The Worldview of Agrarian Magic, The Cunning Farmer Episode 3

In this third episode of The Cunning Farmer, Todd Elliott and I tromp-on through Chapter 3 (First Principles of a Magical Worldview) of his pivotal book, The Cunning Farmer: Agrarian Magical Practices, Mythology, and Folklore, diving first into the idea of a living layered cosmos and then progressing into the notions of Platonic and Hermetic systems of astrology as both a spiritual avenue and practical farming system. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

D. Ffrith Griffith 0:02

De Eigwitch, hello, Agus Falcha, and welcome. This is Unchad. Guruf Ma Givashat. Thank you for being here. This is the third episode in the Cunning Farmer series with my dear friend and brother Todd Elliott. We are walking through chapter three of his absolutely magnanimous book, The Cunning Farmer. I don't know. He stole its name. Chapter three is titled First Principles of a Magical Worldview. In this episode, uh for about an hour and a half, Todd and I yarn back and forth on astrology, uh Platonism, that is to say, the ancient Greek platonic thought, uh, its roots, how its roots may or may not be purely Greek in origin, the idea of a nine-layered cosmos, and how any of this affects agricultural and terrestrial practices, beliefs, religious systems, societies, and overall just Earth habitation. It is a wonderful episode. I think it's my favorite thus far, at least from my perspective being in it. And uh I am absolutely blessed to be able to give this back to you, the listeners. Before we do, I encourage you, if uh you are just tuning in with us, start at chapter one two episodes ago. I think it's just titled The Cunning Farmer Episode One, where you can walk through the book from beginning to end with us. Uh there's absolutely nothing stopping you from jumping into this episode as your first. Chapter 3 is a fine place to start. Um, but starting at the beginning is is uh recommended. This is a book club, if you will, a very disorganized book club, uh, but right in line with my personal tastes, where we are walking through this text. And so if the conversation is stimulating, if any of this information is interesting to you, uh go get the book, read it with us. Every couple of weeks we'll be re-releasing a chapter so you can read that chapter, listen to the dialogue between Todd and myself, and uh really explore the deeper spirit and um emotion of the book uh in a way that surpasses just the bound paper or the ebook or whatever you were able to pick up. Uh, in addition, I want to highlight before the episode starts uh a development in my own personal life, which I am always remiss to do. My third book in my Irish retelling uh fantasy novel series has just came out for pre-order. It is titled The Way of Salmon Moon. If you've enjoyed my writing in the past, uh you will probably enjoy this one. I see this book as the quote epitome of my literary achievement thus far. It is a 650-page Paleolithic literary horror fantasy that is a retelling of the Irish uh creation story, the An Bradon Fiesta, or the stamina of knowledge, blended with Ovid's ancient Roman poetry found in his metamorphoses. Enough words, enough breath thrown to that. Let the story begin with Todd Elliott on episode three of the cunning farmer.

Todd Elloitt 3:29

I just rode around in a tractor in the dust. Luckily, I wasn't sweating because uh that would be really yucky. To sweat when it's dusty, you get really dirty, as you know. Yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 3:38

Yeah. Is it uh is it still pretty drought like in the world?

Todd Elloitt 3:43

Yeah, we haven't had any rain. Yeah, yeah. I I think we're better than you guys are a little bit just because we're on the extreme, not all of Kentucky. There's some places where it's really bad, exceptional drought, actually. But we're just right next to the northern the Ohio River, right in the part, we're the only part that isn't in an official drought, but we're extremely dry or unusually dry or whatever official designation is right below a drought. Wow. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but as so often happens in the dry spell, as the actual weather systems get there, get to you, they get weaker. So five days out, they're like, you know, here's come some rain, it's gonna end the drought. As it actually approaches it, it doesn't think anyway. Uh we are supposed to get a couple inches of rain, and I think you guys are supposed to get about an inch two in the next week. So hopefully, hopefully that happens. Yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 4:33

It's uh it's tiring. I feel like farming has been difficult for the last 15 years, and then every year it just gets more tiring. I uh I saw that article um that you shared on Substack. I actually read it independently and laughed when you shared it. Uh I think it was titled Fuck Farming or something to that reason. I I've read it like twice. It's just so real.

Todd Elloitt 4:52

Um Yeah, I like it. I I reply I re I've sent a reply to that guy. I totally I totally relate. Well, because it's I mean it's it's like it's kind of a dead-end job too, because you you know you can't you can't really get out of it. You've been doing it for a long time, you don't have any other skills. And it and you you're kind of unemployable. I mean, I do know farmers who've gone and worked for companies and stuff as equipment operators or whatever, but I mean, if you're used to setting your own schedule and being your own boss, it's kind of hard to be an employee.

D. Ffrith Griffith 5:29

Yeah. Yeah, it just seems like I feel like we've been climate activists for 15 years, and every year that goes by I'm less a climate activist because I I think I realize how much stronger the climate is than I am. We are. And uh it just seems more monumental of an achievement to be able to even put an animal through a growing season in in the grasses and the soils, and I don't know. It's it's it's it's hard. Every year it's harder. And that that's not uh not good for people who want food.

Read Along Book Club Format

Todd Elloitt 6:05

No, no, that's true. And and I I think that you're also fighting the momentum of civil of human civilization, uh being a climate activist. Like people don't want to change.

D. Ffrith Griffith 6:20

Yeah. I think it was No, it wasn't a different conversation. I thought it might have been ours, but no, this is different. Um it was actually a friend of mine, a livestock farmer here in Central Virginia, runs the Shenandoah Valley um uh flock there, a large sheep flock. He was making the comment that it's so hard when you struggle as a farmer, and I think you could relate to this, but you struggle as a farmer and you think you're producing really good food for your consumers, your local families, whatever you're you're trying to do, and then you run out for a minute and like he ran out of lamb over the winter. Meat, lamb meat over the winter. And the uh he felt really bad, like all of his customers are gonna not have lamb or meat or something. And they know they just all went to the local grocery store and uh it was perfectly fine, and their lives continued on where his was quite painful. And he made the comment to me how hard it is when the climate is so difficult to domestic modern, globalized, commercialized, consumerized agriculture. And then also the consumer is just totally fine to go to the grocery store as soon as a farmer starts to struggle instead of coming alongside that farmer and helping or whatever that is, like that that camaraderie that the farm, the local farm should foster is entirely replaced by the accessibility of the grocery store. And uh, we were just talking about that. And that was that was another interesting thing to uh to ponder in view of a spring drought that is seemingly every spring now.

Todd Elloitt 7:46

Yeah, it definitely was. Well, last year we had at this time we were recovering from historic and catastrophic flooding in Kentucky where we got something like eight or nine inches of rain in one week. Wow. Around here. Wow. I think it was I don't remember. It's not I think it was a couple weeks ago now, the anniversary, but it we were still recovering, and it was it was really totally different this year. But the year before that, we also, yes, we had a spring drought. I'm I I can't remember all the years, but for about four or five years I can remember the the high points. And I think we've had a drought, other than that one rainy April for the last four or five years at some point where it didn't rain for a good month. Maybe one or two more points in the season.

New Novel Preorder Announcement

D. Ffrith Griffith 8:35

The um there's this excellent quote that I almost cried when I heard it. It was just way too real, way too visceral for me. But there's this excellent quote in the TV show Yellowstone, which is based in Animal Ag, obviously. And uh in the character, I forget who the character is or the one speaking, but they said farming is a 10-year PL. Three of the years you lose money, three of the years you break even, and three of the years you just make enough to call it a positive year. And then it's the tenth year that decides the difference. And and I think that's so true. Like if you look at uh we've only been farming for 15 years, I know you've been farming for longer, but over the last 15 years, I think if you were to take our let's just not even talk finances, but our overall success, that is to say, the number of calves born to calves dying and animals processed that went through the full maturation process of their their lifetimes and whatever, whatever you metrics you want to look at, uh biodiversity, grass health, soil depth, whatever. Um I think I think we've break broken even. I I think over 15 years we've had good years, we've had bad years, we've had okay years. And I want to think that we're on the up. But then something like this happens, like a spring drought. Like I told you, we've gotten less than a quarter inch of rain since the beginning of March, and it's basically May. And that's the rainy season in in Virginia, and we had an incredibly hard winter. We were just covered in about two feet of ice for about a month, which is really abnormal for us. Same thing here. Yeah. And uh it is the point just being it it seems like it seems like our fifteenth year is gonna be or sixteenth year is gonna be one of the down years.

Todd Elloitt 10:16

And well, raising I've always heard that raising livestock is more there's a thinner margin there from what I understand. I mean, I I raise livestock and I never make a profit on the c on the cattle. I I do sell uh meat to my customers and basically I have them to keep the hillsides mowed and to have a source of manure for my vegetables and to uh yeah, to have some meat. And I I feel like a farm isn't a farm without cattle uh or some kind of hoofed animal on it. And uh so you know if you're if you're doing that well, I think I think you're you're doing really well in in the business that you're in.

When Farming Stops Being Sacred

D. Ffrith Griffith 10:58

Which I think is a larger conversation, why farming in the modern era has become an economic endeavor. Like farming in the ancient times, when I say ancient, what I mean is over the last 10,000 years and even up to the last, you know, 200 years, farming has never truly been a purely, when I say purely, I mean solely economic endeavor. There's always been this need for food. And as a need for food, it's like the need for priests and churches and and other things. Maybe they weren't fully supported, but the farms couldn't go anywhere. Like if a farm failed, people died. Now the farmer could fail and they would just get a new farmer. Um so again, I'm not saying that it was a pure socialist utopia back then, but the point being, um, I think our dependability on food was much higher when we actually knew we depended upon it, which made the farm, maybe not the farmer, but the farm, an economic resource that wasn't a producing engine. Thanks for being on with us again, Todd. I really appreciate it. This is uh this is really fun for me because I feel like somebody commented, um, I think they captured the essence of what I feel pretty well, but somebody commented on one of these episodes on Substack or shared it and made a note, or it's somewhere in the world of digital Substack land. But they were saying that um they they they followed Todd Elliott for a while. And this podcast was the first time that they actually uh witnessed good dialogue around these thoughts. Um man, I'm just butchering this, but it meant a lot to me. Um, and and it basically was a kindred soul between you and I. And we both come at this from different perspectives. I obviously from animal agriculture, you from veggie and and um, you know, soil-based agriculture in that sense. And uh I from more of a Western um Irish perspective uh uh opinion on magic and sacred ways, and you from more of a larger perspective, definitely Western, but larger perspective. And so these conversations, I think, are really a fine meeting ground between my background and your background, my interests, your interests, all in view of a book that people can interact with. And so the medium of this book seems to be something that people can gravitate toward while they listen to these episodes. And that excites me. That really excites me. So thanks again for being here.

Todd Elloitt 13:25

Yeah, I think I know what comment that you're uh referring to, and it was a lady named Amy, I believe, who lives in Tennessee. I don't know. And yeah, that was really a really favorable.

D. Ffrith Griffith 13:33

Yeah, well, sorry, Amy, for butchering it.

Todd Elloitt 13:35

But it meant a lot to me. Yeah, it said she really appreciated having this book club about the book. Yeah, she's a great lady. I've I've I've interacted with her on several occasions. But yeah, so we'll talk about the first principles of the magical worldview.

What Platonism And Hermeticism Mean

D. Ffrith Griffith 13:49

Yeah, yeah. Um, I have so many questions, but something that I would like to start doing better at um in these episodes, in these these book club-themed episodes, is maybe start um as an author, I know that everything that you want to get in a chapter doesn't always become a member of that chapter, or maybe after publishing that chapter, things come to you that you wish were in that chapter. So maybe a fine place to start with chapter three, first principles of a magical worldview, Todd, is is there anything that really is still living for you in this chapter or you want to talk about that's not in this chapter that we can begin with? Or do you just want to start talking about this magical and sold cosmos?

Todd Elloitt 14:31

Well, I I don't to be quite honest with you, I don't remember how it used to be before it was published. Um I'm sure it was longer. Uh most of the chapters were longer, and I don't remember what got put in there. But no, I think it's I think it's a good statement. I I still I still stand by everything in it. Um a lot of it's about uh traditional cosmology, uh Hermetic, platonic, neoplatonic cosmology, which I I think is a really excellent model for a magical practice for fitting for fitting the for envisioning the cosmos as a place where spirit and matter interact and um for putting one's practice into a a framework that makes it intelligible because I I don't think that there is a and I for me, I I think there's some people who maybe this isn't necessary. But for me to practice magic or astrology or anything, I have to uh I have to have a live in a universe where that makes sense. And I maybe other people don't have to have that, but but so that was why it was one of the earlier chapters because I felt like it was necessary to say what kind of world do we live in where this works in in which this works. And how does it work basically? How does how does it how can we communicate across the planes, across the levels? How does that how can that happen? What how can we so basically I'm trying to I'm trying to incorporate an animistic, Hermetic, Platonic model or worldview into the book to make it all make sense.

D. Ffrith Griffith 16:25

Yeah. Well there there seems to be every time I hear somebody talking about astrology, there's a certain sense of um universalism, which might be the wrong word, that uh seems to permeate life on Earth in the sense that we're now talking about the cosmos in the sense that they are living entities, maybe animate themselves. You write so they have a soul, right? These uh you know uh eternal bodies, uh Jupiter, Mars, Sun, things like this, that affect the operations of Earth. Right? Not to a particular people, but to all people, all living things. And so much of I think magic and magical ways are localized, right? So in Ireland, we will see magic as a very different thing than my mother's people, the the Polish or the Slavic, the Northern Slavic people. We see out magic very differently. Uh the way we speak about it, our words are different. But astrology seems to be so much more generalized. And and so that's also a concept that I want to dive into a little bit um here. How does that fit? So, like is that true, right? That statement, is astrology a generalized understanding of human occupation within this greater cosmos? And two, maybe if we can get to it later in the episode, I see this as less important. Um, but two, how does that apply to the particular cultures that also celebrate the cosmos, right? So like the Lakota with the red and black road, all the way through the Irish with the rising and setting of Pleiades, to whatever other culture you want to discuss. And then I also want to get uh into what is Hermetic and Platonic. Um I I know because I I like these things and you so well uh illustrate their meanings in this text, in this, in this book, excuse me. Um but maybe okay, I'm sorry, let me just jump over my own tongue. Let's start there for people listening, because I think this is going to be important. What is Hermetic and what is Platonic? And what does this have to do with astrology?

Spheres Zodiac And Archetypal Time

Todd Elloitt 18:21

Well, Platonic uh um obviously has to do with the teachings of Plato, the uh Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century BC. And uh he wrote a number of dialogues, uh semi-fictitious philosophical dialogues with between Soc Socrates and his students discussing philosophical topics. Um and some of them are more important for magic than others, or for religion and spirituality than some are about some are about ethics, and some of our some are about uh what we would call metaphysical or spiritual topics. Um and then in the later on in the tradition, other later thinkers tried to systematize the Plato's doctrines into a I mean a coherent system, uh like Plotinus and um Yamucus, Proclus, and I'm I'm gonna talk above my head here, but or above my pay grade here, but uh so when uh so they try to incorporate Plato's teachings, which aren't really unified doctrine, and and I think scholars talk about a an early Plato and a late Plato and some of the dialogues he wrote earlier in his life, and he he seems to have have refined his positions or even reversed some of them with some of the later dialogues. People who've who've analyzed his his philosophy and his writings systematically have come up with that there were several different stages of his life. So uh anyway, um so we mean when we talk about platonic, we're talking about the the ideas promulgated by that school of philosophy that with Plato and Platonus, Yamicus, Proclus, uh Sinesius, uh there's a bunch of other ones. Um just to name a few off the top of my head. Um and they formed the background for much of Western esotericism. Uh they were immensely influential in in ancient times. Uh, Plato was immensely influential in ancient times, um, had a had a high degree of authority. Um, and and Platonism actually went through several stages. There was like the Platonic Academy, and then there was Middle Platonism, and then there was Late Platonism, and not to get into or late Platonism, which is also called Neoplatonism. And those were rediscovered in, they were kind of lost in Western Europe in the middle during the Middle Ages, after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Um, actually, some some Irish uh thinkers like John Scotus Ereugena kept Neoplaton Platonism alive through the dark ages in the West. Um, I believe that that is true. Um, he had read um oh what's the Dionysius the Areopagite, and uh so he transmitted uh Dionysus was another was a Christian Neoplatonist, and there's pagan Neoplatonism, there's Christian Neoplatonism. Um so it was immensely influential. It's sort of the idea that there's a transcendent reality, that there's a number of that there are archetypes that emanate from the within the transcendent reality or emanate from the transcendent reality. There are like there are these intellectual or noetics we use we use the word intellectual and it took completely Different sense than the ancient Greeks did. The word noetics a little better. There are these noetic realities, there are realities that exist only in the mind of the cosmos or of the creator, uh such as love or freedom or beauty, or I mean, even the perfect circle, or even the numbers are pure archetypes. So, and that these archetypes exist in their pure in their pure form in the archetypal realm, but they in the physical realm they let's see, they sort of guide and direct the enfoldment of physical reality. So how do I explain this? Um in some mysterious way, even though no physical circle is perfect as the archetypal circle that exists in the mind of the creator, no physical reality is always somehow imperfect because it it is it comes into being in time, it exists for a while and it decays, it's it's imperfect, um, it approximates a perfect ideal. Um, so I think I'm I think I'm explaining that okay, and I I think I have a fairly good grasp of it, I hope. So um interestingly, so in astrology, we talk about the planets and the oh, let's get to Hermeticism first before we go there. So Hermeticism is also a doctrine of antiquity that was this is is this reversed on your screen? No, it's perfect.

D. Ffrith Griffith 23:34

Yeah, Hermetica.

Jung Synchronicity And Modern Astrology

Todd Elloitt 23:37

Okay. So this is um this is based on the teachings of a mythical uh Egyptian spiritual teacher named Hermes Trismegistus, and he um wrote a number or number of treatises were written in his name, some of which found their way into this compilation in English translation, translated by Brian Copenhager. Um but Hermetic refers to the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, um, and there were Philosophical Hermetica, which is the book, that book there, that out that outlines sort of a doctrine, which was really influenced by Platonism and Stoicism and uh any number of ancient Greek thought, but also Egyptian, late Egyptian um religion, the later phase of Egyptian religion, which was in the in the Hellenistic melting pot of Egypt and late antiquity, they were all sort of Platonism, Stoicism, Egyptian teachings, uh Mesopotamian teachings were all blended together in this in this um compilation, in this syncretism, which became Hermeticism and also was massively influential on the Western esoteric tradition. Um that book, this book that I just showed you, interestingly enough, these these treatises, the however many uh 18-19 treatises that form this book, were um found in manuscripts, I believe, in um the Byzantine Empire. So they were trans translated by their translated and kept the texts were kept alive by Christian monks during the Middle Ages. So Christian monks obviously liked this stuff enough to copy it every couple generations as the texts started to fall apart. But some of them were pretty corrupt. Um, interestingly, uh, as the Ottoman, when uh Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Empire in the late 15th century, I think it was the 1490s, um, a number of these texts and the and the body of Plato's work were loaded onto boats uh and brought to Florence, where they were translated by the Medici. Um they were translated by Marsilia Ficino. He was working on Plato's work in the 1490s at some point, uh, and his at the direction of, I believe, Cosimo de' Medici, translating uh Plato's dialogues from Greek into Latin. And when the Corpus Emeticum, which we have here, came over in a boat, and his patron, uh, I believe it was Cosimo, told him to stop working on Plato's work because this stuff was older. And for the Renaissance uh humanists, older was better. You were you were getting close, you were adfunctes, you were getting closer to the to the fountain, getting closer to the source. The further back you went in time, you got closer to the primal wisdom. So um they began to translate these the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin. And actually, um, I believe that translation there is based on Marsilio Ficino's translations, or I don't know, he might have gone back to the original Greek. Um, anyway, so but they really aren't as old as Plato's writings. They're about a thousand years or eight hundred years later than Plato's writings, which was also found out later in the Renaissance um by uh was it Melokon? Anyway, it's from another Renaissance scholar, um whose name I uh Erasmus. Maybe it was Erasmus, uh, using linguistic analysis debunked the claim that these things were older than Plato. And but they were massively influential, and they present them, they present a doctrine of emanation like Neoplatonism, in which there's a source, a um transcendent source which emanates itself through it stands basically outside and beyond the universe. Um and this both of these systems incorporate were influential on Ptolemy in his development of the doctrine of the spheres and Aristotle, and Aristotle's doctrine of the spheres, in which there are uh a number of concentric spheres, um, nine or ten, uh depending on the model. And and in the in my chapter three, there's a few cosmological diagrams in the chapter we're talking about in chapter three, um, that illustrate this concept that there's that God basically was outside the universe, beyond space and time, and emanating his its, which is more, I mean, the the gendered pronouns are not really appropriate to God, I don't think. And I actually have trouble saying them, but uh for the pure source, I mean I believe in goddesses and gods as well, but for the pure source is beyond all duality, and that it emanates itself into the cosmos, and as impulses from the divine would pass through the spheres, which is the there's the first move, the prima mobile, prima mobile, prima mobile, which God is outside of that, but it moves the first sphere, and that moves the sphere of the fixed stars, and then the sphere of the fixed stars moves the sphere of Saturn, the sphere of Saturn moves the sphere of Jupiter, the sphere of Jupiter moves the sphere of Mars and Venus, and the Sun, which was on the third orbit, because this is a helio, this is a geocentric model of the cosmos, um, and then um Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and then the Earth is at the center of the cosmos. So, what people saw when they looked up at the night sky, standing on the earth, was they would see, they would see the orbits of the planets, and they could tell that some of them were closer and further away. And using their mathematics, they were roughly being roughly able to figure out how far away from the Earth they were. Now, these people were pretty, pretty competent with mathematics. I mean, they invented mathematics. We still use their mathematics to this day. Um, but they're they had certain, they loved this model of the cosmos, this Ptolemaic, what's called the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos, the Aristotelian model of the cosmos, in which all the orbits of the planets are perfect spheres and they never change. Um, but they they do go retrograde once in a while, which which really confused ancient people. So basically, basically, what you have in the Hermetic doctrine is version of the doctrine is that as the impulses of the creator pass through the various spheres, they pick up energies from the planets according to what sign the planets find themselves in and what aspects they're making with the other planets. So this the signs, and we and we have to define, I hope I'm not just going on one big tangent here. Um the signs are different than the from the from the constellations, okay? And at first they weren't, but once people realized that the that the stars are actually moving, that the eighth sphere of the fixed stars is actually moving due to a phenomenon called procession, they had to adjust the doctrine a little bit to save the phenomenon. It's called save the phenomenon. So they had to explain the motion of the fixed stars according to the model, right? Because we we can't scrap the model. This is like this is how the universe works, how God creates and maintains the universe. So um so the signs, the 12 signs of the zodiac are actually a pure archetypal reality that is closer to the creator, and they're divided into into the they're governed by the four elements in a mathematical uh pattern. Okay, so there's like let me let me there's fire, earth, air, and water. Fire, earth, air, and water, fire, earth, air, and water, and in that order, starting with Aries throughout the whole zodiac. So there's these pure, so the signs aren't they were originally well the I don't want to digress too much, but the signs are a pure mathematical reality, and the stars that originally were associated with them have since moved on because because all the spheres move, except the outer, except for that, though those outer ones. So the impulses, right, from the creator, uh, for instance, moment to moment, like each moment, the creator is sending impulses that create and hold the universe in being every moment. And the character of each moment is formed by the position of the planets against this background of the fixed stars, how how able they are to receive and transmit and act in their own archetypal nature according to their position and the and the angles and aspects they make with each other. So this is all tied in with Pythagorean geometry and it's a whole and really beautiful doctrine. Um I when I first learned about it a few years ago, I was, first of all, it was the it was the thing that made Western esotericism just click for me. It was the thing that I was missing. When I when I studied, when I began to study magic and and um esotericism in my early 20s, I didn't think astrology was important. I I didn't really believe in it. I hadn't come across any people that were really interested in it. But it's it's really the thing that clicks it into place because it explains, it explains how it all works, it explains the theoretical and philosophical background. And I at this point I want to say that even though, and I think I point this out in the chapter, that even though we modern people quote, know that the orbits of the planets aren't perfect spheres, that that there's imperfection, change, that there's change, that the stars are moving, that everything in the everything in the cosmos is in motion, and nothing is staying uh static and eternal. Even though we know that and it and we know that the sun is at the center of the solar system, but not the universe, even though we know these things, I think that it still represents a spiritual reality, an archetypal reality, a psychic psychic reality, because it represents the environment in which our species adapted. Like we would look up, you and I look up at the sky and we see the Ptolemaic universe unfolded. You know, uh last night I looked up the the first time we ever talked on the phone, we saw those planets, I saw those planets lined up. I don't I don't think they were visible at your place. Last night I saw I saw Venus with uh and Jupiter and the moon. And if you were to track those movements, they would make the certain they the earth appears to be in the middle of a cosmos from a plant or a human standing on the earth. Um so it is an empirical description of reality, of the reality of life on earth. And our and our ancestors grew up looking, I mean, evolved looking up at the sky at like this. So I think it has a deep harmony with the our our psyche, our inner psyche, because this is this earth is home, it is the center of our cosmos right now. And I hope it I hope it remains so, even though people are trying to get off of this planet. But it is our home and it is the center of our home. It is our mother, and it is our it is the center of our cosmos. And and this reality describes the way the other bodies in the cosmos interact with the earth and the and the creatures living on it. So I think it's still a fairly good model and for life on earth and for human beings to follow.

D. Ffrith Griffith 36:14

One quick thing, talking about Plato, I didn't want to interrupt you, but I always think about Raphael's uh School of Athens, that painting. And it it's always so interesting. I was so when I was reading your your your text here on page 40 a couple days ago. On page 40, you bring in the Timaeus or Timaeus. I don't know how you pronounce that. Um but it's that yeah, it's it's that work that Raphael depicts in the painting. In the center of the painting, for those who don't know, look it up. It's an amazing painting. I've I've just uh maybe three or four months ago, I went to a lecture in Ohio on this painting of all things at the uh Ashley University with my brother, who's a professor there, political science and history. But uh there was a symposium just on the Raphael School of Athens. And this guy from I don't forget where, he came out of maybe I want to say Notre Dame, uh, the University of Notre Dame, and uh he gave a whole presentation on the intricacies and complexities of this painting. I encourage you to go look it up, Raphael's School of Athens. But in the center of it, you have two characters, you have Plato and Aristotle. And Aristotle is uh his hand is out and his palm is facing down, and then Plato is walking and his hands in the air pointing up. And the interesting, you know, that's what everybody knows, but the the interesting thing to me is as an artist, you know, you've written a book, I've written books, and it there's I always heard one individual say one time, and I think this is one of the truest things I've ever heard in terms of the reality of the artist, is art is a compendium of micro decisions. Nobody understands that. But like when you look at a piece of art, you see the singular. When an artist looks at a piece of art, especially their art, they see this massive compendium, this mashup of millions and millions of micro decisions. And it's the micro decision that Raphael depicts, not just in Plato and Aristotle being next to each other, and not just in where their hands are going. Again, Aristotle is pointing at the terrestrial earth and Plato is pointing at the heavens, but Plato is holding the Timaeus, and Aristotle's holding the Nicomachian ethics, which is so descriptive of, I mean, if you study those characters and and their work and their lasting impact. But it's interesting too because you bring up the Timaeus on page 40. That's what I'm getting at. So the book, the Raphael thinks of the.

Todd Elloitt 38:22

Timaeus actually, yeah. Go ahead. Timaeus is where Plato lays out his cosmology with the spheres, and and it it it wasn't quite as um systematized as but it was, yeah, the tomatoes is where he lays out his creation myth. Right. Go ahead.

Making A Jupiter Talisman

D. Ffrith Griffith 38:38

Yeah, no, I think it's uh it's so interesting in view of the lasting ramifications because I think I think a lot of individuals educated in let's call it the Western tradition or like the Western civilization tradition, that is to say, you know, so much of Greek and Roman and even Byzantium and Western European thought and the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. I think the idea of Platonic dialogues or, you know, Plato's theories, um, I mean, it's omnipresent no matter where you look. I mean, you're reading a book on magic, you know, agricultural magic, and here Plato is. Like it it his character is there, and I'm referencing your book, of course. But very seldomly do I find the dialogue of Plato gravitating into his cosmology, his view of the heavens, right? We all want to talk about his methods and his education and you know, all of his dialogues, if you will, but the Timaeus is totally different. And it's interesting that that is also a foundation of Western civilization, which I think has the trademark anti-Plato's theory and view belief, in a creative, cosmic, perfect order, ascendancy, spirituality that is honed, I think, in the modern practice of astrology, modern or maybe just the ancient practice of astrology. Um but Western tradition is so unlike those things. I guess what I'm saying is it's very interesting that one of the founders of this Western civilized civilized thought, if you will, that the founders of the Western tradition is also so entirely opposite to the outcome of that same tradition. You know, it's not polar, it's not linear, it's not it's so much more fluid and living and real and animate.

Todd Elloitt 40:24

Somebody called it Plato an archaic, I forget who it was, an archaic thinker. That he he gave, I forget who it was, was it I can't remember. It's so long ago, but I I think when I first picked up a book of Plato in my twenties, it was because somebody that I was reading referred to him as was it Marteliade or some somebody like that, referred to him as uh voicing the archaic worldview so completely, the way people used to see the world. And I was like, oh, I want to I want to hear that, you know, and and I I think that he was thoroughly lost prestige in the 17th, in the 17th century, in the 18th century, with the beginning of the Enlightenment. And uh but up until that, then he was incredibly influential um on the development of Christianity. Uh but he was a du he was, I mean, in antiquity he was very influential. But I think the more materialistic our Western culture became, the less influential Plato's work became. And he had a flowering the Renaissance where he where he regained a lot of ground and influence from Aristotle. But even in the Middle Ages, there was a trend toward more of a uh, and now I'm talking a little outside of my outside of my wheelhouse here with the history of philosophy. I have a very very much a layman's understanding of this, but from my understanding that nominalism, in which you are more interested in the concrete manifestations of things, right? You're interested in the existence and not in the essence, you know, and um the the the names and not not the names, but the actual things that they signify. And I I I think that was there's a thing in there's a development in medieval philosophy away from Plato and towards Aristotle. And then and then I I think even if you read Aristotle's works, some of the science in there is pretty weird. Um which I love to read them because wow, people actually believe that all bees were all bees were our bees were males. I was like, what yes, okay.

D. Ffrith Griffith 42:52

Yeah, my favorite is spontaneous generation.

Todd Elloitt 42:55

Spontaneous generation, right? That was really influential right up until the right up until somebody's let's give this a shot and see what happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was uh that was did nobody try this? It's just so interesting because the prestige of the ancient thinkers was so much that nobody even bothered to test them until but once they did test them, they're like, these people were just they they threw them away and without trying to figure out what it was that they were trying to teach, what what value that they had. And what what value they have is in teaching us about what about the eternal and the spiritual and the way the way that the spiritual inner interacts with the material. Um and I think I think Carl Jung did a whole lot also to rehabilitate and and bring some prestige back into a more of a Platonic way of thinking in the 20th century with his psychology, with re reinventing. The concept of archetypes and uh astrology has really taken that up in a large way. Um and I think the idea of synchronicity and archetypes forms a large, as it comes to us through Young and also through the ancient tradition, um influences the way I see magic and astrology in a huge way. I I I see I see those two concepts as being as being um absolutely of paramount importance for understanding how this works. You you can't explain you can't explain why a Venus transit would affect your love life physically, but you can explain it synchronistically and archetypally. For some reason, the movements of the planets correspond with events in our lives, with events in history. And many, many thinkers, um uh Richard Tarnes, to name one, who did it, who wrote a massive work called Cosmos and Psyche, in which he tracked outer planet transits and history for West in Western history, uh, which is fascinating, and he presents a really excellent case. But anybody who looks, and a lot of astrologers are following up on that work and tracking some of the more uh some some of the transits because Tarnas, because of it's a huge project, could only do so much. Um But anybody who looks at that sees some very suggestive evidence, and I don't think it's just paradoolia. I think it uh what trying to see patterns in the human minds' tendency to see patterns in nature. Um but I absolutely think paradoia, is that how you say that? Yeah, like all things.

D. Ffrith Griffith 46:00

I think it's good enough.

Symbols Skeptics And The Prism Test

Todd Elloitt 46:02

Yeah, uh the idea that you see patterns in in the human mind sees patterns in nature that aren't necessarily there. I I do think they are there. Um and and I I think that to shift to shift out the illusory patterns from the meaningful ones is requires an act of discernment, a continual act of discernment. Um but yeah, yeah, I think I think there's something mysterious going on in the way things, themes come to be in both our lives and in the in the history and in the world at large, in time with uh planetary movements and changes. And I also think as far as magic goes, it is absolutely the way magic works. There, I mean, I guess there's I guess there's a a bio bioenergetic level to some to some magic as well, where you're where you're projecting what uh life energy, and I talk about that later in the book too, or the the idea that there's a fundamental um life energy, which almost every traditional culture except our modern Western material materialist culture has has been hip to. Um we could call it ki, uh, using the ancient Chinese word. We could call it uh any number of things, prana or um spirituus. Um we can call it a lot of things, but there's a life energy. And so so some magic works with by manipulating that life energy. Uh, but I think the really interesting thing is it is when you put symbols together at potent times when the universe is receptive to those symbols, things happen. When you when you in a ritual context, when you line up the symbols in your practice with the symbols in the cosmos, you're connecting things across the levels. So if you pick a moment, say just to give you an example, uh if you from it's just from my own, I made a Jupiter talisman here, and you for that talisman you would pick uh a time where this was when Jupiter was in cancer. I think sometime this summer or fall, I can't exactly remember when it was. Um, but Jupiter was was rising over the horizon. It was in a sign where it has dignity, it's in a it's a its exaltation. Um there's also a pattern of planetary days and hours. Um, so I I picked a moment when Jupiter was rising in dignity, in Jupiter hour, making a beneficial aspect with, I think a trying aspect with the moon, and it was, and the and the moon was overhead at the time. But Jupiter was rising, and I invoked Jupiter. I had an incense that was congenial to Jupiter. Um, I said prayers to Jupiter, um did this whole ritual, and it that kind of thing sets off a resonance across between the planet Jupiter, between the archetype of Jupiter, which is not the same as the planet Jupiter, between the divinity of Jupiter, one hopes, and channels a piece of that divinity into your life. And hopefully into this little piece of um piece of tin here that I have, carve the symbols. I carved these symbols and the magic square, you can't see it. Um, but I don't know, can you see it? Yeah, I mean yeah, it's a little blurry, but I can see the yep, I can see some of it. The symbols and the magic square, and particularly the magic square is supposedly good for capturing the spirit of Jupiter and holding a piece of it for use later on. But basically you're you're picking a moment like a birth chart in which that planet is is the paramount influence. Um and whether it works or not, I don't know. I I feel like I've had some I've had some good luck since I made this thing. I don't know. I've had some, you know, life is life, but I feel like um you have so many fundamental, there's so many forces at play. Um, I have a whole bunch of magics going at once. So, and and I feel like my life has a whole lot of moving parts and and the magic helps me keep that those moving parts together and and functional in a mostly in a in a harmonious way. Um so results are sort of hard to hard to pin down, but um yeah, life life goes on. But that's the theory. That's the theory.

D. Ffrith Griffith 51:07

I know a lot of I was in a a good conversation. Well, it wasn't good. He ended up leaving quite uh argumentatively, and we've never talked since it wasn't good for him. But I learned a lot. A friend of mine purchased uh for me um a biogeometry home kit or something like that. Um biogeometry, uh I forget uh the man, he's an Egyptian man uh who believes that uh waves, energy waves pass through certain geometric symbols with bioenergy, or maybe I'm saying that word wrong, but the symbols are able to transform that energy into A to B or whatever that might be. And so he used it for 5G towers. And I don't know if I understand the full thing, and what I just said is my full extent of the knowledge, but this individual who walked into our house and uh I just had this biogeometry cube with squares and other things on it that again my friend had purchased for us. And I don't know, I think it's interesting. So it was there. And we sparked up a conversation, and he was saying that it was like a demon symbol or something. And and and I think that's a lot of responses to geometric sacred symbols, symbols that have geometry to them. I think we see them as like, you know, the five-pointed star, whatever of the demon head goat, whatever. I mean, I don't even know, know the language. But the point is I think people kind of take that with a lot of evil powers or negative powers or uncomfortable powers or something. Or maybe just false. I think a lot of people look at this and they just say, no, astrology is false, or symbols are false, like the little squares in the back of the tin disc. Like that's just, you know, hype hyper disillusionism, maybe. And the and the interesting thing which made them really angry, which I think is a foolproof argument, because I'm not I'm not like you. I I don't know these things. I'm not like the biogeometry people that run around the world saying these things as if it's all true, because maybe it is true, but I just don't know how the knowledge or the wisdom. But I looked at him and I said, Do you believe in prisms? And he's like, Yeah, everybody believes in prisms. And I was like, So you're telling me a triangle, a see-through triangle, which is a geometric shape, has the ability to take in light and send out an entirely new form of light. And you can witness this with your senses. And he said, Yeah. And I said, So if that symbol has power to transform energy, why can't this symbol have power to transform energy that you can't see? It's a very simple argument. Obviously, you have no response to it because it just is what it is, and it seems to be um uh self-evidently true, I think, would be the American way of saying that. There's no way to disprove that. It's just inherently true. Once you know it, you don't need the defense for it. It just is what it is. And uh and I think the same thing is true with astrology. I think many people would probably listen to you with your little tin disc and say Jupiter rising, dignity, yeah, okay, whatever.

Todd Elloitt 53:44

That was yeah, like yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 53:46

And and I I bring that up because I think my words are somewhat interesting, but really they're trying to get to the question of how do you respond to people who would argue that terrestrial life is just terrestrial? Like it doesn't matter when Jupiter is rising, when you're out there planting your carrots or your potatoes or your beans or whatever you might be doing. But something else matters, some ascendancy in that platonic sense into the cosmos and into these realms and into the spiritual realm, which you write about and the logos for the secondary realm. A lot of ancient cultures have multiple realms, you know, the Lakota Dakota or the Tatitakawi, Indigenous Peoples of the Plains, they have multiple realms. They have the red and black road, very similar. The Hopi, the Hopi have two realms, the above realm and the below realm. They say they come from the below realm. That is their their creation mythology. The above realm is where we are here, it's the terrestrial plane. So again, we have these realms that speak of platonic cosmology, right? Or whatever you want to call it, Hermetic platonic cosmology. How do you respond to that?

Todd Elloitt 54:52

Well, and there is that side to it, right? There is that, there is that, there are a lot of, and I I don't want to slag on anybody's astrology, but there's a whole lot of different astrologies running around out there. I mean, the the one that I follow, because of the particular bent uh of my personality and my interest, has some intellectual depth to it. I mean, I I I go to the source. I mean, uh this is like I've got books that are on this subject that were written, you know, 2,000 years ago on astrology. This is this is an ancient and um and really deep subject. Um so I I think you can you can make your astrology as as as shallow and as modern as you want, or you can really go back. I'm like the Renaissance people. I try to go back adfontes, go back as far as you can and seek the not that I not that I follow ancient astrology, I only use ancient astrology, but I I actually actually I find my home my home astrology practice to be mostly in the Middle Ages, and I do use some modern modern techniques as well. So I like the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and the and and I use the modern planets because they're there and and I think people have made a good case for them having an influence. Um people that I respect. Um you touched on a few things there that I wanted to get. First of all, there was the demon thing, and my Jupiter talisman absolutely would have been considered demonic in the Middle Ages. Uh the fact that I was burning an incense and saying a prayer to a celestial spirit that is not recognized, but was not recognized by the Catholic Church would have led me in, would have gotten me in hot water with the Inquisition back in the day. Um, I don't know how Marsilio Ficino didn't get in trouble, but a whole bunch of astrologers did. Several were burned at the stake for doing astrological magic. Chechadeus, Chechadeus Scoli was burned at the stake for doing astrological magic. Um, I think his was some, I think some of the stuff he was into was fairly dark, though, and he was working with Saturn. Um, because some, you know, but to burn incense and to pray to a being that is not recognized by the Catholic Church as being one of the approved beings, a saint or an angel or God or Jesus or, you know, one of the members of the Trinity was totally forboten. So, so my little so your friend that didn't like your cube wouldn't have liked my my talisman uh either. And I'm okay with that. There I really don't think uh most people should be fucking around with spiritual technologies that actually have power. I think you can get yourself in trouble if you're suggestible and you don't have discernment. And I think that probably keeping a lid on those things when especially in ancient medieval times where people were so much more suggestible than they are now was probably not all bad. Um but that's another thing. And and then I also wanted to say when you talked about geometry um having an effect, I don't know if you've ever fooled around with a pendulum, like a little, a little, uh, like just a little pendulum where you like just and you just can ask it a yes or no question, or you can catch the vibe to things. And you can test things with this, and I don't know exactly what you're testing. And it's it kind of works on your own bioenergy and your because it's your it's it's not moved, the thing can't move itself because of the laws of inertia, you know. It has to be moved by you, but it's you, it's your subtle body and your unconscious mind that's moving it. But I have taken a blank sheet of parchment that I was about to draw a sigil on and held that thing over the blank sheet of parchment, and it just sits there. Once I put a sigil on it, it starts to spin wildly. So there's something that that thing is picking up on that makes a difference when you've put a geometrical image. Like if I were to do it on that on that Jupiter talisman, um, it would probably spin weekly before I put the before I put all the designs on there before I concentrated, because it's tin and it has some some sort of resonance or something like that. But it would spin very strongly after I consecrated it and drew the designs on it. And the same thing with I've done, uh I've made consecrated water, um, where you bless the water with salt, you know, like holy water for magical purposes, and the water is dead before you mix the water and the salt and bless it. But after you mix it, the pendulum spins wildly.

The Imaginal Realm Between Worlds

D. Ffrith Griffith 59:56

What um if I could, in the sake of this being a book club, um, I would love to hear you talk a little bit about the realms. So, like on page 36 of your book, you lay out this this I don't want to say polar, because that would go against the spirit of what you're trying to say, but these two realms, a spirit realm and a logos or like uh this realm, and and then you dive into the work of Henry Corbin, which I think would be really listen uh interesting to to discuss. Um does does does any of that ring interesting to you? It's on page 36.

Todd Elloitt 1:00:30

Yeah, um, yeah, that that sounds like a great thing to talk about. Um Yeah, actually, I have a I have a fourfold. We were talking about the realms of fourfold cosmology as well. But this is uh I'm just trying to say that there's a that there's a hidden um a call to reality behind the solid physical world that we inhabit, as I as to quote from the book, that there's a hidden reality world spirits behind the solid physical world that we inhib inhabit. Um and then let me see, yeah. Let me get let me get rolling on this so I can rap about this for a little bit. Um yeah, so I talked about the the platonic and the Hermetic notion of the Ptolemaic cosmos, the spiritual cosmos um that influences reality. Um uh the expert on Middle Eastern and Sufi in particular religions, Henri Corbin talked about there was there was something he labeled the Mundus Imaginalis, and he came up with that Latin term to explain certain concepts in Persian Sufi metaphysics, a a world that mediates between the divine realm. I think he posed he posited the Sufi thinkers deposited God, Allah, the divine, and they were very influenced by Neoplaton, Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. They in fact, in fact, I really think that you could almost look at the Persian Sufis as a legitimate successor to the Hermetic and Platonic traditions, um, although incorporated into an Islamicate understanding. So there was a there's a divine realm beyond space and time, and then there's an archetypal realm, and then there's the imaginal realm, which is sort of very similar, and I mean, in but in in a metaphysical way and not in a psychological way, to Jung's concept of the collective unconscious. It's it's like the place where dreams happen, where myths happen. It's like the reality, like it's in it's in the sense that myth, that a myth is real, because it describes a spiritual reality and not a physical reality, but the myth happens in the imaginal realm. It its characters exist there, and it's timeless because the myth is the same the same today as it was um the same today as it was when it was written 2,000 years ago. It's like it's describes a spiritual truth that's always true. But you know, the Garden of the Garden of Eden, to me, and I know there's people that believe this is physical, but to me is describes an event in the imaginal realm that a psychological or a spiritual event that for example, and all myths do, that shapes our consciousness and our spiritual reality to this day. Just just for example.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:03:59

Um so yeah, I'm I'm I feel like I'm stumbling on this right now to come up with a yeah. No, I mean I'm an I'm enjoying it if you feel like you're stumbling on it.

Todd Elloitt 1:04:11

Okay, okay. So but this this thing influenced this this imaginal realm influences our physical realm by influencing our spirit. And I think when we do magic, we kind of go into the imaginal realm, right? And we shape things in the imaginal realm, and those things that we shape in the imaginal realm shape things in the outer world. So the things that happen teasing air quotes here in the imaginal realm shape the way things happen in our souls and our spirits, and therefore in our physical reality. Um and yeah, so that's what it's a linking principle between something that is totally spiritual, and there's a lot of this in ancient philosophy, these these like linking principles, these these third things that can link between two opposites. We have spirit, which is over here, and matter, which is over here, and matter is material and can't touch spirit. Spirit, actually, spirit itself is a linking principle. And you have to get your you have to get your terms straight. So a lot of a lot of philosophers talk about matter and soul being um opposites, and spirit is a linking principle between the two of them. So you gotta get your terms straight. Um, then other people talk about spirit, and soul is a linking principle. Whatever it is, there's something that's totally that's material, and there's something that's immaterial, and there's a linking principle that makes them the two into a unity. So that the three things come together in a higher unity. Um, so the the Mundus Imaginalis is a linking principle between. Between the divine and the archetypal realms, which are not material, and the physical realm are brains, our worlds that we the world that we inhabit. So that's I think that's how these religious beliefs that seem irrelevant to the world we live in are still affecting the world we live in to this day because they are psychic and spiritual realities. I mean, all the nonsense and crazy stuff that's happening in the Middle East, uh based on land being promised to certain ethnic groups 2,500 years ago or 3,000 years ago by divine entities um that people are still fighting over and and killing over. It's because these things are still real. They're still they're still the divine entities real. I don't think they're exactly who they say they are, but they're real. And the and and the the stories are still real. They're still there. All the all the Irish myths that you that you're fascinated with and pass on, passing on to your readers in new new ways of envisioning them are still there and still real. All the characters of all the myths are still there and still real and still affecting our consciousness in some way.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:07:18

Aaron Ross Powell Spirit and soul is a term that a lot of English speakers struggle to differentiate.

unknown 1:07:25

Right?

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:07:25

When somebody dies, their spirit ascends is just a term that we, you know, English speakers would say, or their soul ascends. And the bifurcation between the spirit and the soul I think is also our disconnect from the knowledge of your words, right? If soul and matter are, let's say, counterposed in a very balanced sort of like Egyptian mot sort of way, not fighting each other, but they're counterposed in balancing. The spirit is a connecting force. If the spirit is not the soul, right? So like the Greek word for spirit um is um phnuma, and then the Greek word for soul is suke, right? And while they both start with silent or non-silent P, I mean, that's where their sim similarities digress. I mean, they're not synonyms, they're not even similar words. And and so like I think that's another really interesting way of looking at it, the way you're describing it. The spirit and soul are not, again, two English synonyms for the same thing, but rather a connecting force that the ancient Greek allows us in that language to see as different. A lot of ancient languages see spirit and soul as very different things. I think. I don't know when it entered the modern English vernacular as pure synonyms, but I think I think probably most people use it as such, which is quite depressing and degenerating to the quote magical worldview.

Todd Elloitt 1:08:46

Yeah, and I I think this I think the theosophist uh might have flipped the meanings as well in the 19th century.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:08:53

Yeah, thanks to them.

Todd Elloitt 1:08:54

So the for them, the psyche is the linking principle in the spir. But just to go back to the Greek, like you said, Penuma and Suke and um and the matter or s what is that sarcos sarcosarks? Sarx. Um that's body, flesh. Uh anyway. Yeah, for for the ancients, spirit was somewhat physical, it was subtle. So spirits, daimons were made of a very subtle kind of air, like ether. They were made of ether, the fifth element. That's interesting. You were talking about the pentagram, right? The symbol of the pentagram is like the four elements, uh earth, air, fire, and water, with with pennuma or ether as spirit as the fifth element that links them.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:09:42

But it's still it's material, it's just so key I had a Hungarian professor in college who was a mentor in my life, but he always used to say the Greek word suke requires great lung breath, and that's how you know it means soul. It comes from you, it's not that which you are in some sort of larger sense, but it comes from you, suke, because it takes a lot of breath to say, as opposed to punami or whatever. Which you know, you can close your lungs and say that one, but suke requires breath.

Todd Elloitt 1:10:16

And I think I think for Plotinus, he had he had his triad, you know, his three hypostases, and he had the one, which is like we can't really say a lot about it. Some people would say that it's like God, but then he had uh he had Noose and Suke, and I forget which one comes next. I really should bone up. I I remembered when I wrote this, but he mind and soul. I think it's soul comes next, and then mind. I don't remember. Gosh, that's terrible. But what one of them is one of them is closer to us, and um one means the yeah, it's I think it's mind and then soul. So soul is like the lower, the lower principle of, but still this higher and transcendent faculty. And it's but then and then spirit, which I don't know what he says about that, but it it's even it's the thing that links us to those two things are non-material. Though those three things are non-material, they're purely intellectual, noetic realities that you can only philosophize about or contemplate about almost without once once you start trying to describe them, you start screwing up.

Milky Way Roads Of The Soul

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:11:29

In terms of astrology, the the the linking factor I think was a big promising point to my journey. Cause I think the cosmos seems far away. And I think the Ditzy college student level understanding, that is to say, something you learn about at a bar on a Thursday night when somebody asks for your birthday and your birthplace or something, you know, is is is very digressing to the interconnected truth of the heavens, regardless if you see it as a singular body or you know, the nine realms as you described, you know, from this ancient tradition. Or um, I mean, I've I know a lot of Osatisikawi or you know, plain Sioux people, people to the Kota de Dakota and others. And they speak about the the red road and the black road um a lot with me and and even that, right? So not to botch their their beliefs because I don't know them as well as I know other things, but basically as I understand it, your your your body, your clay form walks the black road over and over and over again, and at the end of your life, your soul is weighed, more or less. I don't know the term they would use, in in the Milky Way. And then if you have deemed to live a good life, that is to say, you walk the red road, your soul lives forever in home, which is the Milky Way. So home is the Milky Way galaxy, and the Pleiades is a part of that, or the Seven Sisters or the Six Sisters. And uh and and so that interconnection between heaven and earth, right, is something that is daily. And I think if if if we can maybe traverse into that side of my two-pointed question at the beginning, it's it's daily in its humdrum and it's ordinary and it's here, which is I think very different to a lot of the Judeo-Christian worldview. If I can counterpose these two thoughts, maybe they don't need counterpose and it's obvious, or maybe I'm wrong. Um, but if the heavens impact the earth and the earth impacts the heavens, then this interconnective, kinship-based, reciprocal, relational weave that I think so many modern humans are yearning for, which is so well held and described in a lot of indigenous worldviews. Um, Honka Pitopa, a dear friend of mine, the Coda Pipe Carrier, has many books on this subject that deals with some of these things as well. But I wonder I wonder if astrology uh is some sort of cross-cultural memory point to illustrate this cosmic connection from where we come from and where we are, that actually has utilitarian value in the daily. Um I don't know, would you use that term? Like I don't want to say magic is utilitarian, but like when you're planting potatoes and you're able to do it magically, I it does have utilitarian value. The potatoes are better, the soil is better, the people are better eating the potatoes. Like you're not doing it because it feels good, although maybe it does, but you're also doing it because it has ramifications in the terrestrial earth plane that we occupy as clay peoples. How do you see that?

Todd Elloitt 1:14:43

Well, one thing that what you were saying brought up to me at the beginning when you started talking about the Milky Way and the Native people believing that the souls went to the sky realm after death and traversed the Milky Way. We have that in the Western tradition as well. I believe it's in Porphyry, who was uh Plotinus's student, wrote a book, a treatise called The Cave of the Nymphs, where he does an exeges, exegesis of um a chapter in the Odyssey where um where Odysseus goes into the cave of some nymphs, anyway. Uh it's it's in there. But he does, he explains like this symbolism. Uh the Odyssey for the ancient Greeks was like their scripture. Um so there's a lot of people interpreting the mystical and spiritual. Uh so anyway, Porphyry talks about the Milky Way. I believe it's in there, and I think it's also in um the commentary on the dream of Scipio by Macrobius. But the souls, I think they come in to from your soul goes to the heaven realm after you die. A lot of the Greeks have various various beliefs about the afterlife. It was not a unified belief. You know, at some point they believed that the that Hades was underground, but then at some point they started believing that that the afterlife was in the sky, um, in the stars, that you would rise to through this to the stars, but you would come in, your soul would leave would leave the cosmos and go back to God through the gate of cancer and come in through the gate of Capricorn. Or maybe I have that reversed, but but the Capricorn and Cancer are both at both ends of the Milky Way, more or less. Okay. So at one point I I think they come in in cancer because it's the it's the it's where the it's the higher point, and they leave in Capricorn because it's the lower, it's like the lowest point. So they're like going and then they come back in. So while the soul, and this is where NATO astrology, this was this was the rationale for NATO astrology, when the soul comes in through cancer into the it would drop through all the realms, and like I was saying, with each with each emanation from the divine, so to your soul, so to your reincarnating soul, would pick up accretions and energies from the planets as it passed through the spheres, and that's why so different different daimons, different spiritual forces would be on guard or on duty at the time as your soul transits and they would leave their imprints on your soul. So that's why native or that's why your natal chart, that's why we're all different, because at the moment we're born, our soul descends from God through the cosmos, picking up all these influences from the plants where they are moment to moment. And uh the Milky Way is absolutely part of that worldview in the West as well. It is the road of the souls all over the world.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:52

Yeah.

Todd Elloitt 1:17:53

And and one thing that before before I hand the mic over to you, one thing that has occurred to me over and over again when I look at the similarities between Native and uh Native American practices, indigenous practices and and beliefs all over the world, and uh sort of traditional Western beliefs. I I just I think that there's they're describing a spiritual reality that is that is that is a fact. Uh I don't I don't think that there's cultural, necessarily cultural transmission that all these people had to have have met at some point or transmitted story to story. I think I think that I think the truth is somewhere out there, as they say on the X Files. And and I think people are tuning into the truth.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:18:42

Yeah.

Todd Elloitt 1:18:42

They're tuning into a spiritual reality all over the world.

Odyssey Echoes Across Traditions

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:18:46

One of the fiction books I wrote is a retelling of the Cat McTurd, the Battle in the Plane of Pillars, Irish mythology, and a uh uh Taylor Keene, who's been on the podcast, I know you've listened to it, many of our listeners have listened to the God has read series, and he blurbed it. And I'll never forget his blurb. He said, uh, the plane of pillars proves to me that indeed we are all related. And uh my favorite blurb of the book, my favorite blurb of the book, because it was at that point that him and I both realized that so much of ancient Irish mythology, as I understand it, is so similar to so much of the Degahat tradition of so many of the indigenous of the plains today in the Western hemisphere. And uh, I thought that was really interesting. Um, in view of that, I don't I don't know if this is what you're referencing, but I have recently read uh The Odyssey, and I have taken copious notes. I've tore this book apart. There's been a really fun thing that I've done in the last maybe six months. And and I have this one note, and I wonder, and this has zero scholarship behind it. Okay. I'm just this is zero scholarship. While you were talking, I read through book six of the Odyssey, which is, I believe, what you're discussing um with the nymphs in the cave and such. And the interesting thing here, and I'll read it, this is the um, this is the Robert Fagel's edition. There's other editions more popular today, but I love this one. Um there's this um, so they're on the island of Ogi Gaia, Og OG Gia, OG, I don't know, it's a mythical island home of the nymph Calypso. And I believe that is who he is speaking to here, but Odysseus, the main character of the story, if you've never read it, Odysseus, the uh wanderer trying to come home, he says, stranger. I'm sorry, uh Calypso talking to Odysseus. She says, stranger, the white armed princess, answered staunchly. And and it's interesting, I have this noted that never in the rest of the book, uh, Homer or the hypothetical Homer, the author of this epic poem, whatever that might mean, he he he well utilizes adjective type phrase quite repetitively, like wine dark sea. Like if you ever want to make a joke, just say wine dark sea, and everybody who's ever read the Odyssey knows that you're talking about Homer's, you know, writing or something, or like the yellow-haired Dawn. Yeah. But it's interesting here that she that uh says she is described as a white armed princess. And and if this has anything to do with the Milky Way, it'll be interesting to do some sort of commentary study on this because she gives him more or less a soul weighing. I I won't read it all, but it's line 20 uh one, two, three, four, five, all the way through 220. But she says, Friend, you're hardly a wicked man, no fool, I'd say. It's Olympian Zeus himself who hands our fortunes out to each of us in our turn, to the good and the bad, etc. But he says, He gave you pain. You simply have to bear it. It's it's a soul weighing that, again, I won't read it all, but it's exactly let me rephrase that. It is very akin to the thematic, um, let's call it spirit force in the you know, Seti Tsakawi, red road, black road, wade in the Milky Way, it's seen here. If a white armed princess has anything to do with the Milky Way galaxy, now in Irish, right, our wonderful River Boyne in the Boyne River Valley, right, Balaknabufin, the way of the white cow. Sometimes we see that not as necessarily as a white cow, although that's how it was viewed in the altar cycle, being white as a male white bull. But uh a lot of people think about it as milk, right? The Milky Way, and it's the same thing we have as the term for the Milky Way, Balak Nabufin. Um, maybe the uh white cow has something to do with the milk coming out of the cow, which is interesting, also in view of the kalyuk, which is a white-haired winter goddess. Again, you have this idea of milk and plenty in non-plentiful times. Like there's a lot of symbology there.

Todd Elloitt 1:22:46

Isn't it like a spurt from the breasts of Raya, the Titanus Raya?

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:22:50

Yeah, yeah. It it's it there's a lot of there's yeah, there's a lot of um breast symbology in terms of the middle.

Todd Elloitt 1:22:57

I mean, she's she's like a she's sort of a caliak-like character. I mean, Saturn wife. Like Titaness, she's like a very kind of a badass goddess.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:23:07

Yeah, an amazing text, by the way. I I highly it one of the reasons I I read the Robert Fagel's edition. Um, I don't know if if you have a reading of the Odyssey coming soon in your own life, um, but I would encourage you. Um the Robert Fagel's edition is really wonderful. I like this. But also uh Ian McKellen, the uh actor for Gandalf, or this famous Shakespearean actor of our day, uh, he uh reads it on Audible. And so you can listen to one of the greatest orators of our time read this exact text, and you can read with it and take notes in the book. And it it was easily one of the most intellectually stimulating and spiritually reviving experiences I've had linguistically or literarily in the last sort of yeah.

Todd Elloitt 1:23:53

Beach reading a few years ago. I I brought it, it was the only book I brought to the beach with me, and I managed to finish it. We were at the beach for like 10 days, and it was great beach reading because it's all ocean, it's all sea voyages, and there's so much, there's so much there. But I I also really like that the scene where he summoned where he summons, is it Tiresias? He he goes to the like the far north and he performs this necromantic ceremony where he pours blood and into a pit and all the spirits come forth. He goes to the underworld and and talks to his mother and a number of other shades, and that that was really good too. I have a note here. It is.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:24:31

Wait a second, let's see if I can find it.

Todd Elloitt 1:24:32

That's massively influential on the magical tradition.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:24:35

Really? So in book 11, yeah, uh page 265, if anybody has the book, he talks to uh Achilles. It's one of my favorite lines of the book. Achilles says, By God, I'd rather slave on earth for another man, some dirt poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive, than rule down here over all the breathless dead.

Todd Elloitt 1:24:55

You mean he'd rather be me?

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:24:59

There you go. But it's it what a what an interesting phrase because the Iliad begins. Um I'm actually now reading the Iliad should be right next to me, but the same Robert Fagel's tradition, if I throw the book.

Todd Elloitt 1:25:10

Yeah, I have that too.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:25:11

Um it begins with Achilles' rage, you know? Um rage, goddess, seeing the rage of Peleus' son, Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the house of death so many sturdy souls, great fighters as souls, but made their bodies carry in feasts for the gods and birds and the will of Zeus and moving towards its end. Like Achilles' rage is the Iliad. And so now in the Odyssey, and they're coming home, and Achilles is like, I would rather be a tenon farmer than have rage and be down here ruling over the dead.

One Truth Many Mountains Closing

Todd Elloitt 1:25:45

I'm like we talked about last time, I'm kind of a lumper rather than a splitter, but I see the similarities, and rather than trying to like be a diffusionist, I really think that that there's an archetypal reality, a spiritual reality that underlies everything that that people tune can tune into across have have tune into that wise people, seers, philosophers, mystics, shamans all over the world tune into one reality, and um, and that's why their stories are so similar. Um and I don't think it's because they they go through some stages of civilization or that or that there was I don't know, maybe there was an Atlantis. I don't know about that. It doesn't, it doesn't really matter. It's not it's not really that provable. But to me, it's more compelling to think that there's a spiritual reality um rather than uh uh an ancient culture that transmitted all this. Uh I think it's very compelling that that these the people from from the Lakota describing the roads, and people from ancient Greece, and people from ancient Egypt, and people from ancient Asia, China, India that are describing these so many similar things that they were just in contact with something much greater, and they were trying to put it in the best words they could. And that all the words kind of fall short uh when compared to the reality that they're describing. But they they climbed up different mountains, but they saw the same sky from different mountains to use another metaphor. Um so I I don't know that that might make me a perennialist or something like that, and I I think that's okay. I don't uh uh some people say that's a that's a bad thing nowadays, but I I don't I don't think so. I do think that there's a a level of truth that that is accessible to people from all cultures.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:27:47

Yeah, yeah, and Heyamani's book, um Matakyasi, it it's a it's a viewpoint of I believe he is the coda. I need to get that.

Todd Elloitt 1:27:55

Um I need to get that because I heard you guys talking about that, and I remember he was interested. No, the whole book is written.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:28:02

It's so interesting. The whole book is written from let's I think he's Dakota. Um but the whole book is written from that Dakota perspective in view of then touching Jung and then then touching Chinese philosophy and then then touching that. And and and what he realizes throughout the book, and that's the point of the book, is that his culture is Dakota, right? Indigenous plains, Osatis Kawi, etc. But that culture has uh universal ra uh webs, weaves, right? Uh ramifications to all of humanity, that this is so much larger than uh uh the individual experience, but that at the same time highlights the in this the experience of individuals and like he plays with that. And it's I think it's a really brilliant, which is why it's called you know mythoquiosity. We are all related.

Todd Elloitt 1:28:48

Like we're all related. We're all children's uh we're all children of of one creator. Yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:28:55

Um that's right. Yeah. Well, thank thanks, Todd. Um I really appreciate it. I really appreciate this.

Todd Elloitt 1:29:06

This is yeah, as always, it's so lovely to talk to you, and uh, I can't wait to our next installment. Yeah. It's really enjoyable to take the afternoon off from uh playing in the dust to uh to talk to to have a good conversation with a friend. Yeah.

D. Ffrith Griffith 1:29:20

And a brother. Yeah, mutual, my friend.