Christopher masterfully reframes ceremonial magic as a rigorous psychological discipline, shifting the focus from external manifestation to the profound deconstruction of the ego. It is a sophisticated elevation of the occult that replaces superstitious greed with the difficult work of internal alchemy.
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Theurgy, Magic, Goetia and Demons w/ Lyam Thomas ChristopherAdded:
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Do you not think [music] that once we change the way we think then >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Welcome. Welcome to Lighting the Void Live.
Broadcasting live from a shack on a hill in the Mossy Creek bottoms of Cane Creek, Arkansas.
This is Lighting the Void Live. Here live tonight, we are going to be live on fringe.fm, also YouTube. So, we're going to be live on YouTube and fringe.fm. And if you have to miss this broadcast, you can hear it on all the podcast players as well. So, [music] pretty excited. Um this is a pre-recorded interview, but I'll be hanging out here with you guys tonight.
>> [music] >> Um it for me, it's a milestone, and I'll tell you why it just real quick, and then we'll get into it because um >> [music] >> was blessed to be able to do this interview for a couple hours, actually. So, that's kind of nice. So, the this is like a full circle for me. Like, speaking about magic on this broadcast has been really a passion of mine, and I know some other people that listen to the broadcast, too. We've talked to all kinds of different magicians from Gordon White to Stephen Skinner to Jason Miller, um Jason Love. I'm probably leaving names out, too. I I think I've talked to just about every magician that I've ever wanted to talk to except for two.
And that was Frater Xavier and Liam Thomas Christopher.
And so I found Liam Thomas Christopher's book about I would say eight years ago.
I think it's eight, nine, I don't know, long time ago by listening to Frater Xavier because at the time I was just reading Golden Dawn books like um you know, Israel Regardie trying to find my path through this thing. And then when Frater Xavier mentioned this book years ago, uh it changed my life and all kinds of things as I started working through this program um began to change in my life. Not just for the good. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of good stuff, but a lot of crazy stuff happened all at once and immediately I knew um how [clears throat] amazing this system was.
I I finally started understanding things on a deeper level.
So Liam's book changed my life.
Um and that's really all I wanted to tell you guys. And also to kind of try to set the record straight um which is really what a lot of this conversation is about. Uh we will get into things like Goetia, magic and all of the sort. So, hang with me, hang out in the chat, listen to the interview. If you got any questions, we'll go over stuff afterwards. So, let's get into it.
Um I know you guys are ready, right? I'm ready.
Let's do it. So, >> doing the you know, coming on, man, I've been wanting to talk to you since I I was following you on Twitter before and I would watch some of your tweets that were funny. That was a long time ago, but yeah, but some of them were really really funny. So, uh >> Oh, I used to love Twitter, yeah.
>> Yeah, and I used to think, man, um people like I was telling you, people would ask me questions about magic and I just basically everything that I was trying to tell them I read from your book, you know? And so, uh when I saw that you got out on YouTube and you started like putting constant videos out, I was like, "Oh my god, thank god, you know?" Because I feel like someone needs to represent uh ceremonial magic. I just feel like it's so Do you don't you feel like it's really misunderstood? I mean, even today.
>> Of course. You know?
Uh even among the uh the people in Golden Dawn Temples, um I know of one who definitely seems to be an initiate, you know, like one one guy who's on the internet right now.
Um but most of them are mostly in um uh in the in the Goetic worldview. In other words, like I do magic over here and I get a result over there. Yeah. And most of them are And we can talk about that. I mean, there's this um high magic is not that at all, actually.
Um it functions in a completely different dimension than what people expect out of Harry Potter-style magic, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um and I I'd spoke to you before that I went on a podcast and I got confronted by people. This is one of those moments where I like, "Man, I wish Liam was here. I wish Liam was here." But I couldn't uh you know, they were asking questions like, "Well, if magic is so great, if magic is this or that, then how come you haven't, you know, how come all magicians like Crowley and a couple other guys that they mentioned, you know, their lives go to hell in a handbasket and you you're not manifesting really anything?" And I was thinking, "Well, that's just three examples." But I I was trying to explain to them at least that ceremonial magic wasn't just about manifesting stuff.
It's about transformation of the self, you know? You have to experience it, yeah. In other words, um for the original Golden Dawn members, they were pioneers. They didn't entirely understand what they had jumped into.
And uh the ego inflation was the thing that really got them, you know?
And now um uh as far as the the very few people that I know in the Golden Dawn, we know that's part of the process. In other words, you you the student inflates his or her ego with the banishing rituals and and the and the middle pillar, and then it's a controlled process. Now you have to do the work. Now you have to do the journal entries. Now you have to confront these things, and if you don't, you're going to end up like Arthur Edward Waite.
Mhm.
Yeah. Which is a fate worse than death, right? In other words, like you read any of his books, you're like, I can't believe it. Who what what is he Yeah. It's all about him and his >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Fred I've read his books. They they're very they're very like it's like megalomania almost, you know, in a sense, right?
>> Yeah. Oh. Wow. Yeah. And so, um why I guess I'll start with the simple questions and then I'll get a little deeper. Why magic? Why not meditation?
Why not transcendental just transcendental meditation? Why not Zen?
Why magic?
So, we have let's go into something that many people give credibility to, and that would be like Tibetan Buddhism.
They they many people regard that as a legitimate path, right? So, um in that tradition, they have uh they represent Buddhism as three turnings of the wheel of Dharma.
And the first turning is the basic teachings that the Buddha first dished out, supposedly. Um but we don't really know what those teachings were, but they're represented by the Theravada school of Buddhism and um uh what what what the Tibetans call the lesser vehicle, which is kind of evil of them to do that, but but that's their attitude towards those those teachings.
And so later on, um after the Buddha had passed on, the second wheel of Dharma was turned, and people claimed to still be getting teachings from him or from his example.
And then we have all this focus on emptiness and body softness and things like that.
And still very much meditation focused and and um being a good person and um and then and then car and then um the third turning of the wheel of Dharma happened and that's when we get tantric Buddhism which is magic.
And then we do rituals. We do we do tens of visualizations. Not that I've been in uh I've studied that tradition Uh-huh. and um and so uh it's basically you are doing like psychic surgery up to a point where you're you're basically doing these visualization practices and breath work and stuff like that to get into the psyche and rearrange it so that it functions in a particular way with the help of the teacher.
It's dangerous, you know.
Whereas if you do meditation, it's more passive where you just kind of wait for the um unresolved dualities to come out of the woodwork and then you can confront them as they pop up. Mhm. Which is fine because we have plenty of that to deal with, right? And so um in tantra, it's like no no no, you're going to this is rocket fuel. In other words, you want to turn up the volume on that and really draw this stuff out to confront it all the way to the root so that you can achieve enlightenment supposedly in one lifetime. Right.
And it's not about processing all your karma that you that's impossible. It's karma is everything everywhere, right?
It's getting to the root of the karmic suffering uh and doing do in a surgical um state uh um what do you call it phase of different phases of the work? Uh-huh.
um and with the help of a teacher hopefully or with some kind of formula that you stick to.
Uh and so deliberately prodding the psyche to produce its unresolved dualities so you can deal with them, deliberately restructuring the psyche deliberately invoking powerful archetypal forces.
Um and then meditation is not they don't really do meditation. Um it's more like what they call meditation is um familiarization.
That's the way they translate it. I love that because uh when you become familiar with your mind as it actually is, that's kind of what they're talking about.
You're getting just getting accustomed and familiar with your with your mind the way it actually is, not the way it's been crammed into this uncomfortable position now.
Right. And so getting familiar with that, but it also means getting familiar with all of the karmic um gobbledygook.
Got you.
>> And these these unresolved dualities, when you get familiar with them, they become friendly.
In other words, familiar spirits.
Okay.
>> And they do manifest that way. They do manifest um often as, you know, animals with horns and claws and or, you know, maybe a tidal wave or a lightning strike or you know, natural forces that are dangerous or seductive.
Um Do those show up in synchronicity, like kind of synchronistically?
>> Yeah. Uh Yeah, now that's if they it's synchronistic though, uh you could in theory, you could say that oh, if it's happening in my physical life, what that means is I'm failing to head it off in the astral plane.
In other words, what it first manifests on the level of the mind, like dreams and imagination and obsessions.
>> Mhm. Um and then um and if you don't deal with it there, guess what? Then it comes out into the physical world and then gives you um hell there, right?
>> [snorts] >> Got you. So so then transcendental ceremonial high magic, you know, it's been called different things. It's essentially Tantra, but in a different system, a different I guess a different a different cuz when you get to the inner orders or even the I guess even the inner inner order cuz there's supposedly three orders, right? But, you know, um Right. If we could get into that >> chiefs, right? Yeah, but you really learned that that it's essentially the the ancient teachings what was like Tantra, right? Is what this really is.
Yeah, the thing that it represents most closely is Tantric Shaivism, actually.
Mhm.
>> I was I a bit shocked and for a moment I was thinking that the Golden Dawn was adapted from Tantric Shaivism.
But, then I I began to realize that no, these magical traditions with using magic circles and banishings and visualization practices, they all must have come about from a um a root um tendency in humanity, you know, the mystery traditions.
Mhm. And we are very fortunate to have Tantric Shaivism still today. It survived.
It wasn't it And and supposedly the original teachings of the Buddha were also um Tantric in nature, but all that was purged out of it because it was all, you know, oh, magic is evil and superstitious and and actually dangerous.
So, um then the Golden Dawn the the history I love how your version of the history you know, the way you talk about it to me it's like the most honest version of the history of what, you know, when people look at what How did the whole Golden Dawn come about, right? Um So, the way it came about, do you think that these beginners like Westcott and you know, uh uh uh Mathers, did you think do you think they even knew that it was Tantra at first? Like, do you think they had any idea that it was that?
I don't know, and that is a mystery to me because it doesn't seem that Mathers had the right mindset to develop the Golden Dawn the way it was taking shape.
There was somebody else involved. There had to be or something else involved. I assume that it's Westcott.
Yeah. But I don't know.
Uh and even in the Golden Dawn, you know, teachings that you get from the Regardie book and all that, there's stuff mixed in there that is um uh still very much um you know, Agrippa's uh philosophies and things like that. Um but what they were they were driving a lot of that from Agrippa.
And Agrippa was attempting to um restore uh the magic of the mystery traditions, the initiatory practices.
Uh and to basically define high magic as that.
Yeah. And he didn't have a lot to work with, of course. Um Mathers had more to work with in order to do that.
So So, to to sum up that first question, then why why do instead of why do I guess what I'm trying to ask now is why do ceremonial magic, the stages of the ceremonial magic, instead of just tantric practice?
And Or instead of just meditation, you mean, right?
>> Yeah, like instead of just >> is more passive. And so you're waiting for um the uh unresolved dualities to come out uh and just appear before you as you're meditating, okay? As feelings or cuz you won't necessarily see them psychically. It's not intense enough necessarily to do that. But you could.
Uh with tantric work, you're deliberately prodding the imagination to gush at you with these unresolved dualities. And you will likely see uh weird stuff.
Cuz then that's when the demon forms start to come out because these are all uh they have a lot There's a lot of trauma in our evolutionary past that is based on predators.
A lot of it's based on predators, snakes as well. Um And then of course um uh natural disasters and uh death, plague, things like that, infestations.
And so that that explains a lot of our phobias, you know.
Mhm.
>> [clears throat] >> The people have Some people have a a phobia of lots of tiny little holes.
And I was like, what the hell? Why would he Why would anybody be afraid of that?
But then I started thinking, it's like it kind of creeps me out, too. And I was like, oh, it's because it's an infestation. In other words, it just looks dangerous. Looks like there's bugs inside there or something like that, right?
Um and so it's probably in our cell memory that we are naturally afraid or averse to uh living in infested uh environments.
Gotcha. Yeah, that makes sense. I always wondered why you know, children, especially when I was a kid, and I've heard a lot of other people say when they were kids, they saw things, they I have I mean, I remember I have nightmares from when I was a kid. I still remember to this day wondering how I got those images in my dreams, you know.
>> it among us that the predators went after when the predators were still hunting us?
It's the children and the weak and the elderly.
And so the children have a especially strong fear of monsters in the dark because they were the targets.
Gotcha. Wow. While they're sleeping because that's the best time to pick one off because by the time the adults are awake, you're off and you've got your prize. And it can't fight back for you cuz it's pretty weak and small and delicious. Yeah.
What do you think in your opinion is the most is probably one of the most misunderstood things about Are we Are we recording?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we are. I had no idea. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, [laughter] I can edit anything, too, so don't worry about it, but um >> probably No problem. What do you think in your opinion um is what probably the most misunderstood thing about magic? Like even with your students, cuz I'm one of your students.
Like when you come across all these students, you go, "Hmm, this is a repeated thing I keep seeing that's really misunderstood that sticks out more than other misunderstandings."
A couple of things. So, mainly it's the theurgy versus goetia dimension of magic. So, goetia, well, the way that high magicians will talk about uh goetia is like uh you know, sorcery and superstition and trying trying to dominate the demons so that they'll go on errands for you and bring you things, you know. Um so, how many people practice goetia that way?
Uh so, the that is the idea that you can uh achieve causality horizontally.
In other words, I do ritual over here and I get a result over there. Yeah.
What more do I want, right? What what more should I What more could I possibly ask for, right?
Um and in theurgy which is called non-magic essentially, um that doesn't happen. In other words, what you're doing is essentially psychic surgery on the soul of the world, let's say.
Not your soul, um uh but your soul is involved, let's say.
There isn't really your soul. There's That's not really a thing, but um uh it feels like it. Uh but you're doing surgery on the imagination of the universe, let's say. And you're sort of moving the furniture around and then you're backing out and leaving it alone.
And the rearrangement of the interior furniture will then um supposedly have fallout. In other words, the uh it'll change the way things manifest in your life. Interesting.
So, interesting. So, It's basically It's basically feng shui if you really think about it. Feng shui is a Feng shui is that, right? And I've I've had Stephen Skinner on the the podcast. He He wrote a ton of books about magic. And Dr. Stephen Skinner, he also I know. Um but we talked extensively about Goetia.
And to him, it was like, "Yeah, I evoke demons. And I get them to do what I want them to do." And I'm like, "Really?" I mean, that's kind of what his whole you know, summation of that. And I was like, "Well, yeah, he's a bit more of an advanced, I guess you could say, advanced at the time when I spoke to him, uh magician. But I always want I always always try to bring the conversations back to initiation to everybody I spoke to, Gordon White, everybody. And I'm was really curious. I get a lot of pushback about the Golden Dawn from all sides.
Like [clears throat] it's either unnecessary, it's outdated, um Oh my god.
>> It's a Cartesian or something. And I'm like, >> You know, >> It's a pain in the ass because there I hate being told that I have to master the basics before I go to the advanced stuff. I didn't learn how to play a music a musical instrument that way. I started don't don't don't jumping right into the more difficult stuff.
Um so, I know how that feels, you know, to be Oh, you you need to master the scales and you need to to know how to do this and that. I'm like, Screw that.
Yeah. Just going to start playing, right? Imitating the Imitating the rock stars, right? So, um So, I get that. I I really get that.
With magic, it's not that way in and um mainly because if you are invoking these these powerful forces, these sort of pure archetypes, they will likely step in a bit, lean in, and then all of the unresolved dualities that correspond to whatever you're invoking will all become inflated and come poofing out at you.
In other words, there's a lot of [ __ ] that's going to get stirred up because you haven't purified it yet.
Mhm.
Okay, and then purified is is a little it's a kind of um what I mean by purification is simply getting to know the um the unresolved dualities that that haunt you.
Which is basically demons.
And uh it doesn't mean that you they go away. Uh so if you banish a demon, it's not If you If you try to banish a demon, it's not going to go away, okay? It's going to get stronger because it's you're pushing it out there and poofing it out bigger than it is because you're like pushing it um what what you resist persists.
>> Right, you're giving it more energy, really. Um more focus.
>> yeah. Yeah. Not only that, but yourself as well. So cuz the way that you respond to that entity out there is also poofed up.
And people should listen to this very carefully because the way that you respond to the entity out there, that's the real demon.
If If you If you conjure demons and whatever like that and then you're dealing with them out there, that's the same old habit of oh, I want to fix something about my life, so I'm going to go out there and fix that thing over there. I need to get a new toaster.
I need to do I need I have to have a new girlfriend. I need a new car. Like a More money.
I need a new relationship or new sheets or something like that and then I'll feel better, right? And it's endless.
You You'll never be done doing that.
It's over and over again you try to feel better and no matter what you do, it doesn't last.
Wow. It's so right, the actual demon that's to blame is the entity that's arising as you, the one that is constantly dissatisfied.
Nothing's ever good enough, at least not for more than a few minutes, right?
The very [ __ ] demon, which is the ego essentially.
And it's actually good news because when you are you become aware of this thing.
First of First of all, it's a little bit horrifying.
And but then you realize that this is much simpler than I thought it was. I don't have to fix the world. I don't have to save the world. I don't have to fix all these external worlds peace blah blah blah issues, right?
Um nothing can fix the world from those.
I'm sorry. Um but what we can do is um deal with the entity that's constantly dissatisfied. Because that dissatisfaction that it fuels constantly, almost constantly, right? Um is has no basis in reality.
There's the key right there. It has no basis >> that it feels has no basis in reality.
Not really. And of course people would disagree with that cuz they Oh, my life is horrible and this is going on. This is going on. This is going on.
Not really.
You know, look at this entity that that's dissatisfied.
And it in its constant fighting against all these things is maintaining those things out there, you know.
So uh so then >> [clears throat] >> I in the beginning stages of magic when you're going through the elemental grades you're is is that the is that the same thing like you know, in Goetia they deal with specific demons, which is inner order stuff, right? But like in the first stages of magic you're going through each element.
Are you treating that element like a like a demon in a sense? Um or you know what I'm saying? Kind of like the same process.
>> but it's so in other words um in the Golden Dawn system that I learned from my teachers at Ra Horakhty Temple um uh it was a an evolved curriculum where some of the inner order work was now brought into the outer order.
In other words, you're beginning to some of the you know, there's a lot of adeptus minor theory work as adeptus minor work was moved into the outer order.
Um and I think that's so important. Um also dangerous because you're now calling upon divine powers and it's poofing up your demons.
And then they the adapts would make sure you're keeping a journal. Okay, so tell me what's going on. Send me a journal entry. I want to see what's happening in your life.
In other words, like right so >> I went through that, too. I get I I get that, yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah, and the key and the the key is you want to keep that journal entry and you have to know how to write these things.
It helps to have some good good critical thinking skills.
And um experience with literature or with mythology or acting.
Yeah.
>> Literature's probably the best. Yeah, because we In other words, how does a How does the protagonist change in the story? Because that kind of pattern is exactly what our demons go through as they're as they are waking up and realizing how they might serve better.
Got you.
The kind of functions they go through are pretty much what protagonists in adventure stories, you know, go through.
In in really good stories, that is.
So, we spend all this time in the neophyte grade preparing our vessel. Is that what it is? It's like preparing the energy?
>> These are all like if it's mainly the elemental spirits that you are getting to know.
Uh and so anything earth, air, water, and fire is going to start coming out of the woodwork at you faster. And these can be um They and they have correspondences. So, in other words, so um entities that are are involved with thought processes uh would or imagination would be like air entities.
Okay, and the the more fluidly emotional ones um are more like the water entities etc. Passion entities or fire, let's say, right? Um that's part of it, uh but also the physical elements themselves because um the calamities that happened to us uh in our evolutionary past also will come out. And so your your that's sort of agoraphobia that we all have a little bit of or agoraphobia is like fear of everything going out into the world and being attacked by everything.
Um that gets prodded to the surface.
Uh and pretty cool, too. Um so it's mostly in the elemental kingdom at first.
Uh and with a little bit of introduction to the planets planetary spirits. And the planetary spirits are more uh social and or civil- civilization oriented. And of course they're very important for humans, obviously. Uh so when we're dealing with elements, it's really more the trauma that we have as animals in a world of physical forces and predators and things like that.
>> Yeah.
>> And then uh but when it comes to dealing with people and society and systems and government and power, these are all these are planetary forces. Um obviously very important to us as well. Got you.
So and I've always and I could be wrong about this, but I've always said to people I kind of deciphered this thing, right? So when I studied old hermeticism, I realized, okay, it's a it's uh theurgy, which is the moon, alchemy, the sun, and astrology, the stars, right? So it's like these these this old system of cuz everybody talks about the seven hermetic principles, but if you get into like before that came about was it all it was all based on this idea that you know, you've got the moon, the sun, and the stars, basically, and that was kind of It's pretty obvious to me that the number seven is based on the number of moving objects in the sky. Yeah. Yeah.
That they that we can see with the naked eye. In other words, so and the sun and moon are included in those. Yeah. Uh and in Golden Dawn, the system of magic is the septenary. It is the just the original planets of the ancients.
Uh so there's no Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
Got you. Or uh asteroids or Yeah. what not, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I got I so I uh I had I don't know. I It's you know how you create stuff in your mind, you know, do you Let's cuz the mind's always trying to put stuff together. I'm like, okay, well, this is theurgy is like working out the subconscious stuff and then the sun when you're doing the planetary work is, you know, the alchemical work, right? Well, inner order. Uh this we should clarify. Um what the Golden Dawn has done with its theurgy. Theurgy means God working.
Uh-huh.
And people would say, oh, it's the art and practice of becoming a living god.
So Or it's just invoking the gods, right? The different gods.
>> Yeah, exactly. So in other words, you what you're really doing is you are awakening divine virtues um and perspectives in yourself.
Which is essentially, yeah, turning you into a god, but don't get full of yourself, you know, because you're just basically have these divine abilities to see things um beyond uh human perception, let's say.
That's That sounds very sci-fi. I didn't mean to say that, but Yeah. Um uh you you you're not quite human anymore.
Be uh you know, somebody comes to you and they're complaining about, well, how do I do magic to get my girlfriend? And you're just like or to get a girlfriend and I'm just like, what what?
>> [laughter] >> It's like the kind of magic we do here is about it's it's about seeing through the narrative that your biology creates that's dragging you along, pestering you to get a girlfriend. Yeah. Okay. Now, it doesn't mean you don't It doesn't mean you don't get a girlfriend. That's It's just But, um for somebody who has Let's say they're enlightened, whatever. Um Um the sex and the relationships and family uh relationships are nice, but they're simply there. They're There's They're not of any particular importance. Mhm.
Interesting.
>> than just attachments, you know, just cuz we We've all formed attachments.
It's normal.
Um and that's a bit That's a bit harsh to hear, especially when your whole life it that you're 21 years old, let's say, right? And your whole life revolves around um I don't know, getting girls or finding the right man.
>> revolves around getting girls, yeah. And then trying to have as much fun as possible, you know? So, like and yeah.
I mean, I could say for sure >> That's a studying all of the occult text, what Crowley talks about and stuff, like it made a lot of sense cuz I was like, if I looked at the base of my energy and and the really like the depth of the reasons why I was doing things, it was for union all the time.
Trying to It's It's almost like a drug fix you're trying to get that whole, you know, deep deep down. I'm not talking about like a regular drug fix, but the thing that moves us to begin with, you know? To be clear, to be clear, uh the the goal is freedom from altered states of consciousness, not trying to get some kind of fancy altered state of consciousness. Right. Freedom from all of them. It doesn't mean they don't happen anymore. They just come and go, but you don't need them. You don't seek them out. They're not that important to you anymore.
They're nice, maybe, but they're They're actually a bit annoying because you can see the suffering that's built into them.
>> Exactly. Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, you say, "Oh, here it comes again. Like This is going to be This is going to be good for a while, and then I'm going to miss it. I'm going to I'm going to form an attachment. Here we go again." Like >> Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, cuz I mean, I remember I thought, "What what is going on with me?" Like cuz I was uh talking to this very wonderful wonderful person, very attractive. One I mean, wow, you know, wonderful. And they're like, "I want to have a spiritual experience, and I feel like you're that kind of person." And as soon as they said that, my my whole uh my insides just went like I went I got anxious. I was like, "This is going to like what you're saying causing suffering." I was like, "This is going to be a problem." Like immediately I knew, >> Yeah. like this is going to be a problem.
>> Yeah, it >> [laughter] >> it is a lot of pressure. Like I can't deliver this massive spiritual experience that you're looking for. I'm not saying it won't happen, but if that's what all this is about, I'm going to let you down prob- probably, you know.
>> That's That's exactly what people keep doing, you know, they they expect that out of the partner because the biology is telling them that I will feel I will be complete once I have this person in my life, which is actually not true.
>> true. I hope people can see that at least at least if you have a rational frame of mind, when the love bug bites you, you won't be able to see it. It's like you're it's completely takes you over, and you have you have no power, right? Um Which is essentially Venus. You did a whole video on that, right? It's just this Venus energy, this Venus You call it the Venus trap, yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah, you recognize all these And that's what I really like about ceremonial magic and the tree of life and all these energies. You really start to notice from what I've learned from you is that, man, I can see all these energies and what sephira like where they go, where they're coming from, like it's a very good kind of categorization, I guess you could say um you could you could put all kinds of different religions into it, all the energies of life into it. You could see everything in that tree. Oh my god, yes.
In other words, what I take to be psychic abilities is um you've already done a a a lot of work with yourself, let's say.
And so um uh personifying the various forces that are bothering you or knocking on your door or whatever like that, right? And being able to work with them in imagination, maybe even give them names and um have conversations with them, right? And so, when you start working with other people, you start to see entities around them, too.
Mhm. Uh they they resemble some of the work you've done. Yeah. And of course, but they you so you can actually see Usually comes out about in the motion because a person who's suffering is trying to do something repetitively, right? And they and it's not working, right? So, you can all you can see the motion happening and what type of motion is it? Is it like a feeding type thing?
Yeah.
>> Is it a a version like I need to defend myself type thing? Is Is it a humility type thing like I'm humiliated or like shame, right? Um you and then you then you can see even more clearly because um you already know, hopefully, what these scenarios come from, which is from um trauma that our ancestors experienced.
And possibly past lives. Mhm.
>> Not sure about that, you know. Um but um the most of this stuff seems to come through cell memory.
And that's proved, by the way. Um it's so obvious that we inherit memories from our ancestors. Um but they did prove it scientifically, you know, with um with rats. It's >> right? It's like in the beginning of your book where you talk about you wake up, you're this baby, you kind of wake up on this place like a lost, you know, whale. You're just this beached whale, so to speak, lost, you know, very vulnerable. And we keep going through these cycles and waking up and going back and waking up and going I feel like that's what's happening. And then we go back and wake up again and then we keep trying to fix everything and fix everything and it's it's just a big cycle.
>> Already Already when you wake up on the beach, what we're talking about is when you wake up and you realize I'm in this human life. What the heck is going on here, right? So, you you wake up on the beach like you're a you're a castaway, right? Like you're a a shipwreck, right?
You're like and you don't have any memory of who you were. Yeah. So, already at that point, there's a narrative being generated by your biology that says you're lost, you're orphaned, you're cast out, you lost your memory, you blah blah blah blah it's saying all these things. Now you need to go do this, you need to find food, you need to defend yourself, you know, blah blah blah blah just and and uh what we do is we respond to it and like dutiful little puppies and we do everything it tells us to do.
The mind says, "Go get food." Okay, I can go get food. All right, build a fort. Okay, I'll build a fort.
Feel safe. Okay, I'm going to try to be feel safe, right? Find a mate. Oh my god, like the lots of Yeah.
>> stress over that, right? And then eventually you start to look at the mind and every time the mind throws throws a stick, says, "Go get it. Go get Go do this now." and you go do it, right?
Eventually you stop.
And you don't look at the stick anymore, you look at the mind itself and it's like, "What are you doing and why am I listening to you?"
And who are you, by the way?
>> [laughter] >> Yeah, it's like when Jim Carrey said, "Uh who is it that is aware that I'm thinking?" And he had this big kind of >> epiphany, you know, in his life or whatever. Um Yeah, so so I I I want to ask you about systems, too, cuz I feel like there's a a big confusion like magic is a broad term, you know?
Um anytime I will speak to it to people, they'll quickly bring up either either Crowley even when I bring up the Golden Dawn, though it's Crowley Crowley Crowley, right? And um or Yeah.
uh I'll get ceremonial or not ceremonial, but um um chaos magic stuff.
So, there's a you know, chaos magicians are hyper fixated at least on um from what I understand, they're hyper fixated on just what works and what gets results, right? Like that's what they say in their books, right? And then >> Which is the level of goetia, not high magic. Right.
>> I'm I'm I'm being a bit harsh there because there are many chaos magicians who are aware of what goes on with high magic. Yeah, yeah. And there's some really really intelligent ones, too, you know, for sure. And then >> Peter Carroll Peter Carroll was a friend of Laura York, my teacher. Yeah, so >> She was quite fond of him actually. What do you think if someone's come to you and say, "Look, I I I I really don't want to do this Golden Dawn stuff, right? Like I just want to I got this chaos magic book. It told me I can work with comic book characters or gods or whatever whatever I want to work with. Like why can't I just skip this?
You know?
Well, so in other words, that that same old habit of trying to feel better all the time by fixing the world that's karma right there. It doesn't work. So, if you are stuck in that pattern of trying to fix the world that so you will feel better you're basically a slave to this [ __ ] little entity that doesn't feel good all the time.
Does that make sense? So, in other words, if you if you're trying to change your life in that way, you're just doing the same old thing that everybody else is doing and of course we already know it doesn't work for more than a few minutes, you know, like you get a result of what you wanted and then suddenly you're like you were you're worried about losing it now. And it's all the maintenance and the Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I went through that personally for sure. Uh Okay, so next question when it when it comes to the comparison of the two different systems. Um Let's say a a magician that worked under you magic book, did your whole system, and then once they get through like they get past portal, they're in the inner order, they're like, "Okay, you know, now I want to try some chaos magic." Would that magician be more Hmm.
I I'm trying to think of a word, not successful, but more apt to get his magic to work?
Well, I think Peter Carroll understood the magic at least when he was younger.
I heard it I saw an interview when he was older and he kind of I don't know where his mind was.
But maybe that was the beginning of the end for him.
But um that he did understand that you're implanting things, you're implanting uh different configurations into the subconscious so that the subconscious will then um uh manifest things differently. Yeah. In other words, into Yetzirah, which is the world of formation, where it's all dream stuff, and then eventually supposedly trickles down into or condenses down into physical reality.
Um So uh that's if you do So in other words, if you understand theurgy, then you will be able to engage in chaos magic, but it's you're going to be tweaking it to make sure you're doing it correctly.
And to be clear, the Golden Dawn incorporated things like Goetia into high magic. Sigils, too.
>> Because ba- Cuz basically they said, "Well, it you you we're we're taking this super This is just kind of magic and completely repurposing it into shadow work."
Yeah. So that you conjure these entities not so they go do things for you for heaven's sake. No. Um it's these entities are trying to uh function better. They really want to help, and yet as they try to help, they screw everything up.
>> [laughter] >> Uh you know, oh you can see, "Oh, this this tendency to get in an argument all the time. Oh, I have this thing in me that keeps which responds me to be safe.
In fact, it's trying to fight with people verbally because it's afraid of being attacked physically.
What's going on here?" Like you start to look at it, and then um it's not like you change it yourself.
It's more like it it sees what it's doing thanks to your awareness of it. Mhm. And it begins to evolve simply because you are now I don't know, paying attention to it, um, empathizing with it, very important, loving it, understanding it, not banishing it to hell and threatening it with the mighty names of God and saying I'm going to destroy you if you don't help me and blah blah blah, right?
Yeah, yeah, got you. So, what would happen to, uh, let's say someone dabbles in uh, chaos magic, uh, which is fine. Um, we've all done it. Uh, there's it stuff happens. It's funny, too, how we could talk about that, but how the first one always happens, and then you're trying to catch the first one, you know, but like, um, if a person dabbled or they went through the the elemental systems, they did all the work, and now they picked up a chaos magic book.
There would be a a massive difference, like, you know, Oh my god, yes. But, it wouldn't really they wouldn't really do it the same as as most of the chaos magic I've seen.
Here's Here's why, okay? Because I'll say you have the girlfriend, okay?
And but you look at her very objectively, and you basically say, "Well, I I just really want a good time."
Yeah. So, so how can I poke her and prod her just the right ways so she always puts out for me just the way I want?
Mhm.
See what I mean? Like, in other words, this is how we view magic, right? It's like, I just want to have a good time. I just want to be happy. I want I want I just want what I want. So, I have this thing called magic. If I poke it in just the right way, it's going to put out results for me, and that's all that matters.
How do you think the girlfriend will respond to being treated that way, first of all, right?
And of course, how will the psyche respond to being treated that way?
Exactly. It causes more suffering.
That's the way I thought about it, too.
It's like, eventually, the cause and effect, the ripple effect of this is going to cause more suffering, much more karma, and then we're we're around the wheel again, you know? Yeah, and it it it's it's an insidious kind of suffering cuz you don't see it. People around you can cuz of the ego inflation and whatnot. And you you wonder why ceremonial magicians have such a chip on their shoulder, you know, it's because they're doing the banishing work, but they're not doing the shadow work. So, they have this big sense of importance because they're inflated by divine principles, but not dealing with all these little idiosyncrasies, these little fearful behaviors that are now also inflated. Got you. You know, so Can you give me an example of how let's say I'm in the earth element and I am poking and prodding through my ritual.
Maybe just an example of what that would look like. Um it doesn't have to be something that's actually happened to you, but maybe an example of how the prodding comes out, how we recognize it, and how do we deal with it?
So, when you're let's say you're in the Zelator grade, which is the grade that corresponds to earth.
Um so, you're invoking earth and banishing earth every day.
Okay? And invoking earth means that you basically are allowing yourself to be possessed by earth spirits. Uh-huh.
Okay, which is kind of good because then now you're doing this in controlled way.
You're only doing earth at first, right?
And so, you're doing it in a controlled way. Now, you're empathizing with them.
And so, when you walk around in the world and you see all these earth forces, you're like, "Oh, they're just kind of doing their thing. They're all innocent. They're not out to get me, anything like that, right?"
Um it's very important that we invoke it and then we banish because we invoke it just to get a sense for, "Oh, this is me immersed this I'm an earth creature, right?" And this is what it's like to be an earth creature. And this is what it's like to feel like an earth elemental, right? With earth concerns and you know, um really hard being hard working and crude minded and you know, Yeah. Yeah. Hyper-material focused. And and They say what?
>> Hyper hyper material focused, body focused, and yeah.
I am very very much resistance focused.
There's very much of a against-ism going on with earth element, which is fine because that's kind of where we're immersed, right? So.
Um and so the the main thing is that you begin to understand these forces better.
And whenever there are earth issues coming up, you're able to deal with them much more intelligently, sympathetically.
And uh your earth spirits will um you could say evolve.
They will serve you better. So the this obsession over um over moving things around in your environment, you know, will will still be there cuz we're physical entities, right? But it's going to be much more mature now.
So you won't be obsessive about, you know, getting your home just right, you know, or whatever that is, right? You'll begin to notice that this is not um this is not something that's going to make me feel better.
Not really.
Yeah.
>> It's and oh so it's again and again and again. All these activities in in the various elemental realms and planetary realms, no matter what these creatures are trying to do, it's pretty much always going to be contaminated by some kind of karma where I need to fix the world to feel better. These spirits are trying to do it, too.
Um and you're constantly redirecting them to not away from that but helping them function just in a way that is no longer diluted.
So is it the awareness that increases in us? You know, what I'm trying to do is understand the process like you take one person that does the invocation of earth, right? And he just goes through the motions. First I want to ask you this. Another one goes and does it he does the ritual perfect but just goes through the motions.
Another person does it and he really gets into it and he really gets into his imagination and really gets artistic about it, right?
Mhm.
>> [clears throat] >> What I feel like that second the latter kind of activates could help activate it more, right? Because the whole idea of ritual is to get in like artistically even romantically sometimes in my opinion involved with the ceremony, right? Like Does that help it are we or does it matter?
>> Wouldn't be tantra if you weren't doing that, right?
Yeah.
>> Um yeah, it's very much like method acting, too, if you think about it.
There's a lot of the actors who are the best stage actors and film actors, they're not really acting, you know, they they actually enter that state. It's real and that's why they're so good because it's like I I can't believe it. She That was like it was actually happening, you know.
Yeah.
So, what's the So, I hate to get too meticulous here but So, if I intellectually understand something say I study earth and I study all of the earth stuff, I read so many books about earth earth earth. Oh, now I'm aware of it at least I'm telling myself I'm aware of it intellectually and I'll go out and intellectually see all these things and like what's the difference between an intellectual understanding of all of the symbology, the correspondences, the things we see in the earth versus doing the ritual every day?
What gives us the makes it different?
>> the forces in your behavior and the forces in your environment are on automatic pilot.
And so the thing that changes is the habituation of not only of your behavior and your thinking and your imagination and all that but also the the way the things manifest around you is now going to uh function differently.
But I'm answering your question well enough, so [snorts] I'm trying to think of a way >> is is good. I mean, I unders- Yeah, because when we intellectually understand something, because we are so like intellectually stimulated now. I mean, if you remember the '80s, we're in a different time. We're intellectually stimulated by so much, and we Yeah. just understanding something. Would that be the difference between understanding and wisdom? Like understanding Right, because the what the the main reason Crowley failed to be initiated Uh-oh, I think I just made a mistake.
>> that.
>> [laughter] >> Um the reason he failed was because he lacked empathy. It's It's painfully obvious. If you read his writings, yeah.
Um probably a classic narcissist, might have been a result of syphilis infection, who knows, right? Um but um the reason that's a problem is when the um the unresolved dualities come up, you have to look at them and then speculate about how has this thing evolved to function as it does.
Oh, it's just trying to keep me safe.
Yeah, or it's just trying to procreate the species.
Of course, it's going to do that. And you're like, "Oh." And it And that entity is like, "Oh, you noticed me."
And it And the entity will settle down and be like, "Yeah, I'm really trying to help. I'm really trying to help." And it These all these subroutines that we have that the sort of habitual behaviors and thought processes and obsessions, they all settle in because now we are trying to empathize with them.
To empathize is to understand how they operate. What do they want?
What are they trying to do? Mhm. Oh, right. And then, if you can't do that, you're you're totally screwed. Yeah.
>> You cannot do magic if you cannot do that.
And I think it's interesting that the uh the primary challenge in the archetype of the magician even in fantasy is uh egotism and a lack of empathy.
Yeah, it is really the most stuck up.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even think about that.
>> Dr. Strange, his primary issue was his ego, of course, right? So.
Yeah.
And a lot of people say >> of that, too. Like and in the community, I've heard people say, "Oh, you high magicians, you're all just stuck up, snooty." And I'm like, "Well, why do you say that?" And they're like, "Well, read the books." And they're reading like Arthur Edward Waite or, you know, Yeah, yeah. Right? And they're or they're >> have to remember that's that that's to be expected. That's the way the magic works. And so, when people when you have a student who's studying under you and they start getting um chip on their shoulder and they're starting to challenge you in inappropriate ways and um you you should expect that. It's like, "Oh, it's working." In other words, it's exciting cuz And you want to point it out to them. It's like, "Do you see what's happening here?"
Okay? And then, of course, the main challenge is you to get them to turn the light around and look at the entity that is dissatisfied, that is fussing. "I'm I'm the king of the mountain." Right?
Something like that, right? Um to look at this thing that's trying to do that, which can be very painful sometimes, sometimes.
>> Um Do you think that's what happened to Crowley in the beginning with He wasn't able to do it.
Let me Let me clarify. There's somebody who moves from lease to lease, not paying rent.
That's a lot of suffering for him. That makes sense, yeah.
But he he's not wasn't even able to empathize with his future self.
In other words, I shouldn't do this. I'm going to suffer in the future. Poor me then.
That The ability to empathize with his future self wasn't there, either.
And so, and many people might not like me talking about him this way, but you have to remember he was a highly toxic person mainly because of that lack of sensitivity to how other people felt.
And obviously was extremely constantly focused on self-promotion and self-aggrandizement.
Yeah, I mean, he was he was intelligent, for sure, but a lot of people are intelligent. Intelligence is >> And fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. I love him to death, but at the same time um if he were alive, I would be like it would be a test. Can I be friends with him without being abused? You know, without being so >> I I I would probably have to be like many people and just say get him out of my life, you know, like if if you really have known a narcissist or a sociopath or psychopath there isn't really the primary lesson is there's nothing you can really do except get away.
Yeah, people are kind of like just peop- they're just characters in their story to play with, you know? That's what it seems like to me, you >> yeah. Yeah.
But they can't even see it. In other words, like you got um like the the current president of the United States is obviously a classic narcissist, can't even see when he's being emotionally tone deaf. Yeah, right. Yeah. Can't see it. That's what that was a that was a perfectly fine response. What's your Why are you getting bent out of shape?
Well, they have feelings and you don't, you know. Would you say in a sense that ceremonial I think it is it would be even greater to for today cuz we live in this day and age where everything's just info info info info it's just constant info coming at us, you know, content is just on the rise to really slow down and go into a temple and like you know, kind of really get involved with the whole thing, you know, probably take 30, 45 minutes if you really you know, wanted to do something, right?
Like would be good for us even just in a healthy sense, wouldn't it?
Well, once again, it is it's much simpler than that even though it's not easy to confront this thing. It's the entity within you that's constantly dissatisfied. That's the one who's seeking the entertainment. That's the one who will cut wants to constantly be stimulated, wants to constantly be reassured that everything's going to be okay, or that everything's going to hell because then it makes it feel righteous, you know, like the world's all [ __ ] you know.
And I and I because I know that I'm awesome, right? That any that all that is very much the same. It's just this thing inside that wants to feel better.
Got you.
Yeah.
>> At any cost. Like I'll trash the whole world just so I can feel superior to it.
It's horrible.
>> [laughter] >> It is. It sounds terrible. The way you say it, too. So so you know, um this whole process is freeing us from this idea that we have to feed this monster all the time. This I don't want to call it a monster, but feed this thing that's trying to >> Well, it's not even there. It's a mechanism, you know, and and because we've fallen into this state of constant dissatisfaction as a means of getting us to dominate the planet, control things, fight each other, um kill invasive species, whatever like that, and um and it's been working. That's why it's that's why it's it persists. And so now humans have evolved into a state of suffering as a means of being motivated. Mhm.
Oops.
Then someone comes to you and then what if they say, "Well, Liam, I I understand ceremonial magic better now, but what am I not alive for that reason and that reason alone to get what I want, to experience something, you know?"
Kind of, yeah, because you remember karma is everywhere. It doesn't mean that you want to completely How do we say this? Um Like for an enlightened being, supposedly, would not be interested in sex at all.
This is going to send everybody running for the hills, right? I don't want to get away from magic. I don't enlightenment, I want sex, right? So Yeah. Well, I don't think that's true.
But um but I can already see that happening uh where cuz sex looks very sex is very funny. It's very silly actually. Yeah.
uh And so when you when you see the narrative that your biology is producing around the sex act and and procreation and all that and and the things it's telling you are true and you look at these like I'm not complete without her. I just I you complete me.
That's completely absurd. That's simply not true and it's obviously not true and yet we completely fall for it. We even say oh, she and I are going to be in heaven together forever.
You know, um Yeah. What about your previous What about your previous wife?
Oh, she doesn't matter anymore.
>> [laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah, this is the yeah, I got what you're saying for sure. I mean, we're all going to be somewhere together, I guess. You can but who knows? Like I don't I don't claim to know ultimate reality. However, this is a really good question. I you know, when I was doing our sessions together, which I have man, I'm glad you do that. That's awesome.
Thanks for that, man. Um um because I needed the one-on-one kind of teacher student thing. Um but the Kabbalah is something that's that way in a conspiracy world like oh, yeah, it's the Kabbalah. We know you guys worship the Kabbalah, whatever. And I'm like no, no, no, no. I've talked to so many people on this radio show and they all give me these graphs, these glyphs, these these maps of consciousness and the stages of consciousness, right? Mhm.
The Kabbalah seems to w- in my experience work out more accurately. Like I'm not saying it's ultimate reality. I don't want to say that, but I guess what I'm trying to say is why did you choose this map of consciousness? Why and God? Why did you find it to be the one system that you work with? Not or you know that You get what I'm saying, I hope, right?
Like The the primary calling for me, Mhm.
I think is to explore imagination and to regard imagination as the prima materia, the the fundamental stuff from which we are made.
Um and the Golden Dawn fits perfectly into that. Everything is imagination in the Golden Dawn, pretty much. Um drama, imagination, imagery, by names and images are all powers awakened and reawakened.
Fundamental um formula, let's say, for the Golden Dawn, right?
And well, if you look at the world, what's happening is that it's being packaged by the imagination into forms.
Or objects, right? But there are no such things as objects.
That that's a fiction created by, let's say, the nervous system or or whatever it is. The momentum of our species is is conditioned to perceive the world in this way.
Um but to the uh enlightened perspective, let's say, um these things don't exist. There aren't even any people in the world.
There's no such thing as a person.
Mhm.
Now, it's not very nice to walk around acting like people don't exist, now obviously.
Um so, what we do is we adopt the reality of the two truths. Well, there's the relative truth where we treat people like they really are people and have human rights and all this stuff, right?
Um but at the same time, when I'm looking at them, I see a conglomeration of forces, a conglomeration of conflicting forces which are all trying to work each other out, right? So, um Uh that's more accurate, you know, even that you but even that's not accurate cuz there's no such thing as an individual force, you know? Yeah. Um To to explain that clear, um if somebody were to say if somebody were to go out to their driveway and say, "Oh, there's my car.
Liam, look. See, that's my car."
And I can be a smart ass and I can say, "There's no such thing as a car.
That's a conglomeration of parts.
But I can Okay, I'll play your game.
I'll call it a car."
Well, that's why it's a car cuz we agree that it's a car.
Right, because there is there's there's no such thing as a car. Now, that's very important because that's pretty much how we can look at the ego. It is a construct. It doesn't really exist. It's a conglomeration of forces that are like trying to now have this programming going going trying to do trying to feel trying to feel First of all, programmed to feel miserable, right? And then then programmed to try to feel better all the time even though it's obvious it's not working. Yeah.
[laughter] Yeah, so the so the tree the the Kabbalistic tree of life, it's got all these different systems. It's got the world, it's got the pillars, it's got the sefira, the lightning flashes, you know, the the the triangles, the different all these different systems embedded in the system, you know, it's like it seems complicated at first, but it's No, I'll let me simplify it, okay?
Here's the golden non-system.
We what we want to do is we want to call down the influence of the divine and manifest the divine in the physical world, let's say. Just pretend. We'll pretend that's what we want to do, right? And so in order to do that, we could attempt to draw the um the divine white radiance straight into matter, right?
It's like mystical path, right?
Um that's that's can be a mistake.
Um and so what the Golden Dawn said is that well there are levels of manifestation called emanations between the divine and the physical world, let's say, okay? Not that this is true, but we're going to proceed as if it's true.
And then so in other words, you have to be able to work with all those various levels of manifestation.
Um it's very important too because if you just try to call the white light down, there's aspects of your own psyche that you are ignoring.
Which are going to give you hell.
I can't stress that enough, okay? So the the pure mystical path needs to be slow and with a teacher, okay? But if you do magic, then you then magic forces you if you have a discipline to deal with all of the archetypes.
Uh and so the In other words, as the divine comes down through all these archetypes um and manifests in in realm of the elements you are making sure you're dealing with all the archetypes that has to filter on through that are that are comes that are expresses itself through, okay? And now in in astrology, in original astrology, the way astrology uh is actually envisioned is that the divine is up here, the planets are zooming around here, and then the earth is down below.
And then all of the uh divine um emanations of power that are generated in the physical world are being filtered down through the planets.
Yeah.
It's like the one cup pours into the other one kind of thing, right?
Right. So there's there's this image in the Golden Dawn of the Ancient of Days.
It's on the lid of the pastos, I think it is. And um it's the key is right there. You have this picture of God, this old man with a beard, right? And he um he's got the earth down below, and he's got the divine light radiance above him, and in his right hand he's holding seven stars.
He's saying, "These are the means by which I manifest myself upon the earth, or even explore my own self in the earth realm.
These are my tools."
In other words, they're telling the magician, "This is how it's done." Yeah.
In other words, right? In other words, if you So, the the Golden Dawn system is basically about how to join heaven and earth um without ignoring something very important, which is the soul or the psyche, the anima mundi, which is permeated by all these archetypes, uh high-level archetypes, which you could just describe as the planets if you wanted to, but in Kabbalah, they're called the sephiroth. Yeah.
Yeah. Gotcha. So, the in a sense, I'm sure you've been asked this a lot, but is it um I'm It sounds like it's purely psychological, which in a sense, you know, would break my heart a little bit, but I don't believe that. A long time ago, someone said, "Magic is purely psychological." I'd have been like, "That's not a got to got super upset about it." But now that I don't really think we totally even understand psychology, we don't There's things we don't understand, you know. I can fix that. In other words, the the reason that people say, "Oh, it's merely psychological." and then they dismiss it, like that's because in their mind, psychology involves the psyche inside your brain or inside your body, right?
My hormones and my neurotransmitters and my my behavior, right? And and um so, the In other words, this is the belief that the soul is inside your body. You have a soul.
And if you have a soul, a soul, right?
Then you can do things to it, and you can sell it to the devil if you want to, something like that, right? Um then um when we think that way, when the psyche is inside us that way, "Oh, I'm I'm just tweaking stuff inside my head and I'm just changing my beliefs and my thoughts and that's all there is to it and now and I have some behavioral modifications that are changing my world.
Fine.
This is not what we're working on. We're working on the soul of the universe, not this our individual souls.
The collective unconscious, um the anima mundi, the soul of the world.
And so when you do work the one of the most important things then is to have the romantic worldview, which is the with the Golden Dawn espoused, you know, and that is that the um imagination is not inside you.
You are inside the imagination.
You are an imaginal entity.
You're a fictional character.
You're not inherently real.
But as a fictional character, you are powerful and you are important.
But not inherently real.
Definitely sounds like the Matrix, for sure. Like the whole Neo thing, Oh, that's why the Matrix was such a mind-blowing uh you know, production because that feed there and you can tell they the authors of that were aware of a lot of the traditions that were teaching this stuff cuz the all of the um like the Merovingian and or some of the other things, the Oracle and these all these mystical terms, right?
>> So.
Uh Uh cuz they were they were they were delivering something highly important.
So when we do So when we get into ceremony and we pull let's say or we just do ceremony we start using divine names, we're not pulling this energy into like ourselves?
Is that what you're saying? Like we're just pulling it from the collective into >> feels like that. It feels like that. And but um, would be more accurate to say that we are awakening it with it within ourselves.
Okay.
Yeah, it'd be more accurate to say that.
And that's more Um, but it what when you do that, it does feel like they are coming in.
Yeah. Yeah, in fact, they can feel like they're kind of coming in from below and that I would and that the whole world is now seen in terms of the way they see it.
And one of the most important things about this is in if for people who are actually doing Golden Dawn work, you'll notice that they do something called the middle pillar exercise and there's this fountain of light and then the fountain of light explodes out here and comes around. This is the route of the energy that that that pretty much as an entity tries to take you over and control you. It rises up like this and then projects a world view out here and now you're now you're in love or now you are a business executive or now you like Yeah. Yeah, that no, I get that.
And then that spirit is now in control of you and you're you're hypnotized by it and you're oh, I really am this thing, you know.
>> [laughter] >> So so when you do the neophyte work and let's say you do the neophyte work and you're like, I don't know like if I could and you stop, you don't go into Zelator, right? Are you relatively safe in your psyche or is it when you move into the work, you know what I mean? And then you stop, you know, like cuz I've experienced the suffering of stopping magic 100%.
The worst thing is the dark night of the soul, I would think, other than being an annoying [ __ ] like an ego inflation and stuff like that. That's it's usually what happens to people if they don't do magic properly, right? Um, so the worst thing is the dark night of the soul because it's I've already talked about this.
What you begin to see is that the standard way of trying to feel better all the time doesn't work.
And what that means then by extension, is that nothing I do is going to make me feel better.
And it's kind of this feeling comes over you. It's like when it when somebody in your family dies and then you don't feel like doing anything cuz what's the point? We're all going to die anyway. Yeah.
That's that dark night of the soul. Like nothing has any motivating fact value hardly at all anymore.
Except maybe as a distraction to keep you from thinking about this dreaded idea that I'm never going to get out of my suffering. There's nothing I can do to feel better.
And that will persist for a while possibly. Even if even if you know better cuz it takes you over and it just has its narrative. It says this is the way the world is, right? Yeah. And but what you eventually notice is this entity inside you that is dissatisfied all the time.
It's like Oh.
That's not real.
Now what?
Yes, exactly. Then just then the whole That's that's the initiation. In other words, like you Oh my god, now I know what's required. It's First of all, it's a relief because at first you were saying like there's nothing I can do to feel better. Nothing works. We're doomed.
But then eventually you're like, "Oh my god.
There's nothing I can do to feel better.
I don't have to do any of this crap that people are doing to try to feel better all the time.
First of all, it doesn't work. So why even go after it? I'm free.
>> [laughter] >> I don't have to feel better. Oh my god, thank you very much, right?
And already begins to dissolve cuz this ego is like, "Uh-oh.
He's onto us."
Yeah, I got you. So be becoming a a quote wizard or I guess like Gandalf or being enlightened would be I guess a point of well, I can just observe this now and participate if I choose to.
Yeah, that's a very important element of it. I know that sounds very passive, but it's it's devastatingly powerful.
Because um this is what the myth of the Bodhisattva comes from, as far as I can tell. In other words, this idea that you can die and then you can choose your next life. Uh-huh. You decide where you're going to manifest next, right? So, that's based on the idea of what happens with us moment to moment.
So, in other words, every moment there's these entities that are trying to incarnate in us to work out their little dramas, right? And very often we just play along with them and you know, if I see a snake, this entity comes up and and I become the snake killer for it and I go kill the snake and then then I then I throw the snake away and I put the shovel away and then I wake up. It's like, what the hell did I just do?
That was horrible. Yeah. It wasn't even venomous, right? Like, you know, I was like, you know, that this thing just took me over. I've seen this happen a lot with people who live in suburban areas, you know, so um I actually did that not too long ago, actually, cuz I thought it was a copperhead and then afterwards I realized uh that what I did the same thing.
[laughter] I really I was like, what did I do? That was probably a corn snake. It was just some kind of survival reaction, you know.
I understand it. Yeah, because when I see a snake wiggling the way they do, that sinuous way, it triggers the fear of snake uh karma, let's say that um that um humans have because uh venomous snakes have probably killed more humans than any other animal. Yeah. Uh in in the in nature, yeah. So, that's why we tend to fear them a lot.
Um and we all have our petty fears. I think I'm haunted by wolves, so dogs are sometimes a little scary. I love dogs though, but sometimes they're a little bit scary to me.
And uh Trying to think what else.
I have a little bit of agoraphobia, too.
And that's normal, too. Like if you are out in the open and you have no people with you, then there's slight fear of being attacked from any direction at any time.
Yeah, you're a little vulnerable, for sure.
>> Right. Yeah. This is perfectly perfectly normal. So, people suffer from agoraphobia. So horrible. No, well, I mean, some people have it really bad, obviously.
But it's perfectly natural.
And I would I experienced that being a free diver. When I get separated from the group, it's all just blue water around me, right? Suddenly, I feel vulnerable.
And then I'm in the group and I feel fine. Mhm.
Which is funny because I'm just as vulnerable. But the thing is that predators they have a a function to serve in nature. They don't just kill anything they want. They kill the weak, uh the alone, right? The the injured, the old, the young.
Um but if you're in a group and everybody looks strong, they're going to leave you alone. Yeah. So, it's real, right? In other words, so if you people walking out on the savannas, the lions won't necessarily necessarily attack them unless they are by themselves.
Got you.
Yeah.
>> Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I get I have a little bit of agoraphobia, too.
It's It's a heightened at different levels in my life when I've been for sure.
And I wanted to talk about the dream world, too. You know, I really wanted to ask you about this cuz you just did a video on that and I thought it was one of the most fascinating ones.
Why you can't remember your dreams, kind of thing, you know. Um That was a clipath as well, right? Yeah. Yeah, and um when I was a kid, I had this dream that of buzzard pretty much ate my insides out. I'll just put it that way. And and it was I was a very little kid. I never even seen a buzzard up close, but this thing was horrible looking. And when I see them today, I'm like, how did I know what that buzzard actually looked like, you know? That's like a crucifixion crucifixion trauma. So I I had a dream that my father told me to go to sleep.
He said, "Go to go to bed." I was scared of the dark. The hallway was really dark. I ran and I don't remember it as a dream. It's just a memory to me. Right?
But I went down the hallway and I said, "I can't do it. I'm too scared. It's too dark down there." And I turned around and everybody in the living room was gone. Dead silent. Dead silent.
And then I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder.
And I turned back around in the hallway to look. Nobody was there. So it really freaked me out, right? I just like you got touched or something. Still don't know that this is a dream.
It's a haunting memory. Run outside to ask, you know, no one's in there. I run outside looking for my dad. A witch picks me up. A witch on a broom picks me up and starts flying me around in the sky with cackling. And I could feel I could feel it in my stomach like I'm being slung around on a roller coaster ride. Yeah, yeah.
And I'm screaming, "Let me go. Let me go. Let me go." Well, she finally lets me go. It's Perfect perfect opportunity to wake up in the midst of the dream.
It's like, "What am I doing flying? Oh my god, I'm [laughter] dreaming." Yeah.
And she lets me go. My dad's outside chopping wood at night for some reason.
Why? I don't know. And he points to go back in the house. Now, I had this dream when I was a toddler, but it terrified me. And when I ran into the house, a buzzard was just there on a perch like right when I opened the door.
And it was looking at me and it turned its head and it stuck its mouth out and went in my insides, right? And started eating me from the inside out. My toes curled up. I felt like I was going to throw up. My eyes were rolling in the back of my head. And I remember that dream to this day. And I'm 44 years old.
Many of our ancestors witnessed that again and again with the hanging putting putting the criminals in the giblets or um hanging them from the gallows and leaving their bodies there to be picked out by the crows or of course being crucified.
Um in other words tied or nailed to a tree and just left there to die. And then of course the buzzard would eventually come and wait till you're too weak you know to and then start knowing at you possibly while you're even still alive.
>> That's fascinating, man. I wonder I used to think it was symbols. Like I from a Carl Young point of view it was like okay, this is symbolism. Maybe my higher self was telling me this is something I need to overcome. But after listening to you speak about >> Oh my god, no it's trauma.
>> Trauma I'm like man, maybe that really happened to me in my past, you know.
>> Yeah, or you're witness to it. Um One good one for me is if I'm in an audience I tend to be very very active audience member. Remember I hate being a passive audience member. But if I'm in an audience and I'm saying something cuz I'm like I raise my hand and then start talking to the person on stage, I will start to shrink in my chair.
Mhm.
Like I'm very tall but it just I'm not shy about that but it's something about sticking your neck out and getting your head chopped off. In other words I'm I'm standing out too much.
I could be punished for speaking up now.
Uh And I think uh it what seems to be behind that is maybe my ancestry was witness to beheadings.
Is it a recurring dream or like a one a dream that you remember? It's an image that well cuz when you start to behave this way, it's like why am I shrinking in my chair again? But But people well you're just shy. It's like well no, it's a shrinking. What is the shrinking involved? I'm I'm trying to avoid sticking my neck out. I'm like like and of course we have this in our vocabulary. Like don't stick your neck out for that person. Yeah.
You'll get your head In other words, don't go out on a limb, right? So those are those are all the kinds of trauma images, right?
Um So that was that's a really interesting one to me because there is a fear of being punished for speaking your mind.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Which means maybe in my ancestry was like, you know, witches and wizards who got burned at the stake and executed for for questioning authority, you know.
So this uh this dream world then, like um are we supposed to uh Man, I don't I don't know. I just had a weird thought, but are we supposed to do our work in the dream world as well as this world, right? Is that what magic is kind of preparing us for?
In a sense or is it Uh maybe, but you have to remember that the dream world is always on when you're walking around in the waking world, if that makes any sense.
So what's happening is that your mind is packaging forth the experience of the material world into forms, objects, useful tools, cars, people.
Um when in fact, what you're really seeing isn't those things. Those things don't really exist. They're convenient labels.
Okay, so and so in when when my mind encapsulates them into objects like that, that's a dream.
Make-believe. And of course, I do that with myself, too. I become this object that can be kicked around by life, right? So and that's also a dream.
And so and of course, in the dream world when we're dreaming at night, when we're asleep, um that continues.
Much more wishy-washy then, but I find it interesting that the forms can be much clearer from in a dream because then you don't have to deal with the fuzziness of the material world.
Um so uh so just remember that the dream world is constantly going on.
And when the Buddha said, "There's nothing special about me. I'm simply awake."
What he meant was, "You guys are dreaming. These objects that you think you are real are not there. Your mind is creating these things.
And I am awake to that."
That's all That's all everything that's going on now and I can see through it.
Mhm. Um and the most important thing is that we we don't wake up from the dream.
There's no such thing.
We wake up to the dream.
Well, a lot of realists would say to you, but yeah, if I stop breathing, I die. If I cut myself, I bleed.
Am I in a dream? Are you saying this is a dream? Like because you know what I mean. Like people go, "If this is a dream, I'll just jump off a building and fly." Well, you know, you're subject to the rules in the dream here, you know, like >> Of course. Yeah.
>> I think it was Ru Rupert Spira calls this the material world uh an element of the dream world the dream that God is having, which is which is largely none of our business.
And um but the dream world that you are participating in is the the world that he has sort of created that we sort of fallen into, let's say.
Um the the the world that your nervous system and your karma is creating out of it, that's the dream.
Because if you actually One of the one of the most frightening things about doing this kind of spiritual work is that you can occasionally see reality without any filter.
Just the senses themselves.
And one of the things about that is that peop- people are actually um not as pretty as your mind makes them.
>> Right. Yeah. Yeah. I Including you.
>> ever seen If you've ever If you you have If you've ever seen Ren and Stimpy, um they they they were kind of capitalizing on that in some of their drawings. You know, they're showing what people actually look like without the without the imagination cleaning everything up.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so the so the the material world looks very raw, very much in your face, very um, blob-like.
Um, and it completely has you swamped and cuz you're it, too. So, in other words, that when if you're not creating this dream world of me versus the world, if you just see things as they are, that's gone momentarily. Hm. And and people can look even your, you know, even your girlfriend or somebody you thought was beautiful looks a little bit ugly because you now see the imperfections cuz the the imagination and our perceptive habits tend to clean everything up for us. Yeah, I got you.
Got you. It's like a fine-tuning what we believe and it fine-tunes the image to what we are believing at the time, you know. I but I want to be clear that the when you you're catching your when you catch your mind in the act of doing that, the whole process taken all together is very beautiful.
In other words, you have the physical world doing its crazy in your face stuff, right? But then, of course, as the mind drapes over that and makes things out of it, this is a fantastic process. It's beautiful, it's adventurous, it's scary, it's dramatic, it's power-hungry, it's it's afraid, Yeah.
>> it's confident, it's all these things just um, erupting, none of which are inherently real, but um, supposedly, according to the Kabbalists, this is the this is God um, uh, parading himself before himself.
Yeah. It it reminds me that movie Waking Life and I have a fear of this. It's like in the end, I have a fear of this. I'll just be honest with you. In the end, because I know these things, because I'm coming to realize these things, that I'm just going to be alone and bored eventually. You know.
>> Alone and bored in when when you're dead or old? Either one. When I'm dead or old or after I die, like it I have to keep recreating this so that I can talk to him or her or have relation and not feel alone, you know? Like, it's a it's a weird kind of fear because like when you're alone and you're doing stuff and you're just in the moment and you're really doing what you enjoy doing, you don't think about those things. It's only till you you're sitting around going, "Well, I'm alone. Where is everybody?" Yeah. That you start feeling that, you know? They have to look at how these things function. We we could call that let's just call that FOMO, fear of missing out. Mhm. And when you look at the fear of missing out demon, it's like, well, of course this thing is going to function that way and try to convince me to go and get involved because that's what has perpetuated our species. It's just looking out for my um Yeah, it wants me >> because being involved in the community is the way humans survive and usually, right? So and that's it's just kind of compulsively does that. And when you're aware of that, it's like, oh there's the FOMO again. There's a FOMO instinct, right? It's a there it is.
Thank you for sharing, you know? Yeah, so this conversation I'm having with you, these moments or what I enjoy the most in my life. Like, I personally enjoy relation. Like, I just do. Um but then I love being alone, too.
If I'm around somebody long enough, I start realizing, "Oh yeah, maybe I didn't like it as much as I thought [laughter] I did, you know?"
Because I like to be alone, too, right?
So, um but anyways >> nothing will make really actually make you feel better. But of course you we're looking at this entity that's dissatisfied all the time. There's there's the one to look at, yeah. Got you. And so, I want to get back to you to your system here cuz I think what you did when I first started practicing magic, I picked up the black brick, the you know, Israel Regardie's black brick.
I had Dion Fortune's books. I bought all these books and I'm like, where do I start? Where do I begin? What is, you know, and I could I kind of could tell actually got initiated into a temple as well in a different group in the United States, but and I kind of started putting the pieces together how this works. It was a really big leap of faith for me to do this, by the way. I was raised up Christian and then came to some bigger realization and somehow or another I found magic, but >> Zero equals zero is quite scary.
>> Yeah, it really is, you know, and profound if especially if you get initiated in a temple, it's like, what is this? It's, you know, it's pretty crazy, but um >> These people they strip me naked, put this robe over me and it's really cold and they tied me up, >> [laughter] >> put weights on me and forced me to kneel in a dark closet while they go do some dark ritual and then eventually invite me into the temple to do God knows what to me. I I barely I just met them yesterday, you know, like And what's all this purifying and stuff going on? Like, do I smell funny? Like, no, I'm just playing. Like, >> [laughter] >> but but when I read your book, I was like, oh man, if I would have had this book it really would have helped me. Even if I would have stayed with my temple, like this would have helped me and I noticed that you used the trees, like these the four trees, you know, in the book and I'm wondering if I mean, that's brilliant, right? Like, what made you decide what what well, what made you decide go I maybe I think it was Dion Fortune that kind of talked about it, right? Like or somebody.
>> four trees in the right and um so I caught some heat for that because I I said this isn't out there. In other words, when people talk about Golden Dawn, they were talking about the original Golden Dawn where you just do some study and some initiation rituals and then you go off into adeptus minor and then all the work begins, right?
Um that's not the way it evolved because Ra Hoor Khuit like I said incorporated a lot of the Adeptus Minor curriculum into the outer order grades.
So What was the question again? What were you asking?
>> Why did you decide to do it and why this way?
Oh why? Um it wasn't I I passed along what I was taught.
And that is this idea that uh your body exists in four worlds.
It's it's not and we we correlate those worlds with the elements. Let's say the lowest world is Assiah, the world of action which corresponds to Earth. Yeah.
Or unless, right? Um but um uh quite frankly, they the the four worlds of Kabbalah might be better related to states of consciousness that we are mostly aware of. That is the waking world consciousness where you walk around in the day world and pay your taxes and go to work and take care of the kids, right?
Then there is the dreamy sleep dream sleep which is Yetzirah.
That's the world of formation or the world of forms >> uh images and thoughts and dreams, right? Yeah. Then we have the world of Briah which is the world of creation where there are no forms. It's just dark. There's nothing there. Pretty scary.
Yeah, right. In other words, like in other words but that's where form emerges from. So then you could say Briah is like a world of pure mind stuff.
But there there's nothing really there because there are no forms yet. And of course when the mind stuff becomes forms, then we have Yetzirah which is the dream world, right?
Okay, and above Briah we have Atziluth which is simply pure potentiality.
This corresponds to Advaita Vedanta where they have the the waking world consciousness, the dreamy sleep dreamless sleep which is Briah, and then Atziluth, which is the fourth.
Which is the said they sometimes call that deathlessness.
And that and that is the world of pure potentiality.
Once you reach the darkness of Briah, where there's nothing, it's dreamless sleep.
That's an illusion.
Because it's kind of like if you were floating in the darkness and you hold up your hand in front of yourself, let's say, you can see your hand. It's like, "Okay, I can see my hand."
What?
There's light everywhere.
I just didn't notice it cuz there was nothing to bounce off of.
So, in other words, the world of Briah is completely penetrated, saturated, permeated, penetrated is a good word, right? By light.
And so, Briah and Atziluth really are the same world.
Okay? But what happened is that there's a fictional reality of separating the the pure potentiality from the mind stuff, in other words, light from darkness, right?
This is the first contraction that the divine supposedly experienced in creating the universe.
God wanted to see himself, couldn't do it cuz he's everything. Right. So, he withdrew from himself into this sort of observer perspective and then started looking at himself.
Oh, there there I am. And so, this is the light in the darkness now.
This is Atziluth and Briah interpenetrating. Right.
>> Which kind of sounds like the narcissist story, the the Greek narcissist story, doesn't it? Right? Narcissist, right, yeah.
>> [laughter] >> And of course, the interesting thing is that as he as he does that, the the mind stuff, the darkness, then spews forth forms and the drama begins to happen.
And then he begins to experience himself as some kind of show.
Yeah.
And you and you decided well if well, what I mean is is when you decided I can Did you tell yourself like I can I need to do this for people cuz there's not a simple way. There really wasn't one, you know, before you >> idea with the four the four trees in the in the Kabbalah magic system, this is a way of exploring all four levels of yourself as you manifest from pure potentiality down to the dreamless sleep of pure mind stuff with no no form.
Uh which is essentially enlightenment right there.
And we we go there every night.
Mhm.
So, um and then if you have a healthy sleep cycle. And then um then uh the world of dreams which is um which we have to remember that the world of dreams is active all the time also in the material world.
You're walking around in a in a fabricated reality of objects and people and cars and stuff like that that you're that you are um conditioned to see that way, which is a dream.
What's actually happening is not that.
Yeah, I got you. So, I like I said, thank you. It's also out on audiobook, too. I realized oh man, it's on the audio. The the your book is on Audible.
I hope you know that. Like someone put it on Audible. You might want to go check that out if you don't know about it because it's definitely on Audible.
>> of is that there's a digital version there's but there's a Russian version which was really weird. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> it was translated into Russian. I think that's the only language it was translated into.
I'm not sure what's why that is. I I I think one of the I kind of saved this towards the last cuz I really wanted to get into this with you. The the coming together of the Golden Dawn, most people don't really get into the history of it, but I find that it's a very fascinating thing. Like how all of this came together um and was it Is it Was it more powerful at first when it came together or when they were making sure they were keeping silent versus it is like now, you know, and did it come together because like consciousness needed it to come together or you know, was it a co-creative thing between us and God consciousness to make sure this thing came about like it's really strange how it came together like the history of it, you know.
>> We can just to keep it simple, you can see that there were a bunch of Freemasons who were disappointed that Freemasonry didn't wasn't really magical. Yeah.
And they they were aware of these Rosicrucian traditions and occultism and stuff like that and they and somehow Freemasonry was basically a gentleman's club. A little bit of magic because you have this thing called the trestle board where you arrange things on it and it kind of shapes how your life is destiny's going to become, you know.
Um and so they probably were were aware of these things and they said, "Well, let's really do it."
We know that there were these ancient mystery traditions and we know that there there is something real in this Harry Potter vision of magic that we entertain, right? Let's find it.
Let's go after it.
And fortunately they had some of the old mystery tradition stuff to draw from. I probably my guess is the best source they had was Iamblichus.
Really? Really?
>> you look at if you read Iamblichus on the on the on the mystery of the Egyptians or something like that. Um Uh all of the Golden Dawn principles are there cuz the heat when he describes how theory works Golden Dawn covers all the bases.
It's almost like you can see Mathers and and Westcott checking these things off, right? Like it's like we may have to make sure the magical system does all these things.
>> Yeah, and then it works together, too.
Like even even the tarot before that before the tarot all the correspondences, if you read Christine Payne Towers work, they were all different and switched up the planets and everything.
When the Golden Dawn system came together to me, the why I'm fascinated with it is because all these systems work synchronous not synchronistically, incongruence or I guess that'd be a word for it. They're all the tarot, the tree, the planets, like everything lines up even the stages of the mysteries and all it all lines up kind of almost It doesn't all doesn't all line up, but it's very elegant.
>> It's pretty close, you know. Yeah, I know cuz uh when it's funny because you go through the Golden Dawn system and then you see the awkward parts of it.
But by the time you begin to see the awkward parts, you already know that it works. It's doing something, right? So you're like, okay, that's that's fine.
In other words, there's just there's just sort of what you realize is this is kind of fictionally contrived.
>> Yeah. But the fiction is like an overlay, which is which now gives the the anima mundi clothes to wear so that it can display itself. So the forces of life can now display themselves to you and you can actually dialogue with them and work with them.
That I can't emphasize just that's such such so incredible. It's already with the way the psyche works, of course.
Like it or not.
Uh when when we deal with trauma, like you have PTSD, guess what? It comes to you as um images that you can't control sometimes, right? And so um that's the way that the psyche works. It can communicate through images um or or movement, things like that.
And in order to for you to navigate around those things, um labels, names are important so that you can use a name to call up an image just like that.
My names and images are are all powers awakened and reawakened. I love ceremonial magic, William. The only problem I have with it sometimes is when I start using old Hebrew names that I'm like, I like the but it's like it's weird cuz my psyche likes the I like the Egyptian stuff. But when I start saying Hebrew names, I'm like, this probably isn't even in the real God. Can I just use my own names? Da da da da da. I start debating in my head, right? Like And then the the other voice goes, just work the system and when you get through it, create your own system, you know.
>> Well, also play up the drama of it.
Um we shouldn't really pretend that the use of Hebrew is intrinsically real.
Um that's I think that the original Golden Dawn fed on that. This is the real This is the real thing, right?
>> alphabet, yeah.
Um that the use of Hebrew in particular was an element of exoticism.
That is oh, mysterious, reputed reputably powerful uh language of the angels.
Um So the And of course you It's hard to understand. And in fact, I would recommend not mastering Hebrew. Just leave it mysterious.
Uh so that it has that element of mystique to it.
This is This is very important part of magic. In other words, like you're delving into things that you cannot completely fathom.
And then you want to take advantage of the fact that there are exotic components that stir the imagination that way.
And that's really it how they function.
That the mystery stays alive.
>> much like that, too. Say what? That there's a mystery that stays alive, kind of.
Yeah, it's almost like a stand-in mystery.
In other words, we already know that the the universe is is um um terrifyingly mysterious, right?
And so we we get at it through an elementary drama that plays plays that aspect of it up. I don't know if I can convey that properly. I think people understand what I'm saying though. Oh yeah, for sure. And And I had a friend that asked me, you know, one of the my listeners, I was like, "Is there anything that you guys want me to ask Liam that I don't I'll forget?" And he And he goes, "Well, can you ask him did, you know, the Golden Dawn come together like is it more powerful because we believe in it or is it just is it a real system?" I think I think what people do is And I've done this before is they justify They try to figure it all out.
And when they go, "Okay, I know how it came about, so therefore I don't have to use it. It's not real."
>> No, no, no, no, no, no. In other words, that's that's the error of thinking horizontally. In other words, I see a system of magic over there and there's power in it. Yeah. Nonsense.
There's power in the soul of the world.
And but to access that power, you need to get on get on friendly terms with it.
To get on friendly terms, you need to be able to talk to it and work with it in on its own terms in terms of imagination and mythic imagery and symbols and things like that. So, the Golden Dawn is a system for doing that.
The power is was always there. It's not within the system. But we'd like to say that though. It's such a power so powerful, right? But it's it's already there in the soul of the world herself.
Interesting.
So, uh I'm I'm going to ask you Enochian then.
Why?
>> Why? But I feel like Enochian in my experience with it, I shouldn't have ever messed with it. I wasn't ready for it, but uh It's freaking weird.
>> It's so crazy. Like I'm like I It scared me a little bit. I was like, "I'm not, you know, ready for that, maybe."
>> I studied Enochian extensively um, with the intention of that being maybe my primary system.
And I don't really do it anymore. Um, the the Enochian system is very weird because when you prod things to happen, it's like the system doesn't care how much you can handle.
Yeah.
Gives you crap right out of right out of the karmic universe, right? Like, here you go.
You want to explore wealth? Here here's poverty, wealth, um, There's all of it.
greed, all of it, right? You It's like, "Well, I only want the good stuff." It's like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. Now you're going to get it."
Yeah. So, whereas somehow with uh Kabbalah, the I don't know, the archangels or whatever, they're kind of standing there going, "Well, we're only going to give you We care about you. We're We're only going to give you as much as you can handle."
So, that's that's the nice element of it. That's the difference, yeah.
It's a friendship, right? Whereas the Enochian spirits are just kind of like whatever. This one called Frater Achad decided I don't not to mess with it when he created a book of it cuz I think he saw the dangers in it, right? Like, a little bit. Yeah. Um, well, my experience with Enochian is that uh first of all, the system wasn't really designed to do what the Golden Dawn does with it. That's That's pretty obvious when you study it.
Um, but it doesn't matter because my impression was that the spirits liked it.
"Oh, we like the Golden Dawn interpretation of what it is we do." So, it's because kind of like the soul of the world is lurking there and it doesn't It wants to communicate, but it doesn't have a way of doing that. And then you give it this other system. It's like, "Oh, cool." So, we have the internal forces of Kabbalah, the external forces of Enochian, and now there's this fantastic synergy and dialogue happening.
Um, so, uh yeah, but anybody who wants to pursue Enochian should be careful.
And um you can practice uh Golden Dawn magic without any Enochian at all, if you want to.
It's terribly easy. Yeah. Got you. Um I I go back to John Dee and Edward Kelley thing. I don't know what it is about why why every time I read these stories, why does somebody want to sleep with somebody's wife? Whether it's a cult or John Dee and Why does that always come up? Oh, the angel said I should sleep with your Did they really say that? Like >> um There was a wife swap wife swapping in Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't They probably already had a an attraction thing going on. Yeah. Um but it was pretty obvious to me that Dee was being fooled by Kelley. Kelley had some kind of system um already and he was feeding it to Dee piecemeal in a excruciatingly slow manner to get a regular salary.
Um He was milking it.
>> Huh? Milking it. Yeah. It's pretty obvious to me cuz you read some of the these comments. It's like, how could you not be how could you be fooled by that?
It's like, look over there on the floor.
There's a stone.
Oh, it must have materialized out of nowhere. Like, in other words, come on.
Really?
I wonder I don't understand that really because Dee was pretty smart. Of course, he was pretty old at the time, so he might have been suffering from uh dementia or something like that and was more easily fooled.
Um Does that mean the Enochian system is a scam? No, he Kelley got it from somewhere. Yeah.
And most people are going to say especially on YouTube and they're going to say, well, you're messing with demons. You're messing with forces you don't know you know, people are afraid.
They're just afraid, [clears throat] you know.
>> yeah. Of course, you are. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Yes, you are. But, you have to to them for what they are. There's no hell realm we're going to be tortured forever.
Think what kind of sick mind would come up with that? Come on, like >> [laughter] >> That's what I was just saying the other night.
>> you're going to be tortured forever and I'm going to be happy about it. Yeah. I was like in any movie we would definitely rebel against that emperor or whatever that was, you know, some person that tortures us for eternity. Don't you think that that wouldn't that would be the arch enemy of good? Like it wouldn't be really Yeah.
>> [laughter] >> something that Well, it doesn't Well, it doesn't mean that the hell realm doesn't exist. There's some people who do If you have a lot of accumulated [ __ ] karma, like if you do ayahuasca, you can enter a hell state.
And you you Somebody needs to be there with you cuz you're going to you no no telling what you're going to do as you pretty much are being tortured by guilt and by entities, you know.
Um and but many people who do ayahuasca also would just have uh like an um What do you call that?
Um an a bardo experience. Like like it's uh uh and sometimes it's very pleasant, you know. Or there's some guilt involved where the spirit of the earth comes forth and says, "You know, you really should treat your family better, you know."
Yeah, right. Yeah, um I I wanted to ask you to the the I've went through I've I love ceremonial magic, but I've personally struggled to get through the system.
It's not easy, you know, when you read it, you think it's easy. It's easy. I'll just do all this stuff, you know. It's not easy to get through unless you're incredibly disciplined in my opinion.
Like you have to be incredibly disciplined to get through it, you know.
So, um that's just my opinion though. Other people may get through it really easy.
But if >> Well, there's a whole skill set involved. You need to You need to have literary skill, philosophical skill.
Uh you need to have average intelligence or higher, I think.
Um and uh language skill analysis.
And um and imagination. Yeah. We all have imagination. In other words, like the problem is that people say I don't have it. I can't visualize, right? I was like, that's absurd. Cuz I'll tell them, close your eyes, walk into the kitchen.
Oh, you didn't run into anything. I guess you were visualizing, right?
So um, right. So uh, but of course the relationship we have to imagination um needs to be strong eventually. Mhm. That helps if that's strong already from the start.
Yeah, so the I my my problem isn't any of that. It's been distraction. And you talk about that in the book. Like you you know, not doing the rituals every day and then eventually you just stop doing them and then you know, you're like, well, you get to a place where like, where do I how do I get back? Where do I start? Do I start over? Do I pick up where I left off? Am I even accepted back into the system or did I screw it all up? You know.
>> There is a sense that the entities involved, let's say, but I don't want to make it seem like that. Um, that the soul of the world is going to say, well, you're back. Like, where did you go? Are you sure you want to do this? Like, do you really want to work with me? I don't think you want to work with me. You know, there's that's like kind of trying to go back to your girlfriend and say, she's just like, where have you been?
Like >> [laughter] >> Yeah, so do we like I have to do I had to do that and I I was I was like, man, I wish I could ask Liam this. Do I pick up where I left off or do I need to start all over again, you know? And I decided to start all over.
>> If you don't have a teacher, um I would say start at Zelator and then work your way through the earth, the air, the water, the fire, like that. Um, and pursue it like that.
One of the main challenges with motivation in these kinds of mystical systems cuz pursuing enlightenment is um epic.
It's it tends to be extremely difficult.
And impossible, actually. Uh, most people will not achieve enlightenment, obviously, cuz the what the Buddha supposedly achieved is astonishing, actually.
Um but you get flashes on the way.
But the main thing that, um we're up against, I think is the what we what we call motivation dependence.
In other words, well, in order to do anything at all, I need to be motivated first.
And if I'm not motivated, I'm not going to do anything. So, there.
End of story.
So, I today I don't feel like doing my work, so I'm not going to do it.
Eventually, we begin to see it's like, who is this creature who keeps sitting on top of me saying, "You're not going to move until you feel like it."
And you're like who put you in charge?
>> Yeah, no, I do ritual every day. You're not in charge.
>> [laughter] >> Right. So, it's interesting, too, because it's like a lower form of motivation then gives gives gives way to a higher form. The higher form is quite simple. It's basically I'm I'm here to fulfill a much bigger pattern. I can't see the whole thing yet, but I know I'm fulfilling this pattern. In other words, like so um, it's not it's no longer a matter of um getting out of bed because you feel like it.
It's simply a matter of getting out of bed because this is your pattern.
This is what we do.
And quite frankly, that is um almost always more satisfying in the long run than than just relying on being motivated. Ugh. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> Yeah, I got you.
Yeah, that's uh that helps me. Thank you. I've I've always wanted to ask you.
I'm almost too embarrassed to ask that cuz it's like, well, you you fell to the the ego kind of thing. You fell to the trappings of the I need to feel better person, you know, thing.
>> Really good example. But that's not exactly what it is. It's just that entity that that wants to feel better, right? That's the same thing. A really good example is um guys who walk go to the gym, but they have to watch a video of guys working out and being tough and and cheering them on first. Uh-huh. I like that's motivation dependence. Just go to the [ __ ] gym.
>> [laughter] >> Yeah. Just show up at the door, you know? And then of course once you're in the door then the whole process takes over and you're fulfilling the pattern.
And then in the long run it's much more satisfying because it's like, man, I have a discipline. I'm getting it's going somewhere. I'm I'm seeing results and blah blah blah, right? So.
Yeah, and the thanks. I appreciate that.
And the last thing I wanted to ask you before we get out of here is um everybody wants to know, did Liam What So when I talk about magic people think uh you're going to see things that aren't there. Like you People People really want and it may be from that thing you're talking about needing to feel better, but people really want to know is there a a majestic kind of realm or or even am I going to have a paranormal experience? Am I going to see entities, hear them, smell them? Like is anything going to happen besides me just doing these rituals and my life just changes, right? And to me it's like I don't know why people don't under want that they want a paranormal experience, I guess, all the time, you know, or a conspiracy. I'll just say.
Let me just throw a wet blanket on top of everything. Like in other words, most people will not succeed in this work.
It's It is I don't find it difficult, but of course I'm kind of built in a hermetic way.
Like extremely nerd. I like to read. I like to draw. I like to imagine things, right? So um and if you're that type of person then the hermetic path is probably for you provided you have this burning desire to end suffering.
Like your hair's on fire and you're looking for a river to put put it to put it out, you know, like you're like I just I'm so tired of not feeling okay.
And nothing works.
That's it. I get got it right.
>> Save me. Right.
You cuz you can't do it yourself and if there was a there's but of course there's isn't really any you anyway. So there's just like this just grace, this divine grace you're calling out to. It's like I realized I can't do this on my own.
And and the bad habit is I keep trying to fix things so I'll feel better and I just know it doesn't work.
Just save me. Wipe out this old pattern that doesn't work anymore. It needs to be gone.
I'm ready. Yeah, I get that. No, I totally get that.
And that's why people it's like dying.
In other words, you're putting yourself on the cross and then being done absolutely dying, right? Um Uh or dying suddenly, you know, um and that and quite frankly that can happen.
The ego can completely collapse.
And it's catastrophic actually. It's a psychic experience, you know. Mhm. If you're curious about that, I've written an article about it, but you can also check out Eckhart Tolle's first book, The Power of Now. On the first two or three pages, he describes what it's like to have your ego completely collapse and die.
Got you. Yeah. Yeah, and for for me it was uh what I tell people is nothing worked for me. Guidance counselors, psychology, like I I didn't understand what it wasn't until I actually got into magic that I was like, oh, wait. Like I understand what's happening.
>> Everybody trying to fix you, they're all [ __ ] up, too. Yeah. It's just not and there's like you see people suffering like this and they're running from one specialist to the other being described prescribed horrible drugs and and therapies that are um uh oh that are going to make them feel guilty about their um moral responsibility to themselves or some such nonsense, right?
Uh the the the people who are attempting to help us are also suffering from a condition called modernity or you know, ego consciousness, which is basically um a reliance upon suffering to motivate us. Yeah.
Got you.
Yeah, that's that makes sense, too. Um Yeah, cuz I never I'm just I'm being dead serious with you, Liam. It wasn't until I started getting into magic where I actually started seeing things for the way they were.
Right, like Right? You know. They So then I think is you see the imaginal world, the dream world, let's say, right? Um and you can go on adventures in lucid dreaming, possibly astral projection. Yeah. And but also you see you occasionally see the world just as it is without any So you look at the car and you just see the conglomeration of parts.
And it's a bit startling. It's like there's there's no such thing as a car.
Whoa.
There's no such thing as a tree. There's no such thing as me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um and I want everyone here to like I'm hoping that with this interview they understand a little bit why I bring your name so much up during the show and that they can find your YouTube channel. I personally do the one-on-one sessions. I like I need a teacher and I appreciate that you offer those. I'm glad I'm a part of it. I'm afraid that I wanted to get in there before they all filled up.
I got a feeling that they're going to fill up pretty fast, you know. Um And then you also have So you got your book, you got your Patreon, too. I know I noticed you moved your all your articles from Medium. Did you move them over to I had a Medium site, right? And then I moved them to Patreon.
Um and of course there's no new stuff coming out. I'm going to be doing some recordings of guided visualizations and whatnot. We you you and I were talking about that.
>> Yeah, yeah. Um and um so uh that's a pretty good deal because when I was in the Golden Dawn um I had my temple dues to pay, right?
Um and all it really consisted of was me initiating myself and going to retreats, meeting the teachers, and corresponding with them once per month, once via mail and once via phone, I think. That's how it went, right?
Uh and then otherwise it was me studying and making progress and doing ritual every day.
This is available to you guys now. In other words, you can you can have contact with uh me through the Forbidden Realms site. That's the Patreon site.
Um and you get direct access to me and I it takes me maybe two or three days to respond.
There's lots of people on there, but um but yeah, you can you can do that. But you can also set up um this kind of um internet uh face-to-face one-on-one, yeah.
one-on-one conversation, yeah, if you want to. Yeah, which I found extremely helpful. I almost went into uh Crowley's AA, but I just didn't want to take on this idea of theurgy or uh not theurgy, I'm sorry. Um I can't even Thelema as a religion kind of thing. Like I just wanted the one-on-one kind of like and you know, instruction versus where I what I was doing was going to a temple once a every 5 years and then doing everything else online or something, you know, before that.
But to to be clear, if you want to make progress, most of the work is by yourself. You know, it's it's right it's um and working in a group um that's important, too.
But quite frankly, working with my teachers, the best advantage I got from working with them was just hanging out with them.
>> [snorts] >> Not doing the ritual necessarily, but we did the zero equals zero and other things, you know, lectures and whatnot.
But just hanging out with them, watching TV, eating with them.
Uh because they are already um largely free of much of the suffering, you know, the words. And you could just It just rubs off on you.
Oh, yeah.
>> any sense. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's like, my god, this is possible. I mean, I can actually be free of this thing that's nagging me all the time because they seem to be mostly mostly free of it.
Yeah, and I noticed this, too, like with the authentic I've done it, man. Like when it comes to try to be authentic, I've went to the coaches, the online coaches, the relationship coaches, the attraction coaches, the this coach, that coach. And they're all what the And it seemed like you were talking about earlier, they're all trying to give you a formula so that you can get what you want and all this other stuff. But the problem is >> Maximize Maximize your productivity, right?
>> Right. And the problem is is like you if you don't come into your true authentic authenticity, you're you're just going to cause more suffering trying to get what you want all the time. You know, like it's like You know what I mean? Like >> Authenticity is right It's right there behind that entity that needs to be satisfied, that the dissatisfied entity.
The authenticity is right there behind it.
It's always been there.
But this nasty little ego bugger steps in and says, "Me. Me. I don't feel good. Go do this."
Well, and what would you say like when people go, "Well, I'm 40-something years old now, Liam. I know myself." Well, I can tell you from my experience in this work, I thought I knew myself. Yeah.
I don't really I'm not I'm now discovering myself, you know.
>> the authentic answer would be more like, "I have no freaking idea who I am anymore."
>> [laughter] >> It's like, "And it's fantastic." Yeah.
>> That There now there we go, right? Yeah.
Well, thanks for thanks for coming on and doing this, man. I really really appreciate I've been looking forward to it for some time. I'm glad that you're even on the internet doing this stuff, and I think that it's just only going to get better for you. Um you know, I think your your your YouTube channel's growing, and um of course, if anybody hasn't gotten the book, go get the book. Uh I gave mine away as a gift, actually, to someone. I have like different copies, but I gave mine away as a gift cuz people were asking me questions, and I got to that point, I was like, "Here, just read this, you know, and you'll understand it." Cuz the beginning of it is really profound, man. I appreciate your work.
>> Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah. And anybody's trying to understand the Golden Dawn material released by Regardie, you obviously, you're looking at it going, "What the hell is this? I don't understand any of this."
Going through the Kabbalah Magic uh book, um if you go through the curriculum there, you will understand all of it. Yeah. And I know I'm I'm going to be kicking myself later. I've probably forgot There's probably 20 questions I wanted to ask that I didn't get to, but what that, you know, I'll ask him during the one-on-ones or whatever. But thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it, man. I really really do.
>> Sure. Yeah, and then let's share the video link, and I will get my Patreon people tuning in to Lighting the Void.
Yeah, definitely. Definitely will.
Um all right.
Like an excited little kid I was, you could tell, speaking to Liam. And when I say sometime, I mean 8 years.
Imagine uh for a second that you find a system that really speaks to you.
There's a lots of systems out there.
Imagine for a second you find a system that that speaks to you. It's in a book, and then one day, years later, the system's changed your life. It's brought things into your life. It's opened up your consciousness more. It's actually done something for you.
And then 8 years later, you see the guy that wrote the book on YouTube. And not only is he on YouTube, but he's helping people. He's teaching people at Liam Christopher on YouTube.
And it's like, thank God. You realize that there is hope, cuz consciousness brought this in to existence. Liam's there on YouTube. If you want to go deeper into the stuff, check out his YouTube channel. He goes super in-depth each subject over and over. It's really really cool. And I'll say this, too. If you want a teacher, you can have one through him now. He has one-on-ones that he'll he'll you can schedule and they're really reasonably priced. I think what he's doing is as far as spiritual awakening is concerned is is massive. I don't think he understands how big it is, at least for me. I don't think he does, but it was a real blessing having him on. Go check him out. Go get his book. It's on Audible.
I'll leave all the links in the video. I'll stick them in the description and then I'll also this will go up on the podcast players and I'll keep it live on the French FM just to kind of get it to sink in. I hope everybody has a a little bit better understanding of the Golden Dawn system now of magic and well, I've been talking about it for years and years and years.
I love each and every one of you guys.
It's been a blessing to do this.
We'll keep doing it, too. If you guys got any guest suggestions, anything that you'd like to talk about, you can go on fringe.fm. There's a record button there. You can hit that record button. You can leave a voice message. You can email me at [email protected] or [email protected].
And yeah, we'll see you next time.
Good night, y'all. Sweet dreams. Take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Woo!
>> [music]
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