 On this episode of Skepticoke, a show about the darkness and light of sexuality. I just decided to focus on sexuality because there is so much darkness around it. So I said, okay, why don't I address it? Why don't I bring it into light? Like, they wanted to demean, for example, Mary Magdalene on other goddesses. And then my question is, why? There must be some liberating power in it, and we have to claim it. But in our own way, not through darkness, but through light. And why we might want to always be suspicious of spiritual intermediaries? I, as an ordained person with an indelible mark, can't make a holy communion. It's what separates you from me. So for instance, if you're gay and you're not absolutely chased and celibate, you can't go to communion. If you vote for somebody who approves of abortion, you can't go to communion according to some. So it's become a kind of a politicized reward for thinking the right way. Stick around for my interview with the very excellent Dr. Joanna Kowave. Welcome to Skepticoke, where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I'm your host, Alex Sekaris, and today we welcome Dr. Joanna Kowave to Skepticoke. She's here to talk about this book that I've pulled up on the screen, Mary Magdalene and the Goddesses of Eros in Secret Knowledge. Joanna, it's awesome to have you here. Thanks so much for joining me on Skepticoke. Thank you, Alex. I'm delighted to be here with you. Well, you know, we'll see what you say at the end. I'm sure we'll have a discussion. I'm sure we will. You know, I've been looking forward to this. And the more I've dug into the book, the more I've really thought about so many things that I'd love to share and talk. And we've got some good emails back and forth. And I think we'll have a fun, spirited discussion, but a positive one. It's like I said, you are my Dharma sister. Man, you're into yoga. You're into spirituality. You're into all this cool stuff. Tell us a little bit about your background. I'm going to read a little bit before you do. I'm going to interrupt that. I'm going to short circuit that. Excellent bio. People can check out your website. And if they do, they'll check out this very cool bio about Dr. Joanna and read a bunch of stuff. And there's a little bit that I pulled out of that I thought was really cool. Although through my university education, I was groomed to be a Catholic intellectual. The story I was told made less and less sense. I subscribe to no religion and yet I'm a passionate believer in spiritual evolution at the presence of spirituality in all aspects of our lives. Well, I love that rich spiritual lives, not rigid fear based religion, but spirituality, which expands by embracing every aspect of our humanity and making it divine. This calls for redefining spirituality and freeing it from old constraints and limitations imposed by past cultural conditioning. How beautiful. Thank you. But it's true. It's true for all of us. I think for many of us for, I call myself a spiritual detective, but I think it's probably true about every sincere spiritual seeker. Right. Like we know that you are more than we are told that we are by by I would argue, I don't know if it's controversial on this show or not by by all traditional religions. They, instead of uplifting us, you know, they in some ways try to stop our spiritual evolution. However, they did some good things such as I would argue they preserved certain sacred writings for us, you know, but I think that we should be able to interpret them ourselves. Right. And take something from there that you know the hidden truth sometimes in between lines. So it requires more effort than just going to church. It requires passion and commitment. You know what, let's let's take what you just said, which is quite, quite beautiful, quite, you know, controversial to some, but to others, it's just second nature and connect that for us to the book. Actually, it I'm at the moment, for last 16 years, I've been living in Australia and I before in Canada and Paris but I'm originally from Poland and I was brought up in an interesting environment because in Poland everybody it was a communist regime. But it was also Catholic, deeply Catholic, like the very medieval version of Catholicism, you know, like what people believe in the 14th century people believed in the 20th century in the Poland I lived right it's changing now. So you know as a little girl I was going to church, you know normal right and there are some beautiful baroque churches in my hometown. In our ways, you know I noticed that you know the divine feminine was definitely worshipped in Poland because Virgin Mary is the main deity. You know, like this is what she represents basically religion almost that. And I saw this you know this beautiful paintings of Virgin Mary on one side but I noticed that there is this other woman. Yes. It's black Madonna of chance to hover you know she's actually called the Queen of Poland so she's just like the main deity them my grandmother went on foot you know for hundreds of kilometers. You know to see the painting on the top of the mountain you know it is the whole medieval thing right. And so so this is her. And then I noticed that in the hidden in the naves of the church there was very paintings of this other woman, you know, and it was the pain there, the paintings of Mary Magdalene, right or Mary Magdalene, and that she was I had this sense that she was somehow close to Jesus close to the teachers I call him now and and and but there is something shame shame to about her you know but also something very fascinating. And I didn't understand it then but I thought that we have this strange polarity in our minds you know especially with the respect to feminine, which is basically you know I have this mother figure which is completely pure, and you know a sexual and and, and you know, very beautiful archetype but also very limiting, you know like you can be that and this is the only way to be, and there was this other archetype that was kind of the mean but it was very fascinating. Eventually, many years after that I started to explore this archetype that I think that Mary Magdalene, you know, in bodies and looked into goddesses that perhaps came before her or when other embodiments of the same archetype. I started to look into also as sexuality, because I thought that you know I started to notice that you know Mary Magdalene most likely was never a prostitute, you know and even in the Catholic Church admitted in 1969 but you know not not many people know that they did that. And I wondered why she was so pushed into the, to the margins, you know why she was demeaned on the one hand, especially in the Orthodox tradition Eastern Orthodox tradition she's like the Apostle of Apostles. On the other hand, you know she's this penitent prostitute and it just didn't agree with me somehow the whole story somehow I didn't think that she was a prostitute. And somehow in the way I also discovered the Gnostic teachings, the Gnostic Gospels, and Gnostic writings not only the Gospels, and went into this and I realized that she was also portrayed as in some of them as the favorite disciple of Jesus. So, what a fascinating person, right? At the same time, on my own personal journey, I just don't want to confuse anybody here. I started to because when I moved away from Catholicism, I started to look for other options like you know most people do when they give up the original religion. I started to move towards esoteric Hinduism. And I started to be interested in what is now called tantric teacher teachings but it had nothing to do at first with sexuality, but rather with a teaching that everything is consciousness. Everything is divine. And I thought, wow, it's very interesting, because especially as sexuality is being portrayed by the modern media and for centuries is very much demeaning, right? And here, sexuality is also a form of divinity and we actually can arrive to the expansion of consciousness be one of the divine through erotic rapture. And I thought, how beautiful and how different from what we are being normally told, especially by media. And also, you know, women had very little sexual freedom, but men had more sexual freedom but they were also not taught how to honor their sexuality, right? It's always something dark in us and I think we have to uplift it. So that's why I started to, you know, do this investigative work in my book, The Other Goddess, how to uplift it, why we are being told that such an integral part of who we are is so dark. And I just to say I know that there's a dark part to it because there's a dark part to everything, right? But why do we have to focus on this dark part? Why don't we learn how we can uplift it and honor this in a way that honors us and our divinity and the spirit within us? Great. So would you say that that's more or less the main thing that you want people to take away from the book? I mean, the book is written for who I know women will connect with the book because it kind of is offering a reinterpretation, probably a more accurate interpretation of what that feminine sexuality that we all understand. I mean, we all understand intuitively that there's something about life and death with that feminine energy and we understand that sexuality is tied into that in a way that, you know, scares us, especially for men, but at the same time intrigues us, drives us. Is that, how does that connect, though, with this experience that we're talking about before of being that young woman in a Catholic church in a military, a communist Poland and saying there's more, there's more for me on a very practical level. And then more for me, maybe on this spiritual level and more for me on this sexuality who I am level that are all trying to be defined. So you're wrapping all that together in the book, but is that what, how do I distill that down from the book? Okay, so I also partially it is also especially at the end when I try to bring it all together, it is about getting out of the matrix, so to speak, you know, realization that we are leaving this different paradigms that are imposed upon us. And it is basically, it should be a choice, you know, it should be almost as a spiritual duty to take the, I say at the end of the book, you know, turn, make a turn, make a turn now. And I was actually thinking about this film, you know, old film Midnight Express, do you remember this. And when he's at certain moment when all prisoners walk in one direction and this is what we do. And we've done it for millennia, and at certain point something clicks in his mind, and he started to walk in the opposite direction. And I think this opposite direction is actually the direction of spirituality, of true spirituality, of not allowing anyone to brainwash us to to explore, you know, to, to go with your spiritual experience, even if sometimes you know it can be scary, because my experience is that it completely rewired me and I was at the beginning after the initial ecstasy. You know, I felt like, wow, now, what am I going to do now, everything that was important for me is less important now. You know, and I'm an ambitious person, there used to be. And now I am just kind of going on this different path. But I think that we are all, especially in times like ours, you know, called to take, take the different turn. So, you know, you just kind of mentioned there, but people who check out the book will find that you're, you're very self disclosing, very open in some way. In some ways that will be surprising, the book is a tiny bit spicy. I mean, you know, and what did you think about doing that? What did you think about presenting it that way? And I think that in a way, I took that as a statement about everything you're saying, that you can talk about your sexuality, along with being a religious scholar, along with being all this other stuff. And you can just kind of put it out there in a kind of unapologetic way and also in a way that doesn't seem to be spun, you know, it just seems to be kind of, this is it, this is kind of what happened. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for this. And it's true. It doesn't mean actually the writing of it was easy, but publishing it and now it's like all out there, you know, this is Joanna and her experiences. It, you know, it was not so easy, you know, I'm still sweating when I think about it, you know, because there can be a reaction that can be a backlash. But when at the end of the book, I say, you know, make that turn. I'm sharing my turn. Right. Like, so this is I, you have to be honest with your spiritual experience and this is what my spiritual experience was with relationship to in relation to sexuality. Right. Although I had other experience, not related to sexuality, but the ones that I focus in the book just for the purpose of the book, you know, do focus on sexuality. So I thought you, I have to be honest. I'm asking my readers to be honest. I'm completely honest. This is, you know, I'm as naked as possible. In this part of the book, which is the first part of the book. That's why in some interviews I said if you just want to know about Mary Magdalene and not about my experiences go to parts two right because the part one can shake you a little bit if you, if you don't want to go there. But I also, for many years, studied the tantra with tantric scholars with Sanskrit scholars and in the book I describe one of the regular meetings that I had, you know, the Sanskrit scholar who by the way is also a Catholic priest. Interesting. And PhD in Sanskrit, but completely into tantra with a Buddhist monk who escaped Tibet and now he has his own successful center in Melbourne, Australia, and with another independent Swami from Adelaide in Australia. And we were going, you know, through this tantric test, text, which is the most controversial of all of them from 10th century Indian philosopher Abhinavagupta, who actually wrote it down. It's from Tantraloka, which is the light on the tantras and chapter 29 is about Kula ritual, which is the sexual ritual in Tantra. Very controversial ritual. And, you know, and as I was sitting there with this man and we are just, you know, everything was proper, we are proper scholars, nobody, you know, nothing happened. And I thought that it was so lifeless. You know, like this, we are just reading this and it's just, and it's encoded so it's difficult to understand because, you know, the philosopher himself didn't want, you know, people just to go there and do it, right? Because you should be, you know, have a focus on expansion of consciousness when you perform the ritual. And I thought it was so lifeless, you know, and this color and it just so dry, you know, and I, and I thought, no, we have to, I'm all about spiritual experience. Right. So I didn't want to write this kind of book. That's why it's not an academic book. I wanted to write a book that is an easy read that is entertaining and it's completely honest. So in this part of the book I do actually describe my own tantric experience which was very spontaneous and I call it an act of grace because I'm not a tantric teacher so I don't even know how to repeat this experience. It just happened to me, but according to the tantric scriptures I fulfilled the criteria, you know, at this particular moment. So I just met with a man and I was just getting over a significant relationship and, you know, and it just happened and it was a mind blowing experience, you know, what happened. Actually, I felt, and so did he because according to this tantric teaching, a woman is a conduit for the energy to move, and then the energy spills on the man and he was just fortunately he was a spiritual man so he knew what was happening. But my whole body was actually lit up. And I felt the movement of energy from my body and some people ask me if you don't mind to be a little bit graphic. How do you know that it wasn't just an orgasm. And I said because it was a conscious energy. Like I would feel that something like in tantric teachers, teachings they talk about Kundalini energy, anything like yoga stuff. And then you feel it and it just something at the, you know, it wakes up in you, it's completely conscious, it is you, it is like your higher self, but it's like you that you even didn't know, you know that you have, and it consciously starts to move through your body energetically. And you know it first blew up in my heart and this is when I lit up and spilled on the man and he was just like, wow, right. And then you know it went right to my forehead. And then it just paused in a very intelligent way and decided to move like in one particular direction. And it was an experience that lasted several months when I actually couldn't almost function, because I actually didn't see the material world I saw like particles and energy around and then in the meantime I had to like finish my PhD and so on it was like, you know, it was completely unreal, because I was transported somewhere else. And I was given this beautiful vision, I think, of energetic universe really, right. So, but it did happen through sexual experience. And, and just like it was described, you know, in the scriptures that. I felt like I have to share this kind of experience, otherwise people get this kind of neo tantra, you know what do you do you know say some mantras does I'm breathing. I don't know it would. It's sure you can try, or you know we get this dry academic text, then you know doesn't even if you are an academic like me I still felt like, you know, like that. You know, to be a erotic rapture that takes you to, you know, higher consciousness and this is just like, it couldn't be more boring, you know, the academics right about it. So I thought the only way to actually do it differently it's to share my own experience. Great. Brave, brave, brave to do that. But, but here is this is such a great point now because now we're going to talk skeptical. The fun part because I'm with you and I think that's again, awesome that you can share that. And I think a lot of people can can find benefit to that because you're right. The neo tantric thing just gets so played out in one way or another or just hey, here's a way to hook up with somebody in a new way, you know, kind of thing. And, and you're really obviously you're reaching for something much more than that. And as you say, it was spontaneous. It isn't it even wasn't like you were sitting there, you know, just make trying to make it happen. It more you were putting yourself in a position where it could happen. But here's the skeptical part. So we've had this nice email exchange and I've been sent to this survey and you were nice enough to answer the survey. And one of the questions was religion and you chose the answer. My favorite answer unnecessary intermediary. And I think that's what it is right. So when you were that girl that young woman in Poland and you're looking at the Madonna and I didn't realize she's like the saint of Poland and she's got scars on her face. You know, she looks very, very troubled. You know, isn't it interesting as a whole culture, a whole country to take on why was that who you would adopt. But anyways, that's what it is. But what do we do with the fact that it's unnecessary? If it truly is unnecessary, we can process that in a couple of different ways. One, you processed it personally as this might not be necessary or it might not be the way I heard you say it in the story. Because on your website also there's this nice little mini documentary that was done about your immigration experience in Australia. People would check it out and it's great. But I saw that as kind of a personal challenging of is this necessary? Must I suffer like the Virgin Mary? No, I can do more as a woman. I'm intelligent. I know I'm smart. I can go. I can learn. I can go to Paris. I can go to all these different places. I can do things. What an awesome thing. At the same time, I wonder if you how you process the kind of challenging that necessariness on the institutional level. Because if we're going to really tear that down, what is necessary about Catholicism? If we look at all the nasty, horrible, evil things that have been done by that institution and now we're going to open up the possibility that they're not necessary in order to connect with the divine. That has huge implications. So that I think is kind of the starting point. But you know where I'm coming with the next part is what's necessary about Tantra. But to get there, I want to start with, you know, isn't that your answer? Your answer, you gave the right answer in my opinion. What is religion? It's an unnecessary intermediary. How far can that take us? Okay, we don't know. It's as far as a human and divine potential within us. And I think what it takes, it's really, I'm not as interested in dismantling any institutions. I think they will die of natural death. You know, if we do not give them energy, if we do not support them, you know, they will die of natural death. But I think we have to focus on our own individual, which if enough individuals focus on it, it will become also a collective spiritual journey. You know, so you have to, we all have to be absolutely brave, you know, wherever the spiritual journey takes us. And we just go there. And then we realize, you know, that what we're taught is not true. And it was not easy for me, you know, I was brought up as a good Catholic girl. So just going against it, you know, it was going against every fiber in my body. You know, and especially that I studied at the Pontifical Institute and I was everybody's favorite, you know, the smart Catholic girl and you know everybody loved me. I had a fantastic experience as a student. You know what I mean, like it was like all the doors were open if I stayed there. You know, I could go to one regret I have is that I didn't go to the Vatican library, you know, because I would have this kind of opportunities, you know, to study in the library and see what's actually there. It wasn't easy. But then it was another realization that happened that has nothing to do with tantra when I was sitting in a church and thinking like, you know, I am a sinner forgive me and I think I had this, I'm not a sinner. You know, why do I have to start from this sinner point of view, you know, what if I am a divine being, you know, who wants me to be the sinner. And actually, you know, in Gospels, I think it's in the gospel of Mary Magdalene, when I think Peter asked a teacher tell us about the scene and the teacher Jesus says there is no scene and then he explains what he means by that. Right, we just deal with the consequences of our lower choices basically. And so this getting away from the institutions for me is an individual act of supreme spiritual rebellion. And if enough people do this, the institutions will not survive. Yeah, I mean, that's, but come on, you don't. You've written a book about Mary Magdalene. Why do we, why by propping up these different figures within this phony institution? How does that help us? I mean, if it's purely a kind of metaphor or story that we can use. It always becomes more than that. It always like in the book when you even talk about other goddesses like Isis, you'll talk about. And then you'll say, you know, even the early Christian fathers of the early church couldn't dismiss it. Again, we're propping up what we either have to, it seems to me like we either have to bring down the scaffolding and bring it all the way down and build it back up and say, okay, what is the reality of that history? How are we supposed to understand it? And then build our understanding of where you're jumping to the end and say divinity is everywhere. It's, it's, it's at the tip of our nose. It's in everything. It's on everything. So then I think the question becomes, how do you wind up to be that young woman in that church individually, but collectively? How do we all wind up being that person in that church? Because we all are. I mean, these institutions are have enormous influence. I was brought up in Greek Orthodox Church. I looked at the same kind of iconography, the incense, you know, go kiss the father's hand and get mind control. I mean, if we're really going to be honest about it, that is mind control for a six, seven year old kid. Don't we need to? It's one thing to say, gee, if we don't give it any energy, it'll die. It's been going for thousands of years and it hasn't stopped. I completely get your point, but I think we are all collectively evolving spiritually. So if we take each of us takes this different turn, then there is no chance for them. And you say, and it's a fair question that I actually didn't consider before why discuss, you know, Mary Magdalene, which is a part of the Catholic routine or Christian routine. But I wanted to say that even I see as she was just framed, you know, it's a particular, particular archetype. And they framed her in a particular way because she was somehow dangerous. And I think if she's dangerous, perhaps you can learn something from her. Do you understand? She, I believe that, you know, whether she's historical or not, she's an archetype of some particular expression of walking away from brainwashing. You know, and in Gnostic writings, she's the one, you know, like that, that, you know, Peter represents, you know, the church and all corporations, right? She just says that Peter is that and he doesn't understand, you know, why she's favored by the teacher. And she represents for me, she represents for me this walking away, like she didn't build the church the way Peter did or Paul did. She just went, she just went to the wilderness or, you know, I have my own theories, you know, just enjoyed exploring. And she's really about gnosis, about the inner, inner knowing, you know, exploring your divine potential. So that's why I felt like, so I'm not buying into the Catholic or Orthodox Mary Magdalene. What does archetype really suggest? And for me, she represents this rebellion against the structure. And that's fine. That's great. And I think the archetypal, metaphorical, you know, Joseph Campbell kind of you've referenced in their kind of thing. Okay, awesome. And that can be fulfilling to you, you know, spiritually, and maybe you can inform and motivate other people. But at some level, there's a, there's a truth there that underpins that that has to be understood. I think before we can go any further, you know, one of the things we're kind of bouncing around about kind of in a, I was halfway kidding, halfway serious buzz, you know, the Damian Eccles and the Mitch Horowitz thing. So it's like the Damian Eccles thing is kind of much more relevant to your work in a way that takes about four jumps for people to get to. So Damian Eccles is West Memphis three, Johnny Depp gets him out of prison. They do this documentary and he gets released from prison. He was a guy who, along with two of his friends, they raped and then murdered these three little kids. These kids are eight, nine, 10 years old. They were convicted of that by two different juries. They were never exonerated. That's a misunderstanding people have. But they were released through a deal with the Arkansas, you know, I had had them for 20 years and was unsure whether they could overcome it in another retrial. Anyways, but the reason why he raped and killed those three little kids was revealed by Damian when the police interrogated him. The police do a good trick. This is the trick that police around the world do. They said, Damian, we know you didn't do this crime, but who did it? And the first thing goes, well, satanic. He goes, I think it was satanic because, you know, they urinated in the kids' mouths and they did some other things which no one knew about. They hadn't released or anything. So he's kind of like all good police techs are looking for someone to give him information that implicates himself, which he did. But I'm kind of diving around the point there. The reason that he chose to murder this eight-year-old kid and to perform this sex act on him was because he was trying to do sex magic. And this was the sex magic that his inspiration, Alistair Crowley, had laid out in his books. And he said, the most preferred object of your sex magic would be a young boy about eight years old. Right? That's what he said. So the point then becomes, is that real? Is that somehow connected to the same wisdom of the Hindu-Tantric tradition? Or is it just some messed up kid in Arkansas who reads some book? Well, we can't really dismiss that way either because Alistair Crowley was for real about it. I mean, anyone who reads that Alistair Crowley biography knows he was doing all that stuff. And he was probably doing the stuff with kids, and maybe it even went as far as Damien did. But they were doing that in an effort to tap into that same energy you're talking about. Now they're tapping into it in a very different way, in a negative way, which raises a whole bunch of questions. But the question then becomes, is it necessary? Is that what's necessary? He thought it was necessary. Alistair Crowley had convinced him that that was necessary ritual in order to tap into that energy. So when we get into sex magic, it's very, very tricky and can go very, very dark. No, that's a legitimate question, Alex. Thank you. So, and it's not easy to deal with. So it's not necessary to do this, right? There are methods, each method has a dark side to this. And unfortunately, I think it is, I don't understand why people focus on this kind of method. You can achieve expansion of consciousness not only through Tantra and not only through this type. I wouldn't even call it Tantra, you know, through this kind of experiences. But there are other ways of achieving it. But I see because there is a dark side to it. I do not explore it. I just very briefly mentioned about, you know, the dark side of this. I decided to cut it out, you know, because I think there's enough focus on this. But what you're saying, I don't know enough about this man, but if he indeed did it, and you know, and if it is indeed proved, then this is horrible misuse, you know, and I understand that this is a dangerous path. And that's why some of this works, like for example, Kula ritual and chapter 29. It was really written not only that it was written in Sanskrit, which was, you know, obviously the educated language at that time in India, but it was written in the coding because only people who were chosen by a evolved teacher would be allowed to do this. Isn't that starting to sound a lot like that guy in the Vatican who wears that crazy hat and turns out a lot of his people like to rape little kids too? You know, we're, hey, we have this super secret ritual that only the same thing in the Greek Orthodox church, you know, no one's, it's basic mind control. It's cult training 101 secret society, secret ritual, only the knowing do it unnecessary. It's everywhere. The divine is right there on the tip of our nose, right? Why do we want to, why do we want to introduce unnecessary intermediary steps? Don't we want to disintermediate? So you stumble across it. If you do it like you're doing, it's good to be aware of it. I understand that and I understand the power of metaphor that you're bringing forward. But I guess I'm going to push back on, I think it's a misstep to suggest that. Well, you're not suggesting it, but for someone to lead someone down a path to say, hey, this is a shortcut or this is like a good way to go. It's like it misses the larger point of what you said so beautifully. Divinity is everywhere in everything when we talk about it from one particular perspective of the divinity of sexuality. Then do we tend to lose focus on the divinity of nature or the divinity of family or the divinity of just your ordinary washing the dishes? Oh, absolutely not. I just decided to focus on sexuality because there is so much darkness around it. So I said, okay, why don't I address it? Why don't I bring it into light? Because we cannot just endlessly push it to the side and let the perverts practice it and so on. I just said, okay, so how can we look it in a positive way that we can integrate it into our lives? But in no way, I suggest that people should practice some tantric rituals, especially some dark ones. I didn't don't practice them. I just had an experience that was very spontaneous and I didn't plan to do this. It just happens that maybe I studied it so much and I call it the act of grace. And because I experienced it in such a beautiful way, I believed I had to share it. I chose to share it. Maybe I don't have to. But that doesn't mean that it takes away from anything else. It's a small book. I cannot write about everything, but you are very right. You can experience divinity in any way. So it doesn't have to be sexual way. I just say we cannot keep it in darkness because it didn't mean us. And I think that the secret powers that you're talking about, they want to demean this part. Like they wanted to demean, for example, Mary Magdalene and other goddesses. And then my question is, why? There must be some liberating power in it and we have to claim it, but in our own way, not through darkness, but through light. But you're absolutely right. I wouldn't advise anyone just to use some sexual rituals to get high on consciousness because this is not what it is about. And I certainly don't want to misrepresent your book because your book doesn't come across like that at all. I mean, it is extremely positive and affirming and giving us new ways of understanding the human condition that is sexuality and female sexuality. There's so much legitimacy to, you know, in this cancel culture that we live in and in this transhumanist culture that we live in, which is denying the feminine as a kind of roundabout, twisted, other twisted way, right? So, you know, we can look at Alistair Crowley and twisting sexuality into its kind of the dark left-hand path of it. But then we have the other and you even touch this, touch on this in the book and your chapter on technology. I don't know if you go all the way to the transhumanist stuff, but maybe you want to speak to that because that's another way of twisting and distorting this sexuality is to completely to deny it and to do, you know, the rapper who identifies as a woman for 30 minutes so he can set the deadlifting record and then identifies back as a man. I thought that was well played, but it gets at this deeper thing of what's going on in terms of trying to twist our understanding of who we are as human beings. That's an excellent statement, Alex. So perhaps I would maybe start explaining, but I'm not even talking about women and men. I'm talking about masculine and feminine energies. And I'm very Jungian about it. So I mean, like we both have, you know, masculine and feminine energies, animus and anima within us. And I think that so it's not against men by any means, you know, I love men, I love my husband and so on. But what I'm saying is that this our civilization and I don't think it was a natural movement. I think it was a control movement by someone, you know, that that we move too much in one direction, which is this kind of rational type of mind, you know, which is very logical, which is very cause and effect, which is very technological, which takes us now to transhumanism, which I think is very scary, you know, I think transhumanism is something that we really have to consider nowadays. And that we somehow on the way, and I think it was systematic this other which I call feminine, but both men and women have it, form of intelligence of consciousness was consciously repressed by someone. And this intelligence shows us the, you know, unity of everything, the divinity in everything that you were talking about. And perhaps completely different way of evolving without, you know, a new rolling in your mind, which I think actually is completely evil and it, it will, I worry that it may stop by spiritual evolution, although personally I believe that spiritual practice can overcome anything, but it is another obstacle, let's put it. So I think that this form of intelligence, which unfortunately we call masculine but I prefer to call it logical or this rational mind which okay it gave us some, you know, good things and tools and so on, but it's extremely something and it's not serving us anymore. And we are taking it way too far and we are forgetting this other form of energy which is, you can call it goddess consciousness or some people are more comfortable with Christ consciousness this more holistic way of perceiving things, which focuses on spirit and the divinity of everything, and we left it behind. So part of the book is looking into this, you know, why, why all of us, whoever represents this, this other consciousness why they were pushed to a site and I'm not saying even that all of these goddesses were great or anything like that but they are represented often as you know in the book as, as, as kind of guardians before different portals between death and life between, you know, evolution, you know, or going from transcendence, you know, they hold the, the read which supposed to be a form of a portal that one of the goddesses, you know, is always portrayed with and most of them, including Mary Magdalene, then you think like we lost something on the way and in fact I think that it was intentionally repressed and demean and we have to reclaim it because we completely are going in the wrong direction and you know transhumanism I agree with you, this is a super scary stuff and I hope we will never go there but I think it is probably unless there is some technological disaster, some war, some, some people hope for some solar flare or something destroys that but if it doesn't happen, you know, we have to, we have to deal with us and I think we have to use our spiritual tools, you know, this is the only way, we have to use our spiritual tools. You know, I got to say, I kind of appreciated the, I don't know, woman's perspective in the book and that and and really bring it because I get what you're saying, you know, the it's not just about women versus men and there's the divinity and feminine and masculine, but it's like, no, that's off to you for coming and saying, you know, hey, really understand at this deeper spiritual level, what goes along with being a woman on this journey, and especially from a historical perspective, because that's what Mary Magdalene gives us and that's what these other goddesses give us and there is there, you're, there are differences. Okay, you know, there are differences, and you're talking about those differences, and then you're talking about how they play in this theater that we're in. So, I thought that was great. And I think when we contrast that with the transhumanist agenda and the technocrat agenda, there, it really draws clear the lines there and it, there's this cultural part of it that just kind of a joke that's been going on in academia for the longest time, the wokeness kind of thing and the political correctness thing. And that's one path. And then there's this transhumanist path that I think really called a lot of people by surprise, and just saying, Well, it's about ET, and you to talk to Anna boss, Besalco, we'll have to talk about her. You know, it's kind of ET, it's the matrix, it's the, you know, cyborg kind of thing, it's Elon Musk, and you're going to be neural linked, it's all that stuff is just coming at us. And at the same time, people are still recovering from the political correctness woke stuff. And I wonder what you think about, about some of that, you know, I always kind of thought that the, you know, go woke go broke thing is so true. But what a lot of people didn't see is, it's also true spiritually, go woke go broke spiritually, you know what I mean, if everything is relativism, if there is nothing to stand on, then how do you connect with that moral imperative that really drive spirituality, the decision to do the right thing to be good. That, that doesn't come, that doesn't work if, well, everything is relative, everyone hasn't, there's really no right or wrong, and, you know, mature what's kind of thing, you know, I just, what do you think about that the Well, it is actually a very confusing topic because I have conversations with my mother who is, you know, obviously much more conservative and it's just way too much for her, right. And, and I was trying to explain that perhaps some of us, some of us and you probably disagree is that some people who are different in any way. So for example, he were gay, or you know, you, or they had no voice in society they had to pretend who they are. So now they claim the identity and I think that's appropriate. And I think that sometimes possibly and it's just a matter of balance. If, you know, they go maybe too far because they said, you know, you know, we were request for forever and now look at me and this is what we do and you know they try to shock you because they want the acceptance, and you know and that's appropriate. However, the whole thing about and maybe there and I think there is some probably exposing myself for so much criticism. There is a probably a small number of people that feel you know that they are wrong person in the wrong body. I have no experience with us. But from what I read it's, you know, probably a small part of population and the rest I am just very skeptical and maybe very even shocked or I don't want to say shocked but amazed in a way like what's going on. So again, I'm going to say something that is probably very controversial but I think a man identifying as a woman and participating in women's sports and destroying it. I cannot support it. Why do we have to kind of put people to a test like that? I mean, it's ridiculous to even say, okay, Dr. Joanna, what do you think about that particular issue? It doesn't matter. I think you the path through this is as you said, is the spiritual path is that everything is divine. So to the extent that you think God made a mistake with your body. Okay, maybe God made a mistake with your body. We don't know. But it's still your journey. It's your journey to figure out one way or another. It's not the state's journey. It's not the medical industry's journey. It's your personal spiritual journey. So all the rest of it is just bullshit. And I think that I'm with you in terms of the way that it's manufactured and the way that it's elevated and put in our face and pushed to the front of consciousness and social issues is highly, highly suspect because it just isn't that controversial in the same way that it isn't controversial to say that women were treated horribly by our culture for the longest time. My, you know, my generation immediately before my mother, she was very artistic. She was very creative. She had no options. Be a secretary, be a nurse, be a teacher. That was it. That's not right. We don't need a women's studies department to tell us that isn't right. We need a connection with the divinity to see it all around us and to see that she was leading a rich spiritual life and that she should be able to do that in the way that she thought. So it does seem, and that is, it does seem manufactured, and it does seem to be primarily a social engineering control project, political operation project, rather than a genuine kind of thing in my opinion. You know, I think that it perhaps is the same what happened, for example, to Christianity, which means, you know, there is a, and I don't know what's wrong with our social structures throughout human history that, you know, we know of human history because it's probably longer than, you know, academics and archeology than it was, but it starts with the original white, hot experience, spiritual experience, like, you know, as people around Jesus had, you know, just experience of Christ consciousness and so on. And then the structures, the social structures take control of it, and it becomes this thing that, you know, now we're talking like Catholic Church or any church really, you know, and or any religion because, you know, I went through the journey, you think you go to another religion and it's better there, you know, and then just stay there long enough and you see the same abuse, right, but the same brainwashing. But so I think this is what happened probably with, you know, what you call work movement, that there was a genuine, I think, desire to express, you know, I deserve to be loved and accepted in society like everyone else, just because, you know, I'm not in the majority sexually or my sexual orientation or my choices, I deserve that, and that we have to respect, but then, and I completely respect it, you know, and this people imagine like being transgender or, you know, gay even like 100 years ago, never mind, you know. So this has to be acknowledged, this people should have voice, but then somebody's using it the way that original teachings of every great being, you know, Jesus, Buddha or whatever, like avatars or, you know, how they embodied in human consciousness were used by, you know, this is what you call social engineering, which is actually very astutely put and the question is, you know, yes, it's definitely used because it's blown out of the proportion, instead of, you know, like individual respect for everybody's differences, it turned into this weird thing, which actually, in my personal opinion, is actually demeaning the original impulse, you know, I just want to be loved and accept, and it's made into this weird social thing. The other thing that I've run into, and I'd be interested in your perspective on this, because you have spent so much time within the religious academic community is that they have to kind of take part of the blame for this, because you are so beautifully spiritually first, you put spirituality at the center, and then everything comes out of that. Religious studies has for the longest time got away with putting spirituality in the backseat or not even in the, in the bus, you know, spirituality is like the fundamental question, like another survey question, I asked you, consciousness. And you went the, you know, it's a scientific question. You went again with the right answer. Max Planck consciousness is fundamental. Everything is consciousness and it grows off of that. I remember a few years ago, I this guy becomes, he's such a good guy, a Tantric guy too, he's interested in Tantric studies and stuff like that. But he gets kicked around on the show for the one appearance that he made. His name is Hugh Urban. Religious studies, Ohio State University, respected professor, wrote a book on Scientology. And what I really picked on him about is he tells the now famous story about Elrond Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, and Jack Parsons out in the desert, doing the sex magic ritual, or a Babylon thing to bring forth the antichrist. And again, Alistair Crowley connection again, that guy gets a lot of life. But the point is that the way that Hugh Urban processed it is the way that he is forced to process it by his religious studies department at Ohio State University. And that is, I don't know if it's true, I don't know if there's anything to it, but they believed it. And that's what's most important. And I'm like, no, dude, you got to get exactly opposite. The first and foremost question is, is there some possibility that it is real in some way? Does consciousness really exist? Does it extend beyond our being into this other dimension? That is the first question to ask. We don't skip over that question and say, well, they believed it. Let's just process all this from some kind of sociology. People get together and do things stuff. How does religious studies get by with such nonsense of dropping the ball and not being spirit first? Even if you're atheist, you can be spirit first, and you can say, well, damn it, I'm an atheist, but before I can go any further, I have to establish whether or not my philosophical belief in the biological robot and amenity universe, there is no consciousness. I have to decide whether that's true. So you decide if it's true, it's obviously true. But religious studies seems to just kind of sidestep it, which seems completely ridiculous. Now that's actually very, very fair statement and a question. So I must say I agree with you. It is very so to positive and negatives for academia. So I agree with you, it is extremely limiting. And very early in my, even before I was an academic, I realized that academia and this kind of rational search, because again, academia is completely committed to this rational part of mine, logic, you know, as the Aristotelian and Parthesian, you know, so it is, which I consider very limiting. And especially when you study religion and spirituality, it is very disappointing, because they, they deal with only artificial mental rational models, right. They do not deal with real spiritual experience, although nowadays it's changing, I must say, you know, I also, you know, participate in some writing papers that you know how to see spiritual experience but I had a similar experience because academically some years ago was writing about spiritual experiences and spiritual journeys, you know, and so on, my people, you know, have to sometimes leave a house to have a spiritual experience and so on. And, and, and I was like, such a lonely figure, you know, I'm not anymore, because these people thought I was a complete lunatic, you know, like so, career wise it was a suicide because on academia is all very mechanistic, you know, how many mentions how many people you get, you know, in other people's papers you go on academia.com and you know, this is a, and nobody was really interested when I was talking about spiritual experience and only some years later I met a few academics were actually right about it, but not in the again in a very limiting way very often, right, because spiritual experience, we have to come back to what we discussed previously, does it fit in into this kind of materialistic rational mind frame, and this is how academics operate, this is just another structure, it's another social structure academia. It's not necessarily, it's definitely not about the pursuit of wisdom. It is more about, you know, categorizing things, right, so other people who did presentations at this conference would say why people travel for pilgrimage is because this this this it has to be like in categories nobody wanted to say, Well, maybe they want a spiritual experience and we should ask what it is. But you know, they thought I was a lunatic because I was insisting on something that you know they thought it's just useless. So, so unfortunately, these are very serious limitations of academia and I realized that and it was very frustrating for me. One good thing about academia, especially in a such a luminous topic, you know, like spirituality is that they do check their sources. And when I started to look into the alternative traditions like, okay, I'm going to be controversial again. How many in, you know, embodiments of Murray Magdalene can happen on planet Earth at the moment and everybody gets a channel and everybody, and I actually was trying to be very democratic. So when people were writing to me, I believe that I'm an embodiment of Murray Magdalene, but I heard that there are others do you think it's possible and I said sure maybe you know we connected to some consciousness and it speaks through you and they would get upset with me because they want to be the only ones, you know. So I think, okay, so what academia good is extremely meeting because it deals only with one form really meeting form of consciousness. But at least they check their sources. So what the academia taught me is discernment. You know what I mean, like, okay, a very limited form of discernment but yeah. A very limited form of discernment but some discernment like, okay, I can, I, I own a spiritual experience but you know certain things and I write especially in my book about one popular spiritual teacher in this area, but I think he makes such jumps sometimes and I think like, honestly, you know, like, maybe, maybe this is true for you but you know I here I'm just going to be skeptical because you know I have no judgment, you know because he didn't do anything wrong you know he didn't rep children or anything so if it works for you but you know honestly now. So, so, but he is academia is extremely meeting and they do not even talk with not even over long stick, you know, spiritual experience. Well, you know one of the strengths of your book is that you do go cross culture with the goddesses immediately. Yeah, from the beginning. So, talk about that talk about the other goddesses that come into play and how you play off the Mary Magdalene thing and how you find these other threads that turn out to be incredibly powerful because when you do weave them together. It's pretty hard to argue with the thesis that you're kind of bringing forward. Actually, it came from my own spiritual experience again because as you know I was moved towards esoteric Hinduism and then I went back to marry Magdalene through nonstick teachers teachings, and I just realized you know that there are certain symbolisms you know that the same goddesses represent the same powers that they represent with the same symbols that they're all dressing red that they use this, there is a skull there which is actually the image for transcendence, and so on and I started to ask myself the question you know, could they basically be a metaphor or representation of is that different form of spiritual consciousness that you were speaking about. Because there are all of the similarities between Hindu goddesses, there's for example, goddess Rada, you know who is portrayed exactly a goddess Rada but actually goddess Sundari even more so who is, or even goddess Kali which is you know, can we share the weekend that we're naming it's you know it's most controversial of them. She's also considered a goddess of, you know, a country goddess. They have the same symbolism, you know, the same color, the same elements around them, you know the same flowers, the rose, you know, the red color, the skull, you know the passage between death and life. So these similarities are very difficult to ignore. So you do cover that extensively but you also cover other goddesses that people run across, Aphrodite, Isis, you weave those into the story too which I think is powerful because you remind us why this archetype is an archetype and how it does speak to us. And back to that other point, how it speaks to us, seems to speak to us differently for a man or a woman and I think that's a good thing. So men can kind of grow a little bit and women can kind of feel empowered a little bit that hey, this isn't something new that we just cooked up. That's right and I think you know I think that we are, you know, in this reality in which we live, we are caught in polarities but you know some polarities are beautiful such as like being a woman and being a man, for example, right. And you know the beautiful energy and chemistry and I talk also about erotic connection in my book that can happen because of this and I also don't want to be limiting here to men and women you know whatever it is you know this male and female energies playing together. And I think we are here for a reason in this particular way, and this polarities actually allow us to transcend themselves as well you know there are also tools you know and maybe not everything has to be so terribly serious and some of the gods especially the Asian Greek gods. I just had a recently different interview and we agreed you know they showed us how to be playful, you know they were not particularly you know responsible, right. They were really like spoiled celebrities, but you know, like an Aphrodite I just talk about it where she lost her power and so on but you know they were very charismatic and, and they were, and they had lots of fun, you know so this is part of this as well and how to be empowered as a woman and how to be empowered as a man in in a uplifting you know and an attractive way so to speak right so so so we can play with the polarities. Awesome I love the way that you put that. So there's, there's a lot to this book the other thing people will find is, it's a beautiful book. I mean just looking at it it's just the art I think you can see on the cover but then even in the pages you know are done so. What, what do you think about beauty as we do associate beauty more with this feminine energy what was your thought in making a book like this that looks like this. Beauty is very important for me I think I'm kind of naturally, and it's not even an intellectual choice I'm not really tuning to beauty and I see beauty in many things you know so even in we have a very small garden and you know and I see beauty everywhere. So that's very important for me and that's part of the reason why. And I think beauty is a form of transcendence, you know as long as we again do not demean it into some special attributes. So, so when I was writing this book, I when I was writing this book I wanted to be very readable you know so I didn't want to write an academic book for many reasons, and I want and I hope for this that you know it will be very pleasant reading because I think beauty also not only of transcendence but also sensual pleasure. Right, so I hope that this book would be that, and as far as for cover I want to thank Shia Sophia who is an artist from California very prolific artists who you know offered her painting for this book. And I actually, you know was looking at different paintings and then I was in meditation and I actually asked the book what face would you like to have. And when I reached out to several artists and you know this one came right through, and I actually gave Shia Law, Sophia, you know, different paintings which one would you be, you know, be willing and she said that one and I thought okay. So the book wants to have this face you know so I decided it's, it's not me anymore. You know, now it has its own life it sounds like a child right it has its own life, and it wanted to have this beautiful face. And this is what it is. So I think beauty is very important as a form of transcendence and spiritual experience you know later also wrote about it in his dialogue. It doesn't have to be called kind of Apollonian beauty and can be also a form of sensual beauty experiencing this consciousness is divine in simple things like in life you know just like being in a garden or you know, making love with someone you know that matters to you. How wonderful, how wonderful. Okay, so any other thoughts about the book stuff that we haven't covered in and where do you plan to go from here with it do you have another book in mind are you working on something else. No, not at the moment because at the moment I'm just enjoying the process and that the whole writing of the book was a form of liberation for me because I realized as I was writing this book and decided to write it this way. But a, as you mentioned it is full self exposure in a very intimate part of your life my life, but also, you know that I was a complete slave to the social engineering before because I for all my life I was completely obsessed with what my academic friends thing and I was also a part of the literary kind of elite, you know, because they like to call themselves like that. And they thought that I completely lost my mind as well like my academic colleagues. And then I decided, I just don't care anymore, you know that's my expression of my freedom and of my spirituality and my spirituality spirituality looks like that you know and it's not that has to look like that is just my experience of it. So at the moment I'm just enjoying the process like you know this interview. I think after that I would take some break, you know because I will need some rest. And if I write another book it probably would be about consciousness about this other form of consciousness right so because it just kind of naturally evolved into this but could not be a part of this book because you know it's just a different book. Well, in so many ways you've written the beautiful beautiful book about consciousness because that's that is ultimately what it's about. Our guest again has been Dr. Joanna Cueva, the book that you're going to want to check out the other goddess. Been awesome. You know, I loved every part of this I loved talking with you beforehand connecting studying it thinking about it. The book was it really sent me on a journey you know I remember I was just mentioning to my wife she goes Swimming is academic written a book on goddess is goddess energy or goddesses and she's like she perk perhaps she goes oh god I like that you know and it just even that little bit though it just connected me with that divide that is there that because we live in a meal dominated culture back to the kind of reality of the wokeness kind of thing which we did need wokeness in a way let's we're both saying that you know we can't deny it is that men especially can really benefit from this book because it It does in a very genuine way. Ask you to look at a different perspective in a different way in a way that that you do have a way of kind of getting there with some of the things that you mentioned that you know we have heard about before so that's wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you enjoyed the book. Thanks again to Joanna for joining me today on skeptical. The one question I tee up from this interview is how do you understand this relationship between sexuality and spirituality. And isn't it awesome that she's written a book about this I think it is awesome and I think her point about how we've let darkness. Dominate the discussion of sexuality is really an awesome awesome point there I've answered the question which I usually try not to do but I went ahead and did it what's your thoughts on it. Let me know best place skeptical form I wish you all would come over there it's getting pretty lonely until next time take care and bye for now.