there's like
Speaker 7: two types of worship.
Speaker 3: One is the you know, the the right hand path
Speaker 3: that they call it the sata worship, which is no blood,
Speaker 3: you know, none of that, none of the dark stuff.
Speaker 3: And then of course you got the left hand path,
Speaker 3: which they're into like you know, animal sacrifices and things
Speaker 3: of that nature. But yeah, it's just, uh, they're very
Speaker 3: well connected, the West Indians in Trinidad, Guyana Surnam with
Speaker 3: their tradition, they've they've kept the pronunciation of the mantras,
Speaker 3: the the language some of them and the families, and
Speaker 3: I always thought, wow, that's very interested. I would think
Speaker 3: it would be the opposite that, you know, the motherland
Speaker 3: India would hold you know, hold on to some of
Speaker 3: these traditions in their own right, which they do in
Speaker 3: certain instances. But uh, that was just an interesting observation
Speaker 3: from the Indian background.
Speaker 7: Jin can you can you you want to speak on anything?
Speaker 4: Well, I thought you mean it, well, thank you. I
Speaker 4: thought you made an incredible point about that, and I'm
Speaker 4: glad you said that. And it's one hundred percent true
Speaker 4: that because the Pujaris come from the family tradition. So
Speaker 4: it's like lineages of priests. They're not necessarily Brahmins, right,
Speaker 4: usually not. Maybe there are some, but they're not always Brahmins.
Speaker 4: So they have more of a householder tradition where they
Speaker 4: pass it on to their sons or their grandsons, and
Speaker 4: so yeah, they do retain a lot more of that,
Speaker 4: like it's more part of your lifestyle rather than a profession.
Speaker 4: So in India, like a lot of the temple societies
Speaker 4: are owned by the states now, so you have a
Speaker 4: lot of government involvement in the temple, the running of
Speaker 4: the temple financially, but also liturgically. So in these kinds
Speaker 4: of like more diaspora situations, I guess they would follow
Speaker 4: the original shastras, which are the prescriptions in the Piranhas
Speaker 4: for how temple or ritual conduct should be performed in
Speaker 4: the temple. So there are definitely different streams. Like Amstarian said,
Speaker 4: there's like what we would call doction ontario, which is
Speaker 4: like maybe they don't call it that, maybe they call
Speaker 4: it more of the Vedantic method or that's more the
Speaker 4: normative right handed method, but there's also a right handed
Speaker 4: left handed method. That's what it starts to get a
Speaker 4: little confusing. So it becomes important to be able to
Speaker 4: discern and understand the deities that they are performing. Now
Speaker 4: in my experience with people from t T and just
Speaker 4: West Indies in general, even the Indians don't always make
Speaker 4: a strong discernment between like some of the deities like
Speaker 4: a Saraswati of Vedic goddess, she is much she is
Speaker 4: Khalie like, it's the same thing for them. They don't
Speaker 4: really make a huge distinction. But for a contric obviously
Speaker 4: it gets a little more. You have to be a
Speaker 4: little more. You have to use specificity in defining it.
Speaker 4: Because then the mantra changes, the shastra, the worship style changes,
Speaker 4: all it really matters. So I think for me, what
Speaker 4: I really am interested in is they did preserve what
Speaker 4: is quintessentially tntra at its core, which is a how
Speaker 4: hold our tradition where you are practicing night time rituals,
Speaker 4: but also maybe in charge of a shrine. So I
Speaker 4: think that's really interesting. Just like from a history of
Speaker 4: magic perspective, Can.
Speaker 5: I interject really quickly? I wanted to say anthropologically, what
Speaker 5: I have found, especially being you know, from South Texas,
Speaker 5: is that I think a lot of when people were
Speaker 5: having to assimilate outside of their cultural norm, to hold
Speaker 5: on to their culture, their language, their their their food,
Speaker 5: their belief system was existential for them, what kept them
Speaker 5: saying and so I feel like there was more of
Speaker 5: an emphasis to keep things so preserved back to what
Speaker 5: they remember in order to carry on day to day.
Speaker 5: And therefore I think you do have this preservation of
Speaker 5: cultural origins in the Caribbean, especially the most and then
Speaker 5: obviously within you know, Central and South America. I just
Speaker 5: wanted to say that.
Speaker 4: No, that's pep story and please go ahead.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, yeah, I was just a great point.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to add to that that I've noticed
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of you know, with the migration
Speaker 3: from a lot of people from the Caribbean and South America,
Speaker 3: they've bought that the same culture and traditions in America
Speaker 3: because I was blown away the first time. I was
Speaker 3: like around fifteen and in New York and my mom
Speaker 3: got hit by a souconia, which is a vampire, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait a minute, that's from turning that, Like
Speaker 3: why are we seeing it? It was like sun, you know,
Speaker 3: they bring they bring these things over here, and they're
Speaker 3: continuing some of that stuff over here. So I was like,
Speaker 3: I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I also just wanted to add really quickly that
Speaker 4: there is actually a tradition specifically preserved in the Caribbean.
Speaker 4: Broad Caribbean, we'll say that is not very alive in India,
Speaker 4: a contric tradition. So in Trinidad they would call the
Speaker 4: deity d Baba and they would syncretize him to Saint
Speaker 4: James the Morse Layer. So he rides a white horse.
Speaker 4: He's like a warrior who rides a white horse. And
Speaker 4: he's actually one of the seventy two a retinue deities
Speaker 4: of bai Rava. But this tradition, which is obviously very
Speaker 4: similar in some ways to probably people are thinking like
Speaker 4: the lesser keis O Solomon or Goalesia. It is in
Speaker 4: a way, but he is like a tutelary deity, protector
Speaker 4: of the village. And in fact they would all hang
Speaker 4: keys give him keys. They will lock the temple and
Speaker 4: give him keys. But the point of my story is
Speaker 4: that this is only really found in villages in South India.
Speaker 4: So although it used to be widespread throughout India, it
Speaker 4: really only is preserved in like the south, in very
Speaker 4: like small kind of rural, out of the way temples.
Speaker 4: But this idea of the seventy two sort of time
Speaker 4: kings or seventy two lower retinue figures of the time kings,
Speaker 4: I think is really interesting for Western magicians just because
Speaker 4: of the similarity and overlap and their dominion over things
Speaker 4: like the forest. Like he brought up Papa Blah. Interestingly,
Speaker 4: we also have Papa Bla in French Canada, so that's
Speaker 4: really interesting. And we syncretize him with Saint John the Baptist,
Speaker 4: so but not Saint John the Baptist as the elder Saint.
Speaker 4: It's Saint John the Baptist as a little boy wearing
Speaker 4: the hair shirt. It's very specific, so you'll see a
Speaker 4: lot of like Maiti and indigenous men will do a
Speaker 4: little prayer on certain things or give a little offering
Speaker 4: of tobacco on certain trees specifically for this kind of
Speaker 4: like Papa Ba or they call him other names to
Speaker 4: they'll call him whiskey Jack or there's a variety of
Speaker 4: trickster characters that are kind of syncretized together. But it
Speaker 4: is interesting that we also have a character like that
Speaker 4: in this. In the US, they also have a character
Speaker 4: like this is Prayer Rabbit and sort of like the
Speaker 4: Hi John or the Tjan character from Louisiana, And so
Speaker 4: there's like an overlap between like what we would call
Speaker 4: like the Johns. So like there's the John Ruth that's
Speaker 4: often used in Hodoo. It's obviously like a epomia, it's
Speaker 4: a morning glory, and so he has a root to
Speaker 4: overcome all evil. There's a sort of spirit that has
Speaker 4: like the power of healing and the plants and the
Speaker 4: medicine of the forest, and then there's kind of like
Speaker 4: a trickster spirit, but they're all on a continuum together thing.
Speaker 4: That's kind of interesting, A.
Speaker 7: Great, great point, Jen.
Speaker 3: I'm really glad you mentioned because that was my list
Speaker 3: of things to talk about.
Speaker 7: H No, No, that's fine.
Speaker 3: I'm adding I'm adding a few things onto that as well.
Speaker 3: So I'm glad you mentioned him, and you brought up
Speaker 3: some really good connections with the John. I'm the guardian
Speaker 3: of the home, so I'd like to add a few
Speaker 3: things about the de Baba. So, so the d Baba, Uh,
Speaker 3: there's I'm familiar with. There's two ways of you know,
Speaker 3: worshiping the debab. But there's the Suta way again.
Speaker 7: That's like without the sacrifice or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just.
Speaker 3: Maybe some rum and some cigarettes. And then there's the
Speaker 3: other way, which is like a chicken. A lot of
Speaker 3: people do the chicken once a year. And I found
Speaker 3: it interesting because accounts of deep de Baba is one
Speaker 3: of the accounts my my cousin's husband told me. And he's,
Speaker 3: you know, he has like the he has the vision,
Speaker 3: you know, the spiritual vision. He's like he sees them
Speaker 3: often on he doesn't do it anymore. He's Christian, so
Speaker 3: he's you know the people that did it before. You know,
Speaker 3: my cousin's prior generation on the land they were they
Speaker 3: were Hindu and uh he describes him how he describes
Speaker 3: him as just like the hat man, like with the
Speaker 3: brimmed hat, dark shadow, with the with the with the coat.
Speaker 3: And I always I was like, wow, this is really interesting.
Speaker 3: How there's that hat man connection there, not with the
Speaker 3: like the evil eyes or anything, just watching over your home.
Speaker 3: And my cousin's husband told me a few times he's
Speaker 3: been awoken by this, uh, this dee baba hat man
Speaker 3: figure when you know, there's like someone.
Speaker 7: Trying to rob their home.
Speaker 3: So he would catch it on the the surveillance camera.
Speaker 3: So the dee baba is really interesting interesting as well
Speaker 3: in that I have some experience with that. And you know,
Speaker 3: in the States, I knew one of my friends, uh
Speaker 3: he was doing the the de baba worship and uh
Speaker 3: he was he was offering water to it. So it's
Speaker 3: I've never seen that, and it's I don't know what
Speaker 3: kind of adaption that is. But at the time, like
Speaker 3: I was in his space with this, and you know,
Speaker 3: I was doing a lot of prayer and fasting at
Speaker 3: the time, so it was just like really this pure,
Speaker 3: pure vibe and you know, my car alarm just just
Speaker 3: started kept going off and going off and going off,
Speaker 3: and and I'm hitting an alarm and like, wow, this
Speaker 3: is this thing is just not going off. So let
Speaker 3: me go check out the car. So I go outside
Speaker 3: and once I get to the cars, it stops. And
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, wow, something did not want me in
Speaker 3: his space.
Speaker 7: And I just I just something was off with what
Speaker 7: he was doing.
Speaker 3: And I just want to tie that into some of
Speaker 3: the worship that has come down, like from from for instance,
Speaker 3: Rudolf Steiner talks about how some folk spirits or ancestor
Speaker 3: worship as it comes down, it becomes like either like
Speaker 3: a dead eggregor so like it's not charged, or people
Speaker 3: aren't giving it power, or it could become what's the word,
Speaker 3: like a vampire like so it feeds, it starts to feed, so.
Speaker 7: It changes the egre.
Speaker 3: So I saw a connection with that and just my
Speaker 3: spiritual insight that this was something that has the appearance
Speaker 3: of Bairav, a form of Bairav like Jin said, and
Speaker 3: in the Dibaba iconography, you know on the on the image,
Speaker 3: which is a form of Shiva, by the way, But
Speaker 3: what I understood about Deebaba he was a folk hero
Speaker 3: in India that that you know, that began to be
Speaker 3: worshiped as well.
Speaker 7: So yeah, I just.
Speaker 3: Wanted to mention that, you know, things that come down
Speaker 3: to us now, it's not always how it was worshiped
Speaker 3: or how it is.
Speaker 7: In the current stream.
Speaker 4: I'll add a little quick note to that is that
Speaker 4: so in India he would be considered like a Kistra Paula,
Speaker 4: So we have the exact we have the same idea
Speaker 4: in contrac Buddhism. At Kistra Paula, it just means field protector.
Speaker 4: Just so the two words put together, that's how sounds
Speaker 4: great usually works. And so he is considered to live
Speaker 4: on the land. So I thought that was really interesting
Speaker 4: that you said that people would see him because they
Speaker 4: would live and even their shrines traditionally would be on
Speaker 4: the northwest corner of fields or the northwest corner of
Speaker 4: monasteries or walled sort of like the villages, because that
Speaker 4: is where they that's sort of where they protect from
Speaker 4: I guess. So yeah, that's that's exactly what he would do,
Speaker 4: and he would be sort of in charge of the
Speaker 4: villager's day to day lives, but particularly with traveling because
Speaker 4: as Amsidarian said, he is a birava, so he is
Speaker 4: a ferocious king, but he's also part of the retinue
Speaker 4: of the time king. So it is a kind of
Speaker 4: form of shiva. Like I always say, I've said to
Speaker 4: next so many times on the show, like and that's
Speaker 4: how we think of it, as like the there's nine,
Speaker 4: but it's really an expression of eight. But those eight
Speaker 4: also turn into another eight, so then when you add
Speaker 4: in the nine, it becomes seventy two. But it's all
Speaker 4: coming from time and again that's right, that's right. So
Speaker 4: he's just not active. Time is not active necessarily as himself,
Speaker 4: but he has this expression of multiple identities that he
Speaker 4: takes that can like live in the village, perform these
Speaker 4: kind of like Quotitian daily perfunctory sort of like functionary
Speaker 4: things for the villagers, and yet it is a reciprocal
Speaker 4: transactional relationship. But it's like also because he lives in
Speaker 4: the land or maybe beneath it, they are also feeding
Speaker 4: the land. So when they do like those like village pujaris,
Speaker 4: which is different than like a temple shastra worship, but
Speaker 4: when they do like a chicken or a goat sacrifice,
Speaker 4: they're literally feeding the land, and so he arises that's
Speaker 4: kind of how it is. So it is kind of
Speaker 4: like an aggrigor in a way because it's like the
Speaker 4: it's all the different sort of geniuses of the land
Speaker 4: coalescing into a form. So I think that's kind of
Speaker 4: interesting as well that he can travel, so it's not
Speaker 4: necessarily the same one that's worshiped in India, but maybe
Speaker 4: he starts to develop his own identity in Trinidad, not
Speaker 4: because it's necessarily syncretic, but because it's actually a different
Speaker 4: or distinct spirit.
Speaker 7: Yeah, good points, good points. You were going to say something.
Speaker 2: That no, no, I was actually gonna say that. You
Speaker 2: want anything else?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I think I'd like to talk
Speaker 3: about the universal aspect of some of these universal archetypes,
Speaker 3: like the which is a female vampire, but the universal
Speaker 3: nature I want to speak about that. I I've noticed
Speaker 3: a theme and then you know, we see if Jin
Speaker 3: could share some insights on this as well. But uh,
Speaker 3: the invitation, So like with this the soukn or this female.
Speaker 7: Vampire, you have to kind of invite it.
Speaker 3: In a certain way into your sphere before you're you're attacked.
Speaker 3: And invitation is not like hey, come over. But in Trinidad,
Speaker 3: invitation is all sometimes interaction like the you'll see you.
Speaker 3: You'll be in the market and the day and you'll
Speaker 3: see this female She'll say, hey, how are you doing?
Speaker 3: And then that interaction it becomes like an invitation into
Speaker 3: your into your sphere without you even known what's going on.
Speaker 3: So I've noticed a lot of these things are like,
Speaker 3: you know, whether invitation of some sort of relationship with
Speaker 3: the you know, perceived victim, and a lot of it
Speaker 3: is like astrob based attext. There's a lot of power
Speaker 3: in the blood as well as magical power and blood.
Speaker 3: So the soken you just to catch the audience up
Speaker 3: the speed. The souken is a female vampire in Trinidad
Speaker 3: folklore and it's the real real thing I've I've experienced
Speaker 3: it in in Trinidad I've seen and also in the States,
Speaker 3: but it's a female vampire and allegedly this female says
Speaker 3: magical prayers, then she's able to peel her skin and
Speaker 3: then spiritually she can turn into like a ball of fire,
Speaker 3: able to travel, and then basically in nighttime, you know,
Speaker 3: looking for victims to suck.
Speaker 7: On their blood.
Speaker 3: They're known to store their skin on certain magical trees,
Speaker 3: such as the silk cotton trees. And there's accounts, you know,
Speaker 3: in the stories and the folklore, and even my family
Speaker 3: they've told me that a common thing in the village is, wow,
Speaker 3: we got to find that skin. We know there's a
Speaker 3: soken you know, biting my you know, my family member
Speaker 3: or neighbor. We gotta find that skin. So often they'll
Speaker 3: find the skin. They'll put some salt pepper on the skin.
Speaker 2: You know, the.
Speaker 3: Sokena comes back right before dawn, right before daylight, and
Speaker 3: puts on the skin, starts screaming, it's scratching, it's it's burning,
Speaker 3: and she perishes. So that that's a popular account of
Speaker 3: you know, defeating the So so there's there's a really
Speaker 3: rich tradition of some of there. And it may sound
Speaker 3: like stories, but I can tell you I've I've had
Speaker 3: firsthand accounts of some of these things, and a lot
Speaker 3: of my family members and close friends that have experienced this,
Speaker 3: and especially like my grandfather when I was younger, you know,
Speaker 3: he passed away when I was like twelve, but man,
Speaker 3: he used to tell me stories of things he would experience,
Speaker 3: you know, growing up in Trinidad in you know, world
Speaker 3: War two, right after World War two. And one thing
Speaker 3: that overst struck stuck with me was he said, you know,
Speaker 3: we were more connected to the spiritual realm when there
Speaker 3: was less electricity, when we were more connected to nature,
Speaker 3: and like spirits was just a daily aspect to them.
Speaker 7: It was no big deal. They weren't scared of it.
Speaker 7: They would interact with it.
Speaker 3: Like my grandfather, he would work late into the morning,
Speaker 3: so he would you know, he'd be coming home like
Speaker 3: three four in the morning, riding his bike, and you know,
Speaker 3: he had a counter like all sorts of spirits block
Speaker 3: in his path, but he knew what to do. For
Speaker 3: some reason, they don't like sulfur. So when you light
Speaker 3: a match or that that that light, they disappear or
Speaker 3: they you know, there's certain a relationship with certain metals.
Speaker 3: Like he told me there was a copper he would
Speaker 3: he would there would be a donkey sometimes blocking his
Speaker 3: his path going home, and he would just get off
Speaker 3: his bike, kneel in front of a donkey and hold
Speaker 3: out like a copper two pence whi's like a coin,
Speaker 3: and it would just it would just let him pass.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so I'd hear so many cool stories, like
Speaker 3: one was with the Jobless.
Speaker 7: You'll notice some of these have like French names, you know,
Speaker 7: the Jobless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely a French influence at one time in
Speaker 3: Trinidad as well as Spanish. So the jobless, it's a
Speaker 3: beautiful female spirit. He often depicted with one foot on
Speaker 3: the road, one foot on the grass. The human foot
Speaker 3: is on the road, and the hoof of the animal
Speaker 3: foot is hidden, often hidden in the grass.
Speaker 7: Whatever.
Speaker 3: And it would often approach men at night and ask
Speaker 3: to walk with them.
Speaker 7: And it it has a.
Speaker 3: It's related to crossing water. Like evil can't cross water
Speaker 3: on its own, so these these spirits or whatever, it
Speaker 3: would either harvest your looche or like feet off you
Speaker 3: or you know, you'd you'd have to help it cross
Speaker 3: water or bridges. And my grandfather told me one time
Speaker 3: he was he was coming from the movie cinema late night.
Speaker 3: A beautiful and fair l you know, white dress, walked
Speaker 3: up to him and started walking next to him. But
Speaker 3: you know, he's grown up like spiritually where he quickly
Speaker 3: realized himself what was going on. And at the time
Speaker 3: he was smoking cigarettes, so he lit a matchstick. She
Speaker 3: immediately disappeared with the cackle and taunted him you get.
Speaker 7: Away, it is time ha ha, And it just disappeared.
Speaker 3: And these these these were like common common things you know,
Speaker 3: in the nineteen hundreds, grown up, even even up until now, that.
Speaker 4: Was great telling.
Speaker 5: Was there any association with salt?
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm glad you mentioned salt. So, so how do
Speaker 7: you so?
Speaker 3: One of the questions I would, yeah, So one of.
Speaker 7: The questions I was had grown I was like, how
Speaker 7: do you you know? How do you how do you tell?
Speaker 3: If you know, how do you tell who's the sokenya
Speaker 3: or whatever in the village. So one way, which was
Speaker 3: a popular folklore, was.
Speaker 7: Like on the main road you.
Speaker 3: Would just draw with a line of salt, and whoever
Speaker 3: was the souken, you couldn't cross that line of salt.
Speaker 3: It would curse, it would spit, and then you you'd
Speaker 3: have a like a little sense that hey, maybe this
Speaker 3: is the soulken.
Speaker 7: He So, salt plays a big.
Speaker 3: Part in warding off spirits and evil. I've had I
Speaker 3: got a couple of stories with with some family members
Speaker 3: and spiritual battles and using salt, pepper, onion skins, garlic skins,
Speaker 3: and fire. You know that was a popular thing to
Speaker 3: ward off or enemies evil.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up at starting because
Speaker 4: the like, I think the idea of West Indian stortry
Speaker 4: gets a little It's not that it's inflated, because I
Speaker 4: think it has tons of potential. It's really cool, it's
Speaker 4: really it seems really powerful. But I think that in
Speaker 4: like the more western cult circles, it gets like sort
Speaker 4: of inflated to the sense where it's like this and yeah,
Speaker 4: sure it can be like a crazy mountain man religion
Speaker 4: with like your summing lightning and all that, but I
Speaker 4: think really at its core it's about household magic and
Speaker 4: it's about like what do you have to use to
Speaker 4: treat practical spiritual ailments that you are facing like a sukion,
Speaker 4: like a dyabless or like a Gungang Sarahs they would
Speaker 4: call her in Jamaica. So I just I think that
Speaker 4: that is the most interesting part. It's practical. It's like
Speaker 4: practical to deal with what you have and then also
Speaker 4: practical to use what you have. So I think that's
Speaker 4: really interesting for me is that it's it's like you
Speaker 4: don't it's not you don't even need the botanic or culture,
Speaker 4: because everything you sort of need, you kind of like
Speaker 4: are built in, like you have it all in your house,
Speaker 4: you know, like to say this thing or this prayer
Speaker 4: or this mantra, and yeah, it's all dealt with. It's
Speaker 4: very much like Indonesian folk magic and even the same
Speaker 4: spirits like we have. Like the camel toad. It's not
Speaker 4: a joke. It's like she has camel's feet and there
Speaker 4: or horse feet sometimes and she wears she has shackles,
Speaker 4: sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes she floats, sometimes she doesn't. And
Speaker 4: then the sort of Dikinis or the Sukians, we would
Speaker 4: say that those are just unenlightened dikinis obviously because they're
Speaker 4: trying to brownprize you. But they often live in trees
Speaker 4: like mango trees, banana trees, so there's a lot like
Speaker 4: my grandparents would never let us like pick any fruit
Speaker 4: trees after dark and not even near not even near dusk.
Speaker 5: That's so weird. That's the same I'm here, sorry.
Speaker 4: No please, I think that that's what's really interesting is
Speaker 4: that I can see a community even in like where
Speaker 4: I live, which is like obviously far north, but like
Speaker 4: French Canada, there's clearly some overlap. There's clearly some overlap
Speaker 4: with the indigenous stories, and then there's obviously clearly overlap
Speaker 4: with the sort of southern the hoodoo stuff, and then
Speaker 4: you're getting into like the Caribbean after that. So yeah,
Speaker 4: you're definitely seeing sort of like certain things, not necessarily religion,
Speaker 4: but practices, ideas, and maybe like the origin of like
Speaker 4: mythological figures.
Speaker 7: You could say, Elle, did you want to say something?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to help you. I was going
Speaker 5: to say that everything you were saying is so parallel
Speaker 5: to the way I grew up in that when you
Speaker 5: said about electricity, my grandmothers did not really particularly care
Speaker 5: for it. You know, they try to turn everything off
Speaker 5: or at least not have it on, have the windows open,
Speaker 5: and you know, always outside. You know, we grew up
Speaker 5: that way. They almost had a saying that don't be
Speaker 5: inside so much. It'll make you sick because of all
Speaker 5: the electricity. And granted, I mean they grew up in
Speaker 5: the Great Depression, or they grew up with They grew
Speaker 5: up outside. You know, they they knew how to cook outside.
Speaker 5: I think I told Nick about this, how my grandmother
Speaker 5: grew up cooking outside. There was no, and it was
Speaker 5: with fire and stuff. There was no electricity whatsoever out
Speaker 5: houses the whole thing, right. But then the other thing
Speaker 5: that you were talking about is we have I guess
Speaker 5: a lure or whatever called the Letusa. I don't know
Speaker 5: if you've ever heard of that, but it's a witch
Speaker 5: that is disguised as an owl. Specifically, I think it's
Speaker 5: not the barn owl, but I think it's of course
Speaker 5: the name. What is the me right now? But it
Speaker 5: will come to me here in a bit. And when
Speaker 5: the owl would come, the owl would have a certain call,
Speaker 5: and when it would say it would call out it
Speaker 5: was basically to tell you that something bad was going
Speaker 5: to happen, or that it is coming to clean the
Speaker 5: life of someone. And so one of the practices was
Speaker 5: that you would go berry garlic where you saw the owl,
Speaker 5: or you would go berry garlic in the in the
Speaker 5: area that you thought was the owl, or kind of
Speaker 5: like create like almost like not a perimeter, but something
Speaker 5: of a barrier between you your dwelling and where you
Speaker 5: heard the owl. But when the other thing is that
Speaker 5: you would not converse with it. But it's kind of
Speaker 5: funny that my grandma would say, if you wanted to
Speaker 5: know who the witch was, you would say, you would
Speaker 5: ask her vent Portu, Chile, and so the next person
Speaker 5: that would ask you for salsa or for chili or
Speaker 5: whatever would be the actual witch. So yeah, that's all
Speaker 5: I got for my story.
Speaker 4: That was great, Lisa, thank you.
Speaker 6: I remember back in the day when I was a kid,
Speaker 6: we didn't know of the tale of like not picking
Speaker 6: from a fruit trees or something.
Speaker 4: Would you say again, So my grandparents would never let
Speaker 4: us pick fruit trees aft like at dusk, because that's
Speaker 4: when the pontiana, the vampire ladies, that's when they come.
Speaker 4: That's like where they live right during they sleep there
Speaker 4: during the day. But so it's okay to pick the tree,
Speaker 4: but they get they start to wake.
Speaker 6: Up in the weird weird reasoning behind it. I remember
Speaker 6: this my grandparents' house out in Long Island. Is that
Speaker 6: like they would say, like don't because leave it, or
Speaker 6: that there was bat specter, and like it wasn't even
Speaker 6: them making it up a line, because like eventually once
Speaker 6: I got it, like a little bit older, they would
Speaker 6: they had a cherry tree and we would pick up
Speaker 6: ones off the ground and we would literally throw them
Speaker 6: up in the air, and you do that enough and
Speaker 6: you'd see these motherfuckers start swooping for them. And I
Speaker 6: was like it was amazement, as like a kid watching
Speaker 6: bats to die for.
Speaker 2: I was like, yo, this is crazy. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 2: what are my memories as a child. I thought was wild?
Speaker 5: Aren't aren't some fruit trees pollinated by bats and it
Speaker 5: only happens at night. And so because they would tell us.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you froze up, Lisa, you still frozen?
Speaker 7: Sorry, guys, they don't want us to know this information.
Speaker 6: Guys, yeah about bats. Yeah, you're back, You're back, all right?
Speaker 6: Please continue?
Speaker 5: Okay, sorry, just that I said. I don't know how
Speaker 5: much it cut out, but that bats pollinate fruit at night.
Speaker 5: There are certain trees that that are pollinated by bats
Speaker 5: at night. And then also they would tell us not
Speaker 5: to go into the trees at night because there were
Speaker 5: certain deities in there.
Speaker 2: There was another thing.
Speaker 6: Sometimes they had a huge weeping willow, like giant antic
Speaker 6: and we would take them and go underneath the wiping
Speaker 6: willow and we will look up inside, and if you
Speaker 6: throw them up, sometimes the bats would be in there
Speaker 6: and you'd see them swooping for the wild.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a crazy.
Speaker 5: The reason I say this is because bats are associated
Speaker 5: with vampires, and so that's the whole like like go between.
Speaker 4: No, there's definitely a crossover, especially when you look at well,
Speaker 4: I'm going to talk about Indonesia for a second, but like, yeah,
Speaker 4: they have huge vampire bats. They have huge fruit bats,
Speaker 4: like they have everything. So it's like a very and
Speaker 4: then the teat is the same, like South America is
Speaker 4: the same. They have I don't think they have vampire bats,
Speaker 4: but they have like a lot of big They're pretty big.
Speaker 4: From what I remember, I think that they're quite a
Speaker 4: large species of variety, and so I think that yeah,
Speaker 4: I think there's absolutely a connection. But I also think
Speaker 4: something Outsidarian said was caught my attention was that the
Speaker 4: seba tree or the silk cotton tree, this is a
Speaker 4: very important tree in Mexico for like Aztecs as well
Speaker 4: as like Centric It's very like Mayan, like that is
Speaker 4: the access mandy, that's the world pillar. But I think
Speaker 4: this is where I can bring something interesting. Is this
Speaker 4: super important in Tntra, super important in Taoism, and it's
Speaker 4: super important in just general Asian cosmology as a tree
Speaker 4: that where ancestors live as well as where sort of God.
Speaker 4: I guess the ideas he kind of like the fingers
Speaker 4: of heaven are like kind of dappling the leaves, and
Speaker 4: so it has the most connection. It's like the most
Speaker 4: connection between heaven and earth. It's like the anteaque that
Speaker 4: you could say. And it's very important in Chinese medicine,
Speaker 4: used as generally it's used for urinary tract infections and lungs,
Speaker 4: but it used to be used as an abortive sea fan,
Speaker 4: so that is kind of interesting. And it is used
Speaker 4: in folk magic a lot for cleansing, and I know
Speaker 4: Antarrea they use the leaves for cleansing, and I believe
Speaker 4: it's for alegua, but I can't remember specifically. So nobody,
Speaker 4: like nobody email me or on me saying that's wrong.
Speaker 4: That might be wrong, okay, but it's a very it's
Speaker 4: a in the mallow family actually, so it's a very
Speaker 4: interesting sort of because mallows are somewhat like roses and
Speaker 4: they can be interchangeable. They often have five petals. If
Speaker 4: you look at a silk cotton tree, it is kind
Speaker 4: of like crazy very papaya orange has five petals. It's
Speaker 4: just it looks like it's on fire. That's another really
Speaker 4: interesting thing about suba trees. When they're in bloom, they
Speaker 4: literally look like someone lit a blazing fire in the distance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if the sun catches it just right, it looks
Speaker 5: like it's because the leaves are just kind of going
Speaker 5: back and forth. Yes, I know exactly what you're talking.
Speaker 7: About, So yeah, I could.
Speaker 3: I'd like to to talk about what Jim mentioned about
Speaker 3: don't pick fruits at dust, because I could definitely relate
Speaker 3: to learn about that.
Speaker 7: I could add a few things on that.
Speaker 3: It definitely spirits in certain trees, and like the mango trees,
Speaker 3: the coconut trees, things of that nature. And I remember
Speaker 3: my cousin told me that his grandfather told my uncles
Speaker 3: don't cut down they wanted to build a house on
Speaker 3: the land. He's like, don't cut down these mango trees,
Speaker 3: all right, just don't cut down these mango trees.
Speaker 7: So what happened?
Speaker 3: He passes up, my grandfather passes away, and what do
Speaker 3: they do. My cousin wants to build a house.
Speaker 7: He cuts down the mango tree.
Speaker 3: Like a few days after, my aunt just wakes up
Speaker 3: paralyzed with this black shadow pressing on her and she
Speaker 3: could move and he just says, why did you interfere
Speaker 3: with my tree? But you know in the training accent,
Speaker 3: why did you why interfare with my tree?
Speaker 7: And it was it.
Speaker 3: Basically threatened to kill the family within forty days and
Speaker 3: then you know they had to do what they had
Speaker 3: to do to survive. But it was like it was
Speaker 3: like a movie. They would try to get the priest
Speaker 3: over to you know, do the ceremonies and whatever. There'd
Speaker 3: be a black dog comes out of nowhere just tackles
Speaker 3: this priest and he's a little crippled. He can't even
Speaker 3: get to finish the ceremony, but he makes it on
Speaker 3: time for the time and of the moon. And then
Speaker 3: they do what they got to do, and you know
Speaker 3: they keep this uh, this spirit at bay. But there, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's something all if I want to talk about is
Speaker 3: the people that they're connected to the land and the homestead.
Speaker 3: Is they understand that the sacred boundaries between day and night,
Speaker 3: work and rest, physical and spiritual. Is anyone familiar with
Speaker 3: the nocturnal do or nostoc the nocturnal do? Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: so I'll just say it's a little context and background.
Speaker 3: When when I was younger and visiting family in trad
Speaker 3: I remember one late evening while we were gathered side
Speaker 3: an elder aunt saint to my cousin who was a
Speaker 3: new mother and had a baby daughter, cover her head.
Speaker 3: Don't stay outside too long, bring her inside soon. And
Speaker 3: I was like, why is she covering her head? She
Speaker 3: replied the do so I knew right away what she
Speaker 3: meant without having to explain. So you ever seen the
Speaker 3: fresh dew in the grass or in the garden in
Speaker 3: the morning, So yeah, there were even if it didn't
Speaker 3: rain the night before, there will be some morning dew.
Speaker 3: Where is this moisture coming from? So spiritually, the moon
Speaker 3: rules over the night, and the element is water, which
Speaker 3: is related to the astral plane. And you know in
Speaker 3: the Nostoc in the Western tradition is a nocturnal This
Speaker 3: is from Adriana. This Anthroposophus, somequoting from Nostoc is what
Speaker 3: the ancients called the unconscious atavistic do connected to the
Speaker 3: moon and what human beings experienced in the night. It
Speaker 3: is connected to the past, and it is the do
Speaker 3: of the alchemist and the unconscious inspiration we received from
Speaker 3: spiritual world which enters into our daily life when we
Speaker 3: wake up in the morning. It is the dream consciousness
Speaker 3: of our karma. Right, so atophistic if audience is not aware,
Speaker 3: it's uh, it's it's referring to a recurrence or a
Speaker 3: reversion of a pastyle manner, outlook, approach, activity, or practice.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's looked upon as not evolved, so it's devolved.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So I found that interesting. With the with
Speaker 3: the dow is connected with you know, don't pick.
Speaker 7: Fruits at the night.
Speaker 3: You know, this is a very spiritual time where you know,
Speaker 3: the activity is increased and you know, things go bump
Speaker 3: in the night.
Speaker 7: So I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 4: That's incredibly interesting. I didn't know about the dew so
Speaker 4: the event the Western or the Caribbean versions. I thank
Speaker 4: you for holling. I did want to add one thing
Speaker 4: that I thought was interesting a little bit earlier, but
Speaker 4: it also related to the fruit trees. Is there's a
Speaker 4: lot of spells. I'm not talking about tntra, but sometimes
Speaker 4: people will call it tntra, but it's not really tntras.
Speaker 4: That's really black magic. It's where you contract the spirits
Speaker 4: of the fruit tree. So like those kind of sukan
Speaker 4: the female vampires, and you contract them for not just
Speaker 4: for enemies, but also for love, to make people fall
Speaker 4: in love with you, or to win the lottery or
Speaker 4: different things like that. And so you one thing I
Speaker 4: know for Indonesians or people from Cernamrigiana will understand this
Speaker 4: is they put the golden nails sou soup is what
Speaker 4: we call it in Bahasa. So they put golden nails
Speaker 4: into the tree right at dusk, and usually they speak
Speaker 4: their name three times and then they tie a red
Speaker 4: string around it, and then a red string around their toe,
Speaker 4: and so the red string is never to come off
Speaker 4: otherwise than it's like fair game. But for as long
Speaker 4: as the red string is unbroken between the tree and
Speaker 4: the toe, mean that like each individual string is still
Speaker 4: intact and the nail is still intact, then you can
Speaker 4: ask for you know, favors or gifts. So I just
Speaker 4: I think that's really interesting because it's like they are
Speaker 4: such a presence. So there's like a whole magical system
Speaker 4: that's developed like around and with them using higher technology,
Speaker 4: like higher contric ideas higher contric philosophy, but like in
Speaker 4: a very worldly way.
Speaker 1: We'll say, So I'd like to tie that to some
Speaker 1: to called the Buckman, the Buckman is a something in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean.
Speaker 7: It's basically dwarf. Dwarf people a tribe.
Speaker 3: From Guyana and they're you know, they're like a small
Speaker 3: tribe of you know, dwarfs, and they basically they're able
Speaker 3: to grant you wishes if you take care of them
Speaker 3: and you feed them.
Speaker 7: So the legend and the tail always goes.
Speaker 3: They start off, you know, with with just like some fruits,
Speaker 3: you know, just give me some fruits, and and then
Speaker 3: it evolves into okay, can I get a chicken until
Speaker 3: it gets into your first born. That's often that's often, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, what's what's been told in the stories, and
Speaker 3: a lot of times they get success by this. So
Speaker 3: you'll see someone in in the village have a thriving
Speaker 3: business that's so competitive and people are like, man, you know,
Speaker 3: that's great, what's what's he doing? And they'll they'll say, oh,
Speaker 3: he has a buck you know that that's something common.
Speaker 3: So it's curious is it called the bucking Ghana because
Speaker 3: I know there is some similarities, like the Succanese called
Speaker 3: the fire ross in Guyana.
Speaker 4: So I don't actually know the term for those for
Speaker 4: like that specific category of beings but we have the
Speaker 4: exact same idea in Buddhism, the exact same idea in Indonesia,
Speaker 4: So they would just be like Yaksha's or just like
Speaker 4: small kind of like uh yeah, they're just well, there's
Speaker 4: actually Jamaican idea that's very similar to the Mommi Wata,
Speaker 4: so she is like the mermaids of the clear and
Speaker 4: sweet water. So that's how they start out too, like beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they'll maybe have sex with you or whatever, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's all good, it's all good. You're just giving them
Speaker 4: perfume and fruits, and then then they want something more
Speaker 4: than they want something more, but then they're granting you
Speaker 4: a little more. So I think that the I think
Speaker 4: there's definitely a continuity. I mean, I know exactly what
Speaker 4: you're talking about. I just can't think of what they're
Speaker 4: actually called.
Speaker 7: Gotcha all good? Oh good.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there is some similar term in Guyana and
Speaker 3: a surname because you know it's.
Speaker 7: Coming from that area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe to call it a different tribe of you know,
Speaker 3: maybe the indigenous name.
Speaker 7: But I always thought that was a very interesting tale.
Speaker 4: Well, the Yakshas are in charge or those like kind
Speaker 4: of gnome like nature spirits. They're in charge of the
Speaker 4: earth treasury. That's how we would describe it. And like
Speaker 4: obviously you know this from the promise. Yeah, so I
Speaker 4: mean it makes sense even in that cosmology that you
Speaker 4: would have like they're a little race of dwarf like
Speaker 4: bankers kind of that live under the earth.
Speaker 2: Plane around. It's all good, No, keep going, jin, I
Speaker 2: didn't mean to rupt.
Speaker 4: Oh no, that's okay. I just was saying, like, it
Speaker 4: does also make sense, like even in the broader like
Speaker 4: a pronic cosmology, you could just say they're yakshas, they're
Speaker 4: like the bankers. They're king is Kubera, so he doesn't
Speaker 4: grant any of these like lower wishes, but his hosts
Speaker 4: they can. So that's also like tying back to the
Speaker 4: DVAPA thing, like what are these like nature spirits if
Speaker 4: not hosts of a greater deity? I think that's an
Speaker 4: interesting concept.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good concept, are very good. Indeed, they're definitely connected.
Speaker 3: I think there's a sometimes a chain between the different
Speaker 3: beings or hierarchies.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 7: What did I want to chat about? So there's also
Speaker 7: so there's there's also.
Speaker 3: The dwe right, So there's it's traditionally it's unbaptized children.
Speaker 3: That guy and and these spirits they have backward feet,
Speaker 3: and they're often seen in forests, and groups are single
Speaker 3: and dwins will are known to chase you to get
Speaker 3: you frightened and scared and then get you lost and
Speaker 3: you're found dazed and confused in thorny patches of the forest.
Speaker 3: And I was always like, what's the point of that,
Speaker 3: Like what they're just scaring people? And and people would
Speaker 3: come out with like white hair, and like there's a
Speaker 3: constant theme that you hear, like, oh man, this guy,
Speaker 3: you know, twenty four year old had full black headed hair,
Speaker 3: comes out the forest with full, full head of white hair,
Speaker 3: so he was obviously very.
Speaker 7: Scared and whatnot. And then it's it.
Speaker 3: I just I just think maybe it's loosehart, you know,
Speaker 3: it's just just getting there's a high energy. If it's
Speaker 3: not blood, it's is your emotional energy. You're loose, right,
Speaker 3: So it is. That's that's the theme I've seen with
Speaker 3: like trying to figure out the why, like why why
Speaker 3: are these entities acting the way that they do, or
Speaker 3: what what's the purpose?
Speaker 7: I get the blood part, it's you know the.
Speaker 3: Electric energy, you know, the spiritual energy contained in the
Speaker 3: magnetic properties.
Speaker 7: So I could see that, but it also ties into
Speaker 7: you know, emotional energy from fear, you know, things of
Speaker 7: that nature.
Speaker 4: No, that's the one hundred percent makes sense to me,
Speaker 4: Like you would have spirits that cannot pass And I
Speaker 4: think that that's something interesting about like the Caribbean and
Speaker 4: like maybe the south you could say, like the continental
Speaker 4: part of North America that's like wherelease it lives or
Speaker 4: you know, like Mexico or all that. I think that
Speaker 4: there is like an energy there because it is equatorial,
Speaker 4: as you said in the very beginning, And so I
Speaker 4: think that maybe it's actually harder for this if I'm like,
Speaker 4: just it's just a theory, but maybe it's harder for
Speaker 4: spirits to pass through fully, or maybe people are more
Speaker 4: engaged with them so they're more readily appearent, like they
Speaker 4: can more readily appear orreas in North America. They don't.
Speaker 4: It seems to be for me, it seems to be
Speaker 4: like a lot more. Yeah, they're probably here, but you know,
Speaker 4: most people aren't necessarily having like daily experiences or like
Speaker 4: especially with these other classes, Like I think people have
Speaker 4: a lot of like what they think of as ghost experiences,
Speaker 4: but very people, few people have experience with like these
Speaker 4: greater entity entities or they don't know how to define them.
Speaker 4: So I think that that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, and just time, it just seems some of
Speaker 3: these spirits are like to your point, like purgatory, like
Speaker 3: in a state of limbo between you know.
Speaker 7: Death and the afterlife.
Speaker 3: With the taral, which is you know, a female that's
Speaker 3: that's died in childbirth. That's such a powerful experience death
Speaker 3: in life right there, you know, the dwin these unbaptized children.
Speaker 7: So yeah, there's.
Speaker 3: There's a theme of you know, restless spirits and uh
Speaker 3: in trim that a common practice is from from a
Speaker 3: historical standpoint with like the Spanish, for example, the Spanish
Speaker 3: would sacrifice their firstborn child with their treasure, like their
Speaker 3: gold and and you know in different different parts of
Speaker 3: the land and whatnot. And this was Spanish magic. And
Speaker 3: there's accounts that I've come across from family members and
Speaker 3: and just people talking about that that have dreams about, oh,
Speaker 3: there's some buried treasure in my backyard. But you always
Speaker 3: told don't take that up, you know, just leave it alone.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't want to touch that. And there's
Speaker 3: even my my dad told me he was in Guyana
Speaker 3: at one point. I got I gotta say, Guyana is
Speaker 3: to charge the vibration of that space. You know, it's
Speaker 3: it's so close to the equator and Amazon rainforest is
Speaker 3: just so much pristine, lush greenery. And he was there,
Speaker 3: and he was at one time he was staying by
Speaker 3: his friend's estate and there was a strange dutch Man
Speaker 3: that came by.
Speaker 7: And then he did.
Speaker 3: He did whatever he chanced he had to do, and
Speaker 3: some some like chess came up with like you know,
Speaker 3: like coins and certain things, and then he was basically
Speaker 3: asking who wants to do trades, you know, like a deal,
Speaker 3: and the people on.
Speaker 7: The line I was like, no, no, we're good, we're good.
Speaker 7: Keep it moving, bro, keep it moving. And he's like,
Speaker 7: all right, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 3: And then he started saying his mantras are well whatever
Speaker 3: he was saying in his prayers, and some of the
Speaker 3: treasure was not going back, and he looked around and
Speaker 3: he was like, somebody picked up one of my coins,
Speaker 3: and if you don't want trouble, you better return of
Speaker 3: that coin, like right away. And it took him a
Speaker 3: little while or whatever, you know, but someone actually you know,
Speaker 3: came forward with with with one of those coins and
Speaker 3: I just want to tie that and yeah, and then
Speaker 3: he left after that and whatever. It could have been worse.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of there's a lot of like
Speaker 3: magic with with the with the family members. In Trinidad,
Speaker 3: one of the superstitions is your firstborn is very very powerful.
Speaker 7: Especially firstborn sons are.
Speaker 3: Targeted sometimes in magic and and and attacks. So it's
Speaker 3: it's really interesting with some of the superstitions and the
Speaker 3: science behind it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a great place to maybe discuss
Speaker 4: a little bit before we end. Is that sorry that
Speaker 4: kind of I'm taking your job. Maybe we talk about
Speaker 4: like the Oba man and like who that is and
Speaker 4: how he becomes you know, who he is and why
Speaker 4: he is the way he is because I think this
Speaker 4: idea of like like we have that idea too, of
Speaker 4: like a child, like an unbaptized child deity that protects treasure.
Speaker 4: This is more of a tie thing, but it's very
Speaker 4: popular in all of Asia. It's called a Kumin tongue,
Speaker 4: and so it's like a little child spirit, very a
Speaker 4: legua that you feed a lot of people feed it blood.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying they do that. I don't have one,
Speaker 4: so you know, I'm not abdicating it. I'm just saying
Speaker 4: something people do and or they feed it food, or
Speaker 4: they feed it, they give it toys and like cologne
Speaker 4: and all this stuff. So they treat it like a
Speaker 4: real child, and it supposedly can do like little jobs
Speaker 4: for you once you get it to be like powerful
Speaker 4: or you know, mature enough. And so yeah, it totally
Speaker 4: makes sense to me in a metaphysical way that like
Speaker 4: I'm not saying child's arch christ like for treasure, but
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, like I get why they would do
Speaker 4: that and then create like a sort of a gin
Speaker 4: you could say, or an aggregate or like a protector
Speaker 4: spirit to guard that treasure. And there are obviously you
Speaker 4: cannot really discuss the Caribbean without discussing the British West
Speaker 4: India collaboration. So and just like the unbelievable role that
Speaker 4: they played in sort of shaping both modern like the
Speaker 4: piracy of the time, but also like the inter island commerce.
Speaker 4: It's also interesting to note about Obaman is that Duddy Bookman,
Speaker 4: who was one of the I would say the chief.
Speaker 4: They called him the Chief Bokhorp, so the chief sorcerer.
Speaker 4: He led the ritual to before the slaves went to
Speaker 4: war with the French and Haiti. He was actually from
Speaker 4: Trinidad originally, but his father was a British Jamaican and
Speaker 4: his mother was an Afro Arrowwok woman from Jamaica. So
Speaker 4: he actually brought these kind of new rituals what became
Speaker 4: incorporated into voodoo. I'm just saying that there was a
Speaker 4: magic and the inter island trade. They're both very interlinked,
Speaker 4: like even the treasure stuff, like they would have the
Speaker 4: sorcerers on the ships to not just navigate weather, but
Speaker 4: also to find these hidden treasures or protect them with
Speaker 4: like gayas or like sigils or you know whatever they're doing.
Speaker 4: So I just think that that's kind of interesting as well.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you have anything to add. I'm
Speaker 4: sorry I rambled a little bit, but I.
Speaker 2: Don't apologize and you want to get anything you want
Speaker 2: to answer to that? Yeah, let me see.
Speaker 7: Let me's just do my thoughts together here.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you on the spot.
Speaker 7: No, No, it's all good. No, that's all good. Uh uh
Speaker 7: no nothing at the moment. What else can we.
Speaker 3: Talk about is there and you guys had any questions
Speaker 3: to help direct you know some.
Speaker 4: Of what we're talking about.
Speaker 5: I was going to interject a little bit with I
Speaker 5: know that you've talked about I've heard of Duan Day
Speaker 5: Tata Duan Day as being part of the Mayan at
Speaker 5: least from the Yucatan area. But then also you see
Speaker 5: in the Meshika, which is Central Mexico, Aztec and they
Speaker 5: have also the belief of children that have died either
Speaker 5: childbirth or before baptism or not baptism, because it was
Speaker 5: pre Spanish, but I think also it carried over to
Speaker 5: when the Spanish conquest. And I'll tell you why here
Speaker 5: in a second, is that they believe the souls of
Speaker 5: the children were the monarch butterflies, and that and yeah,
Speaker 5: and that obviously you know with the monarch butterfly, they
Speaker 5: migrate down and they all land in this specific area
Speaker 5: of central Mexico during all Souls Day. And so it
Speaker 5: is between October thirty first and or second when all
Speaker 5: of the monarchs have made their journey all the way
Speaker 5: down to Central Mexico, and they basically swarm this one
Speaker 5: area and completely cover all the vegetation, all the trees
Speaker 5: and everything, and it is said that is the children
Speaker 5: who have died, or you know, the souls of the
Speaker 5: children and they have returned. So it's when you said
Speaker 5: that about the children, it reminded me of the belief
Speaker 5: system of the Michiga and the Miands.
Speaker 4: You know, there's something absolutely to what both what you
Speaker 4: just said, Lisa, but then also Absidarian said about like
Speaker 4: how people on the land will have like a reference
Speaker 4: of a frame of time that is outside of our
Speaker 4: sort of modern conceptual time. They're kind of connected to
Speaker 4: the cycles, so like that transmigratory cycle of the butterfly,
Speaker 4: they're going to be aware of that. They're going to
Speaker 4: understand that it's a sign. They're going to understand why
Speaker 4: it's a sign, what it means, and they have assigned
Speaker 4: a whole cosmological story to it. So I think that
Speaker 4: that's what I was trying to say with about the
Speaker 4: Obama like who is he's not? The people will say
Speaker 4: it's a shaman, It's not really a shaman. He's really
Speaker 4: a sorcerer. This is kind of what sets Obaa apart
Speaker 4: from maybe the more you could say indigenous oriented religions
Speaker 4: or even the more institutional forms of voodoo or Santa
Speaker 4: Ria from the other islands, is that he's really a sorcerer.
Speaker 4: He's almost like it's almost always a sorcerer for hire.
Speaker 4: And interestingly, if you look at the more Christian oriented Obeia,
Speaker 4: they say that they're Moses. Often that's a dream they'll have,
Speaker 4: is like they'll have a dream of Moses, like the
Speaker 4: Christian Moses coming down from the mountain, and he will
Speaker 4: give them, not any kind of physical thing, but it's
Speaker 4: often knowledge. So it's kind of interesting just from a
Speaker 4: metaphysical perspective, like you have this figure dressed in white,
Speaker 4: very like Judeo Christian. But then yeah, he very popular
Speaker 4: figure among Afro Christians as well because he represents the
Speaker 4: liberation of the slaves. So you kind of have this
Speaker 4: idea of like Papa Moses. I know in Saint Lucia
Speaker 4: they have a whole myth and a mountain that they
Speaker 4: say that this is where the main mountain where he
Speaker 4: comes down. And it's also interesting in connection to Mexico,
Speaker 4: there's a tree called angels Trumpet. I'm sure Lisa's kind
Speaker 4: of familiar with their Brugmancia, and so that also grows
Speaker 4: indigenously in like all of the Caribbean, all the places
Speaker 4: we're talking about. So this is obviously related to the
Speaker 4: Detera plant, except it's actually a little more it's not
Speaker 4: as crazy, very powerful. Don't do it. I'm not saying
Speaker 4: they do it. So I'm just saying it's a little
Speaker 4: more contained. It's a little less. Oh it's a little
Speaker 4: less like what detura is. So it's and it smells
Speaker 4: really great. It has like an incredible smelling is like
Speaker 4: a Schuperosa bush. So it's kind of one of the
Speaker 4: signs is like the Saint Lucy, Saint Lucia, like the
Speaker 4: the it's like the light from the eyes. So it's
Speaker 4: like Moses. So there's a big yellow Brugmansia. That's how
Speaker 4: it's considered is it's it's on the on a mountain,
Speaker 4: there's a yellow bush. It's it gathers you could say monarchs,
Speaker 4: you could say humming birds. Then then that's the dream.
Speaker 4: It's like that's the dream. And it's like the burn bush,
Speaker 4: but it's not really burning. It's just like all the
Speaker 4: you know, God's creation or whatever however you're describing it.
Speaker 4: So it's like all of that coming together. Moses has
Speaker 4: made just like the hosts. Maybe you could say like
Speaker 4: the Sukions or the the DBA, but it's like the
Speaker 4: host coming into the one. Then you get the he
Speaker 4: touches your forehead, you get some kind of dream or
Speaker 4: maybe a waking dream. I've heard both things, to be honest,
Speaker 4: I read a book called Oba and Other Powers, not
Speaker 4: in preparation for this episode, but in undergrad and he
Speaker 4: the most common story was actually gifts of healing, so
Speaker 4: it would always be about like how to heal. But
Speaker 4: people are complicated beings, so they don't always want to
Speaker 4: use that power for healing. They often want to use
Speaker 4: that power to make money. Or sometimes they say the
Speaker 4: obmn is so powerful that he curses people simply for
Speaker 4: a penny, just because he can. So it's someone with
Speaker 4: like very it's almost like a supernatural level being, but
Speaker 4: they're also human. And then also something out of starting
Speaker 4: and said the black animals. I know this is also
Speaker 4: very popular in Mexico, this idea of the witch or
Speaker 4: the sorcerer becoming a black pig or a black dog
Speaker 4: or a black bird. That's very common. So you have
Speaker 4: this also as well, Like you have this same idea,
Speaker 4: and I think I think the most interesting thing to
Speaker 4: me about West Indian magic is how simple credit it
Speaker 4: is without sort of losing its identity. So you could
Speaker 4: easily go into a botanica, put together a box of
Speaker 4: things and then give it to anyone on any island.
Speaker 4: They might use it a different way, but they would
Speaker 4: all know exactly how to use it. They would have
Speaker 4: a like I say, you would give them an oil,
Speaker 4: a candle, maybe a couple of roots. They would all
Speaker 4: know what to do. I do think that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 6: Jin You know what's interesting. When I lived out in
Speaker 6: New York, I used to go to the Bronx. This
Speaker 6: this botanical out there was gigantic. It was huge, and
Speaker 6: like I was a ceremonial magician, you know, and there
Speaker 6: was other people I knew too, even from the lodge.
Speaker 6: And then there was witches. So many different types of
Speaker 6: people went to that store because it's just the gross
Speaker 6: of we all could use the herbs. They had tons
Speaker 6: of oils, crystals, incense was crazy, cheap as hell, candles
Speaker 6: that were good. Actually, you'd see so many different types
Speaker 6: of people going there just because of the stuff that
Speaker 6: was used in the practice was so brood.
Speaker 4: A lot of this comes down to like cabala fundamentals. Really,
Speaker 4: it's like color, candles, positionality, timing, incense, like all of
Speaker 4: those just like very basic magic, like magic one on one, yeah,
Speaker 4: right right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're practicing, it's totally right moment, it's.
Speaker 4: Like there's no real religious category that can encapsulate what
Speaker 4: that even is because it's like just taking fundamentals that
Speaker 4: are almost universal. Like of course everybody has their own
Speaker 4: system tweaks and their own cultural tweaks and their own
Speaker 4: kind of like individual mythology. But that's kind of all
Speaker 4: bullshit too in a way. In a way, you know,
Speaker 4: because it's like it's so similar, Like there's just something
Speaker 4: something so recognizable, so universal, Like when I've seen like
Speaker 4: in Mexico where it's in Texas, when they do the
Speaker 4: salt smudging where they get the you know, the cast
Speaker 4: iron pan really hot and they have the salt there
Speaker 4: and they sprinkle the herbs or they do the spiritual batya,
Speaker 4: like we have that same idea. We call it Mandi bunga,
Speaker 4: like the exact same idea, Like you know, like we
Speaker 4: come my dad comes from like an Islamic country. You
Speaker 4: wouldn't think that that would be an idea, but they
Speaker 4: do like seven flowers. That's also a very historic Latin
Speaker 4: Latin thing to do, like the siat flies, like the
Speaker 4: bad Bano forests. So then you have like we have
Speaker 4: the same idea. Isn't that crazy? Like two different places,
Speaker 4: all the way across the world, maybe hundreds maybe thousands
Speaker 4: of years the same thing, same numbers.
Speaker 5: You know, miracles, the marigolds that are used during Day
Speaker 5: of the Dead, I believe, don't Indians also utilize the marigold.
Speaker 4: So that's a great question and great observation, Lisa, So
Speaker 4: in normative puja that miracles are one of probably the
Speaker 4: most common, like offering flowers. For normative it's more krishnava
Speaker 4: or weishnava a style, but definitely they I mean it's
Speaker 4: very common you. I mean I can find contract icons
Speaker 4: with them too. It's not so distinct, but yeah, hugely common.
Speaker 4: It's it's very solar, right, it's bringing that enerdyte that
Speaker 4: like fire of the sun like down into the spirit
Speaker 4: kind of blew down into the battle.
Speaker 7: I'd like to add with the marigols. And in the
Speaker 7: Hindu tradition it's.
Speaker 3: Called ganda, so a maragoals are also associated with Gnes,
Speaker 3: to open the worship, opened up the portals Hermes, you know, mercury,
Speaker 3: and to tie in with the obiuman. The Obiuman is
Speaker 3: the kin to Hermes, a medicine man, a bridge between
Speaker 3: the spiritual and the physical. There's a great saying I
Speaker 3: came across in Obia.
Speaker 2: It's if you.
Speaker 3: Cannot feel the spirit, you are already dead, you know.
Speaker 3: So that just lets you know they're just so connected
Speaker 3: with work in the spiritual land and even the physical land,
Speaker 3: and you know that that's that was my key takeaway,
Speaker 3: just to add on what Jin and everyone else has
Speaker 3: been saying. The connection with the land, the folk spirit,
Speaker 3: the culture, the multi generational wisdom and tradition, the oral tradition,
Speaker 3: the ghost stories. Ghost stories are a big part of
Speaker 3: my family and in in Trinidadian culture in general.
Speaker 7: You know, people hanging out at night.
Speaker 3: You know, you're grown up with your cousins and your
Speaker 3: hearing your the old timers talk about stuff like you
Speaker 3: think they're making it up, but like you know, if
Speaker 3: you know what they're talking about, and you know, you
Speaker 3: get some other eyewitnesses from your your cousins are personal experiences.
Speaker 3: You're like, wow, there is something more than just the physical.
Speaker 2: Very well, said sir. I think we'll wrap it up there.
Speaker 6: I guess if that's all right with you guys, everybody else, Lisa,
Speaker 6: this was anything you want to add.
Speaker 7: Now, just I am.
Speaker 5: I knew it was there. I had no idea how
Speaker 5: like what Jin said syncretic, how it basically blends all
Speaker 5: the different cultures and it's fascinating and that how much
Speaker 5: you see it in the different cultures over and over again.
Speaker 5: And to the point about at least growing up in
Speaker 5: Hispanic at least, the tie into very much, very much
Speaker 5: a tie into the land, and a tie into the
Speaker 5: land means to honor your dead, to honor your ancestors
Speaker 5: who have died, and then also to be respectful of
Speaker 5: spirits and ghosts and stuff. And it wasn't to be
Speaker 5: so alarmed about, but it was more of a part
Speaker 5: of your life.
Speaker 4: You know. I do a sur offering every morning, which
Speaker 4: is like burn cedar, yes today, So yeah, it's weird, right, Nick,
Speaker 4: like to use like in like Central Asia burns cedar
Speaker 4: for the spirits of the land and the dead, as
Speaker 4: well as like Native people on North America, just shows
Speaker 4: you that there's really one system a lot.
Speaker 2: Actually half an instance.
Speaker 4: If it works is the best is my favorite personal
Speaker 4: and Palo Santo like I like Paula Santoo.
Speaker 6: Yeah all right, so uh yeah, I guess we'll wrap
Speaker 6: it up here. Lisa, thank you very much as well. Jin,
Speaker 6: thank you very much, man. This was actually your idea technically,
Speaker 6: I think so yeah, this this was a great episode.
Speaker 6: I really appreciate you coming up with the idea. And Absidarian,
Speaker 6: thank you so much Man for for joining us and
Speaker 6: coming with the topic since you know, you first in
Speaker 6: this as well. Uh maybe if there's more we can
Speaker 6: talk about it in the future, but I'm sure we'll
Speaker 6: definitely have you on again, man, real quick, Absidarian, Well,
Speaker 6: actually we'll go with gen first.
Speaker 2: Jin. Let everybody know where they can find your work, please, so.
Speaker 4: Sure, I'll just keep it really quick. Thank you guys
Speaker 4: so much. Lisa Absidarian, it was honestly great to have
Speaker 4: you on. And yeah, you brought a really implementary and
Speaker 4: like incredible storytelling knowledge. So thank you for being like
Speaker 4: that on my episode, on like my idea episode. And
Speaker 4: thank you Nick obviously for asking me what my idea
Speaker 4: was and having me on.
Speaker 2: She was just taking the idea like you know some
Speaker 2: other people do only.
Speaker 4: Do Okay, well, I'm on Twitter with Hungry Born, w
Speaker 4: uk O and g Reborn and then also I have
Speaker 4: the show account at Threshold Saints. But then you can
Speaker 4: also find Threshold Saints on Spotify, Apple or anywhere you
Speaker 4: get your podcasts. So thank you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, awesome. I really appreciate you joining us and Absolutarian.
Speaker 2: Let it is up, my man. Let everybody know where
Speaker 2: they can find some of your stuff.
Speaker 7: Please, thank you, thank you. Well, it's been a great
Speaker 7: show you guys, Jim, Lisa and Nick.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you know this, this this dialogue, and
Speaker 3: it was really fun because this is not a well
Speaker 3: known topic and in general it's really very localized. So
Speaker 3: that was those fun sharing this this information. You can
Speaker 3: you can find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn no, no, no, I'm
Speaker 3: not accepting me link tree, link tree, Absidarian, Absidarian. That's
Speaker 3: that's my real LinkedIn right there, link link tree.
Speaker 4: All right, thanks guys, thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Thank you, And uh, you know, tell you truth, we
Speaker 6: still have Robert, we don't, we have Rudolph Steider Part
Speaker 6: two that eventually we will be covering and this time
Speaker 6: we will be getting Lisa with us because she is
Speaker 6: a big fan of Rudolf and she's also a huge
Speaker 6: fan of the Rosicrucians stuff. That was That was the
Speaker 6: that was the other cult reject that I told you
Speaker 6: I was trying to save you for the other Rosicruction
Speaker 6: stuff for so we definitely have plenty of things to
Speaker 6: talk about in the future. So thank you very much, sir,
Speaker 6: and uh yeah, until the next one. Everybody be well
Speaker 6: later