Podcast appearances and mentions of andrew as

This long overdue episode was record back in the summer.  Andrew and Mal talk about the nature of magic, initiation, religious practice and more. They talk a lot about how to know if you are on the right track and the pitfalls of walking a magical path. The upsides and pitfalls of gnosis. How to become a bishop by chance and much more.  Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the Patreon You can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. To find more out about Mal check out Lux-Umbria or hang with him on Facebook here.  Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with Andrew through his site here.  Transcription ANDREW: [00:00:02] Welcome to another episode of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am joined today by Mal Strangefellow. And I've been following Mal online for quite a while. And recently, he's gotten into starting a church. And [00:00:17] a lot of the dialogue around that has been very fascinating to me. So I thought that inviting him on to talk about some of these things would be really entertaining because I think there's so many fascinating questions about legitimacy, legacy, [00:00:32] lineage, and all sorts of stuff that people are or ought to be thinking about as they're going about in various traditions right now, and at the birth of something new, seems like a great place to revisit those conversations. So, for people who [00:00:47] might not know you, Mal, give us, give us the introduction. Who are you? What are you about? MAL: [laughing] Oh, wow, um, you know, and I don't mean this to sound, sound like I'm bragging. It's mostly just because [00:01:02] I'm getting older and my memory is lagging, but when you, when you've done, I don't want to say so much, but when you've done enough, at some point, it starts to become difficult to figure out how to answer that question. [00:01:17] [laughing] ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: I got my start in esoterica during the mid-80s. I'm solidly in that, you know, Boomer cusp/early Gen X region. [00:01:34] Went into, went into the army right out of high school, and after that, got it into my head that I wanted to be a Buddhist monk.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And ended up doing [00:01:49] that for a number of years. I was a Tibetan Buddhist monk, a novice and, and fully ordained getsu and gelong. After a few years, or early 90s, wanted to go and get a college degree, [00:02:04] went to the University of Oregon--go Ducks!--and you know, discovered that it's a lot harder to be a celibate monk in a university than it is in a monastery! ANDREW: [laughing] Uh huh. [00:02:19]  MAL: Go figure! ANDREW: I imagine. MAL: And ended up returning my vows, and, at that point, just kind of wandered back and forth among a number of different things, sort of exploring [00:02:35] alternate routes of spirituality, continuing to practice magic. Of course, the Internet was really just sort of starting to become popular at this time. You know, we were moving beyond the [00:02:50] text-based, green screen kind of stuff and actually getting a graphical interface to the Internet discussion boards. Alt magic, of course, was going like gangbusters. This is just at the cusp of the, the [00:03:05] infamous Golden Dawn Wars of the early, early to mid-90s, and ended up getting involved with the Golden Dawn. Was--actually, my neophyte initiation in the Golden Dawn was done [00:03:20] with Israel Regardie's handmade tools, and I believe a mutual friend of ours, Poke Runyan, was the keryx for that and gave me his flu.  ANDREW: [chuckles] MAL: So.  ANDREW: That's a magical blessing, indeed.  MAL: [00:03:35] Right? And kind of . . . There was some floundering, I would say towards the late 90s. Got involved in the Temple of Set, stayed there long enough to [00:03:50] be recognized to the third degree, their priesthood, at which, and this, I bring this up because it encompasses sort of a pivotal event for me. James Grabe was [00:04:05] also a member of the temple and a member of the OTO, and at the time, when I actually met him in person, there, he was on the outs with the current leadership. I [00:04:20] mean, he has made, I don't know if I'm saying that right, I've never done any OTO stuff. So. That guy. And I don't know what there was, so I don't know if they were, I think there was some sort of lawsuit or some-- Anyway, they were pissed [00:04:35] off. We were at a conclave, which is an annual temple gathering, and we were in the hotel bar, and just sort of chatting, and you know, I was a second degree adept at the time, and so I was star struck at his degree and [00:04:50] his history. And we were just talking and he was mostly talking. And he had mentioned that he had apostolic succession as a bishop, and one of the things, among other things, that the current leadership wanted from him was consecration [00:05:06] as a bishop for their EGC.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: And he was basically just inviting them to peruse the fine example of the back of his middle finger on that. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And you know, he said, "You know what, basically, [00:05:21] I'll consecrate, you know, anybody else, anybody but them. Right? Hell, you want to be consecrated?" and I was like, "Um, yeah, okay." He's like, "All right, cool." So we actually made a plan for the next night. He [00:05:36] had a suite in the hotel and I showed up and we went through deacon priest and I was consecrated a bishop that night. And it was like, "Here you go. Now, you're a bishop." I was like, "Well, awesome. Thank you." This is [00:05:51] 1998-99-ish and, which, oddly enough feels like, you know, maybe five or ten years ago for me, but . . .  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: Yeah, I was like, you know, "So what do I do with this?" It was like fuck, [00:06:06] I don't care. Can I say fuck? I can say fuck, right?  ANDREW: You can say fuck. It's fine. Go ahead. MAL: All right, cool. Fuck, yeah. [laughing] He was like, "I don't care," you know, "here's some stuff," and I got like loose leaf print outs, you know, some ideas that he had had [00:06:21] about sort of a Johannite spirituality and you know, I got, you know, an old Xeroxed copy of his succession, apostolic succession, and stuff like that, and I just sort of filed it away and did nothing with it. [00:06:36]  ANDREW: Mm.  MAL: Until I resigned, after I resigned from the temple as a priest. It was, you know, interpersonal political stuff. ANDREW: Isn't it always, right? MAL: Right, you know, it's, there was a group that was up-and-coming [00:06:51] in the temple. They have since been, been purged out, but I was not in that group, and ended up just resigning rather than dealing with all of the, the people bullshit that comes with that, and [00:07:06] in trying to figure out, all right, what the hell do I want to do now? Said, you know, well, I've got these kind of things to fall back on. I wonder if I could do this? And so I pulled out all of James's stuff and decided [00:07:21] you know what, fuck it. I'm, I'm a start a church!  And that's how the Apostolic Johannite church was founded, [laughs] and I ended up posting on a couple of message boards online at the time: "Hey, are [00:07:36] you interested in an esoteric organization and an esoteric church?" And got a couple of hits. One of the very first ones was, of course, the current patriarch of the AJC, and you know, the rest there is history. [00:07:51] I ran the AJC for a couple of years, and at that time, kind of felt like I had some unfinished stuff that I wanted to do elsewhere. Plus, [00:08:06] I feel like, at least for me at that time, it took a different personality to run things than it did to start them, and I didn't know that I had the personality to keep that [00:08:21] thing going, and I feel justified in making this statement, you know, in hindsight 20/20, but just in looking at how well they've done, you know, since I, since I handed it over to Sean McCann, their current patriarch, you know, I think [00:08:36] it's the, like the largest, fastest growing international gnostic church on the planet right now, some crazy crap like that.  ANDREW: So. Let me ask you a question.  MAL: Yeah, yeah! ANDREW: Cause you've talked about so many things here and I want to . . . MAL:  I know, I'm sorry.  ANDREW: No. No, it's [00:08:51] why I had you on, I want to have these conversations and I love hearing you chat. What, what kind of personality does it take to run these things? Because you know, I've, you know, I've been in my share of, you know, I was in the OTO [00:09:06] in several different groups that all imploded or exploded. And I was in the Aurum Solace for a bunch of time, and change of leadership and it, you know, my local group was excommunicated. And you know, I [00:09:21] was in the AA for a while and there are various, you know, things with that, that just left me, you know, with nowhere to go. What is it, you know, and I've seen my share of that in the, in the Lukumi traditions as well, you know, different places. [00:09:36] What does it take to run a thing like that well? Because I feel like there's, you know, what I've seen is, there's, like, if there's a strong personality and they can kind of hold it together with their personality, [00:09:51] that works until it doesn't, until they leave or retire or whatever. What actually does work? What makes sense when it comes to sort of bigger organizations around that kind of stuff? MAL: You know, I think you [00:10:06] kind of hit on it with the, the big personality, not in that that's the answer. But in that, that's not the answer.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: I think a strong personality, a willingness to get shit [00:10:21] done, to say, you know, what, screw it, we're going this way. We're doing it. Like that's the kind of personality you need to start something, to really get it going, to gather people in, to inspire other people, but to keep it going, [00:10:37] I think you need somebody a lot more conciliatory.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, somebody, somebody who is open to, willing to, desirous of working with other people and incorporating them into the, [00:10:52] the, the living, you know, the daily life of the organization, a strong personality. You know, again, I think it's absolutely necessary to get a thing started. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: [00:11:07] You know, there's just so much inertia there, at the beginning of anything that you need to build up a certain amount of momentum to, you know, to, to overcome initial obstacles and you know, nothing kills [00:11:22] momentum faster than a committee meeting.  ANDREW: [laughing] Especially if not much is already happening. Right?  MAL: Right. Right! You know? So you need that strong personality, but after you reach a certain point, I think that strong personality [00:11:37] becomes detrimental, you know? ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And if you don't have it within you to drop that and become more conciliatory, then you're just kind of a, you know, you're kind of a bully, you, you end up with, you know, strong personality clashes [00:11:52] with other people who, you know, who might be able to come in and do amazing things. Yeah, I think of . . . Okay. So, a perfect example of this going back to where I was and where Sean McCann was at the beginning of the AJC when I handed things over to [00:12:07] him . . . You know, he was, he'd only been a bishop for like a year.  ANDREW: Okay.  MAL: You know, I'd consecrated him and, to be fair, I had even gone, like right after his consecration, [00:12:22] I went on vacation!  ANDREW: Uh huh. MAL: Like six months! [laughing] And I was like, you know what, I just need a break from all of this. I'm tired. You run things. Call me if you need to, but I'm out for a while. So, you know, really, even that first six months, he [00:12:37] was kind of running things. Because of his age, and because of his natural temperament at the time, you know, sort of, you know, not really sure of himself, [00:12:52] not wanting to make a mistake. MAL: Okay. So the current primate of North America for the AJC, Mar Thoma, was a bishop with [00:14:07] another organization who came into the AJC. We had become friends while I was still there, but he officially joined the AJC after I left, and he is a very strong personality. But he's also [00:14:22] been, you know, has been just an amazing asset for the church and, you know, in looking back, I don't know, like, would I have given him the same opportunity? You know, when you've got those, the [00:14:37] two alpha dogs clashing, right? The, you know, the two strong personalities, would, would the same results have come about? And I'm not so sure that it would have, you know? I think by me stepping out and by Sean coming in [00:14:52] and having that, that natural conciliatory manner and welcoming him in, [coughs] excuse me, as a, another leader. I think that was a huge part of their success. And so, what does it take to run [00:15:07] an organization? I think it takes the ability to find, to find that in yourself, to realize that, you know, you know, it's not all about me.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: If I care about this, if it's going to run, I need to, I need to be conciliatory. [00:15:22] Does that make sense? ANDREW: Yeah, I think so, for sure. MAL: Oh good, cool. ANDREW: Because you know, yeah, a lot of people just . . . A lot of what I've seen is, it gets to a point where people are just like, look, it's my way or the highway, and then you know, and then you just [00:15:37] have, you know, whatever, right? Like, like the thing around the apostolic succession, where they're like, will you please give this to us? And be like, absolutely never, you know, like you just end up in these things where it's so stuck that there's no, there's no movement possible, right? You know? MAL: Right, right. ANDREW: [00:15:52] Mm-hmm.  MAL: Yeah, and you know, when you lay down something, like it's my way or the highway, you end up with a ton of fantastic people choosing the highway. ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: And, and you're left with, you know, just the, the sycophants, [00:16:07] and what happens to your, the organization, then? I mean, you mentioned your experiences in the Aurum Solis, and I remember, you know, when Leon proclaimed it an all Christian organization [00:16:22] when he was still, you know, Grandmaster. And, you know, it was that, this is it, it's my way or the highway. This is what we're proclaiming.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: A bunch of people chose the highway! [laughing] You know, and then he kind of pulled back from that a little bit and then [00:16:37] somebody else took over and then [garbled right before 16:43] Anyway. Yeah, I think that that's a perfect example of what you were talking about. When you have leadership like that, [00:16:52] things tend not to grow organically and even if they do survive that personality, that type of personality, they don't survive the end of that personality. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure.  MAL: When that person dies or, you know, [00:17:07] converts to evangelical Christianity, and says, you know unicorns are bad or whatever. [laughing] ANDREW: Sure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think it's interesting. You know? I also think it's, it's interesting how . . . I wonder how, [00:17:22] contrary to what people might think, that that sort of more conciliatory aspect actually works to sustain the teachings versus dissipate them? MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: Because what I see where there, where there's no [00:17:37] or nominal flexibility, is then there's these sort of backlashes and waves that come back and forth, right? You know, the new group comes in and you know, they're, they're all, they're all into witchcraft, and that's it. And if you're a Christian, you're [00:17:52] out, right? In response to the Christians who are like, "Well we're Christian," you know. And especially in a group like the Aurum Solis that, at least sort of in its heyday was so founded on research, you know . . . I mean, I think that, you know, what's, what are you losing, [00:18:07] you know, by these massive sways, right? So, yeah. MAL: Right, right. You know and also you get, you know, you get buy-in from everybody when, you know, regardless of the kind of organization, right? Whether it's a business or a teaching [00:18:22] order or a church or . . . You get buy-in with conciliatory leadership. You know, people feel like they have ownership, you know, they have a stake in it, and so they care about it. Whereas if it's just: here it is, [00:18:37] it's my way or the highway and then you know, well, okay, it's your way. It's never my way at that point, no matter where I am in the organization. If I'm not on top, it's never my way. It's always, I'm doing their way and you know, we as people, we [00:18:52] tend to like our way . . . [laughing] ANDREW: Well, and especially more magically inclined people. Right?  MAL: Right. Yeah. ANDREW: You know, I think there's, there's a tendency towards ego, you know, not necessarily in a bad sense, but just ego, that [00:19:07] doesn't really, if it's not addressed in some capacity, you know? So, how did, how did you find the transition of, how did you sort of manage that transition from Tibetan Buddhist practice, which [00:19:22] is pretty, you know, which is very structured, you know, to, to kind of your other practices, which sound like there are through lines, but they weren't as rigid? If that's fair. [00:19:37]  MAL: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. [lost words--exception?] about that. Yeah, you know, actually, I think it was . . . Being on sort of those diametric poles was beneficial to me. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, as structured and rigid as [00:19:52] Tibetan monastic life was, the Temple of Set, on the other hand, and I think why, why I enjoyed and sort of embraced what they were doing so much was because there's so much [00:20:07] more open, right? You know, you show up and one of their, their primary tenets from The Book of Coming Forth by Night is, you know, "the text of another is an affront to the self." You know, so, every, initiatory degrees, you know, [00:20:22] okay, it's time for you to be recognized as a second-degree adept. They don't confer initiations. They recognize after you've achieved something, and then they say, okay, well now, go write that initiation ritual, you know, go [00:20:37] do it. Go create it, you know, come up with your own, you know, have it, have it . . . You know, don't, don't just pull crap out of your ass, you know. There, there's, there's a very scholastic aspect to them. I think when I, when I [00:20:52] joined, I got a binder that was like, and I'm holding up my fingers. Nobody can see them. [laughing] It's like an inch and a half to two inches thick and the vast bulk of that was a reading list. ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, so, and part of recognition [00:21:07] is, their recognition process is, go out and read these books. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Go out and study this material. Go find more and then come back and tell us what you think about it, you know. You know, so there's this, this, this scholarship and then this production [00:21:22] and it's really, you know, and I don't want to give the impression that it's this loosey-goosey kind of thing. But it, it is very different from the structure that I experienced in Tibetan Buddhism. Right?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And [00:21:37] I think I tried to incorporate some of that in in my later work and it's still something in my own personal practice and when I'm working with students, it's still something that even down to, you know, giving them offhand a reading [00:21:52] list. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And saying, you know, pick, pick six books, or pick three books, or whatever. Read them all from different categories, and then come back and let's talk about how, you know, what [00:22:07] material from this book on this topic and this book from this incredibly different topic. How do they play together? ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And what do you get from reading both of those back-to-back that you wouldn't have gotten from reading either one separately, [00:22:22] right? In isolation. What, what new comes out of that? And I think that's sort of been, that came out of that experience, of strict rigid practice with, with Tibetan Buddhism and then the [00:22:37] more open, but, but scholastically-informed Setianism, like, like this kind of was born out of that, and I think that has been, regardless of what I've done since, sort [00:22:52] of my, my entire method of, approach for things.  ANDREW: Mm. MAL: Does that make sense? I really feel like I'm just rambling on . . .  ANDREW: No, no, not at all. It totally makes sense. MAL: Okay cool.  ANDREW: I mean, for me I kind of went in the opposite direction. You know, I was doing ceremonial [00:23:07] stuff, you know, throwing some chaos magic, and you know, all that kind of . . . different things and then I'm, as I moved into Lukumi, and you know, the Orisha tradition that I got initiated in, it's, [00:23:22] there are just ways that things are done, you know. MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: And so it's been a move away from, from that kind of structure and a stepping into that structure, and what I see is that so many people struggle with that axis. MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? Like, you know, [00:23:37] for people to accept that there is a way that things are done, or, you know, in light of a tradition, the way that things are done, and that that part isn't [00:23:52] subject to conversation so much is very difficult for a lot of people, you know? MAL: But it's also a really important experience, I think. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, I went from the founding of the AJC into East Asian esoteric [00:24:07] Buddhism, tendai [spelling?], and from their Korean Zen, you know, Seon Buddhism, and those are both, I mean, you don't get more rigid than the Japanese. ANDREW: Right.  MAL: And, but there's a purpose for that. You know, they, [00:24:23] there's this idea that when you take all of these people together and you force them to do this sort of thing, this sort of way, we kind of polish our rough edges off. ANDREW: Mm. MAL: You know, and if everybody was just allowed to go off and do their own thing, [00:24:38] you would never find your rough edges, you know, and so in practicing tendai [spelling?] Buddhism and then in going through, you know, the Zen Buddhist koan curriculum, that was, it was very rigid, there's a way [00:24:53] you do it. There's even an entire different language almost for going through koans that if you don't, if you don't know it and if you don't do it, you're not going to pass. You're not going to advance. You know, it's almost [00:25:08] like learning that language, which is both, you know, poetic and performative. You know, there's a physical aspect to it. But learning that language is what allows your brain to operate [00:25:23] in the way that it needs to operate in order to get the insight that you need to get.  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: You know, there's no book that you could read that, that, that, you know, could tell you that. There's a story out of Daido Loori's [00:25:38] place, Zen Mountain Monastery, back when he was still alive. They had a book with all the answers to the koans in it, and somebody stole it. And one of the head monks was like, you know, ran up to Daido Roshi and was like, "Hey, you know, somebody stole the book. What are [00:25:53] we gonna do? What if they publish it?" And Loori Roshi was like, yeah, don't worry about it.  ANDREW: Mm-Hmm.  MAL: The answers aren't in the book. It doesn't matter what was written down. The answers aren't in the book.  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: The answers are what we see in front of us. It's like, you know, I live here in Cincinnati. [00:26:08] And, if you read a ton of books about Cincinnati, but had never been here, and then tried to pass it off, you know, in talking to somebody that was born and raised here, they'd know pretty quickly you're full of shit. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know? [00:26:23] Whereas if you've both, you know, if you've been there, if you've visited there, if you're talking about "oh, man, you know, did they finish the construction over on . . ." or you know, all of that sort of stuff that just, you know, then they're like, "oh, yeah, yeah, you've been there." So I think . . . [00:26:39] There's definitely value to "this is the way things are done" for a lot of traditional things, just because, if you don't do it that way, you don't get the experience or have the effect that it's supposed [00:26:54] to provide, you know?  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. For sure. Well, it's why, you know, my experience of memorizing tables of correspondences when I was doing ceremonial stuff, you know? MAL: [chuckles] ANDREW: I mean, on the one hand, it's like, well, why memorize [00:27:09] it, there are books, but on the other hand, it's, it preloads your cognition with a framework that stuff that wants to work within that framework can then work straight through . . .  MAL: Absolutely. ANDREW: As opposed [00:27:24] to, you know, having to attempt to bridge that gap without that extra framework there, you know? MAL: Yeah. Absolutely. ANDREW: It's possible, anybody can have a vision of, you know, take your pick, and that might be authentic and whatever, but It's [00:27:39] a lot rarer and it's really atypical, as opposed to sort of the, you know, that that more you've done the work, [lost words at 27:48? sounds like "you're fed up"?] and now they're going to show you a thing in this way.  MAL: Absolutely. Well, and you know, putting on my clinical [00:27:54] psych hat, in the middle of all of this I also went on and got various graduate degrees in psychology. We know that the thoughts that we think change the physical structure of our brains.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, and so, memorizing [00:28:09] tables of correspondences, it's not just putting information in your head so that you can have it at quick recall. It's literally making a physical change to your brain. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Is that physical change necessary? Is that, [00:28:24] you know, an integral component to the experience that you're trying to have? I-- Maybe not, but maybe it is, and if that's the case, if it's not just about being able to have something on immediate recall, in which case, you know, why don't [00:28:39] I just load, preload 777 on my phone?  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: And then if I, if I need to know a correspondence, I'll pick it up. But you know, if it's not just about having that piece of information, but if it's about the change that it's affecting in your brain that is allowing [00:28:54] you to maybe perceive or experience, you know, something, then, you know, by not doing it, you're either never going to get there, or, like you said, it's going to be really damn rare that you get the experience that, you know, that [00:29:09] you're hoping for. ANDREW: Yeah. I think the, the, you know, the real answer is, the magic is in many, many parts of it, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: And not just in the quote unquote secret word that activates the ritual or what, right? [00:29:24] MAL: [laughing] Exactly! ANDREW: It's got so many parts of it that that are not, they're not necessarily glamorous. They're almost never talked about overtly in books or in other contexts, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know, I almost never see anybody talk about [00:29:39] that when I read a book about magic. It's like "yeah," and then you just like, do this thing and it'll happen. It's like, oh, maybe, maybe so.  MAL: [laughing] Yeah. Sure. It's just the magic word. You just say the word, the word.  ANDREW: Well, the bird is the word, right? That's where we'll go with that? MAL: [laughing] [00:29:56] Yeah. Well, I was going to say, Aidan Wachter recently made a post that I think brilliantly comes to this point and it was a . . . Oh, how did [00:30:11] it go? [sighs] See, I brought it up. Now I should at least be able to remember it, but it was along the lines of you know, the vast majority of success comes from mastering the basics.  ANDREW: Yes. MAL: Not from some advanced, you know, rarefied thing, you know, [00:30:26] and he was coming from it from both an esoteric and a physical, you know, point of view. And I thought it was brilliant when I saw that. ANDREW: Yeah. I remember that post. He was basically sort of saying like, you know, sure, some super custom tailored [00:30:41] fancy technique might get you this extra increase, because--it was coming from a fitness training point of view, the article that he linked to--but the reality is, you know, showing up four days a week and you know doing the basic things, [00:30:56] that's going to get you almost everything and the other stuff is, you know, especially over the arc of time, right? So.  MAL: Right. And that applies to so much of what we do, right? Just showing up and doing the basic stuff. And . . . ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. [00:31:13]  MAL: Oh crap, there was, where was I going to go? There was . . . ? Eh, never mind. It'll come back to me if . . . [laughing] ANDREW: Let me ask you this question, then. So . . .  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: We've popped out this term a couple times here and there: gnostic.  MAL: Okay. ANDREW: What is, [00:31:28] what does that mean to you? What does that mean? You know, like I hear it a lot. I've seen it a lot. You know, I mean, you know, Crowley talked about it a bunch, you know different people talk about it, you know, there's the knights cathars and you know, all that stuff or whatever. [00:31:43] But what does it mean to you? What does it actually . . . What's the relevance of it at this point in time? MAL: Sure. Well, so first off a caveat, I . . . Technically, I don't even really identify myself as gnostic any more, [00:31:59] which, I suppose is actually kind of peak gnosticism, itself. ANDREW: We live in a post gnostic era? MAL: Right. And I'm glad when you asked, you asked, you know, "What does gnosticism mean to you?" Because it is [00:32:14] a . . . I mean it's . . . We apply it retroactively to a lot of ideas, right? None of the ancient texts, like none of the Gnostic Gospels say, "And I am now writing this Gnostic Gospel."  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Or, you know . . . [00:32:30] Gnosis, for me, the way, the way I learned it, the way I taught it, and the way I experienced it, gnosis is knowledge as opposed to [00:32:45] information. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And specifically, it's that, it's that noetic apprehension that comes after the sort of die neue [spelling?]. [00:33:00] After the intellectual information gathering and crunching and . . . It's an apprehended knowing, you know, in the spiritual sense. More mundanely, it's just knowing [00:33:15] right? It's eating peanut butter rather than having somebody read off the ingredient list of peanut butter to you. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The experience of it.  MAL: Yeah, you can never tell somebody else what peanut butter tastes like. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: You can taste it then and then from then on you will forever and always [00:33:30] know what peanut butter tastes like. And that is, you know, exponentially different from knowing what goes into it. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And, and so, in a spiritual and in a magical sense, then, gnosis is [00:33:45] that experience, just like we were talking about, that experience that comes from doing certain things.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, and, and it's specifically that experience that can only come from doing certain [00:34:00] things as opposed to just reading about them. Whether that's a, you know, an in esoterica or spiritual, religious, and, and oftentimes those are blended. You know, you can read about an experience [00:34:15] of the divine. Or you can have it. I think one of the most underappreciated esoteric texts out there is by St. John Chrysostom, in defense of the hesacasts. So hesacasts, heretic [00:34:30] Orthodox, not heretic but almost, near heretic Orthodox sect, who practiced hesachasm, this, this mystical combination of the Jesus prayer kind of a yoga position and breathing [00:34:45] technique that they said would allow you to experience the energies of the divine.  ANDREW: Hmm.  MAL: In fact, you know, advanced practitioners of this were said to literally physically glow, like they would just glow in the dark. And this got [00:35:00] a lot of bishops' panties in a twist and John Chrysostom wrote this brilliant defense of them, basically laying out theologically why this, this theosis, this knowing of [00:35:15] God is not heretical. You know, they're not saying they can know God, because you can't wrap a finite mind around an infinite thing, but you can experience, right? Can you hear that humming right now?  ANDREW: [00:35:30] No, from your side? No.  MAL: Yeah, so, my mic, I'm going to flick it real quick. [thump] I fixed it. Sorry, I've got a loose connector there. ANDREW: Uh huh. MAL: But, you can experience it. You can have an experience of it and he likened it to a number of different things. [00:35:45] One of them was, you know, sitting in a ray of sunshine: you know it, you can experience it. It's not all of it. Nobody's saying it is. But that, that's gnosis to me, [00:36:00] that experience.  ANDREW: So, let's, I'm gonna ask you a really unfair question. Okay? MAL: Okay. Sure.  ANDREW: So, how do people determine what is different [00:36:15] between an authentic gnosis with something, with a spirit, with god, with wherever, and a more [00:36:30] psychological, or, you know, even intellectualized engagement with it, you know? Because there's so many people who have experiences of different things, and you know, going back to your, your Zen stuff [00:36:45] and to your Tibetan stuff. There are very clear things that are markers, right? For what's an authentic experience, you know, and I even remember when I was in the Aurum Solis, I came to my teacher and I was like, I had this, I had this experience [00:37:00] with one of the archangels, and they showed up in this way. And he's like, "Great," and then he pulls out a piece of paper and shows like, pulls out a book from his notes about it and shows me what I saw. He's like, that's, that's [00:37:15] because you're, you've moved beyond your own cognitive stuff being in the way of that connection.  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? So, how do people know that, though? How do people even begin to work with that if this is a new idea for [00:37:30] them? MAL: You know, it's, the easiest way is having a teacher, right? ANDREW: Sure. MAL: There's the famous story of Gampopa and Milarepa, his, the yogi Milarepa, who was Gampopa's meditation [00:37:45] teacher and at that time, you know, the Tibetans generally don't meditate in groups. They don't do silent meditation. They get the instruction. They go away, they practice, then they come back. And Gampopa came to his, Milarepa after some time practicing, [00:38:00] and he's like, "I don't know what's going on, but I'm beset by devils constantly. This is what . . ." And Milarepa was like, "Just chill out, keep doing the practice, that that'll all go away." A few months later, Gampopa comes back again, and he was like, "Teacher, you're, you're so right. It's amazing. [00:38:15] All the devils were chased off. Now. I'm visited constantly by angels and dakinis and it's just wonderful and it's bliss." And Milarepa was like, "Uh huh, that's cool. Just keep practicing, that will go away."  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: You know, having that that teacher that can that can guide you . . . [00:38:30] You know, in Buddhism, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, emptiness, shunyata, big deal, and having an experience of emptiness is a big deal. Like this is [00:38:45] one of the major mileposts and the literature is just scattered with warnings about, you know, don't intellectualize this, don't intellectualize this, because [00:39:00] when you do, when you get an idea in your head of what that experience is, you reify it and then you're stuck, right? You're stuck with that idea. And you think "Oh, I have had this experience and therefore . . ." You know, and without [00:39:15] sort of that external verification by somebody else who's been there, right? Without talking about Cincinnati with somebody who's also been there, you know and confirm: Yes. Absolutely. I know exactly the street corner you're talking about, or you know, whatever, you can easily [00:39:30] be led astray.  How, how does somebody working on their own do this? Well, that's tough, you know, at that point, I think you have to, [00:39:45] I think initially approach, you know, unverified personal gnosis, UPG, with skepticism. ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: You know, I think that has to be the default when you're on your own, no matter how amazingly lifelike and 3D [00:40:00] this apparition was, or like, initially approach it with some degree of skepticism, keeping in your mind, well, this could just be wishful thinking or this could be, you know, whatever, [00:40:15] and then give it time, right? If it was a teaching, if it was a practice, if it . . . Does it bear out? ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: Are there, are there, are there are external things that coincide with it? If you . . . You know, you're given a vision of this, you know, amazing new practice [00:40:30] and then the very next day somebody randomly starts talking to you about, you know, a symbol which is exactly like the linchpin for that practice or, you know, you know, somebody brings you something that you [00:40:45] specifically need in order to . . . You know, you look for confirmation still from outside, even if it's not from a specific like teacher in a lineage of a thing . . . ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You're still looking for that external confirmation. [00:41:00] And it may not be for years and years and years that all of a sudden something happens and then it clicks and you're like, oh my God, I had that dream, you know, three years ago about this and then here is this . . . [00:41:15] Holy crap. This is a, you know, okay, then you go with it. But no, if otherwise, if somebody shows up and just says, "hey, you're the chosen one," or you know, you're yet another incarnation of Alistair, or you know, whatever, [00:41:30] you know, maybe keep that in your back pocket. ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think that that time will tell, right? MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: Time will tell. We'll see if this holds the test of time, for sure. MAL: Right, you know, and you can have, I think, amazing personal experiences that are meaningful [00:41:45] to you.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: That you never say anything to anyone about or do anything with. And that's okay.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: They don't have to be huge revelations. Or they don't have to be, you know, even if it was something that was just the product of your own mind, [00:42:01] maybe it's useful to you. But again, yeah, I think that in order to tell the difference between genuine, a genuine experience of gnosis, like that, yeah, it's external confirmation. ANDREW: And so, [00:42:16] that brings back sort of one of the other questions that I wanted to check in about: what role does lineage play, for you, in all of these things? I mean, I know in my Lukumi lineage, you know, lineage is everything. You know? I mean [00:42:31] you are, you are, in that, in my tradition, you are initiated into the lineage. MAL: Right. ANDREW: You know, lineage becomes your family, and, and that changes so many different dynamics because of it. You know, it's not just like, it's not just [00:42:46] about the information that was passed from person to person, but it's actually the license to practice certain things, the requirement to practice them in a certain way in accordance with lineage, and a connection to all of those spirits who carried that [00:43:01] lineage forward, you know? MAL: Right. ANDREW: So it's a, it's a very living dynamic thing. What role does lineage play for you? And, and what do you see as its sort of values and challenges? You know?  MAL: Wow. [00:43:17] I'm going to cheat and refer back to something that I wrote a while ago. ANDREW: Which is always welcome.  MAL: Okay, cool. I tend to think in terms of three different kinds of lineage for any organization.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: Physical lineage, [00:43:33] practice lineage, and, you know, ultimate or primordial lineage, right? Which, so, and what do I mean by these? The physical lineage is just the people, the stuff, right? The boots on the ground, the people doing the thing, the [00:43:48] buildings, the, you know, the institution. The practice lineage is the stuff they tell you to do. Right? These are the, these are the teachings that ideally have been, you know, tried, [00:44:03] tested, passed on, initiatory aspects of initiatory power, right? That are meant to facilitate things. Obeah or apostolic succession. These are all conferrals of a power [00:44:18] meant to facilitate something. Sorry. I'm going to thump the mic here again. ANDREW: I think you might be picking up on the, someone's running a shop vac or something downstairs. I'm also hearing that in the background.  MAL: [00:44:33] Then I'll trust it's on your end and not mine.  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: So, yeah, the practice lineage there. And then the primordial lineage is what you're ultimately connecting to via these three things, [00:44:48] right? So, the physical lineage exists primarily to transmit to the people it brings in. The practice lineage, which then facilitates connection to the [00:45:03] primordial lineage. And, you know, the first two exist ultimately . . . They function only to the point that they do those things, right? If at any point a physical institution loses its connection [00:45:18] to the primordial lineage, they're dead. Right? It's just a, it's a fossil. It's a club. It's a, it's, you know, it's cosplay or whatever. If the practices [00:45:34] no longer facilitate connecting you to that primordial lineage, then they're not doing their thing, right? They don't work anymore.  But then once that connection to the primordial lineage is made, at that [00:45:49] point, new practice lineages and new physical lineages can be instituted. Without that connection, they can't be. You know, this is, this is one of those things that, like in Buddhism, people, [00:46:04] there's this idea from people outside of it. For example, tons of sutra is attributed to the Buddha, but he, you know, we know historically he didn't say these things. The Buddha didn't write that. The Lotus Sutra isn't taught by the . . . But no, technically, yeah, he did, because [00:46:19] within . . . You know, the game rules of Buddhism state [chuckling] that there is only one Enlightenment, right? Buddha means awakened. Once you have had that experience, right, once you're connected [00:46:34] to that primordial lineage, there's no difference between you and Siddhartha Gautama, right? So, if you have legitimately had that experience within the game rules, you can write something today and [00:46:49] say this is a text by the Buddha.  ANDREW: Mmm. MAL: And that's, you know, 100% legit. There are institutions [00:47:06] where I think you can bypass some of this, but I find them to be so phenomenally rare. Right? The person that just [00:47:21] stumbles upon either a practice lineage that works to connect them to a primordial lineage, or, or, you know . . . Okay, a big example of this, you know, with what I'm doing now, apostolic [00:47:36] succession is a huge thing. Right? There is a conferral of authority and power with that, without which, none of the other sacraments will be there. Period. Full stop. Yet, [00:47:51] within broader Christianity, very few people question the legitimacy of Paul as an apostle. Because in the middle of his, you know, previous [00:48:06] life as a, and I don't know if you can hear the air quotes I put around that, [chuckles] as a, you know, assassin for hire, he had this vision, on, was it, the [00:48:21] the road to Emmaus? [He means Damascus. The road to Emmaus is where Jesus appeared after his resurrection.] I think. Anyway, he had this vision of Christ and he converted and now he's an apostle.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And I think most, most people in the broader Christian world: "Okay, we'll accept that." You won't find any apostolic lineages, [00:48:36] I believe, tracing themselves back to Paul. I'd be surprised if you did, but you know, nobody lists him as an apostle with an asterisk by his name, kind of thing. ANDREW: Right. MAL: But you also then don't hear about this happening [00:48:51] all the damn time.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, nobody spontaneously . . . Well, damn it, okay. The gnostic revival in France in the 19th century, [laughing] Jules Doinel. Yeah. Okay, he claimed it. But then, even [00:49:06] he went on to get actual apostolic succession. So. You know, I think it's rare. It's more rare than people think.  ANDREW: I think there's a big difference between a connection to spirit, [00:49:23] you know, and even a spirit that might have, you know, like, you know, I mean, I'm certainly not the reincarnation of Crowley, but perhaps, perhaps I could connect to his spirit in a way, and his, his Spirit could act as [00:49:38] a guide and an animating force in my work, you know?  MAL: Absolutely, yeah. ANDREW: I'm not saying that that happens per se, but, but that could happen. And that is not uncommon, you know. MAL: Right. ANDREW: [00:49:53] Like there, there are lots of things you know, where . . . MAL: But, when those things do happen . . .  ANDREW: Yeah.  MAL: But when that does happen, there's a lot that preceded that.  ANDREW: Yes. MAL: Right? It doesn't, it doesn't happen to, you know, the random grocery [00:50:08] store clerk who has, you know, never even picked up a copy of book four, or you know, whatever. Right? ANDREW: For sure. And, but that experience is also not necessarily the same as the experience of the [00:50:23] connection to that primordial, you know, energy or the current even though if I was connecting to Crowley, I'm connecting to you know, the prophet of Thelema, that doesn't mean that I'm actually connected [00:50:38] to that step behind that, you know? MAL: Right. Right. ANDREW: And I think that . . . I think that's also an interesting distinction, you know, and that's where lineage and traditional initiation facilitate that.  MAL: Mm-hmm. ANDREW: You know, because you may connect to that current, possibly, as you [00:50:53] say, there are examples, but I think there's a big difference between connecting to a spirit that engages your work and guides you and something sort of one step further beyond that into that lineage, that [00:51:08] deeper force, you know? MAL: Right. And, and access to one aspect of a lineage also doesn't necessarily confer access to another aspect of lineage. So, for, you know, I have [00:51:23] apostolic succession via the episcopi vagantes, you know, right, the wandering bishops. And we may trace our lineage, you know, even up into, you know popes in Rome, but that doesn't make me [00:51:38] a Roman Catholic bishop. Right, that's the physical institution, and even though I might have access to both primordial or, you know, both practice and primordial lineage there, that grants me absolutely no standing whatsoever in the physical, you [00:51:54] know, lineage kind of thing, which is something I think a lot of people tend to forget, especially in the independent sacramental movement. They tend to not get that these things are [00:52:09] . . . They're disparate. They're separate. They're discrete things. Yes. Generally they're connected and hopefully, you know, if you get involved in one, it is, but yeah, if you stumble across it, if you just happen to meet up with some guy in [00:52:24] a, you know, hotel bar in Ontario and get, this sounds so bad now that I'm saying it out loud, get invited back up to his hotel room to get consecrated as a bishop one night . . . [laughing] Great. [00:52:39] You know, that doesn't mean, you know, you can show up at the Vatican and be like, you know, where's my room?  ANDREW: Like, yeah, that dude. He initiated 50 people that week. Come on!  MAL: [laughing] Right? [00:52:54] Yeah. So. It's, you know, lineage is, lineage is important. And, you know, I'm sure you could make the case that even though I'm breaking it down into three different things that you could say, well, they're really all the different aspects of the same thing, [00:53:09] and you could probably break it down even, you know, you could break it into four different aspects or two or whatever. But you know, in general, I think, for those three reasons at least, lineage is important, especially [00:53:24] in religious, spiritual, and, and esoteric bodies wherein the point is connection with something higher, with that primordial aspect. If, you know, if the point is just [00:53:39] education, then, you know, lineage is, you know, by-the-book kind of. Like the modern grimoire revival. There's no living lineage, you know, Solomonic lineage that's [00:53:54] passing this kind of thing . . . No, it's: you find the book, you, as best you can, decipher what the hell they're talking about.  ANDREW: Uh-huh.  MAL: You do it as best you can and you hope like hell you have an experience similar to what they said you're going to have. And that's [00:54:09] kind of it. The book, at that point, is the lineage until, you know, you make that connection. The book then is the practice lineage. There is no physical institution, you know, physical aspect of it. And then, you know, hopefully you do the practice until [00:54:24] you get that that connection that then continues in your work. You know, I think a physical institution could happen, but it's not necessary. So I guess even in that [00:54:39] sense, there is a lineage or just accessing it through the information that's passed on through both having the right book, having the, the brains to figure out what the hell it's saying, and then having the guts to follow through and do what it's saying. [00:54:54]  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean I tend to look at some of that stuff as more, more technological, right?  MAL: Mm-hmm.  ANDREW: Like, I mean more in that second realm of the practice.  MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: Than the lineage, because I think [00:55:09] that you can, to some extent, plug some of that into whatever lineage you, you might have access to, right? Or whatever sort of primordial elements you would have access to, you know? MAL: Right. ANDREW: When I was very interested in those kinds of things, [00:55:25] you know, I was, I was not interested in the Golden Dawn. I was very interested in Thelema. And, so I would just go through and swap out all the words, you know, the words that weren't Thelemic for words that were Thelemic and do work in that direction, [00:55:40] and then use that, that sort of connection to that primordial juice and that piece of it to you know, you know, call up whomever and be like, hey, listen, by the power of Babylon you're going to do this, or whatever . . . MAL: [laughing] ANDREW: You know, and, and [00:55:55] I think that's possible, because it's, it becomes, the grimoire stuff can be more technological maybe than sort of lineage-based necessarily.  MAL In general, I tend to think tech is tech. [00:56:10] But you know, then again there are lineages where, without having the appropriate lineage, it doesn't matter what knowledge or information you have, it's not gonna work, or it's not going to work the way you want it to. You know, when you look at, [00:56:25] you know, Tibetan Buddhist magic, or just Tibetan Buddhist practice, you know, if, if you're, if you don't have the empowerment of a particular deity, the practice is at best ineffectual [00:56:40] and at worst dangerous, because you're in effect, you know, trying to contact these, these powerful personalities and they don't know who the hell you are.  ANDREW: Right. MAL: Right? It would be, it [00:56:55] would be like showing up at, I don't know, pick a, pick a powerful, a famous powerful person who could be dangerous to you. I immediately, I don't want to make this political, I immediately think Trump. [laughing] [00:57:10] Not that you can, anybody, I don't, you know what? I'm not even going to go there. Um, but yeah, you pick a person with temporal power. All right, prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. He seems like a really nice guy. [00:57:25] Right? I mean everybody in Canada seems so super nice to us here in the hinterlands, but I bet as nice as he is, if I went to Canada, and I saw him on the street, if I came running up to [00:57:40] him at full tilt saying, hey Justin, let me . . . You know, trying to get . . . I'm thinking there's some people that would tackle me to the ground.  ANDREW: Exactly. Yeah. MAL: You know, and so, you know, the empowerment, that connection to that lineage at that point is the facilitation of that contact, right? It's somebody [00:57:55] coming in who has that connection, somebody who's saying, hey, you know what? Let me introduce you to my good friend, Mr. Trudeau. ANDREW: Mm-hmm.  MAL: And then, once they facilitated the introduction and we've shared a couple of drinks or whatever, at that point, you know, I can then, you know, wave from him [00:58:10] from across the street and maybe he'll remember me and then we bump into each other, you know, that sort of thing.  ANDREW: Sure.  MAL: And, and I'm absolutely convinced that Tibetan Buddhism can't be the only place where something like that is, is [00:58:25] required, where if you don't have the hook-up, if you don't have the official connection to that lineage through the prescribed means, you know, best of luck to you.  ANDREW: Yeah, yeah. Something might happen, but who's [00:58:40] to say what it is and yeah, how it's going to go.  MAL: Yeah. And whether or not you wanted it! [chuckling] ANDREW: Exactly, exactly, for sure. So, we've been, we've been chatting for a long time, because this has been really lovely, and I want to ask you one more question before we wrap it up though. [00:58:55]  MAL: Sure. ANDREW: Because there's one other thing we haven't gotten to, which I was delightfully enjoying on your Facebook, which is these various statements of gnostic belief, [00:59:10] you know, or the sort of, you know, where you're discussing how you believe in, you know, this, the fallen angel, and the energy that comes with that, and how you believe in Christ in this way, and how you believe [00:59:25] in, you know what I mean? If we think about the apostles' creed, we have a very clear example of a statement in that direction, but you know, all sorts of traditions have their own. But your seemingly contradictory, [00:59:41] from some people's perspective, ideas about the nature of the universe, really both sort of tickled my fancy . . . MAL: [chuckles] ANDREW:  And, [laughing] if that's, if that's not a weird thing to say and reflected [00:59:56] a bunch of my own kind of contradictory or apparently contradictory notions about it. So I'm curious what, what you were looking to do as you were expressing that and sort of what kinds of beliefs you have around, [01:00:11] you know, the nature of the universe in that kind of construct.  MAL: In general, I have a very dim view of belief. [laughing] I think they're very dangerous things, people ought to stop having them. ANDREW: Uh-huh. MAL: [01:00:27] And when I post that . . . I think one of the worst things that ever happened to the world was--and this is ironic, I think, coming from me--is Christianity and its emphasis on creeds. You know, Christianity was weird for any number of things, when it arrived on the [01:00:42] scene, but one of the things that it was most weird for was that it was a creedal religion. It was, you know, it pivoted around what people believe as opposed to what people did. It wasn't performative. And, you know, this idea of having right belief [01:00:57] then is something that came into play and, you know, I think history has shown us what a dangerous thing requiring right belief can be. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: And then determining that. When I post [01:01:12] shit like that, and I feel absolutely justified in calling it that, a lot of times it's just to kind of work out for myself what's been bouncing around in my head, what's going on at the time, [01:01:27] and also looking for a little bit of that sort of external verification, right? If everybody responded with a what are you on? or did you not sleep last night? or is that . . . You know, then I know, okay, this is maybe a little bit out there, but then when I get responses [01:01:42] like, you know, that really tickled my fancy, or you know, that's a sign that, okay, you know, maybe, maybe I might have figured a little bit of something out, or maybe I might have glimpsed a little bit of something here. And I think [01:01:57] having creeds that don't fit together nicely works together well for me. And by creed, you know, having beliefs that are paradoxical, that, that aren't, you know, that are sometimes juxtaposed [01:02:12] against each other, is beneficial. I mean, it goes back to, I think what I was talking about with my own sort of practice, where you know, you take these two disparate things, you take these two different books, two diametrically opposed . . . See what comes out of it. [01:02:27] See what, see what you make from it. And I think a lot of times, the thing that makes something paradoxical is really just a limitation of our language. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: You know, [01:02:43] I get a lot of, I think I get the most push back, for example, with the Church of Light and Shadow, which is, you know, my newest endeavor, because I talk about the morning star and people [01:02:58] are like, well, okay, you seem to be implying that this is both Jesus and Lucifer, which is it? And I'm kind of like well, yeah, you know, we have this tradition that Lucifer is the Fallen Angel. However, [01:03:14] there's only one figure in the Bible who ever identified themselves as the Morning Star.  ANDREW: Mmm.  MAL: That's Christ in the Book of Revelation. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: You know, and the more I sat with that and their specific [01:03:29] roles and functions, especially the. you know, not, not the, not the Satan of you know, the HaSatan or you know of, the opposer of . . . ANDREW: Or Anton LaVey.  MAL: Right. Yeah, but this . . . [01:03:44] more the Lucifer of Milton and Dante, and, you know, the very popular romantic Promethean myth of Lucifer that we have today. That is very much a Christ figure [01:03:59] when you look at the role that Christ played. Right? Christ did not show up and be like, "You know, what? All right, everybody just do what the temple priests say, and follow . . ." You know, he was very much an ego-driven [01:04:16] individual. I mean, we can consider the gospels as spurious as we would like as far as whether or not this figure, Jesus, actually said these things. But the [01:04:31] one thing that you know, like when you get to, like the Jesus scholars, that came together and try to figure out well, what's most likely that he said? One of the things that they had pinpointed as most likely coming from Jesus, based on what we know of the context, and what got passed . . . [01:04:47] His doing away with the old law and saying, "A new law I give to you," right? "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and love your neighbor as yourself." [01:05:03]  And what people gloss over here is, it's not saying, love your neighbor, which by that he means that everybody, right, love everybody else. He's not saying love them more than yourself. He's not saying debase yourself before . . . He's saying love them [01:05:19] as yourself. And if you don't love yourself a great deal, you're gonna be shitty at loving anybody else.  ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know, how Luciferian is that? You know, he . . . [01:05:34] And so looking at these two figures in that way, looking at them both as, as light bringers . . . You know, in fact, it was really, it was not until I looked at [01:05:50] the gospels and teaching of, teachings of Jesus from a Luciferian perspective, that they really started to make sense to me. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: Does that make sense?  ANDREW: It does. It does, for sure.  MAL: And so, I think there's, [01:06:05] there's, there's definitely something there, and this, this perspective is not new. I did not make this up. ANDREW: Sure. MAL: This idea of having a, you know, a sacramental Christian Church practicing [01:06:20] folk magic is also not new, you know, magic and Christianity have been tied together for as long as they're . . .  ANDREW: Catholics everywhere. Right?  MAL: Right. Yeah. I mean, I think I commented recently on Facebook that you know, if you're not ready to accept that Christianity [01:06:35] is a weird necromantic cult, then you're not ready to study church history.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: But when looking around for this, you know, for something that really embodied and [01:06:50] embraced that, I couldn't find it. There's nothing, you know, like there's, there's, there's nothing out there. There are Catholic witches that are, you know, going to mass, and you know, practicing in private or in secret, [01:07:05] and there are Christian witches, but there's no organization that's embracing both of these things. And the more I kept looking for this, and the more I kept posting, you know, both things like, you know what? I believe this and I believe this and the more [01:07:20] feedback I kept getting from people saying, you know, yeah. Yeah, me too! Where's that from? This ought to be a thing! ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: And you know, I'm a firm believer that we have enough independent apostolic [01:07:35] Christian churches running around. I don't know how familiar you are with the independent sacramental movement, but in general, you know, you end up with jurisdictions of one, somebody belongs to a church long enough to get consecrated a bishop. [01:07:50] And then they're out of there so they can go do things the right way. ANDREW: They had a great experience while they were in Vegas from somebody they met in the bar.  MAL: [chuckling] Right? Next thing, you know, then they're off.  ANDREW: Yeah. MAL: You know, and so, I get in trouble, I get [01:08:05] people in the independent sacramental movement angry with me when I tell them, you know, look, if it's really about the mission, like you say it is, you would stop what you're doing, find a larger church that's actually already doing this, and doing it a lot better because they've got the bodies [01:08:20] and the resources, and you'd join them, you're doing this just for the title. And so I was, I was loathe to start yet another church. ANDREW: Mm-hmm. MAL: You know.  ANDREW: Well, and I think just before [01:08:35] you move past that point, too . . . MAL: Yeah. ANDREW: And I think there's also value in doing a thing like becoming a bishop for yourself.  MAL: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. That's great too. ANDREW: You know, I mean, many many Orisha practitioners become priests for their own [01:08:50] well-being, you know, and that's fantastic, but be clear about that, and then go from there, you know.  MAL: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, you know, I went for years ordaining people and limiting their faculties. [01:09:05] So, when you're ordained a priest, you receive faculties or permissions from the bishop that tells you what you can and can't do, basically. And I would ordain esoteric practitioners who just [01:09:20] wanted that, that plug into apostolic succession for their own spiritual and magical practice. And I would, you know, I would tell them well, okay, great, but without any sort of pastoral education, I'm not going to license you [01:09:35] to do any sort of pastoral work. [laughs] You don't get to go start a church, you can say mass in your home privately, that sort of thing, that's fine. Just go be a private priest. And it took a lot to move me away from that [01:09:50] and, and decide, okay, you know what? I think I am. I think there's enough momentum around this to do something about it, to found it. I'm a firm believer in, if you have an idea for something great, and nobody else has done or is [01:10:05] doing it, maybe that's a sign it's supposed to be you. And after poking around and getting enough encouragement, I decided all right, screw it, we're going to do it. But if we're going to do it, this is how it's going to happen.  ANDREW: You'

Given the state of the world we need to find better ways to relate to each other and grow. This is exactly what Andrew and Siobhan talk abot in this episode. How to find our way towards grpowing and undoing the conditinoing of history. This converstaion is about finding posibilities, opening to others and working to change the world for the better.  The link Siobhan mentioned, an inquiry practice for allies: https://radicaltarot.com/7-questions-earnest-allies/   A link they wish they'd mentioned, where I'm talking about oppression and sliding scales in spiritual business:  https://radicaltarot.com/lets-talk-about-sliding-scales/   Their newsletter (best way to keep in touch): http://bit.ly/radicaltarotsubscribe   Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to, and consider if it is time to support the Patreon You can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for joining the conversation. Please share the podcast to help us grow and change the world.  Andrew You can book time with Andrew through his site here.    Transcript  ANDREW: Welcome to the Hermit's Lamp podcast. I am hanging out today with Siobhan, who is a card reader who I know through the tarot community, but who I really wanted to sort of have on the podcast and sort of talk about politics and identity, and how we interact with each other, and how we can try and have better, more humane, more open conversations about what's going on with each other and in the world right now.  Because I feel like in a lot of the spiritual communities, there are, you know, some awareness of these things, and then there are places where there's just no awareness, and so I thought that Siobhan would be a great person to have on and talk about some of this stuff and see what comes of it. But for people who don't know who you are, who are you? What are you up to?  SIOBHAN: [laughing] Well. I am, primarily, a tarot reader and writer. I write most often at LittleRedTarot.com, which is an intersectional alternative space, and I also write at my website at RadicalTarot.com. I spend a lot of time writing about the intersections that I live on. And so, that might look like writing about race, writing about other marginalized groups, writing about chronic illness, or mental health issues. And so, I spend a lot of time writing about political topics, although, you would never believe it, I'm not really as political of a person [laughing], not usually, but my writing does tend to be pretty authentic and pretty raw in talking about my experience in marginalized communities. So, that's a lot of what I end up doing. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. And -- so -- Siobhan and I have been talking for a while about being on the podcast, and for a variety of reasons it keeps getting nudged into the future, until today. But one of the things that sort of surfaced recently was sort of a conversation which we were both a part of, around ... Not to give away sort of personal information but, somebody was called out for a behavior, and, you know ... And, and, you know, sort of Siobhan and I were sort of both the voices in that conversation that kind of migrated towards, “Well, there is something to what they're saying, there's something that we could consider, right?”  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, and so, it kind of reminded me that this was the conversation I wanted to have ... SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, you know, I think that there's ... You know, we live in interesting times, right?  SIOBHAN: Right! [laughs] ANDREW: Where, the ways in which people have access to each other, the ways in which people treat each other, especially online but also in lots of other places, you know, it's often really unclear to me whether ... What's helpful and what's not, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: You know, and so ... Yeah, I'm just wondering ... Because your response was so wonderful, I'm wondering, you know ... SIOBHAN: [laughing] ANDREW: If you could sort of share a little bit of what that idea was, you know?  SIOBHAN: It's so funny. Yeah, you know, the first thing that pops up when you talked about that, was a post I wrote, actually, a very similar time of year, maybe two years ago, and it was in response to Kelly-Ann Maddox's #TarotSoWhite discussion. I don't know if you saw any of that. But the dialogue came up around how many decks there are that have representation, how many diverse decks that there are, and so, it was an interesting time, because it was the first time I had ever heard anyone sort of call out this notion of the tarot space being predominantly white, predominantly occupied by a certain demographic. And I want to say, I had mentioned it briefly in a tarot chat, and then it came up later again and again, but the dialogue was pretty interesting and fruitful at the time. And it was funny, because the piece that I wrote in response, actually was contrary to the original callout. [laughing]  So, whereas the original assertion was, there aren't very many decks with people of color, I wrote, “Well, actually, there could be more, way more ...” At the time, it was two years ago. “But they do exist, and to reference them as if they don't is erasure.” And I remember at the time having a really sweet conversation with Kelly-Ann, where she realized how many different options were available that actually she hadn't seen yet, and it was really amazing to get closer to her and to dialogue in that way, and it went really well.  And so, at the time, I didn't have the concept of a call-in, versus a call-out, and you'll hear those terms more commonly in feminist spaces, people talking about drawing attention to a behavior or activity that they saw that could be problematic, in a way that may be perceived as shameful versus as an invitation to dialogue, to go deeper and to learn something. And so, I didn't even have a concept of that, at the time, I just responded with pure emotion. It was a very emotional summer, I want to say, there were a lot of acts of violence that had just happened, in the news. Perhaps the first of the series that kicked off all the -- I know it's hard to remember a time when it wasn't [laughing] -- all the time. ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: It was less visible then, so it was the first instance. And so, yeah, this conversation has just gotten bigger and deeper in the spiritual community and also in other communities, and now, people who have never encountered any sort of idea about their own privilege, or about the experiences of marginalized groups, are now encountering these experiences, and not everybody who calls people out necessarily has the space to do so in a way that is kind or compassionate, and not everybody who is called out or in necessarily knows that there is any information to glean from it.  And so, it's so interesting to watch these conversations happen. [laughing] It's a very primordial time for these discussions. It's very new to many people. And it's worth it and it's exciting, but there's also issues when it can be tender.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Times when it can be tender.  ANDREW: Yeah, I mean, I think it's ... I mean, it's challenging on many levels, right?  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And I think that for people in all of the positions to have openness to where other people are coming from ... SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And openness to being present and sort of curious about the process. SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know? I mean, it's really tough, and certainly, at times, not possible or not even appropriate.  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: But, it's one of the things that I dug about your, you know, your response in that conversation was, you really were like, “Huh. Well, that's really interesting. Okay, where are you coming from? What is that about? What does that mean?”  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: You know, there was a curiosity to it, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: And I think that it's such a powerful place to be, right? Like, curiosity and openness are so profound when we can find our way to those positions ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: But, you know, it's certainly not easy, right? Or, and you know ... and definitely not always possible or appropriate. SIOBHAN: Right. It's the edge of the cliff. ANDREW: Right?  SIOBHAN: It's that full space.  ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: And to even just -- I remember in that conversation, the topic we were talking about was so unfamiliar to me, in a way, I said to myself, it had never occurred to me to be mindful of this thing that even you're bringing up, now I can know, moving forward, to think about this marginalized group which I had not considered, when I create and when I collaborate and when I support. And to really be humble in that moment, and to notice my own privilege, having not had to think about it ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And owning that to. A lot of ... There's a lot of assumptions made about who has privilege to check, and it's so many more people than you would imagine, so many more kinds ... I've been really exploring the privilege of someone who -- if you're a person who, if you're photogenic, if you're pretty, if you're thin, if you have money, there's so many different ways to look at it. It's so much deeper than just well, there's a binary and everyone on this end is victimized and everyone on this other end is victimized and not everybody on both sides of it have that awareness. And so, once you realize [laughing] that fact, it behooves you to be curious, because there's so much to learn.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: There's so many different angles to really realize where you have been blessed and where you continue to not be blessed based on things that are circumstances, perhaps. And it's very hard at times, but it can also be interesting, if a person has the space, you know.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah, I remember, a couple of years ago now, I did this really long, like 100 or 150 question survey that sort of evaluated your privilege, right? SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, you know, it wasn't like ... I've seen some shorter ones since then and I'm always kind of like, I look at them, and ah, it's like, it makes some sense, but this one was so in depth, and I remember, like, going through and sort of like answering the questions and seeing ... Seeing things that, you know, clearly highlighted my privileges, you know, for me. Like, oh yeah, that's totally me, I totally have, I have access to that, you know.  SIOBHAN: Right, right.  ANDREW: I went to university, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: I did this, I did other things. And then all these other things that I never even -- I mean, many of which I was totally aware of but some of which I didn't even really consider part of the conversation, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: You know, and things that I didn't have, that I was like, hmm, interesting.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And then I started to think about the ways in which, you know, certain kinds of situations around family structures and other things, you know, and the historical family structures ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: You know, whether your families stay together or don't stay together ... SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: How those ... like, so many layers of conversation ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Can impact these experiences, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Yeah. And to me, that's where that curiosity comes in, right?  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm. ANDREW: How did this shape me or shape somebody else? How do these forces exist in our culture?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Why is one structure prioritized over another?  SIOBHAN: Right. Right. And then as consciousness deepens, and as awareness deepens, how do I transform or transmute all of the pain that I'm now aware of? [laughing] ANDREW: Right? Yeah. SIOBHAN: My own, and also society, because it's a lot. And it seems overwhelming at times when you really open up to that awareness, and which is why some people will choose, unconsciously or consciously, not to be aware of it.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Well, and that brings us to a topic we were chatting a little bit about before the call, which is this spiritual bypassing piece, right?  SIOBHAN: Mmm. ANDREW: You know. When do we suddenly try and use, you know, a spiritual tool to skip our pain or skip our privilege or skip something else? You know? Instead of, instead of actually digging into it, you know? When do we avoid that shadow work?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Instead of like, honoring the wholeness of our experience and dealing with it all ... SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: And then what kind of things come from that, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. Is it at that moment of realization when you open to ...? How much is really happening, how many different layers ... First of all, if you're still in it, there's that space of, oh gosh, how do I hold this for myself, and if you aren't in it, if you have traversed and if you have some kind of mobility, and this is more common as we interact across the streams of privilege, you know. I have access to all kinds of things through people who have access even though I don't have the access, and now there's this opportunity for guilt, this sense of unworthiness, or even thinking about, oh my gosh, my ancestors, they had this thing, they did this thing, and now I feel this sense of guilt over that.  And so, there's an opportunity, or a ... More accurate to say, a tendency to say, with spiritual practice, to say, okay, being spiritual, having arrived, being enlightened, that means I don't get to feel those things any more. [laughing] I get to be somewhere other than those things, because it's not holy to feel guilty, unworthy, you know, anger, hostility, it's not holy to feel afraid of things that are different, they mean, these things are not spiritual things, and so ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: We hear a lot of talk about quote, letting it go. ANDREW: Right.  SIOBHAN: I mean, it's so popular to talk about letting it go. This is a pet peeve of mine. [laughing] ANDREW: Uh huh. Tell me all about it!  SIOBHAN: [laughing] If you read my stuff, you'll hear me going on about it all the time cause it's like, we want to let the things go that are the darkest things, that are, they keep returning because they're very deeply embedded in our ancestral story or our own story or maybe just because it's a part of us, or we haven't integrated it, we reject it, and so there it is again.  And so, the notion that we can continuously keep trying to let something go, rather than just sit with it, you know, which is awful, and terrible, and we often don't want to do it, but, sometimes when we are able to just sit with it, without the judgement call, what this means, what this means about who I am, then, it has less of a pull, you know, even when it shows up. But it's counterintuitive, so instead of doing that, everybody ... You know, it's very popular in the spiritual community to want to let go, we're gonna let go, every full moon we're gonna let go! [laughing] And it's like all right, that's ... We can keep it up, I guess. [laughing] ANDREW: Yeah, I mean, I think that there comes a point, you know ... I have this body of work that I created called the Letting Go Work, right?  SIOBHAN: [laughing] I'm sorry.  ANDREW: And so, but the focus of the work is ... is actually to go and sit down with your shadow, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: It's not ... It's not this process of like, you know, and then I'm gonna go into the spiritual bath and shower all this stuff off me, it'll go down the drain, it's gone forever.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: It's the process of building conscious communication with the shadow stuff ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And then sustaining it on the regular ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: So that, you know, you're checking in with that, and so your shadow has a chance to say, hey, you're ignoring this crap over here.  SIOBHAN: Right! ANDREW: Hey, what about this? Hey, this is ... You know, you're being inauthentic or you're denying something, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Or you're really mad, you've got to let it out, dude. Because if we can talk to that stuff, and sit with it and be present with it and engage with it, then we have a whole different relationship to it. Right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: But like, Carl Jung did not say when we get through the process of individuation that our shadow is gone.  SIOBHAN: Right. Poof!  ANDREW: We're living in relationship with it then, right?  SIOBHAN: Poof!  ANDREW: It matters. SIOBHAN: [laughing] ANDREW: Exactly. SIOBHAN: Yeah! And it's like, if a person comes from a place where they're not wanting to do that work, that very needed work of upholding space for this thing, then there's no way they would be able to, when they actually encounter that shadow out in the world. So this person who is marginalized in ways they can't understand, the person who doesn't have the privilege they have, if that person calls out to them, in the same way their shadow calls out to them, why would they have a different reaction? They would do the same thing. It would encourage that person to let it go. It would encourage that person to speak in terms of love and light and always gravitate toward and pay attention to love and light and they would say, ignore the things that don't meet or match that paradigm, the same way they say to themselves, and so ...  I always, there's a little part of me that kind of dies, when I hear someone say, “Turn, you know, turn your attention entirely away from this thing that is so much a part of you and so much your struggle and that you're feeling.” Cause it's like, people need that space for themselves, before they can have and hold space for other people, they're very much linked, and the notion that we can get away is somewhat contrary to the notion that we're all part of one great big thing, which is underneath a lot of spiritual practices anyway. ANDREW: Right. Well, there's definitely that. Yeah. It's one of the best pieces of advice I got when I first started working as a reader, was a good friend of mine basically was like, “So dude, make sure you deal with all your crap.”  SIOBHAN: [bursts out laughing] ANDREW: Deal with it, deal with it all, stay clean, you know, stay clear about it, work to stay free of it, because otherwise you're going to sit down with somebody and try and work and their pain is going to trigger your pain ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And then it's going to go all sorts of sideways, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Right. A business is amazing for really shining the light on every crevice that you thought ... [laughing] that you were done with! ANDREW: Right?  SIOBHAN: Oh, what about this? What about this here? [laughing] What about this thing that isn't finished?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Yeah. There's a ... a lot more compassion that could stand to be doled out in all directions. [laughing] ANDREW: Right? Inwardly as well, you know? All of it. Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: In all the directions. ANDREW: Yeah. So. What, what ... I'm going to put you on the spot here, okay, so forgive me. SIOBHAN: [laughing] ANDREW: You can opt out if you need to. SIOBHAN: [laughing] ANDREW: But like, what would you hope somebody would do if they were ... If they run into something new that they weren't aware of ... Would be kind of a problematic thing? You know, whether it's ... whatever its focus is, gender, race, or any number of sort of different things, but like ... What would you hope that people, how would they react?  SIOBHAN: Oh, man! It's tricky. And I say that because the answer would depend in a large part on who that person was. And here's what I mean. There's a spectrum. If a person had an abundance of energy and awareness and privilege and time, it would be really nice if we could have that curiosity response like, Oh! Why is this coming up? you know? Is there something to learn here? Is there something I don't know? Is there ... You know. I acknowledge that this has nothing to do with me because anything anyone ever says generally has nothing to do with anyone, because they're all dealing with their projections, but at the same time, is there something I could learn, if they had that space, but the honest to god truth is that some people, whatever their sense of abundance or privilege or access or whatever they have, they may not have the space.  And a second-best thing, in that scenario, would be if they could actually see that they don't have the space. So that looks like, Wow, I don't know what to do with this, but I know at least that I'm feeling a defensive response that I want to prove something and so maybe I'll just pause, and that's it.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Just a pause where they can see and be with the fact that that's what they have the space for, they have the space for maybe, a pause, and even getting to the point of pause is HUGE. You know, cause the natural thing to do is just react ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Savor, be right or reassure, whatever the deal is, and it would be amazing to even have the choice in a moment, and so, having the choices coming from working on things before you were even in the situation [laughing]. So, it's really hard to say, oh man, curiosity, willing to be open to possibly having missed something, possibly not knowing something, possibly being wrong. And, it depends on the person and if they have space. I actually wrote an entire blog post about that very thing you just asked. [laughing] ANDREW: Well, perfect! We'll put a link in the show notes. SIOBHAN: It was the most viewed blog post I ever wrote, and I wrote it that summer that we were just talking about ...  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Right before that whole discussion cause, it was just so painful to see so much death and to be reminded that no matter how much you progress, or at least in my instance, how much I had progressed and how much better I felt. Yet within, that there were still those dark things that were my reality, that may be my reality, without, and so in there it really encourages people to have a dialogue with what they need, really, first, because if they don't know, they can't, they can't offer anything. They have to come first, and they have to also acknowledge a reality in which they may be coming first many places without any effort on their part. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: They may be central, they may be primary, they may be the first thought for entire nations. [laughs] And so, there's the thought for: Do I have the space for the person who unlike me, doesn't come first, in my nation, in my society? And being honest about that. Because some people have a culture that is ingrained and it's very fragile, and they actually may not know all that they may be capable of, they may not have been invited to step into their fullness just yet. And so the kneejerk reaction, which is natural and human ... It might be much smaller than they're capable of being. And so it can be exciting to think about interaction with a person where they actually realize more their resilience. ANDREW: Hmm. SIOBHAN: And they say, Oh, I've felt defensive and offended every time this has ever happened in my whole life, and maybe I have room for more reactions.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: You know?  ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: Maybe I have room for more than just my central and my primaryness. Maybe based on that solid self-care, you know, first step, I have more resilience than I thought. More capacity to notice when I'm expecting someone else to be resilient in my stead. And maybe perhaps a habit I have of doing that all the time. [laughs] ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: You know? ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Well, and I also think that pause is such a great notion. Because I think that ... I think that we don't always even understand what we might do, or how we might do it, or what could be possible?  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm.  ANDREW: Or what might shift to make things possible over time. SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Like one of the things for me is, you know, I was aware for a while that this podcast was inaccessible to a bunch of people, right?  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, because they are unable to listen, you know? And, you know, and it took me awhile, like maybe six months of pondering that and then looking at what it would cost me to provide transcriptions. And then looking at my wallet and being like, “I can't do that.”  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And then thinking about it and looking at options, and then, you know, it wasn't until one day ... And I was aware of Patreon the whole time, you know, which is like this sort of people pay per episode to support stuff.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: I was aware of it the whole time, but I don't even remember what happened, but somebody talked about it in a certain way. And I was like, “I could use Patreon to make that happen,” you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And then that took a little bit of time, you know? And then now, every episode comes out with transcriptions. SIOBHAN: That's cool! ANDREW: You know, which is, which is, exciting, right? But like, but, if I had gotten stuck at I can't do this -- I was stuck at I can't do anything about this today. And left it at that, then it wouldn't be where it is now. You know? And that's one of the things that can come from the pause, right? SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: It can come from, you know, it's just like, putting a little sign up on the wall that says this is a thing I'd like to do at some point, somehow. SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: I'd like to change this issue, and then, and then, hopefully, time and circumstance shift in a way that allows it to be resolved ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: You know? You get an idea to do something different. And maybe it doesn't, you know, I mean, because there are still times when offering stuff like that is beyond the means of whatever it is that I'm doing, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Some of the classes that I run are fairly small, and so it's not super possible, but, you know, we can set our intentions and we can ponder these things, and they can sort of open us up to other possibilities, right?  SIOBHAN: Right, right.  ANDREW: Yeah.  SIOBHAN: That's a powerful example. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: That's a really powerful example. Especially the notion of, even if I can't do this thing right this second, I have space to think about it. ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: You know, because some people, they file it away under, “I can't do that. The end.” And then they never have to think about it again. Like they're absolved. This is that bypassing coming up. It's like, “I couldn't in this one instance implement it, so I won't worry about it.”  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: But when there's a willingness to stay with it, to stay with this other reality that isn't yours, in that perfect example that you just gave, more is possible, eventually.  ANDREW: Yeah. And also, you know I think that it's also important to understand that perfect isn't the goal. Right? SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I mean, perfect would be lovely if it existed anywhere. Right?  SIOBHAN: Right. [laughing] ANDREW: But when we're working on these things, perfect can't be the goal. You know, because I think, at least for me, perfect equals immobilization. Right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Perfect equals this space where I just can't continue because, you know, because I can't get there. Right? You know? I mean, there's nothing about my life that allows me enough time and space to make anything perfectly ... SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: So I pursue just sort of working on stuff, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And I think that that's part of the ongoing sort of dialogue between curiosity and openness too, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Recognizing I will do my best, or what I perceive to be my best now ... SIOBHAN: Mmm. ANDREW: And then we'll see what happens, and then I will engage with what happens afterwards, and then I will adjust, and improve, or change or whatever if I have space for that.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Continue that process, right? Like it's not this sort of unfolding of this awareness of privilege in North America. SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I mean, I've been watching it flow for a while now, and it's not done, it's going to be done soon, it's going to continue, right?  SIOBHAN: [laughing] Right.  ANDREW: And that's, that's not even because ... Like, it would be tempting to be like, well, if everybody just accepted it, or was on board, or whatever, but I'm like, well no, because it's also a process of undoing, right? SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And when you start moving stuff, you start having space to see other things. SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And that doesn't mean that we shouldn't move anything because, you know, cause we'll find the dust bunnies under the couch, or, you know, whatever ... SIOBHAN: Right! [laughing] ANDREW: It's like, we should move those things and then we should move other things, and then we should see what's beyond that, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Exactly. Yeah. And the notion ... The notion of doing our best is interesting also when we consider that nothing ... there may not be an occurrence in our lives that actually calls on us to consider perspectives outside of our own. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And that's where the notion of resilience can come in. For the person who is used to staying in their own perspective, they are only so large. There is only so much that is possible. Which is why tarot can be useful. When you come together with people over tarot, there's another perspective that's introduced. We do this in interpersonal relationships of all kinds, sure. And the person who doesn't have that playback, or the person who is isolated from cultures that they've never met, they're never going to come across a person with this worldview, their concept of their best might be limited. It may not even reflect the reality for them. And so it's exciting to think about people being expanded, and their notion of what's possible being expanded as a result of all these dust bunnies that we keep finding.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. Yeah, and when I grew up, I grew up in a suburb of Toronto. And, you know, when I went to high school, I think that, you know, in a school that probably had like 1000 students, there might have been a handful of people of color, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Like, one table at the lunchroom was like, people of color, and that was it, you know? And that was indicative of the whole town, right? And, you know? And now as we open to that stuff, you know, and as we open to other cultures, we can, you know, expand more and figure things out differently, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And I think that it's easy to sort of look around, in, you know, and I always say, cause I live right in downtown Toronto now, right? Like one block from the gay village, and, you know, and in one of the most sort of diverse neighborhoods around, kind of thing.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And, you know, it's easy to sort of think that this is also it, right? You know? And when I travel to other places, I'm like, oh no. I live in a little pocket that is SO different than everywhere else, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And I mean not everywhere else, but like many other places, in a kind of a counterforce to that sort of living in the suburbs experience, you know, I now live the opposite, but both of them create their own limiting tunnels, right?  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, I think it's ... I think it's really interesting to sort of try and understand what we're not living, wherever we're living, right? However we're living that, and sort of see what other people are actually up to.  SIOBHAN: Right. Right. And really honor our blinders.  ANDREW: Mmm. SIOBHAN: I ... Only in the last ten years, have I really appreciated the fact that I belong to the global majority. [laughs]  ANDREW: Mmmhmm! SIOBHAN: It's like, it's been the case for longer than that, but only in the last five to seven years, really, has that sat with me, and I had to go and seek out communities where they would discuss those things, for it to really become a part of my awareness.  ANDREW: Right. SIOBHAN: So, it's not even necessarily an appearance grants you access into different perspectives, you know?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: It's a dialogue that you keep having, and keep needing to be willing to have in order to keep learning.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Well, and I think that willingness to have it is such an important thing, right? And from my perspective, for me personally, willingness to get out, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: To look for it, and look for people who have the space to have that dialogue with me, right? SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Because you want to be mindful that you're not sort of expecting ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Somebody else to educate you, or whatever. Right? It's a thing that you should ask permission about, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And, you know? Because otherwise we don't want to expect that I'm gonna run to this person and be like, so tell me all about this disability that you've got ... SIOBHAN: Right! [laughs] ANDREW: How does that happen, right? Tell me all about, your like, the color of your skin and how that impacts your life and your culture or whatever.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: You know, cause those things are ... That's problematic too, right? But like, looking for those permissions. And then being really really super willing to sort of, you know, if you're gonna ask, then listen. SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Like really listen, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: As we're recording this, in September I have a tarot deck coming out through Llewellyn, which is the Orisha tarot deck, right? Which is a deck that sort of explores the overlap of my involvement with traditional Afro-Cuban Orisha practices ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And my initiation into them, and my experiences for all these years playing with tarot and working with tarot. And one of the things that I did when I started, was I sat down with a friend of mine who is an activist and a person of color. And I showed them a bunch of the drawings that I was working on, and I was like, “What do you think? What do you feel? How does this hit you?” Right?  And not because I feel that they can speak for everybody, but because I felt like I needed somebody to talk to, and they were a person who was, you know, an artist as well as, you know, a spiritual person and so on. And we talked about it a bunch, and they liked what I was up to.  And then when I got to the end of the deck, I was like, you know, I'd made some artistic choices, I'd depicted a lot of people of color in the deck, and people with different bodies, and all these kinds of things, and I wanted to sit down and like, just sort of say, like, “Do you have thoughts and feelings about what was going on?” You know?  And so, I sat down with the same person and with somebody else, and I showed them the art work, again, and there were specifically a couple of choices that I made that affected about a dozen of the cards, right? And, and so, and I didn't bring up anything, I just sat down and showed them or whatever, and both people thought it was great. They really liked what I had been doing, they felt like ... They felt like it was good representation. You know, like one of them said, “I feel like I see my uncle in this card, and I feel like I see this person in this card, I really like it.” And I was like, “That's great.” Cause I was totally willing to redo a bunch of these cards. You know? And, and I think that we need to be, if we're going to enter into this, we need to consider that we might need to redo stuff. And it might be inconvenient. Or it might be a burden, right?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: You know, and also, in terms of perfect, this is two people's opinion? Right? Like this is not everybody, and I am sure inevitably, you know, because that's the way the world is, people will have issues, some people will have an issue, or maybe not, but like, but I don't expect that it's perfect, you know? But I also couldn't poll the world, you know? And, and, so, we need to find our way to engage this stuff. And find our way to keeping moving forward and making things happen, you know? So. SIOBHAN: That's interesting. That's interesting, and it's interesting because it's a very popular notion in the public eye now. The African tradition is very very in the center of everybody's eye, and many people are new to it, and so, there are people that will see it, they won't know anything about you and then they'll say, “[sigh], It's that, it's that, how popular it is,” and then they'll jump to that conclusion, and then there are some that are traditionalists and they'll have their own reasons why, and it's interesting because the diaspora is so huge ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And people will have all different perspectives. And it's ... really hard to even try and get one consensus about what is right, what feels good, and I recently had an incident where I was taking a course and I asked about using some kind of Buddhist symbolism. I've been cultivating a practice of my own. And I said, “You know, I don't know how I feel about this, using this symbol. Does anyone practice, does anyone belong, does anyone come from this culture, how do you all feel?”  And I want to say, there were many people who said “Oh, it's probably fine,” or some that said ... I also thought it was really funny, they'd say, “Well, it's not the same when people of color do this thing.” And I thought, Oh! And that's interesting too, as if ... it's almost like a free pass moment? And I was like, that doesn't really resonate with me. Especially when you think about ... if you think about the question, you know, do I belong to a culture who has benefited from the oppression of this other culture whose symbolism that I'm engaging? If I were to say that as an American, and I were to think about Buddhist cultures that have been affected by American policy, the answer to that would be yes, regardless of my skin color, because I'm here. And I had to really decide for myself what felt appropriate to me ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: Even with the endorsement of people in the culture, because there was this moment of what is the history? How have I benefited? You know.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And there's an opportunity ... I said to myself when I wanted to use the symbol: It's okay because I supported ... I supported Buddhists when I bought this. And I support them when I do this other thing. And I uplift this people in this way and that and then, there's a capitalist notion that I now own this symbol ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And I can do what I want with it. Because I engage it ... And in my case, because I engage it personally, because I have a practice and I've been cultivating. It's like, this is my culture! ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: You know, I do it too! And it was tricky for me to sit with. The concept of even owning a symbol ... ANDREW: Mmm. SIOBHAN: Is somewhat capitalist and colonialist in nature. To have the rights to use it. And this is new for me to think about this, honestly. While I've thought about cultural appropriation before, I engaged it in depth this summer through that course that I was taking. And that was interesting to have that moment, because I had always thought, as long as I am engaging this culture, supporting this culture, and uplifting this culture, then it's fair game, the symbols are fair game. But I no longer necessarily believe that. It's totally case by case.  ANDREW: Do you use the symbol?  SIOBHAN: Did I use it? No. ANDREW: No?  SIOBHAN: I didn't. And I said to the people I was asking, I said, If I ever use images of my practice or Buddhist symbols that I engage, it will have the level of awareness in it that I've now garnered. It won't be an afterthought. It won't be like, Oh, I just used this symbol and then afterwards I think about it. It will be like, this is what I intend, I stand confident in this. And it will involve the foresight needed, just like you were talking about, sitting down with people and saying, “How do you feel about this? How do you feel about this? And ...” ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: And asking myself questions like, “What about this project, this representation, or this use of this symbol, amplifies further the voice of the people who have been disadvantaged ...”  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: In accordance to or in relationship to members' cultures that I belong to, and things like that, it won't be separate from that ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: I will be having that awareness. If I do use the symbol, ever. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah, you know, and making this deck, I certainly talked to my elders. You know, I sat down and showed my elder all the work, you know, to make sure that they were happy with it and comfortable with it, you know, and again recognizing that they don't speak for everybody, you know, like it's... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: You know? I mean, and ultimately, from my point of view, when it comes to this particular project, you know, it's a ... I would have used the word Lucumí as the title of the tarot, but it's already taken by another deck, but like it represents a very specific set of experiences which are mine and my story and my journey and my ... SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Understandings and my lineage, you know? And it doesn't represent, and certainly it doesn't pretend to represent, all of these diasporic traditions or any of those things, because that's impossible. Because they are related but they are not the same.  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And, you know, and I'm also, I am not a Cuban, and I'm not a, you know, Yoruban or, you know, Brazilian or other things, you know? I'm not a person of color. I'm not any of those things.  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And those people and the way in which those traditions are practiced in different communities are always going to be different.  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: And, you know, that's the end of the conversation, right, you know? SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And for me, the problem arises when people don't understand those implications, right? You know, like you're talking about, you know? Well, I can just -- I'm a Buddhist -- Look at me, I've got a brass Buddha statue, I'm good, right?  SIOBHAN: Right! [laughing] Right. Right, there's a lot of ... harm can be done in the assumption that because a thing was purchased, you own the rights to the culture ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And you own the right to use that symbol, however you want, just cause you own it. And that's the capitalist way. ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: I bought that, it's mine, I can do whatever I want with it, and there's not a thought process about where did this fabric come from? What traditional weave is this? What are the conditions in the nation where they do this weave? And, are they in a situation where their culture is being eradicated?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: I just heard about that recently. I can't remember the major design company that stole this technique from a region. And then another company came, went to that nation, and amplified the voices there, and created a school so they could continue teaching their cultural work. And there is an opportunity for more things like that to happen, the uplifting of voices that are fading away because of systemic oppression, but only if people get beyond their feeling of ownership of something ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: And their feeling of glory about something. And ... And it's really easy to lose track of that.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. For sure. And I think it's a thing, you know, we live in ... Capitalism is such a thing, right? Says the person who runs a store, right?  SIOBHAN: [laughing] ANDREW: You know, but, I think that ... I was having this conversation with somebody recently about being anti-capitalist, right?  SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And they were talking about somebody else who was running a business who was anti-capitalist and was running into all these challenges and problems for the people that they had, that they would struggle and stuff. And, I'm like, I don't think I'm anti-capitalist per se, I mean, I think that there are better ideas, for sure, but I'm definitely anti-exploitation. You know? And for me, like, capitalism, when we talk about capitalism, I feel lost and daunted by the immensity of it. You know? I mean, like, what am I going to do about this? You know? I ... It just hits a thing where I sort of get stuck. But I definitely work to, in my interactions, be anti-exploitive. You know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And seeking to, you know, build and prioritize the independent people, independent deck makers that we're supporting, you know? Seeking to ask the questions about ... So I'm buying this thing, where did it come from? How is it made? You know? Is this palo santo sustainably harvested?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Or is this like you're in there with a chain saw cutting them down? You know? SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And seeking that ... it adds a layer of work, but I think it also ... Beyond just being like, good practice, I think it also adds a layer of power to stuff as well, you know, when we're talking about spiritual things, you know? When we know that there's a chain of connection that has consideration for the earth and people and spirit and so on, I feel like there's a flow through there that makes things better, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: If the opportunity is taken. And I believe that chain is there even if we don't take the opportunity. And then what are we connecting ourselves to, is the question.  ANDREW: Well, for sure, right?  SIOBHAN: You know, when we don't investigate it, what are the conditions where they mine this? What does the earth look like as a result of this mining? What happens ... You know? When this degrades, this thing I use, this single use thing, and, one of the things that really flabbergasted me [laughing], when I became more active online, in the online spiritual community, was the notion that spiritual practices are concerned with nature, and concerned with the preservation of nature, and I'm still feeling like, if I were to divulge the level at which I'm thinking about things when it comes to sustainability, I mean, I would be that crazy person. Like -- And I mean that like in the sense that I would be the outlier in the way that I often am.  Not to mean, not to say that, not to put a judgement call on the person who thinks differently or the person who is othered because of their mental health status, because again, I'm coming from that place too, but the person who is othered because [sigh], this is just too weird, this is just too hard, this is just ... but at the same time, we're in a time where it's so important that really everybody kind of gets on the same page about that, or else.  ANDREW: I just don't get those people, though, right? I'm like, this is a person who is way more passionate about this than I have capacity to do.  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: So I'm gonna like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pay them for their passion, for their intensity, for being out there, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: Cause there are these people out there, you know? I have the good fortune to meet them and I'm just like, Yes! You're the good chain. I want to support this.  SIOBHAN: [laughing] Right.  ANDREW: And other people, I'm just like, “Hmm, I'm not sure, we'll see,” you know?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: You know, like, cause lots of people, I run into lots of people doing business, and lots of people importing stuff from wherever, and I'm always like, hmm, you know. SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And then there's people who are doing great stuff, you know? Like some of my suppliers, they know exactly where their crystals are coming from cause they're paying the people directly to mine them. You know? SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: And they go down and, you know, give those people money and support their families and connect with them and connect with sustainability of these things, cause they want them to keep coming, right?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: You know, and they want these people who have these abilities to keep doing it and to be supported, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: And I think that that's amazing when that, when I see that, you know?  SIOBHAN: Right.  ANDREW: So. Yeah.  SIOBHAN: I continue to be surprised how many people own shops, metaphysical shops, that look at me sideways when I say “Do you support ethical mining? Are these ethically mined?” And I just get blank faces. [laughing] You know, like, “What does that even mean? What are you even talking about? Oh, well probably, you know,” and it's like, this isn't an insane notion, in the spiritual community, it's not this bizarre notion, but it is, it is a lot of places. ANDREW: Yeah, and it's tough because there's so many, you know, there's stuff, certainly, 100 percent of our stuff is not, it's not clear where a bunch of it comes from. SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Because there's so many disruptions in the points of connection, you know? SIOBHAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, but I think it's important to be mindful of it and to try and work on that, right? Cause otherwise we'll never move further in that direction, you know? So. SIOBHAN: Right. ANDREW: Yeah. SIOBHAN: Right. I look at my collection [laughing] ... My collection I've amassed at this point of gems and minerals, and my awareness of even the concept of ethical mining started, really, when I got more active in the Little Red Tarot community. She's been very vocal -- Beth, the owner -- about ethical mining and through her I learned, Oh, I really have to look out for this. Cause you learn in little pieces. The gems. It's the food, where's the food coming from? This plastic, what's going to happen to it when I'm done with it? You, obviously, you don't become aware of it all at once, or at least hopefully not, you work piece by piece, and then to really think about, what am I going to do with this stuff now that I already have it?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. SIOBHAN: What is the most powerful purpose that I could put this to, now that I do already own it and really, staying curious about that, rather than shutting down, and rather than going into a guilt that doesn't serve.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. For sure. Well, I think that's a good spot to stop it and say, if you're curious about Siobhan, where do they come and find you? [laughing] SIOBHAN: [laughing] I'm at RadicalTarot.com.  ANDREW: Nice.  SIOBHAN: And, everything is there. I'm also everywhere else and they can find my Instagram. My Twitter is actually the most political place I am, ironically, that's the place I'm most vocal when it comes to how I feel. I am on Facebook, but it's only a matter of time, before, I think, I part ways with them. And my newsletter is definitely the safest way to make sure that you hear about anything that I'm putting forth, because I announce everything there.  ANDREW: Nice. Well, thank you so much for making some time and coming on the podcast today. It's been great.  SIOBHAN: Awesome! Thank you for having me!

TeeDee and Andrew talk about the values of initiation. How it changes a person and how that enhances ones talents. They also talk about Oshun and how Teedee understands her after 20 years of initiation.  Connect with TeeDee on her website. Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to and think consider if it is time tosupport the  Patreon You can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for listening! If you dig this please subscribe and share with those who would like it. Andrew   ANDREW: Welcome to another installment of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm here today with T-D González, who I know from the Orisha community, and who has been making some wonderful product and really representing some of the things that I think are significant and important about both tradition and initiation. So, for folks who don't know you, T-D, who are you? What are you about? T-D: [laughing] So, I am an Olorisha of the Afro-Cuban Lucumí tradition, initiated to the Orisha Ochún. I was ordained in Cuba in 1999. I live in Los Angeles, California. I'm a mother of two little boys. I'm a widow. I have a lot going on. And I've enjoyed making spiritual baths, which was one of the first things that I learned, one of the first things that many of us learn in the religion. And I've been doing that for about 20 years now, and I just recently began to sell a dried spiritual bath utilizing the herbs that we use in Orisha worship, in Lucumí Afro-Cuban Orisha worship that pertain to Ochún, so it's an Ochún bath. And I'm really excited about it, I love making it, I love working with the herbs, and it's a lifelong learning process for me.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm, yeah, it's awesome. I think we need to definitely talk about the herbs but the first question that I want to kind of start with us talking about is, who is Ochún?  T-D: [laughing] ANDREW: Right? And I ask this because, you know, I had David Sosa on a while back, and we talked -- T-D: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm, my dear friend.  ANDREW: Local human. And, I think it's really important because I think Ochún is, possibly from what I see, one of the most popular of the Orishas, and yet so much of what I see, in general conversation from, you know, people outside of the tradition doesn't often jive very well with my understanding of her from a traditional context at all. T-D: Right. ANDREW: And even in the traditional context, you know, I mean, some of my elders basically say, well she's kind of unknowable.  T-D: Right. And she's a deeply misunderstood Orisha.  ANDREW: Right! T-D: She's very popular and well loved, probably because of her beauty and because of her dominion over some of the aspects of life that obviously all of us are striving to attain or to enjoy.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: But she is deeply misunderstood. So -- And she means different things, probably, to different people, even among initiates. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: I see Ochún as elegance and beauty, but maybe not necessarily in the most apparent ways or in the most superficial ways. And I definitely see Orisha as working through other people. So Ochún for me is a motherly figure -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And she's forgiving and she's understanding and she's compassion, but she also can be stern, and she also can teach us very difficult lessons. And she also demands respect. And she demands regard for the counsel that she gives us, you know.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: So, in some ways I always say, you know, I'm a little bit afraid of Ochún. I'm dedicated to her, I'm crowned to her, I love her, obviously, I've dedicated my life to Ochún, and she's blessed my life in many many ways. But Ochún is not an easy crown to wear. People make lots of assumptions about her children and things of that nature. Ochún is a very complex Orisha. On, you know, in the most basic terms, you know, we can say Ochún is a healer, Ochún heals with fresh water, Ochún also makes herbal decoctions, Ochún is a diplomat, Ochún is an astute businesswoman, Ochún is multifaceted, she's an incredible cook, she's a wonderful and caring mother, she's a wonderful mate, there are many aspects of Ochún. And obviously, then there is the connective part of Ochún in terms of sparking human connection between one another.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: One of the praise, Oríkìs or praise names for my aspect of Ochún, is Oneabede. A bede is that long brass needle that's used to sew nets. So we can say she knits together the fabric of families ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Or the web of societies. We could just go on and on.  ANDREW: For sure, yeah. And I think about Ochún in my life, who's been, ever since I, ever since I sort of entered the religion in about 2000, she's been a constant. Right? She's always standing up for me, always there to help me, you know, always showing up when I need something ... T-D: And she's a fighter! [laughing] ANDREW: She is a fighter, right? And like you said, she demands her respect in a way that is unquestionable, you know? So before we do a ... what's called a reading of entry ... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Which is before you get crowned, there's a reading that gets done to make sure that everything's good for the ceremony space, right?  T-D: Right. Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Has everything been covered, do we have all the right things, is there some unexpected problem?  T-D: Right. Some call it the vista or the obo de entrada, or, you know.  ANDREW: Yeah. And Ochún, in my reading of entry, showed up and says, "So no matter who's marked as your mother this weekend, I'm always your mother."  T-D: Right. ANDREW: And I was like, "That's right, Mom, you are!" You know? And that continues. And it's definitely that respect piece, but, it's also ... There's a profound intelligence?  T-D: Absolutely. ANDREW: That I think that gets overlooked ... T-D: Absolutely. ANDREW: And that diplomat, that business piece, that ... T-D: That social intelligence, that's really really important. You know?  ANDREW: Yeah. Mmmhmm. T-D: It's really important. And the whole piece of love, love goddess, and that whole thing, procreation, productivity, which she kind of dovetails, obviously, with our supreme, you know, Obatala, is, I think that the element that has to do with love speaks to self-love. And self-acceptance. And self-forgiveness. As much as anything else. It's not always a sexual kind of thing, you know, and attracting the things that we want to -- Ochún has a lot to do with attraction, Ochún has a lot to do with transformation, but it's not always in a sexual way. It can sometimes be and obviously it is, but those aren't the only, you know, avenues for that element in our lives. ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. So, I think I'm just going to have to collect a bunch of children of Ochún speaking about her nature over time on this podcast.  T-D: And I'm sure you'll get 50 different answers -- ANDREW: Yeah! T-D: From 50 different children of Ochún, but -- ANDREW: It will be beautiful. T-D: I want to speak to this thing that you talked about, this whole thing of aché, that we know that we're born with aché, right, and so this aché is this divine, if you want to call it grace, if you want to call it energy, you know, different people call it different things, we're all born with this, right, and we're all made up of this. And some of Vershare's writings even allude to the idea that Oldumare is aché, that God Almighty is aché. We're born with it. And we have our gifts and our grace and our energy, but then to actually be ordained as a priest is to receive the specific aché that we require in order for us to ethically fulfill our destinies, right? That's this idea that we chose a path, that we chose a destiny before we were born. And that we require this aché of these Orishas that we receive aché of, in order to be whole, in a sense, right? Or to be fully aligned with our higher selves. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And so when we receive this aché, this aché that we receive is not the same aché that we're born with. It's really an amplification, an augmentation of what we have. And then it's almost like, you know Willy talks about this in some of his classes, the oreate ritual specialist Miguel Ramos, talks about this idea that it's almost like you have a bank account deposited of aché. ANDREW: Mmm. T-D: And then you receive, you know, augmentations to that from ceremonies or initiations or additional rites that you undergo.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And then your behavior and your character help to augment that or to multiply that or deplete it depending on how we conduct ourselves. So those are kind of some avenues or some conversations about aché, and then obviously we have the aché of our, of the Orisha to whom we're primarily dedicated as priests.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And I think we work for the rest of our lives to kind of develop that and grow that thing, and -- ANDREW: Yeah. And I think there's one other piece that sort of falls into that as well, right? Is that we are initiated, and we receive the energy, the aché -- T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: The grace, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: The connection to the spirit and so on, right?  T-D: Yes.  ANDREW: But we also are initiated into a lineage. T-D: Absolutely!  ANDREW: And we are connected to this line of people and Orishas and aché that go back -- T-D: Absolutely. ANDREW: As far as we can remember. T-D: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's essential. ANDREW: And I think that this notion of, or this practice of, being initiated into a lineage also adds to it, because ... T-D: Absolutely. ANDREW: It gives us permission, or some people might use the word license -- T-D: Right, licencia. Mmmhmm. ANDREW: To work with these spirits, and it forms a contract or a ... you know, most often talked about, like a family bond, right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: Because we use the word egun, which means ancestors ... T-D: Right. ANDREW: And when we use the word egun, we mean our ancestors by blood, our family ... T-D: Right.  ANDREW: And our ancestors by initiations -- T-D: Or by lineage, right.  ANDREW: And I think that this conjunction of the two forces, right? The energy that we receive directly from people, from our ceremonies, and from the spirits themselves, and that energy that we can access and that we can work with through working with these ancestors, I think that that combination really is where the magic happens? T-D: Absolutely. I agree with you wholeheartedly, cause you're calling on that energy.  ANDREW: Yeah! T-D: You're calling on that energy before we do anything, right?  ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: When we recite our mouba, we're literally praising God and the deities and the elements and we're literally calling the names ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Of those who came before us, of our lineage, and we're calling the names of those exalted priests who existed before us even from outside of our lineage ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: I think that's essential. And yeah, that absolutely speaks to that concept of ritual license. That aché that you receive as an initiate endows you with something that will develop in time with training into ritual license and the ability to perform and to function as a priest on behalf of yourself, on behalf of others, to benefit the community, absolutely. And that is an essential piece, and it speaks to what the Cubans call fundamento, because if you don't have that you're just kind of floundering, fooling around, and this is not that type of thing. And there are absolutely different spiritual traditions and there are people who are born with deep gifts ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: With deep connections to their own ancestors, to their own spirit guides. There are people who have to do little to no work to have the things that they do flourish, but Orisha worship is different from those types of systems and traditions. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: This is absolutely a communal system that requires ordination, initiation, training at the foot of elders, recognition by one's elders. As I said, this is definitely a learning path ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: That one sets their foot upon and they will continue to learn for the rest of their lives.  ANDREW: True. T-D: My mother in law lives with me. She's 85, she just celebrated her 60th year as an Olorisha of Ochún, she has crowned many godchildren, she's a wonderful Diloggún diviner, she is an incredibly knowledgeable herbalist, she's just an all-around Olocha of the type that was fairly common 60 years ago when people were kind of all living on that island in that environment and didn't have, didn't function or have to deal with some of the stresses of a modern life in a large place, you know? And she still reads, and she still studies, and she still learns, and she still asks questions in rituals. And she may be one of the -- she's definitely one of the most knowledgeable people, you know, functionally, in terms of ritual competence, that I know. And so it just tells me, this is a learning path, we're on this path for life.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think it's, I think that it's really a significant point, right? I think that a lot of people have a notion about spirituality, whether it's this path or another path, and I know when I was younger I had this notion, that we will at some point arrive. T-D: Right.  ANDREW: At some point we will get there, and we will be, we will know the things, we'll stop having questions ... T-D: Right. ANDREW: We'll stop whatever, right? And, you know, I mean, I look at the elders that I know, and they're always still asking questions, right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: And it's one of those things that the more I learn about these traditions, and even in my Western mystery stuff, even though I decided to walk away from that path ... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I could see how much more there was to learn, and that it was infinite, right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: And I think that it's really important to cultivate that sort of curiosity and engagement, right? T-D: Absolutely. ANDREW: I also think it's interesting, cause you brought up, and I want to kind of talk about this for a bit, before we lose it in the flow of the conversation -- T-D: Okay. ANDREW: That distinction between like Espiritismo, and muertos, like spirits of the dead, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, you know, what we would call, what more people might call spirit guides ... T-D: Right.  ANDREW: You know, guardian angels?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, in the sense of like, some spirit that looks over us, and, what do you see as the role of those spirits in your life or in people's lives in general? Because I often see people conflate them with Orisha or with other things, and I'm curious. T-D: Right. And it's -- it's easy to do, especially when we are in a tradition where many of us, and most of our elders even, will use the word egun for everything, right? Anything that's dead is egun. ANDREW: Right.  T-D: So, even if they're talking about spirit guides, which we would say muertos, or guías, or protectores, or even ... ANDREW: Ada Orun. T-D: Right, Ada Orun, or even Ada Orun, it's easy to flip that tongue. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: But yeah. Or even where they, some people talk about -- sorry -- even they use the word egun, people who are practitioners of Palo. So it just kind of gets thrown across the board. So it's -- I think it's important for us to be able to kind of designate or understand the differences, so we don't have this kind of totally crucado kind of crossed up situation, but I think that they are important. I think that a lot of that kind of -- I don't want to call it confusion, but kind of mixed up language, comes from the fact that we are ... Our religious practices and our spiritual practices descend from multiple ethnic groups of people that intermixed together in one geographic location, and so we have people practicing multiple spiritual traditions, you know, again, there's a creolization, it's not just strictly this Yoruba thing, because this is not just a Yoruba religion any more, in terms of the ethnic group. And it hasn't -- it hadn't been that way in a long time in Cuba or Brazil either. And now even more so, it is not, because we've got this kind of universal religion now, where people of different races and ethnic groups and backgrounds are practicing these religions, so. Excuse me. But back to your actual question was, I think that spirit guides have a very important place, I think Espiritismo has an important place in the overall practice of Afro-Cuban religion, because I believe that it fills in some gaps that were missing, and this is one school of thought. There are many schools of thought; there are others who will disagree. And I don't necessarily think -- I don't think it's filling in gaps that have to do with egun or ancestral practices, the more I learn about traditional Yoruba religion and the more that I study and read about that, it seems almost like Espiritismo tape kind of fills in some gaps that are missing with Egbe worship, that did not transfer to the New World. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And so, oftentimes you'll hear Yoruba scholars describe Egbe as Yoruba Spiritism.  ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: Because Egbe is not an Orisha, and it's not one entity, it's like a group of entities that exist in the spiritual realm, and so the more I read of that and learn of that, I see, or I believe, I'm led to believe, that perhaps this filled in a bit of a gap where that was concerned. But I think for all of us, I mean, I come from a house where a lot of Espiritismo is practiced. My elders are espiritistas. I was married to a Palero and espiritista, and I just see how it functions in the life. Once people become developed, it can just help you in so many ways, just in so many little practical ways. But it is a separate practice from Orisha.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And so I think what often happens is, people who are outside of the religion, who do not have elders, are being led by spirit guides to do things, and they believe that they are interacting with Orisha. And, I just don't think that's the case. So all these girls that you see on Instagram and other forms of social media building these empty altars, altar tables, or they're calling them shrines, that don't have any Orisha in them with all kinds of pretty little knick-knacks and afefedes and mirrors and compacts and things -- those are likely -- I believe the impetus for that is a spirit guide that's pushing them to do that. But they just think it's Ochún. Or they think it's Yamaya. And so they've set up their altar, you know. That's what they really believe, and I think that push is so strong coming from those guides that it's pushing them to do something and they are doing something. And these dreams that they have that they're ... ANDREW: Mmm. T-D: You know, that they may be misinterpreting cause they don't have elders to guide them.  ANDREW: Well, and I think that there's an important sort of magical concept at play that people lose track of, or they don't like it.  T-D: Okay. Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Which is, when spirit speaks to us, right? They can only speak to us through our conscious and our unconscious, right? And so that communication is very easily flavored. Right?  T-D: Okay. [nodding] ANDREW: By our ideas, by our hopes, by our aesthetics ... T-D: Right. ANDREW: By our concepts. And this ... The capacity to differentiate between different kinds of spirits or, you know, whatever, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I think is very difficult. And if a spirit shows up and wants to help you, and you're like, "Please be Ochún, please be Ochún, please be Ochún," and it's ... It's kind of in that neighborhood, you know?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Like, overlaps with that energy, of course that communication is going to get covered with that, right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: You know, it's gonna, it's gonna get clothed in those symbols and ideas, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know? And I think that it's really interesting to sort of try and understand how those communications and how those things happen, right?  T-D: It does. ANDREW: And I think sometimes it's an ego piece. Sometimes it's an unconscious piece. Sometimes it's ... You know, sometimes it comes from the spirit too, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know? But I think that it's really important for people who are exploring in directions like this to, you know, to try and be clear about it and to, you know, if you're looking to go in those directions, you know, considering looking for more traditional verification, you know?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Because that's gonna be way more fruitful over time. T-D: Yeah. ANDREW: You know? Because the challenge that I've noticed with a lot of people is, they get pulled into something and into working in a direction, and then they don't know where to go, and the spirit can't guide them further, and so then they get stuck and their life becomes, you know, not what they hoped it would be.  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: Or they have problems, and not because the spirit's necessarily making them, but because it can't take them anywhere else ... T-D: Right.  ANDREW: And then, and then they become disenfranchised, or bitter, or they get deeper issues kind of emerging from that, right?  T-D: Yeah. An important factor, I think, is [sigh]. I don't want to throw this all on millennials this or millennials that.  ANDREW: Uh huh. T-D: But, you know, different age cohorts do have some tendencies and so we may see a lot of this with millennials not wanting to, you know, follow the rules, or have guides, or submit themselves to elders, or this kind of thing, but I think it's important to just kind of lay it out on the line, that, number one, one factor that isn't necessarily specific to millennials, is that you have people who are kind of -- they may be rejecting, or seeking something outside of the Abrahamic traditions, and so when they find other religions or Afro-Caribbean spirituality, they may be operating under the misconception that because there's not a church per se, that these are not structured religions that have orthodoxy. ANDREW: Right.  T-D: And so that can create conflict and a lot of problems. Because these are very structured religions. There is orthodoxy. They are hierarchical religions. They are oral traditions, largely, even though now we have more learning resources that are not ... ANDREW: I think that that is actually, you know, I mean, I'm, I don't know about the millennialness of it ... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I mean, you know, I think that the issues ... Every generation has their own ideas, right?  T-D: Right. ANDREW: But I certainly think that being ... Everybody in this day and age who has access to the Internet, right? has ideas.  T-D: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm. ANDREW: And the amount of people who show up in my orbit who have sort of notions that they've picked up from somewhere that are really quite not traditional, you know? I think it's because of this flood of information ... T-D: There is. ANDREW: And people want it, and so much of it is ... It's kind of half-baked, you know?  T-D: It is. There's a lot of incorrect. I mean there are people ... You can go on YouTube and there are people who have tens of thousands of followers who are not giving accurate information. Or who are giving information or who have a perception or what they're voicing is really not orthodox or traditional at all. And so then when someone comes in contact with people who are part of the community and they encounter that orthodoxy, it might throw them off.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Or even put them off. You know?  ANDREW: Right. T-D: Which I think is unfortunate. But I think, you know, there are some aspects of the religion that you can access, just in terms of historical facts, you know? This started out, you know, as an imperial religion that was a part of a culture that believed in the divine right of kings and that the kings are direct descendants of Orisha ... ANDREW: Sure.  T-D: And, you know, us, we're, our practice comes largely from the Oyo empire, and so there's lots of structure and strictures and all that kind of thing that exists. It's not just this free-flowing kind of whatever you feel type of thing. And so, I think it's important for people to kind of at least try to learn a little bit about the historical stuff. Just take bites of it, you know?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Cause that will kind of put you in a better place, really, than just watching lots of YouTube videos ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And things like that.  ANDREW: I also think it's interesting because I think that a lot of people who I run into who come into the tradition or are considering coming into the tradition, right, or are coming for a reading or something ... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I feel like a lot of them don't know what to do with the reading that they get, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm, got it. ANDREW: Someone shows up and they get a reading, and they come in a sign, and it comes out that everything's firm and solid and good, you know?  T-D: [laughs] Mmm. ANDREW: And then the reader's like, "Well, the Orishas love you, hugs and kisses, see you later," and they're like, "What do you mean?" T-D: Wow. ANDREW: "What do you mean?" Right? "What do you mean?"  T-D: Right. That's problematic too, obviously.  ANDREW: Right?  T-D: Because those Odos, those divination pattern, which we call Odu, have inherent messages in them. ANDREW: Sure. T-D: And some of them admonish the diviner to speak the more -- I don't want to say negative, but negative side of the pattern, and to give warnings, and --it's a message -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: That they're kind of -- As a priest, you know, we have Ita, which are a number of life divinations, but it's the same concept as a road map. One may be temporary while the other may be permanent ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: But it's still a road map for you to follow for your life, and so even if it's just dealing with a specific point in time and a specific situation, I think, you know, obviously, a lot of people are performing readings [sigh] who just are not conscientious ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: About the work that they're doing.  ANDREW: Right. T-D: It's not just about marking an ebbó or an offering or a sacrifice that you can then charge the person for you to perform. You're really -- It's a connection, right? Between the Ori of the person who's come to receive the reading and the diviner connecting with Elegua, and giving them this message that they require, and so I think that is really important in terms of fully exploring and investigating the message of the Odu that's fallen, and taking the time with someone who is not in the religion. You know? When someone comes for a first reading, it's really important to explain to them what that's going to involve, and what it means, and what to expect, on top of what the actual message is going to be.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Because as we know, it's easier to lose the blessings that are being foretold than it is to convert negativity that's being expected into blessings. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: You know, so, it's a highly responsible task to perform a reading for someone, whether it's a Diloggún reading or a spiritual reading. It's a highly responsible task and the person who's performing that reading needs to take it seriously and they need to convey that level of seriousness and sacredness to the person who's coming to receive the reading. It's not a game or a parlor trick. It's a connection with ... to the divine. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. And it's also not ... although it has the appearance of fortunetelling sometimes ... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Like, "hey, watch for this thing ..." T-D: Right. [nodding] ANDREW: It's also not fortunetelling, right?  T-D: And the diviner needs to make that clear, also. You know, that this is not fortunetelling.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. And it's also ... The advice about what you don't do is SO important and ... T-D: It really is. ANDREW: Or maybe more important than what you do ... I mean … They're both important, right?  T-D: Right. ANDREW: And this notion of the way in which taboos are handed out, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: "Don't do this thing, don't do that thing." I think is something that is also very complicated for people sometimes.  T-D: It is.  ANDREW: Especially because sometimes those connections are super obvious, right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: Like, you came in a sign that says your head's not very clear, don't drink. Right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: Eh, it's easy to understand, right?  T-D: Right. ANDREW: But some of the other connections are less clear, right?  T-D: Right.  ANDREW: And ... and yet ... they still need to be abided with, and that's sort of ... T-D: Right. And so maybe the diviner could help that person ... you know, kind of give them some insights into it. You may not hit on the exact thing, that that taboo or prohibition pertains to for that person, but it gets them thinking along those lines. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: You know. Don't eat this thing. You know, maybe that thing would make you sick, or maybe when you go to have it, you're going to be at someone's house and it's not going to be well-prepared ... ANDREW: Right. T-D: Or maybe you'll need to make that as an offering one day and it'll save you so it's more of a medicine.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: You've got to kind of open the way that person perceives that prohibition. So that they can think about it differently than just, "I can't have that thing."  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: You know. ANDREW: People don't like to be told they can't have things.  T-D: Right. None of us like that, you know? [laughs] ANDREW: So, every time you sit on the mat, be like, "Please don't take away something I like."  T-D: Don't take away. Any time you receive another Orisha with any ties, like "oh, don't tell me I can't have this thing." ANDREW: Exactly.  T-D: But you know that it's important to observe those taboos because you've chosen this path as your life path ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: But someone who's just going to receive a reading may not understand that, you know, for the next 30 days, or depending on, you know, how you were taught, the next however long amount of time, while this Odu, while the energy of this divination pattern is around you, you need to, you know, refrain from doing this thing or that thing or engaging in this or that or eating this or that.  ANDREW: Yeah. For sure. So, I'm going to switch topics a little bit here ... T-D: Okay. ANDREW: Kind of, kind of but not ... T-D: Uh oh! [laughs] ANDREW: So, we've been talking about aché, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, one of the things that I've found fascinating was watching the way in which you described your process around making these new baths that you're offering. Right?  T-D: Okay. Yes.  ANDREW: You know? And, I mean, can you talk about it, because I think that the commitments to putting your energy into it, and the hands-on-ness of it, I think is fascinating to me, and so I'd love you to share some of that for people to understand.  T-D: Oh my goodness. So, I think it's -- There's obviously a little -- This is an unorthodox type of bath, the first bath that I'm offering as an Ochún bath. It's unorthodox in the sense that most people here in the States who practice the religion perceive Orisha herbs as just the herbs we use to consecrate heads and consecrate Orisha. And they're always fresh herbs that we work with. And the herbs that we use for spiritual baths -- Obviously people in Florida and other places, they may use fresh herbs. But in the Afro-Cuban practice, there are some herbs that get boiled. Plenty of herbs are dried, it's fairly common. It's very common for Paleros to work with dry herbs. And so, I'm using -- I'm making a dried herbal product. I'm growing most of the herbs myself. I'm washing them and drying them and confecting the baths with them. And because I'm a one woman show and I'm just starting to do this, I'm labeling all of my tea tins myself by hand, and some of the labels I kind of make, they're not really labels, I wanted it to look a certain way, and I wanted it to have kind of a vintage apothecary look, and I wanted there to be some texture. So I ended up doing a lot more kind of physical hands on -- ANDREW: Cause-- T-D: Crafting, then I had originally thought. ANDREW: You've skipped over a little bit, though, right?  T-D: I skipped over a lot! ANDREW: You're growing the herbs -- T-D: [laughing] Yes. ANDREW: And then you're picking them -- T-D: Right. ANDREW: And then you're hand washing them all, right?  T-D: Yes, and I'm drying them. ANDREW: And then you're hand drying them -- T-D: Right. ANDREW: So that they can them be properly dried -- T-D: Right. ANDREW: And cured. T-D: Right. Cause I want them to be properly dried and cured.  ANDREW: And not like moldy and disgusting, right?  T-D: Right. I didn't want them to be moldy or disgusting, and yes, I live in southern California where it's pretty dry, so it's not like I have a big issue with anything getting moldy or disgusting. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: And I have some nice drying racks that I hang that are like the ones that people might use for tea or other herbs. And in terms of the confection of the baths, it's kind of an unorthodox thing cause there's a lot of praying and singing and not the same exact kind of ora that would go on to make omearo, but some of that, you know, a good little bit of that. There's not divining going on but there was some divining going on in terms of what my ingredients would be for the bath -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And there was consulting with my own elders about that. So -- And I do have some really good teachers. As I've mentioned, my mother in law, my madrina, I also work with my Olua here in Los Angeles who is actually a sustainable gardening specialist, and my other Olua teacher, Luis Marín who lives in Maryland who is an expert herbalist, and he practices achéche, traditional Yoruba Ifa but he's initiated to Elegua in the Lucumí system. So I do have some really knowledgeable teachers to confer with. But in terms of the actual process of it, yes, I'm [laughing] -- you know, I'm making it the way that I would make a bath for someone who came to me to make a bath for them. So, and I sing when I work. I sing when I do a limpieza or, you know, spiritually clean the house. And this is an Ochún bath, so I sing Ochún songs and I sing Osayin songs.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. And -- T-D: And I open my work, I actually stand in front of my shrine and I ring my Ochún bell and I recite oríkì and I pray to her before I start my work, and then when I'm finished making the batch of the bath, and I do small batches, when I'm finished I go back and I pray to her and I sing, and I recite oríkì and prayer and once it's done I light a candle and I sing some more -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And I leave it there at the foot of my Ochún. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: And sometimes I put my Ochún sopera on top of it! [laughs] ANDREW: [laughs] Just put a little extra of that energy in there! T-D: Yes!  ANDREW: Fire it up a little further?  T-D: I do. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: I do, and so, and I want to say, you know, this concept of kind of making magical things, you know, I feel, obviously that the power is inherent in the herbs that I'm working with and inherent in the Orishas and I just have an unwavering faith in that.  ANDREW: Mmm. T-D: So, and I have an unwavering faith in my elders and in my lineage and that they put Ochún in my head and they did it properly and they've taught me, and I've conferred with them and that I'm doing this properly, and I do it with a lot of love, honestly. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: A lot of love, and heart, and I say a lot of prayers for -- I'm so emotional, you have to forgive me -- for the people who would use this bath, you know, I pray for them, that they should have good health and that they should have happiness and love in their lives and that they should love themselves and accept themselves, and that they should have prosperity and that goodness should flow to them and to their lives. And so I do a lot of that because that's what I know and that's what I've seen when rituals are performed for me, people pray for me, people pray for my children, and so I pray for the benefit of anyone who would touch anything that I put my hands on, you know.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. And I think that, to me, there's that, what I hear and see and what you're talking about is this sort of both the depth of experience, the history of the tradition, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And that sort of connection to aché and to lineage, right? And I think that, you know, it's -- it goes even beyond just some of those things, right, because it's also your aché, right?  T-D: Right. ANDREW: Like you can accomplish these things partly because it's in you from your destiny to do so as well, right?  T-D: Right. ANDREW: Like not everybody is meant to be an Ochunista or, you know, an herbalist, or whatever, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: We all have different graces and strengths, and I think that that capacity and attention is so wonderful, right? And, you know, how many, if you count the growing of the plants, how long is it from start to finish before one of these comes out in a tin, right? It's a long time. T-D: It's a long time, it is. And I think that from the beginning, my godmother did always kind of try to motivate me to learn about the plants -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And I said, "oh, it's just too much, it's overwhelming, ah," you know, I like to make the baths, I'll use this, what I know, I'll use that ... But as, over time, you know, little by little, you look, and you have more and more plants, and then I married a guy who was a Palero, so there were more and more plants.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: So you just learn, you don't take it all in one big bite, or one big gulp. ANDREW: Right. T-D: There's no way you can do it! And I don't know the Oju this is associated with, it's “bit by bit we eat the head of the rat,” you know ... ANDREW: Right. T-D: It's this idea, the head of the rat has very little sharp bones in it. And so if you're gonna eat that meat, which is a delicacy, right, for our ancestors, our spiritual ancestors, you have to eat it very very carefully. And so, it's a very slow and kind of careful process. And I don't perceive myself as being particularly knowledgeable. I perceive myself honestly as a rank and file Olorisha and I've been very fortunate and blessed to have some really knowledgeable elders who have shared with me and I will spend the rest of my life learning more about herbs and growing herbs and continuing to take classes, continuing to ask questions of other people older than me and younger than me. And maybe one day, you know, 30 years from now, I'll be an Oceanista ... ANDREW: Uh huh. T-D: But, you know, this project, if you will, is just an incredible, an extraordinary opportunity for me, and I love it, and [shrugs], that's all I can say, I love it, and I wish I had begun with more gusto 20 years ago and not felt ... not allowed it to make me feel so overwhelmed. And I also find it interesting that I've received lots of comments and feedback, you know, from elders who are espiritistas, who say "Oh, al fin tu estás haciendo trabajo de tu muerta principal," like, you know, "finally you're doing this work that, you know, that your primary muerta's been trying to get you to do for years and years." And, you know, I have been told of her, and I knew of her, but I didn't really understand that she was an herbalist. I saw her working over a pot, you know, a caldero, kind of bent over, sitting down, and her hands are moving. You know? And I would say that. And my madrino was like, "What did you think she was doing?" [laughs] "What did you think she was working on over that pot?"  ANDREW: [laughing] Yeah. T-D: You know, she was working with barks, and bottles, and ojas, and herbs, and leaves, and stuff, you know. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: But it's a process and I think it comes to us when we're ready. When we're ready for it and open to it.  ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: And sometimes it has come to us little by little over time and we didn't even realize it and then we looked up and said, "Wow! Where did all these doggone plants come from?" ANDREW: Exactly, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that -- I think that that idea of -- Back to this question about guides and spirits that walk with us, you know?  T-D: Yes!  ANDREW: I mean, I think that figuring out how to live with that, and work with them, I think is so important, you know?  T-D: It's essential but it is so hard for some of us. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: And I'm gonna tell you this, my background, I'm an African American, my family is from New Orleans, so saints and Catholicism and all that was not foreign to me, but many African American people or others who have or Anglo Americans or others who come from a Protestant background, it seems very Catholic to them, and not only that, but it seems very Christian to those who may be looking for something outside of Christianity. And so, until people dig a little bit deeper and really understand about Espiritismo and that they're different and also different ways of working with these spirits, that's when you kind of get that depth or get that connection that, you know, this is something that's really important to me, and when you are surrounded by, or find yourself in the company of people who are really developed spiritually, and how it helps their lives and how it can help your life ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: That's when you start to see the importance of that. And when you -- or the importance just of being able to distinguish between your own fears, or your own ego, and messages that are being sent to you from your guides, you know -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Is hard. And I can say, I lost my husband almost six years ago to cancer. I have struggled financially with two young children, living in a city where the schools were great when I was a child but aren't so great now and have to pay tuition for my kids and stuff like that, and make choices that I didn't think I'd have to make because I didn't think I'd be alone. You know, there's a big difference between two incomes and one income.  ANDREW: Yes. T-D: And I will give the credit 100 percent to my muertos, my spirit guides, my protectors, and my ancestors that even gave me the idea to sell these baths or make them available to the public, something that I love to do -- ANDREW: Sure.  T-D: And that I have been doing for years, and it never occurred to me, and I have been told, Andrew, so many times, you know, "You're going to have a business, you're going to do well at a business one day." Well, I'm not there doing well yet, you know, I'm just starting, but my parents were small business owners -- ANDREW: Yeah.  T-D: And I just never -- and we had a very comfortable life, but I just -- the only thing I was really good at was food things, and food businesses are very expensive and rigorous and require a tremendous amount of capital -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And I just couldn't see that. And so when this idea came to me -- This idea didn't come to me! The idea was given to me. It was a blessing that was given to me. And that just blows me away.  ANDREW: Well, you know, from a certain perspective, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So, I started working as a card reader, 15, almost 16 years ago.  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, I quit my job in advertising and started ... T-D: Wow! ANDREW: Reading cards for a living, right?  T-D: Okay. ANDREW: And I decided that I wanted to make a product.  T-D: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm. ANDREW: And so I started making herbal baths. And this line of baths that I make now.  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, you know, I got them in some stores around town, and I did some things with it, and in some ways, that starting point is the starting point of the whole store I have now, where I have a full store now, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So, you know, and it comes from that listening in, and leaning in, and being like, "All right, spirits, I can do these things. Oh yeah, I can work on that," and, you know... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: What comes from that listening, in my experience, especially if we're faithful to it, right? Over time-- T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Is everything, everything comes from there, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And I think about, when I show up at the shop, or tonight's Saturday and we're recording and I'm gonna lock up later and go home -- T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I always lock up everything and sit here and check in with all my guides and my spirits and I thank them for this, and I thank the Orishas when I pray to them every day, because all of this comes from their guidance and their influence, and my work, but -- T-D: And it's a blessing. It's a degree of freedom for your family.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And when I was a young person, a teenager, I just saw the work, you know, my parents did. And they had multiple small business endeavors, and they were successful, but there was a lot of work.  ANDREW: Sure. T-D: But working for yourself, there's just a degree of freedom, a space for personal expression and creativity, independence -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: That you'll never find in corporate America or corporate Canada or in the West, you know ... ANDREW: Corporate anything, right?  T-D: Anywhere, you're just not gonna find that.  ANDREW: It's just corporate Earth now. Isn't that the deal?  T-D: Right. That's what it is, right, globalization. But I just, if I could develop this in time, you know, in a few years or whatever, into something that I could do full time and have a small shop and grow some herbs on the roof, or in the back, or whatever, that is my ultimate goal, and to be able to kind of be there for my kids, and they can come into the shop and go in the back and do their homework and help me carry stuff or whatever ... ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: That's a beautiful way of life, because it allows you to engage in something that you value and something that you can share with the community, that you can share with others, and it allows you to continue to grow -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: As a priest, and to grow in your spiritual practice and your knowledge and ultimately, you'll be able to pass that on to other people as well. So yes, definitely, you know, you're someone who I see as a shining example, you know, honestly. ANDREW: Well. Thank you. Well. So, let's see if people want to go and check out your stuff, they should know where to find you.  T-D: Oh, yes!  ANDREW: Where are you hiding out on the web there, T-D?  T-D: So, I have a website, it's https://www.spiritualbathtea.com, and you can order the bath there. It's an Ochún bath for love and prosperity. It has a lot of beautiful things in it. And Andrew, I'll send you one, I know that you're a master bath maker but I'm gonna send you my bath, because it's just like wine, maybe you have your vineyard and I have my vineyard ... ANDREW: Oh yeah, for sure.  T-D: You know, but we can enjoy each other's products of one another's labors ... ANDREW: Absolutely. T-D: And I'll definitely be sending you a bath.  ANDREW: Super. I can't wait!  T-D: But yes, it's got at least five of Ochún's herbs in it, it has more, and it's got some other really nice elements in it that ... it's got three different types of sandalwood in it, it smells really lovely, and it's a really beautiful bath and I've received a lot of really positive feedback about the bath from users, and I love making it and I put a lot of love and care into it. And it definitely gives a new meaning, and you know, the word art, or the word crafts, these have many different meanings, and what were the meanings, the original meanings, of, you know, these things.  ANDREW: Well, you know what, the really funny thing is, you're kind of actually doing what the millennials are doing. T-D: I am?  ANDREW: You are, cause I mean, what I see a lot in sort of the millennial culture, things that people see about that, is this return to hand crafted, to small batch, to stuff made with love, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So you see these sort of various things, food wise, and you know, clothing wise and otherwise ... T-D: Right. ANDREW: That, they're not corporate, they're not mass-produced.  T-D: Right. ANDREW: They come from people who have learned how to, you know, hand do things -- T-D: Right. ANDREW: In traditional ways or new ways. T-D: And this will never be mass-produced, ever. ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: It's just not that -- that's not my concept, it's not that kind of thing. So if I wake up tomorrow and you know, Amara la Negra or Beyoncé put me on their, you know, social media, there'll just be a back log, but the order will get filled, but you know, I might buy a couple of those labeling machines, to label my tins, [laughing] or you know, like I said, my dream is to be able to afford to buy 10,000 from China of those fancy tea tins that are already embossed and printed, but the bath is, it's always going to be something that is beautiful, that I'm going to put as much beauty and love and care into as I possibly can, and that my own hands have touched, because that's it, you know, that's where the magic is -- ANDREW: Yeah. T-D: It's multi-- it's multifaceted, right? It's got these different components. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And so, you've got your spiritual license, your ritual license, your learning competencies, but it's also what you put into that thing, you know?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: There are lots of people who are well-trained, who are very knowledgeable, and who are duly ordained, who just throw some shit together.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: All day long. And I will never ever do that. Cause that's got a lot to do with personal integrity and accountability to Orisha, too! Why -- I mean, I'm going to try to make the most beautiful thing that I can if it has Ochún's name on it. And when I do my Obatala bath, it's gonna be the most incredible excellent thing that I could ever imagine. ANDREW: Yeah. Because I love Obatala, and he loves me, because he gave me a wonderful husband. You know, I just am always going to do the very best that I can.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And to try to make something, and plus we want to please people, right? We want people to feel that their money is well spent and that their effort in acquiring the thing is well spent.  ANDREW: Right. T-D: And is special to them.  ANDREW: Yeah. And I know for myself, whenever I'm in a position to represent the religion in one way or another, I feel a lot of pressure.  T-D: Absolutely!  ANDREW: Right? To get it right. T-D: Absolutely! ANDREW: I made an Orisha tarot deck, which is coming out in the fall through a major publisher, right?  T-D: Oh, wow! Okay. ANDREW: And-- through Llewellyn, it'll be out in September. T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, it took me a long time to make it because I constantly felt this pressure, from me, right?  T-D: Yeah, it's from you, it's just like any overachiever ... ANDREW: Right?  T-D: You're not competing with other kids, you're competing with yourself. [laughing] ANDREW: There's nobody else, it's just me and the art, or you and the bath, or whatever. T-D: Right!  ANDREW: Yeah, no, it's fantastic. T-D: That's definitely what it is. I definitely put my best into it. And I hope that that shines through and that people will see that and just to add one more thing, you know, it's really important, this idea that we have, of that license [sighs]. I just can't really say enough about that, I kind of get emotional about it. You can't create an Orisha bath if you don't have Orishas. ANDREW: Mmm. T-D: You know? And they're certain herbs that belong to Orishas, and all the herbs belong to Osane, but if you don't have the ritual license to work with those entities, how are you creating a bath? How are you creating a ritual? You can certainly do a spiritual bath, you know, working with your spirit guides, and working with your muertos, your protectors and guides, but working with Orisha requires Orisha. Requires consecrated Orisha.  ANDREW: Yeah.  T-D: So.  ANDREW: For sure. T-D: Don't just throw some oranges and some -- ANDREW: [laughing] Cinnamon -- T-D: Yellow flowers and some honey and cinnamon in the bathtub and say that you're doing a bath with Ochún cause Ochún is not there in that bath with you. ANDREW: Yeah.  T-D: [laughing] Not to be snarky! ANDREW: No, I think, I think it's important conversations, right? And I think that one of the reasons why it's my intention to have you and David Sosa and, you know, other traditional practitioners on, is I think that it's really important to have a dialogue about what tradition actually has to offer, right? And I think that it's a thing that's hard to understand, it's a thing that is not obvious in sort of the more modern world ... T-D: Right. ANDREW: And it's not obvious if you didn't grow up in a magical tradition or in a magical, you know, I mean, I had the great fortune to not be raised with any religion ... T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And I discovered Western mystery tradition stuff, and Western esotericism when I was like, 11 and 12, right.  T-D: Mmmhmm, Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So I grew up self-educating myself in a magical approach to the world. T-D: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And I think that's what has allowed me to step into it and into the Orisha tradition so well, is that the only traditions I've ever known have been magical. And spiritual in this way. And -- T-D: Yeah. ANDREW: And were also initiatory, right?  T-D: Mmmhmm, mmmhmm. ANDREW: Right? You know? They're all pieces that I understood from the beginning, kind of coming into this, right?  T-D: Right. ANDREW: I think it's important. T-D: And, it's very important. It's foreign to a lot of people, and, you know, it's important to say, you know, Orisha worship is not a self-initiatory system, it's a communal system, that has an intact priesthood, it has existed for many generations, for thousands of years if you go all the way back -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: And it's an ancient religious system that has an orthodoxy and a priesthood and a specific path that one follows and that's very important. And that you cannot, even though the world changes, things change, things evolve, you can't fit Orisha into your own mold or -- ANDREW: Mmmhmm. T-D: Or mold Orisha to fit your lifestyle, in that type of way. It's not that type -- it's a religion, it's a structured religious system. ANDREW: For sure. All right. Well now we've given everybody something to think about!  T-D: Yes. ANDREW: Thank you for making time -- T-D: Thank you! Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it, it was very kind of you and I appreciate your time.  ANDREW: Oh, it's my pleasure, thanks.  T-D: Thanks. 

This week Andrew is joined by the one and only Aidan Wachter. We catch up a bit since our last Stacking Skulls Episode and the converstation flows from there. We discuss Aidan's book "Six Ways: Approaches & Entries for Practical Magic" (which has been very popular at the shop" and Aidan's Talisman work. We also dive into what it means to be open to spirit and the connections that can be made from there.  Connect with Aidan on his website, and look for "Aidan Wachter" on the social media outlet of your choosing! Think about how much you've enjoyed the podcast and how many episodes you listened to and think consider if it is time tosupport the  Patreon You can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. Thanks for listening! If you dig this please subscribe and share with those who would like it.   Andrew       ANDREW: Welcome to another instalment of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. I'm here today with Aidan Wachter, and, you know, I feel like Aidan's a person who needs no introduction, but in case this is the first time you've run across him, let me say: Aidan's been on before by himself, Aidan is part of the Stacking Skulls, which is the mythological magical band made up of a few of the people who come on here on the regular, and we get together and talk about magic, and Aidan is a talismanic wizard and genius who produces amazing jewelry, and Aidan just has a new book out, called Six Ways, which is, as I'm sure we'll talk about in the episode, the book that I wish that I had received when I was starting, and the book that I wish I had written if I was going to write a book on magic. So, it's all of those good things. You know, I gave you a bit of an intro, but for folks who don't know you, Aidan, who are you? What are you about?  AIDAN: [laughing] What am I about? I've just been at the magic thing for a long time, and in a kind of weird pattern that I can see from now, I can kind of, and I'd imagine this is true of a lot of people, I can see at this point kind of the whole chain that got me here [laughs], and on top of the jewelry work, the kind of intention that I have is to kind of transmit as much of that as is useful to people.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Without all the detours that really were just mostly time wasters. And, yeah, I live on a little micro-ranch in the mountains of New Mexico, where most of the time it's really windy, but not today, it actually rained for the first time in, like, months!  ANDREW: Uh huh. AIDAN: With a bunch of chickens and a duck who's about to hatch a pile of ducks if that works out. I think today or tomorrow. And some goats and some dogs and my wife. And I play music, I write some, and I make a lot of silverwork. So.  ANDREW: Nice. So, I mean, somebody was asking, before this episode was recorded, you know, what's the move like? Because, you know, you've been there for a while, but has it been a year yet?  AIDAN: We've been in this house for just a little bit over a year now. About a year and a third. Yeah, the last place was a kind of weird one, cause it was kind of in a high-end homeowner association zone, of kind of Santa Fe suburbs?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Which is really not our scene! [laughs] We laughed that that house was the house that all of our parents would have been really proud if we had actually acquired intentionally, cause it was huge, and ... ANDREW: Sure. AIDAN: Fancy. And was totally not us. So, we're in this tiny little 700 square foot casita here. I was thinking about that question, and it's a little strange because, due to just setting up the ranchita here, and getting everything set up, and then my surgery and all that, we haven't really been out a lot in this area. So, to answer kind of what New Mexico has done, is really, like, what has this two and a half acres done? And so, it's not super New Mexico-like ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Perhaps in a general thing. But it's been really good. It's really quiet and it's really full of animals, in a way that we didn't expect. There is more kind of songbird activity than I've ever seen anywhere that I've lived. We've got a huge raptor population, we're in like the essentially what is like ... appears to be the raven preserve part of New Mexico. There is probably 150 ravens that clearly live within, you know, 1/4 mile of us, so there's always ravens in the yard and they come and mess with our dogs. Yeah.  ANDREW: How did you find ... So, like, I think about where I live. Right? You know? I mean, where I live and where the shop is, you know? And the shop's been where it is ... I mean, I was across the street before this, so if we include that, I've been in the same ... in both places, about six or seven years, right? And, you know, for me, so many of my spiritual practices kind of end up being kind of connected to spirits of place and in places where the spirits that I work with like to show up. You know, so has there been a change in your spiritual practice with this move? You know, before you moved this way?  AIDAN: You know, that's a somewhat strange question. I was thinking about this a lot in relationship to the book, cause there's kind of a really big move toward kind of spirits of place and kind of the bioregional animism that Marcus McCoy's coined that term and brought up. And I have some sense of that. But having moved as much as I have, which I figured out a couple months ago, I've moved 37 times, and I'm 51, so [laughs]. And so, a lot of those I was all in the same place, so. It definitely changes my sense of things, like my overall perceptions change a lot when I move, but the spirits I work with are pretty consistent. And that's mainly, I think, because I do most of my work in trance.  ANDREW: Hmm. AIDAN: And so, things change over there, but that's not really related to place. The places that I go are fairly consistent, and the shifts that happen there, happen over really long periods of time.  ANDREW: Right.  AIDAN: And those things come with me, and that stuff doesn't change based on where I live so far that I've seen.  ANDREW: I can see that. I mean, for me, so much of my work, my work sort of out in the woods and whatever, is connected to the spirits of those places, for sure, but it's also as often as not connected to like, you know, I can go find a willow tree anywhere, I mean, you know, in the greater sense of Toronto and the surrounding areas and many other places, and once I'm hanging out with the willow tree I can do willow tree stuff, you know?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: So, like it tends to be more tied to feature, and tied to species of plants or things like that than it tends to be, you know, like I want to go find somewhere really swampy, I want to go, you know like I really love the ... me and the redwing blackbirds have a thing, you know, so I need somewhere that's marshy and they're gonna be there then. But you know, the places that I tend to go tend to be predominantly because they are the most convenient to where I'm living or working ... AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: Versus explicitly tied to the land. AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: So.  AIDAN: And then the ... yeah, and I kind of get that with the animals. So, for me, like, the ravens have always been a big deal for me anyway ...  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And so that's a presence here. And we are ... we have lured in an insane rabbit population that is basically merging with our chicken flock now. And you'll look out and they're all hanging out at the feeders, or they'll be sharing the waters, and ... I have a thing with the rabbits too, so ... they're kind of my underworld creature. ANDREW: Nice. AIDAN: And then the other thing that did happen here, is, and I have to go back, I haven't spent enough time there, you know is there's this really ancient Guadalupe shrine here.  ANDREW: Mmm. AIDAN: That's, I don't know when that ... I mean, it's old. I want to say it's more than 300 years old, I think. And like that place is one of the most intense power spots I've ever been in. Like that's been continuous use for hundreds of years. And that's ... Yeah, that's an amazing place. That was ... I mean I know that that changed some of ... That certainly affected me, was spending a few hours in there. There's another church that's dedicated to St. Michael, but I haven't been up there yet, those are both in Santa Fe. And, yeah, I mean, New Mexico is really interesting cause it's such a different place than anywhere I've ever lived. And especially kind of down where we are, which is really rural. We're not in ...  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: You know, we're not in anything like hoity toity ... We have a Walmart, a gas station, and three or four feed stores. [laughs] ANDREW: Right.  AIDAN: You know, we live in the neighbourhood where you see, you know, somebody's escaped horse running down the road.  ANDREW: Right.  AIDAN: With people chasing it. [laughs] So it's ... I love the spaciousness and the open ... It does remind me a lot of trying to see where we were except that I'm not as wrecked by allergies as I was in Tennessee.  ANDREW: [10:04 crosstalk]  AIDAN: That openness definitely is really helpful. The clear skies, basically all the time, is really helpful for me.  ANDREW: Hmm. So, since you were last on the podcast ... AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So, you know, the Stacking Skulls crew was on, end of January, early February, you have this book that came out, and I don't usually do book episodes cause I think that they're not that exciting. AIDAN: Totally. ANDREW: But your book has been super fascinating to me. Because I think that it represents such a grounded introduction ... AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: To magic, and such a grounded introduction that is not ... Not invested in making you believe something.  AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So many books are ... you know, they're like, "Sign up for the Golden Dawn, we'll give you the special apron, and you'll be a believer. Sign up for this, or sign up for that," you know, like, and not that there's anything wrong with having a belief system or expressing that belief system, but, I feel like your work is sort of devoid of that in an overt way that I think is very fascinating.  AIDAN: Yeah. I think that ... It was really interesting to me, and I'm glad that that comes through, cause that was certainly the intent, that when the book started, when the book kicked up, and it kicked up really fast -- the framework took about two weeks to write, and then it just took me another two years to finish, basically. Any time I would try and go even vaguely into "let's talk about how you should do something," [laughs] like I would just get kicked by the allies, like, "that is not why we want you to do this," like, "do what you would do."  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And there wasn't a lot of that to begin with, but it really did get weeded out pretty aggressively, cause I don't think it's generally relevant to the practice of magic. I talk about the general and the specific in the book, in a few places, and I don't go incredibly deep into it, but that's kind of my take, is we tend to get lost in the specific in a lot of our conversations or books or whatever about magic. Which is great for the people that are doing the exact same kind of work. But it makes it kind of difficult for somebody that's not, that they don't really fit that mold, to figure out what parts you can use and what parts are really important. If it's really important that I know all these names or all these correspondences or all of these ... or that I work with these specific gods, does that mean that I can't do this work?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And I was definitely looking to counter that.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think it's great because ... You know, we have a lot of conversations going on around sort of appropriation, and, you know, what do we do with, you know, other people's histories, and other people's spirits, and other traditions, and stuff like that. And I think that it's really sticky to sort of go through and read a bunch of books and cherry pick all the pieces that you want, you know?  AIDAN: Yeah. ANDREW: And kind of put them together. Cause it might work, and you might unlock something, or you might end up with a lot of trouble, or you might be fooling yourself, or you might just rub all those spirits the wrong way, and it's really kind of arrogant of us as humans to sort of think that we can understand all of that in a way that kind of goes beyond that, you know?  AIDAN: Totally. ANDREW: And I say that as a person who at points in my past has been arrogant in those ways, you know?  AIDAN: Mmmhmm. Me too!  ANDREW: And I've discovered things and been like, "Huh. That would have been way better had I not done that thing..."  AIDAN: [laughs] ANDREW: Or whatever, right, you know?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: Yeah.  AIDAN: Well and I think too, I think that there's a big part in there which is, you know, kind of, I keep blasting out this thing from Ido Portal, who's kind of a crazy movement guy with a capoeira background, but he's gone all over the place. Where he talks about that there's a point where information becomes too much, and it's no longer helpful. And he means that in a developmental sense, like learning more data, more or less, more systems, more theories, at some point actually stops helping you, and it kind of turns on you, and so, I think that that was a present thought in the book too, was like, what's ... how much can I give you, it's kind of why the title of approaches and entries is, how many different doors to interesting spaces that are helpful in my experience can I get you through?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And then, I don't want to give you much more information than that ... ANDREW: Right. AIDAN: Because if I do, that's going to color what happens when you walk through them.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And so, instead, I'd rather have you walk into that space, and go "Okay, what goes on in here?" And see. Cause what goes on in there for you is likely to be really different than what goes on in there for me or for Andrew or anybody else.  ANDREW: Sure. AIDAN: Unless we come in with such a clear picture of what is supposed to happen in there that that just shades everything. And we kind of get what we expect. Versus what might be way better for us to get in there.  ANDREW: Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing the shaping influence that our consciousness plays on things, right? and our preconceptions and so on, you know?  AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And I think that this sort of notion, you know, I shared a video the other day, I'm working on a new tarot deck, and it doesn't have a title, but, like, so I finished my Orisha tarot deck and handed it in to Llewellyn in April, and as I was doing the final steps of that, I created a ... and that, the Orisha deck was very very structured and very very thought out, you know, and inspired when I was actually doing the art, but like the, but so much of it ... Sorry for that brief interruption! And then I created this sort of surrealist, very dream-inspired black and white deck, and then I realized what I wanted to do was just like basically slop paint around and make something really bright and colorful, so I've been making this deck and I was working on the Judgement card, which is what I shared recently ... AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, as I was sort of like working on it, and sort of allowing something to emerge, I was like, "Why do we have to see the angel? Why do we even think the angel looks like us?" AIDAN: [laughs] ANDREW: "Why is the angel anything other than, like, light and motion?" You know?  AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: It's sound, right? You know, and I think we have so many notions about, they look this way, they look that way, they, you know, have this shape or that shape, yet, in my experience it's not true. My experience is that they are so utterly other that we create that layer on top of them so that we can interface with it, but even that's not required. You know?  AIDAN: Right. Well, it's funny, I have this very, if we were to talk image, there's an entity that I visit in a southern place that's this fire spirit, and it's kind of like a traditional, I would think, positive view of Lucifer, as like look, this very fiery ...  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Bright, intense being. Very masculine. And for the last, I don't know, five months, half the time if I go into that space, he looks like that, and half the time he looks like Gary Numan's daughter, Persia. There's like this 12-year-old blonde girl, that's in his, if you go and watch the "My Name is Ruin" video by Gary Numan, she's the girl in there. So obviously this came from me. There's no reason that this thing has watched this video. [laughs] And it clearly just kind of grabbed that image as something that it liked, to present as. Or, I just overlaid that image, that somehow there's energy there. It doesn't really matter ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: But it was really helpful in some ways, I think, to just realize, yeah, this is my avatar, in the old RPGs or whatever ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Right, I've got like my little image, and that's what we're generally interacting with. I deal with a number of spirits that change all the time, and like, there's just, it's either like, there's something in the eyes, or if they speak I know, or sometimes there's just a vibe that they give off, but that they've never been the same thing twice. And if I come in thinking "oh, this is an angel that has wings" or whatever, I may not have been able to see all of these different aspects.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And I'm not sure whether those aspects are more important just as to my own self or to them or whatever, but it does leave it really ... It leaves it ... It kind of keeps you from instilling ... At least it keeps me from instilling dogma about it.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Whereas if I said you're going to walk into this space, and you're going to meet this, you know, fiery being, who's a slender man, six feet tall, well-muscled, right? the kind of standard shit you see in the old stuff ...  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And you walk in and like, no, you see this 12-year-old girl in a kind of ratty shift, with, you know, white painted cross on her forehead, do you not realize that that's the thing that you're supposed to be? Probably, right? Cause that's not what it looks like.  ANDREW: So, how do you ... How do you verify, or do you verify, who you're talking to, then?  AIDAN: [laughs] Well, I'm a little weird on that sense from what I understand, talking to people. Almost nothing that I work with has a name.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And the few times that I've tried to get names out of most of them, they don't give them to me. They'll either give me a title ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Which they're really clear is a title. Or they'll just like make something up. [laughs] ANDREW: Call me Steve! AIDAN: Yeah, call me Steve! [laughs] Totally. I just look for how useful what I'm getting from them is, and then over time is it consistent with them? ANDREW: Right.  AIDAN: So, there's a being that I think I've mentioned before when we were talking that I work with called, that I call the Night Mother. And she's always functioning the same with me.  ANDREW: Hmm. AIDAN: But again, some of the kind of allies that I've met through her are also what I kind of refer to as collective or hive beings, we've talked about that before. So, I'm not certain that she's not, you know, kind of again an avatar to a collective. ANDREW: Right.  AIDAN: She doesn't feel that way. She feels very solid and there's links to a lot of different deities that I could say ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: This is on the continuum with these other kind of particular goddess figures.  ANDREW: I think that's actually a really interesting point if you don't mind me segueing here for a second.  AIDAN: Yeah, go ahead.  ANDREW: You know, there's always this question that I run into, right? Because ... and let me start by saying, hey, whatever people do is whatever people do. Like, you know. Neither -- I don't think either of us are here to neither judge nor claim to know the ultimate truth, right?  AIDAN: Oh, hell no! [laughs] ANDREW: But like there's this ... But there's this sort of point of tension that happens, because I practice a traditional religious practice, and because I have such a background in magic and chaos magic and other traditions like that, and because I still practice spirit-based magic and stuff, mostly around my business and my clients, for my clients. But, you know, like, people have these experiences where they say, "this Orisha spoke to me," or "I saw this spirit," or whatever, right? And I think that there's this openness in your approach, which I really think is super smart, which is to sort of say, "Yeah, it's a spirit from like, that collection, or from that like, direction, or from those kinds of things," right?  AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: As opposed to sort of leaping to this sort of assumption that, you know, Zeus himself strode out from Olympus, wherever that might be, and came to see you. Yeah, maybe it was Zeus. Maybe it was a Zeus-like thing. Maybe it was a spirit related energetically to that, you know? You know and because, so many people have interactions with these different spirits, and yet, and yet, you know, certainly from a traditional point of view, the belief is that they are not those spirits themselves. That the Orishas themselves only generally speak through their priest craft.  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: So, then what's going on with all these other people who are having some kinds of experiences? Especially where those experiences carry truth or carry through in some way, right?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: And I think that this idea that there are, you know, there are certain spirits or deities or whatever you want to call them, and then there are, kind of like when we go read the Goetia and stuff, you know?  AIDAN: [laughs] ANDREW: There's this person, and then they've got 300 governors, and they've got 26 servants, and they've got, you know, this, that, and whatever, right?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: And to think that we've gotten so cleanly and clearly to the top of that order, you know, is somewhat presumptuous, especially in the absence of clearly definable magical process to get there. You know?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: Like, if you're going to call Balail, well, there are documents and there are ways to go about it, and there, you know, and then that seems way more likely. But to think that Balail's out just strolling around, and bumps into you on the street and wants to have a conversation with you, maybe not so much, but maybe a spirit from that crew, you know? Or do you disagree with me? What do you think?  AIDAN: No, I actually do, and I mean, that's where I kind of, that whole think is what led me into kind of what I refer to in the book as biological animism at one point ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And so, I go, "No!" Like, I've got, you know I'm made of these ungodly number of different types of cells and different structures ... ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: And a lot of them do basically the same thing, right? So, all my motor neurons are doing the same thing. They're doing it in different parts of my body and they're connected to different structures, so when they do that same thing, different things happen, right? But so, I began thinking about the entities that I was kind of interacting with in that sense, you know, again, this will probably not be comfortable for some folks, but, if we kind of view that the crossroads is this, extensively spread thing, whether we ... especially if we add in all the structures that are like it, so if we look at the tree, if we look at the center posts in some religions, and some forms of shamanism, and if we say, all these things are crossroads-like, they're kind of cognates of that ... ANDREW: Yeah.  AIDAN: They serve a similar function, right? And so, it makes sense to me that all of those beings that we find wed to that idea in all of these different cultures are probably of a type, to some degree.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And this isn't to say that you don't find individual things, I don't know enough to say that that's not the case, and I think it probably is. I'm not saying they're all the same, which is one of the things that you get in some arguments, which is not the one that I make at all. But ... Like, I know that my work is highly connected to that space.  ANDREW: Mmm. AIDAN: And, if I look at the kind of spirits that I operate with, a lot of them operate within that function. And they do show as very different, but yeah, it's like, there's a thing that I interact with that is very Woden-like, but I don't know that that's Woden. And you know, I had a really interesting experience in trance a couple years ago, in relationship to that specific thing, and the ... Another being that I dealt with told me to go find a Woden and ask my question to the Woden that I found. [laughs] And I kind of asked for clarity on that, and they were just like, really clear about it, like ... ANDREW: Yeah.  AIDAN: You just, you don't worry about it ...  ANDREW: You just, you go find one!  AIDAN: If you go find one, they all do the same thing, more or less, was the idea. Any of them will be able to help you out.  ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: And again, it depends on what you come with. I didn't come with something that said this is one deity is ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: 100 percent discrete from all other beings. And therefore, you know, there is a lot of silversmiths. There is a lot of magicians. ANDREW: Sure. AIDAN: There is a lot of ... And it's not necessarily that you're always going to need that one in specific to help you.  ANDREW: And it's not like all magicians are of the same category either, right?  AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: You know? Yeah. AIDAN: Yeah. You know. But yeah, there's a certain point where someone's going to say "yeah, you should go talk to a goetic magician," or "you should go talk to someone that works with the Orishas." Cause they'll be able to help you the best in this particular situation ... ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: You know. To me that just seems pragmatic and in my experience, it's been consistent. I don't know that it's the truth or anything like that, but it's been consistent.  ANDREW: Who knows what that is, right? [laughs] I'm gonna leave that for another time! AIDAN: Yep, absolutely.  ANDREW: So, one of the questions though, since we're talking about going and visiting the spirits, right? Someone commented on one of the Facebook posts about this podcast that they were curious about how they could deepen their trance. You know?  AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: How do you get deeper, you know, and I think that really, that's part of the whole spectrum of how do you get there faster, how do you get there easier, how do you go further, how do you stay there longer ... AIDAN: [laughs] Right.  ANDREW: What kind of advice do you have for people trying this out?  AIDAN: So, I only really can speak to my own experience and that I've helped a few people with this thing, I'm not ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: I've done a little bit of teaching but not a lot. So I don't have a vast body of students where I could say, "This always works!" So, I have no idea if this always works. It might! The two things that ... The first thing I would say has to do with the speed issue, and that is to slow down. And that doesn't mean not to try and get deeper now, but as you go in, slow the whole process down, so like at the point that you get relaxed enough to go in, through whatever kind of induction you use, do that for a longer period of time and see if that will settle you further out.  So, for me I do almost all of my trance work flat on my back, and I mention it in the book, but one of the things that I find really helps is I lay pillows over my body, and that that weight kind of holding me down seems to do something to help me separate more from my body sensations. I don't have, it keeps me from wanting to kind of wiggle my toes and do stuff like that. It's not like I'm always buried or anything, but that definitely has helped. And so slowing that process of getting in, to me is always a good thing, and then once you get in, to really do what you can to kind of intensify the sensoria of whatever it is you're getting. And this may be visual, it may not be visual. I have both visual and nonvisual stuff that goes on this way.  And so, we'll just assume that this is a visual thing, that you've got it to the place where you actually can get a sense of things. And for me, this is not ... I always, I never know how to describe it, but it's "like" vision. I don't have the internal space that I'm always seeing everything, like I'm seeing you on the screen ... ANDREW: Sure. AIDAN: But, I have a clear sense of what things look like, and I don't know if that makes sense to anybody that's not been there, but ... ANDREW: Well, I find for me personally, I find that I was pursuing that sight piece a lot ... AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: A long time ago, and got quite far with it, and to be honest now I've largely abandoned it.  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: I'm like, man, it's so much work to get to that place. I could actually ... I realized at some point that I could just kind of know, instead ... AIDAN: Yeah!  ANDREW: And I like that a lot better, because I'm like, I just kind of know, and if I need visual information, I can receive it as sort of a blending of sight and knowing, but it means, especially because I can do a lot of this work sort of sitting with clients and doing readings, and sliding in and out of these spaces, it's so much more convenient to just like know things and just be able to articulate them ... AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: And I don't have to get to that place where I'm sitting looking at the thing and so on. And not that that's not interesting, but ... Yeah, it just seems less helpful to me over time.  AIDAN: It's ... The thing that I've found, which is, and I totally agree with that, and the thing that I've found that is helpful, and it's totally okay, this is one of the places where the kind of "fake it till you make it" actually works in magic ... ANDREW: Yeah.  AIDAN: Which is, what I talk about in the book, is kind of talk to yourself about what you would see. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And part of what happens, I think, when we do this for people that aren't kind of super visual in that space, and I am not super visual in that space, and what it did for me was it began to kind of break that need to see everything.  ANDREW: Right. AIDAN: In technicolor. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Cause it's like, I was proceeding anyway, so whatever part of me was resisting getting what visual information I do get kind of gave up. And so, to me once I get, if you get into a space, play with what's in that space rather than necessarily going "I want contact."  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: So for me, the majority of my work I do in the West, in the West where I go is very moist. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: A little bit of fog, but it's not foggy, but it's more like you see the wisps of fog through the trees and the forest sometimes kind of thing, and I try to, if I'm not kind of getting the feeling that I'm in super well, I'll start trying to get a little more about whatever, so if I notice that there's water running, what does that feel like? What does that ... What is my sensation on my skin feel like?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Do I want, am I cold? Am I ...? ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: Am I warm? Can I hear the water? Is the water like, drippy?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Can I find water that I could drink?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Which is, you know, if you're talking to the fairies, this is not recommended, but I'm always all for drinking the water when I can in the other world. But, and that type of process is the thing that's really worked well for me. And it kind of syncs up to kind of the main theme in the book I think which is kind of go as deep as you can with wherever you are ... ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: Rather than trying to add more to it.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And see what happens.  ANDREW: Yeah. For me I did ... I used to do this process a lot, which I still sometimes do. Which is, I would sort of as I start sliding into trance I would start picturing myself on this path into the woods, right?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: And, as I was walking, I would sort of focus on the idea of walking the path in the woods until I could hear crunching of the gravel on the path under my feet. AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: And then I would pick up a set number of stones and drop them back and hear them dropping back. And then after I'd accomplished that, then I would put my hand on the tree and feel the bark and what that felt like. And then, at that point, I would turn and see that I was at the end of the path, and it was opening up to wherever I was going, which was usually the same place. AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: Like very structured pieces. It sort of emerged though, not from the notion that like, you know, I'm going to go, like, if you're going to visit somewhere very structured, there are structured ways to get there, right? Like ... AIDAN: Right. ANDREW: Like maybe path workings on the tree of life, like there's tons of great stuff on that, you can take a look at that, but for me it was like, there's this thing where I started to notice this stuff, and there was this dance back and forth between noticing what I was experiencing and then engaging back with it, back and forth ... AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: And then that kind of solidified over a few months into that process. AIDAN: Right. And that's ... I would say that, yeah, very similar things, again like, if I go to the West and I'm not feeling like I'm at a place where I can connect with the things that I deal with yet, then I'll find a spring, that's kind of one of my things, it's like I want water running off of a rock.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And then that's a place where I can kind of wash my hands and bless myself with that water or drink some of that water, and then continue from there. And it kind of is this process of deepening that. You know, when the allies show up, not necessarily, I don't tend to go very hard with them if they do show up, it's just kind of like, what goes on here? [laughs] ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: You know, what ... is there anything you want to show me?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Is there ... cause usually I find that trance is not the place that I initially go for answers to questions unless I already have somebody that I know I can go visit to do that with, so it's really just about making those connections and like, what shows up for me in here?  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Is there something going on for me in this space? And a lot of times it takes a long time. There's places that I go back to repeatedly, dozens of times, before anything really happens, that's of any, yeah, describable import. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And so I think it's just time and yeah, seeing what happens, like it was really interesting, like, when I started traveling to the West, I would go to the ocean a lot. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And for the last five years, there has been nothing for me to do at the ocean. [laughs] So I kind of don't go there! If I get called there, which happens, that's happened a couple times, but in general, like, this is kind of boring ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: This is not my place, where there's other spaces that are far more interesting and where I actually have work to do and that's where the allies are generally waiting for me. ANDREW: Hmm. AIDAN: And again, I think it's probably different for everybody. I go to very few places. But I go to those places very frequently. And kind of the same thing on the entity front or deity front, I work with very few, but I tend to work with them as much as I can, to do the work that I want, like the idea of having 72 spirits or something to work with is like, WHY?  ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: What's the ... [laughs] what would I do with that? That's more friends than I have. [laughing] By a long shot! I don't know what to do with all of them! [laughing] ANDREW: Yeah. I think that's, I think that ... You know, people ask me, like, you know, what deck is the best, or whatever, like, and, I mean, I have one deck. I read with it. I have three unopened copies in a drawer because it's out of print, and if it doesn't come back in print I don't want to be sad down the road that I can't replace it. You know?  AIDAN: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And like -- and before I worked with this deck, which has been the last number of years. You know, at some point I worked with another deck for like the better part of ... I don't know, somewhere between 15 and 20 years exclusively, and I think that there's something that ... there are different things that come, right? There's something that comes out of ... we talk about devotion, right? You know and sort of being devoted to a deck or to something particular, I think it brings about a different quality of change, than, you know, than having 72 friends or 72 decks or whatever, and I don't know that either is bad, but sometimes I don't understand what's on the other side of that equation, because it's so far from my journey with things ... AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: That I don't know what to do with it. You know?  AIDAN: No, and I totally think that there is ... I don't ... I know folks that work extensively with, you know, whether it's Goetia or Enochian or all sorts of different systems that are incredibly involved, and it appears to work well for them, so it's not, I have no issue with it, but for me, that's definitely not my approach. You know. It's like I kind of covet another guitar, but I've got two acoustics and one electric, and I don't really need one to do what I do and so it's kind of like that just hangs out on the back burner, and I like to shop for them, but I don't like actually to pull the trigger for them. ANDREW: Right. AIDAN: And the same as you, even though I read with cards, very limited, you know, I recently found one deck that reads really beautifully for me and I have four copies of it, because it was going out of print.  ANDREW: Which one?  AIDAN: I use the, what is this guy? It's this guy, it's the Arcana deck from Dead on Paper. ANDREW: Okay. AIDAN: It's a playing card tarot deck.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: So it's, you know, it's poker sized, but it has the full trumps. And court cards are all fully arted up, but all of the suit cards are playing cards.  ANDREW: Nice. AIDAN: And it reads really well for me. Yeah. I bought it, I got two of them and started reading with it, and was like "oh, hell, these are about to go out of print," and had to track down two more just in case.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: So.  ANDREW: That's awesome. So, when you ... one of the other things we were talking about, we've been talking a lot about trance stuff, right? But I mean, one of the other things that we ... certainly is in your book, right? and I know is part of your practice, is also this process of like, doing work, right?  AIDAN: Right.  ANDREW: Do you do your work when you're in trance? Do you do your work elsewhere? AIDAN: [laughs] The answer is yes to all of those.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And this is the other thing I was thinking about this in response to the deepening trance work and so this is one of the methods that I do really like for that, and I forgot about it earlier, so thank you for the question, too. Most of what I do on the surface is offerings ... ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And then asking the people that I have a regular offering practice with for help. Which is just talking. And then I do a lot of kind of simple candle magic as I talk about in the book. And I do a lot of sigil magic.  I also do, that's almost the wrong approach, related to that, is that there's an aspect of all that work that I do in trance. There's very little that I do that I could define as being discrete work. Some of the sigils are, and some of the candle magic is, where this is the only thing I'm doing, is I'm going to ask this once for this one thing. Almost everything is done as an overview.  ANDREW: Hmmm. AIDAN: Or as a piece of a bigger whole. ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: Which is kind of the ship that I talk about in the book, is this whole magic thing in my life and all of its aspects are in general focused in one kind of coherent direction. ANDREW: Mmm. AIDAN: And I'll use different tools to sort out pieces that need to change, or to steer that, kind of the whole thing, but I'm rarely doing anything super specific that is separate from that. If we were just looking at kind of percentage wise, you know, maybe five percent of stuff is going, "hey, I want this," or "I need a little more oomph over here" or "can we make this stop?" ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And so, that tends to be that I'm getting information on the trance side, I'm getting what I kind of, what I refer to as body work over there, I get a lot of experiences with the things that I deal with in trance kind of putting themselves into my body and it's ... it feels kind of like physical body work. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: Too, and my experience of it is, is that they're kind of adjusting psychic structures, or clearing blocks, or removing kind of bad attachments. And so that's often one of the places where if I'm doing a lot of work for something, one of the allies will offer some assistance. Either in thinking about it or in this kind of body work approach. And that totally, so they're all, they're all very integrated.  And then the other piece, which is the one that I mentioned, is helpful for getting into trance that I do, is ... And I don't do this all the time, but it's a really useful technique that can be worked with if you've got a pretty solid trance space and ... If you're using the book, I would do this in the upper work space in the tower that I talk about, which is kind of just a mostly empty working room that has a table in it, and so that's the first place I would try this. And what you do is, in the waking world, get a box, get a wooden box, and clean it up, and then paint it in some way that's really clear, so, you know, mine is like blue or black and has big dark blue circles on all the sides and on the top, so it's really clearly this box. And I think it's important to make it -- there'll be no questions there. And it's really ... Mine is really simple cause again my visualization skills aren't that great. [laughs] And what I will do sometimes is if I know I need a little different angle of work, is I'll put the components for that work, I'll do whatever kind of ritual or spell work I'm going to do, and then all those pieces go into the box. So, if I'm going to do candle magic, I might, you know, inscribe two candles and prep one of them and burn one of them and the other goes into the box. And if there's a sigil that goes with it, that goes into the box. Or if there's a talisman that goes with it, that goes into the box. Or a crystal or something like that. And then put that box together, in whatever your working space is, closed up, and go on about your day or whatever, and then when you go into trance, go into, in this case, that tower space, and go in knowing that that box is going to be available to you. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. AIDAN: And so I'll walk into that space, if it's not already on the table, I kind of imagine that I'm going to reach into the box is usually in the shop here, into the shop from the tower, and bring that box in with me. And then I'll do that spell work from that space in trance. And that's one of the most useful things that I have found for really -- it doesn't necessarily improve your visualization or anything in trance, but as far as, it concretizes what's going on. ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: It builds a really solid link between your kind of more normal consciousness and that space that you get into in trance work.  ANDREW: That's awesome. Yeah, I think figuring out how to like, connect here to there in as many ways as possible is definitely the way to go. AIDAN: Yeah. [laughs] Definitely makes everything work better ... ANDREW: Yeah. AIDAN: In my experience, for sure.  ANDREW: Cool. So, we've been talking for a while here, so maybe we're at that point where we should say "Hey, go buy Aidan's book, it's fantastic. If you're not already following Aidan, go follow Aidan." You know? AIDAN: [laughing] ANDREW: Yeah. Where should people come find you?  AIDAN: I'm at aidanwachter.com. I'm Aidan Wachter on everything. Except you can probably find me as Aidan Wachter on Twitter too, but it's silfrsmith [rooster crowing in background] in the old Norse spelling on Twitter, but Aidan Wachter on Facebook, I've got a page, Aidan Wachter Talismanic Jewelry. The book is available generally all the online sources. I'm too busy with jewelry to try and deal with distribution, so, there's really no ... no stores have it as far as I know. And yeah, I'm just generally around, if you do a search for Aidan Wachter Talismanic Jewelry you will find something that will lead you to all the rest of it. [rooster crowing in background] ANDREW: That's awesome. Well, thank you for making the time to chat today. AIDAN: Absolutely.

In this episode Rosered and Melissa join Andrew to talk about the roel pop culture has played in shaping and nurturing their spritual practices. They talk about Pop figures as altar items, movies and characters that shaped them, and explore what something being sacred to them might mean.  If you are interested in supporting this podcast though our Patreon you can do so here. If you want more of this in your life you can subscribe by RSS , iTunes, Stitcher, or email. You can find Rosered on Twitter here and Instagram here. Tarot Visions Podcast is everywhere but you can start here.  You can find Melissa on her website here.  Planet of the Ape and other cool buddha hybrids are here.   Thanks for listening! If you dig this please subscribe and share with those who would like it. Andrew   If you are interested in booking time with Andrew either in Toronto or by phone or Skype from anywhere click here.     ANDREW: Welcome to another instalment of The Hermit's Lamp podcast. Today, I have got on the line with me, Rose Red Robinson and Melissa Ceynowa, and we're here to talk about pop culture, and the ways in which pop culture and movies and stories and all these wonderful things can influence us and be a part of our understanding of who we are and our journey. That's the official reason.  The unofficial reason is, I really wanted to hang out and talk about Big Trouble in Little China a lot … [laughter] ANDREW: And I'm not saying if you haven't seen that movie yet, that you should stop listening right now and go and do so, but I'm not saying you shouldn't, you know, cause really, if you haven't seen it yet, I don't understand. You should go see it. You should go check it out. It's on Netflix.  So, but, for, you know, people who don't know who you are—let's start with you, Rose. Give us a quick introduction.  ROSE: Okay, I've been doing tarot off and on for 20 plus years. I am fortunate enough to have a wonderful podcast of my own that I do with Jaymi Elford, called Tarot Visions, that was started back in 2013, with the lovely Charlie Harrington, and he decided to pass me off to Jaymi. I've worked in … with Tarot Media Company for many years, back in the day, studied tarot for off and on forever, and am now kind of exploring Celtic Hanlon at the moment, and, am just a general happy reader.  And I've been lucky enough to present at various conventions on the west coast, PantheaCon and Northwest Tarot Symposium, being the two, as well as running some successful meet-ups in my local area that I have also passed on to other people, because I'm not the only one who knows everything. So, it's awesome to be able to share, and engage other people to be teachers as well, cause then I can be a student, so that's fun. So that's me! ANDREW: Cool. Awesome. And Melissa?  MELISSA: I can't really follow that. No ... [laughter] ANDREW: Pretty impressive, right?  MELISSA: No, I've been—next year, I figured out, I've been reading for 30 years, and it occurred to me that I might be able to teach people, like only five years ago. So, I wrote a book. It came out last year; it's Kitchen Table Tarot, and my way of teaching the cards is really similar to Rose's, cause we both grab onto what's around us. ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: As kind of a pathway to what the card means, and... I don't know, I'm a mom, and trying to figure out how to have, you know, three jobs at a time and still pursue tarot, which is my favorite sweetheart in the whole world, is challenging but worth it, so. Yeah.  ROSE: [whispering] Her book is awesome!  MELISSA: Thank you! ANDREW: Sure. It's a good book. MELISSA: Thank you. I like it.  ANDREW: We have it in the shop; you can get it on ... everywhere. So, check it out.  MELISSA: Thank you! ANDREW: So, tell me about pop culture. You know? What is it about pop culture that intrigues you or interests you? You know? Cause I mean, like, growing up, I always heard, “TV's going to rot your brain, blah blah blah, it's all a waste of time,” right?  ROSE: Right. ANDREW: You know? But for me, it's certainly ... I guess I'll leave it up to the dear listeners to see if my brain is rotted or not, but, you know, to me it always seemed like a way of understanding, a way of connecting, a way of making sense of things, you know? At its best, I mean, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: But like, what is it about pop culture stuff that's interesting to you two?  ROSE: Okay, well, it was kind of one of my first experiences of finding spirituality, ironically enough, cause I grew up when we could watch, you know, Bewitched, and you could talk about the Greek gods on the different Hercules shows and all of those things, back with Harryhausen, and all of that. And it was just like “Oh! Wait! These aren't just crazy movies and TV shows, there's, like, stuff that they're based on?”  And then going and finding out that, you know, there's Greek mythology, and going and studying that … And then, of course, when you're in school, they're like, “Oh, you're interested in that, here, let me give you more stuff!”, cause teachers want you to learn … And so, that was really how I incorporated the two, and I'm like, well, “Isis is amazing! I love that TV show!” And then, “Oh! It's a real thing!” And then learning more about that as a child, I mean, with the wonder that we have as children, and then, you know, Wonder Woman being, you know, the princess of now, Themyscira, but then, Paradise Island, and incorporating that with the Greek mythology, and going, “Oh, wow, this makes sense!” You know. So, that's kind of where it came from for me. I don't know, your mileage may vary. But that's … I didn't see it as pop culture at the time, I just saw it as “Oh, cool TV show, talking about something real,” air quotes on the real, cause again, TV is not the real part, and just blending, and that's how I built it up, cause okay, now I've got this connection, and yeah, it made sense.  MELISSA: For me it was kind of finding connection, cause I was a lonely nerdy little child, and I would watch Wonder Woman and I would watch, even Mother Goose, you know, with her pointy hat riding a broomstick with her familiar, you know? Like, I was always drawn to the witchy kind of stuff, but I didn't know what to call it, and I loved Uncle Arthur, and, you know, all of the things that had pieces of them that also fit pieces of me, and so I've always been really drawn to pop culture because it kind of helped me identify who I am.  And, like I just saw A Wrinkle in Time, and I sobbed through the whole thing, because Meg was the only person I'd ever met who was like me, when I read those books … ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And finding somebody that could like, reach through pages, and say, “Honey, you're normal, you're just like me,” was just amazing. And that was very spiritual for me, to find somebody who said, “You're not aberrant, and you're not a mistake,” you know? So pop culture's been really important to me because I was lonely. And the weird kids all over, The Girl with the Silver Eyes, or the X-Men, or all of these outside kids, they were me. And finding somebody that showed my face back to me was really important. So.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. ROSE: What about you, Andrew? ANDREW: When I was growing up in the 80s, all those bad ninja movies were coming out? I was so fascinated with them, you know? And what ended up happening was, me and my friends started trying to learn how to meditate because of it, right? Because we'd see, you know, these things that were really cool and exciting, but then they'd be like sitting there and meditating. And we were like, “Oh, we should meditate. What do we do? How do we do it?” You know?  And that led to me getting involved in martial arts and learning how to really meditate, you know, when I was like 10 and 11 and stuff like that, and, you know, it's one of the things that really became a through line for me. You know? And, it's funny, when I met my partner Hanlon, they hadn't seen Big Trouble in Little China, or they certainly didn't remember seeing it, you know? And, I'm like, “You haven't seen this? We need to fix this right now!” Right? Cause this is like one of the best movies of all time.  And after watching it, he was like, “Wow! You're like all three of the main characters in one person. You're like…?” You know? Jack Burton, the dorky, kind of adventurous, like outgoing kind of person … You know, I was doing a lot of martial arts at the time we met, so, you know, Wang and sort of all of this Kung Fu stylings and stuff, right? And then I was into all these magical things, like Egg Chen, you know? And it was like this very funny thing, to have this reflected back to me, you know? Like you were saying, Melissa, it's like there were elements in this character or in the story that fit my sense of who I was, you know? And it wasn't quite as clean cut as like, “I feel like just this one or that one,” but the story and interactions between all three of those sort of fit that sense of who I was and how I wanted to be in the world, you know? As well as my struggles and other things, you know? So.  MELISSA: Yeah. And I think, going into adulthood, because I've always been, like, completely into any kind of pop culture, fairy tales, fantasy fiction, like whatever. But I could put myself in different characters. So, I'd read Madeleine L'Engle and I would be Daniel, because I loved Daniel. And I would read Charles de Lint, and Julie Coppercorn and I are right here, and it kept ... Seeing the depth in the character taught me to see the depth in myself. Almost. Or that there were other options than being depressed, being quiet, being small. And, since I didn't have really an example around me of an adult who was like me, I would base my behavior on the characters that I read who did things that were honorable and kind and ... They kind of were examples to me. You know, I grew up without a mom so seeing Wonder Woman was huge for me. That was like communion. I would watch her every week, and I identified with her and Princess Leia. That was like my mom character, you know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And it filled a void. And it was ... And, the beautiful thing about it is, Rose and I are both Wonder Woman crazy, and we have a connection, and we'll always have that connection. ROSE: Yeah. MELISSA: And it's so great to meet somebody and go, “You dig that thing? I dig that thing too!”  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ROSE: So, there's a whole other world where you reach outside of yourself and say, “Oh my god, I went to, you know, Comic Con, and met three women dressed like Wonder Woman and it was the best day of my life,” you know? ROSE: Oh, yeah. MELISSA: So, that level of outside connection is super important too. ROSE: Well, and, as you just mentioned, it's meeting other people. I think the rise of the Internet has really helped all of us with that because of the “I thought I was the only one who loved this thing,” and in a group where you might have been at school the only one who loved this thing, so you didn't know how to share it with your friends, and now, as you've gotten older, and the Internet exists, you're just like, “Oh my god! I can find people who love my thing!” And I get to talk to people about it.  I mean, one of the things that connected myself with tarot, and gaming, cause that's where my tarot also blends, is the fact that one of the games out there had a tarot deck made for the game, and I'm like, “Oh my god! There's a game! And a tarot! And I can play both!” And I was always the one that wanted to play the tarot character, cause that's who I was. And so, I was always playing the Fate Witch in the Seven Seas game. And then they came out with spreads to do with it, and it just, that built that spiritual connection for me, but it also was, like, reminding me that I'm not the only one who sees that or feels that or connects to that thing that I love.  And then, you know, meeting all of you guys at different events has been awesome, because it's like now I can talk to somebody else who also loves Wonder Woman, tarot, and five billion other things that are like, “Oh my god, I never knew that people like all those things that I liked,” and I think that's kind of the thing for me, is watching how that has happened over the years, and how pop culture has become stronger for other people as well, because they, who are younger than us, had, have always had Internet, have always had pop culture as a thing, and we watched it grow. And I think that was kind of what made me feel like more and more connected to the magic of it, not just the beauty of connection with people. I'm babbling.  MELISSA: Mmmhmm. ROSE: But it's true. It's how we can turn something we love into a connection with our world, if that makes sense, and the spirits around us. Okay. I'm going to stop. I don't know, I just— ANDREW: I think that's really interesting, you know? And for me, I think partly because I almost died when I was 14— ROSE: Oh! ANDREW: I really didn't carry that stuff through in a lot of ways, you know? So, like, I was 14 and after that, like after being in a serious accident, I was like, “All right, I need to understand everything,” and so although I still read, you know, like Shannara books … ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And like some of that stuff, and I was definitely reading and consuming pop culture things and so on, I was also reading Nietzsche and …  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Like, I was just, like, “All right, what is this all about?” Right? And so, for me, I enjoyed those things as a sort of through line of entertainment, but I felt like the answers were elsewhere. And then sort of later on, and you know, certainly sort of more in recent times, I've sort of seen how much is, how much, you know, answers and sort of sense of meaning can come from these other places, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: To my sort of teenage self, they just weren't serious enough, you know? ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: Yeah. ANDREW: Like I wanted to know the answers, and therefore, if a book wasn't hard to read, then it probably wasn't really helpful, was kind of a thought that I had at one point, you know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. And yet—I'm going to interrupt and say, but see … ANDREW: Yeah! ROSE: One of the things that I always come back to mind … We, specifically in pop culture items, there are levels, so there's the level for the kid who's reading it, and then if the parent is reading it, there's more in there that we as adults could see, but when we're that young age we might miss something. It's … What comes to mind right now is the Harry Potter books. You know? They were written, and as they progressed, the child/reader gets older, but so does the characters, but that very first book—it looks like a kid's book, but it's really not, and I think that that's the kind of thing that people miss sometimes, is that there's underlying elements for the adults as well, and so there's something that is being put into motion at first. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE:  The next thing that just came to mind while you were talking about this is Steven Universe. It's a kids' show, but it's not. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: And that's the beauty of bringing in the myths and legends around, you know, people and connection. But parents are like, you know, “Oh, my kid can watch that, it's a cartoon!”  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: And yet, there's more there.  ANDREW: And I definitely don't think now that those things are missing, right?  ROSE: No. Oh, no, no.  ANDREW: Yeah. I've read all the Harry Potter books, I don't even know now, cause my kids keep rereading them and we keep rereading them to them, right? ROSE: Right. ANDREW: So, you know, you keep going through that stuff, and there's all sorts of wonderful things in there, you know, for sure, right? But yeah, definitely, it was a concept that I had when I was younger about that stuff for sure, right? Yeah. MELISSA: I always found them too as kind of a gateway. So, like the Madeleine L'Engle books, one of them uses Patrick's Rune, which is a Celtic prayer, and I went to the library and asked the librarian, “Where did this come from?” And she handed me five books on Celtic mythology. And then I wandered out of there and read everything I could about Celtic mythology. And I went back and she gave me Egyptology. And then I went back the next week and I had Chinese divination books. And so, it all kind of fed from each other, and it made me curious about everything, about all of it. And so, I love that within the story is another gateway to another story. I think that's why I'm a big gigantic nerd, if I'm honest, so.  ANDREW: So. ROSE: You've surrounded yourself by nerds, Andrew. Just so you know.  ANDREW: I know! It's great. I love it. It's perfect. I was looking at my collection of pop figures this morning before leaving, and thinking about recording today … ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Because I have ... Pop figures, if anyone doesn't know them, are these little large-headed representations of, you know, most of the cartoon and movie and TV show and pop culture stuff. And you know, I was looking at my pop Jack Burton, I've got Gracie Law, and I've got the glow in the dark Lo Pan … [laughter] ANDREW: And then I've also got General Voltan from Flash Gordon ...  ROSE: Ah! ANDREW: Which is another of my sort of favorite childhood movies.  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: But, it, unlike Big Trouble in Little China, doesn't stand the test of time as well. [laughs] It's a pretty horrendous movie when I look back.  MELISSA: But the music does. ROSE: The music's amazing.  ANDREW: The music does, and Ming the Merciless is a tremendous bad guy and a wonderful look, you know?  ROSE: Oh yeah.  ANDREW: But yeah, lots of that movie is definitely really pretty horrendous, though, the last time I looked at it, yeah. ROSE: So. ANDREW: There's nothing wrong with being surrounded with nerds. ROSE: Something that ... So, I took a class at PantheaCon last year on pop culture and magic, cause that's what you do, and Emily Carlin was talking about how you can, because of the connections with the pop culture and magic, you can use some of those Funko pop characters in your practice, if you don't, you know ...  So, you don't want your friends to know what you're doing, but you want to honor your gods. There's a lot of ‘em out there that exist, and you just mentioned Lo Pan, and I'm wondering, you know, would you consider using that as part of your practice, if that were something you were trying to ...? Or that energy. Or even the energy of Jack Burton, I mean, because I mean, the man's the adventurer kingdom, you know, he's before we even get Indiana Jones! MELISSA: He never drives faster than he can see.  ROSE: Yeah. MELISSA: I mean, the man's got skills.  ANDREW: [laughing] ROSE: And he knows what he wants out of life. He wants to drive, he wants to adventure, you know, and that's, you know, so what do you think about that?  ANDREW: I think that that's entirely possible, you know ... I mean, I ... So I'm sitting here recording, and I'm looking at my shelf of things, and, you know, there's a picture of Aleister Crowley, there's a painting I did of St. Expedite, you know, there's like some self-portraits that I've done for magical reasons, and in the middle is my Dr. Zaius Buddha. So, Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: The science person who believed that sort of religion and science ought to be the same and not at odds with each other, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And somewhere on Etsy, I found this person who was making Buddhas with different heads on them, like Star Wars ones and Yoda ones and whatever, and I reached out because I was looking for something to kind of use as a magical anchor for my sort of joyous relationship to my work life … ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW:  And sort of do some prosperity work with. And so, I reached out to the person, and I said, “Your stuff is amazing; what I really would like is a Dr. Zaius from the Planet of the Apes.” And his response was, “Dude, I'm working on them right now, I will email you as soon as they are done,” right?  ROSE: That's brilliant.  ANDREW: And so, I got one, you know? (photo in show notes) In gold, and ... ROSE: Oh my gosh! That's amazing! ANDREW: It sits up here with some other stuff, and it's definitely ... It was, for a while, the focal point of a bunch of work that I was doing. Now less so, you know? But ... ROSE: Different work now.  ANDREW: Yeah, but, you know, but for me, I feel like I use the pop stuff as tools for psychological sort of inner self explorations ...  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I'm, I mean, because I practice a traditional religion, I don't really feel drawn to use them in sort of my more religious or devotional kind of stuff, because those things already have their own avenues?  ROSE: Right.  ANDREW: But I could see how ... And also, when I was younger, if people didn't like what I was up to, I would be like, “Well, screw you, you're dead to me.”   ROSE: Okay. ANDREW: So. Whoever that was. You know? So, the idea of obscuring things has never been a part of my process. You know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: But I can see how that makes a lot of sense, though, if it is? Right? And I understand that for a lot of people the sort of notion of flying under the radar, right, is important.  MELISSA: We have ... Sorry. We have a family altar in the middle of our living room, and the kids help me. We clean it off at the end of the month, and the kids help me kind of build it over the month, and it gets covered with incense dust and whatever rocks we like, and then we start at the beginning of the month again. And any given month, there is a statue of Mary, some fox fetishes from a Zuni tribe, and a couple Wonder Woman Funko pops, and whatever the kids want to throw on. And it's, you know, if my son is feeling particularly, you know, sad or feeling small, than he'll put his Thor Funko Pop on the altar, and that's his way of kind of reaching out and connecting. ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And I've never made anything ... I've never disallowed them from putting anything, whether plastic or, you know, any kind of rocks or whatever, on the altar, because it's not really the antiquity or the ceremony around the object, it's what it means to you.  ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And if Thor needs to be on the altar this month, cool, let's do it. You know?  ROSE: Well, and one of the things that I have in plenty is, I'm a Lego nerd. So, I have this, which is, I'm showing to you, Andrew and Melissa, it's a Lego minifig of the Tarot Reader, who is holding a Sun card and a Tower card. And when I first got one of these ... and I've got like three of them now ... I carry ‘em with me in my tarots, when I do readings out, and people kind of go, “What is that?” “It's a tarot minifig! See? This is not scary!” And ... but it's also, you know, a representation of me sometimes, when I need to focus, and so it's again how pop culture and how pop stuff crosses over with my spirituality. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: So, it's just a thing, I think that we all need to just grasp what works for us and build our practice around that part of it, and honor the traditional, because that's important. It's finding out what the traditions really are. But then, when it makes it work for you, if connecting that with Wonder Woman for example, or getting the Funko Pop of Hercules, cause, you know, that was kind of cool, works for you, to represent that, you know, or the Athena one, do it, I think that's great. But I also, you know—be aware of what you're connecting with, too, because you're not, it's not just surface stuff.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. Yeah. I also think that it's certainly possible with a lot of these things to start opening up in directions, and making connections with things, and then, you know, and then you can kind of go off and explore the spirituality and come back around and sort of revisit the pop culture layer with new eyes as well, right? It's a way in which we can, you know, continue to see deeper layers and maybe even sort of write extra layers on top of it, even if they're not there, right?  ROSE: Mm. Yeah, I could see that.  MELISSA: During my classes, I think Rose does this too, we both teach tarot classes, and we both use pop culture in them ... ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And so, I have this feature that, the name of which I accidentally stole from Jaymi Elford—sorry, Jaymers!—called Pop Goes the Tarot, and I take a fandom like Firefly, and I match it with a tarot card ... ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And, I've found the response to those has been really huge. Because if you're having a problem figuring out what the Hermit card is, or what the Emperor is, and if I say the Emperor is Erich Hartmann dressed up as a police officer saying, “Respect my authority!” I mean, that is a pretty strong connection to the archetype of the Emperor ... ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And if they start there, and then move on to like, Benebell's gigantic book, or, like, another book that has like spiritual historical symbolic meanings of the cards, then they'll already have that first step into it and what it means—what it could mean for them. You know? And I think that if people do that with their own particular fandoms, they'll have an intimate connection with what that card is.  ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: So, it's been really fun, and I keep getting emails about ideas of fandoms to explore, but if they're not mine, I don't have the confidence to assign the cards to them, so ... ROSE: I'm still waiting for your Brady Bunch tarot.  MELISSA: Oh, that would be a good one! Okay. I know that fan, I got that. ROSE: [laughing] And I think that's the beauty of pop culture and connection with spirituality is that you are making it a little bit more understandable for yourself. And as you said, yeah, taking the cards, “Okay, this is the Emperor,” well, what's the Emperor do? You know? Is it Emperor Palpatine? Or is it, you know, the … I can't even think right now, Dumbledore, let's just put it that way, that's not even right, though. But the point is, you're figuring out which one matches up better for you. You know, I mean, the Devil might be Voldemort, he might be, you know, Darth Vader, but he also might be, you know, the little girl from The Bad Seed, which is a 1930, 45, something, I don't know, 50s movie about a bad kid who personifies as beautiful and happy and lovely and she does really horrible things for a pair of shoes in one point. But anyway. The point is that you just connect these things. And then you can figure out what your personal connection is to either cards or to spiritual path. And also, the fact that that's part of the collective unconscious as well, because all of these people … also … the moment you say, Lord Palpatine, to a group of people, most of them, I'm not going to say all, but most of them know what you're talking about.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: So, you know, you're doing something with a group, and you want to go okay, pull a card, “Oh, and this reminds me of Lord Palpatine,” and the rest of the audience knows what you're talking about. And that's the beauty of the pop culture. Of course, it is also needing to be aware that it is country-sometimes-specific or fandom-specific, because there are people that haven't seen Star Wars.  ANDREW: Well, and also, I think that each of these worlds has varying stories and ideas around power and around, you know, who's the Emperor or the Devil, right? You know?  ROSE: Right. ANDREW: You know, is the Emperor positive, you know? Is it really like great and endearing and lovable figure? Could be, you know?  ROSE: Could be. ANDREW: Right? Is it somebody nefarious and controlling, you know? As I was organizing this, Aidan Wachter resurfaced something he had done previously where he had put Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon as the Emperor card. Right?  ROSE: Ooh. ANDREW: The guy's an Emperor, a horrible Emperor, but, you know? And I think that there's this level at which, you know, we can start to understand the ways in which we or people view lots of different ideas. ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: As we look at those, you know, what is the notion of justice in Firefly or in, you know, this, that, or whatever, right? ROSE: The Justice League.  ANDREW: Justice League, yeah. How good are the Greek gods, right? You know? If we're looking at Watchmen …  ROSE: Oh, yeah. ANDREW: It's a whole different matter, right? You know?  MELISSA: Batman has been a total a-hole lately, so? ROSE: Yeah. ANDREW: He always was! That's why I liked Batman! You know? I mean when I got into Batman Comics, I was reading them when like the Dark Knight starts, like the comic books start coming out, and Arkham Asylum and the Joker and the Killing Joke and all that kind of stuff, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Batman was this pretty sort of amoral, you know, fairly dark character, you know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And it was interesting, right?  ROSE: You needed a counterpoint, though, to Superman, so yeah. ANDREW: Right? You know? So, I think that yeah, again, it's always, it depends on what we're looking at, right? Are we talking about Adam West as Batman, that's one thing, right? Are we talking about, you know, Christian Bale or, you know, these other comics and stuff, I think that that also becomes quite interesting, and then how do we reconcile sort of what's behind all of those things, you know? What is that? Right? ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: That carries through all those through lines, you know? Yeah. ROSE: Well, and being able to reconcile which versions you're using, as you're pointing out. Cause they all have different flavors.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: But that doesn't mean they're different characters, cause they're all parts of Batman, they're just highlighting different facets. I mean, everybody, what, freaked out when Ben Affleck was cast as Batman, and my first thought was, well, he'd make a great Bruce Wayne. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE:  Not—And I didn't even think of him as Batman, I just thought of him as the Bruce Wayne part of the character, because I think that he has the gravitas for that part. I don't know about his Batman. I'm not going to talk about that. But the point is that I didn't lose my cool over it, let's put it that way, as other people did, because they felt that Batman needed to be darker. Da. And— MELISSA: Well. ROSE: Christian Bale really pulled off a very strong Batman, I think. But it depends on who's writing it. Go ahead.  MELISSA: I think that's an important part too, is that people take these very personally. I always think that people, you know how you're not supposed to talk about religion and politics and stuff. I think that's because people hold their beliefs so close to them, they become integrated with who they are, so if you question the belief, you're questioning the person. So that's my base belief.  And I think that people take fandoms to that level too. Like I was in an elevator one time with my Wonder Woman lunchbox, and somebody was like, is that your kid's? And this was a stranger and I said no. And she goes, aren't you a little old for that? And I, you know, wanted to say, shouldn't you go, whatever ... ROSE: Yeah. MELISSA: But I almost started crying. Because it was so personal. ROSE: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And such an intimate thing for me, and I was like, I can't fix what she picked on. I can't make that different. It is part of who I am. So, it isn't something that I can like hide it behind my back and pretend that it never happened. She picked on something that was really intimate with me. And I think that that's why, like people get really upset if their identity of who Batman is, is picked on or it's shifted from who they say it is. It's very personal.  ROSE: Yeah. By the way, the response to that should have been “Um, no,” and “Where's your sense of imagination?” But anyway. ANDREW: Well, and so, one of the other fandoms that I quite enjoy is Doctor Who, right?  ROSE: Yes!  ANDREW: And Doctor Who is an interesting one in that regard, because Doctor Who is always changing, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, you know, I think that it's kind of, it's one of the things that makes it fascinating for me, right? You know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I certainly have my favorite and less favorite iterations, you know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: But yeah, I think it's really interesting, you know? And I think that this notion that we end up at, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: I think that it's one of the reasons that we like fiction so much, right? In its various forms. Is fictional characters or stories or whatever: they're allowed to change, right? But if we walk through the world, it's easy to end up in places and around people where it's much harder or maybe sort of unofficially not permitted to change, right?  ROSE: Mm. ANDREW: All of those social constructs of our job and our relationships and our friends and stuff can sort of exert this force that seeks to keep us in a constant relationship, right? We always have to be Ben Affleck, or we never can be Ben Affleck, or whatever it is about that Batman, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And yet these stories and the way in which both are reinvented as the worlds get rewritten, but also as they go through their journeys, they get to become different people, which I also think is very fascinating, you know? Yeah. I think the ... I think that, you know, bonking someone in the head with your Wonder Woman lunch bag is probably a good time.  [laughter] ANDREW: I endorse that. The Jack Burton in me said “Do it.”  [laughter] ANDREW: Yeah. MELISSA: It's all in the reflexes.  ROSE: Well, and I ... it sounds like you were surprised by the commentary too.  MELISSA: Mmmhmm. ROSE: Cause that is kind of surprising, it's like, why would you say that to someone that you don't even know?  ANDREW: Yeah. Well, it's ... Yeah. And I know lots of people who complain or make comment about people doing cosplay or people doing ... I'm like, “Why on earth are you peeing in someone else's Cheerios?”  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Just let them have their fun and do whatever they're doing, like, what does it matter to you? Why do you care, right?  MELISSA: That is such a visual, thanks! ANDREW: You're welcome. But why on earth would anyone care what you watch or don't watch or carry or all these things, right? Like just, you know.  MELISSA: And I've gotten emails from people who said that, like I've had four or five, actually, in the past couple years that said I'm making light of a sacred tradition, and I'm like, if you don't like my book, cause my book is pretty light, I connect things to the publisher, I connect them to stories in my life, I connect the cards to pretty much anything that I find relatable, as a form of teaching. If you don't like it, don't fucking read my book. That's fine. Don't read my stuff about pop culture. Don't. Go find something else that you relate to. If you find yourself wanting to send that email, also don't do that, because, you know, blocked and deleted, as my kid says. It's just, why would you do that? Why would you take the time to try to impress yourself on another adult who already has their ideas? And it just seems so futile. And self-promoting and crappy. ANDREW: Well, why do people do these things? What do you think?  MELISSA: I think they feel small. and they want to feel big. That's … I think it's sad. Well, I mean, it pisses me off. But I also think it's sad. And, you know, it's a way for them to feel big. It's a shitty way to do it, but it's a way, you know? ROSE: Yeah. And also, it's a way to say, “Hey, see, I'm smart, I know this thing, and maybe you don't, and here, let me explain it to you so that you see the error of your ways.”  MELISSA: Well, actually ...  ROSE: And that's, I think, a big thing that's going on is, you know, as the older guard, if you will, starts passing on, unfortunately, the younger guard is going to take what they've learned and they're not going to ignore the sources, but they're also going to make it their own. And I think that's what you do, is that you remind people, yes, there are these big things and sacredness to everything and please honor that, but while you're learning that stuff, to be able to use your tools now, here's a way to connect it to what you're going through with your everyday life.  I mean, part of, okay, James Wanless, cause I talk about him a lot, in general, is him, he created the Voyager Tarot. If you look at his courts, they're not knight/queen/king/page, they're child/woman/man/sage, because it was like, okay, in the 80s, we don't know, anybody, really, not in America, who are knights, queens, kings, and pages, really. Yeah, if you go to England, you can find them, I know, but I know a child, I know a woman, I know a man, and I might even know a sage, who is someone who knows a lot of stuff, so [sigh]. That's like … And it's modernizing something. That didn't mean he threw out the past. He just brought some stuff up to the future. And I think that's what you, Melissa, are doing with your work, is that you are taking this sacred knowledge that you learned, and then applying the stuff that you love and connecting them and making them more palpable for a modern view. Again, not ignoring where it came from, but not saying, okay, we can ONLY talk about it in that fashion. Because you need to have something that you can connect to, or it's not going to stick. At least that's been my experience.  MELISSA: My biggest hope about this book is that it is completely irrelevant in 30 years. I would love that. Because I want everybody to just kind of get involved, and I want ideas to change, and they're already a couple of things that I put in it that I'm like, damn it, I kind of want to fix that, but it's too late. And, because I think that, you know, my kids think different things than I do, and they're 12 and 14, and their kids are going to have a whole different perspective. And I think that tarot lends itself to being whatever you need it to be, and so I think that what people will need it to be in 30 years is going to be something entirely different. I think that's beautiful. You know?  ANDREW: So, I kind of, I agree, and I disagree with you. ROSE: Okay. ANDREW: I want to, I'm going to throw out some other options here. And I'm going to start by framing it in a different context and then come back to tarot. Right? ROSE: Okay! ANDREW: So, as you both know, and as people who listen probably know, right? I practice the Orisha tradition in a very traditional way. Right? And, so, for me, this is a very sacred thing, you know? And certainly in my practice, I endeavor to follow the traditional ways of doing things and work with my elders and all of that kind of stuff.  And, so here's this thing that I identify and hold very sacred and not immutable, and not that I think there aren't a few things that might benefit from changing, but in general, I'm very like, this is it, these are the things, this is how it's done, and these are the beliefs within that structure about how these spirits work with people, and so many things, right? And then, I run a store, and I go out in the world, and I do things, and people do all sorts of other stuff, right? And that stuff ranges from interesting and sort of regional difference, to like horrendous, in my opinion, misunderstandings and appropriation, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And, so, for me, there's this practice where I have my own structures, and beliefs, and structures in which I work, and I look out from that place into other things that people are doing, and all, so much of it I don't understand what's going on at all ... ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: Or, from a traditional point of view it's problematic or inappropriate. But I recognize that everybody's free to do whatever they like, and so I just largely ignore, or just don't engage people when they're doing other things, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: When it comes to tarot, I think that it's very challenging, you know, and Mary Greer just had a big post on this on her Facebook. If you're a follower of hers, you could probably scroll down a bit and find it. About this sort of, can we just do anything with tarot, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm.  ANDREW: And I think that to me, while it's not as clearly defined as my religious practice, which is a very clear and sort of longstanding traditional structure, I think that with tarot, there's this sort of central core of things, which to me encompasses what tarot is, you know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And as you migrate out from those sort of pieces, and depending on which sort of pockets you choose to work with, right? Are you a Rider-Waite person and falling kind of in that line? Are you a more esoteric person and fall in that line? Are you reading in a more sort of European style with, like, Marseilles cards and so on ...? ROSE: Mmmhmm.  ANDREW: But to me, there's a place at which it loses its cohesion as we start doing anything with it, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: There's a place at which the absence of what I sort of perceive as coherence starts ... I again … I have a similar feeling, although it's in a different way, where I just stop understanding what's going on. You know? I just don't understand, what is this? What's happening here? How does this work? So. Anyways. That's my response to what you said, Melissa.  MELISSA: That was a lot. And I do agree with you, but I think what I was trying to say, and maybe didn't do a good job, is that my opinion is not the only opinion. And that there is going to be a core. It can't be tarot and be 10,000 different things at the core, but it has to be basically the same thing for everybody.  But I'm not teaching the core of anything, I'm teaching what I think, and I'm teaching what's relatable to me, and, like, I learned to read on this Eden Gray book, and I read it so much that it's held together by duct tape and prayers, I mean, it's just, it's really beat up. But she didn't speak my language. And it took me a long, long time to figure out what the hell a Hierophant was, how to say it, I'm still not sure if I'm right, I couldn't relate to it at all.  It wasn't until I found Rachel Pollack and Mary Greer, that I went, “Oh! They're speaking my language!” And Barbara Moore spoke my language, you know? And those three women taught me tarot. And Eden Gray tried to for like 15 years, but I ... It was so far removed from who I was and my understanding, that I had to read it with a dictionary in one hand, you know, to try to figure out what the hell she was talking about.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: So, when I say that I hope that my stuff becomes irrelevant, it's going to, I'm not going to be relatable to a 14-year-old in 30 or 40 years. It's just not going to happen. And I think that's great. You know?  ANDREW: You never know, you'll have a syndicated tv show at that point, and ... MELISSA: Yeah... ROSE: A couple of books, and movies, and people will be following you on the Internets, and ... ANDREW: Manga and reinterpretations of your books, and reinventions, and ... [laughter] ROSE: You will be then flown to China, many times! And! But no, seriously. And I think I agree with Melissa on this, but I also see what your point is, Andrew, and I think what I ... I'm not saying throw the baby out with the bathwater if you will. Because again, if you're following a tradition, that's very different. In my opinion. Because, again, like you said, your Orisha has a structure. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: And tarot has a structure, true. And adding pop culture won't—shouldn't, let me be more specific—shouldn't take away from the underlying structure. But as— ANDREW: And I don't think that pop culture is at all an issue in relation to tarot— ROSE: No, no, no, no— ANDREW: I wouldn't be having this conversation if I did, right?  ROSE: No, no, no, no—no, no. No, what I'm saying is I think that the way that I may have phrased it is like, it does not apply to everything. You cannot apply ... You can't take the Orisha tradition and then apply pop culture to it ... They're two very different things.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: And there is a foundation in tarot that is being something you can move and mesh with. But it doesn't, the foundation doesn't go away, even when you apply the pop culture.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And I wonder if—oh, I'm sorry. ROSE: No, go ahead.  MELISSA: If the difference between the two is that Orisha is sacred and when tarot is sacred to someone, they don't really want pop figures in their tarot.  ROSE: Right.  MELISSA: So, it's how close you hold it to who you are and your faith. And tarot to me is a tool, it's a stack of pretty cards that help me do my thing, that's fantastic, and I'll be really pissed if ... ANDREW: Pop culture is sacred to you, right?  MELISSA: It's a tool, it's a tool that I love, but I ... you know, I don't have it on my altar, I don't worship it. I don't think that. ... They're a tool that I can use really well, but that doesn't mean that they're sacred to me. You know? That might be the difference, you know?  ANDREW: For me, with my tarot cards, right, I'm a huge fan of the Joseph Peterson reproduction of the Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseilles. That is basically the only one that I read with right now. And so like, when I realized that they were going to go out of print, I just took three and put them in a drawer, cellophane-wrapped, so that when the one that I'm using now wears out, which it is starting to kind of get a bit worn, I can just be like, yeah, I don't need to be sad about this, they're just ink on paper, I'll go get another one from the drawer, you know?  MELISSA: Yeah. I did the same thing with the Uusi Pagan Otherworlds Tarot. I saw one picture—Ryan Edwards posted a picture of it, and I bought two. And I was like, this is for me, and this one is for future me. And future me is going to thank me, because I'm going to read with this about ten times a week forever, and then I'll need a new one, because they speak to me so much. But it's just like a really good chef's knife. You know? If you find the knife that fits your hand, that's the one that you're going to want to have around.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: Not that I can cook. I really can't! But I know that knives are expensive.  ROSE: Knives are important, knives are important, good to know, I agree. But again, it's kind of like, you're honoring the basis, you're not changing it. And you're adding a layer to understanding, I don't ... [sigh] It's just, oh gosh, that's just two very separate things for me.  Cause again, I do put tarot cards on my altar, and I generally use the Rider Waite Smith just because it's simple for that. I don't read with one of those very often, unless I'm at an event where I don't know if people are going to know it. I bring in one with me, but my cards always vary, I'm either carrying around the Everyday Witch Tarot, which just recently came out in the last two years, or the Druidcraft, which I've cut the borders off of, which was a thing you didn't do back in the day and now you do if you want to, and I've got like three copies of that particular deck cause it spoke to me.  I've got my Robin Wood because again, my mood changes, I mean I've got three different copies of the Voyager, and I have one that I've cut in fours so that I can like, have a focus, I need to have something focused, pull that corner of that card and go, okay that's the thing I need to look at, then go get the bigger image and figure out what that was, and … But again, I don't think I'm getting rid of the sacredness that the tarot, air quotes, is founded on, cause again we're still, there are still arguments about how that's been founded, but anyway.  But I wouldn't necessarily take pop culture and put my religious aspects on it, cause like I said I'm trying to study Celtic recre- recreation- bleh. Ah, talking! Celtic reconstructionism, that's the word, and I'm trying to find out that by reading their actual text. And that's not … But again, now how do you talk to people who are studying Norse mythology right now? And, you know, all the love of all of the Thor movies, and all of that, you know, and what about Loki and those movies, cause people are now making their version of Loki look like Tom Hiddleston. Lovely as he is, that's not the Norse mythology Loki. ANDREW: Mmmhmm. ROSE: So, but they're blending that a little bit. And is that going against the sacred text, because that's their image of it, even though they may be reading the actual text, they're still visualizing Tom Hiddleston? I don't know.  ANDREW: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: I'm always a fan of visualizing Tom Hiddleston, just to be on record, I have no problems with that.  ROSE: [laughing] ANDREW: I think few people have a problem with that, very very few people. Yeah. ROSE: He's lovely, but, do you know what I'm saying?  ANDREW: Yeah, absolutely.  MELISSA: Yeah, absolutely.  MELISSA: But I think it again goes to, how close do you hold it to you? If that's something that you hold very close to you, then that's not okay, and I think that we have to be really mindful of that, with other people, of how close they hold something, before we go goofing around with it, you know? For sure.  ROSE: Did that answer your question, Andrew?  ANDREW: Did I have a question?  ROSE: Well, I want to make sure we spoke to the ... cause again, you said you agreed and disagreed with our statement, and I'm thinking, well, yeah, I get both of what you're talking about, and I want to make sure that we responded.  ANDREW: Yeah, I think that there's a couple things, right? One is, people get really upset about the tradition of tarot. Right? And what they mean by the tradition of tarot depends on who that person is, right?  ROSE: Yeah. ANDREW: Do they mean, you know, Arthur Waite, and Rider-Waite-Smith, and sort of the various things that come from that? ROSE: [whispering] The Golden Dawn! ANDREW: Do they mean, you know, something different, like ...? And to some extent, I think that there's this sort of ... It's a ... It's a fake argument, right? Because ultimately there are at least a handful of branches of tarot from a big perspective, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, but you can go down and then there's all those sort of branches that come from these things, and if you're in one and looking at the other, they're always kind of challenging, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm.  ANDREW: I mean I started reading tarot initially with the Mythic Tarot but really focused on Crowley's work, right, and so I basically just read The Book of Thoth, right, over and over and over again ... ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: And people would say to me, like, well how do I learn Crowley's Thoth deck, and I'm like, “He wrote a book, you read it, like, I don't understand the question,” right?  ROSE: Right.  ANDREW: And, it's kind of unfair, cause the book is complicated and obtuse and difficult to read and you know, all of those things, right? But again, it was the only thing I could get my hands on and, back in the 80s and 90s, as far as I knew, it was the only thing in print. There was nothing else to get. So, I was like, I'm just going to keep reading this thing until it makes more sense. ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So, there's that, right? But I also think that … I think there is the challenge where people layer other things like well, maybe like pop culture, certainly like their own intuitive or self-derived meanings, and then assert those as like, you know, universal or inherently true or all those kinds of things, right? Because there ... I think that one can do anything you like with tarot, and I think that you should do everything that you like and feel like you want to do with tarot. And associate those meanings and all of that kind of stuff ... ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: The challenge is where people sort of erase the rest of the branches of the trees, right?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: You know, I've met a bunch of people who were very good psychics who used cards, but I would never really consider them card readers because what they do has no bearing on anything that I've ever understood to be reading the cards. ROSE: Hmm. ANDREW: They lay them out and they start talking, and they're like, “Oh yeah, this one, and blah blah blah blah blah,” and I'm like, “Why is the Ten of Swords getting a new job?” and they're like, “I don't know, that's the message I get,” and I'm like, “Okay.” And their readings are true ...  ROSE: Right. ANDREW: But they literally have no bearing whatsoever on anything that anybody would agree upon who has studied cards at all. Right? So, I ... ROSE: Huh. ANDREW: But those people—the couple of people that I've met that way—asserted what they were doing was traditional, was reading the cards, and I'm like, “It's not, it's something else, you know?” And not that it's invalid, but it's where things get confusing, right?  MELISSA: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: So. Yeah. So that's my mix of things.  ROSE: Now I want to meet some of those people and see how they read. Cause that'd be interesting, cause the Ten of Swords as a job ... Huh. Interesting.  ANDREW: Yeah. ROSE: Interesting.  ANDREW: It's easy. You just like, deal out like 20 cards on the table in some random ever-changing pattern every time you do it, and then you just look at them and say things, and that's it. That's what it looks like, so. ROSE: Okay. All right. I will have to find somebody who does it that way, then. That's interesting. Yeah. Hmm. I don't know.  ANDREW: Uh-huh. Were you going to say something, Melissa? I saw you like, lean in there.  MELISSA: Yeah, I, you know, I think that I've read like that before, when I've just done the readings intuitively and the cards don't matter. I don't … I hardly look at them, and if I need them to make a point, I'll find the card that makes that point with what I'm saying, but it becomes like a connection psychic reading or whatever, and I'll glance at the cards and just do the reading, and I'll pull stuff out of wherever it comes from, and the cards … Basically shuffling them helps the person relax, you know? Handling them helps me get in the place that I need to be, and then the reading just happens.  And, should I see something in the cards that pushes forth what I'm getting, then I'll be like, “Oh, yeah, this thing here, right, yeah, this is what the sword is doing,” and it kind of ... I did it more when I was first starting out, because I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I was like, “Oh, well, I'm thinking about your mother, and here's a lady sitting in a chair, so clearly those two things are related.” But now, if I'm not paying attention to the way that I'm doing readings, I'll just start reading for somebody while they're shuffling, before they've even put the cards, like, down, and I'll start the reading, and then I'll be like “Oh, crap! I was supposed to wait. Sorry, my bad!” And that's just how my readings have evolved. So, it's strange, but, you know, it is what it is. I'm not everybody's cup of tea.  ROSE: But you are someone's shot of whiskey. It's fine.  MELISSA: I'm a bit weird in that way, but I think that it's just kind of merging two different styles of reading, because I can read just the cards, and I can read without them, and when I merge the two, sometimes one way is stronger, and sometimes the other one is. So.  ANDREW: Yeah. But you're not ... it doesn't sound like you're confusing the two.  MELISSA: No. They're definitely different.  ANDREW: Yeah. MELISSA: And. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.  ANDREW: So. For people who want to play with pop culture, what should they do?  ROSE: What do you mean?  ANDREW: Well, people listening to this and maybe this is a newer idea, or they've been thinking about it, but don't know where to start? If you're, like, going to start, like, incorporating or thinking about pop culture as a thing that could overlap and intersect with spiritual practice, like reading the cards or something else, where do people start?  MELISSA: I always like, when I have students, I ask them to start a tarot journal, and I ... One of the first things I ask them to do is to find their favorite fandom and match the major arcana to as many characters as they can, and then we talk about why they came up with those answers. ROSE: Mm. MELISSA: The other thing I do is ask them to find a song for each card. And a song that kind of speaks to the meaning of, like there's a song called “Pendulum Swinger,” and I'm like, this to me, by the Indigo Girls, is the High Priestess. And, so, they listen to the song that I pick, and I say, “Why do you think that I picked that?” And it just gives us like, an hour's worth of conversation based on a song in Firefly about cards, that it helps them connect to them in a way that they didn't know that they could, and it's fun. It's really fun. So, that's what I do. ROSE: I generally try and have people just look at the cards and see what they see. If they're new, and they're like, “I'm not ... This makes no sense!” The first thing I tell them and, sorry people who write the Little White Books, or the LWBs, I tell them to put that away. And to just take time with, you know, tarot journal, every day, pick a card, write what you see, tell me what it feels like to you, find a word, just one word, to describe that card. And go through all the cards.  And then, is there something in your community, your stuff you love, the interests that you have, that comes up for you when you see that card? Write that down. And then, when we meet, we talk about what it is you saw, why did you see it, and how does it connect? And sometimes it's pop culture, sometimes it's just, you know, something they read, but, and that's still something that's going on around them, and then we talk about it. And then, you know, it might be—cause most of my friends are Star Wars fans—we talk about Star Wars connected to the tarot. Or we'll talk about Star Trek cause that's the other fandom, cause we're old school like that.  ANDREW: Well, when I ... ROSE: In that way.  ANDREW: Was studying Kabbalah the first time, Star Trek Next Generation was on the air, right? So, the conversation was, all right, Tree of Life, which one's the Captain? Which one's Worf? Which one's, you know, whoever, right?  ROSE: Yeah. ANDREW: Kind of running through that. And making those parallels and sitting in a room of people and discussing that.  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: That's such a wonderful, like, I think that one of the great things about these kinds of ideas is the dialogue about where they can get ascribed to is tremendously educating, you know?  ROSE: Mmmhmm. ANDREW: There's no right or wrong answers, you know, depending on the angle or the lens we use, they could be a variety of things, right? You know? I mean, Jack Burton can be the Fool, right? But they can also be a variety of other things depending on where they are in that journey. Right?  ROSE: Right.  ANDREW: But, yeah. ROSE: Well, and who would you make—I would say Wang might be more the Fool, and Jack is the Magician.  MELISSA: I don't know. I put Wang as Temperance, and Burton as the Fool, cause Wang balances mind, body, and spirit a lot better than anyone else.  ROSE: Ah. ANDREW: Yeah. I think, I mean. You think about Jack Burton, you know? Especially that scene where like, all of the scenes with him that machine gun, right? Like he's there and he's got this machine pistol thing, right?  ROSE: Yeah. ANDREW: He jumps out and he tries to shoot it and he's like, “Oh, it doesn't work.” And then he goes back and tries to fix it, he comes back, and all of a sudden everything's whatever, he drops it, or he shoots the bricks over his head, they hit him in the head and he falls down, you know like, there's this constant set of things. To me, Egg Chen would be the Magician. Right? You know? He's got his potion, right?  ROSE: Yeah.... ANDREW: That helps him see things nobody can see and do things nobody can do?  ROSE: Yeah... ANDREW: And he's got his bag and ... ROSE: But I would make him the Hierophant.  ANDREW: Hmm. ROSE: I'd make him the Hierophant because he's the teacher, even though you might not want to learn the lesson, or you're not ready to see it, he's got the answers. But that's me.  MELISSA: Yeah, I think that Gracie would be that, because Gracie has all the back story and the information that they're missing to go on their adventure, so Gracie Law basically jumps in to say, “Oh, by the way, you need to go to this place, this is who that guy is, here's what he's up to, here's who these guys are, and in that way he hands them the keys to their adventure, right?” ANDREW: Mmmhmm. MELISSA: And the cool thing about this conversation is, all of us disagree, and nobody's being an asshole about it.  [laughter] MELISSA: Which I think is really cool, and that more people should probably do when they're talking about tarot. ANDREW: Perfect. ROSE: Yes! No matter what the lens that you're talking about it with, I would agree.  ANDREW: Absolutely, absolutely. All right, well thank you all for hanging out and indulging my ridiculousness around this conversation. I deeply appreciate it. Rose, where should people come find you online?  ROSE: You can find me on Twitter @RoseRedTarot, and also on Instagram @RoseRedTarot, or you can find me at Tarot Visions podcast, on iTunes and Pod Bean. ANDREW: Nice! And links in the show notes. And, Melissa?  MELISSA: If you Google Little Fox Tarot, you'll find me. I'm out there! ANDREW: Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, and yeah, it's been really fun and ridiculous, and thanks for agreeing and disagreeing but certainly for showing up, so, awesome!   

Another episode of tales at sea. Following on from the mysterious tales of the Dark Gentleman, we find another curious passenger on board…although will they turn out to be any less disturbing to the crew? Music: Creepy — Bensound.com.   Andrew: Here are some Totally Made Up Tales, brought to you by the magic of the internet. This week: The Stowaway. James: Martin, the First Mate, thought he knew everything about this ship, as First Mates really ought to. Andrew: It was not the largest ship the world had ever seen, but nevertheless it contained many nooks and crannies and corners that men who had served on it across journeys of several months had still not managed to explore. James: Martin, however, knew them all. But something was not quite right. Andrew: There was a strange energy on board the ship, that was quite different to the masculine peace that settled aboard the boat once the shore was safely left behind. James: It reminded him of the one or two times when they'd transported families from Southampton across to the New World looking for a new life. Andrew: It was not as strange as the time when the famous occultist traveled with them and disappeared halfway across the ocean, but it was still something not quite right. James: Martin didn't like it when things weren't quite right, it upset the smooth running of the ship and it made the men grumble, and that was one of the worst things to contend with. Andrew: He decided that he would determine for himself whether there was anything untoward going on, on the ship, but he would do it in a subtle and determined manner. James: He drew up a schedule where he could regularly walk every turn and every corner of every deck, both above and below. Andrew: He began his exploration and very soon began to have an even more acute sense that there was something either just ahead of him or just behind him, but it was as if, whenever he turned his head, the thing it was that was following him or that he was following — and he could not be sure which it was — had disappeared, and he was left once more alone. James: He had first had the sense a day or two out of port, and it continued for a full week, gradually making him more and more frustrated, until one day, Timothy, the old cook, came to him. Andrew: Timothy was a grumpy man, perpetually red in the face with irritation, and missing his right leg. He had adapted his kitchen galley successfully so that he could navigate his way around, but in all other areas of the deck he moved on traditional sailor's wooden crutches. James: He came to Martin with a complaint about theft. Andrew: An entire barrel of biscuits, which he had been intending to use later that week, had disappeared from the kitchen, lock, stock, and barrel. James: Martin knew that none of the men would have tried to secrete an entire barrel anywhere else about the ship, it was a ridiculous and foolhardy notion that you could even get away with it, and so he continued his pacing about the decks until he discovered the barrel, now empty, in one of the smaller holds. Andrew: Scattered on the floor around the barrel here and there were biscuity crumbs. James: Martin spent some time checking the rest of the hold, looking behind the crates and boxes, and underneath the tarpaulins, but he could not find any indication, other than the barrel and the crumbs, that anything was amiss. Andrew: Later that day, in the evening, he sat down with the Captain for dinner, and the Captain turned to him with his customary question and said, "Well then, First Mate, what are the news?" James: He recounted how Timothy had come to him and his investigation and what he'd discovered, and the Captain looked at him with suspicion crossing his face, "Have you felt a presence onboard ship?" he asked. Andrew: "Well sir, as it happens," Martin replied, "I have felt a rather different atmosphere on the ship than usual… it has seemed that there has been something here." "What do you make of… this?" said the Captain. He opened the draw of his work desk and took out a piece of paper covered in a strange childish scrawl, and laid it out in front of the First Mate. James: "Was that? It looks like it was drawn by a child, sir." Andrew: "Yes, it could be a child or possibly a madman, or I'm not entirely sure. I dismissed it entirely of course, read it through for me." James: "I can't make it out at all, sir. It doesn't seem to be written in English, or indeed any other language as I recognise." Andrew: "Yes, I thought that," said the Captain. "But here, look, when you hold it up to a mirror, now try." James: "Oh my word," said Martin. "You're right. It's a diary." Andrew: "Yes, that's right. A page from a diary. A diary that's been kept while on this ship. I found it fluttering along the passage outside the door to the hold." James: "Do you really think so sir? We have a stowaway?" Andrew: "I think we should consider the possibility. Nothing has been quite right on this ship since the time that mysterious man disappeared after saving us from pirates, and I wonder if the forces of the occult have returned to haunt us." James: "I shall organise the men to do a thorough inspection, sir. I'm sure we will catch them." And indeed Martin was sure that he would catch the stowaway. Andrew: Duly assembled, the men set out in groups of two around the various passages of the ship in search of the mysterious diary writer. James: Creeping down the passageways, hunting through the holds, peering into the dark corners, the men gradually covered every inch of the ship. Andrew: Each pair in their turn, returned from their searching to the main deck to report to the First Mate, and came back empty handed. Not a sign, not a scrap, not the slightest clue as to the writer of the diary had been found. James: Two by two, Martin ticked them off in his head until there were five pairs still out, then four, then three, then two. The last pair that had gone down into the holds below reported that they could see nothing out of the ordinary, and he was just wondering how the other pair was getting along when the sound of a struggle came from the cabins that they had been searching. Andrew: The cries and thuds muffled by the several layers of decking nevertheless could be heard and stirred an immediate call to action in the First Mate. He grabbed two of the pairs nearest him, his trustiest men, and set off down the hatches to go and investigate for himself. James: He burst in, the men hard behind him, on an amazing scene. Andrew: Inside the passengers' cabin, standing quietly and unassumingly in the centre of the passenger cabin was a small elfin faced girl with close cropped hair, beaming at them with her hands on her hips. Lying on the ground of the cabin in front of her were the two burly sailors, out for the count. James: A thought flashed through Martin's mind, wondering how on each how such a small child had managed to overcome such large men, but he was too well trained to voice this concern. "Seize her!" he cried. Andrew: The men who had come down with him and to whom his order was addressed looked at the girl, looked at their fallen comrades, looked nervously at each other, and hesitated upon the threshold. "Didn't you hear me, men?" said the First Mate, "in and seize her!" James: Greg looked at Harry, and Harry looked at Greg, and neither of them wanted to be the one to make the first move. So Martin reached forward and grabbed the girl by the scruff of the neck. Andrew: At once, she burst into tears, and paying no heed to her bawling, Martin dragged her through the passageway, dragged her up onto the deck, into the Captain's cabin, where he threw her roughly to her knees in front of the ship's commander. James: "Good work, Martin," said the Captain. "And what are you, eh?" Andrew: The little girl looked at him, sobbing, wide eyed, and said, "oh please sir, please, have mercy on me." James: Martin nudged her with his foot. "Captain asked you a question," he said. Andrew: "Oh, oh, I am ..." The girl took a deep breath in and looked directly at the Captain imploringly and said, "I am but a poor child, sir. My father was a sailor of many years standing and spent his life at sea and one day in a tragic accident was killed when his ship caught fire. My mother was unable to support herself, me and my brother, and my brother signed up to sail to the New World in the Navy and I decided that the only way forward for me was to follow him and so I ended up here on the first ship I was told was sailing to the New World and I hid in the hold." James: The Captain looked at her sternly. "I cannot just let stowaways use my ship as free transport between the continents." He said. "We cannot throw you overboard, we're in the middle of the sea, but if you are to remain here, you must work to earn your keep." Andrew: "We have no use for you on deck, this is man's work requiring a man's strength, but the kitchen is short of a boy, you shall serve there for the remainder of the voyage. Go, at once. You will be directed by Timothy the cook." James: And so Martin took her down to the galley, and introduced her to Timothy, and Timothy immediately put her to work scrubbing the Brodie stove to keep it clean or at least as clean as Timothy deemed necessary for basic sanitary food production purposes. Andrew: With a dedication and an application and a thoroughness that seemed uncharacteristic for someone that looked outwardly so delicate, the little girl scrubbed at the stove, scrubbed and polished and shined. Bucket after bucket of dirty water was emptied over the rail into the sea, until the Brodie stove was as good as new. She turned to the cook and said, "sir, I have scrubbed the stove. What would you have me do next?" Tim looked at her and said, "sir? I'll have no sir in my kitchen! I'm Tim the cook, and what's your name?" James: In a small voice, Elsie introduced herself and told her story of how she had come to be on the boat. In return, Timothy gave her a history of the vessel, including some of the rare goods that they had transported and the confusing and perplexing tale of the Master of the Dark Arts, who had recently bought passage with them to the New World. Andrew: Over the days that followed, Tim and Elsie built up an extraordinary rapport. The cook, who was usually one of the grumpiest and least sociable fellows aboard the ship, had taken a shine to this little girl, and she to him. The atmosphere in the kitchen changed from one of shouting and swearing to one of laughter and camaraderie, and the quality of the food rose remarkably as a result, raising the morale of the rest of the crew. James: Over dinner one night at the Captain's table, the Second Mate, Will, turned to the First Mate, Martin, and mentioned sotte voce that perhaps they should have a stowaway on every voyage. Andrew: They laughed, looking at their empty plates wiped clean by freshly baked bread, when suddenly they were interrupted by a cry from the lookout tower. "Ship ahoy!" James: Coming onto the deck, the Captain looked at the lookout, who was pointing hard astern. Behind, somewhere in the darkness, there was a light. Andrew: A half a mile off or so it seemed, there was a ship shaped object bobbing backwards and forwards with the motion of the waves with an eerie glow that seemed almost otherworldly. James: Slowly, the shadowy shape was gaining on them. Andrew: The Captain summoned the crew to their action stations, called for the sails to be hoisted full up, and observed the mysterious shape still gaining on them. James: The faster they went, the faster it pursued. As the spectre came closer, the lanterns from their own ship, and the light inside it, gradually made the shape clearer. Andrew: The First Mate turned to the Second Mate and, furrowing his brow, said, "this is going to sound like a very strange thing to say, but does that look to you like a ship made out of smoke?" James: "Not any ship," said the Captain. "That is the ship that we saw burn to the waterline." And it was true, the superstructure looked identical, the rigging, the position of the masts and sails. It was the pirate ship that had chased them so recently. Andrew: And as it came closer, the mysterious glow that had revealed it when it was at a distance to the lookout resolved into the flickering embers of the final burning pieces of wood floating on the water underneath the smoky shape. James: "Can we even fight that, sir?" asked the Second Mate. Andrew: "Do we need to fight it, sir?" said the First Mate. "What's its intention? It's just smoke." James: "It's evil," said the Captain. "Prepare the cannon." Andrew: "How do you know it's evil, sir?" said Will. James: "I just have a feeling," said the Captain. "The feeling that evil has been dogging us ever since that ship burned." Andrew: The cannon trundled forward on its heavy wheels to the ship's rail and was being loaded by the men responsible for it. They turned to the Captain and said, "Ready to fire, sir", and the Captain said, "Very well, fire at —" But before he could finish the command, a small tug on his elbow revealed that Elsie had come up to the deck and was looking at him with a serious face. "Please sir," she said, "don't fire on the vessel, it's me that it's come for. Please let me go and speak to it." James: Agog, the Captain let her pass. Elsie walked right up to the rail and held her hand out towards the ship that was now only a few dozen feet away. Andrew: Out of the swirling mass of smoke that made up the shape of the ship, with its amorphous and shifting edge, there seemed to solidify an additional shape of a man standing opposite Elsie, face to face, where the rail of that ship would be if it had a rail, and it seemed to that an arm came out from his smoky body and extended across the water and gently, gently, gently made its dark tendrily way to her hand until it touched it. James: As soon as it did, the smoky ship started to dissolve and waft away on the fresh breeze coming in from the ocean behind it. "Daddy," she called out gently. And in response, a deep thrumming sound seemed to make the word "Elsie" from across the water. Andrew: With the contact between the two having been made, the form of the smoke ship dissolved and it became once more the mists that roll over the seas at night and ceased to have any shape or solidity. James: And as it dissolved, so too did Elsie's form gradually fade away until the Captain, the First and Second Mate and the crew members could see plain through her. Andrew: As she was on the verge of disappearing before their very eyes, she turned looking at the crew in turn and taking them all in with her penetrating gaze, finally her eyes rested on the Captain and she said, "thank you" — and vanished. There came from the hatch leading down to the galley a sobbing which caused the First Mate to turn and there to his surprise he saw Tim with his face buried in his cook's apron, uncharacteristically emotional. James: The crew were quiet for the rest of the journey, less banter and less grumbling than usual. In the Captain's cabin, a number of hushed conversations over dinner attempted to discern just what Elsie had been and where she had gone — but without coming to any conclusions. Andrew: The only thing that everybody could agree on was that the quality of the food had improved, and from that day forward it remained the best on the high seas.

Our fourth episode of Totally Made Up Tales, with more tales of wonder and mystery. Spread the word! Tell a friend!   Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.   Andrew: Here are some totally made up tales. Brought to you by the magic of the internet.   James: One   Andrew: Day   James: Elise   Andrew: Held   James: Her   Andrew: Boyfriend   James: Tightly   Andrew: And   James: Whispered   Andrew: That   James: She   Andrew: Was   James: Pregnant.   Andrew: He   James: Was   Andrew: Surprised   James: But   Andrew: Delighted.   James: Together   Andrew: They   James: Planned   Andrew: For   James: A   Andrew: Home   James: That   Andrew: Would   James: Welcome   Andrew: A   James: New   Andrew: Life.   James: Painting   Andrew: The   James: Nursery   Andrew: In   James: Bright   Andrew: Green   James: With   Andrew: Some   James: Dinosaurs   Andrew: On   James: The   Andrew: Walls.   James: Building   Andrew: A   James: Crib   Andrew: Out   James: Of   Andrew: Ikea   James: And   Andrew: Reading   James: To   Andrew: Each   James: Other   Andrew: The   James: Day   Andrew: Of   James: Delivery   Andrew: Arrived   James: And   Andrew: They   James: Took   Andrew: Elise   James: To   Andrew: The   James: Hospital,   Andrew: Where   James: She   Andrew: Gave   James: Birth   Andrew: To   James: A   Andrew: Healthy   James: Baby   Andrew: Dinosaur   James: The   Andrew: End.   James: This is the story of the Gamekeeper's Family.   Once upon a time, not so very long ago, there lived a couple in a wood.   Andrew: The husband was a gamekeeper at the local estate.   James: His wife was a housekeeper for the same.   Andrew: They had lived in their little cottage very happily for the last fifteen years.   James: But ... they longed for a child.   Andrew: They had tried many things, been to doctors, healers and priests but without success.   James: They had traveled the world looking for witches that might be able to cure their barrenness, but all in vain.   Andrew: After many years of searching and hoping, they had resigned themselves to their situation and were content to mind the children of their neighbours and fellow workers.   James: But one day, as the gamekeeper walked home through the forest paths, he came across a basket.   Andrew: Attached to the basket was a note, read, “please take care of me” and inside wrapped up in blankets there was a tiny baby.   James: He rushed home to his wife to show her what he had found.   Andrew: They spent a long time discussing whether or not it would be right for them to keep this child. Who had left it there and why?   James: Eventually, they chose to consult the local vicar who assured them that with all of their experience helping to look after their neighbours' children and given that almost everyone else in the village already had children of their own, the right thing would be for them to keep it and raise it as their own.   Andrew: This they did, with great success and a fine healthy young man was the product of their labours.   James: They had named him Benjamin, after the wife's father and as Benjamin grew in stature, he also grew in the love given to him, not only by them but by others in the village. For everyone enjoyed his outgoing and pleasant company.   Andrew: As the years passed the time came for him to take over his father's job as gamekeeper on the estate and this he did.   James: He had spent his childhood growing up amongst the forest and knew how to look for the different types of woodland animal and also how to protect them. How best to defend them from poachers and so forth. And so, continuing the charm of his childhood as he started his job, he proved to be more than adept as a gamekeeper and was rapidly promoted until he became head gamekeeper.   Andrew: After many years, his parents passed away in a peaceful old age and he moved back to the cottage where he had grown up.   James: By this time, he was himself, married, although as with his parents, he and his wife Amelia, had not been able to have a child.   Andrew: One day, while out walking in the estate, completing his rounds and jobs, Benjamin too came across a basket with a note attached.   James: The note, as the note on his own basket, said “please take care of me” and inside was a tiny child that he took home to Amelia and which as with his parents before him, they decided it was right to adopt.   Andrew: Now, the listener will not know that Benjamin's parents had not chosen to share with him the story of how they had found him in a cradle in the woods. And so, it did not occur to him that there was anything unusual about this coincidence.   James: As Benjamin and Amelia's daughter, Susanna, grew, she also, much like Benjamin was much loved around the village and when it came time for her to start working, she took over Amelia's job as housekeeper, as Amelia had taken over the job of Benjamin's mother before her.   Andrew: And so it was that this story played out from generation to generation. Susanna had a son named Robert. Robert had a daughter named Barbara. Barbara had a son named Tom.   James: And always, down through the generations, the same jobs were passed from father to daughter, from daughter to son, across the generations, gamekeeper and housekeeper both.   Andrew: But why? Why was it that these popular, lovable, outgoing people were never able to have children of their own? And where was it that the mysterious foundlings were coming from?   James: For that, dear listener, we must go back to the first gamekeeper and housekeeper, Benjamin's parents, and see their story from another angle.   Andrew: Once upon a time there was a magical forest where there dwelled many sprites and pixies.   James: Chief among them was a fairy who had lived for many hundreds of years, spending her time looking after the non-magical creatures of the kingdom.   Andrew: Now, many fairies have an ambiguous and complicated relationship with human beings, seeing them somewhat like a tree sees a fungus growing on its bark.   James: At times, the fairy would help humans through stumbling difficulties in their lives, but at other times she would punish them for what she saw as a transgression against the magical forest.   Andrew: She was, to our eyes, capricious in her whims. Sometimes kind, sometimes cruel.   James: One day, the gamekeeper, while walking home through the forest spied a rogue pheasant which had somehow escaped from, as he thought, the forest that he managed.   Andrew: What appeared to be a pheasant to his eyes, was in fact the fairy, wandering through her domain.   James: He carefully set a trap and as she did not consider him a threat, she walked right into it and was quickly bound and trussed with him carrying her home towards the pot.   Andrew: He was not by nature a sentimental person, having spent his life working with the wild animals of the forest. But, there was something about the way this bird fixed him with a seemingly knowing stare as he set it down on the kitchen table that made him think twice about instantly wringing its neck.   James: In the moment that he hesitated, the fairy, as fairies sometimes do, cast a spell, not only for her to be released and free but also so that he would forget having ever encountered her. And, as fairies are also sometimes wont to do, she cursed him at that moment, annoyed and upset that she had ignominiously been bound and walked over the forest. She cursed him that he should never have a child to love him.   Andrew: Sometime later, the fairy observed his wife walking through the forest and weeping and lamenting her lack of children.   James: Unaware that this woman was in any way related to the gamekeeper she had previously cursed, she cast a beneficial spell over the housekeeper that she would have a child that she so clearly desired.   Andrew: The child of course, was easy to provide for fairy folk often have children which they need to be raised in the human world.   James: And no one ever questioned from Benjamin through Susanna, through Robert, through Barbara, through Tom, why, when their feet touched the ground in the forest, flowers grew in their footsteps.   Andrew: And from generation to generation, they continued to live, in the small charming cottage in the middle of the wonderful magical wood.   James: Sally   Andrew: Held   James: Her   Andrew: Handbag   James: Defensively   Andrew: When   James: The   Andrew: Mugger   James: Threatened   Andrew: Her   James: With   Andrew: A   James: Knife.   Andrew: She   James: Balanced   Andrew: On   James: The   Andrew: Balls   James: Of   Andrew: Her   James: Feet   Andrew: And   James: Lashed   Andrew: Out   James: With   Andrew: Her   James: Handbag   Andrew: Knocking   James: Him   Andrew: Over   James: And   Andrew: Giving   James: Her   Andrew: The   James: Chance   Andrew: To   James: Escape.   Andrew: She   James: Reported   Andrew: The   James: Incident   Andrew: To   James: The   Andrew: Police   James: Who   Andrew: Promptly   James: Ignored   Andrew: Her   James: And   Andrew: Carried   James: On   Andrew: Filling   James: In   Andrew: Paperwork.   James: The   Andrew: End.   James: Our next story is Jeremy's Place.   One   Andrew: Day   James: Jeremy   Andrew: Was   James: Walking   Andrew: Along   James: The   Andrew: High   James: Street   Andrew: When   James: He   Andrew: Noticed   James: That   Andrew: The   James: Shops   Andrew: Were   James: All   Andrew: Closed.   James: In   Andrew: Normal   James: Times   Andrew: They   James: Would   Andrew: Be   James: Open   Andrew: On   James: Fridays   Andrew: But   James: Today   Andrew: They   James: Were   Andrew: Not   James: “Hmmm?”   Andrew: He   James: Thought   Andrew: “Is   James: There   Andrew: A   James: Special   Andrew: Occasion?   James: Perhaps   Andrew: It's   James: Remembrance   Andrew: Day?   James: But   Andrew: That   James: Is   Andrew: Always   James: On   Andrew: A   James: Sunday.”   Andrew: So   James: He   Andrew: Knocked   James: On   Andrew: The   James: Door   Andrew: Of   James: The   Andrew: Post   James: Office   Andrew: And   James: Waited   Andrew: For   James: Someone   Andrew: To   James: Open   Andrew: It.   James: Waited   Andrew: And   James: Waited   Andrew: Then   James: Waited   Andrew: Some   James: More.   Andrew: He   James: Gave   Andrew: The   James: Putative   Andrew: Post-mistress   James: Half   Andrew: An   James: Hour   Andrew: And   James: She   Andrew: Didn't   James: Appear.   Andrew: So   James: He   Andrew: Pushed   James: And   Andrew: The   James: Door   Andrew: Opened.   James: “Funny,”   Andrew: He   James: Thought   Andrew: And   James: Stepped   Andrew: Inside.   James: Inside   Andrew: There   James: Was   Andrew: No   James: Light.   Andrew: In   James: The   Andrew: Space   James: Reserved   Andrew: For   James: Packages,   Andrew: There   James: Was   Andrew: A   James: Small   Andrew: Dog.   James: “Strange,”   Andrew: He   James: Thought,   Andrew: And   James: Approached.   Andrew: The   James: Dog   Andrew: Looked   James: At   Andrew: Him   James: And   Andrew: Opened   James: His   Andrew: Mouth.   James: “Why   Andrew: Are   James: You   Andrew: Here?”   James: Asked   Andrew: The   James: Dog   Andrew: “I   James: Want   Andrew: To   James: Know   Andrew: What's   James: Going   Andrew: On?”   James: Said   Andrew: Jeremy.   James: “This   Andrew: Is   James: Not   Andrew: A   James: Place   Andrew: For   James: You.”   Andrew: Said   James: The   Andrew: Dog   James: “Where   Andrew: Am   James: I?”   Andrew: “You   James: Are   Andrew: In   James: The   Andrew: Seventh   James: Kingdom.”   Andrew: Jeremy   James: Backed   Andrew: Away   James: From   Andrew: The   James: Dog   Andrew: And   James: Fled.   Andrew: Once   James: Outside   Andrew: He   James: Started   Andrew: To   James: Calm   Andrew: Down   James: Again.   Andrew: He   James: Convinced   Andrew: Himself   James: That   Andrew: Nothing   James: Strange   Andrew: Had   James: Happened   Andrew: To   James: Him   Andrew: And   James: Proceeded   Andrew: To   James: Walk   Andrew: Down   James: The   Andrew: High   James: Street   Andrew: And   James: Knocked   Andrew: On   James: The   Andrew: Door   James: Of   Andrew: The   James: Butchers.   Andrew: Again   James: There   Andrew: Was   James: No   Andrew: Reply   James: So   Andrew: He   James: Pushed   Andrew: The   James: Door   Andrew: Open   James: And   Andrew: Stepped   James: Inside.   Andrew: Within,   James: There   Andrew: Was   James: No   Andrew: Light.   James: In   Andrew: The   James: Area   Andrew: Where   James: Meat   Andrew: Would   James: Be   Andrew: Chilled   James: There   Andrew: Was   James: Another   Andrew: Dog.   James: “What   Andrew: Are   James: You   Andrew: Doing   James: Here?”   Andrew: Said   James: The   Andrew: Dog.   James: “I'm   Andrew: Just…”   James: “No!”   Andrew: Said   James: The   Andrew: Dog.   James: “This   Andrew: Is   James: Not   Andrew: A   James: Place   Andrew: For   James: You!”   Andrew: Jeremy   James: Looked   Andrew: Confused.   James: “Where   Andrew: Am   James: I?”   Andrew: “Go!   James: This   Andrew: Is   James: The   Andrew: Kingdom.   James: You   Andrew: Must   James: Leave.”   Andrew: Jeremy   James: Backed   Andrew: Away   James: From   Andrew: The   James: Dog   Andrew: Into   James: The   Andrew: Doorway,   James: And   Andrew: Stepped   James: Back   Andrew: Onto   James: The   Andrew: High   James: Street.   Andrew: Now   James: He   Andrew: Was   James: Having   Andrew: Second   James: Thoughts   Andrew: About   James: The   Andrew: Shopping   James: Trip   Andrew: That   James: He   Andrew: Had   James: Planned   Andrew: And   James: Walked   Andrew: Back   James: Towards   Andrew: Home.   James: Passing   Andrew: The   James: Police   Andrew: Station,   James: He   Andrew: Went   James: To   Andrew: The   James: Door   Andrew: And   James: Knocked.   Andrew: The   James: Door   Andrew: Was   James: Not   Andrew: Locked,   James: And   Andrew: So   James: He   Andrew: Went   James: Inside.   Andrew: Within,   James: There   Andrew: Was   James: No   Andrew: Light.   James: In   Andrew: The   James: Cells   Andrew: Where   James: Prisoners   Andrew: Usually   James: Resided,   Andrew: There   James: Was   Andrew: A   James: Third   Andrew: Dog.   James: “Seriously!”   Andrew: Said   James: The   Andrew: Dog.   James: “What   Andrew: Are   James: You   Andrew: Doing   James: Here?”   Andrew: Jeremy   James: Panicked   Andrew: And   James: Ran   Andrew: At   James: The   Andrew: Dog.   James: “Give   Andrew: Me   James: Back   Andrew: My   James: Place!”   Andrew: He   James: Exclaimed.   Andrew: The   James: Dog   Andrew: Jumped   James: Sideways   Andrew: And   James: Avoided   Andrew: Jeremy's   James: Grasping,   Andrew: And   James: Replied,   Andrew: “This   James: Is   Andrew: Your   James: Place   Andrew: Here.”   James: Slamming   Andrew: The   James: Cell   Andrew: Door   James: Shut,   Andrew: Jeremy   James: Collapsed   Andrew: Into   James: The   Andrew: Corner   James: And   Andrew: Slept.   James: The   Andrew: Next   James: Day   Andrew: He   James: Awoke   Andrew: In   James: The   Andrew: Cell   James: To   Andrew: Discover   James: Three   Andrew: Policemen   James: Looking   Andrew: At   James: Him   Andrew: In   James: Confusion.   Andrew: “What's   James: All   Andrew: This   James: Then?”   Andrew: They   James: Said   Andrew: In   James: Unison.   Andrew: Jeremy   James: Stumbled   Andrew: Out   James: Into   Andrew: The   James: Open   Andrew: Air   James: And   Andrew: Saw   James: That   Andrew: Things   James: Were   Andrew: Back   James: To   Andrew: Normal.   James: The   Andrew: Post   James: Office   Andrew: Was   James: Open,   Andrew: The   James: Butchers   Andrew: Had   James: Customers,   Andrew: The   James: High   Andrew: Street   James: Was   Andrew: Bustling.   James: “What   Andrew: Happened   James: Yesterday?”   Andrew: He   James: Thought   Andrew: As   James: He   Andrew: Opened   James: His   Andrew: Front   James: Door.   Andrew: “I   James: Swore   Andrew: I…”   James: And   Andrew: In   James: Front   Andrew: Of   James: Him   Andrew: Were   James: Three   Andrew: Dogs.   James: The   Andrew: End.       James: Peter   Andrew: Liked   James: Jam   Andrew: And   James: Toast.   Andrew: He   James: Regularly   Andrew: Ate   James: Ten   Andrew: Slices   James: Of   Andrew: Them   James: For   Andrew: Breakfast.   James: His   Andrew: Constitution   James: Was   Andrew: As   James: Solid   Andrew: As   James: A   Andrew: House.   James: One   Andrew: Day   James: He   Andrew: Ran   James: Out   Andrew: Of   James: Jam   Andrew: And   James: Had   Andrew: To   James: Use   Andrew: Marmite   James: Instead.   Andrew: This   James: Gummed   Andrew: His   James: Works   Andrew: Up   James: And   Andrew: He   James: Slowly   Andrew: Died.   James: The   Andrew: End.   I've been Andrew, and I'm here with James. These stories were recorded without advanced planning and then lightly edited for the discerning listener. Join us next time for more totally made-up tales ...    

Welcome to the second episode of Totally Made Up Tales, an experiment in improvised storytelling in the digital age. We hope you enjoy our tales of wonder and mystery. Let us know what you think! Music: Creepy – Bensound.com.   James: Here are some Totally Made-Up Tales, brought to you by the magic of the internet.   This is the story of Dr. Rich. Andrew: Once upon a time, there was a doctor who specialized in curing diseases only of the very rich. Inevitably of course, they were in some way or other. James: He would travel round in his large, black car made specially for him by Mercedes-Benz himself, and visit them one by one, his rich clientele, ringing on the doorbell and asking, "Are you ill?" Andrew: In fact, one of the things that he had identified, and the reason why he himself was so successful, was that he realized that money did not in fact make you happy, but filled you with a deep sense of malaise. James: In fact, to put it simply, money made you ill. Andrew: His expertise was to remove money from the rich in order that they could feel better, and indeed many of his patients who were bankrupted by his bills went on to lead happy, fulfilled, virtuous lives. James: Even before they'd got to that state, merely at the point that he presented them with the bill for having cured their sniffle or subdued their pox, or whatever it is that he had been called upon to do today, they felt better, relieved, as if the air was flowing more freely through their lungs, as if the blood was moving more smoothly through their veins. Andrew: The problem was that over the course of his long and successful career, he himself became extremely wealthy, deeply unhappy, and died. James: There was no one who could minister to him in his last days. He was as ill as you could possibly get from money, and indeed was quite capable of diagnosing himself as dying of wealth, and yet, without having trained an apprentice or one to come after him, there was no one who could cure him. He died sad, despondent, very, very wealthy, but utterly ill.   Josephine Andrew: wanted James: children, Andrew: but James: her Andrew: husband James: was Andrew: emperor James: of Andrew: France. James: "Not Andrew: tonight," James: he Andrew: said James: repeatedly. Andrew: The James: end.   Keyhole Andrew: surgery James: is Andrew: performed James: using Andrew: keyholes, James: which Andrew: are James: available Andrew: from James: B&Q Andrew: and James: similar Andrew: retailers.   Judith James: went Andrew: to James: Cardiff Andrew: for James: her Andrew: sister's James: wedding. Andrew: It James: was Andrew: a James: beautiful Andrew: weekend James: full Andrew: of James: dancing, Andrew: sunshine, James: and Andrew: happy James: bridesmaids. Andrew: The James: bride Andrew: herself James: was Andrew: sick, James: and Andrew: vomited James: all Andrew: over James: the Andrew: vicar. James: The Andrew: end.   Victor James: went Andrew: to James: war Andrew: and James: fought Andrew: bravely James: time Andrew: and James: time Andrew: again. James: When Andrew: he James: returned, Andrew: he James: discovered Andrew: his James: country Andrew: had James: changed Andrew: and James: he Andrew: no James: longer Andrew: belonged. James: The Andrew: end. James: Now, Abigail the Mistress Milliner. Andrew: Abigail was a milliner, and made the finest hats in the kingdom. James: She was renowned from city to city. The aristocracy would always use Abigail's hats, or risk the disapproval of their peers. Andrew: She was totally dedicated to her craft. It was her life's work, and every fiber of her being, every drop of her blood was dedicated to the making of hats. James: Since she had passed from apprentice to journeyman to master hat maker, she had had one perfect master work in mind; the ultimate hat. Andrew: It was a hat that she knew once she had made it, there could be no better hat made by human hand until the end of time. James: She had resolved at the tender age of twenty-two to dedicate her life to creating the best hats she always could while always striving towards the perfect hat. Andrew: It was rumored that she kept in her safe at the back, behind the box in which she kept her money and other valuables, a small box in which she was working on a secret project. James: Many rumors were started about the project. Many rumors were started about the safe and about the other things that she had done to protect her most vital and important secrets. Andrew: Other milliners throughout the kingdom were jealous, suspicious, and met together one evening in the back room of a dusty tavern to discuss their suspicion. James: One of them, Brian the Hatter, was convinced that she had already created the ultimate hat, but was withholding it for fear that others would copy her work. Andrew: "There is only one way for us to find out, brothers and sisters," he said, "and that is, we must take possession of the box within the safe." James: So began the most delicate planning. Milliners around the country contriving a way to steal a box from within a sealed safe that even the most dedicated cat burglar would have had difficulty getting near. Andrew: "Let us hold a festival," they proposed. "Yes, let us hold some kind of celebration, some distraction, some occasion on which everybody's back will be turned." James: They worked their connections long and hard, and finally were able to persuade some lady of the court, and through her some gentleman of the court, and through him some knight of the court, and through him, some lady of the bedchamber, and ultimately to the king and queen themselves that there should be a grand banquet where all the greatest people of the land would come, and of course the desire for the best hats would be unrivaled throughout history. Andrew: So it was that in the following days and weeks as the banquet was made ready that there were queues around the block to every suit maker, every boot maker, and every hat maker in the kingdom as more and more finery was demanded so that everybody could appear at their very best at this once-in-a-lifetime feast to be given by the royal family. James: Of course, nowhere were the queues longer nor more densely packed than outside the shop of Abigail the Milliner. For many months, she serviced the next person who came through the door, measuring them, measuring their head, considering the weight of their brow and the movement of their lips and of their nose, and taking into account the other clothing that was being made for them. Day and night, she would work in the back, making hats from the measurements she had taken. Andrew: Each customer demanded a hat finer than the one that the customer before had received, and so it was that after a lifetime of training, even she was nearing the end of her store of creative energy as each masterpiece, slightly better than the one before, went out the door in its beautifully wrapped box. James: Meanwhile, Brian the Hatter and his cohorts were plotting how to get inside the safe. Andrew: "Would it be better for us to cut a hole in the wall and slide it out into a side street, or cut a hole in the floor and let it down into the vaults of the cellars or the sewers below?" James: "Perhaps we should cut through the top of the building and employ a crane or some small children with rope to haul it up high into the gables and from there escape across the rooftops of the city." Andrew: "May I make a suggestion?" Came a voice from the back of the room.   "Of course, go ahead brother. Tell us your suggestion."   "What we should use is the psychology of the artist." James: Well, they were all very impressed with this idea, even though most of them didn't really understand, and they voluntarily gave up control to the owner of the voice, Mr. Jim Blacklock. Andrew: "The true artist is only satisfied when his or her craft is applied as close to the standard of perfection as it is possible for human endeavor to reach. Each person has demanded a hat more superior than the one before. How many more hats can this woman make before she is forced to reveal the greatest hat of all time?" James: The hatters, from their conniving congregation, went out back into the land and plied their connections and persuaded the lords and ladies who had got early hats from Abigail the Milliner to go back for better ones now that there were better ones available to their peers. The line once more became long and winding throughout the city, and Abigail, working as hard as she ever had, wracked her brains for more ideas to top the last ones that she had put out. Andrew: Finally, when the line had dwindled to one person, and that person had been handed their finely-wrapped box and left and the door swung closed and the little bell rang and she was left alone, she knew that she was spent. She had no more hats available for her to make. It would be impossible for her to service another customer, and indeed there were no more customers. Everybody owned a hat of hers who had a head to wear a hat on. James: Just then, there was a knock at the door. Andrew: "Who could this be?" She thought to herself. "A customer who had left behind a pair of gloves, or wanted a duplicate invoice for tax purposes." James: She got out of her chair and felt her way across the dark shop front and opened the door. In front of her was the king. Andrew: "Your majesty." She said, and curtsied low, for she was a very correct lady. James: "Abigail," began the king. Andrew: "If your majesty has come in search of a hat, I'm afraid I must disappoint you, for I have no more hats left to make." James: "Come, come," said the king, for he was a kindly man, but also used to getting his own way. "Come, come, you would not disappoint your monarch." Andrew: "It would pain me to do so, sir, but I really do not see how I could supply a hat finer yet than any that I had supplied without ... " James: There Abigail stopped. Andrew: "Without ... ?" Said the king. James: "I should not have spoken." Said Abigail. Andrew: "Yet you did speak," said the king, "and now you must surely explain yourself." James: "The only way, your majesty, that I could hope to top the previous hats that I have made for all in the land and to satisfactorily clothe your royal head, would be to open the book that I have been keeping these last forty years as I have worked on perhaps an impossible dream of the perfect hat." Andrew: At this, the king's eyes lit up, for he was a man who liked the finest things, and the idea of owning the most perfect hat that had ever been made or could ever be made appealed very deeply to his regal heart. James: "I must have it." He said, and left. Andrew: Abigail wept, for she knew that the hour had come where either she must make the most perfect hat of all time, or she must leave this place that she called home, abandon her shop, her career, her profession, and begin a new life somewhere else, for no one had ever successfully denied the king his wish and lived. James: Uncertain of what her choice would be, she stole back to the back room and opened the safe, and within it moved past the money boxes and the certificates of birth and death and the other precious objects that were necessary for a satisfactory and legal life in this complicated time, and at the back pulled out a small tin which contained folded paper of her notes over the years. Andrew: She reviewed the scraps, shuffled them, paced, lit a fire, made tea, stoked the fire, paced, shuffled the papers, and so continued through the night, all the way through to the crow of the cockerel and the rising of the sun. James: She was still pacing when her young apprentice entered the shop in the morning, expecting to be up and at the business before she was. He was surprised, and did not attempt to hide it. Andrew: "Mistress Abigail, whatever is the matter? You seem troubled, agitated, as if you haven't slept." James: "I haven't!" She cried. "I can't sleep. I cannot sleep until I ... Until I at least try." Andrew: So it was that they embarked together on making sense of the diagrams that she had drawn, and little by little began to compose the finest hat that had ever been made. James: There was every conceivable material, Andrew: and yet somehow, even though it was composed of parts as diverse of silk and leather, it formed a beautifully coordinated whole in which every part was neither too much nor too little, but in perfect proportion and place. James: Spent, they sat on the floor and looked up at the perfect hat. The ultimate hat. The end, indeed, to millinery itself. Andrew: As to the rest of the story, well of course the king collected it and wore it and achieved universal admiration. The great feast was, exactly as it promised to be, huge, memorable, spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Abigail was, as you would expect, done. Done with her career. There was no way that she could continue now. James: As for the other hat makers, well, walk down a high street in your town any day you like and try to find a milliner's shop. They're all gone now. All gone.   I've been James, and I'm here with Andrew. These stories were recorded without advanced planning and lightly edited for the discerning listener. Join us next time for more Totally Made-Up Tales. Andrew [outtake]: "Would it be better," they said, "if we cut a hole in the floor and let it down into the core of the earth?" No, no, that's a ludicrous idea. Sorry.

This is one for the musos. We've got interviews with two very talented, innovative, and remarkably unique acts - jazz/hip-hop crossover BadBadNotGood and the lively symphonic Sultans of String. BBNG is set to drop Sour Soul, a collaboration with the one-and-only Ghostface Killa of Wu Tang Clan, early in 2015. The band is amidst a string of festival dates, getting young music fans into what's traditionally been a niche genre thanks to a youthful energy and abandonment of genre limitations. (Last time I saw these guys, they had a room of a few hundred moshing - yes, moshing - to jazz music - Andrew) As for Sultans of String, they've got a string of high-profile shows coming up in late November, including a date at Toronto's pristine Koerner Hall. The group's latest release, Symphony!, is a cool project that involved a number of high-profile Canadian musicians, and we'll see how material from that will translate to the stage for these upcoming shows. Finally, we'll hear the latest about the National Music Centre in Calgary, including the construction of some state-of-the-art studio spaces.