153: Wisdom Traditions 4: Hermeticism

Weird things happened in the back. Weird weird, weird. Wow. I'm your host, Tremdic Man. We're going to talk about the hermetic philosophy in episode one. In episode one fifty three, let me finish what wistern tradition is? This? Is it boor it's been a while, Hey, Alex, what was the psition? Is this? Three? Isn't four? I don't freaking know. But we're gonna talk about hermeticism. Yeah, And it

is a very exciting community, and it's very old. It's very you know, prolific, and I feel like, dude, you kind of remind me of somebody who just got called up to explain their project. You did not do any work about their projects standing in front of the class thing. It's very this it's very I'm not dogging you. I'm just well, I'm glad you're not dogging you. Man, I'm totally dogging you. But I know you prepared for this. Oh my god. It's like, you know,

some days you say I'm handsome, some days you say I'm not. I mean, I've never said you're not. It's a full disclosure thing, you know, I've never said for the record, I've never said you're not handsome. You just sometimes say I am, and sometimes you don't, which when you don't, you might as well be saying he's not handsome. So we're gonna need to say, well, I'll take that into account, so well move on. Yeah, we're gonna move on and we're going to recover from

that. So her medicism, I want to get into the legendary origin and what it is according to like the mystical version, you know, and then we'll go into the historicity. Her Medicism is very fascinating to me. Particularly that did kind of feel like I was narrating something there, didn't it a little bit? A little bit? I like it though. It's kind of like a nature documentary, yeah, or like a philosophy documentary. Yeah, you know, a full documentary if you will, never we go philosophiz baby,

Oh hit me with it. Yeah, man, I just can't stop thinking about Alex as a sugar baby. Really, that what stuck in your mind right now? Yeah, I mean it's kind of hard to start after that shit we were talking about. That's true, but I digress. Yeah, we were just having a riveting conversation, that's all right. Before the camera was rolling. I am loving the way that this episode is starting.

Everything about this is great. It's been a while since a deep dive, and I'm just feeling a little shy in front of the Alex is dying right now behind his desk. He's lost. Oh dude, we do got to make an honorable mention. You know. Obviously, Alex was here last night recording Full Disclosure, so we were, you know, catching up on stuff last night. Did you see the most recent appearance of Duncan Trussell on Joe Rogan? Yeah? Mind you of anyone? The way that they showed up.

Somebody put that in the discord. Somebody did. Yeah, they put in the discord. Is that's what I said in Full Disclosure? Yeah? Yeah, they have one made a meme about it. Oh my god, dude, I missed that they put Joe and Duncan dressed as Alex this episode. That's amazing. That is so funny. It's pretty close. Oh, I'm just realizing because they had like the the like morph suits on and they said Tesla on him. They were dressed as like the Tesla bots. Were

they I'm just putting that together. Yeah, I didn't even watch it. I just saw the picture and then Alex brought it up last night. He was like, dude, someone I guess you did say someone in a comment that that's how you dressed on the Tom's Tom Batforce bat Force Radio. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so funny. That's an obscure thing that I wonder

how many of our viewer slash listeners have actually seen. Probably not very many of them, but for those of you who don't know, we went on Bat Force Tom's show and Alex just showed up in full Riddler cosplay like it was. It was so legendary. Didn't tell us he was gonna do it, nope or anything, just showed up and we saw it. And it was difficult to record that episode. And he was quiet for a while too,

just stared at us. Why he didn't say anything. The first twenty minutes he didn't say anything, and then there was some kind of break or something they brought up. They brought up an example. So, okay, I'm I'm on fire. Wow wow, No, I've got this sche mask on and it jacket, full coat, sitting inside and I'm just sweating, and I'm like we're twenty minutes and I'm like I cannot do this much longer, and they showed an example of what they were talking about on the screen

and covered the whole screen with this picture. I ran off camera, took everything off, and sat back down like in normal clothes. You want to know what My favorite part about that whole situation was the entire time while Alex is head to toe in this garb, this was his face for twenty minutes straight. He was like this, I have the picture somewhere, dude. It was like it was like he couldn't get over how funny he was being.

It was like he couldn't hide it. He couldn't. He was just like it was like it was like you could see his thoughts and they were just like, I'm so funny, right now, that's true. That's amazing. So it's true. The dedicated fans out there, go find that and watch it. You will not be disappointed. It is life imitates art. Yeah, sure, that's a real quote. It is or is it our imitation life? I don't know, No, I think you had it right

the first time. I just don't really see how it applies here. But it's okay, right, It's just funny that he did it, and it was obscure, and then it was like the same concept was done on a much bigger show, right right, right, Okay, yeah, it's just

funny. It was legendary. Yeah. So moving back to her meticism, it's very special to me because when I first was kind of like coming out of my fundamental Christian stage many years ago, back when I was still kind of like, you know, I guess if this phenomenon stuff started when I was thirteen. By the time I was in my early twenties, I was really having doubts about like going to traditional church anymore. How do I fit

in this framework? How does this make sense? According to what I'm being told is real, but then what I'm experiencing and seeing is actually real. How does this work? You know, the beings are saying all these things about ancient Egypt and the Pyramids and the Sphinx, and you know, I'm in Raw and other names like Hathor, and then I'm going to Pentecostal church on Sunday, And in my mind, I was like, this just doesn't

line up. Like I I was like grasping for something more. But as you know, growing up in the Christian Church, you're not encouraged to study anything outside of the Bible very much the opposite you are. You are explicitly told like if you are looking into any other religion or whatever, you are like actively sinning and like will go to hell. Yeah, like it's it's all demonic or satanic or God forbid, you know, a cult. Yeah.

And I remember being in my brother's room one time and he had this like Christian book that was given to him and it was about like the evils of the occult and had these pentagrams and symbols on it, and I just remember growing up and having this this this lens pushed on me that anything outside

of the Bible, anything occult or esoteric, is inherently evil. And then you know, cut to twenty twelve, all this, like I guess conspiracy stuff went wildly mainstream, probably because everyone thought the world was gonna end or something, and you know, the cern had drunk Alider was going off, and twenty twelve was just a crazy year for humanity. I think it was like probably even though we didn't know it at the time, it was probably

a leap in consciousness. I mean really, like, if you think about it, twenty twelve was a crazy year. That's the year I found out about the Illuminati. Now, I know, in the past, on previous episodes, I've made comments like maybe there are misinterpretations of the word and what

it actually means. You know, the idea of like this this group that you know is very small in number, probably less than one percent of the world's population, but control the wealth and the resources and the knowledge and big pharma and agriculture and tech and all of the you know, Hollywood media, et cetera, all of that stuff. I mean, there really is some sort of influential group that holds all this power. But my question in the past has been like what do we call them? Ooh, the Illuminati?

You know, I don't know, but yeah, yeah, like three years, I mean that's like OG episodes. Yeah, but still, I mean I do believe there is some sort of group, and you know, I kind of have met people who are in great positions of power and even government

positions of power who have claimed to be in the Illuminati. And you know, so it's like, for the for the sake of conversation, I'm just using that term in the context, right, you know, So the Illuminati or whatever I find out about that in twenty twelve, and I start to learn a little bit more about Freemasonry and some of these secret societies, but from the lens of like, yes, I'm seeing these beings and understanding there's

something more out there, some sort of extra biblical knowledge, but I'm still within the framework of like being a Pentecostal classical Christian and not understanding where to go, where to turn to, and then furthermore thinking all that stuff is evil or a cult. Yeah, because you can't even really entertain like other interpretations right of the Bible. Oh, you can't stray from the path in

the slightest it's like take it literally and that's literally. That's it. Like I remember my pastor saying at one point, this is just how crazy it can be, like literally at one point being like, well, you know, at first the view was like, you know, fundamental that there's there's a split. I believe I learned about this in intro to religion in college.

It's like there's Old Earth Christians and New Earth Christians, and it's like a academic term for the split in Christianity where they're the uh, the Old Earth Christians are open to the interpretation that Earth is billions of years old, right, and then the new Earthers are like, no, it's six thousand years old, like, you know, a lot of the Bible belt and people we know and what we're used to. Yeah, but there, you

know, there is a split, right. But anyway, so I remember at one point my pastor having this out of the box thought in church, you know, and being like, well, I think that the dinosaurs walked beside humans six thousand years ago, you know, because it's like they found bones. But Earth is only six thousand years old. You see what I'm saying. I'm just saying this trying to rationalize it within the context of the

quote unquote literal Bible. Right. Yeah, that's my point is it gets to be absurd when your whole framework of the universe is contained within the less than one thousand pages of the sixty six books of the Bible that, by the way, we're given to us by the people in power. Just saying we did a whole episode on it. You know, I'm not I'm not mocking or denying any sort of you know, accuracy or legitimacy to some of

the lesson and teachings with the Bible. I'm just saying the structure that it is today was given to us, and there's a lot to question, and there's a lot that we don't understand about house conceived. You know, you get what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, we did the whole History of the Bible episode where we talked about the stuff that was taken out and the stuff that was added, and the stuff that was just arbitrarily decided upon. Yeah. I'm not going to go on to all that now because we've

already done it. But my point is I wasn't at that point yet in twenty twelve, and I'm learning about the Illuminati, I'm learning about freemasons, I'm learning about all this stuff, and I'm like, oh my god, this is crazy. You know, my mind is like expanding with what's out there, still trying to read the Bible to understand it. How can you learn about, you know, the taste of an orange if all you eat is apples, You know what I mean? You just can't. You just

can't understand something until you've interfaced with it personally and directly. So cut forward about two or three years. At this point, I'm a junior in college and I by this point okay, so I went to a small university. It's a private university in Fayetteville called Methodist University, and it used to it started in the fifties, it was called Methodist College. It used to be a Christian school, like literally a Methodist Christian school, and they did away

with that. It became a university, but it was still private. So part of the curriculum to graduate by like bare minimum, you had to have two philosophy and religion courses usually not required when you went that was required. Yeah, it's usually not required to college. You don't have to take philosophy and religion as far as I know, but a Methodist you did. So I took the two philosophy and religion, and I ended up loving the classes

so much because of all of this crazy knowledge that I learned. I was like, oh my God. And then you get to a point where you're like, by like sophomore or junior year, you're kind of like mostly through the credits you need for your major. Especially by senior year, you're like, dang, I just need to take bs classes to graduate. I had to just take I need, you know, ten points in any class.

So at that point I was like, well, I'll just take more religion, and by the time I was at about my seventh religion class, the chair of the department was like, dude, you literally can declare this as a minor. And I was like, oh, sweet, awesome. I was just having fun, you know, and like my highest grade was in the philosophy and Religion department and it's too late for me to graduate with that

degree, but I enjoyed it way more than everything else. So by about my junior year, I started taking this class called I can't remember what it was called because it's been like ten plus years ago, but it was like a higher level. It was like a major level religion course, like at the three or four hundred level. One hundred is like freshman or intro. Then you have two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, and it basically is like freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, you know what I mean,

Like when you're going through a major. People who are not in a major are not typically taking three hundred and four hundred level courses. But I was at this point because I was just going deeper into the system and I was taking this course that was like it was basically like an overview. Oh. It was called early Christianity. That's what it was called early Christianity. That's right. I knew it, it was on the tip of my tongue.

But it was this class where the entire semester's overview was the literal formation of Christianity, not the or the real historical historical origin. Yes, and it wasn't like, you know, reading the Gospels. It was actually completely

the opposite. It was like looking at the real history, studying the writings of like Philo of Alexandria, Tacitus, Pliny the Elder, and you know, all of these historians and Roman officials and Jewish historians who were like writing about this, and it's like real historical documents that are giving evidence that certain things happened or existed, you know, like historicity rights, nothing to do about reading the Bible or anything like that. And in that class, this

is when my life really changed. This was the second time I had heard this phrase. It was told to me before, but I wasn't really into it. In that class, we learned about the history of the Gnostic movement, right, We've done episodes on Gnosticism. We did a whole wisdim tradition segment in that class, I learned about the Gnostic movement and I was like, oh my god, this is crazy. Started diving into their texts reading it. I remember having heard the word Gnostic or Gnosticism framed us like they

worship Lucifer. It's the devil, it's the illuminati, you know, like that terminology being thrown around. But then I learned about the actual history of it, like being forced at the literal university level to study it and read some of the texts, understand the conception of it, how it was heretical, how they were killed, how the different sects, Valentinian Gnosticism, you

know, how they came to be in history. And I went home and I started diving deeper into it. And then sometime that year or the following year, I had a dream. And I was just graduated from college at this point that I had this dream, and in my dream, Osiris came to me. I've talked about this dream before, but it was it was really profound. It was like the kind of dream that was perspective shifting, that were like frogs hopping around my room. And I caught one of these

frogs and it died in my hand. And I was really sad, and then it was reborn and it came back to life, and I distinctly remember it was super vivid. It felt almost lucid, except I wasn't in control, and Osiris was just standing at the foot of my bed and he was like telling me something, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. And I woke up the next day and at that point I was working with my brother doing construction. Right out of college. I didn't have a job yet.

I was just like, well, in the meantime, I'll just work with you, yeah, you know. And I remember all day like beating my brain like what did that mean? What did that mean? That dream was so weird. And that night I went home and I started researching everything about Osiris, ancient Egypt, the frogs, the symbolism. I found out that there was frog symbolism of o Cyrus because frogs they basically, I mean, they don't literally die, but they go through a transformation. They go

from tadpole to frog. They transform metamorphosis right, symbolic of like the transformation of the soul. And I learned all this stuff, like there was actually a figure in the way ancient past that they accredited to being a man named King Osyrus, who was like the sage that traveled around with a crook and a flail. The crook is like the shepherd's tool to like herd the sheep. You know. I was like, oh my god, there's something really

to this. That night I came across her meticism m where. I mean, how did I was just reading everything I could about so you were researching because of the dream, and you just came across and I found hermeticism. It's a word that I had seen before, but again, just like the Gnostic thing, it was framed to me in a like a Satanic lens. It's satanic, you know, it's a cold it's what the believe. So I never like looked into it. I never cared, you know what.

In my mindset back then, I didn't want to interface that with anything that I thought was evil or satanic. Yeah. Then I had the dream. Then I found it, and I spent a very long period of time, definitely all night. I remember at the time, I was living with my parents and I just shut myself in a room all night, didn't really talk to them, and I just researched this stuff and looked into it and looked into it, and then a year later I was living in Wilmington with my

wife. We weren't married yet, but I just remember it being about a year before I really looked into it again, and I was working at the furniture store with Alex, and I shout out to Alex the Riddler himself, or the Rizzler as they know him, and here in the streets, and we're getting him off the streets. Yeah, we have to, we have to. We just have toity, you have to keep him off the streets. Yeah, and out the sheets, man, I'm telling you, because

the Rizzler. Okay, all right, So anyway, because the Rizler, we have to we have to keep him off the streets and out of the sheets. Yeah, because he's crazy. Man. Yeah. I was working with Alex at the time, and as it goes, in our furniture job that we worked at Ashley, there would be a lot of days where it's like, you know, you don't have a client in the store, so it's like, you know, you you kind of can you have the freedom to just maybe look on your phone for a little bit or whatever. You

know. Yeah, it wasn't like a job where you actively had to do work constantly. It was sales, so it was like, Oh, someone's in the store, blah blah blah blah blah, they're gone. All right, cool, the act is up. I'm gonna chill for a little bit.

And there would be a lot of time where I was at that job where I was so bored because I didn't always have something to do that I would just I would dive into these texts because I I didn't really have the time between when I discovered it till then to really look into this stuff, because then I went through the move and then I went from job to job, and it was out of my mind for like over a year, you

know. And I start going into her meticism deeper and studying it, listening to podcasts about it, and then listening to other podcasts, and it would pop up and I would hear about it, and I kept noticing this theme that it was prominent historically, and I read some of the Corpus Hermeticum, and I read this text called the Divine Pimander, which was really brilliant, and I was I'll tell you how I found it because in the text the

Divine Pimander, which was this dragon that was like the element of fire that symbolized God, the highest transcendent mind, like emanating the universe into existence, teaching hermestrs Majistus about the fundamental structure of the universe. He's syncretized. He's known as Osyrus the dragon, Yes, the divine pimander dragon. He's he's also known as he's said to be Osiris, like the aspect of Osiris.

So I was like, dang, there's a weird connection here with you know, with this Egyptian these dreams I'm having, And at one point I did. I had a dream about hieroglyphs, and and I was just being pulled to this Egyptian knowledge. But when you look at like mainstream Egyptian knowledge, it's just kind of, you know, it has the appearance of like paganism. It's like, how can I really put any significance into this, you

know, it's like, yeah, don't take this the wrong way. But it's like looking at Hellenistic Greek mythology, it's like, oh, this is really cool, But like where do I find the like application, the application, the relevant distilled truth from this, Like, well, what does this do for me right now? Like, yeah, in my journey of finding

out what consciousness and the spirit is. Like, right, it's like I understand that, you know, this is all metaphors for nature and like, but I'm trying to find the legitimate, deep spiritual significance of this Egyptian stuff. It's like, where do I go? And her Meticism hit me like lightning, And I got a couple quotes from the Divine Pimander. And then I'm gonna is this post the Lady? Oh yeah, gotcha? Yeah? Yeah? So which is? You know? The lady shows up, starts

telling your dad about Egypt, frags his soul to Egypt. Like it's right, It's like you must have had some inkling in your mind, like okay, And then I started having dreams about Egypt. So I was like, where do I go. It's like you are being pulled from every direction to look into Egypt. Right, Yeah, so I found her meticism. Yeah. So here's just a couple of really cool quotes from the Divine Pimander. It's known as probably the oldest Hermetic text. I gotta scroll all the way

down to the bottom of my notes here. I put him at the bottom, The Divine Pimander, that which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below. To accomplish the miracles of the one thing. The Light is the Son of God, from whom emanate, from whom emanated the goodness. This is the Mind,

the Word, the Wisdom, and the Light. For I am the Mind and the Light, and the Word and the Life, and the Grace and the Peace and the mercy, and the Salvation and the Rest and the rebirth, and the Truth and the Father. Thus, he who knows himself knows all things in himself. For the only evil is ignorance, the only good is knowledge. And the Word of God is above all things, and the

beginning and the end, the mighty ruler of all of creation. And like I said, it's this story of this sage figure Hermi's Trismejustus, which I'm going to go into in a minute. This dragon comes down from the heavens, pulls him up and takes him on this cosmic journey through all of time and space and shows him this vision of like how reality emanates from God,

from the fire, from the highest flame. And at some point either in the text or like scholars speaking about the text are like he was also the divine Pimanders represented was represented as o Soryrus. So it's like, okay, there's something here, so I go deeper. So now it's like enough about

my introduction to it. What is it? So hermeticism is in the esoteric community, you could say, or the body of esoteric literature is considered to be the primordial knowledge, the priss of the prisa theologia, and it is the concept that there is one original knowledge that transcends all established religions and is more ancient than all established religions and in fact influences the religions. It's like the single light that is shining into all religions. It's the older knowledge,

the oldest knowledge. It's the primordial truth. Right. The legend goes that Hermistro's Magestus was the sage at the first ever enlightened sage who existed. Some speculate whether he was a real man. Maybe it's a mythological figure, and it's this group of an initiates who were drafting this idea of this like godlike figure to try to carry the story through the ages. Was he real?

Was he not? We don't really know. And there's all kinds of like historical evidence of people, like referencing the texts and referencing the figure as an enlightened sage, like legitimate substantiated historical claims, like in the Islamic tradition and Sufism. They actually say in some of their texts that Hermi Stru's majestus was Enoch. Yeah, I was gonna say. There's lots of parallels with other religions, some traditions. Some Jewish historians like our tappiness. It's hard to

say his name. I haven't written down our Tappaness says that this is what he says. That's pretty sick. And this Moses, they say, was the teacher of Orpheus, and when he grew up he taught mankind many useful things. He was the inventor of ships, the machines for laying stones, Egyptian arms, and engines for drawing water in war. He invented philosophy.

Further, he divided the state into thirty six gnomes and appointed the god to be worshiped by each gnome, and the sacred writing for the priests and their gods were cats and dogs and ibises. Like thought. He also apportioned in a special district for the priests. All these things he did for the sake of keeping the sovereignty firm and safe. For I don't know how to say

this word, chinep bress. For previously the multitudes being under no order, now expelled and now set up kings, often the same persons, but sometimes others. For these reasons, Moses was beloved by the multitudes, and being deemed by the priests worthy to be honored like a god. Was named Hermes because of his interpretation of the hieroglyphics Moses. Yes, that's what I was trying to say. Some attributed Hermistru's majus to being Moses, some attributed him

to being Enoch. The point is we have writings from thousands of years ago saying it was a real person. Who was he? Yeah, right, yeah, talking about the legendary origin, which is, you know, he came from this vault and had these tablets, the Emerald Tablets of thought, which there are real texts, and had knowledge of the seven sciences and distributed this information to humanity and lifted the consciousness, you know, created mathematics and

music and poetry and all of these different liberal arts. Who could call them agriculture, war, metallurgy, theurgy, astrology, magic, all of it, distributed all of this knowledge to mankind. That's the legendary version, you know. But anyway, so isn't there a lot of overlap between Hermes tris me justis and thought? Yes, thought among some that they're the same.

That's actually what I was about to get into next. He's considered so like the word hermistriz megistus is a translation which means thrice's greatest or thrice great, and that word comes from the idea that in the time that this knowledge of Hermestris magistus was being spread, it was like the Greco Egyptian peak of society, where we're around the first century, where like Greek was influencing Egypt philosophically, mathematically, and you had all these major Greek capitals in Egypt, like

Alexandria, and you know, I can't name them all off the top of my head. But the cultures were intermingling. And as these cultures were mixing and they were sharing ideas with one another, they began to notice that the Greek god Hermes was very similar to the Egyptian god. Thought thought was this ibis headed figure who was depicted with a tablet in a quill. And he's

like the scribe of the gods. He's also created language, magic, music, knowledge, mysteries, the occult, the esoteric, and he is the translator of the gods and he relays their messages to mankind and for mankind to God, which is a parallel to Enoch describe of the gods, you know, as we talk about in the Metatron episode. Same with Hermes, you know, he's a messenger of the God exactly. It's like the same legend. Same with Mercury in the Roman culture. Yeah, wait, what isn't

there a Hermes mercurious? Yes, tris same thing, another name, Hermes mercurious, Hermi's mercurious thought. It's all hard to say, Yeah, Hermi's mercurious thought. Hermi's tris magist. Say that eighteen times fast? Eighteen? I mean just throwing imaginary number, man, Okay, eighteen all right, cool? I mean why not three times fast? I'm just saying, well, eighteen seems like a lot. Raise it up there, you know, raise it up there twenty times fast? Hem that was actually eighty times.

How'd you do that? The occult? Okay, occult magic yeah, I have this higher knowledge sick. So reading from my notes here, I know. I know tris Magicist means Thrice's greatest, indicating his status as a divine figure of immense wisdom and knowledge. He is associated with alchemy, astrology, and the occult, and his teachings are believed to have inspired her Meticism, a philosophical philosophical and as a Derek tradition. In Greek mythology, Hermes is

known as the Messenger. He has the wings on his feet, symbolizing flight. He flies between the realms and he gives the messages and some cartoons of popular culture. He's the to pit. Wow, it's it's another Do we just recorded an episode? No, none of this. Yeah, it's Alex. I just can't get my mind off of Wow, the wrizzler. Dude, he's tripping you up. Yeah, man, you gotta stop looking at him. He's tripping me up. Man. Yeah, you gotta stop looking

tripping me up. Man. And you know, whenever I'm feeling down, and I have said this before, maybe this won't be news to you guys, but sometimes when I'm feeling down, I just close my eyes and I think about him smiling. I don't think. I don't think you've said that before. I don't I don't remember you saying that before. Alex looks shocked. I don't think you've said that before. I have. I don't think you've said it out loud. I know I have. Okay, all right,

I know I have. I don't think. I don't think he said that. He meditates about you. So we have some one's got to do it. Yeah, yeah, I mean why not, man, Someone's got to carry the torch, you know, like Alice with the weight of the world on my shoulders. Oh, I'm like Prometheus bringing the flame. I'm telling you, right, And it's like the flame is Alex's smile in my

mind. Yeah, but cool. Yeah. So we have the Corpus Hermaticum, which are like the legitimate historical texts that have surfaced in the medieval era all the way back to like the first century, that are like the hermatic body of knowledge containing philosophy mini books. Yeah, it's about eighteen books. That's where eighteen came from. Yeah, I guess, so I'm catching up. I'm catching up. Let's look it up. Man. I'm pretty sure

it's eighteen books. It has to be otherwise that number. It was just too arbitrary that you told me to repeat it eighteen times, too specific. And then I ask you how many books there are and you say eighteen. Oh wow, this says they're seventeen. I swear I saw today there was eighteen. Well now there's eighteen. Yeah, yeah, okay, there's eighteen. Bro So anyway, So we have the Corpus her Medicum, which contains the works like the Divine Piemander also known as Poimendres and the Greek the Greek

language. It was written in Greek. We have the Emerald Tablets of Thought, which have been translated by some pretty impressive historical figures like Isaac Newton Helena Blovotsky. I forgot to mention, but her Meticism has basically influenced every major esoteric society Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, Renaissance era magic, alchemy, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. That one was a head scratcher, right, what you just what did I do? You're never meditated

about me? Smiling? Well, that's because I meditate about different things with you. Oh okay, we don't have to get and and your reaction there caught me off guard. Okay, I'm allowed to be surprised. I'm allowed it all and most of all theosophy, right think you said it already, but yeah did I? Oh it's okay, So the most important anyway, So why are you laughing now? Oh my god, Oh my god.

Oh so it's influenced all this shit. Yeah, okay, that's where as above, so below comes from the concept that you know, the thing, it's a hermetic thing. Her Menicism influenced the Gnostics. Her Medicism is older than the Gnostics. Oh okay, I'm tripping. And then you know, you have the key difference there where the Gnostics are like, the world is a prison, it's a trap. You know, the material world is literally the devil, and you know, the soul is born here. It's hell,

it's a nightmare. Your flesh is imprisoned in this eternal suffering and the only thing you can do is reach this nosis, this inner illumination where you can free yourself from you know, the mortal coil of prison being born here.

And then the opposite perspective, her medicism is like, no, actually, the entire universe is a complete harmonious unity, and everything in existence emanates from one transcendent mind or the Greek word noose in o us, which they don't really have like a legitimate translation for, but in this context of esoteric literature, it over the ages has come to be understood as the transcendent mind of God. You know, the news. Everything emanates from the news.

So there's a distinct split between her meticism and gnosticism, and it's like, I don't know, I think elements of both are true, you know. And then there is a distinction to be made that in some of the Hermetic writings, that viewpoint is taken where it's like, no, actually a mature

world is evil, right, you know. So scholars believe that this little set of contradictions and the Hermetic texts stem from the concept that as the initiates of the past, because you know, this was secret knowledge, right, this was very highly guarded secret knowledge, and it was taught to initiates. They had symbolic rituals and ceremonies to I guess like reach the next level of consciousness where the Master would deem them worthy to receive the next level of texts.

And it's believed that these contradictions are presented. You know, you have this perspective when you're at this level of initiation, when your mind is on this level, and then when you go through the purification process where as they would say alchemy, the transmutation of the soul, and you reach higher states of consciousness and you know, are are a better person. You're you're seeking

more unity with the spirit and understanding and craving the knowledge. Then they say, Okay, now we're gonna shape the real Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean to give it to you as you quote unquote earn it right kind of thing. So it sounds like her Meticism was like the og like secret society. It was kind yeah, And like I don't have the book on me at the moment because we literally just moved and my house is like a million boxes. But I have isis unveiled, which is which is literally

you know, it's Heleno. Bovotsky is like the main books of theosophy, and I have not read them like thousands of pages, but I have them, and I've flipped through them and I've and I've you know, gone through them and looked at interesting quotes and parts and things. And when you open the book. One of the very first quotes from Helena Blovotsky herself is about

her meticism. I could probably google it or Alex if you wouldn't mind google like Heleno Blovotsky quote on her meticism, but she basically says, like her meticism is the key to opening all of this knowledge, Like all of these great schools of knowledge are telling you like her medicism is the key. They all point to her medicism like the original source, Yes for this knowledge, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, all of them. I was listening to shadowt Isaac Weishaalt.

Yeah, he changed the name of his show. I think it's now known as occult symbolism in pop culture. Used it used to be conspiracy theories in popcorns, right, yes, occult symbolism and pop culture. He does a great deep dive into esoteric stuff and and actually something that he does that I really appreciate and most people don't do, at least in the you know, the podcast scene, as he goes into first hand texts. I love

that. I love that, And you know, if you listen to his show, he's very often reading from you know, firsthand sources, and I think that's very important. If you're trying to learn about something, go and read some of the firsthand knowledge. And he had a freemason on his show several times, actually, a really interesting dude named It's Something Sullivan. I

can't I think it's James Sullivan the fourth. I can't remember his name, but it's Something Sullivan the fourth, and he's like a thirty second degree Freemason, and he would have him on and he would pick his brain like about freemasonry, the symbolism, and he wrote these books called Cinema Symbolism and it's some of the stuff that we talk about, like the occult and esoteric symbolism at movies. Robert Sullivan, Robert Sullivan, Yes, yep, Robert Sullivan

the fourth. Very interesting guy, dude. Yeah, Robert Sullivan and cinema symbolism. Yeah, that's cool. And he has him on his show multiple times and they do like in depth breakdowns of his book and they do like The Shining, they do Aronofsky. Yeah, so many movies. He breaks down and he's telling you, like the Masonic and esoteric symbolism, and it's like, oh my god, this is mind blowing stuff. And honestly, his show is largely the reason why I'm so interested in that and why it's

so fascinating. But anyway, when when Robert Sullivan the fourth was on there and he's talking openly about Masonic symbolism, one of the things he said that let me know I was on the right path was he talked about Hermes Trus Magistus and he told the legend of it about how it was taught in free Masonic temples that he went and the legend goes, you know, he went into this subterranean vault and then he comes out and he has these tablets,

the Emerald tablets, and he dispenses the knowledge to mankind. He goes under he's enlightened, and then he comes out and he has this knowledge. Sounds like Jesus right, he's crucified on the cross. If you're a Catholic. The doctrine goes, he descended into hell for three days and then he comes out boom. He's transfigured. He's a like being, he's illuminated, he's

reached enlightenment and he's the awakened Christ. And he teaches all these mysteries for forty days and then he disappears, and then ten days later, the Pentecost happens. You all know the story. You've all read the Bible, right, you've all been a church. Who else does sound like Orpheus? He descends into hell for underworld? Yeah, he descends into There's always this theme. We talked about this in the Godzilla episode where there's these resonant themes in

these stories that speaked our soul. But in ancient times they would have this hero' journey where they would send into the underworld, either literally or figuratively, and then they would come out and they would be enlightened and they would be you know, awakened or whatever. So yeah, so they all point towards her Meticism as being like the og It's, yes, the source. So now I want to talk about the cosmology. What does it actually teach?

Like, what is it actually about? You know, we can talk all day about like why it's genuine, why it exists, why it's historical. We can talk about, like, you know, references in ancient writings like Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Saint Augustine, all these different people, but let's get into the cosmology. So the Hermetic cosmology offers a profound and comprehensive view of the universe, blending elements of ancient philosophy, mysticism, and spiritual

wisdom. It's based on the principle of unity, the idea that all things are interconnected and part of a single, harmonious whole. There are three great principles, and this overlaps with the seven laws of the Universe of hermeticism mentalis, which is the first law and the first principle. The universe is mental in nature, arising from the divine mind or the noose. All phenomenon, both material and spiritual, are ultimately the result of mental processes. This principle

emphasizes the creative power of thought and consciousness in shaping reality. Correspondence as above, so below, as below, so above, and then I think the saying goes, there's as within, so without right. This principle suggests that there's a correspondence between different levels of existence, the macrocosm being the universe. The great entire existence of the cosmos is intimately correspondent with the microcosm or the

individual humankind being the mirror image of God, the highest power Man. I always think about the whole thing with like you know, zooming in on the neurons and then it looks just like constellations in the sky, like there are constellations, Like I always think about that, right, like there. You know, if you've never seen those like pictures that I'm talking about where they compare like the human brain and like like neurons and that kind of stuff comparing

to nebulas and constellations, you got to see it. It's it'll blow your mind. Well, like even in your eye, the iris of your eye looks like galaxies. I mean, there's so many examples of this cells in your body, you know. I mean it's true. It's like it's twofold. It's like on the one hand, the macrocosm is God and then the microcosm is Man, where like it says in Genesis, you know, we were made in the image of God. Right, That's that's what this is.

But then the other side of that is like reality is fractal, exactly what you said. You know, you can zoom all the way up or all the way down and it's entangled. It's it's this infinite spiral mathematical pattern. I was gonna say that Fibonacci sequence, right, you see it everywhere all across the cosmos, big, small, it's everywhere. It's a spiral. Yeah. I do suspect that if we had the technology, if we could like peer deeper down way beneath Adams even, I think it would probably

just keep going. Yeah, I think, like, honestly, like, I think it would never stop. Yeah, yeah, I think I think it's really infinite. It's like the Grinch. You've got my undivided you know what I'm talking about today. Zoom into that snowflake and all the Who's live on the snowflake? You know what I'm talking about? Well, that's also Horton, Here's or who is it? Not there? There? They were? Yeah, that's who will Doctor's onto something? That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, oh man, that is a cinematic universe. Yea. The next game is gonna be uh Marvel versus the SEUs Verse. D I'm thinking thing one thing too all day? Dude. Oh yeah, dude, the sous Verse would pack them there, crapping the Wonder Twins. Brother, they're packing them up. Yeah? Yeah, is this a cat in the hat? What? I hadn't seen that movie since I was like twelve, bro, the one with Mike Myers yeah, so good, bro, I swear man like if you pit the Grinch in the Hulk. Okay, I feel like

the Grinch would fade him. We're not talking. Continue with Oh you're on the marvel side. Yeah, I tend to agree. I think that the Grinch is almighty, almighty, almighty, all powerful. I don't care the Grinch is her. The Grinch is my preferred green Man. Wow. Okay, we't get him a Grinch suit. I don't know who mine is. We're talking green Man fighting bracket. I'm taking Grinch to the end. I do like Yoda. I like Yoda. Good point. Vibration. Everything in

the universe is a state of constant motion and vibration. These vibrations manifested different frequencies, giving rise to the diversity of phenomenon in the cosmos. By understanding and harmonizing with these vibrations, individuals can influence their own reality. Just want to say, that is an ancient, ancient text that's describing that. In modern times, science fully corroborates that right fully. I think they call it

the Brownian movement, the Brownian movement. Everything vibrates, everything, everything, everything. They were talking about it thousands upon thousands of years ago. How could they have known? How could they have known? Osis? Yeah, spiritual revelation man there. Yeah, or you know, this is something I haven't even touched on yet. What it's like really believed where the hermetic knowledge comes from Atlantis? Right, it's this this great mystery that I hope someday

we really solve and like we learned without a shadow of a doubt. The legend goes that this knowledge survived the fall of Atlantis, right yeah, Right,

So that's where the mystery schools come from. They had it in secret, and they were teaching these seven laws of the Universe from a time where all knowledge was known, right, Yeah, we were like at the peak of existence here in the material realm, and and you know, according to some movements like Theosophy, they believe that we weren't necessarily all material in the Atlantean times, or like if you look at Edgar Casey's channeling sessions, he

says that we weren't in the material world at all, but it was more like a more spiritual existence and the fall from Atlantis was our fall into material

reality. I don't know, we can't know, you know, but the idea that there was some sort of precursor existence to the state we're in now, and the Hermetic knowledge and all of these esoteric schools that are copying the Hermetic knowledge and expanding on it in their own cultural lenses and agendas and whatnot, are basically guarding you know, this lost Atlantian knowledge, so very fascinating

stuff. Yeah, how could they know it makes sense? Yeah right, it's bizarre, like all we know is what's going on right now and the life that we've lived right now, Like this, the science that can corroborate the fact that the entire universe is vibration is as a very recent development, very hundred and fifty years or less. Yeah, I don't know, in the past hundred years, Like we can't have known that stuff thousands upon thousands of years ago. And to go even more into like why that is like

so profoundly true. There are other cultures that figured it out spiritually, you could say, as well, like the Dogon tribe, Hinduism. You know, they all have their different conceptions, you know, ideas about the universe being vibrations, and it's inherently true. It's just it blows my mind, like how you know it's divine it's it's divine, like that knowledge came from

somewhere, It was passed into the minds of humanity from somewhere. Yeah, it's like, was it revealed to people who reached high enough states of conscience to receive a transmission or was it like the legendary depiction that it was secretly guarded knowledge literally passed down, right, Yeah, or maybe both. I don't know. I wish I did. We can't know. I really wish I knew, But the fact remains the knowledge was there and it's proven now.

Yeah, pretty fricking weird. Like I genuinely one hundred percent believe in the hermetic knowledge. Like I'm at the point now where I don't need to

be like served proof on a platter. I feel like I'm at the point in my life where it's like, look, I cannot understand everything that exists, and there are things beyond my conception and things that are ineffable, and there are some things that are inherently true and it's up to us to accept, you know, like there are just some things that we just cannot prove. And I think that's part of the human experience is to humble faith.

Right, It's like the act of humbling yourself to receive higher knowledge that you cannot comprehend. It is kind of like faith, you know. Yeah. But continuing on with the cosmology, there are seven planes of distance. The physical plane the realm of material existence, where physical bodies and tangible objects exist. The astral plane the realm of emotions, desires, and psychic phenomenon. It is often described as a realm of energy and oh shoot, I'm sorry,

I hit a button and I lost my spid. Often described as a realm of energy and fluidity, where thoughts and emotions have a tangible presence. The mental plane the realm of thoughts, ideas, and mental constructs. It's the domain of the divine mind, or the noose, where the seeds of creation are planted. The causal plane or the karmic plane, the realm of causes and origins, where the blueprint for existence is laid out. It is

the realm of divine intelligence and the source of all creation. The spiritual plane, the realm of pure spirit, transcending all forms and limitations. It's the realm of unity and oneness, where individual identities dissolve into the cosmic whole. The divine plane the realm of the divine, beyond human comprehension. It's the ultimate source of all existence, the ineffable one from which all things emanate. And then you have the absolute, the highest, most transcendent level of reality,

beyond all duality and different differentiation. It's the realm of pure being, beyond the reach of human understanding or comprehension. There is the concept of the cosmic drama happening throughout the universe. The hermetic cosmological system usually portrays the universe as a grand drama with divine beings, cosmic cycles, and spiritual evolution of

mankind. Humanity plays a central role throughout the universe in this cosmic drama as agents of divine will and participants in the ongoing process of creation and transformation. It is an eternal process beyond death, the alchemical process. A central theme is that we experience alchemical transformation inwardly and outwardly. This process involves the purification and refinement of the soul, the transmutation of base substances into higher forms,

and the atament of spiritual enlightenment. It is through this process that individuals can ascend through the various planes of existence and ultimately reunite with the divine source. Note I've said this before, but I remember being in eleventh grade chemistry and day one there was a PowerPoint slide and it was about the origins of chemistry, and I remember it being about alchemy, and it was like, dude,

literally a grays Creek high school version of alchemy one paragraph. And it was like back in you know, the Renaissance era, they had primitive scientific knowledge and they tried to make potions to turn bars of lead into bars of gold. Right, yeah, you know, it's like, oh, they

were idiots. They were fucking idiots. That's what I thought, right, yeah, sixteen year old me. But then you read into like the legitimate alchemical first hand sources, because again I want to encourage people to look into these first hand sources. If you're interested in this knowledge, you can read the works of Paris Celsus, who is probably the most prominent alchemical writer probably in all of history. Not hermetic sources, but like alchemical sources. You

know, Paris Celsus. No, no, it's one word about like Paracelsus Celsius. I'll look it up. Some of these Greek words be hard from you, bro, Paris. Yeah, Paracelsus. Paracelsus. Oh, he's

actually Swiss. Cool I thought that was a Greek word anyway. So he has these writings where he, like literally in the Renaissance era, is describing to you the metaphor of alchemy, and he says something to the effect of, like, you know, alchemy is not mixing potions and turning lead into gold, but it is the allegory for the transformational process of the soul, whereas the human is the lead being in your crude, original incarnated state and

through you know, the fire of Azous, you know, the Holy fire, whatever the divine forces, you know, basically putting you through the fucking ringer, Yeah, to purify your soul into gold. Right. It's a metaphor, right right. It's not a bunch of idiots make empotions, right, Yeah, it's an advanced body of spiritual knowledge, yeah, right, with the goal of reaching enlightenment. Yes, it comes from Hermeticism. Right.

In the Renaissance era fourteen hundred and fifteen hundreds, there was this resurgence of the Hermetic knowledge throughout medieval Europe. So they had these alchemists who were writing, you know, they had all these secret al chemical symbols, and there's this belief that they had this secret twilight language where they were like encoding this stuff behind symbols, you know, to pass to other initiates in other

mystery schools, you know. So the the the profane like us, who aren't initiated, you know, might not understand if they came across their writings, but it was. It was a very intricate system of refining the soul and raising your levels of consciousness. That's what alchemy was. So the real alchemy, Yes, the real alchemy, which again was a resurgence of the Hermetic knowledge and medieval Europe. So now we're going to move on to the

seven Hermetic laws. The first three of these we already covered, but it was the principle of mentalism. The whole universe is the mind. It emanates from the mind of God. Everything that exists, from the smallest particle to the vast cosmos, is the result of mental processes. The mind, the mind of God, is the primary creative force behind every manifestation, every emanation, everything in existence. This principle underscores the power of consciousness and its role

in literally shaping reality. Right number two correspondence as above, so below. The highest level of reality is intimately entangled with even the lowest level of reality. Mankind is made in the image of God. To understand the higher spiritual world, we have to look within ourselves and understand that we we're fractals of God. We have the spark, right. I mean, I can only

say it in so many different ways. But you know, as above, so below, or as Jesus said in the Gospels, my Father, who are in heaven, hollow be thy name, will be done on earth as it is in heaven, above so below. Dang, I was wondering where you're going with that. As your will takes place in heaven, man also take place on earth as above, so below right. It is believed in the esoteric circles that that is knowledge, like secret knowledge, that he was

dispensing to the masses right in the Lord's Prayer. It's also believed that the Lord's Prayer contains basically like references to the seven Chakras. But that's another conversation. Principle of vibration, everything is constance, static vibration, thoughts, or vibration. There's an old Rosicrucian manual that I came across somewhere that says something to the effect of thoughts have wings. You imagine your thoughts of wings and

they're flying throughout the universe. They have vibrations, and they have an effect on physical reality. But now we're moving on to the fourth one, which we haven't covered. Principle of polarity. All things have opposites or polarity, such as hot and cold, light and dark, love and fear. These polarities are complementary aspects of the same phenomenon, and they are necessary for the balance and harmony of the universe. By transcending duality and embracing unity, Everything

is one. God is the one, right, all is one. Individuals can navigate the fluctuations of life with greater equanimity. Whatever the fuck that means, I'm just giving it real. It means like an anonymous horse, I think, yeah, like equestrian. Yeah, yeah, no, I believe you. Mental calmness and composure. Well that works too, Yeah, I guess it doesn't make me think of a horse. But whatever, equanimity Okay,

I learned a new word today. The principle of rhythm. Everything in the universe operates according to cycles rhythms and patterns, these rhythms, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Hey, these rhythms can earn the ebb and the flow of life, from the season of the year to the cycles of birth, growth, the k and renewal. Everything is a cosmic swing of a pendulum. Right. So we're in the dark ages now,

and it's gonna be because the Age of Aquarius. We're gonna have that cosmic swing back to the age of light and then you know, maybe thousands of years from now, there will be another swing back to the dark. It's just how reality operates. It's a giant universal rhythm. Yeah, it's it's it's like described as literally a pendulum, you know. And it says that the equal measure that it swings to the left, it will return to the

right in vice. Yes, yes, but you could apply that to your life and all the bad that you've experienced, as bad as it can get, the trauma, the brutal suffering that we can experience in this life, it can swing back and you can experience higher levels of good and joy and you know, peace and happiness. And I have found that to be true.

I mean it's like, my dad has spoken to thousands of people throughout the last seventeen years dealing with this phenomenon stuff, and ninety nine percent of people who have seen the phenomenon have experienced trauma and suffering, and they've been at such a broken point in their life and their will has been crushed that they're ready for the good to come in. They're ready for the light. You know. It's like that always swings back. Yeah, there's definitely some

sort of correspondence there. Number six, the principle of cause and effect, also known as karma. Every action has a corresponding reaction, and every cause has an effect. The law emphasizes the interconnectedness of all events. In the law of karma, the notion that individuals are responsible for their actions and will

inevitably experience the consequences. By understanding the principle of cause and effect, individuals can have a higher awareness of the outcome of their actions on other people. So it's like again, it's like, you shouldn't be a good person, You shouldn't tried to be christ like or Buddha like or freaking Yoda like, because you you know, are gonna be judged by God. And you know there's there's an angel up there in twenty twenty four, because I would imagine

they do update their systems. You know, they probably don't have filing cabinets anymore. They have a tablet and they're keeping check of all your sins. I would hope so that they use like file Explorer or yeah, Microsoft Excel, if they use CHAGYPT they might. I don't know, man, I'm just saying like, it's it's not like you're supposed to be good, because this is what I feel like, is the problem with people who are like, I don't know, is got up there watching the dudas do that.

It's like, no, you are. You know, sure God is, but God's not sitting here judging you, sending your ass to hell down the block, you know what I mean. That's not what it's about. It's it's about you literally are a vibration in the universe that is entangled to everything in existence, and every thought you have, every emotion you have, every word you speak, in action you commit emanates vibrations into the world around you. It has an effect. It has an effect everything. Just like that

other law. The laws are interchangeable and they mix and they interplay. You know, the effect that you put out into the world, that pendulum is going to swing back. You know. It's it's it's not because someone up there is like, hmmm, actually you didn't go to church today. Oh you drink Saturday night? Oh yeah, sorry, you're not making it to heaven this time, buddy. It's not like that, you know what I mean. It's it's deeper. It's it's more beautiful, it's more it's more

complicated. It's it's karma. It's like, it couldn't be that simple. Yeah, you are responsible for your actions. You are you know, liable to incur karmic forces upon yourself if you knowingly and willfully do bad to other people and harm other beings. And it might not be like you know, it gets you now. It might be you know, twenty years down the road, could be tomorrow. I mean, how can we know, right, there's this grand cosmic scheme that we can't see. The last law the

principle of gender. Everything in the universe has masculine and feminine aspects, and these polarities are essential for creation and manifestation. The masculine principle is active, assertive, and outwardly directed, while the feminine principle is receptive, nurturing, and really focused. By embracing and balancing these polarities within oneself, individuals can harness the creative power of the universe and achieve greater wholeness and integration with oneself.

So I think that's pretty self explanatory. You think about nature, it's like even you know, plants and animals and everything. Dude, even Adams down to a cell your level. Everything, Yeah, atomic protons, right, protons. Yeah, I mean, everything has a polarity and an opposite, And I feel like that one is just so self explanatory, like chromosomes in DNA. Gender, everything does everything, all the way to the highest down to the lowest. Everything has gender. I mean, come on,

it's not that hard. It's not that hard. It's hard, too hard. So I want to talk about God. There's a few more things that I want to hit God. In the hermetic view, the all or the One, it's like the ultimate source and and emanation of all things. It's it's the mental phenomenon that exists in the highest conception of reality. But then it's actually like beyond what you can even fat it's unknowable through physical experience.

It's only knowable through gnosis, through inner illumination. Right, It's beyond reason, it's beyond proof, it's beyond objective science and evidence. It is this ineffable, unknowable reality that completely exists outside of physical experience. That is Gods. It's visible, it's invisible. It's material and immaterial. It's it's the

visible and the invisible sun that animates the entire universe. It's the underlying thread that unifies everything, even diversity, it's the complete interconnectedness of everything throughout the entire universe. Transcendence. Oh, I just covered that, so I'll skip that one. Unity and multiplicity. It's a paradox. It's like the ultimate unity, but also we are separate from God. Being in the material world. It's like we're connected on the fundamental level, but also until we reach

the inner illumination, we we're separated. There's a barrier. Yeah, there's a barrier. It's like hot and cold, light and dark. They both exists on the same spectrum, the same continuum, but there is something separating them, but not really right, right, there's an illusion of separation, right, right, It's an illusion. Yes, we are in the illusion of separation theurgy. I thought this was very interesting, and it's a word

I don't see a whole lot. Her Medicism emphasizes spiritual practice and theurgy as means of aligning oneself with the divine and participating in the ongoing process of spiritual evolution. Through spiritual practice, you basically attempt to attain nosis or direct knowledge of the transcendent God, the nature and the destiny of the human soul. I think this is very important when talking about a myth or religious system, you'd say, you know, what happens after death? What what's what's the

grand purpose of the soul and why it's here. Every system has a different philosophy, you know. According to Genesis, it's like, oh shit, well your curse because you ate apple, Right, that's it, you d apple, that's it. That's the whole purpose bad apple. Yeah, that's the whole purpose they had. The freaking crab apple was sitting right there and she just couldn't she couldn't resist is a crab apple? I mean, it

was rotten. It seems pretty reductive when you think about it, like, that's the whole purpose of the human soul is to like like pay penance for this like original sin, that's the whole purpose. Yeah, it seems really reductive. Yeah, and I am downplaying, like the whole story, and there's more truth than that. It's like, you know, because they disobeyed God. But then it's like, you know, you get an esoteric view and it's like the Gnostics are like, hey, that God was actually like

trying to enslave you guys, and that was the demiurge. So it's like, what is it? You know, I don't know. Yeah, but the divine origin. According to her Meticism, which I wrot with, the human soul is believed to originate from the divine realm, like we came from there. We're not just born here and created here. It's not like you're born and it's like, oh, a new soul. It's like no,

no, you are eternal. You are an eternal essence that has literally existed since before space time was even a continuum, and we were a part of the original light in the highest transcendent plane. Right. The divine essence imbused the soul with inherent divinity and the potential for spiritual growth. We have a tripartite structure. The human soul is often described as consisting three main components, the noose, the spirit, or the mind, and in her meticism,

spirit and mind are interchangeable. The mind is the spirit, the highest aspect of the soul, representing the divine intellect in the wisdom, the psyche, or the soul. It encompasses your emotions, desires, personality, trade serving as the individual's psychological and emotional center. Or the soul of the body, the physical vessel through which you know, the soul interacts with the material world. We're considered immortal, eternal, transcending the temporal realm of physical existence.

And while the body dies, this soul forever and ever and beyond ever continues the journey of illumination way past the material plane. It's like an ever increase of enlightenment. It's like the microcosm macrocosm thing again. Crazy thing, just a complete tangent that I find very interesting is this is more or less a kind of a secretly guarded Mormon doctrine that is not very commonly known. But

they actually have a principle known as continual increase. And they say the same thing that I mean, you know, it doesn't stop here, right, Yeah, we don't have to get in the weeds of it. But it's the climb of the soul or that it doesn't stop here, it continues even after you transcend into that spirit world, that next place. Also a lot of high level Mormons or Masons mm hmmm. And you know, you look in the Mormon Bible and there's Egyptian hieroglyphs, and they have like Masonic symbols

and initiations, and that hermetic knowledge is everywhere. It's everywhere. Yes, that's my point. I'm not trying to legitimize Mormonism. I'm just saying it's everywhere. It has it is. It's the thing behind the thing, you know. It's like it's like the Wizard of Oz. You know, it's the man behind the curtain. No one really knows, but it's it's influenced everything. Spiritual evolution is the destiny of the soul. Basically, through successful

lifetimes, reincarnation is like a legitimate part of the doctrine. The soul undergoes a process of growth, learning and perifcation, gradually unfolding divine potential and wisdom. Eventually, you reach a point where I think you essentially like have become enlightened beyond physical experience, you know, incarnation, and you just keep going, You keep going into the divine realms and into the angelic realms and forever

and ever, nosis and enlightenment. That's the goal, is to continually achieve higher levels of consciousness, attainment of nosis, direct knowledge of the divine. It's crucial for the soul's journey, spiritual practice, contemplation, the pursuit of wisdom. You're on a journey to seek to deepen your understanding of the knowledge of God and the spiritual world, the nature of the divine, harmony with

the cosmic order. We're intimately connected to living in harmony with the divine order of the universe, trying to embody those natural laws within our life, and you know, using them justly in the treatment of others. Our aspirations for enlightenment, eternal progression ongoing in eternal process. I know I already hit on this, but after attaining enlightenment, the soul continues to evolve and deepen its

connection with the Divine, perpetually expanding its understanding and consciousness. I think I have like two more things I wanted to hit on here two and a half, but the dark force, so I was like is there a dark force in Hermeticism? When I say dark force, I mean like the devil, you know, Collie whatever. Every religion has some sort of entity that's like the King of Hell or you know whatever, Antichrist. And I was just like, is there a dark force? What I found was like, no,

not really, not in the hermonic body of literature. The dark force is the illusion, It's the ignorance. The dark force is the lack of the knowledge, right, which goes along with the duality thing, the principle of duality, because if God is the knowledge, than the absence of knowledge with the opposite of God, which would be the quote unquote dark force. I've said this before, but like, I believe that the dark forces, like, I think it's more or less like an egregor Like I don't think

that there's some like almighty Satan that exists in hell below. But I think it's like an ancient I mean, this is going to sound out there, but not really. I think it's like an ancient group that is more or less interfacing with some sort of psychic egregore that is running things here. I don't I don't think it's like some eternal devil that's like destined to fight war with God. Like I think it's like people like I think it's it's like

the spirit of the attachment to the material kind of thing. Yeah, I mean people that are attached to the material realm, the people that like run the world. I mean, you know, the easiest way to say that

is Illuminati. Right Again, it's like, we don't really know if that's accurate, but there is a literal group of people here in power the way beyond billionaires, there's trillionaire families like the Rothschilds and all these different people that have existed for centuries and even millenniums since the times that Babylon they had like blood letting, magical sacrifice rituals for power, and you know, even the

Aztecs were ripping people's hearts out under the eclipses. I mean these these hundreds yes, yeah, sometimes ten thousand a day. You know this, this kind of stuff has existed for thousands of years, that the powerful classes of different nations, and I just think over time it's consolidated to be this secret global power that is running the world. And I think that's the devil, right, Like, I think there are obviously evil spirits. I mean evil

things and evil forces, but it's not like one unified entity. I think. I think God is the unified entity, and the evil force is just it's it's fractured, it's it's hard to explain. It's you know, I see it a certain way. But it's interesting. I like what her meticism says. It's like, no, there's not a devil. It's like I mean, it's you know, it's like ignorance is the devil. It's like

the dark force is whatever God is not. It's like wherever God I guess like God in it would technically be everywhere, but it's like wherever God is not present, you know what I mean, Yeah, wherever that spirit is not being sought after or prioritized. You know, It's like that would be the dark Force. When you think about it from this lens, it makes sense that they would want to try to convince us there is no God,

there is no spirit. Why they would want to try to convince us that all this phenomenon stuff is aliens, it's monsters, it's reptilians, it's Draco's, it's all this physical mumbo jumbo voodoo crap from all these other worlds and they're trying everything that. It's like the lady said, dark force and power.

They're scripting out the Book of Revelations, and uh, there's going to be a great deception that there is no God and its aliens, right, you know, it makes sense, like if what this is saying is true, Like you know, if the evil force of the universe is the ignorance and giving into the illusion of the material world and not you know, interfacing with the spirit, of course the people in power wouldn't want us to have access to this knowledge. Yeah, the ones who perpetuate the ignorance are the

dark force, right, Yeah, totally makes sense. Yeah, I see that's interesting. Illusion and ignorance clouds the mind and obstructs one's understanding of the spiritual truths. These forces can manifest as false beliefs, distractions, attachments to material desires, preventing individuals from realizing their divine nature and fulfilling their spiritual potential. Negative influences. Like there, it does acknowledge the existence of negative influences

and energies that can affect individuals on their spiritual journey. But again, it's like not one unified devil, Like we're told you know. These influences can arise from internal sources like egoic tendencies or negative emotions, as well as external factors such as societal conditioning or environmental stressors, or also the lower self, a recognition of the lower self. It represents the aspects of the individual associated

with material desires, base instincts, like animalistic urges. You know that they're really dark, low vibrational thoughts that exist deep within the I guess the dark parts of the psyche. Everybody has this within them. Nobody is it's human nature. Yeah, I mean they told us in Turning Red bro it is. But that's the whole point of the movie. It's like integrating with your shadow, right, I mean it's it's really esoteric but serious though. Really

the point of the movie. We all have a shadow side. Even Young said it, we all have a shadow, you know, we talk about shadow work. It's like, how are you interacting with it? You know, are you letting it consume you? Or are you like shaking its hand and being like, I understand you are a natural part of my existence and you are here for me to learn down with my demons. Yeah, that is literally they're literally shaking hands. Wow, it's a human hand and a

demon hand shaking hands. Yeah, I mean not just saying, dude, interveying discord the presence of entropy, which basically is like chaos, or discord is chaos, which can manifest as disharmony. It's not inherently malevolent, but they can disrupt the natural order and impeed the soul's evolution towards higher states of consciousness. Okay, the last main thing that I wanted to talk about was

entities and how they exist within the framework of Hermetic thought. Angels in her Meticism Sism are sometimes described as celestial beings or messengers of divine wisdom, seen as emanations of divine attributes or principles, serving as guides or intermediaries between the divine realm and humanity. While not always depicted in the same way as Judeo Christian traditions, angels and Hermeticism embody spiritual qualities assisting individuals on their journey of

evolution. Spirits, spiritual entities, or forces that permeate the universe exist in Hermetic thought. They could be associated with various aspects of nature, like elemental spirits, planetary intelligences, logos, They're often seen as expressions of cosmic principles or archetypal energies, influencing the natural world and human consciousness. The beings did tell my dad that there are elementals. Sometimes he sees these orbs that look

like a little fire and he calls him a flame. He says, they're like elementals, light beings. This was a key for me because years ago I read a hermetic text. I can't remember which one it was. Maybe it was the Kybalian, which I have not even referenced yet, and we're in hour nineteen minutes and that's a shame, And I think it was in the kai Balian. It talks about evolving to higher levels of existence, to becoming a light being. I don't know, but that's where I got the

word. It's from Hermeticism. That's why I started. You know. It's like when all this stuff started, Dad never called these beings light beings, right, Yeah. I came up with that nice and it's like it's obvious, you know. It's like, if you think about it, there are beings of light. They're balls of light. Their orbs just shine like a lights, Like anybody could have came up with that, but I thought really hard about this for years. It's like, I can't call an angel.

I mean I do, but you know not most of the time because people get offended. They're not aliens. What are they? Beings of light? Beings of light. Yeah, it's like it's universal. It's just a universal truth. I mean, you know, angels are beings of light. Yeah, why not? You know, Jedi are beings of light. It's a concept that exists universally. So I learned about that from a Hermetic text. They're luminous entities that embody, divine wisdom and illuminate. These beings are often

symbolic representations of spiritual enlightenment and the attainment of higher consciousness. They can guide individuals towards awakening and transformation life after death, the journey of the soul beyond the physical realm, and the continuation of illumination after death. The immortality of the soul, according to Hermetic thought, teaches that the soul is eternal.

It transcends the limitations of the physical body. While the body perishes, the soul persists beyond death, continuing its experience and the spiritual realm forever past the need for material incarnation spiritual evolution. After death, it undergoes a process of purification and evolution. This is important. I really wanted to talk about this. It may experience a period of reflection and review where it assesses its actions

and experiences from its earthly life. This process is believed to contribute to the soul's growth and progression towards higher states of consciousness. So think about it. If you're an evil person, right, I believe that there are people out there in the world who may be narcissists or psychopaths or just completely crazy, negative, hateful, awful people. And these people, I believe do harmful,

malicious things to others. And I don't think they're like, you know, they're crazy behind the eyes, like they don't see the harm that they do. Oh yeah, they're oblivious to it. Could you imagine the horror that they feel when they die and they see the review of what they've done, you know what I mean? Think about it, Think about why that's

necessary for the soul. You've lived your whole life and been a delusional denial that you're not harming people, that you're not doing terrible, negative things to people, you know, serving yourself your base instincts to cheat and to steal and to step over others for that promotion at that job, or cheat on your spouse or you know whatever. The old rob kill. They don't think they're doing wrong. Yeah, otherwise they're why are they doing it? And

then in that moment they realize everything they've ever done is wrong. Yeah, and then they die and they're like, oh my god, they're seeing everything they've ever done, you know, I mean, think about it. It's necessary for the soul. Dude. It's like DMT bro. I wanted to talk about that because it's like the Barto loop, and it's like in Tibetan Buddhism they or maybe it's a Tibetan Book of the Dead they talk about that where it's like you die and you like review your life or people always say

my life flashed before my eyes. Well, and also in Christianity, it's like when you face God after death at the gates, he shows you everything you ever did. He flips the pages and tells you everything you ever did wrong on his tablet, right on his iPad. Yeah, he flips through. He asks chat GPT to explain it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

I'm just saying, man, I think that's a very fascinating concept. I've always believed it to be true, but to see that it was like mentioned in the hermetic text, I'm like, Okay, there's got to be something to this. Yeah, it makes sense for the progression of the soul, Like how could you know, how could you learn from what you've done wrong? If you you know, there's just some people that get away with bad stuff their whole life, and you know, it's like it's the whole principle

of reincarnation. Like, if the whole principle is that, like each lifetime you learn new lessons, how does you and your soul apparently either improves or whatever. It's like, how would your soul even know what it needs to improve upon or what it did right? Or how would it even carry that momentum into the next lifetime right if it didn't have a moment of reflection? Yeah, yeah, how would you even know what you did wrong? Yeah? You know exactly. Yeah, I mean it makes perfect sense to me.

Spiritual evolution after death and under the soul undergoes a process of spiritual purification. Oh, I just read that. When I'm sorry, Reunion with the divine the ultimate destiny of the soul is to reunite with this divine source, often described as the all, the One, the Noos. In Gnostic thought, it can be known as the pleurroma, but it's the same thing. They're interchangeable concepts. This reunion is the culmination of the soul's journey, where

it merges back in the divine essence from where it originated. There is the existence of the multiple realms or plans, planes of existence beyond the physical world, like the heavenly realms where souls experienced states of bliss and enlightenment, as well as the lower realms associated with spiritual stagnation or purification, karma, and reincarnation. You undergo multiple lifetimes in order to learn and evolve spiritually, with

each incarnation presenting opportunities for growth and self realization. I wanted to pause with these two points. This is why I stopped believing in hell in the traditional sense. You know how it goes growing up being a kid. You're so terrified of Hell. You're praying every night. Please don't send me to Hell. I'm sorry, God, I'm sorry I said a cuss word, you know, or whatever you did as an elementary school kid. Afraid of the

Boogeyman, the double gonna drag you down a freaking hell. I start reading these Hermitic texts and it's like the destiny of every soul is to eventually reincarnate and you know, learn these lessons and be purified and you know, go back home, you know, to the heighest round. And I'm like, dude, Like, if souls are supposed to be eternal, how can we

believe that you live one life for seventy years that's your one shot? You know, you could be born into, you know, an impoveraged village in Africa, or you could be born in Beverly Hills and you're the child of a rock star with millions of dollars. You know. It's like, how's that fair? You know, yeah, it's not fair. Life is not fair. Now, How does it make sense that every soul has this equal opportunity with one shot? And it's like, oh, well, you didn't

confess Christ. Yeah, you're an infinite least sealing your fate with this one little lifetime, right, Infinitely, your eternal fate depends on this one little lifetime. Like it says in Genesis, were made in the image of God. But I kind of feel like, you know, God's immortal, God's eternal, right, you know, I was under the impression we're supposed to be. But then you know, there's this idea that we live this one life and then you die, and then you die the second death after the

judgment. You know, you die the second death and then you're in the lake of fire forever, forever. It just doesn't make sense to me. It never really made sense. It never made sense to me either. It was scary, yep, but that in the back of my head, I was always like, dass bullshit, like no way. But in the front of your head, you're like terrified, of course, because you're being told to be terrified. Yeah, your pastor is telling you, you know,

to be terrified. I had a revival at my church one time. For those that don't know what revival is, it's like you have it's a whole event, and it's like you have pastors from all around the region, calm and like guest pastors, and this one guy literally said he said something like it's been many years now, like five to ten years, and he was like, you think it's hard now, He said, you think it's hard now? Life is roses compared to the eternal flames of hell. I'm sitting

next to people who literally are suffering drug addiction. Oh you think it's hard now, Life is roses compared to hell. And I'm like people sitting next to you living through hell, living yeah, and died from it, you know. And I'm sitting there thinking like, uh wow, yeah, how insensitive? Right? How like? It just it flies in the face of everything that God is supposed to be. Right, man, it just never computed. It doesn't make sense. Life is all roses, yeah, compared

to hell. Okay, man, you made your point, but yeah, I mean the last point here is that the union with the divine mind is the ultimate destiny of the soul. After everything, after the millions of lifetimes we apparently, according to Theosophic thought, might live, or hundreds of thousands

over millions of years or whatever. It doesn't matter. The soul's journey is to attain union with the divine mind, the cosmic intelligence through spiritual practice, purification, illumination, cosmic evolution, ongoing process, forever and ever and ever, reaching the highest transcendent reality. And that's it. That's her meticism. It's all love. It's all light. It's all about just truth and the

harmony and the justice of the universe. And it's just crazy to me, Like, dude, when you hear this, when I first was researching her meticism, it's like you kind of on guard, like what's the catch? Yeah, because there's always a catch. There's always something where you're like, what's the catch I can't vibe with? There's always something what's the catch? You know? Is it a you know, I gotta sacrifice a goat three times a year? Is it? You know? I gotta confess that I

believe Ali Baba's better at shipping products than Amazon? Is it? You know? Like, what's the catch here that I'm not seeing with her meticism? Is like literally, man, it's like studying it for years and years and years, I have not seen one catch that's been alarming to me, Like this is bullshit, this is evil, This is some weird, darker culture. Like no, dude, it's all like the the just the purest like love and light. And it just makes sense to me that, like it

is true. Yeah, it's all very unifying and uplifting and it's it's a it's something to look forward to. It's it's like it's it's incur you know, it's not it's not a rule book. It's good exactly. It's good news, yeah, gospel. Yeah, it's it's not like that's what gospel. It means the good news. Yeah, but it's not like, dude, it's like going to church. It's like, I believe in God. I believe in this, but like I you know, there's some things like

why can't I buy on Sunday? Right? Why can't I cut my hair? Yeah? I mean, come on, man, I want I want a tattoo. Yeah, I mean it's like, dude, I gotta wear a suit on Sunday or I'm you know, ostracized. My wife has lipstick on it. She's a Jezebel. Like, what's the catch. There's a catch? You know, there's always a catch. You know. It's like there's always a catch with these spiritual systems. Bro. And it's like, I'm just telling you, man, that's the cool thing about her medicism.

It's like a relief hearing this ship after someone who's been seeking knowledge my whole life. Everything I read about this, I'm like, dang, this is is kind of like it's comforting, it is it makes you feel good good, it does, Like, Wow, you're telling me I don't have to go through some like strict rules to like be on pins and needles and suffer mentally my whole life and be afraid that I'm sinning and going to hell.

Oh you mean to say, Like all I gotta do is just like really try to be a good person in commune with God, to just be the best version of myself that I can be. But understand that, like it's a process that goes on forever and ever and ever, and don't have all this pressure to get it right. You don't have to have all the answers right now. Yeah, it's like walking a tightrope versus just flowing down a

stream. Like walking the tightrope is like the religion, the exoteric, like you're always on your toes, you're always on edge, like don't fuck up, don't fuck up. And then her meticism is like chill the fuck out. Yeah it's fine, it's fine. It's like no, literally, like relax, chill, it's fine, release your attachment. Yeah, just chill. If you don't get it right this time, you'll get it right another

time. It's gonna happen millions of times. And guess what, even after you're dead, it'll keep going on, Even after your soul leaves this material plane, it'll keep going. You'll keep flowing, like just chilling. And it's like, you know, it's not I'm not making a case for like, oh I'm off the hook. I don't have to try. Like, no, you do have to try, because everybody has to try. That's why we're here. I think everybody has the responsibility to genuinely try to be

the best version of themselves they can be. That doesn't mean, you know, you should have all this pressure on yourself to be like perfect to this ultimate person. It's just you understand the laws. You understand the nature of the universe and reality itself and how God works. And it's like, Okay, the key takeaway here is there is a force that is not only trying to help you, but it is you. You know what I mean, Like it's it's trying to help you. You know, it's not trying to

curse you. It's not trying to put the lightning bolt because you send like no, no, no, It's like dude, like you came here for a reason and like just just if you fuck up to a big freaking woolp man. Just get up and try again tomorrow. It's you know, it's like it's it's it's not that serious, you know what I mean, It's not that serious, but it is too. It's the paradox, yeah, duality of it. Yeah. But you know, I'm gonna go on record and say her medicism is cool and good. Yeah. I think I can

get behind that message. There's no rules. Hey, I mean, you know, how's the song going? Dang, I was gonna say, on man, shirt brother. Yeah, so the moral of the story is get that cream on your cake, all right, dude, get that cream on your cake. The shirt brothers, how does it go? The song? I don't remember. I don't remember. It's like some famous band though that made it really Yeah, you know, it's like the White Stripes or something.

I don't know. There's some famous band. We'll find it after that. I can't remember. Yeah, I think you should leave. It's a great show. Yeah, watch it, but also like I think we should leave, like it's okay, my god, my god. Weird things happen in the backyard of Bletsoe House. You see it, look up. It's so weird. Coming closer to us here status straight up like smiling on the inside of it. No one knows. Man, Wow, it's come right over good. I'm sorry. Being a happy, happ