Something's going to happen?
What's going to happen?
Thank you? What a.
Welcome to the Occult Rejects. This episode, We've got a very special guest, very excited to have him on. We have Richard Kazinski. But before we get to him, we will introduce the other rejects we got on the show. And today we got joining with us. We got the lovely Lisa, the Occult of reject a mad scientist to what is going on? Lisa?
How are good? Thank you? Good morning here at least, Thank you Nick for inviting me and looking forward to Toctor Kazynski's talk today and to also discussing with Robbie and Jen as well. Thank you. And the only thing I'd like to plug is vehicle researches to dot org check us out.
Awesome. Thank you very much and I really appreciate you joining us with us. And we got my managin the Ninja. What is going on?
Sir?
How are you? What's up? Boss?
Thank you so much for having me, and thank you to Lisa and Robbie and of course doctor Kasinski. I'm quite excited for this. I'm not a tall despite the rumors, but I'm quite interested in the neo gnosticism like the
broader cosmology and maybe even ontological perspectives within it. And so if you want to check me out, you can follow me at willcong Reborn to w Uko and g Reborn or at Threshold Saints, which is the show account on both Twitter and ig as well as the True Gray Lodge with a v the True Gray Lodge dot
com where you can find us. We're doing a Friday Night Gnostic book club tonight instead of Nastic Mass, so we are reading Kenneth Grant's Night Side of Eden Part one, So yeah, check that out if you're interested, and thank you so much, appreciate it.
And we got the man himself, the storyteller, Robbie Marx. What is going on, sir? How are you?
Good morning everybody. It's good to see everybody today. I'm glad to be on with such a good crew and excited to hear what Richard has to say and where we go. My name is rob or Robbie or Robert Marx, and I'm an artist illustrator. I'm working on a book right now. But yeah, if you want to check out my various projects and works, you can go to my link tree which is link tree rarx and that'll pull up everything for you. And yeah, thanks for having me on, Nick.
Of course, Robbie, I really appreciate it. I'm glad you made it. And finally to the guest himself, we got Richard Kazinski. He's a scholar and psychologist. He's got a PhD in social psychology and he is a student of THELIMA since the late nineteen seventies. He's an OTO contributor, editor and lecturer on magic. And today we will be talking about Mind over Magic, The Psychology of Ritual Magic, which is one of his newer books. And again I'm
very excited to have you on. And please, Richard, anything that I left out, Let people know what you want them to know about you and where they can find any of your amazing one.
All right, well, I'm perhaps best known as the author of the biography of Alistair Crowley called Perdurabo The Life of Alistair Crowley, and I've also written various other books on Western esotericism, including books like Forgotten Templars, The Unknown Origins of Argo Templear Orientis, which does a deep dive into the odd byways of Masonic history, and how all of that fed into OTO, as well as books like The Wiser Concise Guy to Alistair Crowley and recently the
critical edition of Alistair Crowley's early work The Sort of Song, which has been put out in a Delexe edition by your Traditions, who also are a publisher of my newest book, Mind Over Magic as You, which hits the stores on October seventh. So I hope, yeah, you're all inspired to check that out when it comes out.
Oh for sure, for sure.
You know.
Fun fact, it's a little it's almost embarrassing to mention you, but I did read your book on Alistair Crowley in prison. I came across that in prison and read it in the so very good work, thank you.
It's a lot, a lot of reading, so hopefully had the spare time to dig into it.
Yeah, you'd be actually surprised how much the li mix stuff was in the Wow there's a lot here actually yeah, yeah, yeah, it was interesting enough. So yeah, mind over Magic. Uh. Well, first, actually, if you don't mind what even got you into the occult world? You know, how did you even start off with that? And how did you end up getting into the OTO? If you know my music.
Well as far as the occult world goes, I think we're just something about There was like this perfect storm over who I am and times I grew up in because at the time I was growing up, you know, I remember as a as a very small child, is loving Star Trek and then when heard Nimoy wound up hosting this TV show called In Search of which like this week we show that investigated the weird and the unexplained, from you know, Bigfoot to esp and I, as I Treki,
of course, had to watch this. But there were like movies coming out, like those Mysterious Monsters and and you can literally go into the grocery store. The other one by my house, you know, had you know, like The Man Myth and Magic magazine that came out, and I actually one week had my mom buy me The Techniques of High Magic by Francis King and Steven Skinner. So
it was just like everywhere. One of my favorite memories is that living in Detroit where I grew up, we were close enough to win to get Canadian television and they had a game show called Beyond Reason and it was kind of like a metaphysical what's my line? They had three people in sound group roof booths, and they would bring in a special guest who would be out of sight, and the three panelists would have sixty seconds
ask questions. One was a psychic so they had some personal item of the guest, one was an astrologer who had the birth chart, and one was a palm writer who had a photo of a person's hand. And so they had sixty seconds ask the questions and guests who the guest was. And as you can imagine, sometimes it was uncanny. Sometimes it was just off the left field.
They weren't even close. But one thing I remember very clearly is this one time astrologer was looking at this person's chart and saying, and this had nothing to do with why they were famous, saying, oh, I see you had an accident evolving falling off a horse and you're seeing like, you know, a split camera thing, to the panelist going wow, yeah, and you were about fourteen years old at the time and you broke your arm. And this person's like going like, how did you know that?
So it was always a lot of fun to tune in and check this stuff out. But again, this kind of stuff was just everywhere when I grew up, and it just fascinated me. And again, obviously everyone who grew up at the same time as me did not know glom onto this stuff the way that I did. But it was just, you know, I just kind of felt like all those things in the culture at that time has kind of funneled me into this direction. And one
day I discovered there was a metaphysical bookshop. So I got my bicycle and puddled five miles to the store and got to know the owner, and I picked up a copy of Israel regard as the Golden Dawn, and I came back two weeks later. He said, oh, do you like that? If you did, you might be interested in this, and he pulled out Alistair Croway's Magic in Theory and Practice. You know, again, I'm this fourteen year old kid reading this, going I don't know what this means.
Yeah, I was, you said, did you even understand that? I can't understand it now.
Well, the thing was, there was this end where he like signs with all his magical mottos and grade symbols and all of that, and I was like, I don't know.
What this is.
It was it was like a puzzle that that point was a challenge, Like I am going to I'm going to figure this out, and you know, it's that's going on in that direction ever since Nice.
You know, it's kind of interesting, like you're saying, though at the time you grew up, I even feel like that was like even most of the people in this panel all around the same age. I feel like the time that we grew up, there was like something I don't know if there was, like people are having their own magical experiences and they were creating and putting magic
out there themselves. But it's like I feel like certain times, is there certain things going on that like maybe us as kids there was something in the air that we caught onto and it just made us like search for something. You know, we caught we felt that magic, but what is it?
And search There were just like dozens and dozens of like UFO books, so you could pick up and just you know, or you know, Belakovski's Worlds in Collision and then those all kinds of stuff. Is you know these mass market paperbacks.
Yeah, just as a kid, like the Paranormal got bigger again, UFOs Horror was huge. You know, you just had all these different like to a child, it's just like it's a playground in the imagination.
Well, and when I was in I don't know, fourth or fifth grade, at the Scholastic book fair, you know, sponsored by the school. You know, I got one of those books and in it it was talking about the men in black from inside the Hollow Earth. They would come up and watch people and you know, so it's like just and then you got the Twilight Zones and the weird its just it all, It's just gloriferic.
It was everywhere, you know. Yeah, I remember picking up from the Scholastic book Fair somebody strange and amazing stories talking about it like a woman who allot of an airplane and survived, and the strange parallels between John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln's you know, Life and Deaths and again the Lucknows Monster and all kinds of things Acholastic books.
It made the world magical and you wanted to seek out what this strange kind of you know thing was subsiding in this reality.
You know, absolutely, I think I had this feeling as a kid that you know, we had we had done the moon landing, you know, we were sending you know, the first voyager satellite out into space, and you know, we had mapped the Earth so pretty much, and you know, science was doing all these amazing things, so it seemed like science had discovered everything it was about the world around us, and of course that wasn't true, but kind of as a as a kid, it kind of felt
that way because there's this amazing world of science. But then when you start talking about these mysterious things, you know, what what whatever reason of both things? Or what is the astral plane? And what is this magic stuff? And someone becomes this unsharted territory and it and that was also very exciting and enticing.
Right, that's awesome.
I like that.
I've got the Scholastic I had totally forgot all about that. You just took it back around. You know. It's funny. A couple of weeks ago I saw a meme about like that, and it was like, yo, like two dollars in the Scholastic book day was like your your life was set, Like that's how simple life was. Give me two.
Bucks to this day. Like the Golden Book of Hallucinogenic Plants, which.
That is awesome. All right, So how about if you don't mind, before we get into the book, how long have you been like I guess to uh you are, remember I was showing over the oto correct, So.
Yeah, I've been. I was kind of like a corresponding member, you know, my pre initiated member since about nineteen eighty six, and then I actually initiated in San Francisco in nineteen eighty eight and been remember ever since?
Oh nice, okay, all right, so that's been a minute. Yeah, yeah, and I see, uh, I had watched one of your interviews recently with David Schoemaker. That was awesome, wasn't it.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's another person I think has Yeah, Living to Lima. I think that's an amazing book. Actually, yeah, yeah, I'd listened to uh, I listened to all his podcasts on that stuff back in the day and everything. Yeah. But uh, all right, yeah, back to you this book. What was the reason you booked this out? What did you think other books were lacking? And this is why you felt the urge to put this out if that's the case, If that's.
The topic that people hadn't actually tackled. A lot of times when people talk about psychology and magic, they tend to get into a lot of you know, theoretical stuff that's kind of unprovable. I mean, like you know, for example, Carl Jung is amazing as in terms of a model of how the mind works, and it's a great therapeutic model for dealing with patients and therapy, but none of
its assumptions are are testable using modern science. It's one of these It's just kind of like a model that you you work with and then you get the results, but you know, with your patient population, but you can't test it in the scientific way. And other books on the topic tend to like go off into quantum mechanics and things like that, which again is interesting, but it's if you actually talk to a physicist, most of them are going to say, yeah, that's not really how it works.
And I don't mean to dismiss either of those approaches, but I wanted, you know, my background is in social psychology. It's very much geared to sign tipic research and statistical analysis, and I wanted to bring an actual hard data, hard
research that pertain to magic. And while there's there aren't people out there doing research or they are doing a real time brain imaging of someone while they're doing a magic ritual, you know, vanishing or something like that, there's a lot of research in psychology about things that you know, those personality traits and the effects of our environment around us and so on that apply to what magicians do. And by magician, I'd use that term very broadly anyone
who engages in any kind of spiritual practice. So I don't mean to exclude, you know, people who might call themselves a wicked instead of a magician or whatever. I mean, we're all doing those people are all doing magic, and that's sometimes using this in a very broad and inclusive way.
I use the magician in the same way. I feel like it just includes everybody. No, I think that's great though. That's one thing that thought was like impressive about having you on, and I think I you know, I guess shoemaker would be the same thing. But there's that too many people in my opinion, that are actually trying to bring like academic science into a cult or not enough, I don't think, And I think there is a lot.
I think if ocultists and scientists were to maybe just put their differences aside and actually talk to each other, they'd make so much progress, that's my opinion. That's the thing to like.
Another thing that a lot of the people who write on magic and psychology do is they'll they'll lean into parapsychology research, which is fascinating and I'm very intrigued by that, but I also get this field. Once you start talking about that, there's like a whole swath of people who automatically dismiss that because there are skeptics and they aren't
accept the possibility that that stuff could exist. And another part of my rationale with this book was, now want to I want to focus on solid, peer reviewed research about psychology, not you know, not psychological theories or models, not necessarily parent psychology. And you know, there's plenty of books about that stuff that people can go and read
if they want to pursue those avenues. But I have like a very specific focus on evidence based approaches that you know, and it may be naive, but hopefully not that would allow that reaching across the aisle for practitioners and scientists to actually find that common ground.
Well, go ahead, I was going to say, I think it's interesting when you look at the idea of science versus the paranormal, getting into all the quote unquote woo woo. It's like science the way it's set up it's only it's only able to test certain means that are repeatable within the physical matrix. Anything be beyond that that becomes mental, that becomes vibration, that becomes you know, higher forms of etheric unders it just doesn't have the tools, so you
know it. Then it becomes the individual body and the repeatable phenomena and these things. So can you kind of get into some of these ways that we can with repeatable means be able to kind of draw out some of these you know, higher kind of forms that are above and beyond the physical matrix.
Yeah, Actually, what we were saying, right, And we have a couple of interesting things, one of which is this idea of repeatability and Dean Reading in his early book The Conscious Universe kind of talks about this. Dean Reading
is a is a you know, a parapsychologist. But he talks about how this issue, this issue that's scientists, particularly skeptical scientists, expect certain phenomenon to be repeated and replicated in the in the lab one hundred percent of the time, you know, with with this with high degree of reliability. And he points out that we will pay some millions of dollars who can hit a ball with a stick
one time out of three. And so this idea that you know, we can accept, you know, the the idea that a baseball player is not perfect, but I can't accept the idea that some of these states of consciousness that happen don't necessarily happen on demand in a laboratory setting. So yeah, I'm sorry, I think I'm talking. I lost track to what you're asking.
Well, just in regard to how do we test these outer limits, Yeah, and be able to have you know, verifiable kind of for those that you know, refuse to believe in these further kind of proceedings.
Right right, Well, and I'm reminded of I believe this is Bill Moyer's. He was the guy that ran that series, The on Myth with Joseph Campbell, I think yet like a separate series, but he remember him in they showed coming up with this example about how a dog's nose is an amazing device. I mean, it can smell. Also, he can smell, you know, the scent of its owners. It can go out and sniff hydrants and things like that until who's been there before. And through that mechanism,
a dog can learn a lot about the world. But Bill Moyer says, you know that the sniff test is not a way of finding out about God. And in the same way, and you could say that science is good at a lot of things, but there are certain things that not good at right, and you've got to use the right tool for the right job. And for me and my approach to this book, I'm not again trying to explain everything that happens to people when they're
doing magic, whatever their practice may be. As all psychology, it's I think Alistair Crowley talks about magic being the art and science of causing change occur in confirmity will. So science is only part of that. There's also art, and so my approach is kind of like, okay, let's talk about the science part. But there's also a thing
that we really can't talk about in science. There's that subjective, unique experience that people will have, and that's kind of another realm, and I'll I'll allow people to interpret that as they will. But one of the things I do in Mind over Magic is in the last chapter, I try to take you know, a semester course and research design methodology and back into one kind of short chapter about what is the scientific method, how can you like
test your own magical work for yourself. So if you're doing some you know, magical operation for this outcome, you know, you kind of walk through the steps of how you would develop a hypothesis, how you might go about collecting your data, how you might control for other things, and how you can critically evaluate whether your experiment worked or not.
And that I think arms readers with a toolbox to try to apply this method to their spiritual work, because some of this process may be this trial and error of finding a system that works for you. And again, you can't tell what works for you until unless you can tell what works.
Right.
But there are common repeatable phenomena that are occurrences. Otherwise this this whole idea of you know magic or the magi or going back into all these ancient practices, it wouldn't have persisted in Risen and come about because there are common repeatable you know, people get an effect when they participate.
Yeah, that's the that's the whole mind of like a lot of these these schools, they they'll say, hey, here's these techniques. Here these tools you can use, you know, do this lesser manage ritual the pentagram or do this, you know, calling of the watch towers or what have you, and or even let's let's do this, you know, let's do this Catholic mass, you know, and van transubstantiate.
Oh yeah, one thing I did want to ask you about, you know, just real quick and it's kind of guess, like a random question. I try to ask some people that are into a flame or Crowley and this question if I can you mentioned science, So this is I'm gonna try to throw it in this way, and this might sound off the wall, but it's just my belief. It's our theory of mine. Do you think at any point else the Crowley actually points at the eyeballs in the brain in some of his stuff.
I'm gonna try to follow it doesn't.
Yeah, No, I actually think there's certain certain times where he does actually depict like the function like what your eyeball and your brain's doing phenomena. Yeah, during a magical experience. That's just my theory. I was just wondering, since you mentioned science, if you've ever come across that it sounds crazy or yeah, artwork or just even ways of like
expressing certain things and archetypes. I do you think he might be expressing like the pupil dilating and changing inside the eye and how the light goes up into the brain through the optic nerve as crazy as that's a.
Couple of people who have explored Crowley's writings from the angle of psychedelics, and I find that to be kind of interesting because because Crole did use psychedelics, you don't he didn't necessarily say hey, I was dripping balls when I did everything, But yeah, sometimes you kind of say that. But people have had these experiences kind of read some of his stuff, like the Vision and the Voice and say, wow, that stuff really sounds very much like a classic, you know,
psychedelic experience. And I think that's very fascinating because I, you know, we all comment can come on any any bit of data from different angles, and you know, approaching curly from the from the angle of psychedelics isn't necessarily something I would kind of I was kind of sticking to you, sticking to the facts, you know, but having someone with was knowledgeable in this to kind of take this up and now this is actually very classic stuff
was a neat theory, you know. It's so it's interesting to hear these different.
Tapes yeah, yes, I have to throw like away when I actually I was.
Just wonder, I'm gonna I'm going to piggyback on the next stuff that because I did a little bit of equity on the vision and the voice, and in some of his writing is very analogous to physiology of ot anatomy as well as brain anatomy, and that it all functions together.
And even when you start to dissect some of the numerology that he hints to you, you look at some of the development fetal embryonic with eye physiology, brain physiology, and it almost mirrors it. And so it's almost like you almost wonder, did you take a crash course in physiology embryology and you know I anatomy brain anatomy because it mirrors it a lot, and so I think one there's there's almost a pause to wonder. Maybe he was a secret and atomists, secret artist.
Yeah. I mean Croly was a voracious reader. But when he went to university, he started he was going to study in the form of a diplomatic service, but then kind of focused mostly in like the humanities. You know, his his mentor was a Greek you know, literature professor and Arthur Willgallar Virol and.
So well.
While he may have had some courses, that wasn't really the focus of his education. Again cruel. He wrote a lot, and I think there is a lot of mysticism connected with sensory input. I mean I think it like go Is writing about color theory and things like that. But Got was also very much of a mystic as well, and so I think there there is a strand of that in Western missourisism.
Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. All right, Enough about back to Richard? All right, so it is his time. Uh with your book? Do you go into I could be making a stretch, but do you happen to go into like maybe the psychology behind like maybe like the whole robes, investments and all the stuff you use on your altar? Is there anything?
Absolutely? Just to give you a couple of examples, there is a lot of research done in I believe it or not marketing psychology that talks about how our identity and our personality is wrapped up in our possessions and so the things that we own are in a way extensions of ourselves. And that absolutely applies to you know, a magician, if you think about like the magician, the Heiro.
He has you know, the the the four weapons of the suits of the Tiro on this altar, you know, the disc, the wand the cup and the dagger, and in ceremonial traditions, you know, these things are like the dagger is you know, the the cutting incisiveness of your mind, and the wond is the force of will, and the cup is the seat of emotions and so on, and so these are literally meant to be external representations of our state of mind, and marketing psychology of all things
kind of confirm that is, in fact, how we treat our possessions. And so if we have these special magical items that we have consecrated and treat with, you know, reverence, that's going to that that that assertion and in magical spaces is absolutely true. Similarly, there are studies in psychology that deal with how we dress and how that affects our state of mind. I wanted to include in the book, okay, a picture from an old bugs Bunny cartoon, but I
couldn't get the permission. I'm really sad about that. But there's this old bugs bunny cartoon called Bugs's Bonnets and in this In this episode, it's it's set up like
a mock you know, psychology documentary. And what happens is this truck with a hat shop is going down the road and it hits a bump in the back of the truck opens up and all these hats go floating out and as they land on Bugs Bunny's head or Elmer Fudd's head, they take on the personality associated with the hat, which I think is pretty funny, but there's
actually something to that. Psychologists have done studies in clothing being being in a room with a lab coat, you know, can affect how you how you respond to your environment, maybe ease these environmental cues. But more than that, putting on the lab coat will actually make the person we'll change state of mind, will actually make them smarter and
change their personality subtly. So there are studies that have compared you know, where people are at before you put on this lab coat and afterwards you put on if you put on glasses, feel smarter, right, and as art this is this is a repeatable and demonstrable psychological phenomenon. So if those things again change your consciousness or even your ability, you know, your your your your actual intelligence
has boosted a little bit. Again, doing this in a very meaningful sort of way, not in some abstract psychological study, but in a temple where you're putting on of a special consecrated robe, or or you know, or if you're your practice a skyclad if you're you're removing all your mundane clothes and going into this sacred sort of space,
that that will also change your state of mind. And I think the idea here is that these things don't make the magic happen, but they alter your consciousness, and it's that altered consciousness that allows the magic, the personal transformation to occur.
And I would think also is a part of the magic, just in the sense of because you know, you are essentially working to change your consciousness, elevate enter into states of someonond you know, you're seeking certain mental states in a lot of these cases, you know, to participate, and then you add the sympathetic magic on top of that, and it compiles essentially.
Yeah, And actually in the book, I do talk a little bit about, you know, the psychology of being like in the zone as they call it, and how this is something that's really hard to just I'm going to go into the zone, and it doesn't work that way, but that research has shown that there's ways again of training yourself to more readily go into that space where everything just kind of flows naturally, whether you're you know,
a shund'ering athlete or whatever. Again, most of these studies aren't focused on magicians, but the flow state certainly does apply, right, and the lessons learned where where like athletes can train
themselves get into the flow state. Literally, the exercises they talk about are like straight out of you know, the basics of you know, ceremonial man of practice, keep a diary, meditate, you know, just it's it's pretty uncanny to read the recommendations and in sports medicine for getting into the zone. And I do kind of think that one of the things that the mechanisms that this again my own perfect theory of the mechanisms of ritual, is that practitioners spend
a lot of time learning these elaborate correspondences. You know that you know, the the these colors represent, you know, this characteristic, this astrological sign, this planetary ruler, these Greek gods, Roman god's, Egyptian gods, what have you. You know that whatever pantheon you you subscribe to. There's all these things that kind of all interlock and correspond sense and colors and sounds that. Yeah, so that when you're in the ritual, you're engaging all of those senses and kind of tying
up you know, your rational thinky bits, you know. But there's that other part of your mind though, that that kind of clears the field and it's like, oh, I'm busy thinking about all these correspondences and your intuitive part doesn't really care about that kind of stuff can kind of bubble to the surface.
Do you think the the incense might even be helping with memory memories or you know, smell can actually really affect affect the mind.
Yeah, yeah, they say, they say that smell is actually
the most potent memory trigger. It's and I think that's part of this process as well, because you are, through your practice and through like memorizing these correspondences, you are in fact training you know, these associations over a long period of time so that when you finally do encounter them in in a ritual or in ceremony, that's again they're triggering these these memories or the responses that you have been kind of coding into yourself, you know, over weeks, months, years, because I.
Know recently I was just doing stuff on Jeodn Bruno. I remember, correct. I think he's anastic scene. I mean he's got what the memory of art and of the art of the memory, yeah, and all those. He was heavy into the idea of memory, that's wheel he had and everything. I was like, yo, I gotta get my hands on that thing, you know. Yeah. So I was just wondering if incense because of the whole of memory.
Well, it's part of it, and I think incense also when you look at incense, there's certain chemical compounds that are in different incenses that have a tendency to affect different neural train like the vegan receptors, Like what is it, Frankincense actually has cannabinoids in it, So when they're burning that at the church and the people are you know, inhaling that they're getting a subtle dose of mild cannabinoid
that affects the mind state. So there are things you know, physical as far as the smell, but also physiological as far as the you know, the system itself.
Actually is a really good question for one of the studies. Are some of the studies I look at in the book is that people have tried to look at incense and how they affect people's moods or state of mind. And one of the problems that research researchers have run into is that there are so many any different kinds of incense that you can't systematically say, you know, make
a general staying about all of them. And even if you say something like sandal would, there are so many different varieties and formulations of sandalwood incense and identifying what that active ingredient might be that that's.
What.
And again, these recary studies have found a certain sense they are associated with certain sorts of emotional or reactions. But at the same time, I recognize it's very limited because the number of possibilities and combinations there is just you know, off the charts, that is true.
Yeah, I've actually mind fucked sandal would before I understand how many different variations there is. Yeah, I looked into getting I was like, well, which one should I be using. If I don't use the right one, this isn't gonna work. Yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting about the whole Yeah, I think there's a lot of with the mind connections and memories within the ritual garbs and the robes and all that stuff.
There is a Sorry, Nick, I just want to jump in and say one thing really quickly, is that there is an interesting idea in Tontra that you actually use those things so exactly like what all of you are talking about. You use those things, but then you let them go sort of return to sort of that rigplus state, that sort of fifth primordial consciousness, that flow state maybe but without sort of it's like more nebulous than intention. It's more nebulous than well, there's it's more it's like
that waking consciousness from dreaming consciousness. So you're not necessarily doing anything, but you're just really in the in that you could say death, that consciousness almost like you're just in true knowledge. So I do think it's interesting about the incense though, because that is clearly true, like the amount of compounding in TNTRA specifically, but also in all esoteratricians. I think the plants are well, many people will say
that the plants are actually our closest relatives. So I've heard a lot of you know, people talking about like geoontologies in the last few years and like sort of like the indigenous ways of relating to the land around us, and I think that that relationship is sort of best exemplified in plants. And I think this is also why, like you see a lot of both contemporary and medieval cultists like so into botanicals and so into their properties, and not just in the biomedical terms, but also in
maybe the biospiritual terms. Right.
Yeah.
I think of something like Agrippa and his books of a cult philosophy, and there's just all sections dealing with minerals and plants, and you're like, what does this got to do with magic? But yeah, does.
Elements?
Yeah? Again, I think the the idea there is, you know, is so general, was saying that these as tools, the robes and the implements and all of that isn't necessary to get into these states of consciousness, and with practice one can do without those things. I think it's more idea that these are facilitators, right, They just they help you get there.
Well, And that's the idea of Alvius Huxley with the doors of consciousness. He talks about you have to facilitate being able to open these doors, but once the doors are open, then they maintain you know that passageway. It's just a matter of learning the psychology of how to take your brain to the point of being able to enter into those states.
Sorry, I'm just going to say one more thing.
What you're saying is really interesting, Robbie, and also doctor Kasinski, because really I know that you were saying. I think pre recording that you would teach classes on talk tech and pop culture and have a co host from the Gray Lodge, Matt Mura, who's been on the show a couple of times.
He talks about pop kabala.
I call it k pod with obviously parentheses around it.
He ever came about it.
That's great, right, And so there's so much of if you want to call it kabala or you want to call it like magical coding in popular culture. Like it's just saturated, like the colors, the sounds, the densities, you know, everything, the archetypes, it's all there. And so I feel like, in a strange way, we're at a prespice where people's consciousness are strangely both prepared and perhaps very aggregated both
at the same time. But they're prepared to sort of have higher experiences, but maybe they cannot, for their own reasons, recognize what those experiences really are. So I don't know, just an interesting idea I just thought to throw out there.
Well, as far as pop Kabala goes, one thing I'm kind of excited about is I'm again from childhood, just a comic book nerd and I all read so much these days, but when I was a kid, I read like everything. But in December there Marvel Comics is launching this mini series about the character Wicken, who is you know, one of the children of you know, the Scarlet Witch
in the Marvel comics. And the first issue one of the variant covers as the guy in like a superhero outfit that's kind of reminiscent of the seventies, but been blazing. The cross his chest is the conbalistic Tree of Life, and I'm just like, I've got to pick this up.
There's got to be some stuff in here for sure.
Yeah.
Well, and I was going to say, in regard to Jin talking about people their their mental faculties are at the point where they're ready to experience these higher elevated forms of consciousness. It kind of makes me think of all these kids going to see Taylor Swift and having these ecstatic experiences while they're there, and then when they leave they use their memory, which.
Actually talk about that so interesting like post concert on the show, right, But.
They're going into states of consciousness that they haven't experienced before, and they're they're having these you know, higher form ecstatic kind of you know feelings, and then when they leave, they they just tabula, you know, it just is wiped because I don't know, maybe they didn't enter like knowingly, they intered accidentally and therefore they don't have the tool to maintain the facility something along those lines.
Yeah, that's really an interesting, uh take on that too, because you know, when I've heard people on the radio talking about this when I'm because it was just like all overd pop culture. You now during the Era's tour and the Expert Summer, you are like, well, you know, if you're like at a concert and you're focused on, you know, taking selfies or shooting video, you're not really in the moment. You're not being you're not actually present.
And to the extent to which that is true, I would agree that any any spiritual work you are doing does require you being present in the moment. And whether it's an overwhelming moment like being in a Taylor Swift concert or just you know, saying saying words over your meal before you eat the food. You know, I mean, if you you know, if you if you have a practice where you say words over a meal and then you just kind of inhale your McDonald's French prize and
you don't really think about it. You're not really present. You're just kind of on an autopilot. And to get the most out of that experience, you you want to immerse yourself in it. You want, if you're in the say words or food, then you should pause and enjoy the taste of that food, you know. And same thing with Taylor Swift. If you're gonna you're going to go to a concert, you know, whoever you're seeing, you know, Terror Swift became Alco whatever, go all in, you know,
I mean, absorb that experience. B be present, be there in the moment.
That's funny, that's interesting. Thank you. It's well that you have to even have an idea that interesting. I know in your book, Uh you happen to get into like I guess, like the psychology of initiation and stuff.
Yes, yes, I got a whole chapter on an initiation.
I don't know if you, I know, you listen. You want people to read the book and pick it up. So if there's anything you want to talk about that you don't mind a little teaser on that maybe.
Well, I think with most initiation ceremonies ideas, you know, the person going through it is going through some sort of a you know, dramatic sort of re enactments or a sacred drama of some sort, and they are playing eight parts in this experience. And I tim there are various things happen to you to a person psychologically when
when we're going through an initiation. One of these is this whole fight or flight response or you know, which has various other you know, components added on to it, you know, friend or attend and befriend and things like that.
But being in this sort of physiologically and psychologically aroused state makes you very receptive to the information around you because you're trying to evaluate your situation for you know, is a safe you know as my mind danger And while in an initiation you're really not in any danger, you're still going to be anxious and nervous about it.
But that also puts you in this very attentive and receptive state of mind where the source of lessons that are often part of initiation are able to be communicated
more effectively. And that you know that if you're a tradition, you know, like like a Masonic sort of thing where you're taking oaths, you know, and you're doing this in front of your your comrades, you know, you're not just saying something to yourself, like your New Year's resolution, which you can just kind of blow off after a couple of weeks. You've now like made a statement in front
of other people. And and so that aspect of it, as well of publicly stating something, also has this this effect on you that can be connected to various you know, against psychological phenomenon. You know that you that you want your behavior to match what you've said, and that's a again a great way of creating behavior change, which again results in that interior sort of change, which is the goal of initiation. So yeah, there's a there's a whole lot I could say about this, Like it's end the
entire hour to talking about that. That's kind of the big overview of it.
That's interesting. I think a way I want to try to explain this, but I I want to put you on the spot. Either, Like let's say, in an initiation, if somehow certain things might like parts of your body might be touched or slapped that's near a chakra, could that start maybe affecting your experience during the situation the initiation.
Potentially? I think that's one of those things that goes outside the realm of sciences I know about scientists would to recognize the idea of a chakra. But certainly in our East meets West sort of fusion of scientific or scientific of esoteric thinking of magical thinking, that those those sorts of ideas of chakras and kundolini and so on
have been connected with magical practice. So to the extent to which you know the chakras actually exist, then these rituals or practice, you know, individual practices certainly have that potential to you know, trigger or invoke those energies.
Would it be similar to like the muscle mind connection. Like you spoke about athletes, and like when athletes train, they train with certain music, they put on certain socks, especially like the baseball players are very uh what is it called dishes that they will wear the same socks over and over and over end of you know, achieving.
Still just think they'll play their friends out of the locker room over those things.
It's giving, right you you kind of glimpse into like with some of these documentaries of some of these accomplished athletes, in that they get into the same exactly, they eat the same thing, they wake up at the same time, they wear the same outfit, they place themselves in the same position of a room, and then they go through the entire training over and over and over.
It's almost like while they're working on their it's a ritual itself and they have the same garb, they have the same music, they have the same whatever it is, and it's almost ritualistic. And when you're talking about like if you hit a certain area, it's almost like the mind muscle connection and that if you're working on the bicep, you're thinking, bicep grow, bicep grow, like I'm feeling the
contraction and feeling the teary. They have seen in studies where you when you have that mind muscle connection, that the actual muscle will respond and grow. You have more hypertrophy than in others it did not, or muscle mind connection. And then with the ritual itself, it's almost like whether it is the color or it is the garments or whatever it's I think the ritual itself is like affirming to our consciousness that you're like not only pursuing it physically,
but you're pursuing it spiritually. And it's that connection of no longer muscle, but the connection of mind soul, you know, and you're bridging that gap or and you like with the tailor swift, it's almost like I don't remember it, but maybe because you were not here like you you had transcended. All you was in complete agreeance. You know, your mind, muscle, I'm sorry, not muscle, your mind, soul
and body. We're in agreement for the first time and you've transcended into your higher realm and everything you said just connected right now when you said that.
So I can remember a book called The Magician's Training and Work Work, and this is when I read very early on and my my studies, and one recommendation that he has is that you should have a special ring that you put on only when you're doing magic, that when you put this ring on, you try to enter that sort of identity or that state of mind of I am now the magic, I'm now a magician, and you take it off like, oh I am you know,
I am just me, I'm a magician, you know. And but I think it's it's tying into a lot of those things that you're saying, the idea that you're you're making these associations that when when you put on that that ring, when you put on your magic socks, you know, or whatever, that you're entering that that you're you're recalling that muscle memory, that state of mind. And and you're
absolutely right. It is kind of a ritual. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, the training for athletes to get into that flow state again the very similar sort of thing. It's taking advantage of all those associations and basically trying to create this ritual or who what are your ritual that athletes can go through to help them get into that state of mind because of like forming those associations.
You know what's really interesting as you guys are talking about this, Richard, I don't know if this was something that you have done in the past. I've done it a few times many moons ago, where it's almost like kind of like taking on the god form. You know, like if I'm working with with like Totha t Hoodi, you know, maybe at some point I'll meditate and try to like like take on the idea of to HOODI and almost like or it's just like like you know, or in some way it's like you know, where the
where the star in our video right now? That's going on in our head, you know, like I'm Rocky right now, you know what I'm saying. And then you start to take on this role of this image that you want, you know, you want to portray, and it's gonna get you what you want to need. And it's kind of like I'm thinking, like taking on the god form. Sometimes when you're working with certainities, it's almost like it was there.
Something ahead. I was going to say that there is again a lot of psychology around role play and then again it runs a gamut, and I talked about the SELSA in the book that you know, role play has been used in with with children to you know, combat racism. But also there's a lot of interesting phenomenon about role play amongst actors and how getting into the very character and whatever they speak about their character in the first
person versus the third person speaks of identification. There's great interview with the The The Star Blue Velvet where she kind of talks about how, even when you're doing a table reading of the script just kind of goes sitting around for kind of reading the script, that she had to have the fingernail polish on, that she had to be able to look down her hands and see that that fingernail polish of the character and are actually inhabit
that role and do the table reading. And again, it's not necessarily magic, but it kind of is, you know, And that certainly dovetails into the sorts of things we're talking about.
Well, and I was going to mention there's a whole school of actors that they as far as the meditation, they become that person and then they maintain that that personification through the entire shoot, even when they're not on set.
You know.
So this is a form of magic as well as far as you know, taking it like you were talking about taking on the god form, taking on these different personifications that actually you know, change the consciousness and manifest different realities and basically precipitate magical function.
Absolutely, and I know sometimes you know, again I don't really make a big study of this in the book, but I've anecdotally there have been actors who have had like a hard time getting like out of character after they've kind of immersed themselves in a while. Maybe maybe a vanishing ritual would be helpful or something. We had some tools and the magic Toolkit that that could help with that.
Yeah. I think I even heard a story of like Walking Phoenix, Like what do you put himself through to play that Joker role? It was like ridiculous. Yeah, it's like you hear some actors and either way and all that stuff. Yeah, and like some of the like the most you know, biggest roles or you know, most well known things. It's like that actor actually took on that character months probably for the movie. If you look at like how much they put into it, it's like, wow, that's why it was so good. Yeah.
Yeah, but so many things, even even the actors have to like undergo weeks and months so i know, die, physical training, martial arts, you know, sort fighting whatever to do the roles that they're portraying. I mean it's you know, don't just walk into the set and do these things.
There's just walking.
Stuff for a lot of prep.
Yeah, yeah, Is there anything else in the book that you would like to maybe mention a touch on that's in there to entice people or anything, give them a better idea, like maybe just even some of the chapter names or anything. Just let people know what's up with it. Gosh, let's put you on the spot. He's like, oh, yeah, I.
Kind of feel like we we really touch on a lot of It's like, oh, I talked about that, yeah, but just you know, I can read you the table of contents we've got, you know, had like a whole the psychology of connecting the dots and seeing the big picture. Rigamarole models daily magical practices, so kind of what I do here as I progress from like the starting place, taking now like some sort of regular daily or just a regular in some other way practice, and then kind
of advancing from there into more involved practices. So in addition to the daily magical practice, there's a separate chapter called Think Better of the Magic of Yoga and Meditations. That's just there's a lot of literature and that they get into the idea of greater and lesser magical retirements. This is when you sequester yourself to try and prepare yourself to do a larger, more ambitious undertaking than just
your daily sort of practice. Hold that thought. Ritual implements, as we talked about earlier, sacred headspace temples and what we do in them. So that kind of gets into the psychology of the space in which we do magic, significant others, encountering the divine invocation, evocation, and some more sorts of things. Full circle group ritual because once you know, getting together with other people and doing magic because in the natural next step a lot of people, then there's
initiation changing your mind. Touched on that, and then the method of science and you so how you can actually apply the scientific method to critically evaluating whether your your work is doing what you think it is.
Very nice. That's a lot. Well, thank you, thank you for reading off the chapters. That's what. So there was one thing you mentioned, and you know, I meant to mention it before, and you know, the thought lost me. We're talking or something was brought up about rituals and you just mentioned something about meditation. I think at one point I had even seen James Wasserman even say that, you know, rituals could even be like a physical meditation in a certain way. But besides that, maybe before we
wrap it up. I think even David Schumaker said it like this one time in his Living with the Lima or when he I think he said guests, like, you know, a regiment for magicians. It does not sound glory, you know, exciting or crazy, but you're going to have to learn to meditate. May sound boring, just like damn, I don't want to do that doesn't sound fun, But I do think, in my opinion, I think meditation is the key part
of it. Do you think, you know, could you maybe add a little bit more on how important you think meditation is within having maybe a magical experience?
Yeah, I mean, I think the best example I could give to address that question is when Aleister Crowley was writing his book for you know, his his Magnalopus on doing Magic, first part or book one, you know, the four parts was dedicated to yoga, and it was part two that he actually gets into the magic implements and actually doing ritual. So I think the fact that you
put yoga first says it all. I mean that the disciplines of of you know, the the eight limbs of yoga are baked into at least Crowley system, but you know, with the advent of the Theosophical Society, and so I'm kind of promoting a lot of these eastering thoughts that's also kind of worked its way into the Golden Dawn and a lot of other traditions and the extent to which magic is meant to kind of evolve us and
to make us into the best version of ourselves. You know, those tools of meditation, of being able to calm your mind, still your mind, introspects, and even attained these states of
you know, Diana and Samadhi are are are key. You know, it's it's it's like we're talking earlier about, you know, just hus of the doors of perceptions, like well, yeah, you know, you you take one hit and you see the path, but you know these other these other techniques you can get there for meditation and explore if once you see that path and you had those glimpses of
some out here, you know where to find that. You know what you're looking for, what you're shooting for, and that will make you a more effective magician.
Very very well, said Richard beautifully said, thank you very much for that. A little bit on meditation. It was an amazing guest for real, Richard. I'm really glad I finally got you on. Yeah. I would love to get you back on in the future if we have a good talk about great conversation. Yeah, and all this was like really fun. It was great to It was great to have a conversation with you. Before we wrap this up, I will let the other rejects plug themselves again and
let everybody know where they can find their work. Lisa, please call reject bad Scientists. Let everybody know what's up with you.
Josha Kasinsky. This was an amazing lecture. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, your research, your your insights on this and entertaining our questions. I very much enjoyed the discussion, and as well with Robbie Engine that's always fun to hear their take on things as well. Thank you Nick for inviting it be on. And the only thing I'd like to plug is a cool research institute dot org. Some of our fellow rejects have contributed literarily
to the site. If you'd like to consume that content that way, please checks out on a Cool research Institute dot org.
Thank you so much, Lisa, and I really appreciate you coming on and contributing, and we got my manage in the ninja what is going on with?
Thank you so much, and thank you to doctor Kasinski for you know, tolerating my questions and inquiries into this and as a not a not at all night but I'm very interested and of course if you're if you want to follow me on Twitter x at willcomra Born, w uk O, n G Reborn, the Threshold Saints on ig and Twitter, as well as the True Gray Lodge dot com with a V and tonight we are doing Friday Night and I'll stick book up nights out of Eden, so we'll be discussing it at my favorite obviously nicklesis
he's me but my favorite excellent or my I guess he's a tall.
Man too by Freder Chad.
So we'll be discussing it a little bit about that night because it comes up in the book right away.
So thank you so much, Thank you, Jed, I appreciate it. It was always great to have you. And finally we got Robbie Marks.
What is going on sir? Oh you muted it again, my man? Sorry, sorry about that. Yeah, I just want to say thanks to everybody. Thank you Richard for your time. I really appreciate it, and it's always such a good group as far as a different insight we have from our different perspectives. If anybody wants to check out my work, you can go to my link tree which is our M A r X and that'll pull up everything for you. And yeah, thanks for everything, Nick, thanks for bringing this all together.
Oh yeah, no, thank you, I had it again. This was a great discussion and real quick again, Richard, please let everybody know where they can find and your stuff and your books.
All right, Well, again, thank you all for this amazing conversation. It was a great deal of fun. And if you want to keep up on what I'm doing, you can find me on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Blue Sky and I also have a website at Richard dash Kachinski dot com to so just take my name there on the screen. They had to put a hyphe in there. And if you enjoyed the conversation, do pick up mind Over Magic coming out October seventh.
Awesome. Yes, uh yes, and that is I guess the end of another occult rejects. Thank you everybody in the chat, and that's what's up. I really appreciate and it was a little early, but we had some of the regulars here and they're here from the beginning to the end. I really appreciate that, and I appreciate all your comments. That's why we go live. And until the next one, everybody be well. Lada