Discover the secret history of cults, witches, magicians, conspiracies and the supernatural with occultism scholar Rob C. Thompson. His crew of Alchemical Actors explore life’s mysteries with a blend of research, ritual, and old-fashioned radio drama.
Dr. Rob is flying solo for this exploration of the spiritual, ethical, and educational ramifications of the rise of consumer artificial intelligence; namely large language models like ChatGPT. Rob talks about his experience as a teacher and researcher and explores the logical limits of a machine that promises to think for us.
Tobias Churton, author of The Book of Enoch Revealed, talks about how the texts ascribed to Enoch, most famously the story of the Watchers, came to the West. What is the significance of Enoch's ancient tale of angels and earth women?
John Mandeville, who may or may not be a real person, claimed to travel the lands of Prester John where he saw chameleons the size of goats and hairy men who could swim really fast. Mandeville also made the argument that Christianity wasn't essential to earning God's favor, advocating for something like a natural religion.
In the twelfth century, Pope Alexander III received a letter from Prester John, a legendary Africa priest king rumored to be as powerful as the Great Khan. The letter made fantastic claims about the Prester's lands and power and may have been a hoax but then Alexander's own physician brought him news that he'd met the Prester's representative in the Holy Land. Could the Prester be the Pope's solution to his political squabbles with the Holy Roman Emperor?
Alice Kyteler was the first woman to be tried for witchcraft in Ireland and her servant, Petronilla of Meath, was the first to be burned for heresy. Kyteler's stepchildren with her three deceased husbands accused Kyteler of being a black widow my supernatural means and sought to use Pope John XXII's recent decree that sorcery was a heresy to rid themselves of their stepmother once and for all.
Renowned Renaissance Festival performers Judas and Magnolia return to discuss the sacred and spiritual components of performance. In a conversation that ranges from Plato to Georges Bataille, the theater becomes something more than just a place to see a show.
Rob and Luke sit down with Tahverlee, founder of the Moon Temple Mystery School, to discuss the archetype of the witch, healing generational trauma, and her experience with the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Miguel Conner discusses his new book on Elvis's interest and involvement with occultism. From charismatic Christianity to theosophy, Conner traces Elvis's journey and the strange symbolism of Elvis's Vegas period.
James Jesse Strang presents a parallel prophet’s career to that of Joseph Smith. In some ways, a copycat of the Mormon prophet who literally attempted to succeed him despite their having had only a brief relationship, Strang also innovated on Mormon doctrine. Like Smith, he discovered a collection of ancient plates hidden in the earth and established a community of believers on the frontier that he moved to a still better frontier. But his revelations were significantly shorter and less involved...
After the death of Joseph Smith, the Mormons relocated to the basin beside the Great Salt Lake, led by Brigham Young. The journey of the pioneering Mormons and Young's leadership were an amazing display of spirit and grit but the shadow of polygamy dogged them in their quest to become a state. Slavery further complicated things for the Mormons and their strange doctrine of blood atonement which resulted in the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Fleeing persecution from the government of Missouri, Joseph Smith and the Mormons found themselves in Nauvoo, Illinois. There, Smith established a militia, ran for governor, discovered his doctrine of plural marriage, and purchased a mummy. Nauvoo was Smith's last Zion at the scene for the events that would lead to his assassination at the hands of an angry mob. This episode contains a brief reference to suicide.
The Book of Mormon is full of intrigue and adventure. It also repeats the phrase "and it came to pass" over 1400 times. It tells the story of a lost tribe of Israel crossing the ocean to America to establish a new civilization and how that civilization was ultimately destroyed. We take seriously Joseph Smith's claim that his book was a historical document and consider points for and against the Book of Mormon.
Joseph Smith's discovery of a set of buried golden plates was the beginning of the Mormons or Church of Latter Day Saints. This was also moment deeply ensconced in folk belief and magic. Treasure-digging, seer stones, and magical parchments were all part of the Smith family tradition and they each played a part in the story of Moroni's Golden Plates.
Hollywood makeup artist, Pati Dubroff, became a preservationist after moving into the original dome of the Theosophists' Krotona Institute. In this interview, Pati shares her experiences (positive and negative) with paranormal entities, local government, and landlords in her noble quest to save Krotona. To donate to the Los Angeles Fire Department please use this link: https://supportlafd.org/donate/ways-to-give.html.
Paul Wyld visits to talk about his book "Jim Morrison: Secret Teacher of the Occult." Wyld discusses Morrison's reading of esoteric texts and how they influenced his lifestyle and art as a "secret teacher" of magical things.
Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception was a book ahead of its time and related the famous British novelist and intellectual's experimental engagement with mescaline. Huxley became a proponent of mescaline and sometime user of LSD ever afterward and a major influence on the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s.
There is so much Star Wars content out in the wide world. Some of it is loved, some of it hated, but there is one piece of Star Wars media that is so hated by its creator that it was almost lost media. If it wasn’t for fans making bootleg VCR copies during its one and only broadcast it would be lost to time. I’m talking about of course the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. A variety show set in the Star Wars universe that was also meant to sort of celebrate Thanksgiving/Christmas. George Lucas...
We sit down with Dr. Justin Sledge of the Esoterica Youtube channel to talk about his work with medieval and ancient esoteric texts and alchemical practices.
Krishnamurti's philosophy was about getting free from thought and time, releasing memory and belief, and becoming fully present. He taught that there was no method or ritual or plan that could achieve this state of perfect presence and no guru who could guide you. Each person had to be their own guru and discover the truth of what is.
In this final installment of our biography of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the teacher disbands the Order of the Star and is banished from Theosophical Society Headquarters. He becomes an advisor to Indira Ghandi and questions whether his strange path to knowledge can ever be replicated.
The second part of our series on the teacher and philosopher Krishnamurti begins with his spiritual awakening beneath a pepper tree in Ojai, California. Krishnamurti was plagued by terrible episodes of physical suffering accompanied by great spiritual insight. We continue through to George Arundale's bizarre plot to insert himself into the highest ranks of Krishnamurti's organization and theosophy writ large.
As a child, Jiddu Krishnamurti was named the vessel for the World Teacher by leading figures in the Theosophical Society, namely Charles Leadbetter and Annie Besant. He came to regard Besant as a second mother but his relationship with Leadbetter was more complicated. Leadbetter wrote a serialized account of Krishnamurti's previous lives, calling him Alcyone, and helped Krishnamurti make contact with the ascended masters of theosophy. But Krishnamurti and his family were conflicted by the way he...
In the second part of our conversation about Annie Besant, she leaves the secularists and joins the Theosophical Society. We consider how the Mahatmas continued to produce letters after Blavatsky's death and how closely Besant's theosophy resembled the first generation.
We open our story on the child messiah, Jiddu Krishnamurti, with a two-part episode on Annie Besant, a woman he came to regard as his adopted mother. Having been an atheist, social reformer, and advocate for birth control, Besant became the president of the Theosophical Society and one of the most influential occultists of the early twentieth century.
For parents like me who chose to share 2010’s revival of My Little Pony with my children, the animated series’ emphasis on social-emotional learning is the primary draw; however, these lessons are framed in distinctly occult terms. The series is subtitled “friendship is magic” and while this may suggest that friendship is awesome, in the context of the show it often means that it is literally a matter of spells, potions, and esoteric books. The show’s association with real-world occultism in the...
We're joined by Alyce Spencer of the Witch Way Youtube channel, an expert on all things witchy in popular media. We talk about how the witch is represented in Western culture across time from Betwitched to Sabrina with plenty of stops along the way. Visit Alyce at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5gfF-v77EiVQqcUZHKx4pA
Americans are largely responsible for discovering how to make exercising a cult. The link between exercise and the spiritual life of the exerciser wasn't invented after Y2K nor were intense fitness, demanding fitness routines. But bringing these things together into a practice designed to cultivate commitment to the corporatized and franchised exercise routine as the best possible path to overall well being is a twenty-first century innovation, and one that is probably at this point a thing of t...
Norwegian black metal in the 1990s served as the soundtrack for murder, suicide, and the burning of churches dating to the medieval period across the country with the musicians themselves at the center of these crimes. Andrew Mimms takes over the microphone to tell the story of the militant Satanist Black Circle who gathered a record store called Hell to create music but also mayhem.
Synanon is really two different organizations separated by time with the same origin and some of the same personnel sort of like 1960’s Jefferson Airplane and 1980’s Starship. One has very little do with the other close-up but from a far enough distance they look kind of similar. The psychologist Steven Simon calls these two groups Synanon I and Synanon II. Synanon I called itself a charitable organization and focused its energies on drug rehabilitation in the inner city. Synanon II called itsel...
In the 1980s, the game Dungeons and Dragons or, more specifically, its creators and players were accused of operating a Satanic cult. Luke takes the lead microphone to explore the strange events that led to this profound confusion between the fantasy world of the game and the real world of 1980s America. Warning: this episode contains references to suicide.
