Death, Zen, and More

You have absolutely no idea what you're in touch with. And it'll tell you, you know, it'll tell you whoever you think it it wants to be. Or whatever you need it to be, it it will pretend to be.

And we're gonna get into this episode Death and Death Practices, Glastonbury, Zen. Our new Pope and more. So a very interesting conversation. Patrons really brought the questions this time. Very, very interesting topics for sure.

John will be selling comics. I'll bring my books and some art prints and like I said, I might be doing some live drawing there. We'll see. It really depends on my mood. Sometimes I'm not in the mood to draw in front of people and sometimes I don't care. Yeah. So if if I am in the right mood I'll draw I've had some sketch covers of various comics and stuff and maybe knock out some sketch covers that people can purchase while we're there.

All right. Without further ado, let's jump back into this interview with Brother Richard. It just kinda picks right up with the next question. So there's not an intro or anything. We just jump right into it with Brother Richard.

lived ear early to mid fourteen hundreds, was one of the main instigators of the really the Italian Renaissance at the time. And was in the fullest, most modern sense, a Renaissance man, you know. a medic, a physician, an extraordinary master of languages, later in life then felt a calling to priesthood, became a priest. And I suppose one of the things that we tend to do when we look back is we judge people or we we try and impose our categories on the people of the time.

And that's really, really dangerous because their worldview often is was a completely different worldview to ours. So to ask the question like How would the church view his his participation in natural magic and his priesthood as though they were two different things? At the time, they were perfectly commensurate. So the natural magic that he was involved with

He he wrote a number of books aro around this. And the the idea was not the kind of ritualistic summoning of spirits and all of that kind of stuff. He he wasn't interested in that. He was interested in what he called uh and many did, the great work, the alchemical great work, which was again the enlightenment of the human person. He was a an extraordinary expert on Plato, the works of Plato. And the works of Plato were

used by the church from the very beginning. In fact the early church and I think the Greek church to this day refers to both Plato and Socrates as saints, or Saint Plato and Saint Socrates, because they got as far as it was possible to get by human reason without revelation. And so a lot of the early theology of the church, especially as it moved towards the Greek uh the Greek tradition out of Jerusalem, towards the Greek speaking area.

The framework that they used to be able to kind of explain their theology and debate their theology was a platonic. Now in a very specific sense, Christian Platonism is different in fundamental understandings to s to to a lot of the the

And then you have the Neoplatonic revival, which begins to happen in sort of the early Middle Ages. They go back again to Plato, but through a Latin understanding and Then you get high scholasticism in the Middle Ages that begins to choose Aristotle over Plato as the two

So the Dominicans, for example, the Dominican school of of scholasticism, Thomas Aquinas, etc. would be very Aristotelian, but they would still Respect Plato, whereas the Franciscan model, Bonapure, etc., would be more Augustinian and Platonic. Anyway, we're doing thousands of years of history now in a line or two, so so forgive me out there.

Marcello became the first person to make a translation of the entirety of the extant works of Plato into Latin. And and and beautifully, apparently it's one of the best translations still ever done. Wow.

He became very interested in Plato and the Platonic idea of the microcosm and the macrocosm, the idea that the human being is a reflection of the the gr of the great cosmos and that revelation, the divine revelation is found. in seed form within the fullness of the universe. So the more we study the universe, the

And that's a completely orthodox Christian position to this day. And so where did the magic come in? Uh the magic came in in the idea that if we understand the natural world as fully as possible. then we are able to accommodate ourselves to a greater experience of grace, a greater experience of living according to the will and the mind of God, and we also come to know the will and the mind of God clearly through creation.

And this also included astrology. He was not interested in astrology for divination of the future, so the medieval distinguished two forms of astrology. was anathema, it was it had been banned by by scripture and by faith and in fact they said It began to fail from the moment that the Magi placed their crowns before the Magi, the three wise men being astrology, basically laying down and saying, Time is now over.

But they did believe in astrology in terms of the conditions of the human person how the universe was at the moment of your conception or your birth having influence on your personality, and how it was possible to understand the present moment with greater depth by understanding what was happening in the Stamers in. So it was kind of a subtle understanding of astrology in that way. So very often these figures are presented as you know astrologers and pro-astrology.

When in actual fact their understanding of what they meant by astrology and what we mean by astrology is too Having said that, having written three books on magic, he was hauled up before the Inquisition three times and faced three different trials and he was Vindicated in all in all three trials. They found them to be completely orthodox in all its positions. I think one judgment said that. that he was orthodox but difficult to understand.

I think to understand him and to understand the kind of humanism that he that he proposed, he was a humanist in the sense of that first wave of Wanting to restore classical knowledge and understanding of the ancient world and sort of meld it together with the scholasticism of the Middle Ages.

So when they said humanism, they didn't mean the humanism we mean, which tends to be atheistic, secular and centered on the human person. They meant the transcendence the recognizing once again the transcendence of the human person as a vessel of So if we really want to understand their worldview, we we have to understand that everything is symbolic for them. Everything leads back to the divine.

Everything has what they call the vestigia dei, the imprint of the creator within it. And if we study it deeply, we will find not just the creator's intended. intention for the thing, but it becomes a step on the ladder of being back to the divine. This will be very close to the Franciscan school.

But it would also include things for Marsillo, like um the doctrine of signatures, for example, where herbalism and health was concerned, the idea that something that looked like a part of a human being. This was the clue God had given to say this is good for that. Okay. And how you would how you so you were looking for the signature of the divine, the instructions written within things.

It was a completely normal m understanding and the healing that was the work that was done would also have included medicinal intentional work, spiritual exercises and prayers, for example. All of that was together. But like kind of like back to our Tibetan dagger earlier.

uh medieval and renaissance literature and uh just on the culture. And he wrote it specifically for people from the twentieth century who were having trouble getting into the mindset of how these people understood reality.'Cause it's so different. For sure. It's a look the discarded image and I would recommend it to anybody who's interested as kind of a primer before going to the medieval text and imposing our latter day understanding.

So a historian some years ago in a T V programme put it beautifully. He said, Um, a modern day person walks out into a garden, picks up a rose and says, Isn't that beautiful? and refers the rose uh to to the the individual plant and to maybe the taxonomic variety or to the way it was ra reared or simply to their appreciation of it as something beautiful.

He said the medieval walked into walked into the garden and saw a rose and said, Isn't that beautiful? And in that moment was transported to heaven. But I don't mean extat, but they saw that rose as being a point of revelation.

contained within itself divine mystery. It had all of the allusions going all the way back into scripture, mysticism, meditation, you know, prayer, the saints, our lady, etc., all the way back. And it's also an image of the archetypal rose that exists within the divine mind, which the ones in the garden are never going to live up to completely, but can give us an idea. So it's a very different project.

favor or power. That was absolutely anathema as they were conc concerned. But what they did see was that God had not abandoned his creation and that healing was present in creation, particularly after the incarnation, because The divine and taking on human nature had taken on the whole of physical nature and was healing it. And so nature itself, as they said, every sickness has its cure. Up to them to see it. So they would combine ritual with these things.

But they were ritual prayers to focus the intention of the person making the remedies or also um to invoke, say, the patron of a particular illness, or so if you had You know, a skin rush or something like that. the ointment would be made up. But very often the ointment was made on the feast of the saint

for that particular skin ailment. And then it would be given to you with prayers to be said as well. So again, it's focusing the mind on healing, recognizing that the person, patron, the saint is with you. It's increasing the efficacy of the remedy. To this day, on the Feast of the Assumption, The Assumption of Our Lady coming up next week in our calendar, the fifteenth of of August.

The the week before from Saint John's Eve, twenty first of June, right the way up to the Feast of the Assumption, traditionally that was when herbs uh gathered. for healing remedies for the coming year. And they were only ever put at night, gat and they had to be gathered by women. Men weren't allowed to touch the

The the the the um the beginnings, the ingredients I should say for the remedies. They would then be brought to the Abbeys for or the monasteries for the vigil of the Assumption, and placed all around the altar, and particularly under the altar cloth, so that the Mass would be celebrated on top of and

Herbs that had gone through that were seen as being extremely powerful for healing, because they had gone through three blessings the blessing of creation when God breathed the virtue, the power into that particular herb to heal. Secondly then the blessing of the incarnation. Okay, when Christ comes and creation is restored back into balance, there's a kind of a re renewal or re breathing. And the third then is the consecration happening.

over the the blessed sacrament being being contracted in the celebration of the Mass. Oh. on Our Lady's Day, because Our Lady was seen as the beginning of the fullness of the healing of humanity. So she's the first freeze that the medicinal that's been given to humanity to begin to give. Those prayers and rituals are still done to this day, particularly in German speaking countries.

the rituals I I publish the rituals most year most year is that they're they're really, really beautiful, perfectly allowed, they're perfectly open. I know people who you will even bring their their store bought herbal remedies for for blessing on that day, you know. Whatever whatever is going to be going to be used. But yeah, it was a very important thing.

And women, as I said, were the only ones allowed to touch the hearts until after the blessing. And that point then they were distributed out the um be blessed because of the connection with with Our Lady.

And I'm I'm not going to say that every priest or every every uh cleric or religious has the same view, but certainly amongst lessons. Again, it's the sense you if you can't laugh at yourself You know, there is no there's no no point in being who you're here you're trying to be, I think, yeah.

Now without again going into thousands of years of of of um understanding of scriptures, it's really important for us to recognise

that when we speak of the scriptures, in the Catholic and Orthodox tradition, we do not believe in sola scriptura. In other words, the scripture is the only authority. We believe that actually Scripture and tradition are the two two the two ways in which the divine continues continues to speak and that the traditional comment has the authority to comment on scripture. So in the monastic tradition we believe that every line of scripture has at least four senses, four sacred senses.

And they are the historical literal. Okay, fine. You sit down, you read it, you understand the story or or the type of literature it might be, because there's various different literature within the Bible. The Bible is not a book, it's a library of books.

uh you know, moving over four thousand years worth. I I know many young people who sit down and go, Yeah, I'm gonna read this through and find out what it's all about and once they hit the the you know, the the lists of Leviticus they tend to give up at that point. Uh i so it's not it's not a s a story to be read from beginning to end at all. Very different kinds of literature within. So the historical literal sense gives us an understanding.

The second one is what's called the tropological and tropos Greek meaning to move, which is that it gives moral guidance to teach us to move in the direction of the good. Her then is the allegorical, which means that even though you're reading maybe a historical story, Say the Exodus for example. While that's a story of something that happened a number of Years ago, it's also has always been seen by the Christian tradition as an allegory of baptism.

So and this is really important. Even though it's an allegory, we accept that it historically happened, right? It's that it's it's true. And then the final sentence is the anagogical or the mystical, which is the moment of encounter with the Holy Spirit in and through the text in your particular circumstances, in your emotion.

So maybe you're using the text to bring yourself to calmness and stillness and this is where the Mantraic element of scripture can also come in because the entire passage you're reading you might find that you're called to look particularly maybe at one line or one word and you're sitting with that. The old Celtic monks used to say they were chewing the cud of scripture, like the cow, you know, you're you you're chewing and rechewing. It is always something new, something

So it's a it's a wonderful prayer form. I'd encourage anybody to kind of look at it. Lexia also can be done not just with scripture, it can be done with other other texts as well. Um I know people who've done Lexia with kind of poetry or with some lyrics.

with music, the formal structure of Lectio goes through kind of four distinct steps, which is lexio to read, um meditatio to think about in the in the intellectual form of meditation to imagine, to visualize, etc. Then Oratio, which is to allow the prayer of the heart to come forward, we bring forward. Petition I need and finally contemplatio, which is to sit in stillness and silence.

There's also another form that goes alongside it, which is Visio Divina. And Visio Divina is it's only really being now, but it's it's which is the contemplation of scriptures of icons or images. So it might be sitting with a particular say a painting of a biblical scene and sitting and going through those same steps with with civil. to the depth to feel the echoes of the presence of the divine

And so they become an Angelos, an angel, when God gives them a particular job or a commission, because the word angel means messenger. And so angel is an angel who's given a particularly important message to to to bring. Having said that over the years, I was Through scripture and through tradition, the various kind of duties of the different kinds of angel have been differentiated out. So ranging from the highest, the angels who who dwell

before the divine and to very, very seldom, if at all, descend into the material universe. You have the seraphim where beings of pure love. and are often seen as flaming or fiery. In iconography they're given six wings as a sign of their adoration, presence, speed, etc. and their humility before the presence of God, because the wings cover their their flaming their flaming.

often seen as the sort of the might of God, the power of God being present. And so the Caribs are very often, if they descend at all, are given very important jobs like governmenting the the the the gates of of Eden or it was Caribs that were put over the Ark of the Covenant to to protect it those images of those angels. And I can I from an iconographic point of view they've seen with four wings. Four wings represent the four directions that they're present everywhere at once.

And then you have the thrones. In English we often call them the thrones, but they're they're angelic their name, the more traditional name is the Orifim. And the Orophim are those biblically accurate angels that everybody's talking about now, where you see kind of wheel massive amounts of eyes and

you know, multiple amounts of wings, etcetera. And they're beings of pure pure knowledge and pure wisdom. And they represent the the divine wisdom in in in that sense, the the wisdom without beginning or end. Saint Thomas Aquinas puts it beautifully. He said they are circles because they move with majesty and look as though they are rolling through the heavens rather than, you know, having to walk anywhere on on feet.

Then you come to the second section, which are angels who are operative over governance of the natural world, and you have the the dominions, the powers and the virtues. And then the lesser, the last are the three who are nearest to us and we call them the uh principalities. Uh I won't go into it all because we've we've we've covered we've covered that before previously, but essentially

the higher angels work through the lower angels and illuminate the lower angels for particular tasks. Moving it across then to the the other part of the question and do we find such a structure in in the diabolical? The diabolical came from the various parts of of the um the angelic uh host. It it is believed that no no angel fell from the highest choir at all, apart from Lucifer himself.

So Lucifer and Michael, Gabriel, Ravel, etcetera, the the seven high, even though we call them archangels, they don't belong to the choir of archangels, they're the h they're they're highest angels. face of God and give the title to the angel because of the work that they did. So it was believed that Luc that Lucifer was the only one that fell from there, all of the other fallen angels come from lesser choir. Again, this is tradition, not dogmatic teaching.

And so while they retain their particular power or authority or ability, they don't have the authority that they had. Though they like disclaim that they that they have. And so one of the things you'll often find in Exorcisms, for example, is that the particular diabolical spirit will claim to be a great king or a duke or will use the shiest names or whatever along the way. We just don't get into dialogue with them, we dismiss them straight.

They have no power or authority once the author authority least is present. And again, it's all self- And this is one of the things that also from a paranormal point of view people need to be really, really aware of is that sometimes we will think they're in touch with really high stuff, you know, along the way. And you have absolutely no idea what you're in touch with.

You know, and it'll tell you, you know, it'll tell you whoever you think it it wants to be, or whatever you need it to be, it it will pretend to be. And sometimes you will also find in the same way that say a lesser spirit is actually the active thing, but it's being strengthened by a superior spirit. For whatever reason.

This tends to be the way with all of the little girl ghosts that we hear over and over and over again. I'm not saying that there aren't ghosts of little girls, but I'm quite sure there are. I may even have encountered one of one stage. But in some archetypal way, what's the most harmless thing? The most harmless thing is a little child.

You know, a little girl child, remembering the classical understanding, you know, the archetypal understanding. I'm not trying to be sexist or gender, just an type of And so in walks this thing and suddenly it's all pity and sad and we'll mind her and we look after her and we don't mind her being around and all of this kind of stuff. And over time it gets worse. And it tends to be a greater working through a lesser

And so we always just watch out for that whenever we arrive. We're told, Oh yeah, it's a tiny little girl isn't. Test this. In terms of the Fay and their hierarchy, again, in as much as what we know is traditional. There were, as I mentioned, the Sheeta, the Noble, the Shining Ones. Then there was what was known as the Sealy and the Unsealy court, coming from Selig, which is an old English, possibly older word again, meaning holy.

were blessed. So the sealic were the the the the fe that the natural spirits or the fe that had. Dominion over the natural world for spring and summer. And the unsealy were the ones that dominion over the world for autumn and winter. All considered tricksters, but the unsealy were considered really bad. Again, there is some corollary with kind of natural agrarian people, you know, winter autumn winter is the time of Darkness the time of hunger, the time of sickness of the world.

one can understand why they would see it to that side. Then you have other people who would have put other categories in place, like Celsius alchemical idea of the the spirits of the elements, the four. There are different forms of of categorization, but you know, again Whether or not they have more value than just human tradition, I don't know.

And I think that's one of the things to kind of just accept. There was a Benedictine monk many years ago, great expert of this, Dom Augustine Calamay, who wrote a beautiful book on Well well the original title was on Uh it was called Some Strange Opinions Amongst the Greeks but now it's published as um a treatise on apparitions. And he looks at all of these things and his kind of feeling a lot of the the faith stuff was actually that they were simply the household god.

the pagan the pagan I mean classical pagan civilizations that they had basically shrunk and and become this because that was what they were human beings weren't actually giving full. So who knows in the end. Right. Who knows? But

Two little particles um floating in a beam of light like a sunbeam. He said it was like looking at dust moats if when the sun comes in through your window and you see the you know you can see the things passing through. These two are held. And he understood that the beam was the the the the attention of God. Holding everything in existence.

And that the one that was nearer the origin of the light was the guardian angel and the one that was further away was him and that the essence of the light was being communicated through the angel to to Tolkien in that moment of illumination he was asking. And he also became aware that his own children it's a lovely thing is he writes to his son Michael about it, that his children were in the beam of light as well. This one divine everything and that he was connected to them in the in the

So that's a loving experience, a beaut an experience of beauty and grace and power. And the angel is through its will, through its decision, is willing for this to happen and is allowing this to happen. I think it's compulsive. It is you know a place of kind of horror and fear and and threatening and and And so the the the higher it can bully the lesser demons in in in that sense.

Because they've given their will over to them. And if you really want a kind of a semi comic but with a lot of seriousness in it, I would I would suggest that the screw tape out with Space DS with us, which is

you know, a a he he puts himself in in the position of a senior demon issuing instruction to a junior demon as to how to tempt and how to, you know, take somebody down. It's certainly worth reading because I I know many people, religious and and secular, who even from reading it, the the depth psychology present in it in terms of how human beings react to stimuli is is really is really beautifully.

Plus extra content. We do at least one full extra episode exclusive for our patrons every month. For more information go to patreon dot com slash strange familiars. Our Patreon patrons also get other bonuses. For instance, all of the questions for Brother Richard from listeners for this episode and the next, they were from patrons. So that's a little bonus you get, you get to participate in the show and come up with questions?

There's also an ongoing paranormal experiment that we're doing and our patrons get to participate in that. That is launched already. It's in process, but the way it's set up, you can join at any time, you can participate at any time as long as you're a patron. Again for more information, patreon dot com slash strange familiars.

There's also an option via Apple Podcasts, and our Apple Podcast subscribers also get the commercial free versions of the weekly shows, plus the extra episodes monthly as well. And very soon we will be starting memberships on YouTube and our YouTube subscribers will get the bonus episodes monthly.

So check it out. Go ahead and subscribe to us. You don't have to become a member of the channel on YouTube. But if you subscribe, that helps us out and that's free. The YouTube channel is at Strange Familiars on YouTube. One word.

And wildlife behavior expert. On Tooth and Claw, we take listeners through stories of hair-raising and often violent encounters with wildlife and then outline the often very human reasons behind these attacks, as well as ways that you can avoid run-ins with potentially dangerous wildlife yourself.

I'm joined by my brother Jeff and our mutual friend Mike, who provide some very honest reactions and some much needed levity to gruesome stories. A good starting point is our recent episode, The Twisted Tale of Travis the Chimpanzee. It's a chilling story of a depressed chimpanzee who took his anger out on an unsuspecting woman and changed her life forever.

Listen to Tooth and Claw today and get better informed before you venture out into the great outdoors. Just search Tooth and Claw on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Having been a witness to two people passing on home hospice care, it has been perhaps two of the most divine and sacred spaces I've been a witness to in my life. So I have two questions for Brother Richard's opinion regarding my experiences. Number one

Does Brother Richard believe that we are all sharing some sort of energetic bonds with important people in our lives, so much so in life that those energetic bonds can fall into the afterlife? Number two, what are Brother Richard's belief about preparation for the afterlife?

And she says specifically it took seven days for her friend's father to pass away even though no longer eating or drinking. He was a PhD theology professor who taught Bible and Greek at a Christian university for forty five years. His father's second wife of twenty five years really felt like he was preparing himself for the afterlife. Really felt like something more metaphysical was occurring, much more than just his physical body shutting down. There's a lot there and it's it's uh

But yes, is the is the answer to to the question. I do believe that we have a kind of a if you want to call it what sh what she could call it, an energetic connection, that there's a spiritual connection with those that we love, with those that we have connected with.

And it's something that we're discovering more and more of You know, I'm I'm b both at a physical, biological and neurological level, you know, the the extraordinary work that's been done on things like people um suddenly having deep awareness that say a family member relationship is in trouble.

Look, it's it's a privileged position um to be present at the death of anyone. You know obviously you don't want to be present when someone is is suffering as they're going, that's really those liminal spaces of birth and death, as my granny used to say, we come in crying and we leave crying, you know? There there's something to that as well. That those spaces are actually very akin.

very near that we're sort of birthed into the world and we're if death is done right, we're birthed out of the world into something into something else. But certainly from what I've experienced, and I've been present at like literally hundreds of deathbeds at this point of all. There is no doubt in my mind, number one, that something leaves, you know, that some I would call it the soul, but that some essence leaves.

And secondly, there is I have seen it so often, I've heard it from so many medical practitioners, nurses, etcetera, the stage towards the end where someone is kind of halfway in and halfway out. I mean it's just ubiquitous across all the traditions. uh people turn up. You know, those who have died, who have gone before seem to turn up, seem to be present. Uh to the person who's dying seem to be encouraging them.

You know, and and being with them. Now I have been present at other at other deathbeds where things were going wrong, where somebody didn't want to go or it what was turning up was frightening them and we deal with that we have ways of dealing with that and making sure that things Well, yeah.

The a funny one I had some years ago was where I was called out to a a gentleman like that, he was having hospice care at home. He was still very conscious, he was still, you know, doing reasonably okay, but his wife had decided that she wanted him to have the last right, so I came out Chatted for a long time. The wife went off and I heard his confession and then it finally came back in and we did the full last rites and we

And the wife turned to me and she said, Well, is he ready? Can he go now? I said, Well, he can but you know, we would have for him to go. The poor man was aghast, like he thought she was but her thing was almost as though like, Well, we've done the job now, you're ready to go, off you go. I I'll always remember leaving the house and the poor guy, he was nearly being ushered out, you know, ahead of his time.

But I think it's really important for us to understand that again, all the traditions had their way of dying, that to learn how to die was part of life. In the Christian tradition we call it the Ars Moriadi, the art of dying. And the way that one was encouraged to to live with death in a positive way was to recognise that death can happen at any time.

You know, we're all a moment away from for death. So the idea was to try and live with live fully in the present, but to live with a detachment that allows us to recognise I'm here now and I will be gone tomorrow. In the Franciscan tradition we speak of death as sister death. Saint Francis always referred to her sister death because he said like a sister she's always with us. You know, she looks after us and eventually she'll put her shoulder and say, Come on.

or issued out of that moment, you know, we don't get to and don't get to say five more minutes kind of The way that the Ars Moriendi worked was there were particular meditations that were done, particular prayers and meditations that were done to prepare one for what was called happy death, you know, to pray for a happy death.

A gentle passing, a passing where one was spiritually ready to go. This was very akin in the Buddhist tradition. I'm sure many of your listeners will have read, say, the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which was one of the first ways in the English world, the English speaking world, where this kind of art was spoken about. We would have particular exercises for it. One of the things we have is sitting with a beloved belonging. So something that's simple.

For one, recognizing the attachment to it to be able to let go of the attachment, but also recognizing that almost everything around us lasts longer than we do, you know? Yeah, it may it might be broken, it might you know, the the elements of it might go elsewhere, but it lasts longer. So to sit at that, you know, to to think about for those of you who have children or descendants, you just think about, you know, how many generations will it be before I am for God?

Before somebody will not know my name, for how long will it take for my belongings to be dispersed? You know. have other owners, other people who will think of them in other ways. Yeah. So it's a really im important thing to do, not in a morbid way, but just to recognize so that it allows us then to live fully in the in the process.

But I have actually found most children are are kind of have a curiosity about it and when they're told kind of quite clearly, you know, in in ways suitable to their age. you know, the things things come and things go. There can be a kind of an acceptance of it. I think it's it's us who who tend to panic as adults because we We've only got to look at it to recognize that we're advancing too. The road only goes in one direction as everyone.

So yeah, I mean as part of our studies and our training, we do a huge amount of studying the other traditions as well. And that's really important because otherwise Well, number one, we live in a very diverse and pluriform world, so it's really important to be able to encounter people and sort of know know what you're dealing with. But the the the other the other end of things, I suppose, is to recognise the richness that's present in in in all of the the culture.

So what I'd say I suppose is I have not come across anything in any of the other traditions, or anything that I've read, or anything I've encountered, whether that's through science or or through mysticism, that has ever made me go Oh, therefore I need to be somewhere else. Right? I've never so far, who knows? Never know the future. But I have never come across something that has made me go This could not fit in the world view, the it within the within the the Christian or Catholic world view.

The one thing that I did have to do some real work on for myself was reincarnation. Because within the the kind of orthodox uh again small orthodox cr Christian tradition, we don't accept reincarnation. And it's gone i we go by The teaching of Saint Paul that it is given to hu uh to to a human being to live, to die once, after which comes judgment, okay.

Now that doesn't necessarily preclude that after the judgment there couldn't come a reincarnation, but it has at least always been taken that transmigration of souls In the Greek understanding, which would be the idea that the personality, the individual personality, there's again Reincarnation in the Eastern tr understanding, Buddhist and Hindu, is totally misunderstood within.

modern Western Western idea. It is not simply popping back or the same person popping back with with a case of amnesia. I mean, I have worked with with wonderful, wonderful monastics from the Buddhist tradition and they just I mean, they smile so much at our understanding of reincarnation. You know, start with the basics.

Is it called a little Buddha or something like that? But it was about um searching or searching for a a Tolku, uh was And they found a western it's a it's a channelized version of it, but they had a western child, an Indian child then it's be tested. And in the end the decision was actually he had split his essence and was reincarnated in the in in the three. So yeah, very subtle understanding.

Anyway, was it countering it? And particularly particularly for me, it wasn't the people who were hypnotized who you know felt that they had previous experiences. Really, really good. And I think it's kinda common amongst this particular group of of podcasts, but hypnotism is is really unreliable. We just don't know what it does actually. It was the accounts of children.

speaking about previous lives in w and and having real verifiable information, right? That was fascinating for me. So obviously I now have to encounter well Does it exist and if it exists, why does my tradition say that it doesn't? So I really worked on this. Like I mean I read and read and read and and and payed and thought about it and all the rest of it. And it was when I was chatting about it with one of my teachers within Tradition and he went

Yeah, sure, that still happens all the time. And I said, Reincarnation. And he said, No, we wouldn't call it that. He said, Remember the geography of the soul. Within the mystical Christian understanding. There is a part of the soul that I think our Jewish brothers and sisters call it the Chaya. But it we would sometimes refer to it uh kind of like the Anamamundi ide idea, that there is a point of connection with all other human beings who have ever lived of every time and space.

And in deep contemplative experiences, one of the things that can happen is we can begin to really know somebody else's life and experience from the inside. And the belief then was that for these children, absolutely, they were having true experiences. No doubts about that at all. But that because they were so open and because they were so new, if you like, and so innocent.

They were still in really deep touch with that part of their soul. Now, you could as equally call this in a kind of a Jungian way, the sort of collective unconscious even. And that this was this was what they were mediating and that this was the reason why after five or six or seven or t eight years it all begins to fade and it disappears.

Because now the person is fully grounded, has arrived fully in in the world. Now does it explain everything? No, it doesn't. But I for me it gave a framework by which I could see how I could admit the phenomena. totally recognize it but also recognize it within the context of the tradition. The only other piece that's present within it is the idea of a share of the spirit of

Right. Which we see in the Old Testament where Elisha, for example, the prophet, the successor of Elijah, asks for a double share of Elijah's spirit and receives the same power that Elijah has. We see it within some of the saints and mystics where they would send somebody with their authority and for the for the time that they were doing the job. they had the same authority that they that that they have, the same power that they

And uh though I do remember one very funny moment with one lama and he said, But of course you b you believe in in reincarnation. I said, No, no we don't and he said, But what about the popes? I thought every Pope is the reincarnation of Saint Peter I said, Well, no, that's not what we believe. So again it's this I suppose that answers the question. It's the only one that I really have to...

has an effect. Essentially we're creating a tulpic experience or an aggregorial experience. You know, in Irish we have the old proverb, um Quimnian Anthear mnemonic that the land remembers the monks that wherever the monasteries were, wherever the hermits were. that even that when they die and pass away the place is changed in is a place of encounter.

In Glastonbury, yeah, I've been there a couple of times and it draws me back again and again. For whatever reason, it's one of those places I seem to be kind of linked to. And every now and then I get a kind of a hunger and know, yep, time to go back. And it's a very blessed place. I mean it's a very unusual place because so many people put their stories on it, you know, from all different kinds of traditions.

But certainly it has been a sacred place, you know, pre Christian into the Christian era all the way through now, kind of almost into the kind of New Age era. I suppose in terms of Glastonbury stories, the the two experiences I'd speak about particularly were Meditating at the top of the tower, the Tor, it's called a hill. People know that kind of hill, the hill of Avalon, with Saint Michael's Tower at the top.

Meditation we did there. I had a very strange reversal experience. So I was there with a friend. And we both went up to to to do meditation up there. And I am not a hype person. Okay. Me either. And if if if reincarnation is real, I must have fallen from something along the way. I d I don't know what it was, but but I am not a Heights person. Like even a latter isn't isn't a good thing for me. And suddenly I found that I just needed to go right to the edge.

And that is just not me. And I sat in meditation position right on the edge and stayed there. And I also had kind of missing time. I I could not tell you how how how long I was there. And the friend who was with me, who has no problem with heights at all, was utterly terrified of going near the edge and sat in the tower for the whole time they were there. And that place is very, very powerful. I had a real experience in the most positive sense of that word of kind of that.

earth dragon energy in in in the place. It was really unusual, like kind of The abbey, which is the famous place where purportedly the grave of King Arthur and all of that kind of stuff was, was the opposite extreme. It was absolute peace. Like absolute peace. And then we visited the two wells, the famous Chalice Garden which is the She had dipped the the the grail, the the the the cup in the Arthurian legends. The water there is is reddish in colour. Very unusual place, very kind of fey place.

Fairy music has been recorded there quite a bit, etcetera. Really, really a beautiful place, very peaceful. But we went then to the other side of spring which is known as the white spring and you go underground into a cave to do that. Because I was there, it was part of a holiday that I was on that we would that we went there. Um I wasn't in in robes and was kind of quite happy just to be anonymous while I was there.

And I went in and I went to the stone that at the beginning and I just placed my hands on the stone and I was beginning to sort of greet the place and pray and walk. And this person suddenly kind of appeared beside me. But just suddenly that here would be fine. This old lady. And she said to me, said, Who are you? And I said, I'm I'm a pilgrim. And she kinda looked at me and she said, Well, what are you? And I said, I'm human.

And she said, And why are you here? I said I'm here to to visit the mother. It's known as the mother well, to to visit the mother. So she said, Okay and she kind of went off and the friend who was with me was totally freaked out and was saying that I think we need to go It's like, No, no, we're fine. sat and kept praying and doing the meditation and

It's very dark in there. There's a kind of a basin that the water comes into and some people drink the water, some people bathe in it. A real holy well experience, a kind of a very womb like and there's icons of the divine mother from all of the various traditions around, including our lady. So I went over to greet our lady. And while I was praying in front of the icon,

Friend turned up again and she said to me, No, but who are you really? And I said, Just a pilgrim. And she said, uh And what are you doing here? What are you? I said I'm a human being and I've come to venerate the mother. So she said Hey and she was this old old lady standing, she had a big staff, she was holding the staff kind of you know like.

And we had this moment of just kind of staring at each other and I just was not going to like something just don't give any. So then she said to me, You have permission to get into the water. And I said, No, that's okay. I said I'm I'm here. I said I'll take the waters, but I'm I'm just here to to enter it. So she really couldn't work out what was going on then at that stage because there were very few people she'd given permission to actually get into the waters.

And I just knew interiorly that that wasn't what I was there for.

Oh, the frustration, you know. Um we got into it. We had a lovely kind of conversation. But as I was heading out, we went off that evening and then we were kind of walking around and visiting. And Glastonbury has this beautiful, very old, old English church, kind of Norman church.

Which has a wonderful sign outside and I just I would I can only imagine what it would be like to be the vicar in the place there because I'd say you meet everybody and everything. But there was a sign in the church that just said, please do not begin archaeological excavations without the permission of the vicar.

Well, obviously, I thought that had been digging up the floor of the church from time to time. And as we were walking back to the accommodation, we were walking down these narrow little village streets and I saw what I thought was a dog. really quickly between two houses. So it's the way it something about the way it moved made me stop and I looked and it was a badger.

that was just sitting looking at me. And and I have a long connection with with with the Badger if it would be if if such things as kind of totems or spirit animals or whatever was in our tradition that the Badger would be one of them for me. So I kinda froze to look at it and it just looked. And with that a window opened and this lady put her head out, looked directly at me and she said, Don't worry, he comes here every night. I feed him every night. So I said, Okay. So she got some food.

The badger ate the food and we kind of looked at each other again. So the following night we were there and I was like, I wanna see the badger again. She said he comes every night. So I went over there that time. No badger, no lady, nothing at all. It was just one of those little nods, I think, that Glastonbury gives. So I I'd recommend to anybody who's who's listening, hasn't been technically, but encounter the fullness of it, make sure you get to the abbey.

biologically we're part of a system, we're part of a great ecology. So I think why why wouldn't place have an effect on us, you know? And why wouldn't certain places particular Whether it's physical characteristics or energetic characteristics or whatever, why wouldn't they be mount, you know, as kind of sake bases that are And then when you add the intentionality and the spiritual practice and that to it it's it's quite

I had one unusual experience though with that, which was I went to visit Stonehenge um when I was in the UK and I had always really wanted to visit I mean it's so it's so archetypal in Really wanted to visit it. Got there. I got out of the bus. There's a little bus that takes you up to the stones. Well, as near as you can get. And I got out and I immediately felt sick.

Like just sick, a really I had a ringing headache, disorientation kind of just really now I could manage, I wasn't kind of laid out, but I kind of wandered around and I was sort of blaming what had I eaten or what had I drunk or what? It was like having a toothache in your whole body. That's the only way that I can kind of put it.

And I was actually quite glad to get back on the bus and go off. And I was talking to one of our older brothers here about it and I was saying how disappointed I was and he started to smile and he was like But it's broken. And I said, What do you mean? And he said Of course you felt that way. It's not set up the way it was meant to be set up. You're in a machine that's not working properly. Like it's broken. And it made perfect sense to me at that stage.

So I could certainly feel the place, Averbury itself, as a place of great power and sa significance. But what I I don't I don't know what Stonehenge was set up to do, who knows? I remember some years ago a lovely cartoon that showed giants playing skipples with the with the um you know, bowling with the with with and that so who knows, who knows? But whatever it is now, as much as people find great I know people find great energy and healing and all that kind of thing.

Whatever the original people intended, it's not set up that way anymore. And it's the first time I've been to a site like that where I've really kind of felt that. Yeah.

It was founded by a man who was Muslim. But but the culture there is a real amalgam culture, you know, it's a real melting pot of different different cultures, particularly Buddhism, Hinduism and And so this particular movement. was founded by this this gentleman as a way of trying to live in accordance with divine will.

its main goal is what they call the awaking or the awakening towards the divine. And it uses different practices, but particularly what's called Latitham, which is a free movement and vocal sort of ecstatic movement and dance to to arrive at a place of awareness of the divine presence. It's syncretistic to some extent in that it takes pieces of Christianity, pieces of Islam, pieces of Buddhism, pieces of Hinduism, et cetera, and kind of has made its own thing.

It has received a bit of criticism from the Buddhist tradition particularly for using words and concepts that are present within Buddhism, but then putting its own meaning on those things. But you know, this this happened. Right. All religions. So in terms of whether that is parallel or whether we would be I mean, the the basic Franciscan approach to to all the traditions is respect and reverence. wanting to to find the places of contact uh where we can

you know, we can meet in in reverence and respect for one another while still recognizing the differences. So where Subart would be concerned, I mean Francis ecstatically danced before the Lord. Often when he was preaching he would He would shuffle around and dance. He famously was invited to preach before the Pope and the Cardinals on one occasion, and simply danced and then left.

and receiving one of the greatest remarks about him, I think, in in i in the history of his life, which is one of the cardinals said to the Pope, That man is either very holy or very mad. So you know, uh m movement is is part of who we are as human beings. And that leads to yoga then. So again, Western understanding of yoga, you know, is is so poor by and large. I mean, seeing it as obviously it comes out of the Hindu tradition particularly.

Uh it is a very, very complicated system of philosophy, spirituality, including bodily movement and fit and fitness, but not in the sense that we would kind of understand it. So the Western Instagram body perfect, body beautiful yoga kind of thing, you know, is what most people tend to think of it. Whereas if you go to India, you'll see it as part of an aesthetic.

practice that is is about devotion and changing the way one lives and is part and parcel of an entire system of of learning, very advanced and deep system of learning wisdom.

There has been this kind of wave coming out, particularly of the sort of evangelical Christianity, but also taken on by I've seen it taken on by kind of Catholic teachers and things like that. Yoga is absolutely inimical to uh to to Christian practice and So the first thing I would say is that look, you know, stretching for fitness alone, if that's the primary intention, that's all that it is.

And so we need to recognise when we have a reverse magical understanding of the divine, as though we kind of think, Well, God is up there somewhere'cause it's always a kind of an anthropomorphic God in this instance, looking down at the poor Christian who's now doing yoga and sort of saying, Well, that's it. Now I wash my moose of you. You've locked yourself in a room and you can't I can't get you out of there. Like that's that's ridiculous. And it also it also doesn't take into account

That Christianity in India, which goes back to the days of the Apostle Thomas, has used forms of yoga all the way through. Um our brothers in India practice yoga as part of their meditative in the sense of physical ascendance and things like that. They don't take on the Hindu philosophy because they're not Hindus. But you know, the the intention is is is what counts. So I would be very, you know, very wary of

of of that. And then the third Zen, I think Zen again Look, I'm I'm a Christian monk talking about Zen, you know, I mean, really it should be a Zen Buddhist or a Hindu yogi or a Su Budd practitioner who speaks about their own tradition, but in the sense of my attitude towards it. Zen I think is actually the place where Christian mysticism and The the the Buddhist tradition meet most fully and most closely.

And in terms of what we are speaking about within the Zen experience, the differentiation we would have is that the emptiness of Zen and the emptiness of Christianity. While the Zen tradition is to sit within the emptiness fully and completely and to practice that emptiness. And I'm really like this is This is such a an insult to Zen in the sense of I'm really condensing absolute everything. But in the Christian tradition we would say, Yes, we empty, but we empty to be filled.

And so the relational aspect within the religion would be key in the Christian tradition, as opposed to the unrelational aspect or the non relational aspect within the Zen tradition. You know, I often go back to um the famous first meeting that took place between the Zen master Tignathan and the Christian mystic mystic Thomas Martin. when they met at the a meeting for an inter inter religious dialogue on the contemplative life.

they both found it really, really funny to discover that both of them on their first day training as monastics, Tignathan in Vietnam and Thomas Merton in in the Cistercians in Kentucky. had both been taught the fur the the same lesson, which was monastic life begins with training as to how to close a door.

In other words, to do it with awareness, to do it with presence, to do it with attention to detail and with the idea that you're not going to disturb anybody else by the way that you do it. And they both found this historically funny and became became great friends out of it. So much so that Tigner Han later visited Thomas Murray's grave and you know referred to him as a kind of a bodhisattva of con of compassion, etc.

So yeah, I think there are ways in which we encounter and and and connect, but we need to do that with reverence and respect and recognizing the richness of the diversity that's there. I had a wonderful Friend, I suppose, called Masanori. Masanori was a Japanese and Buddhist monk who asked permission. He had been a Zen Buddhist monk for for many, many years and was quite a senior monk in the monastery. And he went to his abbot and asked for permission to study the gospels.

because he felt he needed to know if there was Zen in the gospels. So the abbot gave him permission to do so and he studied them and came to the conclusion that he needed to become a Christian. Now I'm I'm not this isn't positivism, so don't worry. The lovely thing about it was he then travelled uh all over Europe, all over the world, to teach Zen to Christians.

Because he felt that he he became a Christian, he was baptized. But he felt that the gift that Zen could give to Christianity was to restore its contemplative understanding. And so he went all over all over yeah, he used to stay with us in the Friary.

And on one occasion he was very sad'cause he said to us that uh his mission was running out of money. He wasn't looking for money, he wasn't asking for money, but he his attitude was, If God wants this mission to continue, the money will turn up I said to him Yeah, about how much would you need to keep going for the next couple of years? And he had worked it out that it was about a budget of about seven thousand euro he needed.

So we said we'd pray that you know that he would find it. And about six months later I got it. Message he sent the message saying, I I rejoice to tell you that I have been in a car accident. So Uh we were able to get more news. And when he eventually came through again he was in good form, all was well. And I said, Why did you say you rejoice? And he said, Because the insurance paid me seven thousand euro. Seven thousand dollars it was.

And he continued his mission. And when he returned to the Zen monastery, he returned. There was some misgiving amongst the other monks because this they felt this guy had kind of was an apostate, had sort of run away. But instead the abbot brought him up and put him on the habitual throne, and said to the other monks He has practised then his whole life by seeking constantly what is true. And whether you agree or not with what he found, you must agree that he has pursued truth his whole life.

And he died shortly after that.

And so a lot of American Catholics tend to view a lot of the kind of stuff we've been talking about as though, oh, that's not Catholicism. And I've I've had that even from clergy. And they simply just need to know their history a little more. So the pilgrimages, the holy wells, the saints, the d the the devotions, they can

Just about take that. But when it starts getting into the more mystical and end of things there can be a bit of a nervousness a around it. And there needs to be good discernment obviously with all of these. But I would say that what your listener is talking about as the pagan elements within Catholicism. are actually what Catholicism has always done since apostolic times, which is to say we hold on to what was good, we let go of what was negative.

So even going back as far as Saint Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, he walks into the Academy in Athens. and looks around and sees all of the various statues of the various gods that that are there and has no problem with it because he knows they're stretching out in as far as, you know, they they can get without revelation, again, the Judaic understanding of it, and points out to the fact that points out to them that they have an altar to the unknown God.

And he says, You've been worshipping the divine all along. Because what we often find in polytheist societies, the Greeks were one, for example, like this.

And actually Hinduism is like this as well when you when you drill down into it, is that there are the deities But they're often seen as aspects of an unknown or a creator that is such a mystery that we don't even kind of speak of or breathe off or And the early Christian understanding was that very often that the deities Some would have would have said perhaps it was demonic, but a lot of the early fathers said, No, actually this was these were angels who were getting them ready for revelation.

Again, I'm not trying to be patronizing towards other traditions here. I'm speaking of an understanding that was there, that was was the way in which one faith greeted the other. So when Patrick comes to to Ireland, there's a lovely piece in in some of the patricity the the patrician Patrick literature that speaks of him sitting down with two of the chiefs who tell him the stories of the heroes of Ireland and he becomes absolutely fascinated listening to

about Finn Makul and the Tuilan and Ushin and all the rest of it. And afterwards he feels a bit guilty that he's given this amount of time to these stories because he's like, Are they false? Are they demonic? Are they what And his angel appears to him to console him and says, Don't worry. Don't worry about any of this. As the faith grows,

What is good in the stories will remain and what is negative in the stories will be dropped. Your only role is to preach the good news and allow the people their stories. That's the way I would leave it.

And there is a lot of what I view as like trying to prove to them like no no no no we're real Christians too, you know? And I think in doing that some of these practices kind of get Watered down if not lost completely, you know, and forgotten about in some ways.

And they did a beautiful television series which I think is is is available online but with English subtitle. And one of the things around it that it really brings out is the absolute naturalness of faith for those people and the practices of the faith and the land and the faith being one.

I'd I'd encourage I'd encourage any of your your your listeners who are interested in all of this kind of thing to to have a look at it. Uh if they Google it they should they should get it. You can watch it for free with the English subtitles there. St. Pisius, uh really, really wonderful, uh extraordinary stories.

But I do call on my ancestors to ensure safety and to ask for guidance. Is there any way this kind of work can continue if I was to join the church, or do you think a choice would have to be made?

So what can often happen if you bring it to to kind of parish clergy or those kind of things is there can be a lot of kind of fear or misunderstanding or, you know, oh gosh, this is a cultic or it's witchcraft or it's whatever it may. But if you are doing this invoking God, and particularly if as you're moving towards the faith, if you're invoking the name of Jesus, if you're invoking the saints, etcetera, as well as your sanctified ancestors, that would

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you're doing. So I wouldn't see it as any kind of uh as any kind of obstacle. The only thing that I would say is that that ac as for all healing practices, we would always include within it, you know

But but let the divine will be done. You know, whatever whatever whatever in the end is the divine will. So we can ask for healing, we can pray for healing, of course we can, we can lay hands on for healing. We would encourage hugely, for example, that Parents especially would pray over their children, that husbands and wives would pray over each other, that they would bless each other, you know.

Because we have spiritual authority, spiritual connection to those who are Obviously we never engage in any kind of healing just over someone who has not given us permission to to do that. And obviously everything needs to be done safely and in a way that's that's respectful. Particularly because people are very vulnerable in the midst of sickness and it

But what you're describing from what you're describing I would have no no issue with it at all and I don't think th and th the faith certainly wouldn't have. But as I say, sometimes describing, you know, I'm clearing energy simply say, Look, I'm placing my hands on somebody or over somebody and and praying for healing. Nobody can object.

Because I think if you give them just a short description, they might give you a shorthand answer as well. Like, yeah, don't do that. You know. But then if you give more detail and sort of Explain more than you kind of open things up because they're dealing with a lot of people and sometimes for time's sake they have to give you a shorthand answer, you know.

you know, when it when is it good for you to do that? And bring your husband along, you know, if you wish, obviously, but I just mean in terms of having support. Yeah. Having somebody who can kind of say, you know, you know, there's no issue or whatever. Because hopefully and I really hope for her sake, you know, she's received in a loving and in a respectful way. But th from from the modality that as it's being described here, I would have no no issue with it.

Right. And that was it's a very important thing, you know, for people to recognize.

And final question, Justin is asking are your thoughts for our new Pope? Or rather about our new pope.

He brings great depth. His his previous work has been everything from the highly theological academic right the way through to the pastor missionary back in in Peru. He was in Peru for a good number of years uh working with both the indigenous peoples and the church there. So he has a tremendous breadth of understanding of the church. And I think when we get those kind of balanced figures, very often what we get in turn is very good balanced teaching.

But our understanding of the papacy in in the fullest sense would say that we get the Pope we need. So when we had John Paul, that's who we needed. When we had Francis, that's who we needed. When we had Benedict, that's who we needed. And so obviously, you know, Providence decrees this is who we need now. Obviously he has to cooperate with the grace of his vocation just like anybody else. And, you know, we've had popes in the past that haven't cooperated, you know, with that grace historian.

Nonetheless, it's an unbroken line. He's the two hundred and forty sixth successor to Saint Peter. And we wish him every every good wish and blessing. And I think having an American Pope at this time One of our brothers there recently said, I'll never get used to hearing the Pope speak in an American accent But, you know, we we had a Polish, we had we we've had Argentinian, we've had Italian.

German and and now we have the the the American accent. So the one thing I'm very glad about is that if I ever do encounter him, at least we'll be able to talk.

So yeah, we we certainly you know, come come at the man, come at the hour. Come at the hour, come at the man, I should say. And and that certainly seems to be Who we have at the moment.

Western Christianity has been very much marked by sort of apostolic activity, by intellectual rigour, etcetera, the Eastern Church to some extent has been marked by a deeper mysticism, a deeper contemplative awareness, certainly mystic experience. Spread from east into the west. And so yeah, we would we would be very hopeful uh that certainly the signs are good at the moment. For example, on on the death of Pope Francis, the the the patriarchs themselves.

Or if not them, senior representatives of them were present at the at the funeral. The the current Pope has already met with some of the major figures, the major patriarchs and We're also in the process of trying to work through new understandings of the creed that would allow sides if you like to approach a new rapprochement which would be really, really wonderful to see.

In I have never minded the loneliness, you'll discover the extraordinary lives of hermits who defied convention, John Stink, rumored to have died and risen again more than once. William Woodruff, whose long vow of silence followed a broken heart, Brusher Mills, the serpent hunter who sold his own snake oil remedies, and Truman Commodore Downs, who claimed Mars as his homeland. These stories and many more reveal the complex lives of the individuals.

Who chose to live apart from the world? I have never minded the loneliness is available now at Amazon dot com or wherever you buy books.

And I want to give a quick shout out to Ronnie Busio. Thanks for listening, buddy. Get back to work. All right, another curiosity. Two curiosities, making up for not having a curiosity last week. Similar to the other one, it's another stereo view. And this is did you say this is another Seder? Yeah, this guy is less goatee than Then pan.

They were three dimensional models, right? And they're really cool. And they are often tissue stereo views, which means if

Generally within the the realm of things I collect, but they they kinda get expensive. So I'm hoping to run into those somewhere to you know, a show or something where they're Or a antique shop where they're not at collector's prices. In any case, this stereo view is our curiosity of the week. This our second Seder. Yeah. Second Seder. Second show, second Seder. Two shows, two Seder.

My books are there. If you get them from us on Etsy, I will sign them before we pack them up. Some of my music is there. Allison has some photos and other bits of ephemera there as well. Check it out. Our Etsy shop name is Lost Grave. But if you go to Etsy and you type in Strange Familiars, you should see our stuff come up. You can find us that way. There's also direct links to our Etsy shop in the show notes and at StrangeFamiliars.com. As I say.

The Etsy shop is another way you can support the show and get cool stuff besides Allison? Yes. I think that's it for this week.

Other paranormal topics, weird history, all kinds of related stuff. We are on Instagram at Strange Familiars One Word No underscore. Please give us a follow there. For Strange Familiars merch, go to Strangefamiliars.com slash merch. For everything else and links to everything we do, go to Strangefamiliars.com.