The Living Mystery of Esoteric Knowledge, Denis Poisson (Part 1)

Welcome seekers

This week’s episode, we’re joined by Denis Poisson of Foolish Fish.

We explore esoteric knowledge, rare and powerful texts, his journey into the occult and what lies beyond simply reading about it. This is a conversation that moves between study and lived experience.
As someone who has taken many of his classes, I can say they’re truly transformational. His depth of knowledge and the way he guides you through these systems is unlike anything else.
If this work speaks to you, continue the path visit his site, join his community, explore his Patreon, take part in his monthly chats, or book a reading and go deeper.

This is only Part 1 episode 
Part 2 is waiting.

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Transcript

unknown 0:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Um I guess I've been interested in esoteric experiences and the various paths that lead to those esoteric experiences. Um like for forever, since I was since I can remember, uh since I was like two years old, I I I I've been interested in subjective experience of being a human and how impossible it is to convey. And from there I've been interested in, you know, if if there's so much that can't be explained from within, what are the experiences that are available? Right? That people aren't talking about, that people uh are experiencing but aren't just aren't being able to put into words. And so that's kind of what's been uh of great interest to me all my life. Um uh to the point where uh I started realizing that possibly all these world religions that make no sense whatsoever on the surface, and certainly from a an exoteric perspective, make absolutely no sense. Maybe they're pointing to something else, and that's the point in which I started digging a little bit deeper, learning about all kinds of different world religions, and becoming uh a world religion specialist uh when I became a teacher of religious studies uh in the UK back in 2006, I think. Um uh, but uh but it started a lot earlier than that when I when I started having strange experiences as a result of following the uh the the recommendations that are found in various spiritual texts. And and then reaching out to the organized religions that claimed to represent those spiritual texts and going, this uh doesn't fit, this this has got nothing to do with that. I guess in 2000, when was it? 2000 wanna say 19, maybe 18, I'm not exactly sure when my YouTube channel actually started. Um it's gotta be earlier than that. Anyway, doesn't matter. Whenever I started my YouTube channel, um the original point was to just show some pretty books. Like I started off just showing some pretty Bonds and Nobles books because I was bored, right? In fact, I I realized later that I'd done a ritual to um improve my um my my career and my financial situation, and um I I I got a got I got a heart murmur a couple of weeks later, which wasn't fun. Um I got put into hospital and then um yeah, got two months off work during which I got extremely bored and I started a YouTube channel. Um uh turned out it was exactly what I needed, right? Uh would I would I do it again? I'm not I'm not sure. But I'm glad that I went through it. I'm glad I'm on the other side of it, that's for sure. Uh yeah, so I started this YouTube channel presenting pretty books, um, just to give people because I I live in Poland, and in Poland there aren't there isn't very much access to English language books, and so I've had to buy all my books online, and I was looking at some really kind of attractive books, but kind of expensive books, and I wasn't able to find anywhere any details of quality of what I was spending all this money on, so I thought, okay, I'll make some YouTube videos, it'll be of use to some people possibly, and some people started watching. And then I ran out of pretty books and I started digging into my more specialized books, right? Uh and people liked it, people liked it, and um, and I was finally able to actually talk about the stuff that was really important to me, which was, as I was saying, the the esoteric experience. There we go. That's that's the overview.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

Do you mean by that more mysticism in some kind of way that you're just like in the experience, far away from rational thought, just like the experience on its own, or what do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

That is absolutely part of it, yes. Uh, and I suppose that's the that's step one, isn't it? It's uh the uh the the the numinous experience, the experience of an intangible presence. It comes comes in in in so many different forms, doesn't it? Um I certainly had a a very strong sense of of presence the first time that I reached out to the entity that has my best interest at heart. That that was uh the entry I think the the wording was the entry the entity that is at the origin of love and that has my best interest at heart. Not wanting to put a name on it, right, so that uh uh preconceived societal ideas wouldn't come into it, but actually that I'd be reaching out to the thing that I was specifically calling out to, and I I and I and was very surprised to get a response, right? To get an emotional response. And this is it, you know, a lot of people say, Well, what did you hear voices? Like, do you see someone? Like, what is it? What's it like? And this is what I'm saying like it's very difficult to put words to it, but I think that the best way that I can describe it is that the emotions that I was experiencing were inconsistent with what I would expect my emotions to have been, and I was then able to interpret what response would have elicited that emotion, right? And and so so for me that's the way it worked, and for other people it works in different ways. I get clients talking to me about their own experiences and the way they experience it, and some do get clear audience, and some do get clear uh what's the vision version of the clear audience? Uh clear clairvoyance, of course, right? Uh, but um uh but um uh but yes, it's it's it's not for everyone, and some people get very frustrated. Why can't I see spirits? I call angels, I call demons in some cases, uh, you know, why why can't I see them? And and I tell them, you know, some of the the the greatest um magic practitioners of all time, John D, were completely incapable of squiring. They had to have a separate squire um uh to uh to to actually receive the message. They would do the conjuring, and then their their squire, their interpreter, as it were, would actually receive the message. Uh yeah, so that yeah, hopefully that answers to it.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it sounds logically, you know, like as a therapist, you know, you go through certain methods, and then you also uh know that certain uh a lot of people work via different uh primer senses, so to say. Some are very much visual or auditive, or other people are very tactile, you know, and it's like as you have this preconceived thought about how things should go, you like eliminating the experience, so and also maybe like naming it is like eliminating it often.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Uh 100%. Absolutely. Um I think you're completely right. The the preconception about what should happen really gets in the way so much. So many people go, yeah, you know, I I've had this wonderful experience. They'll go into great detail into the experience that they've had, and they're like, but I'm not sure. Is that was that my holy guardian angel? You know, that and it's like you know, you these are labels, but but what's important is the experience. We're talking, it's it's that beautiful thing about um uh the the finger that points at the moon, and you know, people looking at the finger rather than looking at the moon, right? So uh so of course language is that finger, and and it's important not to get hooked onto the language um or onto the model that represents the experience, of course, it's the experience that matters.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

So you are like a do-it-yourself guy, or yeah, like we have like if we talk, you are not with an organization or something like that. So, how do you go about?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good question. It's not easy. Yeah, you know, I I I started off looking into organizations that could help me understand all this stuff, and then I realized that um wherever there's okay, this is my own take. Okay, I I see the value of organizations. Some people really need organization, they just need it, you know. Some people, like for example, some people do really well at school. Yeah, they do well in a in a uh in a situation where they are told what to learn and they learn it and they they thrive that way. That's fantastic. I have ADHD. If you tell me to learn something, I'll be like, well, at some point, maybe my brain will agree with you that that's the thing that I have to learn. But until it does, I'm afraid I I have to just do the thing that my brain is telling me to do. So uh, so so I can't follow a curriculum. I've never been able to follow a curriculum. In fact, I started learning the minute I finished formal education. That was literally the moment I was like, finally I can learn something, you know. Um so so so no, I I don't do well with um with with structured learning.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Um even if I'm even if I've decided myself what that structure should be, right? Um and so um so I I realized very early on that the only thing that I'd really be able to rely on was the spirits themselves. Um and and and asking them to make sure that I was being given experiences that would help me to learn, uh, given experiences that would um uh keep me on the path that I'm supposed to be on, um uh and and so on so forth. And and little by little I learned new techniques. Right by learning about by learning about organizations and the techniques that organizations use, uh, I was able to use some of those techniques myself, not to come to the same conclusions necessarily um uh as those organizations, but to get in touch with the spirits that that I that it's all about, right? Um uh it's it's not about following the curriculum, it's about getting the experience that the curriculum is supposed to give you. And so if the curriculum is a good idea.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

But at the end it's like metaphysics, and I I find, you know, uh and there are certain uh fixed elements like you need somehow like a ritual, like uh a metaphor, like a myth. Yeah, uh, and then you have to uh put it all together so you are like in the experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Exactly, exactly. A book that uh really had a profound impact on me was um uh and I don't know if there's gonna be a visual aspect to this, but uh there's uh Aldous Huxley's perennial philosophy.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Um like uh perennialist philosophy.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Right, right, right. No, well, I I made a YouTube video about this uh a couple of years ago, about how unfortunately perennialism um has has has really got two two sides, uh as has any kind of as soon as something gets a label, it gets appropriated by the wrong people, doesn't it? Uh and uh and of course just to to explain what perennialism is for maybe some listeners who don't know uh the the the the idea is that um there is this this core experience and and that uh uh all of the various world religions are somehow pointing to that core experience. Right. Um of course this was um uh this idea was usurped by um uh people like uh Ficcino and um uh and and and others who essentially came to the conclusion that yes, there is only one religion, it's all Christianity, and ultimately, if you look at any other religion, it's Christianity reduced, you know. Such a uh block-headed way of uh of thinking about it. No, uh Christianity is one of the many possible religions that are all pointing to this core um experience, to this core set of um techniques, uh, this core set of uh uh philosophies, and so on and so forth. Um and and so yeah, Aldous Huxley in the perennial philosophy gives many examples from many different esoteric forms of world religions that all point to the same core principles, and it's quite beautiful. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:57

Yeah, there is a difference indeed with like if you look at the esoteric parts of all those uh famous religions, then you can say, okay, there is uh a lot of that stuff is like the same, but esoteric, that's totally not true. But that's not the it's not you know, it's it's like a philosophy, so it's like a spectrum, you know, yes and that movie to say every every world religion is like the same, you know, it's the important yes, yeah, yeah, yes, clearly not.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Uh and it's it uh this why I say you know, very specifically, it's the esoteric versions of these religions. So we're talking about Gnosticism, we're talking about Sufism, we're talking about Saivasakta Tantra, uh, we're talking about uh um uh tantric Buddhism, so Vajrayana, right? Tibetan Buddhism, uh, and and um and so and so on. And um and so um so so that was the very early days for me. It was just working, like reading all the main texts uh for myself, right? All the all the the yeah, the core spiritual texts uh from which all these religions have grown, and trying to understand the mindset of the people who are writing these texts rather than getting my interpretation from some specialist who's got their interpretation from someone else and who's probably got their interpretation from some government at some point. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

Oh, that's great. You know, you already have a new fan. So and I'm sorry I did not knew about that. Uh so yeah, so Morgan she she uh really pointed you out as someone very interesting, especially for me, uh, with the subjects that uh that's so nice, Morgan. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yes, I've loved loved your work. I took a couple of your classes and you've always been fascinating. I've read a bunch of your books, like yeah, because you're like me, I love to research everything. Like once I get a book, I want to read 10 books surrounding it to see exactly where their thinking comes from. So I remember in middle school when I dove into the tutor era, I think I read 150 books about the subject just to get the clearer picture.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Wow, yeah, right. So it's ADHD as well, Morgan. I don't know. Yeah, yes, yeah, no, yeah. Very much so, yeah. Yeah, like when I get uh uh like a hyper fixation, and there aren't many hyperfixations that have lasted for me, but this has been one that has just uh stayed my whole life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:32

And what are you looking for in the end? Do you know that? Or is it just that you are taken away or wrote uh what is that? What was it?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Sagan Bion, I didn't I didn't hear the beginning of your question.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

What what are you searching for? What moves you in this? That can can you understand that?

SPEAKER_00 15:48

That is Oh, I don't think I'm searching for anything anymore. I think I'm just I just want more of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, deeper layer, right? Deeper layers, like yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Just uh you know, uh I I guess it's when when like when you find the perfect partner, right? It's not like you you're you're searching for more. No, no, you you found, but you just you just want more, more time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With this thing that you know is good for you. That's that's that's all it is, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Um, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Uh and and uh I I also like to be able to help other people because I I think my perspective on it is maybe uh less dogmatic than many people's and therefore more helpful to more people. I think that every individual has their own path to this stuff. I think that every individual has got uh techniques that will work for them and other techniques that won't work for them. And knowing more techniques, even techniques that don't work for me, uh gives me more ammunition to help other people have this kind of experience. Um uh yeah, I understand that. I understand it.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

So you're somehow like the moderator uh in between. And and and how how how does that work? Do you are you like giving counsels or do you have like uh people in your cabinet and you're like having philosophical talks or what what something something something like a digital version of that maybe?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

How cool would that be? Oh my goodness. Uh yeah, unfortunately, um I I don't speak very good Polish, and living in Poland that was would probably be what I would require. But um uh no, I've got um so my my YouTube channel's comments, I guess, is uh the first point of contact, and then people become um uh members or Patreon supporters, and that gives them access to a Discord um uh server that I run. And so for those of listeners who don't know what Discord is, um it's uh it's something between a a Facebook group and um I don't know, like uh like WhatsApp, something along those lines. Yeah, basically uh it's uh it's run as individual um uh groups, and within the group you can have channels, and I've got that three more than 300 different channels on 300 different topics, uh all different um magical topics, you know. So we've got categories of topics as well. So we've got Western tradition, eastern tradition, uh you know, planetary magic, and so etc. etc. So it's really, really, uh, really quite cool. And yeah, quite a few people on there. Um, and then uh I've recently started doing classes, and oh my goodness, like you know, I was a teacher for over 10, 12, 12, 12 years, I guess, and that was the highlight of my life. I enjoyed teaching so much, but I it it doesn't repay the rent, unfortunately. So I I had to become a programmer after that. I taught myself programming, I taught myself various programming languages and became a programmer and then got into management, and then this YouTube thing um uh started, uh took off, and um, and now I'm being able to get back into teaching in a way that I actually enjoy and uh is beautiful. And it um uh yeah, so I've been running uh a live workshop via Zoom, right? Um uh every every month. It's uh uh there's there'll be a new topic, and I'll do two or three classes on that topic every month, and it's uh it's a lot of fun, and people are enjoying it, and more and more people are joining, and uh and it's it's just lovely. It generates conversation and it's uh it's good. I think the community enjoying it.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, no. I like your class style because like I said, I took the astrology one where you made the um a living talisman. But I like how you have that same vibe around the kitchen table thing. Everyone's talking, everyone's contributing, and and the other reason too is like because the big thing with us with the divination, everything is symbolry, because you use so many symbols to embed the things, to anchor things, if you wanted to explain that more. Because I like how you use that with putting the symbols into everything you're teaching.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Well, I think the symbols is what we have to work with, isn't it? I mean, that's the that's that's the language of esotericists, because um, you know, what what else do we have? I mean, you know, language was developed to talk about your cow being sick and you know practical as a bear kind of thing, yeah. Um so so it wasn't really we we I mean we we we have developed language to talk about the inner experience, but unless the other person has had that inner experience, you've got nothing to attach that language to, they've got nothing to to relate it to. They they they so so so of course we do have to to speak in metaphors. Um but once you get a group of people who have had those experiences, then it's quite nice because symbols become a shorthand, don't they? They become uh they become a a a way with which you can actually um uh share what's going on inside for you. And uh what what I particularly like, I particularly like about symbols is that um they are a lesson in themselves, as in if you can understand why this symbol represents this thing, you can understand this thing, right? You can um uh you can you can think about why this symbol, um, you know, what what this symbol would do, what the implications of this symbol would be. Um, you know, um for example, thinking of the Orphic egg, right, with the uh with the serpent wrapped around it, and uh and and how that is a symbol for the the universe or the s the the the the the beginning of the universe and um and and it's like a a a self-unfolding mystery uh So you you you you see the the symbol, you're like, what on earth is that? And you kind of engage with it, and because it's exciting, because it's kind of weird, and then uh and then you think about the implications of the symbol itself, and uh, and about uh uh about what the serpent means in various traditions, and what the egg represents in various traditions, and and you can see it all coming together, and it's uh it's it's uh I I I like the idea of a of mystery, um uh precisely because it it is that self-disclosing, that self-revealing, slowly revealing itself, teaching right that that happens within you rather than someone telling you this is what it's like.

SPEAKER_04 22:45

Take notes, yeah, yeah. That resonates, and in in the end, it's it's always like an individual experience. So, and maybe that's what what symbolism is, because it explains where words cannot go somehow, you know. And no, there is something with words, even I always give this example talking about this something uh trivial as to like the weather. As I say, okay, tomorrow it will be good weather. For me, good weather is like 22 degrees, for my wife, it's like 30 degrees uh on a beach, which is for me a sheer horror, you know, but for someone with like uh how do you call it like uh hay fever or something, it's like maybe like 18 degrees with a little bit of rain, you know, and just about the stupid weather, and then we somehow are so arrogant as people to think that we explain things like uh emotions or experiences that the other one understands what we say. But that's not it's that's not the case. They can never never have exactly the same experience, they can just take reference from their own experience, and then they can be empathic, but they understand you via their experience.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Well, yes, this this really um touches on another subject which which is very close to my heart, which is that I I really do believe that the the best traditions for unlocking our own experience tend to be our local traditions, but sometimes those get spoilt to the extent that they're just unavailable. Yeah. So let me just go a little bit further into what I mean here. I think that a lot of people uh turning to Eastern mysticism um uh before taking the time to explore um uh Western mysticism, if if they're born in the so-called West, right? Let's let's say the European-influenced West. Um uh I I think that people who you know who say, well, I hate the church, therefore, let me look into Buddhism. I think that um that there uh there is uh definitely value in that, of course. Um, but I think that the the keys that let's say let's say Tibetan Buddhism, the keys that Tibetan Buddhism offers to unlock our minds are very specifically designed for people who have been brought up in an environment where those very specific locks have been formed, right? And if you if you think about you, and you can say to yourself, I haven't been influenced by Christianity. I'm sorry, if you live in the European influenced West, of course you have, of course you have. Um uh all of our literature is infused with it, the stories that you've grown up with, the the fairy tales, the uh uh and and not necessarily just Christianity, right? Just specifically the European archetypes, and it generates a very specific mind, you know, with very specific assumptions about uh, you know, you think about uh there was a nice example that was brought up about why uh you won't find teddy bears in Iran. I and this may be completely wrong, right? But it's simply because bears are a really dangerous animal. Why would you have a toy looking like like for babies? Looking like a really dangerous, aggressive animal, uh you know, and uh we we just don't have so many bears in uh in in in I mean we do have bears in Europe, of course, but uh but it's not it's not a present danger kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Yeah, yeah, I'm totally totally agree with you, you know. And it's something logically, if you're like living by the seaside and you are organically born there, you know, yeah, it looks like the goddess of the sea and all that, but if you uh uh live somewhere in the middle of uh of the country, yeah, there is no sea, so you have like other stuff uh with uh, you know, and I don't say that you cannot go um beyond your culture, but I think it would be good maybe uh to first see what's in your culture to understand that and then to know okay, what can I take uh from elsewhere to make it better or to be able to do it? 100%, yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Oh yeah, yes, yes, yeah. I think the oh sorry, I think the problem with that too, um what I see is that people see what they're getting, this happy life, their content life, but that's for them. So they're trying to chase just that feeling of what the other religions show instead of seeing what, like you said, learning about what you have then expanding, because it's not gonna bring you the same thing as them. Oh good, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

No, no, completely, Morgan, and uh and and I I I really agree with that, you know. Um there's this um uh exoticism, isn't there? Yes, it's not it's not the thing that I know has oppressed my society, and therefore it would be perfect.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yes, yes, um exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

And of course of course, you know, I I when I I was really surprised when I started looking into Tibetan Buddhism to find out it's basically Catholicism.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

And it's also very marked yeah yes, yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 28:03

People think that the religion of peace and all that, but there is no religion of peace because it's like pragmatic and you have to stand your ground, otherwise your uh culture is uh gone. That's right, that's all slightly.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yes, the underlying, yeah, underlying things people don't know.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

It should be, otherwise it it it it's like a defense mechanism, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

I I I think that the most important lesson for me uh in all of this has been to recognize whenever a government has been involved in shaping um the the way a message has been received. Yeah, and naturally the Roman Empire recognized not very early on, but early enough, right? I guess 5th century, um yeah, fourth century, they they started realizing hold on, instead of killing all these Christians, why don't we just decide what Christianity is? And you know, and then we can kill the heretics. Um make sure that we we keep a nice firm hold on on what Christianity is supposed to mean. Um so I think that's what's important is recognizing when teaching is designed to help to free you and when a teaching is designed to keep you in your place.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

Um yeah, you know, that's also to do a lot with identity. I think you know, like uh Western culture, you know, after uh the industry industrial revolution, you know, they uh you know state benefited from people not uh being too religious and all that. So but I always say like people are inherent devotional, so now they don't uh uh devote a certain god or whatever, but they devote the Kardashians, devote their lip fellows, and they devote uh uh a football club or whatever, you know. But people have like devotional tendencies. It's like they gave them something else to do that, but it's not enlightening it, it's not messing you up.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

And you can see that it's religious fervor, you can see that it is that level because that's what people do, it's what people need. So it's yeah, it is about directing that in a in um in a constructive direction.

SPEAKER_04 30:26

Yeah, especially me. I always laugh with that, with that, with that fanatic atheism and all that, and and you know, uh saying, okay, if you believe in something, I like stupid, and then they go home, they turn on the news and talk to their dog. If you're that quick, you have to go all the way in that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Oh, yeah, yes. I think they, yeah, especially here in America that do that where because you're taught to, like since Puritan time, to worship something so that when they leave and try and find something else, they're just trying to find that aspect of devotion, who to worship instead of just the broad aspect of it. So that's where a lot of people get stuck in just having to find that replacement for what they've been taught their whole life, which is what you were touching on on you know, learning why you're doing a certain thing before going into the next religion, the next thing that other people have.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

That's a big problem. Yes. Another aspect of this that I'm thinking of that's coming up for me right now is um uh I I spent some time when? In 2000, let me see, it must have been 2001. I'm gonna say 2001, uh, in a um in a Pentecostal church. I'd I basically um having very recently read the Bible, I had decided that I wanted to be baptized as an adult. Um uh I'd been christened as a as a child, as a baby, right? It wasn't something that I'd remembered, let alone chosen for myself, and it was something that I uh, you know, okay, I want to I I really do want to um uh put the recommendations into practice because I've you know I can't I can't say this is nonsense if I haven't actually gone ahead and put the recommendations into practice and experienced it for myself. So I decided that I wanted to be baptized, and I was very surprised, by the way, at how many churches I'd gone into and said, Listen, will you baptize me? And their response being, you were baptized as baptized as a child, you know, that we we we we don't do this kind of nonsense. So that was the first response. Secondly, going to literally a Baptist church that literally had a swimming pool right there, right? The the pre-the pastor or whatever could have literally just dumped me right there and then. But he was like, no, no, no, you need to go to this alpha course, like this indoctrination course, right? Uh for and uh for at least four months, and then we'll assess whether we want to baptize you or not. What?

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Wow, yeah. What?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

Um so the the only church that that would agree to baptize me, um, uh not there and then because they didn't have a swimming pool, but they literally said to me this weekend we're going to be doing mass baptisms, was a Pentecostal church. And um, and so I I I I attended the church a little bit, you know, as a courtesy. And discovered many very interesting shamanic techniques, by the way. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's initiation, baptism is initiation. Yeah, it is, of course it is. Um uh, but yes, I mean the whole speaking in tongues thing, of course, what it what you're doing is that you're expelling a lot of um of um uh of of oxygen, right? Uh you're you're you're flooding your brain with carbon dioxide, uh, which puts you in a very receptive spiritual position, right? Uh like your your your um your your um your your biological functions, your your your hypercampus uh uh is basically put to sleep, and and so you're you're open to more spiritual experiences. Um uh it's like a lot of singing, right? Singing and singing and singing and singing and singing and singing. Yeah, I mean that that all yeah, it's it's it's all very very shamanic stuff. Anyway, yeah, break to a completely, exactly. Um, and um where was I going with this? Um uh yes, what I realized was that a lot of um a lot of the congregation, including the pastor, by the way, were coming to the conclusion that if there wasn't this feeling of fervor, of um uh kind of really uh very strong emotion. There we go. If there wasn't very strong emotion, then God was absent, right? God is only present when like things are crazy and wild. And oh that really, that really bothered me. That really bothered me so much, and um, and and I, you know, I realized, oh yeah, okay, well, there really is no perfect organized form of this. Uh, I really do have to find my own way. I've been doing, and I'm very happy with the way that I've found for me. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

So you you did not take the easiest road to find it out uh by yourself, but maybe that's like your road uh to go to.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Sure, sure. Um, yeah, I I I strongly encourage everyone to find their own way. The technique to do that that I recommend is to look at other people's ways and see what they're doing, see if there's anything that you like from that way, try that way for a little while, but then recognize that it is their way, it's not your way, and uh and and ultimately important to come back to so would you call yourself more of like uh since you like uh local traditions and all that, more like uh on the on the basics, like uh a pagan?

SPEAKER_04 36:17

Or how do you go about or maybe you don't want to call yourself a thing, which I would also understand, but uh I'm interested.

SPEAKER_03 36:26

I'm interested.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Um uh I I read this book by these couple of books actually by Robert Anton Wilson, um uh Prometheus Rising and uh Quantum Psychology. Uh Morgan, are you recognizing these?

SPEAKER_02 36:43

The Prometheus Rising, yes, but I the quantum psychology, you did um, yeah, when you recommended that. I have I that's one I want to read though, but go ahead. But I read the other.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Do you know Robert Hampton Wilson? Do you know Robert Hampton Wilson? The author. The author. Yeah, who is uh uh uh a pretty uh contentious uh uh uh what's what's the word that I'm looking for? Um uh he's a bit of a of a rascal, right? Um uh he he he passed away in 2000, maybe 1999, something like that. Maybe maybe a little later, it doesn't matter. Uh around that time. Um uh and uh uh he wrote the Illuminati trilogy. Um he I I guess he's one of the reasons why the Illuminati is such a like a commonly known thing, you know. I mean, sure, Dan Brown really really pushed it further, but he was the first one to to kind of make this concept available. Anyway, so he wrote these two books, and in these books he really talks about the trap of language and the trap of labels. And I fully subscribe to this, you know, the moment you call yourself uh uh this, that, or the other, then you suddenly are bound by the um by the rules of that label, right? Um and uh and so I think I'm quite happy calling myself a heretic.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

I like that. Yes, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Um ultimately heresy is is what is um heresy is just not the Orthodox way. Uh Orthodox, of course, has come to mean um uh you know the the Orthodox Church. That's not what I'm talking about. The uh not the uh the official way. There we go. Not the official way, not the sanctioned way, not the not the prop so-called proper way. Um the the the way that has um been canonized and that has all the rules written and that uh that that that is accepted as the proper way. No, no, I I believe that that is exactly the way in which you um stay away from your your proper your your your proper experience.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

Yeah, yeah, I understand. I like that. I could try. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

No, but I like that. Yeah, because also when you put yourself out, there is something too. People have that preconceived notion of what it is, what that word means, and then they associate it with maybe the things they don't like about that word or the good things. So I like when people do witchcraft, you know, like the thing we always say is that people are like firmly in the broom closet, you know, they don't want to come out as saying they're witches because of what other people think, they're still in the broom closet. So, but I don't feel like it's in the broom closet because they're hiding, it's trying to figure out how they want to portray themselves as what they believe.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

That's right. That's I mean, you don't take on a title or a label um that you uh that that you haven't worked out uh like a a valuable form of that for yourself, right? Um and yeah, you know, this is one of the reasons why I say that there's very little in the world that has been more um negative and and um uh destructive to uh Christianity, for example, than Christianity itself. Yeah, I mean in my view, organized religion is directly what the Bible talks about when it talks about the Antichrist, right? That's literally what the Bible is talking about, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

Um very interesting history, uh how they came up with the idea of evil, you know, and they also took a lot of heathen gods and they took over their customs to make that image, you know. And and it's very interesting how that all goes about, you know. But you can also argue that you know Christianity never really sank in Europe, it always stayed like pagan on and the basic, you know, and like Roman Catholicism is actually like paganism, you know. And the Protestants who say, Okay, those Roman Catholics are like pagans, they are like even worse, they're like uh Zoroastrians with like thousands of saints and all that.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

That's right, that's right. I regularly talk about saints actually in my in my classes, you know. I mean, I talk about I I'll give people access to angels, to demons, to fair fair folk, you know, um uh but but also to to saints, and people are like, I'm I'm not sure I'm comfortable praying to a saint, and I'm like, Well, it's it's literally one of the helpful dead, you know. I mean, it's is necromancy. That's literally what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:08

And if you really dive into old accounts, there were like people who were like we even even like priests and all that, but for certain occasions they really uh devoted like pagan gods. You know, we have also like a big crossover field, you know, and uh history is always uh written by uh by the one who who was uh Victor back at that, you know, but it's pretty much colored as well. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yeah. I don't remember where I was reading recently that um uh middle-aged uh um medieval uh priests were were performing necromancy and and uh and and magic rites. And it wasn't just one or two that were you know that that had basically said, okay, well, but we're we're priests and so what we're doing is fine. No, it was literally they would they weren't supposed to be doing it. But but they all were, right? They all were. I think that it's it's an it's a natural state for humans. I think we we all understand that ultimately there's a there's a helpful ways and unhelpful ways of wielding power. Um but I think that once you understand that it is power, uh I think that it is kind of a natural inclination, a natural state for human beings to reach out to that power and to interact with that power. We are ultimately powerful beings.

SPEAKER_04 43:34

Um I always look at how things go organically, and wherever you are on this globe, you know, um, even if they're like people who are not connected to to the living world, I don't know if that uh does understand still. So I think people who are like in tribes, they step after their work day in their Mercedes bands and drive home. But uh how it went in like history, if you're like in Australia or like uh in China or whatever, people. I always imagine, okay, they are here, they have this eerie feeling, and then they start to find out what are we doing here. And then organically they have like a myth, a cosmology, a cosmology, how did the earth came about? And they have like the cosmic egg or whatever, like the cosmic uh man, you know, uh slain, and then the world is made with that, you know. And after that, they have like uh they need to find out a cosmology, how does uh this all works, you know, and from there on they need rituals and symbols, and then you have like a culture. Yes, yeah, it's always like a same. So it it would be rather unnatural to not make use of that.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yes, it would, yes, it would. Yeah, it would be like yeah, having you know, having access to fire or running water and going, no, no, not for me. Come on, what of course you want to harness that, of course you do, and of course, you know, people have always harnessed it in positive and nefarious ways, um, you know, ways that have been useful to themselves and to the world around them, and in ways that have been profoundly the other thing.

SPEAKER_04 45:10

Yeah, yeah. You know, and and in the end that it's never about uh a religion or a spiritual system, it's always about the humans who do worse than that, you know. I believe more in whatever religion than in the best. You would have to live that religion.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

In the end, in the end, yeah, definitely. Yeah, it goes back to making it your own way and not following how somebody else is doing it.

unknown 45:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

It's like full circle.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

But evolution do you see in that? Because I don't know if you experience this, but there is a lot going on, people like searching for ways and all that, even though people say okay, we live in like modern atheist or uh uh secular society. You know, I see a lot of people uh seeking things and spiritual stuff, you know, but to be honest, I all often it's very weak, it's like very eclectic and all that. So, but but how how do you think that it will go about? Because it's always also in accordance with with what happens in the world. It's like the the I don't know if you know about uh Hegel's idea of uh the zeitgeist, for instance. Right. Yeah, so what what will this era bring about in spiritual ways? What what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Like that change. There are two um uh two two directions that I can see, and the first is that um because all of these ideas are on the fringes of what is normal still, although that is really about to tip, I think. Even here in very conservative Poland, more and more of the people that I'm speaking to are hearing that, for example, I read the tarot, right? And I'll tell them this, and uh and I'll say, Oh, I've got a tarot in my bag. Do you want me to read tarot for you? And uh, five years ago that would not have been the case. Uh and and this isn't just uh what one or two experiences, it's regular, right? This is something that I guess what I'm saying for for this first trend is that I'm a little bit concerned that because it is still on the fringes of society, um, a lot of people who are realizing hold on, there is actually value in some of this stuff. They don't always have the um discernment to work out what else doesn't have value, right? So I'll hear a lot of people saying, yes, oh my goodness, tarot is amazing. And I've heard from the same person that uh you you have to be you have to be discerning, you have to work out what is useful information and what is information that's designed to take you down a political rabbit hole to a very specific, unfortunately, pretty nasty final outcome, right? Uh and and you know, because these are they're attractive ideas, they they make you feel very clever, they may and and and you know, and you want to buy in more, and and next thing you're learning about the the the the Zion protocols and you know, etc. And it's like, oh my god, you know, where where is this in fact leading? Uh and and it invariably leads to the same places. So there is there is that that kind of um esoteric pipeline, unfortunately, which which uh which is very targeted and and completely uh completely free in the spaces where uh uh esotericism is uh is talked about, unfortunately. So that's that's that's one one trouble that I can see. On the other side, I think that there is we have the potential for a new renaissance. I really do. I really, really do. I think that we're coming to a point now where yeah, really the the world is divided uh between those who want to really come back to those you know 1950s values, which aren't traditional, by the way. Um uh, but uh, but you know, they see them as traditional or whatever. And um and then the the other portion of the world going, no, we really need to evolve, we really need to need to to to transcend any of this and uh and to move on. Um and uh yeah, and I guess those two worlds are coming to a to a clashing point at this point. So it really is going to be uh a question of um of uh which one prevails on the short term, but on the long term, I I think we are looking at a uh at a new renaissance because you you can't you can't contain this stuff. It's uh it's it's power, it's it's which is of course why it needs to be quashed and and and removed, right?

SPEAKER_04 49:39

Um yeah, and that's also why they want to to do political recuperations in that regard, you know, and not only on uh on the right wing, as also on the left wing, you know. But also on the left, absolutely two wings of the same bird, you know, uh on on the extremity. Actually, that is an evolution that people are waking up to that.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

They don't want to call want to be called like a leftist over or right wing, you know, just like human and we're like straightforward, you know. There's always what I say, I'm not left, I'm not right, I'm straightforward, you know. I want to be a human being, you know, but also make good boundaries and all that, but yeah, and I think like really uh traditional IDs are suitable for that. Traditional ideas are like, yeah, so like like like real traditions uh and all that. It it does give you a good structure, but there is also the danger that it gets yeah, extremist by some, you know.

unknown 50:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

That's right. I mean it's the extremism we want to uh we we need to avoid, isn't it? That of course, of course. Yeah, yeah, and it's always the extremists that take these ideas and and make them theirs, you know.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

And we should guard uh spiritual traditions or spiritual ideas or even like religions, I think, as a place for uh for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Uh as I say, you know, I think that if everyone follows their own path, then we we're we're much less likely to fall into this, okay. I'm a Christian, therefore I must love guns.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Yes, yeah, I think so too, and how you go to the path.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

Completely separate ideas and and and and should should should shouldn't be related. I'm sorry, Morg Morgan, what were you saying?

SPEAKER_02 51:18

Oh no, that's no, I was sorry, I couldn't hear me, but no, that's no, I was just agreeing with you, even like in in the Christian thing, like if you decide though that's you like the ideas, not calling yourself that but finding your own way in it, because every single thing's different and not having to stay with the strictest of beliefs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:44

But it you know, but Christianity as regards as uh esoteric uh tradition is is very, very interesting, I find, you know. Uh as a Freemason, I really came to love it, even though I would not call myself like a Christian, you know. And because I call myself like a pagan, but I like uh in the European culture, I like to uh know the big denominator between between the Romans, Germans, like the Celts, you know, that's something and like uh in India, that's something that I find interesting. But on top of that, you know, if you know like everything to do with like syncretism and all that, I I yeah, I I I I find myself to to embrace it. And even though I saw on your um on your Facebook page, I saw that you dived in uh in certain themes, especially like the Martinist order, you know, and everything that uh somehow came to be like in France, you know, and if you're like in the perfection grades of like Freemasonry, that's very much France oriented, you know, even though they say it's like the Scottish white, but the Scottish white is coming from France, you know. But if you really study this in that, and I am also like a tarot researcher and all that, but then you also understand how they come with those images and all that, so it really deepens your understanding of of like uh of history, but it's it's it's really amazing how yeah, how how they played with it in a very playful manner, so that's not really um yeah um complex structural thought, but it's like very playful, and yeah, I really like it. I like Christian mysticism, I also like the Christian Kabbalah uh in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

So this is um I'm showing you Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages, which I I guess Manley P. Hall wasn't a Freemason, um, but he had access somehow to a lot of the uh to a lot of the information.

SPEAKER_04 53:46

And of course the the book is is filled with Masonic uh imagery and uh but but also uh um symbolism from um from from many different traditions, but uh uh it it does seem like Masonic uh uh imagery and and symbolism is uh the core of you know but but there is no Masonic Bible in that regard, you know it's like they're all aimed at the uh like the colleague of France, the ossier maîtrises or the the old um teachings of like uh the builders of back in the day, but that's not like that there is a handbook, okay, this symbol means that. You know, people think that, but that's not the case, you know, and that's what it's up to you to somehow uh yeah uh get your head around that, right? And then you would have like the very uh experienced Freemasons who can have totally different takes on stuff.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

That's true in any uh any religion, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

But all those old texts like medieval and all that, you know, and then and Renaissance and after that, and especially uh from uh uh the 18th century, like the the upcoming of the esoteric era and all that's that's very interesting. And then you also see that people somehow got very eclectic and threw it all together, you know, and and made some brilliant new stuff about that, you know, uh like uh theosophical society. I somehow find that interesting.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Just just to come back briefly on on what you were saying, uh about uh the symbols and there not being a Bible of what each symbol means. I think that's where the value is, right? Uh the the moment you start saying this is the meaning of this symbol, that's the moment that you prevent any further exploration of that symbol. Uh or or it's the moment you you stop people from having their own experience of uh of the of the discovery of this symbol and and of what this symbol is pointing to, and so on.

SPEAKER_04 55:41

Totally agree. Although I think there are also two sides on the card because it needs very much study, very much engagement to really find it out yourself. So maybe it's if you look at a at a classical teaching, you know, that you have like a mentor and he tells you, okay, this is the way I see it. Please get that in your head, and from there on make your own stuff. You know, I'm I'm also a rebel, uh, don't get me wrong. So I think someone say, Okay, you have to do it that way, you know. I got like I can tell. But often looking back, I think maybe be better or more efficient in regards of time to first listen, to learn that, but maybe that's not a path to go that you find it out yourself. But I think for many people it's like a struggle to get a coherent story in that, and then the interest dwindles. So, yeah, I I don't know really, I cannot be sure on this is the way to go.

SPEAKER_02 56:38

I think read and research, like you said, the original things, because how many times is it just from somebody's personal view versus what it truly is? Because that's I grew up very, very, very, very religious, and it took me a long time to figure out what actually was my dad's way of doing it and what actually was. And it was very shocking to see the differences. Very like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Right. Oh god, completely, completely. Yeah, uh and this is what I was saying at uh at the beginning of uh of our conversation uh about how sometimes the local tradition has just been completely spoiled, right? For some people. There's so much um emotional involvement, there's so much um, you know, uh you'll you'll see a symbol and and like it's it's been drilled into you so hard that it means this thing and nothing else, uh, that it becomes very, very hard for it to have an effect on you. Uh I guess I was very lucky to have been brought up in a broadly um secular home, certainly not atheistic. Uh we we we went to church on Easter and sometimes on Christmas Eve. Uh and both my my parents would certainly describe themselves as Christian, but um that's about as far as it went, right? Um cultural Christianity, so that's right, cultural Christianity. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I was very, very lucky uh at not having had that spoiled for me um by by by early so-called teaching. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

Oh, sorry, go ahead, Mom.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

No, go ahead. No, yeah, I should just say.

SPEAKER_04 58:21

We made an agreement on that.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

It was one of the reasons uh why I decided to become a teacher of religious studies. Uh I I I thought that it uh uh since this is happening in British schools anyway, let me get into uh a Catholic school and and and give these kids some different perspectives, uh which which uh which I was very lucky to be allowed to do. Very, very, very cool.

SPEAKER_04 58:50

That's good. We need people like you uh before class, you know, because you can really give them value and not read something out of a handbook, you know. That that never catches on. It's like a constraint. You have to listen to someone mumbling about something which is not tangible, you know, and you have to really have to have a talent to explain it differently, you know. It's not it does not have to be real to be true in the end, I always say.

SPEAKER_00 59:16

Yes, yes, yes. That's a beautiful saying, completely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:23

So you taught in an actual Catholic school then, or I did, I did, I did.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

I had a fantastic head of department who recruited me precisely as a world religions specialist. Uh he wanted the kids there to get a an understanding of what Islam looks like, what Buddhism looks like, so on, right? And uh and so I was able to Yeah, just be a a a balancing force uh to the to all the other teachers in there who are you know fanatically.

SPEAKER_02 59:53

You are evil children born with original sin and you you know Yes, yeah, yeah, because I knew your teacher, but that's I like that because like where you can give them the like not like you said, not come from the fanatic way, but where they could really truly decide if this is for them, the history of it. Uh I like that. That's yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:15

That's really you know, a good teacher, a good teacher can really change your life. When I was like 12 years, and we we have a lot, yeah, we have like we go uh on top 12 years, you have like uh go to the just like a school, and then you go to like what is this in English? Um forgot the word anyway, but we we got like lessons of Latin. But this woman, she was like, no one really liked her, she was like an old lady, very uh not trendy at all, but she really could explain what a function of myth is, you know, and that really she really kindled my interest in mythology. Oh yeah, see that's what what is the the the story behind it? How can you understand this? How can you even more understand? How can you uh apply this story in your life? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:01

When a teacher is passionate about what they're doing, their their soft skills matter a little bit less, I guess. That's true. Yeah, when they can bring it to life, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:16

Oh yeah, I I could have been talking for hours. I think you have your you have a new fan, so I give myself a distraction of what I take on board. You know, I I really have to also write essays and all that, and I really restricted myself. Okay, it's like 10 books, and that's the only books I read this year, and I was like not amazing uh exception for you. Yeah, so we could have been talking for yeah, and then of course, we could have been talking about Mircea Iliade and maybe about René Gwenault. Indeed, and I really think that you know about uh those people, so yeah, yeah, indeed, yeah. Very thank you very much for this for this great uh great.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Oh, we can always be so nice. Thank you so much for having me on. Take care, thank you so so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

We'll have to do a round two part because yeah, it's definitely more I'd love to dive into with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

Let's uh really have a shadow for a part two with this because this is really the subject what what you talk about is really my passion. You know, I like like Cardi Mansion Terror and all that, but these are all just like a slight thing, that's what I always say. You know, it's it's interesting, but I'd rather not look at the square meter at the table at those cards. I want to look up at the world and and see the magic there going on, you know. So this is really uh the stuff I want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

So very, very nice to meet you both.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

Yes, oh definitely. It's nice to see you again. Like I said, yeah, and we'll schedule something further around, like two, because I didn't even get to half my questions or things that I was gonna but I'm amazed.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Yeah, yeah. Have a nice day, thank you very much.