Seeking Center: The Podcast

Woo News: A Spell, Dark Retreats & the Magic You Already Have - Episode 173

• Seeking Center Network - Robyn Miller Brecker, Karen Loenser, Lisa Capretto, Noel Kehoe • Season 2 • Episode 173

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This month’s Woo News is 🔥! We’re diving into:

✨ The Knicks fan who hired an Etsy witch to “guarantee” a win (true story!)
✨ Do spells really work… or is it all about intention?
✨ Dark Retreats - Spiritual Do or Don't?
✨ Our take on owning your energy and being your own best magic-maker

This episode is your June energetic update + spiritual gossip sesh—with some laughs, insights, and grounding advice. Robyn, Karen, Lisa, and Noël get real about the brains behind intuitives, why YOU hold more power than you think, and how to reconnect with your own manifesting magic.

Walk away with practical tips, a few laughs, and maybe a new perspective on the energy within you.

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Visit theseekingcenter.com for more from Robyn + Karen, plus mega inspo -- and the best wellness + spiritual practitioners, products and experiences on the planet!

You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter.

Robyn: [00:00:00] I'm Robyn Miller Brecker and I'm Karen Loenser. Welcome to Seeking Center, the podcast. Join us each week as we have the conversations and we, through the spiritual and holistic clutter for you, we'll boil it down to what you need to know now, we're all about total wellness, which to us needs building a healthy life.

Karen: On a physical, mental, and spiritual level, we'll talk to the trailblazers who'll introduce you to the practices, products, and experiences that may be just what you need to hear about to transform your life. If you're listening to this, it's no accident. Think of this as your seeking center and your place to seek your center.

Robyn: And for the best wellness and spiritual practitioners, experts, products, experiences, and inspo, visit theseekingcenter. com. Hi everyone. We're sharing the woo stories that are lighting us up, blowing our minds, or making us say, wait, what for June. Think of it as your energetic update meets spirit world, current events. We also wanna know what you think, so make sure to let us [00:01:00] know.

Lisa has. Put this unbelievable list together that we're gonna go through right now, and she's gonna kick things off. We also have Karen and Noelle here, so you get the whole. Hi Lisa. Hello everybody. 

Lisa: Can't do it without the crew. 

Robyn: Yes. 

Lisa: Okay. So the first story that I wanted to discuss, has to do with a topic that I think maybe none of us know too much about except Noel basketball.

I don't know if you heard, but there was a Knicks fan who paid an online witch to cast a spell to ensure a game five win over the Pacers and. Apparently it worked and it was a big thing. I wanted to know what you guys thought about that. 'cause we've talked about this whole Etsy witch thing.

I know that we had Amy Angelowitz on and she's done this sort of thing and it's been in the zeitgeist a little bit. But what are your thoughts on this whole practice? 

Noel: First off, she should have did it for game six. It's so [00:02:00] funny, Noel because yeah, game five was great, but we needed a game six.

Lisa: I guess that's part of it, right? So it's you do a spell for every single thing and then the spells are worthless. I don't know. Yeah, 

Robyn: it's a good point. it's so true, if you were then to do it every time, let's be real.

Maybe there's a percentage of time, like anything, it's gonna work. 

Karen: Like anything. 

Robyn: Yeah. That's my opinion. I don't know, Karen and I talk about this all the time in terms of setting intention before anything, which to me is the same thing as.

Potentially casting a spell. And so I think when you can set that intention, you can feel what it feels like when that intention is reached or that goal is reached. Before you even do anything, right? So before you go into the meeting, before an event starts, whatever it is in your life procedure, it could be so many things, but if you can feel what it feels like at the end of it, what you want to feel like, that to me is casting a spell.

So it depends on how powerful your energy is that [00:03:00] day

Lisa: I was gonna ask, do you need somebody else to cast it for you then? 

Karen: Remember we did a podcast specifically about spells. The four of us did. Yeah. remember And talking about what that is and let's be honest, the idea of a spell has been around forever. It's not a new thing. So I think that. I like to believe that there's some truth to it. And I agree with what robyn is saying. It's about setting the intention, but then doing something almost physical to ground that intention in something to ground it in the earth.

But I think with this person, I don't know this person, but I'm guessing they did it on a whim just because it would be fun. And I think there's some of the magic is the idea of setting that intention, but then letting go of it. And just see what happens.

Robyn: The only thing to add to it, in my opinion is, and I think this is what we all do.

And are talking about and hoping that others can really understand is that you don't need to give your power away to somebody else. [00:04:00] So that when we talk about having somebody put a spell on something for you, actually you have the power within yourself to do whatever in quotes, the spell is right, or we like to say intention and all of that.

Like you can do that. You don't need to pay someone else to do it. And what we would hope is throughout what we do and listening to all the conversations we have, and all the resources that we. Hope to provide or hope that you will take a look at, you will learn how you can do this yourself 

Karen: Yeah. 

Noel: But it at least got the Knicks to game six. It motivated them to get to game. Good point. Thanks for talking about the.

Lisa: , I'm not done with witches and spells. We have another one that I wanna discuss another story. So this one talks about tiktoks latest villain or hero, because apparently a woman paid a witch on Etsy to cast a love spell. But instead of following through on that, the witch found the man [00:05:00] online.

Sent him screenshots of the conversation and people are saying, this is a WPA violation. And the Etsy witch told on me is what the girl said. Along these lines, I. The spell. There were , A lot of people were saying that's what you get for trying to cast a love spell because spells, intentions, whatever.

But when you're talking relationships and love and other people like that, there's more ethical considerations and complexities in there. So even though people like just do this for fun, you're still putting that energy out. So Is that the line, like a love spell? Is that where we draw the line, or is it, I don't know.

So I just thought it was interesting that there were these two, witch stories floating around this particular month. I just wanna get your guys' thoughts. 

Robyn: I will say, I think all around not right.

All 

Noel: around, 

Robyn: not, 

Noel: okay. 

Karen: We've talked about this so many times that everything is about intention [00:06:00] and you can't force a spell on someone else, or you can't force somebody to do something else. So you always have to ask permission to go into somebody's energy in these cases. And I don't believe in a love spell In that sense, I don't think that a witch can energetically force two people together. Maybe she can help. Shed the energy of positivity around them so that when they do meet, it's like when we send energy ahead, like you just said, Robyn it's, putting the energy out there.

But at the end of the day, it's all about free will 

Robyn: And I don't think it is okay if you pay somebody like you would pay a therapist, right? When you go to your therapist and you're talking about. This person or that person, if they were then to go call that person and be like let me tell you what Lisa was saying.

Nature. No, not Okay. So I don't think, that's okay. If you wanna believe that someone can help I don't think any, I actually don't think any of that's okay. I think it does [00:07:00] come back to what we're talking about in setting your own intention and doing your own that work and putting that power out there.

And I also wanna say. WI do believe in all of that because we talk about here where you can freeze negativity from somebody else, like freeze receiving negativity from somebody else and we know it works 'cause we do it all the time. So I know it can work, but it has to come from you. I don't believe it comes from someone else.

We're not 

Karen: trying to change somebody else's energy or even change experience. That's right. To shield our own selves from that. 

Noel: and all of the different modalities that we talk about and all the people that I've met with, you can't jump into someone else's energy, right? Like you do need their permission.

So I agree that it's not so 

Lisa: love spells are nonsense. What do you think, Lisa? I'm not a big spell person in general. So I definitely believe in setting intention, and I think that's important just for the self. I don't know if I [00:08:00] believe how much that goes out there and how much that impacts everything else, but I think it's really important just from a personal standpoint, like to get clear about how you feel about something and how you want things to go.

I think it's super, super important, 

Robyn: Yeah, and I would say, the people and the practitioners that we work with. I would be really surprised if any of them would say that they would put spells on anything or anyone for you. So I would be real wary of that. I think that's something that we would all be super wary of.

Again, coming from that place of you need to have asked permission from others. Even when we do readings and when I do readings on other people and so forth, I have to have someone's permission before I'm just tapping into whatever it is that they need to hear. So it feels, not right, as we said, feels 

Lisa: yucky.

It's 

Robyn: yucky 

Lisa: one.

Noel: I still wish the Knicks one.

As 

Robyn: a native New Yorker. So do I. So I'm with you. 

Lisa: So this other story I wanted to [00:09:00] talk about, I'm gonna pose the question first. Would you ever cancel travel plans based on. Non-scientific predictions of something that may happen. So this is currently going on in Japan, apparently.

There have been some unverified earthquake predictions from particularly a manga artist who published something in 1999 and warned of a major disaster in March, 2011. And. That actually coincided with a earthquake in Japan. And it was like a nine point something. It was a big one. And so this artist has since, republished maybe, or I'm not even sure exactly, but this artist has since come out with this book that says something is happening, A big earthquake will hit in July.

Specifically July 5th. And yes this person [00:10:00] says a crack will open under the seabed between Japan and the Philippines and sending waves three times as tall as those from 2011. Wow. So because of this, according to CNN some travel agencies and travel agents say that bookings to Japan dropped by half over Easter and they're expected to dip further over the next few months.

Which is just it's really wild. this is a prediction. Nothing scientific about it. But there's a lot of people who are taking it incredibly seriously. And like I said, my question at the top is, would you guys ever cancel or change travel plans based on something woowoo that you heard?

Robyn: I would. 

Lisa: I would. You would? I would. I would not, 

Karen: can they actually predict exactly where something is gonna happen?

I don't think so. I think they can read the energy of the planet. And maybe even back then, those predictions were coming from that same thing of being able [00:11:00] to read that prediction, but. I think if there's enough people in the energy psychic world talking about it, it does make me take pause.

Noel: But that's really, yeah, if there was a bunch of people, I mean if a bunch of people said it, but Japan specifically, I mean I live in Southern California so I'm very think about earthquakes. I always think there's an earthquake. I have a chandelier in my dining room and I'm always looking over to see if the things are going back and forth.

'cause that's how I figure out there's an earthquake. But I don't live my life thinking there's gonna be the big one. However, Japan, 'cause I pay so much attention. I also have an app on my phone. So anytime there's an earthquake on the planet above a 5.0, I get a notification on my phone. 'cause that's when it starts to get big.

But I don't know if I would cancel a chip, but Japan has so many that I could see where people getting scared because there's. So many earthquakes in Japan all the time, and not like Southern California where it's a two or a three or a four. It's so much bigger there. And that sounds really scary, but I dunno I don't think I have a cancel a trip.

No, listen, 

Lisa: I don't travel enough. I don't take enough trips. If I've got [00:12:00] something planned overseas, I'm going, it has been in the works for a long time, probably, I didn't just wake up one day and decide I'm gonna pop over to Japan. So yeah, I'm still going. 

Robyn: yeah I think because we're enough in the woo and we have seen certain things come true, I feel like I would take pause, so to, what Noel was saying, if a number of things were saying it. And because there is some history here, like it's not like it's completely out of nowhere.

they did predict something major in 2011 and. I think I would pay attention just Dodge the date. Yeah, I might, right? . Listen, Japan's on my list of places to go. So not July. It's not this July.

Karen: Don't think that these psychics as a rule can predict a certain date. They may be able to predict something is gonna happen, but as we've seen over and over again, there's so many of them that have said on this date, it's gonna happen in those dates, come and go.

You have to take 

Noel: the 

Karen: grades. 

Noel: I hope not. I hope there's no 

Robyn: return. Yeah. [00:13:00] We pray. We pray, Japan, that this does not actually happen. Please. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Karen: We don't need that on top of everything 

Lisa: else 

Robyn: right now. No. Nobody needs that. 

Lisa: Robyn, I wanted to talk about an article that you sent which was really fascinating. Days long, dark retreats. Have you guys ever heard of a dark retreat? I hadn't. It's just as this article says, basically a meditation retreat, but alone in the dark, you're in a room. By yourself pitch black for several days. I read that they typically don't do it more than four days anymore because they do not think that there's much of a benefit past that.

But people get their meals delivered in a little hatch, and the room is still dark and doesn't let light in. You don't have your phone, you don't have any distractions. You're just sitting with yourself in the dark for days. And this is something that a lot of, tech elites have been doing lately.

So I don't know if this is specific to that crowd or if you guys have really had any [00:14:00] experience or heard about this before, but it sounds like something I would never do. It sounds like torture. Isn't 

Karen: that what? Solitary confinement. Isn't 

Lisa: it 

Karen: like worse than, I think there's 

Robyn: actually even light in solitary.

Is there Not exactly. 

Karen: So I can't imagine for me something that would be more Well, 

Lisa: and it. messes with your brain being in there too long, too.

Robyn: And here's the thing. Thing, yeah. Like when we interviewed Robert Peng, who is a Qigong master, that was part of him becoming a master.

So to me it is actually taking what these ancient. Rituals and traditions have been doing for thousands and thousands of years, and it is applying them now into this century, right into 2025. So I feel like I understand where it comes from. Yeah. But he was also, he had trained a long time before he [00:15:00] even.

Attempted that and his was like long, I think his was 30 to 40 days. Yes. Which actually I read in this article, there were some people who did that, which is why, to your point, they said, no, no more than four days for most. And it's really, a lot of athletes are doing this, a lot of tech elite. And when you ask whether I would do it, hell the fuck, no.

No, I would not. No, I would not. I like, it's hard enough to be alive and be in meditation in a room that's not dark for an hour and I really appreciate that, but I also know that I feel safe because I can get up and out and it's, and I'm gonna be okay there. I will say in these retreats.

You have the opportunity to leave at any time. 

Lisa: Yes. 

Karen: That's good. You can, 

Robyn: there was a door again. You are not locked in there. Thank you. 

Karen: Yeah, 'cause I can understand like I would actually do a silent retreat happily, put me somewhere for four days without my phone and not have to talk. I think that would be so I agree.

I think that's different. Yes, but I [00:16:00] think the sensory , deprivation , I think for so many people would be torturous, particularly like executives who are so used to time and understanding who they are in the world based on the times of the day. So I think that would be, 

Lisa: oh yeah, one guy went in and he didn't make it the whole time that he wanted to because he said he was experiencing, i'm gonna quote terrifying shadows, gnawing at my soul, sleep paralysis, demons, and an inability to breathe. 

Robyn: Don't you guys think sometimes darkness to be makes me claustrophobic. 

Karen: I was just gonna say that it would give me so much anxiety to not know how much longer.

How much longer. 

Robyn: I get why some of these people are doing it. I do. I get it. And I can see where for some people it would be transformative. It could liken itself to psychedelics in some way. But I do think personally it would be frightening, 

Karen: And 

Robyn: I'm gonna take it, 

Noel: I'm gonna take a tact and say this is a trend, right?

[00:17:00] And. I think there's no fast track to consciousness. Like you can't just jump in a dark room or do ayahuasca and then all of a sudden you're enlightened. It takes, 

Karen: yes, a 

Noel: daily habit, which is what we're trying to do in seeking Center in the community and the podcast, is you have to create a habit over years.

You can't all of a sudden go in a dark room and then all of a sudden you're enlightened. And I think sometimes you got a lot of money. You feel like you can just like. Do this crazy thing and and then go do Ayahuasca the next weekend. It's one of those things where you have a shit ton of money and I'm gonna try this because everyone's trying it and I'm gonna give it a, come on. 

Karen: I do appreciate though this idea of going back to some of the traditional practices and seeing Yes. The medicine that it can give you. It just says that we have come too far in our scheduling and our devices and all the things. So there is room there for experimentation, but at least with Ayahuasca, you have a guide to Yes, that's true.

How you are going through the experience, this idea of just [00:18:00] being. Completely in solitary during that time for me would be so much. And maybe 

Robyn: it's something you do for an hour. Maybe or two. Just to, it's something that called to you, maybe you try it for a short window and see if there's transformation.

And I think with all of these things, what you're saying, Noel and Karen, is having an integration type person is so important. So whether you have, a coach that's with you the whole time. That's important. When you do these kind of journeys with psychedelics, there is almost always someone with you.

If you're doing it with in quotes, the right way, you have someone with you and then there is an integration person that follows through with you for a short time after. So you see what did you learn from this? And I would hope that would be the same thing for something like this with a dark retreat because.

You are going to definitely encounter shadow side of yourself and your subconscious and all of the things. And you know what we all know too, is you don't know what the [00:19:00] energy. In that house. In that room. is when you enter it. So like you gotta make sure that you are in something that is completely clear.

Noel: And 

Robyn: it is only your energy because I've been in situations where I've been in sound healings and the room wasn't clear. And because I was so open, dark shit came my way. And that's. Fucking scary. So you have to make sure all of these things are, with the utmost sacred type of space and treatment, 

Noel: and look into who's doing it and what their backgrounds are.

Because I get, I. That this is an ancient practice, but if someone, going into it that has, 40 years of experience, that's correct. Based on, I just I'm in an office one day, running a company. The next day I am in a dark room and the next day I'm gonna go back to this company.

Robyn: That's right. You really like someone, like a Robert P Was definitely making a choice in his life to be a teacher and a master at this [00:20:00] practice. that was a difference, right? Like then this just being like a cool thing to try. 

Noel: Cool. I think we have a lot of opinions on this.

Lisa: Exactly. That one was weird. So another story that I wanted to talk about it has to do with our beloved celebrity psychic. Tyler Henry, who recently he shared a health update. He had a tumor removed from his brain and everything was benign non-cancerous, and apparently he was born with.

a mass in his brain. So this is something that he has dealt with. He had an operation, in 2023 to handle, a brain cyst of some kind that he had. So this has been an ongoing thing since birth for Tyler, and it was so interesting to me because as we know, he, connects with the other side and.

I wonder, is there something brain-wise going on? I don't know. It just feels like there might be a connection with this, so I [00:21:00] thought it would be a good thing for us to discuss. 

Karen: Lisa, did they talk about the aftermath of how Tyler's doing now? 

Lisa: He's doing great, 

Karen: but has it impacted his readings at 

Lisa: all?

No, and he says no, and it won't impact his readings. He's just had these benign cysts that were in his brain and just needed to be removed. I think symptoms could affect like people's gait or personality, memory loss or double vision. If he didn't get them, if he didn't get them removed, yeah.

If he did not get them removed. And you can just wake up feeling really sick and nauseous and vomiting and blurry vision. So I think that was impacting his ability to do readings 'cause he didn't feel well enough to be doing them, I would assume. But in terms of the mass itself, it doesn't seem like that would have any other impact.

Karen: Removal of that Didn't have any, yeah, because if you think of the telepathy tapes for a minute and autism and how, they're talking about how an autistic. Person can really feel energy [00:22:00] differently and experience and I'm sure part of that is energy, but it may be also part of their physical 

Robyn: for sure.

Like the way their brain chemistry, their 

Karen: brain actually imagine. Yeah. So that's what made me think of just curious if it had an impact on him after 

Noel: My brain went to the same thing, to the telepathy tapes. I think there are probably things in your brain that I don't know. It could be that it helps.

It helps being able to connect with the other side. 

And just the telepathy team I'm so interested in that and the people being able to, just not being able to do some, like your sense is not being able to do so many other things that they're heightened elsewhere.

So I don't know. I think it could have some sort of effect and I hope he's great. ' 

Robyn: It reminds me, I actually was recently talking with. Spiritual medium. Lisa Nitsky, who is one of our seeking Center guides, and Lisa was saying to me, I would love somebody to hook me up to some sort of brain machine, like an e, EG, or whatever it is.

And start to [00:23:00] really take a look at what happens in her brain when she's doing readings, right? That could go for any of our intuitives and our energy practitioners. What are we, 'cause I think we do this sometimes too, and what are we tapping into and are there certain aspects of our brain that are being.

Used more over, I don't know. That's what I'm curious is that's what is happening when we talk about Tyler Henry and that he was almost potentially born with this. 

Lisa: Yeah, he was born with it and it says. A mass I was born with was only now causing a life-threatening situation as an adult.

So it's something he had lived with maybe, without symptoms, but certainly without anything debilitating until it got to that point and then needed to be addressed. Yeah, 

Robyn: and I do think it's curious, like I think it's one of those things that I know. There have been some people who've documented this, , Dr.

Dr. Joe Dispenza, 

Karen: I remember 

Robyn: reading Yes. 

Karen: A couple of years ago. It's such a great book to exactly that point where he hired [00:24:00] doctors to actually hook people up during meditation. And there actually pictures in the book that show the scan, the brain scans and how, and the impact of meditation on people's brains.

So I have to believe. That it's impacted, like Lisa's brain would look a lot different than mine.

Robyn: Me too. When she's 

Karen: practicing.

Robyn: Yeah.

And bet we could go to other. Practitioners and it would be interesting, and I know it's something that we all desire to do and really actually do some sort of series on this because I was 

Lisa: just gonna say, I love the scientific angle of it. Yeah. We do the crossover.

It's so cool. 

Karen: They even talk about the penal gland, right? This third eye area. It's supposed to open and like literally open and close. And I know that they are starting to be able to scan that and actually see as that happens. Yeah, we should Ooh, that's cool. This a little bit more.

Yeah. The aspects of it. 'cause I'm fascinated by it too. It's that evidence that people are looking for that all of this stuff is real. And I know that amongst us, we know [00:25:00] it is because of the experiences that we've had, for those who may be just starting to. Dabble a little bit in, spiritual exploration.

It could be a really fun topic for us to dig deeper into, so we should do 

Lisa: that. Agreed. 

Robyn: I agree. 

Karen: , What always amazes me is how many. Articles are out there now that are within this Woo realm.

Lisa: There's just so many of them. And there's one, so the Tony's are this weekend too, and this is, I was like, we probably shouldn't talk about this one. 'cause by the time we publish it, like we even knows. Yeah. But she is nominated for a Tony, this one woman. And she talked about how like she just really wanted.

a new direction. Again, setting an intention, right? And she was like, I just wanted to make something that people could connect with and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden the script for this, musical that she's in came in or this play. And she says it was exactly what she asked for.

And she was like, it's just, she called it woowoo timing and. I thought that was really cool and I was like, Ooh, I wonder, I [00:26:00] hope she wins. 

Robyn: I love that. And it really goes to cool. That's manifesting, right? That's that whole idea to me of manifesting and setting, to your point as well, setting intention.

But it's all that, and when you take the time to make that list and you feel into it and you then what Karen said earlier, you let it go. It's amazing. What can happen and to me, that's magic. It feels like magic. 

Karen: some people call that a prayer, right? And just saying,

Robyn: it's true. 

Karen: And have that belief that the asking of a higher power is going to help them. It's the same idea as a spell or any kind of ritual like that where you're really setting an intention and you're, but you're allowing it to just go into the universe and come back to you however it's meant to.

 That's a spell. It comes 

Noel: back to also the daily practice. 'cause there's plenty of times where you wish for something and it doesn't happen, but it's not, I'm thinking this for myself. You can't just wish for something today and then you just go about your business. You gotta think about it all the time.

Robyn: Yeah. It's a practice and it's faith. It's also when you let go, [00:27:00] it's knowing that in your best possible timeline for your highest potential, it's gonna happen at the exact right time. So it's having that faith. 

 

Robyn: This has been incredible. As usual, we love having these discussions and we would love to know how any of these impact you.

If you have any thoughts and if you have any articles and or videos, we should check out, send them our way. Thank you so much. Love it. Thank you. Thank you.