Fragle Rok
Join Fragle as he and his friends explore, learn, and laugh. We cover health, history, psychology, philosophy, and more! Fragle traveled with the Grateful Dead for 10 years before moving to Taiwan to teach English. Now in Asia, he is bringing the past to the present by discussing social issues such as addiction, trauma, and mental health. Get ready to Laugh and learn baby, Let's go!
Fragle Rok
Nick Duke on Prehistory, Ancient Civilizations, & Mystical Entities
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We sit down with Nick Duke, a teacher recruiter across Asia and former history teacher in China, to map the line from prehistory to ancient civilizations in plain language: when writing arrives, cities rise, and belief systems start to scale. From there we test the edges of what defines a people—language, ritual, law—and use the Celts and Druids to show how one identity can house many tribes without losing its core.
The conversation gets thorny where it matters most: power and morality. Julius Caesar is both genius general and architect of mass killing; calling him “good” or “bad” without context misses how empires survive and why leaders make brutal choices. We chase shared myths like the flood story across Mesopotamia and the Bible, and ask whether psychedelics—ergot in ancient chalices, psilocybin in fields—sparked visions that hardened into gods, angels, demons, and tricksters. If religion offers comfort to civilians, it also gives rulers a lever; Norse Valhalla is a perfect example of a sacred promise that rallies warriors when winter demands raids.
If you love history, mythology, psychedelics, or the messy way power turns belief into behavior, this one hits home. Press play, then tell us: are beliefs tools of control, paths to truth, or both? Subscribe, share with a friend who loves big questions, and leave a review to keep the conversation going.
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Cold Open: Smelling Salts And Road Trips
SPEAKER_01Alright, what's up?
SPEAKER_02What's up, what's up?
SPEAKER_01Not a lot. Just chilling, man.
SPEAKER_02Just chillin' out here.
SPEAKER_01Quiet. Furbies?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, these are Furbies, right?
SPEAKER_01I think so. Those were a gift from a girl I once had a thing for. One of your mini adventures. You like smelling salts?
SPEAKER_02I used to do them when I played soccer.
SPEAKER_01Really? Woke you up, yeah. Like how how old? Doing smelling salt? Or soccer. When did you start your salt smelling habit? High school. Really? Some college yeah, man. Dang, this is something I discovered in the past four years. So in high school, you were experimenting with selling smelling salts.
SPEAKER_02Football team loved it.
SPEAKER_01Dang, I was experimenting with sleeping sleeping pills in high school.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, I didn't get to that yet. But you know. We all start different paths, you know?
SPEAKER_01These are really weak though. They're like three, four months old. Okay. So they're not super so you can like get all up in there. All up in there. All up in there. I got a fresh bottle once, unpackaged it, and uh didn't think anything of it. Cracked it and just went, dude, I collapsed on the ground, started crying, snots drooling down my nose, and I'm drooling on the ground, like dry heaving. And I was like, all right, so you do not go all in on a fresh fucking bottle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they go kind of crazy because you I see a lot of people at gyms introduce the people and they're like, hey man, hit this deep breath. Like, they just go fucking crazy on it. Like what you just said, with like 200 pounds on their chest.
SPEAKER_01So it's yeah, I've taken it in the gym for like working out and stuff, but like I like it more for just waking up in the morning or when I'm driving. I do all kinds of weird shit when I'm driving.
SPEAKER_02Man, I don't blame you. I keep it safe, but yeah, yeah. It's like I think one thing as Americans we appreciate is in Taiwan, when you like a four-hour drive, they're like, Oh, that's such a long drive. But for us, it's like, man, that was like a daily afternoon for me on occasion. You mean drive in the US? Yeah, because everything so far, like if I won't see my brother, that's three hours right there.
Audiobooks, Fantasy, And Smart Cats
SPEAKER_01Last time I went home, dude. It was so I was I think I was I feel like I was driving every day. Yeah. Two anywhere from two to four hours, yeah, driving around. Which I do like the time alone in the car. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I value that. Yeah, that's my audiobook and like mental break time. What's the last good audiobook you listen to?
SPEAKER_02Dungeon Carl Crawler. It's like a fantasy comedy. It's it's great. It's like eight books, it's hilarious, dude. Yeah, if you if you like uh fantasy adventure things, I do not, then you would hate it. You would hate it, you would absolutely hate it. But I like it. I'm into that. It's like modern fantasy, and so it's like modern world stuff. It's like this dude just thrown into this terrible situation, and he's just an average dude trying to survive with his cat. I like average people. Yeah, he's literally like uh not to give away the book, but at the very beginning of the book, he's like stealing his ex-girlfriend's cat because she's cheating on him, and then he gets stuck in the situation, huh? And his cat becomes smarter than him.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it's a it's it's a fun book. I just saw a Rick and Morty episode like that where they wanted the dog to be smart and then the dog became too smart. Started like dog soldiers.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like his cat. I don't know. Have you ever played like Dungeons and Dragons or anything like that?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_02So, but you know, like in games you have like skill points, like you have maybe kind of 20 intelligence.
SPEAKER_01I know what I know from Stranger Things.
SPEAKER_02Okay. There we go. So I actually have only I've only seen three seasons, maybe four seasons of Stranger Things. New one's not very good. Not very good. All right, I won't watch it then. But yeah, basically the cat's smarter than this guy who is human.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So yeah, I'm like anti-fantasy.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01But I used to be anti-stand up comedy and anti-podcast. And my friends used to just keep like, no, watch this, watch this, listen to this. And then after like a year of them pushing it down my throat, I was like, oh, I get it now. Stand-up comedy's funny.
SPEAKER_02I don't know why. I hope so. That's a good point. Yeah, I think the thing about why I like fantasy is it's for everyone. There's there's a storyline somewhere in that where it would work for you. Yeah. Obviously, like I'm a big Tolkien fan, I love Lord of the Rings. People don't always love Lord of the Rings, I get why, but they may like something like Baldur's Gate 3, which is a game which is popular in DD. So it's one of those things where it's like there's something for everyone in fantasy, just I think have to find it. And sometimes that takes an abysmal amount of time.
SPEAKER_01I do like Neil Gaiman. Okay. That's kind of fantasy, right? Yeah, 100%. I read his book Ocean at the end of the Avenue. I might be getting that wrong. I'm not sure. It was a really good, sweet, quaint book. And then he did what he's got a show on Netflix, right? The about the gods. God of Ragnarok.
SPEAKER_02God of Ragnarok?
From Anti-Fantasy To Finding Neil Gaiman
SPEAKER_01No. American gods. American gods. American gods. It was like the god of vanity. I can't remember. Like the gods of all these different things. It's like an LGBTQ friendly show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was that was alright. So the Sandman.
SPEAKER_02Sandman, yeah. That's the big one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah, no, he does fantasy. Yeah. Sci-fi fantasy, fantasy that fire.
SPEAKER_01I think I can do him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's what I'm saying. There's something for everyone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know. So anyway, we're doing an interview. What what the hell is your name?
SPEAKER_02My name's Nick. Hey. Nice to meet you guys.
SPEAKER_01Nick Duke.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. I've been Nick Duke? Nick Duke. Dang. One syllables all the way. Make it easy. My handwriting's that bad, so I had to make it quick. Is your middle name one syllable too? No, unfortunately it's not. Actually, my full name is a lot more than one syllable. So I like keeping it, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Normal. Did you want to state your full name for the record?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I guess I can put that on the internet. Uh Nicholas Alexander Duke. That's a lot of syllables. Yeah, a lot of syllables. My mom was a Russian history teacher, and so she named me after two czars.
SPEAKER_01A Russian history teacher. Was she Russian?
SPEAKER_02Not at all.
SPEAKER_01Don't know why.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, she she dug Russian history and I was named after two people who met Terrible Ends. So she met she taught that like high school? She there was like one of those schools where you have like all grades in rural Georgia. And so she taught elementary, middle, and high school history.
SPEAKER_01And Russian history specifically and only.
SPEAKER_02I guess it's weird. That was never even an option for the 80s in rural Georgia. It's very strange, but she did it. So yeah, there we are. Interesting. I don't know much about Russian history at all. Soviet Union Cold War. People maybe were a little more into it at that point. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Is that something you're also knowledgeable? Rush knowledgeable about Russian history? Bits and pizzas.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I don't I wouldn't say I'm even close to an expert of anything like that, but bits and pizzas. It depends what time period. I mean, Russia's been around for a while, so or the area that it's called Russia has been around a while. So what are your credentials? What do you do? Oh, what do I do? So I own a couple of years.
SPEAKER_01You're a male prostitute and a gigolo?
SPEAKER_02Yep. Subscribe to my OnlyFans. But that's just for fun, right? Uh yeah, just for fun. I like having a good time. Not for money. No.
Meet Nick Duke And His Backstory
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, you make money, but that's not why you do it. I'm not I'm in it for the love of the game.
SPEAKER_02Right. Personally fulfilling. Yeah. That's great. If yeah, very, very fulfilling if you catch my drift. Yeah, so uh my main job basically is I own a business here in Taiwan that focuses on bringing teachers to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, yada yada, a whole bunch of countries. And I help schools find teachers and teachers find schools. Can you say the name of the company or do you not want to? No, I can. Yeah. Global school. Our new name is Global School Scout because we just bought some other companies and we're becoming a bigger thing. Yeah. Taking over colonizer style.
SPEAKER_01Yes. All right. We're good for, right? So white people are good at it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's what they say.
SPEAKER_01I was just editing another podcast, and it was me interviewing a guy in South Africa, and I was asking him about his ancestry. And I was like, Oh, so you're kind of like me, man. Like, you know, I got like German and Irish and Spanish and Native American. And he was talking about French. And he's like, Yeah, I guess they really like doing that, don't they? I'm like, they? You mean white people? And I was just like, we just cracked up. Yeah, like that is common behavior for the whites to decolonize, take over, marry the locals, and then make mixed babies. Not there yet, but we'll see. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Not saying no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Open minded with that. But yeah, like I worked in China for a while, saw how messy the school systems were with just teachers coming here. Um, obviously, you worked in education, you know, some schools can be so terrible, so bad for people, and you can see how sometimes schools can bring in some really bad people, teachers. So I just wanted to help that system, and so far, so good.
Teaching Abroad And Building A Recruiter
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. You think the schools in China were worse than the schools in Taiwan?
SPEAKER_02Hard to say. So I wasn't around as many like bushy bands in China as I was in Taiwan. I taught history for an international school system for a little bit, and so a little different, but it it was pretty bad. You taught history? Yeah, taught history in China? In China. China.
SPEAKER_01Like at a cram school?
SPEAKER_02Nope, at an international school.
SPEAKER_01Oh, international school system, yeah. How'd you get not to interrupt you?
SPEAKER_02Please do.
SPEAKER_01Okay. How'd you get into like teaching like that's a like a specific subject, you know? How did you get into teaching history?
SPEAKER_02Got lucky. Obviously, I I'm not I have no teaching credentials outside like a TEFL, which most people have anyway. My bachelor's degree was international studies. Soon got my master's in international relations. But basically, I love history. History has always been one of my major hobbies. I read about it every day, I watch something about it every day. And at the interview, they were like, Well, you don't have a history degree. And I was like, Well, I have an international relations degree, which is basically you learn history, economics, and how that kind of changes the modern world it is today. So I had to take a whole bunch of tests, a whole bunch of interview questions, and I got the job.
SPEAKER_01Hmm. So cool.
SPEAKER_02It was fun. Yeah, I got to teach multiple grades, all different levels, you name it. So it was really cool. I want to return to it one day, actually. I would like to get my PhD in something and teach at the college level.
SPEAKER_01Damn, you're young enough to still be able to do that?
SPEAKER_02I mean, I guess at any age you could go back and get a PhD, right? Yeah, I mean, obviously, I'd not I actually probably want to do it in probably about six, seven years. So we'll see. Go with the flow, you know? Hard to tell where the world's going sometimes, but I think it'd be cool.
SPEAKER_01Fuck yeah. Also we'll be called Dr.
SPEAKER_02Duke.
SPEAKER_01Dr. Duke. Dr. Duke. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to be Dr. Sanchez. It'd be pretty dope. Nice. Yeah.
How He Taught History Without Credentials
SPEAKER_02Kind of sounds like a sex move, but yeah. You know? But yeah, it's it's cool.
SPEAKER_01Well shit, man. History sounds like a good place to start. I'm just here to pick your brain today.
SPEAKER_02Pick my brain as much as you want.
SPEAKER_01What do you know about history?
SPEAKER_02That's a hard question.
SPEAKER_01That's why I took notes the last time we met.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So it's I I guess, you know, I don't want to say expertise, where my master's degree focused was cross-communication, where civilizations have met each other, where civilizations have worked together or fought against each other. But outside of that, you know, I I love ancient history, pre-history, you know, the old civilizations, probably between the years of like 700 AD and like 1700 A.D. But you know, I also love American history, like the Wild West fascinates me. Manifest Destiny, well people were you had this one civilization pushing out other civilizations. I think that's very interesting. But yeah, no, I'm an open book. It's kind of hard to pin down a thing.
SPEAKER_01Well, just from what you just said, you said ancient history. Yeah. That rings a bell for me. Like, what does ancient history mean exactly?
SPEAKER_02So usually I would refer that to like the first civilizations. So the first couple big civilizations. Um, if we're talking more of the hunter-gathering societies, I'd probably say pre-history. So before written language was really a thing, even though that's not technically true. Because humans have been communicating for a hundred thousand years, right? But massive civilizations. We're talking, you know, Mesopotamia, Indus River, the Yellow River civilizations. There's some African civilizations in there. So, um, and a little bit of uh Mesoamerica as well.
SPEAKER_01So you said previous ancient civilization. Pre-history. So ancient civilization would be pre-history?
SPEAKER_02No. So the way I divide it is ancient civilizations when we first had civilizations. So people, you had agricultural systems, you had large cities, you had government systems, you have organized religion. Basically, where you had like these city-states pop up. This would be ancient. To me, that's ancient history.
SPEAKER_01So when so when things first started becoming organized, more societies.
Defining Ancient History And Prehistory
SPEAKER_02Yeah, less hunter-gatherers, more agricultural societies, stuff like that. That's prehistory. Prehistory is pre-before history. Before written. So what is history? It's a written word, right? Most part, right?
SPEAKER_01So ancient civilizations is the beginning of civilization. Prehistory is the time before writing began.
SPEAKER_02You had more hunter-gatherers, you had smaller communities, agricultural communities, and stuff like that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So in terms of prehistory, what civilizations are you more knowledgeable about?
SPEAKER_02Well, prehistory, it's it's more I would say probably Europe. Those those those small tribes in Europe that went out. Well, I know a little bit about China. I know obviously a little bit about Africa, Mesoamerica, but I probably my major focus was the European prehistory side of things. Let's start there, dude, because I don't know anything about Europe. Okay. Well, I think a cool fact you may know, not know, um, I think people don't really understand is that everyone today outside of Africa is related to 10,000 people that left Africa. There was numerous groups that left Africa, the great African migration, but were every every human outside of Africa, mainly sub-Saharan Africa, is related to these 10,000 individuals that left.
SPEAKER_01So okay, so that that is a very specific fact right there. At some point in time, there were 10,000 people that left Africa and the rest of the world essentially spawned from them. Exactly. Some went east, some went west, and oh, and they didn't stick together either.
SPEAKER_02Oh, no, absolutely not. It wasn't like there was like 10,000 people who got together and like, you know what, we're out of here, right? Yeah. It was more of probably a period of a thousand years, a couple hundred years where groups of people, tribes, left Africa into various other areas of the world.
SPEAKER_01And what I'm about to say, this would probably go even way before that, because now I'm gonna talk about the development of the brain and I'm not sure if it's conspiracy. Yeah, maybe the conspiracy that eating mushrooms out of cow dung led to the maturation of the brain.
Out Of Africa And The Big Human Jump
SPEAKER_02And it makes sense. Obviously, you know, you have millions of years of of human evolution prior to that big jump. What made that big jump happen? When people leave Africa, yeah, leave Africa, pick up tools, change, think differently. Language. Where does that come from? Does that come over over time? Maybe. But you have a pretty quick jump into that versus like you had millions of years of people just basically eating grass and fruit and chilling out and not trying to get eaten by things. So what caused that jump? And psilocybin or mushrooms are one of the is a theory that people start eating that and they're like, you know what? Maybe if we made this a little longer, we won't get eaten as much, you know. Or what if we start talking about gods and religion? Like what's bigger than us? You have you have people doing burial long before Homo sapiens did? You had a another species of humans, I don't remember their name, I apologize for that, but they were looks like they were doing burial before our ancestors, burial, like burying their dead. Why would something bury their dead? You know? Usually back then you just kind of leave it. Could it be because they were trying to protect it from predators? Maybe. Was it a religious ceremony? Perhaps we just don't know.
SPEAKER_01What caused the beginning of a belief in something otherworldly? I'm listening to a book called The Immortality of the Gods right now. Do you know that book? No, I do not. Really?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01By Brian Moraski. It's about him tracing. Oh, I'm not gonna get this perfect. Okay, but like he's tracing the roots of the Bible and the roots of the stories in the Bible, and he's traveling the world, and he goes and finds the locations of like the last dinner and other places where stories were first told, and he finds cups and vessels that were drunk out of thousands and thousands of years ago, tests them and finds traces of ergot, thus theorizing that a lot of the stories in the Bible, in the Last Supper, even like those people were taking psychedelics. So the whole book is about the role psychedelics played and the development of organized religion and Christianity specifically. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Psychedelics, Religion, And Shared Myths
SPEAKER_02I think I saw something on that. I think they might have referenced that book. It was like a it was a documentary or something, it was very quick, but it was talking about how psychedelics have potentially affected human history, and I'd believe it. I would really believe that. I think that's a solid theory.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um I think he was working with Graham Hancock a bit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I'd believe it. One thing you actually mentioned uh about religion, how tracing religion is one interesting thing is how religion's all connected in some way, like the flood story, right? I'm sure you've heard about multiple civilizations of the flood story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Mesopotamia had the story of Noah centuries before the even the Bible was even an afterthought. And so it's just, you know, people share stories, and that's the beautiful, beautiful thing about history is how these stories stories change. You know, in the Norse, you have Thor, you know, in the the the Greek world, the Dorian world, you have Zeus and other things, and a lot of these stories are very connected. Hmm. Just different names. So do you know much about Greek history? A decent bit, yeah. I mean, you kind of have to.
SPEAKER_01The American school system. That's like an entire class. Well, you must have been a good student, all right? Because I had no exposure to Greek history, but I was a terrorist.
SPEAKER_02For history I was. If we're talking about algebra, that's a whole different story.
SPEAKER_01I was bad at that, too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I was bad at most things. A pretty good knowledge. I'd say more than the average human being on the street, but yeah. I mean, to throw a question, let's see what I got.
SPEAKER_01Shit, man. I don't even all right. All right when we're talking about Europe, Europe is a continent. Yeah. Okay, I'm just gonna be the dumb American that I am. Europe is a continent, and there's Eastern Europe as well. Is Eastern Europe a part of Europe? Yes. Okay, so Europe is one continent, not a country. Correct. And in that continent, there's a lot of countries.
SPEAKER_02Correct.
SPEAKER_01Eastern Europe is one section of that area.
SPEAKER_02Now, especially so. And if you were from the time period in the the 1500s, like the 1800s, 1900s, there'd even be more countries. And so Europe's in history because it's always changing, always growing. Empires fall, empires come, things change very quickly. Invading armies come through, change things, leave, things have changed forever. Like the Mongolians. I mean, the Mongolians were in Europe and they ruled for a century there. So if you're thinking of this, you know, you have these European powers controlled by a Eastern power. It's pretty interesting to think about how different the cultures are with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. What kind of religions were circulating in Europe in the 1500s?
SPEAKER_02Oh, strictly Christianity.
SPEAKER_01Strictly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, at that point you started having a break off between Protestant Protestants and Catholics. But it's it's still Christianity, right? So I would say in the 1500s were Christi Christianity.
SPEAKER_01And yeah, so talking about religion in Europe in the 1500s. Oh, you said we're talking about the 1500s as well. So that's about the time that the whites started coming out and colonizing. Yeah, 1492 is the age-old thing. The man we were taught was a good man. Well. Was he a good man?
Greeks, Rome, And Judging The Past
SPEAKER_02We can't. It's hard to define morality at that point, right? Because if you wake up in the morning, you don't think you're doing bad. Are you bad? Probably, maybe. I mean, you're s enslaving people, you're torturing people, committing mass genocide. So in today's time, absolutely he was a bad guy. If we go back to 1492, he thought he was pretty good. And I think the Europeans thought he was great, and I think the Catholic Church thought he was even better.
SPEAKER_01I guess I see what you mean. That's a pretty good point. It's hard to gauge people with today's standards in the past.
SPEAKER_02Because I mean, we look at Julius Caesar, right? Everyone loves Julius Caesar from like a basic history standpoint.
SPEAKER_01Can you give me a basic history of Julius Caesar real quick? Just pretend like I'm dumb because I am.
SPEAKER_02First role emperor of quote unquote emperor of Rome. Now he wouldn't call himself that, but he was a Roman general. Civil War happened, he won, he took over. Previously, Rome was controlled by the Senate, it was a republic, and he put it more into the autocratic system it was for centuries after that.
SPEAKER_01Autocratic system? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's autocratic system. One person in charge, more or less. Okay. Yeah, long story. He was he was a dictator, long story short, right? And so Julius Caesar, everyone thinks he's him a great conqueror, great warrior, and and in his right, he was, but he killed most of the Celts in France. And so killed most of the Celts? The tribe in that area, that the local people were called Celtic, right? Like the Druids. Yeah, exactly. The Druids. Now, Rome at this point was not Christian, it was polytheistic, but yeah, I mean he millions of people died on his hands. And so most people, if you go up and say, was Julius Caesar a good guy, people be like, oh, he was a great leader. But he murdered millions of people. So I mean at that point, it's hard to judge who's truly a great guy in history. I mean, if you this thing about history, you dig enough stories, you'll be like, well, maybe they weren't so great.
SPEAKER_01We have to get more down to what defines good, whether it's that time, this time.
SPEAKER_02And what what it takes to be a leader. I mean, he had to he had to keep expanding Rome or Rome was gonna collapse. And so to save his own people, he had to go unfortunately destroy the lives of others. But he kept his people safe and strong. So it's leadership's a hard, hard gig. It's a hard gig, you know.
Julius Caesar, Morality, And Empire
SPEAKER_01Yeah, people that aren't leaders, like myself, don't know what it's like to be a leader. And so we we find it the easiest to judge them, but we've never been in their shoes, have we?
SPEAKER_02No, I haven't. And I'm I'm not saying once again, especially in modern times, I think it's a little different. But ancient history, we always have to look at Lens, I think, when we look at history, is we don't have the same moral standards as we we do today, right? And so that's very important. Like I mentioned the Mongolians earlier, Genghis Khan. You don't want to know his death toll. You don't want to know what he did, what the Mongolians did to people. But they were also viewed as great conquerors, and they ruled most of the world for a period of time. So yeah, it's tricky. Morality is a tricky little thing with history, right? It's fun to study in philosophy. It is. Oh my god, yes. It's great to study in philosophy. But you're a big, you're are you you're a big philosophy guy, Rick?
SPEAKER_01I was. When I first started university, I was a double major in philosophy and psychology. And I read an intro to philosophy book during high school, loved it, taught me how to argue. So I argued with my mom, made it easier to argue with my mom and easier to make her feel dumb. Sorry, my Mom. And uh and then I also start got to start reading Socrates and Plato and Bertrand Russell, Allegory of the Cave, many, many great tales that I think growing up nothing made sense to me in terms of like being taken to Jehovah's Witness church.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Or and going to Christian churches and even school, just none of it felt authentic. None of it felt real and none of it felt true. And so yeah, when I got started getting more exposed to things, it was like, oh, fine, I finally found something that's that's true and honest.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yeah. I think religion's a personal journey for everybody, it's different for everyone. If it fills that hole inside you, I think that's great. Go for it. But it's not gonna work for everyone. And as long as you're not forcing it down someone's throat, which is a bit of an issue.
SPEAKER_01If you're gonna be religious or spiritual, do it with pride, and doing it with pride means not shoving it down anybody else's throat.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was lucky to be raised in that environment where it was never an issue for me. Where they were like, you have to be a Protestant.
Philosophy, Belief, And Personal Truths
SPEAKER_01For me, it wasn't either. It wasn't my mom or dad, it was my babysitters, my grandparents. Oh, okay. Well spent a lot of time with them. Too much. Too much. Uh until I took an Asian religions class in ninth grade, and then I exposed to Taoism and Buddhism, and I was like, oh, finally something that makes makes sense. Breath of fresh air.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you had Buddhist Greeks at one point, very small communities, but Hellenistic during Alexander the Great. Yeah, so not to jump off too off topic, but obviously Alexander the Great, he was Macedonian, which is a region north of what we think of Greece, right? And so he conquered Greece, he had a little issues with Sparta, but he got it eventually. Went through Persia, got North Africa, the Egypt area, and then went to India, which he got parts of India, and obviously at that point, Buddhism was slowly developing a little bit. And so well, it was actually probably a massive thing at that point. So yeah, you had Greeks who were Buddhists at some point. Wow. Yeah. Wow. You talked about the Druids and the Celts earlier. Yep. Do you have any background knowledge on them? Celts, a good bit, yeah. Druids maybe not as much, besides maybe the religious aspect of them.
SPEAKER_01The druids were more just like the priests, but they were Celts, right? Yes, they were.
Alexander’s Reach And Buddhist Greeks
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so the Druids were exactly they were the priests. And so they were following more what the Nords would follow, with some differences, Germanic gods. And so like Odin was like Wooden, and so like very similar to what the Norse had. And the Rome had the Roman pantheon, Mars, Jupiter, uh, which are basically what the Greeks had, right? And so you had a bit of a clash there, but it wasn't a massive issue. Like Romans were, I wouldn't say tolerant, but they didn't really care that much about your religion versus till the later days. At that point of time when the Romans were taking out was strictly territorial based. And they had a different government system, they had a different kind of lifestyle, and so it was very opposite what the Romans wanted. But yeah, I mean the the Celts, I mean, my ancestry is probably largely Celtic. It's kind of Irish, yeah. Yep. Well, that's a a lot of people think if they think of the Celts, they think of the Irish, and that's technically not true. The the the the Irish tribes, the Brit British tribes, you know, the Picish were all fairly different in their own way. But you could also consider them the Celts as well. It's a massive tribal group, like the Iroquois, right? And and American Native Americans, Iroquois are a large group of people, but within the Iroquois you have individual tribes and beliefs and systems like that.
SPEAKER_01Apache or Navajo, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. So the Celts were all in France, little parts of Germany and Belgium, the U the UK, the Irish, and so they're kind of everywhere.
SPEAKER_01What makes a Celt a Celt? Is it a religious belief system or it's the city?
Celts, Druids, And What Makes A Culture
SPEAKER_02All the above. So it's it's what well, that's a good question. What makes a culture a culture, right? That's actually a very early question. There's a lot of things that make a culture. First thing is language. You speak the same language. Second thing is you have a same belief system. All right. Those are two massive things with a a culture. Uh third thing is uh government systems, how your government is set up. For this, it was tribal. You have a chieftain, maybe within some tribes, you had chieftain over multiple tribes. And then obviously within the culture itself, food, tradition, you know, birthing rights, marriage rights, all things that that makes a culture. So the Celts all shared similarities to that. Versus if you go to like the you know, the Romans, the who had their own very much belief at that point too, and traditions and cultures. So that's kind of what makes a culture. And so that's what kind of groups the Celts together. Um, and there's ways to divide the Celts. I don't remember how they did that as well, so I don't want to give too wrong information, but usually we're talking France, the British Isles, a little bit of Germany, a little bit of Belgium, a little bit of Switzerland, Austria. That would what we call the Celtic people. What was their belief system in general? Polytheism. It was Woden. You had obviously life sacrifices on occasion, you had it was polytheistic, you know, North, very similar to Norse gods, Woden, all that warrior society, you know. I don't think they went as far as like Valhalla, but was Valhalla? Valhalla is the belief that if you die in battle, you will be carried to Odin's court and wait till the final battle and fight with Odin. So it's better for a man for anyone to die with a sword in their hand versus just die.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's similar but not similar to the Japanese. What what what what is that? What was theirs called?
SPEAKER_02Bushido.
SPEAKER_01Bushido. Where they would die in battle. Yes. They wanted to die in battle. Bushido.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm not familiar with Japan so much. So that's that's a region I know very little about in the grand scheme of things. But yeah, it's very similar to that, and it was useful in the sense of like for Scandinavians, the northern Europe's because they had to raid a lot, and it's better to know what's a regular raid a lot. They had to raid a lot. Yeah, so they were farmers most of the year, but when winter came around, you had to go pick off some villages for slaves and other things. So if you tell people it's good to die with a sword in your hand, that's how you get to heaven.
SPEAKER_01That's great, right? That's a great thing to tell your people. Yeah. Like you go to die, you die in battle, you go to heaven, or you get a better life. That's a great thing to tell your people because everybody's down to fight. Yeah, exactly. Like dying's like a manipulation tactic.
SPEAKER_02Kinda. It's totally all all religion, not to get too crazy, has a goal, right? The way the religions work, the goal of a religion is always to have more people follow it, right? Or belief, or so help support a system in place. And for that system in place, it really helped because people would be like, Yeah, yeah, I'll go die. That's awesome. I want to go meet Odin.
SPEAKER_01Religions already always have a goal.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Everything always has a goal to some degree, right?
SPEAKER_01Everything always has a goal.
SPEAKER_02I guess the goal is let me reframe organized religion.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I'm just like putting that organized religion.
SPEAKER_02Taoism not individual religion.
SPEAKER_01There's like traditional Taoism and practice Taoism. Traditional Taoism, I don't know if it has a goal. If it does, it's very abstract, just like the text that the spirituality is derived from. Buddhism definitely has a goal, right? To liberate you from the idea of self and the cycle of samsara.
Valhalla, War Lore, And Power
SPEAKER_02Let me rephrase what I said. People will always use it. You gave me a lot to work with, man. No. People will use religion as a goal. And so governments, societies, people in charge will always use religion as a way to get something done, whether it be good or bad. I don't want to I don't want to put saying religion.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's different people that but there's like people of power that use religion for a purpose, and then there's like civilians that use religion for a purpose, right? Yes. A civilian's going to use it because they need peace or they need to find forgiveness for themselves or others or direction or whatever. But like people of power are going to use religion probably to control, man. I don't think people of power ever really use religion from their heart. I'm sure there are exceptions. Well, they might have believed what they're doing is good, but the outcome might have not been. Hitler believed what he's doing was good. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So Trump believes what he's doing is good. Are you Trump supporter? Don't answer that question. I don't even want to.
SPEAKER_02I'll be honest with you.
SPEAKER_01I am not. I am not. It's such a tough debate, man. Yeah. Because my friends who are supporters have really good arguments. And I'm like, eh, you know what? I don't think I belong in this conversation. Because I I live in Taiwan and I'm too fucking ignorant.
SPEAKER_02It's tough, man. Like, obviously, me being me studying international relations, me being I love politics and history, it's hard not to check out completely, but it's getting easier now, if you know what I mean. Really? Yeah, it's just depressing, man. Like Greenland, like the whole con not to get too weird political down. So go ahead. NATO's an ally. We made NATO, right? And we're saying we're gonna invade a NATO country.
SPEAKER_01It's just what I'm sorry, I'm gonna be the dumb American. What's NATO?
SPEAKER_02North Lenick Treaty. So it's basically a defense organization of multiple countries who say if you get attacked, we'll come defend you. Gotcha. And that's a whole big thing with Russia, Ukraine as well, but a whole nother story for another day. But you know, Greenland is owned by Denmark. And Denmark is a NATO country.
SPEAKER_01Owned by Denmark? Yes. Owned. Owned.
Who Uses Religion And Why
SPEAKER_02Owned. Now there's an argument to be had with with it. If you go talk to the Danes, I don't they probably they care. I don't say they don't care, but I've talked to some Danes who think like it's just the the wealthy Danes holding on. Because in Greenland, you have tons of natural resources. You have a supply route that runs right through it. And so any country that holds on to that is in a really good good place to be in a position of wealth. And we're talking like you know, rare rare earth metals. Basically, what makes all your chips run on any of the tech you use.
SPEAKER_01Microchips, like the ones made here in Taiwan. 100%. They use rare earth, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Anything, your phones, your computers all use rare earth. And as you say, they're rare. You know, you can't find them in your backyard often. So but yeah, I mean that's that's the whole thing. But yeah, the Celts, long story short, were a a tribe, a large group of tribes in France and the UK and a little bit of Germany. Nice, nice bringing that back in. Yeah, we're bringing it back.
Politics, NATO, And Greenland’s Stakes
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I kind of want to talk about polytheistic religions a little bit because I'm reading this great book right now. It's something psychedelic shamanism, something. But it's talking about where all this folklore came from and the good ones, and like the tricksters, even in terms of different entities. Experienced on psychedelics or experienced by schizophrenic people, and then the theories like immortality of gods about ancient civilizations using psychedelics, having visions, and then perceiving these things as gods. And I do wonder if like a lot of religions were born of the accidental consumption of psychedelics, which they then perceived these things and wrote them down, and then we got these texts that we took to be true. But are we actually reading legitimate perceptions? Right? Are we re actually reading legitimate perceptions? And I wonder, like, from experiences with DMT and ayahuasca and stuff like that, where you do interact with many entities that are vividly, undeniably real, how much of a role did that play in the development of polytheistic religions?
SPEAKER_02Okay. Can I bounce a question back to you? Yeah. So in a lot of these indigenous communities, tribal communities around the world, how important is doing hallucinant drugs for a religious ceremony? I would say quite to some degree, right?
SPEAKER_01Right now or back then?
SPEAKER_02Back then, in general, back then.
SPEAKER_01And back then, how important was it to consume hallucinate hallucinant what am I trying to say? Hallucinogens. Hallucinogenic substances. I don't know. Is that is that is there written records of that?
SPEAKER_02No, because they didn't write anything down. But we can see we can say we can see today, even today, you have tribes doing it. So I would say your theory is probably very correct. I mean, we we come from a place of science where like we know what the drug does to the brain. We know kind of like we're this will cause this, right? Because of this. Back then they didn't know that. And so you're having an experience, you see something, your first guess is like, oh, it's it's God. It's something religious, it's something, it's gods, goddesses, my ancestors, right? So drugs aren't a new thing in human society. They've been around since humans have literally walked. I mean, what a major theory about why humans stopped moving around hunting and gathering was because alcohol. Because to make alcohol, what do you have to do? You have to sit around and let it, you know, sit. And so you can't do that if you're hunting and gathering. So people wanted their drinks, probably mead off fermented honey, and they did the rest. They built villages around drinking. So I would say that's probably very realistic. A lot of religions probably did originate from hallucinogens.
SPEAKER_01You don't have to answer this question. Have you ever tried these things we're talking about? I've done shrooms, so that's very different than what I've seen these other entities, man, and they are like vividly real and vividly communicative in a telepathic way. And it makes me wonder if that's what we've perceived to be gods, and if that's what we've perceived to be aliens. And this book that I'm reading right now, it says it's much easier for people from the upper realms to visit the lower realms than it is for people from the lower realms to visit the higher realms.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Higher realms being those entities you see right now.
Back To Celts: Language And Land
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. The gnomes, the elves, and stuff like that. And yeah, I just thought that was reading that last night. I just thought that was fascinating. Because once you've really experienced that, and you really experience you really realize that there are all these things around us that like they look like fairies, they look like elves, they look like this and that and the other. Once you realize they're there because you've taken the substance, what you realize is that they're actually always there. You can just only see them when you take the specific substance. And then you realize they're always kind of like Cupid. Think about Cupid, right? And that ancient story of Cupid, like they're actually always around, they're always influencing. And anytime you have a sudden feeling or something, now like I wonder, like, oh, is there something here influencing that feeling? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, like, look, every civilization has a story about something, right? Demons, elves, angels, you name it, everywhere on this planet. You can't go to one place where they don't, right? Where does that come from? Is it fear? Maybe? Is it something else? Absolutely, maybe. We just don't know. The brain is still very well, we don't know what's going on half the time because we are our brain, if you think about it, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think the other argument that I grew up thinking, knowing, and believing was that people were just so devoid of meaning and purpose and wondering why they're alive that they created this.
SPEAKER_03Well, right.
Entities, DMT, And The Roots Of Gods
SPEAKER_02That's actually an interesting theory you just said too, because we we actually may call that like the mom and dad belief of we grew up with moms and dads, right? People who gave us purpose, people who took after us to made us feel better when we were sad or something. When they're gone, we try to find somewhere else to put that filling. And so we create gods and goddesses. Or children. Or children. Yeah. And so, you know, where do you learn your morals from? Where do you learn your you know ethics from? Typically a family structure, right? And so when that family's gone, what do you do? Maybe you look upon the stars and say, Oh, this gives me that structure now that I need. You just keep passing that down.
SPEAKER_01Man, I've gone so woo-woo since I moved out here to the mountains.
SPEAKER_03The next thing I was about to say, I was like, Jesus Christ. I've gone so woo-woo since I've gotten out here.
SPEAKER_01Just paying attention to astrology and the stars and the moon, and like thinking it really does affect you and believing it really does. And I I really do feel like the stars have a way of influencing our behavior and our sleep and the moon.
SPEAKER_02I see what kind of girls you date. So, yeah. No, I I get okay. I know I'm an Aries, you know what time I was born, 1 p.m. Yeah, yeah. One of those. Yeah, I got fire. That's the first date question, always, right? What's your rising moon?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I'm a Pisces though, but since I moved out here, it like has become I don't know. Maybe I just the maybe you know, the more you look for something, the more you find it. Sometimes. That's true. Like people, like obsessive scientists, right?
SPEAKER_02If you want to see something, you'll see it eventually. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.
SPEAKER_01I wish it was that easy with manifesting. It's not always that easy. I'd say it's probably quite the opposite, right? Sometimes it works, but with women, it generally doesn't. Like this woman's gonna fall in love with me. And you manifest that you're gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02You get to decide, hey, you're a nice guy, but you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's gonna work out. We shouldn't meet again. Yeah, like fuck, how did that backfire? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02What I've learned to to switch complete topics is when I'm not that interested in a girl, it works out really well for me.
SPEAKER_01And when I'm actually really into her, and she's like, Oh, you're such a nice guy, but that must be why the current situation is going so well, not that interested.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Just stay not interested. So well, yeah, that's the thing, it's just hate everybody equally, you know.
Alcohol, Settlements, And Sacred Rituals
SPEAKER_01Just be uh miserable when you just it starts with a D and you're not that interested, and you're kind of like neutral, neutral, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're a nice person, whatever. You want to hang out? Whatever. I mean, you could come, you could not come, I'm good either way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't like care. Yeah, you're like yeah, you're like Popeyes. So yeah, I don't know. Stars, I have never put too much in the metaphysical stars. Metaphysics, I like because stars change so much. So the the stars we saw when these things were created are very different than they are today. And so to me, you have an ever-changing star system, but you don't have a changing system of judging said stars. And so to me, that's why it's always thrown me off. Because when I'm not sure when this system was developed, the Aries, I think it's probably when what system was built? Aries, I can't see the zodiac constellation. I have zero clue about the zodiac thing with history, but I believe if as as old as people make it seem to be, what you see in the sky today was completely different than what you saw in the sky. Really?
SPEAKER_01You would assume you're certain of it. The stars are changing.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, we see it today.
SPEAKER_01Can you elaborate?
SPEAKER_02Stars die, stars are born. We we get light X amount of time, right? Most of the stars you see in the sky are potentially dead.
SPEAKER_01But so constellations are always changing.
SPEAKER_02Earth's not an old, old thing in the grand scheme of the universe. It's quite new in the grand scheme of things. And so a lot of what we see doesn't exist anymore. Therefore, you know, what our ancestors saw thousands of years ago, the sky is gonna look completely different. And we see that in maps. Obviously, people use scars a long time ago for navigation, for belief, you name it, and they they drew it. We can see it today. And you put up the map to the sky today, you're like, oh, that's a new star. That star doesn't exist anymore.
SPEAKER_00How how would we be getting new stars?
SPEAKER_02Stars are born.
SPEAKER_00How are stars born?
SPEAKER_02Uh big bangs, or not big bangs, uh uh supernovas happened. Uh things are reborn.
SPEAKER_00What's a supernova?
Astrology, Bias, And Seeing Patterns
SPEAKER_02Basically, when when stars explode, the energy has to go somewhere, right? And so I would say stars, I don't astrophysics-wise, I don't know really how stars are born that quickly.
SPEAKER_01Well, slow down. A supernova is when a star explodes. Yeah. Can you elaborate on the science in that?
SPEAKER_02They run out of energy, energy imbalance. So you have stars explode and you have stars implode. When they implode that could be potentially a black hole.
SPEAKER_01Right. If it's a really big star. Yeah, really big star. A massive star.
SPEAKER_02And so my always understanding of it was that something happens where the energy runs out and it just goes critical and it goes boom.
SPEAKER_01There doesn't it rely on fission reactors. That's what I was about to say. It relies on fission, right? Exactly. What is fission?
SPEAKER_02When that energy fission is the combining. No, it's the splitting. No, it's the combining of it. Fusion, fusion, fusion, fission, fusion is the combining. So suns are a fusion.
SPEAKER_01All right, back up. Yeah, go.
SPEAKER_02Suns are fusion. I get mixed up on this all the time.
SPEAKER_01Like, I teach this. Okay. I'm testing you.
SPEAKER_02Suns are fusion. Suns are fusions, and so things combining. That's what humans are trying to get.
SPEAKER_01It's hydrogen atoms fusing to produce helium atoms. Or I might be getting that backwards. Correct.
SPEAKER_02And so together, fission is splitting. The nuclear bomb is fission, right? Yeah. Split atom, boom, a lot of energy goes out. So fusion is combining. Yeah. Two F-4.
SPEAKER_01I think fusion is when two hydrogen atoms fuse together and output helium.
SPEAKER_02That sounds correct, but I don't know enough to know it. Definitely hydrogen's involved.
SPEAKER_01Hydrogen and helium is what makes up stars. Yeah. And there's a big part about I'm pretty sure hydrogen is fused together and helium's the result. I'm gonna check this. I don't even know not Pornhub, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02Fuse two bodies together. Oh yeah.
Do Stars Change And Do Charts Hold Up
SPEAKER_01Fission splits heavy atoms like uranium. Oh, we're talking about power plants. Power current nuclear plants, but creating well fusion fusion combines light atoms like hydrogen into heavier ones, powering the sun. Oh, I think heavier, a heavier atom, I think helium is heavier than hydrogen. Would that make sense? I never put a chemistry.
SPEAKER_02Because does the periodic table have anything to do with heaviness? Because you have hydrogen helium towards the top, I think, right? Or is helium towards H E towards the middle? I don't know the periodic table.
SPEAKER_01Oh, here we go. Two light nuclei, like hydrogen isotopes combined to form a heavier nucleus, helium.
SPEAKER_02Okay, there you go. That makes sense then. Okay.
SPEAKER_01And that's an fusion. Splitting versus combining. We already know that. Okay, so it sounds right, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You teach that, I don't, so that's that's your level of.
SPEAKER_01Day I give my students the list too minus the psychedelic part as homework.
SPEAKER_03So yeah. Well, I mean, hey.
SPEAKER_01But okay, so you so the bottom line was you were saying that stars can be born, and that is usually the result of a supernova. A supernova is when a star runs out of fuel and fuel it would be running out of would be hydrogen or helium.
SPEAKER_02The Big Bang's still going on from what we see, right? Really? Well, if you think about is it? No, but light travels, and so if it's millions and millions and millions of light years away, what we see today is that happening. I mean, you still can see remnants of the Big Bang with some of the new the telescopes we have up there, like the J Webb and everything. But so I would say, yeah, I think how things spread out and keep going. I think that's I think I would say less about stars being born and more about stars dying. So because if you you see stars positions change, things move, things disappear.
Supernovas, Fusion, And Cosmic Time
SPEAKER_01You just keep making me think about the movie. What movie? A Star is Born.
SPEAKER_02A Star is Born. What is that movie? Is that a uh music one, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. With Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. I was so sad. I cried so hard. You never watched it?
SPEAKER_02No, I don't really typically watch those films alone.
SPEAKER_01You don't watch movies at all?
SPEAKER_02No, I love movies. I have to have like for you want to watch it after the podcast? If you want, we can watch it together. You can hold hands, eat some ice cream. All right.
SPEAKER_01Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna go watch a movie.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I can't wait. Let's do it.