Speaker 1: You see something's going to happen. What what's going to happen?
Speaker 2: I'll take.
Speaker 1: What help. Welcome to the occult rejects. Today, we've got
Speaker 1: a very very special guest. It's somebody who a lot
Speaker 1: of you may already know. If you're into the occult
Speaker 1: community and you're into uh, if you're into I guess
Speaker 1: uh kind of practicing or learning about that, you probably
Speaker 1: know who this guy is. If you're into the conspiracy
Speaker 1: side of things, you may not know who he is,
Speaker 1: and that's a shame. But after today, now you will
Speaker 1: know who he is. Today we got Greg Kaminski and
Speaker 1: he is the host and producer of a cult of personality.
Speaker 1: That is a long running interview show that has been
Speaker 1: digging into the occult and esoteric since about two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, So correct, and it's with a real deal
Speaker 1: emphasis on authenticity, accuracy, and high quality conversations with practitioners
Speaker 1: and scholars from all over the world. Greg is not
Speaker 1: just an interviewer, he's also a practitioner with a long
Speaker 1: arc through Western ESO terrorism initiatory traditions, including Freemasonry, and
Speaker 1: in most recent years he's spoken openly about his very
Speaker 1: hona Buddhist practices, so you know, he's got a little
Speaker 1: bit of hands on work as well. So today I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of wanted to talk to the
Speaker 1: guy and go kind of a little bit behind the
Speaker 1: scenes what it means like to practice seriously, what changes
Speaker 1: you and like how the podcast and everything else went
Speaker 1: along with that and his I guess, you know, journey
Speaker 1: through podcasting and the occult and one. It's just amazing
Speaker 1: to even have this guy on because I remember years
Speaker 1: ago I was listening to his show, like it's just weird,
Speaker 1: like in some ways I hate to use this, I
Speaker 1: guess as a way to compare it, but like for
Speaker 1: people with the conspiracy world, everybody looks up at tenfoil Hat,
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, that's the show for me,
Speaker 1: and the cult community Cult of Personality was like just
Speaker 1: like that to me. So it's you know, it's insane
Speaker 1: that I'm having this guy on the show right now.
Speaker 1: So it's really cool for me, and I hope everybody
Speaker 1: else enjoys this. But Greg, enough out of me. Please
Speaker 1: let everybody know what your deal is and where they
Speaker 1: can find all your amazing work, sir, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Nick. It's really a pleasure to talk to you, and
Speaker 2: thanks for having me on. I appreciate it very much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can find the podcast The Cult to Personality wherever
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. And we have a membership site
Speaker 2: Chamber of Reflection dot com or Patreon to get extras
Speaker 2: or bonus parts of interviews and whatnot. So I have
Speaker 2: a few books out as well. We can probably talk
Speaker 2: about that as we go. And yeah, also I want
Speaker 2: to since we're live and streaming, I want to pimp
Speaker 2: my YouTube channel, Call to Personality a little bit. Also,
Speaker 2: uh so watch that space because I got the podcast
Speaker 2: all organized finally on there, and I'm going to be
Speaker 2: adding a lot of extra content onto YouTube. It is
Speaker 2: not part of the regular podcast, so watch for it.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Thank you very much, And if you want after
Speaker 1: the show, I'll make sure I grab that link and
Speaker 1: up even add it to the live so people can
Speaker 1: go and smash that smash that subscribe button and real quick, No,
Speaker 1: that's by my fault. I think that was my fault.
Speaker 1: I sent the link to the group chat and after
Speaker 1: the email, my apologies.
Speaker 3: I know I left the group chat. That's why, Hi, Greg,
Speaker 3: how are you doing. I'm sorry? I apologize for being.
Speaker 1: Jim Jenna has had the pleasure to have them on
Speaker 1: before Jin. Let everybody know what your deal is and
Speaker 1: where they can find all your amazing stuff, please sure.
Speaker 3: So, yes, Greg has an upcoming episode on my show.
Speaker 3: I won't announce the other thing, but I have something
Speaker 3: Greg and I have some exciting in the plant in
Speaker 3: the works, we'll say. But he also has original episode
Speaker 3: on my show, Tales from the Carnal Ground episode eight
Speaker 3: that was you know, it's like a totally nube green podcaster.
Speaker 3: Nick had just adopted me, brought me under his wing.
Speaker 3: So thank you Nick, of course. But yeah, so if
Speaker 3: you want to check me out Threshold Saints at Threshold
Speaker 3: Saints on ig and also ex Twitter, or you can
Speaker 3: follow me at Wukong Reborn to b U k O
Speaker 3: and g Reborn. And we will be having a Gray
Speaker 3: Lodge on the twenty six, which is Boxing Day, which
Speaker 3: will be a Friday night Nasig Mass. It'll be like
Speaker 3: a year in review for all all the work that
Speaker 3: we've been doing.
Speaker 2: And I have an.
Speaker 3: Episode with Finally Finally coming out Gregory Peters and Solar Exile,
Speaker 3: my co host. We have that coming out Monday on
Speaker 3: the twenty second I thought I would, you know, give
Speaker 3: it a magic aonic number. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 3: be here. Thank you so much, Nick, and of course
Speaker 3: thank you to Greg, who is a legend. Greg knows
Speaker 3: how much I found boy over him, so I won't
Speaker 3: do it too bad, but I just want to say
Speaker 3: he is a legend.
Speaker 2: Everybody be nice in the.
Speaker 3: Chat, and I'm sure they will and sub to Greg's
Speaker 3: show of course and rejects.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys.
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you very much. Man. I'm glad you glad
Speaker 1: you made it. Sorry about the whole link of mitsap
Speaker 1: to but uh yeah, all right. So Greg, something I
Speaker 1: did when I guess ask and it's kind of like
Speaker 1: what I ask about anybody who really gets into practicing
Speaker 1: or release, like maybe studying it, Like what when was it?
Speaker 1: Like do you remember like what happened to you, like
Speaker 1: at one point when you're like, I guess the occult
Speaker 1: isn't a curiosity anymore. It's it's going to be part
Speaker 1: of your life. Was it like something that or did
Speaker 1: it just kind of happen or was there a moment?
Speaker 1: How did that happen for me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of a bit of a story.
Speaker 2: So let's see, I think I was probably I don't know,
Speaker 2: somewhere around two thousand. I was working in some like
Speaker 2: technology job at a finance company, and by all standards,
Speaker 2: I was like fairly successful financially, like accomplishments at work,
Speaker 2: like getting promotions and responsibilities, and but it just it
Speaker 2: just felt completely hollow. And it was obvious like it
Speaker 2: didn't matter like what happened at work or how much
Speaker 2: money I made. It wasn't really going to do anything
Speaker 2: in terms of satisfaction or finding any kind of real
Speaker 2: meaning in my life. So I was getting a little
Speaker 2: bit frustrated. And this went on for a long time.
Speaker 2: And then at some point I got really interested in
Speaker 2: shamanism and I started reading about shamanism, and I I
Speaker 2: was checking out different different sacred substances, I guess you
Speaker 2: could say, and I stumbled upon salvia divinorum.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don know if I've heard of that.
Speaker 2: And so one night I decided, like, let's just give
Speaker 2: this a shot, because why not, right, So I did
Speaker 2: the whole thing, you know, I like I prayed for
Speaker 2: a while, I like lit the candles and some incense,
Speaker 2: and I just like tried to meditate for a bit
Speaker 2: and just think about like I'm trying to do this
Speaker 2: thing which doesn't seem directly related at all to trying
Speaker 2: to find some kind of meaning in my life, but
Speaker 2: yet I've somehow connected the two, like if I do
Speaker 2: this thing, I'll somehow get what I'm looking for. I'll
Speaker 2: find some direction in my life, something that's going to
Speaker 2: tell me like what I should be doing, where I
Speaker 2: should go. So then I smoked a salvia and had
Speaker 2: like I don't know if it was a completely out
Speaker 2: of body experience or a semi out of body experience,
Speaker 2: but it was that with like some crazy Kundalini kind
Speaker 2: of situation happening, hearing like voices and visions, and it
Speaker 2: only lasted maybe I don't know, twenty thirty seconds. It's
Speaker 2: hard to say really honestly, but I knew something had
Speaker 2: happened because it felt like i'd like kind of shot
Speaker 2: out of my head and like hit the ceiling kind
Speaker 2: of situation.
Speaker 1: I've heard that before.
Speaker 2: And afterwards I was totally confused, but I knew something
Speaker 2: had happened. And then I also knew that I felt
Speaker 2: happy without any seeming source or like cause of whatever
Speaker 2: would make me happy about that. That is interesting it was,
Speaker 2: and that lasted for like a week. I was in
Speaker 2: an uncharacteristically good mood like the whole day. And then
Speaker 2: I started trying to figure out what had happened, and
Speaker 2: that took a while. And then I finally, after asking
Speaker 2: people and not really getting any kind of positive response
Speaker 2: that was productive in any way, I kind of self
Speaker 2: diagnosed it as a Kundalini experience induced by the salvia.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying salvia does this or would do this
Speaker 2: for anyone else, but that's what happened for me. And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it happened other times. I did it,
Speaker 2: because there were other times and it didn't happen like
Speaker 2: that at all. But I mean, if we're looking seriously
Speaker 2: at trying to diagnose the cause of it, I would
Speaker 2: say it was more the intention and the prayer and
Speaker 2: the meditation and the sense of like meaninglessness and desperation
Speaker 2: and like longing for some kind of clue. That was
Speaker 2: more the culprit than the salvia itself. You know, I
Speaker 2: mentioned I mentioned that, like so yeah once, sorry, no,
Speaker 2: no go ahead.
Speaker 1: I just mentioned like a lot of like what you
Speaker 1: were saying right there has kind of been like whenever
Speaker 1: I've had some profound experiences. There was really more of
Speaker 1: the lines of where I was trying to go, like
Speaker 1: you were just saying, I may I'd have been the
Speaker 1: salvia was everything else, even the desperation or just like
Speaker 1: you know, I have I identified with what you said
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I felt like, you know, connecting that the
Speaker 2: intention and the action with the result doing it and
Speaker 2: the real like like I don't know, there's there's few
Speaker 2: times in our lives when we're like that, that like
Speaker 2: against the wall, where you just are like I gotta
Speaker 2: get some help here, please, and you know, and I
Speaker 2: think in those moments, if you can like marshal your
Speaker 2: attention in such a way, then things are possible that
Speaker 2: wouldn't maybe otherwise be possible. So anyway, with understanding it
Speaker 2: is a Cundalini experience, then that just really led to
Speaker 2: trying to understand like what that is and how to
Speaker 2: somehow make use of it. So I started like delving
Speaker 2: into the occult, esoteric, paranormal, conspiracy, all of this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. And I feel like, again like this is
Speaker 2: all in my book Entangled in Sunlight, So there's no
Speaker 2: reason not to share it with you here either, part
Speaker 2: of this whole awakening process, because that's really ultimately what
Speaker 2: it is, or at least the beginnings of it. I
Speaker 2: had a memory that i'd suppressed that kind of like
Speaker 2: came back suddenly, and it was a memory that there
Speaker 2: was no physical danger or problem or anything of that sort.
Speaker 2: But like mentally and emotionally, I was like completely I
Speaker 2: don't want to use the word traumatized, because I feel
Speaker 2: like that's an overused word, but I was shocked beyond
Speaker 2: being this altogether. So this memory like involved She's I
Speaker 2: can see even now, like trying to talk about it,
Speaker 2: I'm like a little So I'm in college. It's nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nineteen ninety one, somewhere around there. It's January. I
Speaker 2: had come back to university from Christmas break a little
Speaker 2: bit early because I just wanted to get settled and
Speaker 2: see my friends again before everything started. So I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure it was a full moon that night. So again
Speaker 2: this is like mid to late January. So we went
Speaker 2: to a party. There weren't that many people on campus
Speaker 2: at this point, but there was a party and we
Speaker 2: went and one of my friends who I went to
Speaker 2: the party with got pretty hammered and they were just
Speaker 2: not able to socialize anymore. So I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take you back to the dorm and you
Speaker 2: can sleep it off, and because that's what i'd want
Speaker 2: somebody to do for me in that situation. So we
Speaker 2: walked back to the dorm and as we're sort of
Speaker 2: approaching the rear of the dorm, this is like a
Speaker 2: six story dormitory. I don't know how many people it
Speaker 2: would house. Maybe thousand, couple thousand, I don't know. So
Speaker 2: we're sort of approaching it, and again I think it
Speaker 2: was a full moon. We're very close to it, so
Speaker 2: it's bright out dim. So I stop and I like
Speaker 2: look up, and I notice above us, really like right
Speaker 2: above the top of the dorm, there is a massive
Speaker 2: black triangle materializing out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think you're frozen.
Speaker 2: And it's there's like a red sort of ash. There's
Speaker 2: like a reddish color like on the bottom as it's
Speaker 2: like materializing in the air above us, and this thing's massive,
Speaker 2: like I don't know if you've ever seen like a
Speaker 2: battleship or something like massive, that's of like it was
Speaker 2: of that sort of size. I guess it was massive,
Speaker 2: and it didn't make any noise at all, and it
Speaker 2: didn't really it was very like stable in the floating
Speaker 2: there or appearing there, and all along the bottom of
Speaker 2: this thing, because it wasn't that far above us, you
Speaker 2: could see there were all these lights moving all around
Speaker 2: the bottom of this thing in like a very complex
Speaker 2: what looked like a circuit board sort of pattern. And
Speaker 2: I was completely frozen, like I remember, like I couldn't
Speaker 2: move a muscle and my jaw was just like hanging open.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even close my mouth. I'm not even sure
Speaker 2: I was breathing, if I'm honest, Like I like, Greg
Speaker 2: was just gone at that point, but whatever was happening,
Speaker 2: like I could there was still seeing. I was still
Speaker 2: seeing something, something was being seen. And then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, it's gone. And I look over my right
Speaker 2: sh shoulder at the horizon and there's this blue streak
Speaker 2: like moving silently as fast as I mean, as fast
Speaker 2: as you could possibly imagine, that's at the horizon. And
Speaker 2: then it's gone. And then I turned to my friend
Speaker 2: who's right next to me, and I say, what was that?
Speaker 2: And they look at me dead and eye and they're like,
Speaker 2: what was what? And at that point, something like in
Speaker 2: my brain kind of broke again, like like cause it's
Speaker 2: it had just broken already, and then it broke again.
Speaker 2: And then and then we went inside the dorm and
Speaker 2: I can't I'm completely like, I can't stop thinking about
Speaker 2: what had just happened, and I'm like, I got to
Speaker 2: tell somebody, because holy fuck, this is insane. So we
Speaker 2: go in and I know, you know, there's not many
Speaker 2: people on campus, it's really before classes began, but like,
Speaker 2: I couldn't find a single person in that building. I
Speaker 2: couldn't find another human being. I tried, I couldn't find anybody.
Speaker 2: And then I laid down because it was late, and
Speaker 2: I kept thinking, I really need to tell someone. I
Speaker 2: really need to tell someone. And then before, right before
Speaker 2: I fell asleep, I remember thinking, you can't tell anybody,
Speaker 2: because it's like, don't be ridiculous, like that's just crazy.
Speaker 2: You can't tell anybody. And then I fell asleep, and
Speaker 2: then I forgot about it for I don't know, ten
Speaker 2: or fifteen years until I had this salvia experience and
Speaker 2: started investigating all this stuff and meditating, and and then
Speaker 2: it just came right back, which again is a little weird.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you can make whatever connections you feel
Speaker 2: are necessary about that.
Speaker 1: That's wow, Jin did you know that Sloria already?
Speaker 3: So I'm familiar with it, but I'm not. I've never
Speaker 3: asked Greg to recount it for me, so it was
Speaker 3: the first time I've heard it live.
Speaker 2: So it's a.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I think that a lot of well
Speaker 3: I won't speak for Greg, but I'll just say for me,
Speaker 3: I think like a lot of my later practice of
Speaker 3: contrac Buddhism definitely came from the early your sort of
Speaker 3: quote unquote supernatural is esque kind of ish experiences, and
Speaker 3: it definitely were the contours of what I would call rigpa.
Speaker 3: Now I don't know if Greg necessarily uses that exact word,
Speaker 3: but I would say that it's like the essence of
Speaker 3: non being ness like he referred to. So I had
Speaker 3: ever gotten there per se, but I think I had
Speaker 3: touched on it, and so it kind of led me
Speaker 3: into this anti spiritualist, anti supernaturalist approach that I take
Speaker 3: more now. Not that I don't believe in you know, phenomena.
Speaker 3: I just think it mostly is of the mind. But
Speaker 3: I think those are two co creative things. I think
Speaker 3: that having the experiences and then also the experience as
Speaker 3: a mind led me to that conclusion, rather than it
Speaker 3: wasn't like I saw a spirit and then was like,
Speaker 3: oh I must worship it or I must you know,
Speaker 3: I must like I mustn't inherently believe that this whole
Speaker 3: supernatural cosmology exists. Like sure, I'm okay with that, but
Speaker 3: I also like I understand that how they appear is
Speaker 3: a reflection of my own consciousness.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like that's super relevant because even right
Speaker 2: after it happened, I remember thinking again during this period
Speaker 2: where I'm like laying down trying to figure out who
Speaker 2: to tell, was like, Okay, was this from somewhere some
Speaker 2: other planet? Was it some secret space program? Is it
Speaker 2: some hallucination? Is it some kind of like demon or
Speaker 2: angel that's like showed up in a form that it's like,
Speaker 2: this guy's gonna die if we like show our true form.
Speaker 2: Let's just come as a UFO. He'll at least, like
Speaker 2: you won't totally freak out, but I did. I don't
Speaker 2: know whatever it was, but then you know, then you
Speaker 2: kind of come to like more what you would say,
Speaker 2: substantial kind of understandings about reality. And so yeah, like
Speaker 2: I think Gene alluded to like all appearance is mind,
Speaker 2: So at least that's a way to contextualize it in
Speaker 2: such a way that I don't have to actually know
Speaker 2: any specifics other than that.
Speaker 1: That was really uh, it was a wild story. I
Speaker 1: you to share that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, thanks for letting me share. Uh.
Speaker 1: I guess after like once you started, I guess, getting
Speaker 1: into studying the occult to looking into that, what was
Speaker 1: like some of the stuff that you, I guess were
Speaker 1: first intrigued by.
Speaker 2: What was I first intrigued by?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess like when when you started getting
Speaker 1: into the occult, Like I think you said you sort
Speaker 1: of like kind of looking there for like uh stuff too,
Speaker 1: Like I guess maybe for answers or whatever for your experience.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess, like like what was it that
Speaker 1: you kind of like were interested in or like found
Speaker 1: yourself studying when you first started getting into this stuff.
Speaker 2: I think it was a combination of like I guess
Speaker 2: you would say like inner alchemical ideas because that really
Speaker 2: related to the Dealini situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I could see that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the other thing was theilema because I encountered
Speaker 2: Alan Greenfield's work, right, and so he's connecting the Men
Speaker 2: in Black and the UFO phenomena with new aon English
Speaker 2: kabbala and filima and sort of like this idea of
Speaker 2: what he called, I think ultra terrestrial intelligences, so that
Speaker 2: I felt like that was really a direct connection to
Speaker 2: like what the fuck was going on with me at
Speaker 2: that point. But turns out it wasn't as fruitful a
Speaker 2: direction of investigation as I thought, at least for me personally,
Speaker 2: but that's kind of where it started, and it led
Speaker 2: into like more I guess hermeticabala and exploring those ideas
Speaker 2: really much more in depth, like especially the work of
Speaker 2: like Paul Foster Case and his sort of like major Arcana.
Speaker 2: I remember studying that a lot, so I'd say that
Speaker 2: was kind of like the basis of it, but then
Speaker 2: it kind of went into sort of like wound back
Speaker 2: into the spiritual alchemy, Like I remember studying cases Esotere
Speaker 2: Keys of Alchemy book really in depth, and then going
Speaker 2: into David Goddard's Tower of Alchemy book and doing the
Speaker 2: practices in there, and that was I found that was
Speaker 2: probably one of the most profound things that I did,
Speaker 2: was those meditations. And it was interesting because at the
Speaker 2: time I had no way of knowing ahead of time.
Speaker 2: But like his explanations of the inner alchemy process and
Speaker 2: Vadriana and the symbols of Buddhism, and like all the
Speaker 2: ways these things were like trying to express a similar
Speaker 2: I don't want to say truth, but a similar method
Speaker 2: of practice and way of understanding.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jin, Did you want to ask anything?
Speaker 3: I do have a follow up that is adjacent, maybe derivative,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to wait for that. I just want
Speaker 3: to make one comment slash question. First is that I
Speaker 3: do agree with Greg whether he's saying, and I understand
Speaker 3: even the implication, like how difficult it is to use
Speaker 3: a specific word, whether you want to use primordial system,
Speaker 3: axial system, or perennial system, none of those are. Primordial
Speaker 3: is probably the best, but the outer understanding of that
Speaker 3: word is not well defined, so it's it's problematic. From that,
Speaker 3: It's maybe a skillful word for people who get it,
Speaker 3: but not everyone gets it. But I do think that
Speaker 3: there is I think that these systems Hermetic kabbala, Jewish
Speaker 3: kabbala even like yes, of course, like I obviously we
Speaker 3: were talking about this, and Greg and I have spoken
Speaker 3: about this extensively, and obviously we did a.
Speaker 2: Series on the snake.
Speaker 3: But like you know, when David Haym Smith is talking
Speaker 3: about like non theistic kabala, he's talking about the way
Speaker 3: that I experience the sufferer and the way that I
Speaker 3: experience the tree. So I know for a fact that
Speaker 3: what he is talking about is real. But I did
Speaker 3: not experience it through that language. I experienced it through
Speaker 3: my way. But the experiences were so similar I was
Speaker 3: able to then understand at least to a degree more
Speaker 3: fundamentally what came later, like my my, what it was
Speaker 3: confirmed for me in text, which is very similar to
Speaker 3: the way that I practice tntra and also many other
Speaker 3: people practice mantra as the text is like a sort
Speaker 3: of referential guide for the experiential wisdom. So I know
Speaker 3: that wasn't a proper question. I apologize I aggressed a little,
Speaker 3: but I just want to say that I agree with that,
Speaker 3: and it is very difficult to find what kind of
Speaker 3: common use word to describe like that. Yes, there is
Speaker 3: something there is something about Jacobs latter you if you
Speaker 3: want to call that, there's like a way to climb
Speaker 3: up and experience the non being miss or whatever you
Speaker 3: want to call it. So yeah, But then also so Greg,
Speaker 3: I know that I was surprised to learn that you
Speaker 3: did study Talima. I think it's really interesting because even
Speaker 3: though I maybe started out my podcasting careers a little
Speaker 3: bit of a Talima nag, we'll say, I actually have
Speaker 3: come to appreciate certain facets of it, especially its ability
Speaker 3: to be very American and very syncratic, which I think
Speaker 3: is cool. Actually I used to be more critical of it,
Speaker 3: but now I think actually they're trying at least they're
Speaker 3: trying to do something.
Speaker 2: So in the vein of that, in the spirit of that,
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask, for all.
Speaker 3: The people that you've interviewed over two decades pretty close,
Speaker 3: who are some of the most interesting magicians. Doesn't have
Speaker 3: to be your favorite people, just like the most interesting
Speaker 3: kind of people in the o'call world or with the
Speaker 3: most cutting edge ideas.
Speaker 2: It's a good question. It's a good question. This is
Speaker 2: a question I generally would avoid answering.
Speaker 1: You want to be playing favorite.
Speaker 3: I didn't mean to put you on the spot, right, No, No,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's more just laziness than anything.
Speaker 2: I think. The first person who comes to mind when
Speaker 2: I think about this is frodder Ashin Shassan. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I felt like the way that he like did these
Speaker 2: incredibly deep, complex magical operations with a sqrier and got like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I feel like a pretty much like
Speaker 2: the results that are commonly, you know, discussed in all
Speaker 2: the ancient texts. I find that super interesting. And I
Speaker 2: find the fact that he is a exquisite craftsman in
Speaker 2: service of his magical art to be like really inspiring.
Speaker 2: And the couple books of his that I've read have
Speaker 2: been tremendous because they're based on his experience and not
Speaker 2: on theory or some notion of practice that's not I
Speaker 2: think like born out in the success that seems evident
Speaker 2: that you know what I mean, in his life really
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know him personally, but just from
Speaker 2: what I can observe, so I feel like that's He's
Speaker 2: one person that I definitely feel is super interesting. Craig Williams.
Speaker 2: He's been on the show more than any other single
Speaker 2: person as a guest, so obviously I feel his work
Speaker 2: has been really inspiring because he has this ability to
Speaker 2: go really deep and to kind of like with his
Speaker 2: language and descriptions to I take the reader with him
Speaker 2: like two very very deep places, which is I think
Speaker 2: a really unique gift that a lot of writers and
Speaker 2: teachers don't at all have. Who else I mean Greenfield
Speaker 2: I mentioned I think his work has been super interesting
Speaker 2: just because it's it bridges worlds that you know, often
Speaker 2: don't get connected, but probably I think we all understand there,
Speaker 2: like either there's wholeness or there's not, And I say
Speaker 2: there is, So I think that's interesting. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of the interviews I've done
Speaker 2: recently have been super interesting to me, like the Alan
Speaker 2: Chapman interview, the Acci Cederberg interview, and really I felt
Speaker 2: like this most recent interview I did with Martin Fox
Speaker 2: was fucking awesome. Again, I think, you know, because it
Speaker 2: comes back to this sort of inner alchemy and inner
Speaker 2: TNTRA practice where I don't know, I'm just tremendously fascinated
Speaker 2: and interested in the whole process, how it workeds the practice,
Speaker 2: like what is involved, what's how, what's happening, what's not happening? Uh,
Speaker 2: and and the way it kind of forces me to
Speaker 2: confront all sorts of aspects about myself that I'd rather
Speaker 2: not even see and then have to deal with it's
Speaker 2: so challenging and it's so good.
Speaker 3: But wow, Yeah, Craig Williams is a personal favorite also
Speaker 3: of mine. I would love to get him on my show.
Speaker 3: Nick so gotten in, Greg, But no, that thank you
Speaker 3: for answering that. I know that was kind of a
Speaker 3: little Tangententle, But I think it's actually related to a
Speaker 3: lot of things that you've spoken of, Greg in your
Speaker 3: many years of doing this, and definitely Nick talks about
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to is about the sort of magic
Speaker 3: that arises in discourse and sort of the circle of
Speaker 3: quote unquote inner temple people. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 3: inner temple, but I like to larp as I am.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's I feel like more interesting ideas arise in this
Speaker 3: in these kind of public facing discussions where you do
Speaker 3: kind of lose. I mean, I don't try and be
Speaker 3: agoic or anything, even though I am very self referential
Speaker 3: and millennial and all that, I feel like, actually the
Speaker 3: most interesting cabala, if you want to use them very general,
Speaker 3: in a very general way, I'm using that word, but
Speaker 3: I think that the most splendor arises from these kinds
Speaker 3: of things. So that's why, in particular I was curious
Speaker 3: for you, like where you see the sparks the most.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much for answering that, Greg, I
Speaker 3: appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, i'd also say, like, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: not that I left anyone out on intentionally or like
Speaker 2: I feel like the guests that I have on the podcast,
Speaker 2: by and large, with almost almost no exceptions maybe a
Speaker 2: couple like I feel really good about, and I feel
Speaker 2: like there's no way I could in any way sort
Speaker 2: of plan it out or be intentional about how it
Speaker 2: goes in terms of like who's on, when they're on,
Speaker 2: when it comes out. It's so out of my control
Speaker 2: in many ways, in so many ways that a lot
Speaker 2: of times I don't feel like I'm the one like driving.
Speaker 2: It's just like I'm there to do the work. But
Speaker 2: whatever's happening and whatever I'm getting out of it and
Speaker 2: whatever other people are getting out of it is like
Speaker 2: there's some other process at work there. I hope it's
Speaker 2: positive for other people for me. For me, it led
Speaker 2: me to a spiritual path and it led me to
Speaker 2: like serious spiritual practice, and I feel like that's positive
Speaker 2: and I become a better human being. As a result,
Speaker 2: I'm more kind and generous and patient and caring than
Speaker 2: I ever was before, so I feel like that's positive.
Speaker 2: I'm also more much more aware of insensitive to my
Speaker 2: shortcomings and flaws and faults and all the infractions of
Speaker 2: thought and word and deed that I enact on almost
Speaker 2: constant basis. Yet I still am like working at it,
Speaker 2: so I don't know, I feel like the entire process
Speaker 2: is just like one giant like grinding stone, where you're
Speaker 2: like grinding out all the wrong ideas about yourself and
Speaker 2: the world and all of it. And it wouldn't be
Speaker 2: so unpleasant if those wrong ideas weren't who I am,
Speaker 2: but that's all part of it. So but anyway, that's
Speaker 2: like I feel like that's kind of the magic of it.
Speaker 2: And then as a result, I get to like meet
Speaker 2: cool people and have interesting conversations and great stories and
Speaker 2: really weird experiences. But overall, like it's been a wild ride.
Speaker 1: I think I can I guess I can identify with
Speaker 1: some of the stuff you were saying for sure, Even
Speaker 1: with just the stuff that I've been doing in the
Speaker 1: last year and a half, I've been very proud of
Speaker 1: and I think it's even helped like me become a
Speaker 1: better person. I've learned a lot from my guests. It's
Speaker 1: people I've had on the show that I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know how you're even talking to me
Speaker 1: right now, you know, but somehow it happened. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's something maybe bigger than me. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, like, it just seems like things are
Speaker 1: just falling into place. I'm just going with the flow
Speaker 1: at this point, just see where this takes me. I'm
Speaker 1: having a great time. I'm meeting great people and it's awesome,
Speaker 1: you know, and I feel like I'm actually doing like
Speaker 1: something positive for humanity my opinion. And you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that you were talking about, you're
Speaker 1: looking at yourself and all this and that. You know,
Speaker 1: for people that are in the conspiracy community, I think
Speaker 1: they're a little bit confused about what this TARM means.
Speaker 1: But would you even say that's part of the great work?
Speaker 1: Is that actually doing that in depth look at yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's a good question, because I wish it
Speaker 2: weren't part of the great work. I mean, it's not
Speaker 2: like I didn't have some notion that that was the case,
Speaker 2: But I didn't. I gotta be honest. I mean I
Speaker 2: did not fully comprehend like what was going to be
Speaker 2: involved with that.
Speaker 1: I say that all the time.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that it was going to get so personal.
Speaker 2: I didn't know it was going to be so painful. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's so it's definitely turns out like not only is
Speaker 2: it part of it, it's like most of it. It's
Speaker 2: most of it.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Glad you said that, because if you could do that stuff,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't have any judgments about any other person or
Speaker 2: any other thing at all, and that alone, I mean,
Speaker 2: you'd be mostly all the way done right there. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it's that's I feel like that is like there's like
Speaker 2: serious spiritual practice and meditation, discipline and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: There's also that too, and a lot of like devotion
Speaker 2: and a lot of like serious like inquiry and even
Speaker 2: yogic practice all of it, but like a lot of
Speaker 2: it is like dealing with all like all the ways
Speaker 2: that we block ourselves because like I don't know, I
Speaker 2: feel like real like wisdom, what people would call like
Speaker 2: realization or enlightenment, is not withheld from us by anyone
Speaker 2: but ourselves, and whatever that liberation is, it's not. It's
Speaker 2: never of the person from suffering. It's always from the person,
Speaker 2: because that's what suffering is. So it's very I don't
Speaker 2: know what you'd call it, non intuitive, I guess, so
Speaker 2: like when you really like confront what's actually happening on
Speaker 2: a fundamental level, Like it's hard because I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to explain it except to
Speaker 2: like go back to the examples my teacher uses with
Speaker 2: me with like, you know, you think the hand is
Speaker 2: suffering and you're the can and it's just got a
Speaker 2: hold of you and it does not want to let
Speaker 2: it go. But the truth is the other way around,
Speaker 2: that can is the suffering and I don't want to
Speaker 2: let it go, and I can't let it go because
Speaker 2: it's fundamentally who and what I am, And if I
Speaker 2: could let it go, that it'd all be done, and
Speaker 2: it wouldn't it wouldn't even be difficult. But you know
Speaker 2: that there's all kinds of crap and wrapped up in that, right,
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's it is a great work, and
Speaker 2: I feel like it's it is It is a lot
Speaker 2: of work, and it is a great effort required over
Speaker 2: a significant amount of time. It doesn't necessarily have to
Speaker 2: be that way, but that's my experience of it. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like when I think of the great work,
Speaker 2: I feel like that's part of why it's even called that.
Speaker 1: I was well said, thank you very much, profound, thank you, Jim.
Speaker 1: Was there anything you wanted to ask before I started
Speaker 1: going a little bit more into his podcasting experiences.
Speaker 3: Yes, I have a quick one.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: This will be kind of a normy one maybe, but
Speaker 3: I think it'll be interesting for other people to hear,
Speaker 3: not that it won't be interesting for me. I think
Speaker 3: it will be also interesting for me, but it's more
Speaker 3: of a normy question. Is why, Vadriana, after all of this,
Speaker 3: after you said all of this, like, and I totally
Speaker 3: agree with you. Podcasting is very revelatory in a way
Speaker 3: and trying to even be a quote unquote, I'll just
Speaker 3: call it like an newpasaka, like how I normally would
Speaker 3: like if you are like on the mark on the path,
Speaker 3: it is very difficult people come into your life that
Speaker 3: you absolutely love and absolutely loathe. That's at least in
Speaker 3: my experience so for me, it's been very revelatory of
Speaker 3: like how I perceive, react, and internalize all of these things,
Speaker 3: come back, as you said, into practice and reconcile all
Speaker 3: of that. So it's very I think someone used the
Speaker 3: unfolding like a like a lotus or like a rose
Speaker 3: or whatever metaphor that you want to use, I agree,
Speaker 3: or upaula flower maybe, Yes, that's that's exactly my experience.
Speaker 3: It's very difficult, but very rewarding, and it breaks a
Speaker 3: lot of klipas because you do and Sconda's because you
Speaker 3: do see sort of the negative aggregates of yourself very
Speaker 3: clearly when you're put in relationship to people. So all
Speaker 3: that being said, I'm sorry, Greg, so why Vadriana? And
Speaker 3: like if you I don't want you to necessarily have
Speaker 3: to sell it because that's like very that was putting
Speaker 3: a lot of pressure on But what would you say
Speaker 3: that it offers people that aren't have Western esoteric backgrounds?
Speaker 3: And why would you say that it attracts a lot
Speaker 3: of them?
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like these are going to be
Speaker 2: wildly different answers that are not exactly related, but they
Speaker 2: are in a fundamental way. But it's not really so
Speaker 2: let me start with why me Vasriana, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it's going to be necessarily applied to anyone else,
Speaker 2: although it might if they were in a similar situation.
Speaker 2: So I was friends, as you may or may not know,
Speaker 2: with David hiam Smith. I think he was mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: in the Y.
Speaker 3: I don't really like his books, Greg, I think that
Speaker 3: they're phenomenal.
Speaker 2: He's phenomenal. I mean, he's amazing. But we were really
Speaker 2: close once upon a time. This was this was many
Speaker 2: years ago, where we would we would chat on Facebook
Speaker 2: for hours and hours at a time, and that was
Speaker 2: awesome and I really really really enjoyed that and learned
Speaker 2: a lot from him. But one of the things I
Speaker 2: was always curious about was, you know, who was his teacher,
Speaker 2: and you know where did he learn what he's learned?
Speaker 2: Not the Kabalast stuff, of course, but more the nondual
Speaker 2: realization stuff, the non ratification stuff, as he puts it.
Speaker 2: And he always told me for the longest time, like,
Speaker 2: my teacher is not public, he doesn't take students, You're
Speaker 2: not welcome to know who he is, and I'm not
Speaker 2: going to talk about him. So I was like, fine,
Speaker 2: I respect that, and like, no, it's all good, no problem,
Speaker 2: but secretly I was pissed and like super jealous and
Speaker 2: really angry about it. Secretly, I don't know how secret
Speaker 2: it was, but I was really angry about this. I
Speaker 2: felt like it was so unfair, you know, regardless, and
Speaker 2: at some point I got like lime disease and got
Speaker 2: like really sick and just was depressed and like not
Speaker 2: doing well at all. And I was thinking about, like,
Speaker 2: I think I'm just going to like wrap up the
Speaker 2: podcast and like life's just going to become like taking
Speaker 2: it easy and trying not to feel miserable. And I
Speaker 2: remember talking to David about it at this point, and
Speaker 2: then he was like, you know, I think it's time
Speaker 2: for you to meet my teacher. And I was like what.
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, I think I think you're ready now,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, so, you know, being half dead is
Speaker 2: what it takes, and he's like, I guess so. And
Speaker 2: so that's when I met his teacher, who is now
Speaker 2: my teacher. And when I met him, I was really
Speaker 2: going there with the intention of becoming a Buddhist or
Speaker 2: practicing vadrighana. I was like, I just want to meet
Speaker 2: Dave's teacher and like, I feel like this guy's got
Speaker 2: the answers to the questions that I've got that have
Speaker 2: like really fundamental questions, you know. And it was clear
Speaker 2: not that he was going to answer those questions for
Speaker 2: me in that meeting or that week that I was there,
Speaker 2: but it was clear that he knew ways to learn
Speaker 2: how to become the response to the questions that I had.
Speaker 2: And the fact that he could explain that much to
Speaker 2: me that quickly I understood, like very fast. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: this is this is pretty much the only place I'm
Speaker 2: going to encounter somebody who's gonna actually like help me
Speaker 2: try to learn and do what I need instead of
Speaker 2: like what I think I do in the moment, or
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like what's actually going to
Speaker 2: benefit rather than what I think I want. And it
Speaker 2: was just obvious, like and he taught Varihanna. It was
Speaker 2: like it wasn't like I was like looking for Varihana
Speaker 2: and went to him. It was like I was looking
Speaker 2: for I was looking for wisdom really, which means and
Speaker 2: I didn't even really understand that at the time, which
Speaker 2: means like you really you're looking for divinity. And and
Speaker 2: I didn't even underst stand what looking for divinity meant.
Speaker 2: At that point, I just knew I needed to do
Speaker 2: it because this is again going back to your question
Speaker 2: about the great work, because it's like, well, what does
Speaker 2: it mean to look for divinity? Well, if it means
Speaker 2: you're looking for divinity, that means like, if you find it,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to change your whole life, right,
Speaker 2: you can't find divinity and then be like cool, all right,
Speaker 2: I'll see you later, like that was nice, Like no,
Speaker 2: that like if it's actually what you think and what
Speaker 2: you're looking for and that seems to be it, then
Speaker 2: you're in trouble because it's then becomes like a really
Speaker 2: dangerous situation because the Guru is there to destroy your
Speaker 2: whole world and your hopes and dreams along with it.
Speaker 2: And that can be a beautiful thing or it and
Speaker 2: it can be an extremely painful thing, and those can
Speaker 2: be the same thing. But I mean it's a fundamental
Speaker 2: understanding of like that you know, we think we're a
Speaker 2: human being and he knows that we're not, and he's like,
Speaker 2: if you want what I have, this is how it goes.
Speaker 2: That's how it goes. So that's how I ended up
Speaker 2: with Vadrihana because I met a being who so thoroughly
Speaker 2: convinced me, not only through his words and actions and presence,
Speaker 2: that there was no well, there was no choice in
Speaker 2: the matter. But I also like to put a fine
Speaker 2: more point, more fine point upon it. He always says like,
Speaker 2: I don't want your money. He's like, it's that's insulting.
Speaker 2: You know, people think I want their money, like this
Speaker 2: is some kind of cult. He's like, I don't want
Speaker 2: your money. He's like, that's a that's so insulting. He's like,
Speaker 2: the price is so much higher, so much higher than money.
Speaker 2: He's like, I want your life. That's what I want.
Speaker 2: That's the price. So I don't mean like, you know,
Speaker 2: he's going to kill you physically, but he's going to
Speaker 2: kill all the wrong ideas that you have about yourself
Speaker 2: and the world. And yeah, so that that's the price,
Speaker 2: and it is steep, but it's also necessary if that's
Speaker 2: what you want. So I guess for why other people
Speaker 2: might want that, I guess if you want if you
Speaker 2: want truth and not the facade of what we call life,
Speaker 2: then that's why you might want to investigate Vadriana. But
Speaker 2: I've never practiced or had any other teacher, guru or so.
Speaker 2: I don't know what other people's experience is like, but
Speaker 2: I know that the precision of understanding and articulation of
Speaker 2: the system and the tradition is way, way, way beyond
Speaker 2: anything I'd ever encountered prior. Like it is, it is exquisitely,
Speaker 2: sublimely precise and beautiful. But and it's so well laid out,
Speaker 2: and none of that I don't think actually matters if
Speaker 2: you don't have a lineage holder who can empower you
Speaker 2: to do the practices. But if you do have that,
Speaker 2: then you know, it seems like nothing I've ever done
Speaker 2: it compares at all. So I do'm not let's just
Speaker 2: try to sell it, but and I don't think that's
Speaker 2: really selling it.
Speaker 3: But because the price is super steep. I sorry, Greg,
Speaker 3: I didn't mean to jump in. I think I had
Speaker 3: a little delay on your mic and so, but no,
Speaker 3: I think you you know, I think people like Raadriana
Speaker 3: because it is a very precise way. It's like a
Speaker 3: very systemic, very historical. It's not like reconstructionists. It's like
Speaker 3: it's all there, but you have to really put in
Speaker 3: the work and really make it happen, and you do
Speaker 3: need if you choose to go down that road for that, Marga,
Speaker 3: you you do need to have you know, empower mens
Speaker 3: and you know the blessing of your teacher.
Speaker 2: And all of that.
Speaker 3: I just have found that in my experience. I think
Speaker 3: perhaps it is so similar to certain things. And I
Speaker 3: didn't mean to bring up a DCS if there was
Speaker 3: any you know, uh problem there.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Greg, No problem, okay, Okay.
Speaker 3: He's just I just respect him as a cabalist, and
Speaker 3: I just think exactly what you said, like you you
Speaker 3: you lifted, Like the keyword from his work is like
Speaker 3: he approaches kabal as a non dualist and when I
Speaker 3: experienced like my own sepharatic experiences were also non dual
Speaker 3: rather than it wasn't theological, it wasn't like mired in
Speaker 3: the conceptual reality of binary. So that's why I identify
Speaker 3: with his work. But I guess it makes sense now
Speaker 3: hearing your story, and I've never heard the full sort
Speaker 3: of recounting of that, So thank you so much for
Speaker 3: sharing that.
Speaker 2: Oh You're welcome, And I should clarify because I don't
Speaker 2: think I included this important detailed that David is no
Speaker 2: longer a student of my teacher anymore for a few
Speaker 2: years now. So I don't know if that matters to
Speaker 2: anybody or not, but it is important to me personally.
Speaker 1: So, uh, one question I did want to ask, and
Speaker 1: I think you might have like maybe kind of said
Speaker 1: it yourself in other ways, But when you first started
Speaker 1: the podcast and where it is now, I mean, is
Speaker 1: that two totally different things? Like, you know, the idea
Speaker 1: that you had coming in, has that changed over time?
Speaker 1: Was what you were even doing with it? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you kind of said a.
Speaker 2: Little bit about that already, but I think it's changed
Speaker 2: a lot over time. I mean, in the beginning, it
Speaker 2: was because I wanted to listen to interviews with people
Speaker 2: doing ac cult practices or had having ideas about.
Speaker 1: It or.
Speaker 2: I don't know, and there weren't a lot or much
Speaker 2: of that available on the internet at that point. So
Speaker 2: I was like, well, you can sit around and wish
Speaker 2: for it, or you can make it happen. So I decided, well,
Speaker 2: why not give it a shot. I've got time and
Speaker 2: some interest and whatever. I didn't know anything, and so
Speaker 2: I just figured, well, why not, I can just get
Speaker 2: some people who've written some books, or some experts on
Speaker 2: the show and be super interesting and so just kind
Speaker 2: of like started that way, and it wasn't long before
Speaker 2: I'd met some really interesting people. And one person who
Speaker 2: comes to mind from that period is Controverse see Kent
Speaker 2: Daniel Benkowski. I don't know if anybody remembers him. He
Speaker 2: passed away, I think back in like two thousand and seven,
Speaker 2: but he was like super into conspiracy and he would
Speaker 2: be so so happy today if he could like see
Speaker 2: how much more aware people are of the nonsense that
Speaker 2: goes on around them, as yeah, I think we all
Speaker 2: know so. And it was basically I figured, like, well,
Speaker 2: I can learn a bunch of stuff and it will
Speaker 2: help like serve some other people too, at least they'll
Speaker 2: have something interesting to listen to. And then it quickly
Speaker 2: turned into like just a wild information gathering process of
Speaker 2: trying to learn and understand and get more get more
Speaker 2: out of the whole process because you can like read
Speaker 2: a book and you can do a practice and those
Speaker 2: are good to like learn this stuff. But I found
Speaker 2: also I don't know if like I feel like saying
Speaker 2: this is it's gonna sound odd, and I think you
Speaker 2: too will probably know what I'm talking about, but I
Speaker 2: don't know if anybody else will. Like you can do
Speaker 2: the read the book, do the practice, but there's something
Speaker 2: about if you can talk to the person who's like
Speaker 2: written the book and done the practice and like almost
Speaker 2: like breathe in and retain some sense of their being
Speaker 2: this about it, like you get I don't know, there's
Speaker 2: not like a nonverbal thing that you sort of can
Speaker 2: retain of the essence of what they're doing, what they're
Speaker 2: writing about, what they're expressing in a way that is
Speaker 2: impossible otherwise. And I don't know if this is something
Speaker 2: that you know other people are familiar with, but like
Speaker 2: if you if you're learning from someone and if you're
Speaker 2: or if you're working with someone in some way, especially
Speaker 2: if it's like magically, you can sort of like breed
Speaker 2: in and retain like the essence of the thing from
Speaker 2: the person if they're like better at it or like
Speaker 2: more skilled at it or more focused at it, and
Speaker 2: you can like look at that specific quality and kind
Speaker 2: of like try and just absorb it as you listen
Speaker 2: to them, as you like cultivate the understanding of their words.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I feel like then that started
Speaker 2: to become like kind of what was going on. And
Speaker 2: then I think once I started practicing Vadriana, I was
Speaker 2: really unclear about why I was still doing the podcast
Speaker 2: for a while, and my teacher told me to keep
Speaker 2: doing it. And I'm not still not clear on why
Speaker 2: that is either specifically, but I still have a lot
Speaker 2: of interest in it. But mostly my interest is not
Speaker 2: like typical magical stuff. It's more about like practices that
Speaker 2: are gonna end suffering or lead to some sort of
Speaker 2: spiritual realization that's beyond the delusion that I currently inhabit.
Speaker 2: And I feel like there's still ways to kind of
Speaker 2: explore that through the podcast, and it seems unlikely almost,
Speaker 2: but yet I'm still trying to do that in certain ways.
Speaker 1: You can't stop now.
Speaker 4: OG's true, all right, but uh wow, thank you man,
Speaker 4: I mean some in depth answers stuff, personal stories.
Speaker 1: Wow, Jin did you want to ask anything?
Speaker 2: I guess I'll follow that up. Greg.
Speaker 3: I know that you have a very close relationship with
Speaker 3: your teacher, which is great, and I thought it was
Speaker 3: so interesting you brought up like how you can be
Speaker 3: in dialogue with people who write the books. Well, you
Speaker 3: wrote a book that was very profound and important to me.
Speaker 3: We've talked about it several times. But it is interesting
Speaker 3: that then I was able to be in dialogue with
Speaker 3: you after and very profound for me personally. And that's
Speaker 3: why I always like to flex that I, you know,
Speaker 3: got you so early on in my podcast career, because
Speaker 3: it was a big deal to me just personally, more
Speaker 3: than even a flex.
Speaker 2: So but thank you, yeah, of course.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, I think that for many, especially
Speaker 3: to bet and Mudist, we a lot of people lost
Speaker 3: their connection with Sanga, with the dharma centers they attended
Speaker 3: because of COVID, And we don't have to necessarily get
Speaker 3: into like a far ranging discussion about that, but I
Speaker 3: think that it it's not impossible, obviously to be in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five to be at vent Buddhist and just
Speaker 3: like receive everything online. That's completely possible, of course, and
Speaker 3: to have like all your relationships mediated by either social
Speaker 3: media or even direct communication. But I do think that
Speaker 3: there is something about proximity that is very important. And
Speaker 3: I think it is, as you're saying, like profound to
Speaker 3: hear sort of direct instruction, direct and in the presence
Speaker 3: of right, because I mean that's the same I don't
Speaker 3: want to get too non dual or two like into it, Greg.
Speaker 3: But it's not it's not that I don't understand that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very profound, like when you're doing the puja and
Speaker 3: the you know, the master is there.
Speaker 2: I get it. That's important.
Speaker 3: But I think it is important just for human connection
Speaker 3: as well, just like to have that and is here,
Speaker 3: like and if you are fucking up, not that you're
Speaker 3: fucking up, Greg, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, oh, I'm sure, I am, I'm sure, I am,
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 3: Well, we're all flawed, right, so we only we only
Speaker 3: can walk the marga as.
Speaker 2: Best as we are able at that exact moment.
Speaker 3: So I mean, but I understand it's like if some
Speaker 3: if I was fucking up, it is a lot easier
Speaker 3: if someone steps in who you respect, you've taken perhaps
Speaker 3: refuge in, or that at least you respect us, this
Speaker 3: accomplished person in your lineage, or accomplished person just that
Speaker 3: in your greater sanga, and they can say, like, look, Jen,
Speaker 3: you're fucking up. I know there are many times in
Speaker 3: my life where it's not about like me, I'll take
Speaker 3: responsibility for sure. Sometimes I'm very ignorant. So it's all
Speaker 3: about mediating relationships, right.
Speaker 2: I find that the guru disciple relationship is way, way,
Speaker 2: way more challenging for me personally and far more subtle
Speaker 2: than I ever imagined, uh it could possibly be. And
Speaker 2: I think my own delusion is like such an obstacle
Speaker 2: to communication. You know a lot of times that it's
Speaker 2: it becomes difficult. And I've written, I've written about all
Speaker 2: of this in my books, like this is not shouldn't
Speaker 2: be like a shock or surprise for people if you've
Speaker 2: if you've read it, So yeah, the guru, the Guru
Speaker 2: is really the only thing that works. And fundamentally, the
Speaker 2: Guru is really like a reflection of your mind.
Speaker 3: Anyway, brother Greg took us into a very knock Virginian
Speaker 3: direction right, not there, but really important and profound point.
Speaker 2: I would say.
Speaker 1: I was gonna probably maybe start to wrap it up,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to ask also, Jenn, if you have
Speaker 1: anything else to ask, what would be like your suggestion?
Speaker 1: I guess maybe like two or three things you could suggest,
Speaker 1: like if somebody wanted to start I guess get into
Speaker 1: the great work or whatever. What would you like suggest
Speaker 1: people would actually have to take the time out and
Speaker 1: do in their life to make that happen.
Speaker 2: I mean one of the I guess the first things
Speaker 2: is you should sit down and actually write out what
Speaker 2: it is you're looking to accomplish or gain or do,
Speaker 2: and then really like think about what you've written out
Speaker 2: and like are you willing to like give everything for that?
Speaker 2: And is it worth it? Is what you've written down,
Speaker 2: like really worth your life and like devoting your life
Speaker 2: to you know, because I feel like that's that's really
Speaker 2: where you should start if you want, if you want
Speaker 2: to really do it, because otherwise you go into it
Speaker 2: like not fully understanding like what I'm getting involved with.
Speaker 2: Like I can dabble, I can like treat spirituality like
Speaker 2: a s'morgus board and take a little of this and
Speaker 2: do a little of that, but that never works. So
Speaker 2: if you really want to do it, you should do it, Like,
Speaker 2: don't half asset, just do it. And if you want
Speaker 2: to do it, I feel like that's a really good
Speaker 2: way to begin, is like write it out. What are
Speaker 2: you trying to do? What do you want to accomplish?
Speaker 2: What is the point and are you ready to like
Speaker 2: give up everything everything? Like the Robert de Niro and
Speaker 2: heat are what are you ready got to drop everything
Speaker 2: in your life? In thirty seconds? When you feel the
Speaker 2: heat coming around the corner, it's like that, what are
Speaker 2: you going to give up? Can you give up everything?
Speaker 2: I'm not saying you have to necessarily actually give up
Speaker 2: everything or anything in your life really, but ultimately everything
Speaker 2: needs to be less important and that you're not gonna
Speaker 2: like grasp at everything. Relationships like activities, you know, ideas,
Speaker 2: you know, all of those things are gonna eventually have
Speaker 2: to be seen as what they truly are, which is
Speaker 2: the same as everything else, which is nothing. And then
Speaker 2: you know then it's so yeah, I feel like that's
Speaker 2: one way to really like begin It's like, how am
Speaker 2: I going to do this? Like? What am I going to? Like?
Speaker 2: What am I trying to do? Is it worth it?
Speaker 2: Is it really worth it? I can tell you so
Speaker 2: so many times I've looked back and been like, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I would have done this if I had known.
Speaker 2: I'm really not one hundred percent if I had known.
Speaker 2: There's so many moments when I've said that to myself.
Speaker 2: I cannot even tell you. And I don't feel bad
Speaker 2: because my teacher said plenty of times I've heard him say, like,
Speaker 2: you don't have a real teacher and a real spiritual
Speaker 2: path if you haven't thought about running away. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true. That's been my experience. So yeah, I think
Speaker 2: if you want to like undertake the great work, like
Speaker 2: you really get to like take some time, not not
Speaker 2: a few minutes or a few hours, but like take
Speaker 2: take a few weeks or a few months, right, really
Speaker 2: think about it, Like better to not start than to
Speaker 2: you know, quit midway. I don't know. That's just how
Speaker 2: I feel at this point. There's not like it because
Speaker 2: you get to a certain point, like you burned out
Speaker 2: so much, like there's like where do you go back to,
Speaker 2: Like there's there's nothing to go back to.
Speaker 1: I've said myself, nothing like intern. But like there's just
Speaker 1: been certain experiences that I have had that the life
Speaker 1: that I even believed looked at no longer exists anymore.
Speaker 1: After that experience, it's changed my life so much that
Speaker 1: in some ways I did actually have to give up.
Speaker 1: That experience cails me to have to actually totally change
Speaker 1: and give up the way I even looked at.
Speaker 2: Life in general.
Speaker 1: So in some ways I can see how like you
Speaker 1: may have to give up a lot, you know, if
Speaker 1: if you do, I don't know. I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: say it that way. I just I think very deep
Speaker 1: on any different.
Speaker 2: It's only difficult as difficult as uh, you know, it's
Speaker 2: tightly as you grasp whatever you grasp to. Was that
Speaker 2: that there's that versus on the perfection of mind where
Speaker 2: he says the great way is not difficult for those
Speaker 2: who have no preferences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do have a question from somebody they wanted
Speaker 1: to know, if you don't mind, I would like to
Speaker 1: ask Greg, what's your favorite ancient text and.
Speaker 2: Favorite ancient text. That's a good question. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, how is ancient like a few hundred years
Speaker 2: set of ancient enough?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will go with that. So maybe see that's
Speaker 1: something that isn't like a new age really yeah, shoot,
Speaker 1: prior to Crowley and that's the impressive to people.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I feel like I'm at this point.
Speaker 2: I guess the most ancient text that really is feeling
Speaker 2: that I'm really feeling the most would be the Heart Sutra.
Speaker 2: This Heart Sutra, whereas you know, form is emptiness, and
Speaker 2: emptiness as form and unders the understanding of emptiness and
Speaker 2: what that means in terms of perceiving all it's all
Speaker 2: appearances that are perceived and then the mind that is perceiving,
Speaker 2: which is empty. So sorry, I should give you the
Speaker 2: whole line there or else it's kind of like hard
Speaker 2: to even begin to understand. It's like all that's perceived
Speaker 2: is the wisdom mandola of the deity. Perceiving is the deity,
Speaker 2: and the mind that perceives is shunyata is emptiness. That's
Speaker 2: some thinly norbu rimpichet I think from white sale. But
Speaker 2: so like trying to understand emptiness from is from the
Speaker 2: perspective of the Heart Sutra, and like all of these teachings,
Speaker 2: and and how that relates to like the actual function
Speaker 2: of the mind and reality itself, and how it relates
Speaker 2: to like the other fundamental Buddhist teachings about like you know,
Speaker 2: all appearance is mind is nothing but mind, and so
Speaker 2: you know, then you get to understand better how appear
Speaker 2: and an emptiness or can be the same thing, And
Speaker 2: then you can try to understand the luminosity of it,
Speaker 2: where the awareness and the appearance and the emptiness are
Speaker 2: all the same thing, like there is there's no separation
Speaker 2: or distinction even though there certainly seems like there is
Speaker 2: anyway I think I've gone a little overboard there.
Speaker 1: Not at all.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a top shelf true Chino choice.
Speaker 3: If I if I could retweet that with a gift
Speaker 3: of true Quino, I would right now, because it's really
Speaker 3: skillful Greg to say, like the Heart Sutra, Because all
Speaker 3: tantras are derived from pranaparmy To sutras, as you and
Speaker 3: I have spoken about. So the sutras, like especially well
Speaker 3: specifically Prana parmy t sutras are like the root sort.
Speaker 3: There's sort of the root text of all, like the
Speaker 3: wisdom of emptiness. Maybe the essential nature of Buddhism itself
Speaker 3: is caned. Even the tontric elements are also contained, maybe
Speaker 3: in a twilight way, but they're still there in those sutras.
Speaker 3: So they are like the inner, outer and secret layer
Speaker 3: of all Buddhism. So I think it's really profound that
Speaker 3: you specifically cited that one and that one, which is
Speaker 3: so well known, so recited, and of course, like the
Speaker 3: three of us live in North America, Amutaba is the
Speaker 3: Buddha of the Western Paradise, And I just I just
Speaker 3: feel like it's very aonic and it fits for me.
Speaker 3: So I just I wanted to really commend you on that, Greg,
Speaker 3: and don't be so humble. I know that you it's
Speaker 3: good practice. I'm not trying to say be agic or
Speaker 3: anything like that. I just I thought it was very skillful.
Speaker 3: So thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, I mean again, if you asked me
Speaker 2: to repeat any of that, I'm pretty positive I don't
Speaker 2: even know what I just said. So it's really weird
Speaker 2: how that happens. Anyway, I've really enjoyed talking with you guys.
Speaker 2: I it's just been really super fun and appreciate you
Speaker 2: having me on this is.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. I really I really appreciate your take
Speaker 1: in your what you have to say on the questions
Speaker 1: we ask.
Speaker 2: Stories.
Speaker 3: That's what makes your podcast, Greg, and or when you
Speaker 3: go on other people's shows, is that you do kind
Speaker 3: of have a storyteller's vernacular or like at least a continent,
Speaker 3: so you're able to kind of weave in and out.
Speaker 3: It's it's a it's it's a true intellect. It's a
Speaker 3: true thinker's way to relate to someone who takes a
Speaker 3: little while to get there there. I don't think you're
Speaker 3: like me. I think you have a much more concise way,
Speaker 3: but you know, it does take me a little while.
Speaker 3: But I do have one last, one last question, and
Speaker 3: I promise you'll be really quick with it. Is that Greg,
Speaker 3: you went back to university and you did very I'll
Speaker 3: let you explain what you what you studied and all
Speaker 3: of that. But I think it's inspiration for like a
Speaker 3: lot of people, a lot like a lot of millennial
Speaker 3: men like me and like my co host soul Are,
Speaker 3: Like we were kind of on academic tracks and you know,
Speaker 3: we had a lot of derailments, a lot of like impediments,
Speaker 3: a lot of obstacles, and but it is inspirational to
Speaker 3: see that you went back and you did something that
Speaker 3: was non or me, that was very much aligned with
Speaker 3: at least a historical sort of accounting of the occult
Speaker 3: of cabala of all, like the Western traditions. So and
Speaker 3: as many of your cohorts have done. So I just
Speaker 3: if you want to just say something for the high
Speaker 3: IQ but perhaps low functioning autists out there, just kidding, uh,
Speaker 3: but yeah, to say something for us, Greg and clear
Speaker 3: pill us and give us some hope.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm apologized, if I'm going to go long or
Speaker 2: anything like that, it's just going to take a minute
Speaker 2: go for okay. So I don't remember exactly what year
Speaker 2: it was, let's say two thousand and six, two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, two thousand and eight, somewhere in there. Doing
Speaker 2: the podcast. I'm regularly going to this monthly I think
Speaker 2: it was a monthly study group Western mystery study group
Speaker 2: at the Theosophical Society outside of Boston, and I would
Speaker 2: occasionally get emails I don't know, from all kinds of
Speaker 2: people all over the world, and they were really quite interesting.
Speaker 2: But one time I got an email from a guy
Speaker 2: who was at Boston College, father John Brown. I hope
Speaker 2: that's not a problem that I've said that. Anyway, he
Speaker 2: wrote to me he had some questions about some esoteric stuff,
Speaker 2: and I answered him, and then we would write back
Speaker 2: and forth like once every year or so, maybe a
Speaker 2: little maybe a couple of years, and then I remember
Speaker 2: one time he was like, I'd love to get like
Speaker 2: lunch with you some him, and so we met up once.
Speaker 2: I think it was like a Sunday afternoon or whatever.
Speaker 2: We went to lunch and it was wild, like talking
Speaker 2: to this guy who's he's not even a priest yet,
Speaker 2: but he's a Jesuit studying to be a priest. And
Speaker 2: the level of discourse that he absolutely held about esoteric subjects,
Speaker 2: Western magical subjects, symbolism, it was outrageous and I knew
Speaker 2: within probably like fifteen minutes, I was like, Fuck, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to go back to school, Like I
Speaker 2: really don't want to, Like I don't want to do this,
Speaker 2: but I can't even have a conversation with this guy
Speaker 2: because it was like I was so outmatched intellectually, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I just I submit to your expertise or
Speaker 2: like you are like clearly have a better grasp, a
Speaker 2: more well thought out consideration of all of this stuff
Speaker 2: than I have, and I feel embarrassed and I need
Speaker 2: to rectify the situation. So I went back to school.
Speaker 2: I ended up going back to Harvard Extension School, which
Speaker 2: was like a huge blessing because I just happened to
Speaker 2: be in the right place at the right time where
Speaker 2: I could go and take Harvard University classes at night
Speaker 2: for a tenth of the cost, because otherwise there's been
Speaker 2: no way I could ever do this right. And additionally,
Speaker 2: this was like it was like a match made in heaven. Really,
Speaker 2: I don't know who they must have known I was coming,
Speaker 2: Like the entrance requirements at this school or like, you
Speaker 2: don't need to take an exam, you don't need just
Speaker 2: take some classes. If you do well enough, you're in.
Speaker 2: You can apply to the degree program and that's it.
Speaker 2: That's all you need to do. So I took a
Speaker 2: few classes, I did well, I applied and did the
Speaker 2: Medieval Studies degree, which they discontinued before I graduated. So
Speaker 2: like they let me finish it because I'd already gotten
Speaker 2: most of the courses done, but they wouldn't let anybody
Speaker 2: else start, and I did. I focused like most of
Speaker 2: my research and writing on like mystical, esoteric magical subjects
Speaker 2: like Rosicrucians in colonial America, like symbolism and origin of
Speaker 2: Pan and the horned god there was, and then of
Speaker 2: course my thesis which became the Celestial Intelligence's book about
Speaker 2: Pico and his angelology and all of that. So, like,
Speaker 2: the whole experience was just I don't know how to
Speaker 2: describe it. Maybe this would be a good sort of illustration.
Speaker 2: I remember at one point standing around with a group
Speaker 2: of classmates. We were like on a break and I
Speaker 2: was like, I really love this Harvard thing, Like it's
Speaker 2: so awesome. You just kind of show up and turn
Speaker 2: in your assignments and you get an A. It's like
Speaker 2: it's the best thing ever. And they're like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck are you talking about? They were angry. I was like,
Speaker 2: it's easy. What are you talking about, Like you hardly
Speaker 2: have to even work at it. It's just so easy.
Speaker 2: And they're like, you asshole, Like we're killing ourselves trying
Speaker 2: to do this. We're not getting a's, Like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck are you even talking about. They would like stormed
Speaker 2: off after that and really didn't want to talk to
Speaker 2: me much anymore. I didn't realize I don't think the
Speaker 2: like how easy it came. And I feel like this
Speaker 2: is a lot of because number one, working on the podcast,
Speaker 2: like there was a lot of reading and research and
Speaker 2: thinking about what was being said and done in a
Speaker 2: way that was more analytical and less passive. I was
Speaker 2: working at Fidelity, so I was like used to like
Speaker 2: being disciplined and like applying myself like seriously, and I
Speaker 2: had such intense interest in the subject that it just
Speaker 2: didn't seem like work at all, Especially after reading books
Speaker 2: for the podcast. It was like this is just I
Speaker 2: don't know. It was just fun and interesting and and
Speaker 2: plus it was Harvard, so like at in some way,
Speaker 2: I was like, I mean you can imagine like I'd
Speaker 2: already been like felt this super competitive urge like from
Speaker 2: this Jesuit guy, and I'm like, I cannot let him
Speaker 2: be smarter than me, or more knowledgeable than me, or
Speaker 2: more articulate than me. Like I can't have that. And
Speaker 2: so it was kind of the same there, Like I
Speaker 2: had that same kind of like get out of my
Speaker 2: way kind of mentality where I'm like, I'm doing this
Speaker 2: thing and you're not going to stop me. And it
Speaker 2: was kind of the same with the thesis. I just
Speaker 2: like I wanted to write something about the Western tradition,
Speaker 2: and the way it unfolded was just magic. It was
Speaker 2: like meant to be. And I think, to Gin to
Speaker 2: your point, like I think this was like twenty seventeen
Speaker 2: or twenty eighteen. I mean, this is like the hype
Speaker 2: of wokeism. And I submit my thesis about a dead
Speaker 2: white guy who's a philosopher who's talking about like Kabbala
Speaker 2: for Christians, and some by some miracle they award me
Speaker 2: the like top thesis in the humanities that year. I
Speaker 2: mean it was like, how the fuck did that happen?
Speaker 2: Like there's clearly like higher forces at work there, clearly.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was just it's hard they want to
Speaker 2: like give that award on to that paper to me,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, I mean it was to the point where,
Speaker 2: like I can remember at one point, like I was
Speaker 2: like I got that award and I'm like, wow, maybe
Speaker 2: I can like turn this into some kind of career.
Speaker 2: And I went to like the career services office and
Speaker 2: the woman literally laughed me out of her office. She
Speaker 2: was like, you can't even get a job as like
Speaker 2: an adjunct professor here like or anywhere for that matter.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, Oh I love.
Speaker 3: Don't that was gangster energy. I'll just say that maybe
Speaker 3: that's why life froze.
Speaker 2: Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, your bag nows you were laughing.
Speaker 3: She was laughing at you in the office.
Speaker 1: Get an adjunct professor job.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean I feel like the the pain
Speaker 2: of like derailment and like ridicule and like being held
Speaker 2: back and like denied, and that that's the real thing.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it still goes on just as much if
Speaker 2: not more than it did then, but you know, there
Speaker 2: may be ways around it here and there. I mean,
Speaker 2: anything's possible. I feel like that's the that's the main lesson.
Speaker 2: I feel like from like magic and from like spiritual
Speaker 2: practice is like reality is so so much more fluid
Speaker 2: than we want to think it is or want to
Speaker 2: believe that it is. And if we just like relax
Speaker 2: a little bit, like take a breath of two or
Speaker 2: three and kind of like just allow for the possibility
Speaker 2: that they're like whatever you think is going on is
Speaker 2: not it, and then that it can be different. And
Speaker 2: then I don't know, maybe we have to make it different.
Speaker 2: Maybe we have to just understand that it already is
Speaker 2: different like something. But it's certainly not static, thankfully, or
Speaker 2: else we'd be fucked.
Speaker 3: I agree, I agree everything you said, Greg. I was
Speaker 3: so happy to hear you say that reality is not
Speaker 3: fucking fixed. You can to a degree, change it. You
Speaker 3: can change your life. You can you know, you you're
Speaker 3: the agent of your own karma and will, so you know,
Speaker 3: go out there and get it. I do believe that,
Speaker 3: and I really if anything, maybe this is me grasping,
Speaker 3: so I won't speak for like Vadriana as a whole.
Speaker 3: But I will say in my practice and experience that
Speaker 3: that is true and it's only reinforce sort of my
Speaker 3: ideas of self serenity. So I just want to say that,
Speaker 3: thank you, Greg, I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: I also want to say, like, I know, I'm sure
Speaker 2: I've said things that are mistakes or wrong, or are
Speaker 2: not beneficial, or would lead people into doing or believing
Speaker 2: things that are not helpful, and I take responsibility for
Speaker 2: that and apologizing advance for any of my misstatements and
Speaker 2: wrong ideas and non beneficial words and implications. So that's
Speaker 2: a constant danger. But I also know that there's probably
Speaker 2: some things I said that were accurate about spirituality, probably
Speaker 2: and most of those, if they were correct and helpful,
Speaker 2: are not really self originated in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: and you should all understand that as well.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'll have to say I think this was a
Speaker 1: great episode. I really have to say, I think like
Speaker 1: where I'm trying to take the show, especially your idea
Speaker 1: of the great work and the way you explained it.
Speaker 1: I think like you really encapsulated what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do with the show. It's to show that you can
Speaker 1: better yourself and become a better person due to this stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's not Old Dixon demons. So I appreciate I
Speaker 1: really appreciate this this episode. You really knocked it out
Speaker 1: of the park with the this is what I was
Speaker 1: trying to get at and the questions I asked rather
Speaker 1: deep show. And I'm really happy that my listener's got
Speaker 1: to hear your experience with magic and everything. I think
Speaker 1: it was I think, thank you great for people to hear.
Speaker 3: I'm dying a little to say, like, this was like
Speaker 3: two of my favorite dudes like together and I'm like,
Speaker 3: the you know, a third I guess that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I appreciate it for for real,
Speaker 3: for both of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate you, both of you. I appreciate the
Speaker 2: opportunity to talk to you guys and your listeners. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it was really fun. I think I shared probably way
Speaker 2: more than I expected to. Yeah, and I don't know
Speaker 2: why a lot of that came out. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: it's a good idea, but I really really have faith
Speaker 2: that whoever's listening to this somehow needed to hear that.
Speaker 2: And God, bless you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, did a great job, sir. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you coming on. Please let everybody know where
Speaker 1: they can find you again, and let people know about
Speaker 1: your YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: There was people in there asking, okay cool, So yeah,
Speaker 2: a Cult of person on YouTube. You can also find
Speaker 2: the podcast playlist there on YouTube, and as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: I think at the beginning, I'm going to be adding
Speaker 2: some YouTube exclusive content in the near future, so that'll
Speaker 2: be cool. So everybody please subscribe and watch and like
Speaker 2: videos if you don't mind, and if you appreciate this stuff,
Speaker 2: that would be super helpful. I also want to say
Speaker 2: a Cult of Personality podcast available where you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: We also have extra content if you want even more,
Speaker 2: there's Chamber of Reflection dot com or our Patreon, And
Speaker 2: I also want to mention a Cult of Personality Telegram
Speaker 2: channel for anybody who's on telegram, Like we have a
Speaker 2: Telegram channel. I feel like, if I'm honest, like that's
Speaker 2: really the spot, because I don't know, social media in
Speaker 2: general is kind of rough and like it's just I'm
Speaker 2: I gotta be honest with you. I'm lazy and I
Speaker 2: just don't really want to work it. All the algorithms
Speaker 2: and you got to put in a lot of time,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm just lazy. So I love Telegram.
Speaker 2: If you're on Telegram, come on over please and hang
Speaker 2: out at a cult to personality and check it out.
Speaker 1: Nat So thank you, of course, of course, no, thank
Speaker 1: you very much.
Speaker 2: Finally, I just want to mention a lot of the
Speaker 2: stuff I talked about tonight was in my book Entangled
Speaker 2: in Sunlight that's available on Amazon. Uh, there's a lot
Speaker 2: more in the book. Uh, it's it's it can be
Speaker 2: difficult to read at times because I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of the stuff that I talk about in there
Speaker 2: is is just it's it's not easy to like integrate
Speaker 2: because I feel like, you know, spiritualities, like we all
Speaker 2: want to be like you know, or a lot of
Speaker 2: people are interested in this, like we want to be
Speaker 2: like the great magician or the great yogi, right, or
Speaker 2: the great teacher or the person that knows all the
Speaker 2: stuff and everybody looks up to or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And that's I'm not saying that's anything wrong with that,
Speaker 2: I know, but that like it's not going to work
Speaker 2: out for us. So a lot of the book deals
Speaker 2: with like coming to understanding of that by like telling
Speaker 2: a lot of stories about myself and my life and
Speaker 2: like trying to express that. Like we start with grand
Speaker 2: notions and if we go really deep and far enough,
Speaker 2: we end with the understanding that only the divine can
Speaker 2: actually allow us to become what we're meant to be,
Speaker 2: which is just basically like servants of divinity arising in appearance,
Speaker 2: you know, to benefit beings. And if we can do that,
Speaker 2: then it's all good, awesome. Thank you very much, Thank
Speaker 2: you guys.
Speaker 1: Chin. Is there anything you want to plug real quick?
Speaker 1: I know you kind of came in.
Speaker 3: Sure, people can check out Threshold Saints on Spotify and Apple,
Speaker 3: and yes, the subject is coming next week. I've been
Speaker 3: working on it, so I'll upload all the episodes there
Speaker 3: and the title cards, which I'm kind of well known
Speaker 3: for for doing the kino because I do match everything
Speaker 3: to cabala, to the numbers, to the color, to the
Speaker 3: you know, subject matter, and also the quote, which is
Speaker 3: really important to me. And I feel like that's sort
Speaker 3: of my own memetic magic metamagic, like drawing from the
Speaker 3: Michaos magic roots. It's drawing, it's kind of bringing the
Speaker 3: lineage of the text, at least bringing the words and
Speaker 3: I like to think of it as concrete poetry. It
Speaker 3: has no meaning except for the perceiver, and I'm not
Speaker 3: putting a meaning in. You have to figure it out.
Speaker 3: So in a way, I'm miss sort of saying what
Speaker 3: Greg said, but maybe in a more ambiguous monkey king way.
Speaker 2: Is that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do apologize for any time I've misspoken about
Speaker 3: dharma or magic or anything. But I'm an imperfect vehicle,
Speaker 3: as I always say, I'm just a monkey king on
Speaker 3: the caronal ground. So all we can do is relay
Speaker 3: it in the to the best of our abilities. So
Speaker 3: I hope I also try and do that, and I
Speaker 3: do try. It's it is difficult, but you do the
Speaker 3: best you can. And I don't hope to be the
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want to be anyone's a teacher
Speaker 3: or anything like that, but I do think it. I
Speaker 3: do bring a certain energy to the like what we
Speaker 3: all do, and I would hope that if people find
Speaker 3: it edifying or at least plans a spark, that's all
Speaker 3: I really care about. If you can, if you can
Speaker 3: maybe take a I thing. The guest says, pluck of
Speaker 3: that spark of splendor, that colonel, if you will that
Speaker 3: empty space between the pomegranate and to carry it with
Speaker 3: you and then maybe bloom it in your own garden.
Speaker 3: That's what I would, That's what I would. My intention
Speaker 3: would be a higher intention. But do as you will.
Speaker 3: And so thank you so much, thank you Nick, mister
Speaker 3: ninety three of course boss, and just shout out to
Speaker 3: all the upcoming episodes. Greg's episode will be episode eighty one.
Speaker 3: I usually don't say what episode's coming out because I
Speaker 3: like to keep the numbers magic and chronopoetic. But yeah,
Speaker 3: Greg already knows, so he's totally cool. I like that,
Speaker 3: and so there will be a couple before him. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it will come out probably the first week or second
Speaker 3: week of January.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, thank you checked out, checked it out, especially
Speaker 1: all the listeners people who have didn't know who he
Speaker 1: was until you heard him on the Occult Rejects. I mean,
Speaker 1: this guy started back in two thousand and six. Listening
Speaker 1: you know from last week, go scroll all the way
Speaker 1: back years years ago, years ago, years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: because I got a lot of people that when they
Speaker 1: come to my show, they're like, oh, I didn't even
Speaker 1: know that you did that three years ago. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you're new, you need to scroll back too far. This
Speaker 1: guy's tons and tons of stuff to go listen to,
Speaker 1: go check out his show if you're into it. So
Speaker 1: thank you again. That was an amazing episode. Uh some
Speaker 1: deep stuff and I'm really really happy that my listener's
Speaker 1: got to hear it. And thank you everybody that was
Speaker 1: in the chat. There was a lot of people there
Speaker 1: from the beginning to the end, and that's what's up.
Speaker 1: That's why I go live. There's a lot of great
Speaker 1: stuff being said in the chat as well, and again,
Speaker 1: Jin thank you for joining. And that's the end of
Speaker 1: another recult to rejects and until the next one, everybody
Speaker 1: be well later.