 You mean I have to live out the rest of my life in this body No fucking way you got me into this you get me out Why not You're an abomination And now great against nature You prefer to everything. I've talked to you and used it for evil and you have to be stopped That's Chucky from I don't know one of the Chucky movies And he's consulting with the voodoo doctor that got him into this mess in the first place Of course, this is more movie fantasy But again, is it? For anyone who's really studied magic very much like today's awesome guess Richard Smolley The lines can get rather blurry You reference black magic That's gonna be immediately. That's where everyone goes well I think there is a certain reality to it Irish taxi driver Honolulu who Got involved with a native Hawaiian girl and The mother really did not like this at all She told him a whole lot, but he didn't and he suddenly started to Become subject to paralysis from the feet up little by little by little by little So then someone who is familiar with these things said, you know, I think there might be some Magic involved here. Let me go and talk to this mother I don't know. Maybe there is maybe not but I think that maybe if he gets on the next boat to the mainland things will be all right and You know that even in this cab driver was right and took the next boat to San Francisco in speaking of blurry lines What happens when we apply that same sensibility to Christianity is Jesus and egregore No, I think Jesus was a historical figure and Is Christ consciousness and egregore because Jesus as a historical figure is kind of a cop out I mean Bart Ehrman who is essentially an atheist thinks Jesus is a historical figure, too He was some wandering guy who went around and said a couple of things You almost come to the point of saying that in the in the book the truth about magic you say the Christian gods Can best be understand as an egregore the Tibetan Buddhists call it a tulpa. I wouldn't say so This is a great level three chat with a truly remarkable researcher and knowledgeable guy I gave him a pretty hard time, but I have the ultimate respect for Richard. Let's get right to the interview This skeptical where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers thinkers and their critics today We welcome Richard Smolley to skeptico Richard of course is a Harvard and Oxford trained scholar and religion and philosophy and a recognized expert on all sorts of stuff related to Christian mysticism Gnosticism theosophy and all other kinds of stuff that we like to talk about here on skeptico Richard has a new book out the truth about magic which I'm sure we'll talk quite a bit about But I'm hoping we can also get him to talk about some of his other research and some of his other work Particularly one that I've referenced before on this show and in my book how God became God What scholars are really saying about God and the Bible an excellent book from a guy who again is recognized among religious scholars as somebody That really needs to be paid attention to even if he a lot of times steps outside of the bounds of normal kind of academic religious scholarship which is much needed. I mean you don't want to stay in those boundaries because there's not much happening there. It's just something we should really talk about because it's something I've dealt with on this show and that's part of the reason I was drawn to Richard in the first place is kind of getting this understanding of who we can really rely on how we should sort through all this important information about spirituality and the religiosity that's associated with it. So, there is a lot to unpack here. I hope we can get to all of it. I might piss Richard off and this could end early. But I am going to risk going to some of those other places because they are of my interest and I'm really not interested in a coast to coast kind of can questions kind of thing. I do want to say because we might get into some of that stuff that I have a tremendous amount of respect for Richard Smolley for his work for his deep spirituality that he is both wrestling with you can tell and a very dynamic and important way, and is also communicating effectively with people who are equally trying to find their way on the spiritual path. So, with all that Richard I know you can probably don't know what's coming now so welcome thanks for joining me. Well it's a pleasure to be here and I very much look forward to it and go ahead feel free to piss me off. You know for not pissing each other off, at least a little bit I mean we don't want to piss each other off all the time but if you're not risking doing that. And I feel like you're not really fully engaging the dialogue, especially on a topic that is as a controversial as the stuff we're going to talk about today because let's go back and talk about your current book your latest book I should say the truth about magic. Tell us a little bit about that book, and you know the usual stuff, why you wrote it who it's for, and you know brief overview. Well I wrote this book in two days. And it's part of a larger project, GND media, the publisher of the book had me do an audio visual video simultaneous recording. It was two days, which was a year ago almost exactly. And then I edited the transcript. So this is an edited transcript of basically me speaking. And I think this is good, because it forced me to keep things as simple and clear and concise as possible. So that is what this book, and what the audio video series is about it's an attempt to introduce people to this whole world of alternate realities including magic, the occult, and many other things psychic powers, many other things that they've been wondering about, but never have really felt they've had kind of entry point into. And that's what this book is about. Okay, because, you know, for folks who are listening to this show that pick up this book. There's definitely some nuggets in there that are really quite profound and well written you're a fantastic writer we all know that. But I think a lot of people are going to struggle with where you're coming from in terms of this introduction, who you're speaking to. I mean, when we talk about the occult, when we talk about magic. Most of us now are thinking about magic in modern day culture, you know, Damien Eccles and high magic and celebrity magic and I pulled up musicians who've actually practiced magic and Netflix magic. We are obsessed in our culture with magic, but it's not as, I don't know, kind of dumb down as it is in this book I just wonder aren't most folks way past this magic is real stuff. Well, let me put it this way. I read something a few days ago that said that the average American has a seventh grade reading level. So, although there are many Kanya Shanti, lots of edgy artists, magician types out there. I know some of them. This is not really for them, because they know all this stuff already. This is for people who haven't got a clue. It's the type of very sophisticated edgy types you're talking about, maybe interested in some of it from what I have to say, from my own point of view. But I'm hoping they also be interested in it and saying, Well, look, my cousin doesn't know anything about this stuff and where do I start. Well, you could hand them this book, and at least give them a handle on it. So this is not, this is not kind of written for the Kanya Shanti for the people who already know a great deal about it. It's written for the average Joe, and I think that is much needed. Okay, but if we're really to jump right in the middle of that, I mean, you know, is Damien Eccles from the West Memphis three. Are you on board with his understanding of magic is Alistair Crowley do what the wills. You know, here's how to compel the spirits to do your bidding kind of stuff. I mean, here's a guy who was convicted of raping and killing three kids in Arkansas convicted and never, you know, I mean, there's, there's, there's a whole bunch of kind of bad stuff to keep it really simple whether we'll leave the evil term out of it that is associated with people who are going down the magic path without thinking super deeply about it. So I'm just not sure. I want you to clarify when you say they already know what does what does Damien Eccles know. I don't think he knows shit. I think he's really missed the point about what the spiritual path is. And the fact that he's wrapped it in this word called magic and is troubling to me. And I think we need to sort that out in a way that is beyond kind of seventh grade reading stuff. Any similar concerns or your, what do you think. Well, in the first place, let me let me state right out in front that I have never up until this moment heard of Damien Eccles, which you just so what you say about his work is all I know about it. I can make certain conclusions about it, just from, you know, some of the things you said like a Crowley fellow ma do with that will she'll be the whole of the law so that is, that is part one section of magic. I think one thing that needs to be pointed out is that when you take something like this. You are encompassing an enormous moral spectrum. As a spectrum of practice, as well as a spectrum of theory. Let's take two other areas with huge spectrums. Let's take religion. Religion has often pointed humanity toward some of its highest goals and highest achievements, particularly artistic achievements if you think about it. It's responsible for all sorts of crimes and mishaps and lies. And then let's take another discourse which is science. Yeah, science created the coded vaccine. But on the other hand, a lot of the environmental problems that we're dealing with now are part of the science and the result of the scientific worldview. So to say, well, any of these is they got part of this is that not not so really science that's not really religion. Well, in a way that special pleading. So there are all sorts of things that go on in magic from the best to the worst. And that only means that magic is very very much a human phenomenon. Well, is it I mean that's kind of the point of your book is that it's it's really not in that in the way that we've normally limited our understanding of human endeavors, and in particular the way science and atheistic science which is by design. What's kind of been my thing is that, you know, the science mean that you are a biological robot in a meaningless universe that you couldn't possibly have any understanding of anything beyond your five senses is a very deliberate attempt to kind of control this ability that you have to reach these extended realms that you're talking about in the book so I guess first I'd want to drive that stake in the ground. What do you think about that. Yeah, well we're witnessing the collapse of the scientific worldview. Because it's come afoul of its own internal confusions and contradictions, because many of which are implicit in what you just said, because on the one hand. It's all a question of what we can perceive through our five senses enhanced by electron microscopes, the Hubble, you know, spacecraft, whatever, but nonetheless, it's still a matter of our five senses. Now, on the other hand, science is also telling us that these five senses are highly limited, highly conditioned, perceiving only a very small part of what actually may be out there, as shown first by the fact that scientific theories and results are becoming more and more anomalous in terms of, you know, common sense thought. In the second place, well you have, I believe it's Donald Hoffman, somewhere in your vicinity if you see Irvine was saying well, our senses evolved really just be able to function and you know, decide whether the animal is going to kill you or you're going to kill the animal. And it excludes a whole bandwidth of things because they're not relevant to our survival. So you cannot then argue that this is very, very limited view. And that at the same time as the scientific worldview pretends to do, that's telling us everything, even everything that's knowable. Another point in fact is science has limited itself to five senses, as conventionally known. Somehow, all over the decades, all over the centuries, all over the world, all sorts of different cultures, people have real perceptions that do not accord with the five senses as conventionally understood. Oh, by the way, I'm sure you've dealt. Well, I know whom you've interviewed so you certainly dealt with this. There's certainly a number of researchers who say well, you know, actually science has proven the existence of psychic phenomenon, at least a certain degree. So all of this makes this whole scientific worldview, cave in on itself. And I think we're witnessing that today. It may even have disastrous consequences. Now, I did not say that we're witnessing a collapse of the scientific method, because the scientific method as a method are narrowly focused is a legitimate one. On the other hand, its conclusions can never be final. So Sir Karl Popper said, if you think you've come up with final results in science, you've given up the game. Yeah, so let's kind of stay with the science thing for just a minute. I hear you what you're saying Donald Hoffman I think he's terrific he's been on the show one of my favorite guests and the limiting through the five senses. I got it. And in terms of science's ability or inability to measure, which is what science is really all about is measuring and comparing. And when it acknowledges that it doesn't have the means to fully measure, then it's kind of obsolete it itself. Another way that it absolutely did itself is really a hundred years ago in the whole quantum theory mocks plank you can't get behind consciousness. Consciousness is fundamental double slit experiment, which I think you know one of the most important experiments of our modern time is the one done by Dean Raiden where he took the double slit experiment said well let's take it to its natural conclusion. Let's put a highly skilled meditator in there, and I'll generate a photon beam through my little photon beam generator and my little photon beam collector, and I'll ask him to interfere with the photon beam, and consistently, you know six sigma result science that's off the charts statistically, he was able to do that and show that and that's replicated throughout many labs many replications of that experiment. Nobel Prize winning stuff, never get one but the point being that now we're saying and you're not in your head so I know you're totally down with this and you talk about this in the book. So we introduce consciousness into the equation. Our conventional science as we know it model is obsolete it, because now every experiment needs to have a little asterisk next to it, which says, we did the best we can and measuring this guys but we really couldn't measure consciousness. So we just kind of left that out of the equation. Well, how big is that asterisk. So, but let me unravel that. The question I really, I guess I was asking Richard is, are we to believe that that is an accident that sciences insistence that we are not these rich spiritual beings who are on a spiritual journey. Science is insistence that we are nothing more than biological robots in a meaningless universe. Are we to assume that that's just accidental that those guys just like, gosh darn it that's the best we could figure out. I don't think it is. I think it's by design, I think it's a social engineering project, because people who are of that mindset are easier to control. Well, there are a lot of reasons for this. And one reason is that historically science and religion have been bitter enemies and remain so. Very soon as when science was born in the 17th century, the churches and churches got very very nervous about this, and either tried to pull it deny it, or sit set its limits, very very narrowly. With science. Again, science, the science scientific worldview, the worldview that you've just described is, I believe obsolete. The scientific method is a method of inquiry will remain useful as long as anyone wants to use it. So I do distinguish very strongly between those things. There is something as you know called logical positivism, which is obsolete except maybe it's not so obsolete, which says that no statement that cannot be scientifically verified is either true or meaningful. Well, in its pure form that didn't last much more than a decade, but the logical positive mindset stays with us to this decade. So science is simply, in my view, science does what it does. But it steps beyond its bounds by saying no other method of knowledge and I say knowledge. I'm not saying faith, because faith as you know is basically a bullshit word. Other methods of knowledge are totally invalid. And that is where I think science is overstepping its bounds. Okay, I'm going to try one more time. If I was interested in controlling the world and somebody has to control the world. That is our that the evidence is clear. I mean, we try the United States tries to control the world we are an empire that is our goal that is there's a self preservation part of that. But that is why we fight wars. That is why we undermine other governments that is why we spy that is why we do all this stuff, because we're trying to control the outcome. And as part of doing that, it's become clear, especially in our lifetime both of us are old enough to see that there are many social engineering projects that just are later revealed as being true the one I always is my touchstone because half people know it and half people don't but you know, Gloria Steinem. And so, and the reason I bring that up is not to talk about the women's movement, but I just get tired I just had an interview yesterday with the Bruce Grayson that, you know, just eminently excellent near death experience researcher. And I kind of wound up going in kind of the same territory is, do you really think this stuff isn't control. Why wouldn't this stuff be controlled. Why wouldn't someone have an interest in where culture goes. And again to Gloria Steinem is, you know, we can argue about how involved she was, but how about, why the hell does the CIA care about the women's movement in which direction it goes. Why do they care about the LSD movement why are they deeply involved in that, because they're deeply involved in social engineering and control. And as soon as we accept that. Why do we think they're not playing that game and science of course they are. There was a lot which is that one I didn't know that fact about Gloria Steinem I knew she had been a playboy bunny so maybe the CIA was trying to get her to infiltrate the playboy club and undermine Hugh Hefner's playboy philosophy. I think you're being sarcastic there but but I mean you, it's almost like you got a pause and do the Google, do the Google search, see or say she was CIA, and I don't know if it's like a 60 minutes interview, but it was like a that level. And then go back and look at why she even came out and admitted it is because somebody out at her, somebody in the woman's movement auditor, and then go look at why they out at her and then you have memos from her CIA boss saying that. So, you know, and this is kind of the thing I pinged you on a little bit with the book. It's like, there's some history here that I feel like we have to kind of again drive a stake in the ground and say okay did that happen, or did that not happen, because we're going to build a lot of implications on top of that that if we don't ground ourselves in that. You know. Well I certainly think historical research and there and has certain validity. I am not a postmodernist or a deconstructionist or conspiracy theorist that says this is all lies. I will refer you in fact to the only most factual book I've read about the CIA which is called Legacy of ashes. And if you read this book Legacy of ashes and I've gotten the author's name. The history of the CIA is one continuous us. Legacy of bumbling, whatever they did, they did wrong. They blew the Bay of Pigs, they blew the North the Korean War, they. Well, in the Iraq war started, partly because Cheney knew how bad the CIA was, and for his own personal reason just chose to disbelieve them they said, no I don't think there's any weapons of mass destruction. So my point here is, I guess I better not apply to the CIA for a job anytime soon, but my point is, you're right, there's all of this control. All of it. But what is the net effect of all of this control, because no one entity has enough control to enforce it worldwide conspiracy theorists like to believe there are, but they don't really have very good grounds for thinking It's more like there's a conspiracy of a large number of powerful competing interests whose interests dovetail sometimes sometimes very much conflict and this, what would that reduce chaos, or at least some measure of chaos. What do we see in society of the world today, some measure of chaos. Well, let me try and pull us back on course a little bit, but hopefully with a bridge that connects, because my real point just is that I think we have to look with a skeptical view towards these memes that are passed on, and the one is the scientific I'm not so sure that we already covered that. I'm not so sure that that's an authentic organic meme. I'm not so sure that materialism is going to fall or is collapsing. I don't believe that, because I think the evidence where I was really going Richard is, you want evidence that materialism is insufficient explanation for reality as we experience it. Well, we had it 100 years ago, right so Schrodinger and mox plank and all those guys, they were mystics right. They said hey, sorry, but this is where experiments have led us to consciousness is fundamental you can't get behind consciousness they did the double slit experiment they said what this implies is you know, if a tree falls in the forest, well, if no one's there there, you know, none of it happens because consciousness is fundamental. And that has been taken out of the equation, I think by design but I said we're going to get back to your world. I recently interviewed a guy. And this is back to the book, but also your work in general. So I interviewed a terrific guy, Dr Hugh urban religious scholar Ohio State University, esteemed university respected scholar wrote a book on Scientology, right. And if you're in academia in religious studies, you can't call Scientology a cult, even though we all know it's a cult, you have to call it a new religious movement. And we understand the limitations of that because if you really look at Christianity it's hard not to call it a cult. If you really look at just about every religion. It has cultish aspects that you'd be hard pressed to kind of differentiate how those are different from Scientology, but at a kind of basic street level we do understand Scientology is more of a cult. The idea is that he traced back the history of Elron Hubbard and Jack Parsons Elron Hubbard being the founder of Scientology and Jack Parsons being the founder of Jet Propulsion Labs and both those guys were a number one students of Alistair Crowley in the constant communication about Alistair Crowley about the workings and the magical rituals and sex magic rituals that they were doing. And in fact, back to our friend Dr Hugh urban, Ohio State, he says yes, I can verify that they were out in the desert in Nevada, doing an oral Babylon ritual in order to bring forth the anti Christ, and they were doing that under the direction of Crowley again. And I said, Okay, well, doesn't that trouble you at least a little bit. Dr urban, and he said no, he said I've seen a lot of stuff. He says it really doesn't matter. If it's true if there's any reality to it, it only matters what they believe. So this is the kind of post modernist. I can't deal with extended consciousness. I can't deal with magic. I can't deal with anything spiritual. So, again, to me, it is a direct result of that scientific mindset that's instilled. And of course I push back go. Well, that's kind of ridiculous. I mean the first thing that we have to know is, is there any chance that this is real. Are there extended realms. Can we compel entities that might exist in those other realms to do our bidding, until we can answer that question, we really can't deal with that history, we can't just say, Oh, it doesn't matter if it's real or not. And that I think is the state of what we're calling religious studies these days. Do you agree with that assessment of where that that a lot of that thinking is at and do you see that as problematic relative to what you're trying to bring forth with with this book and your other books. Hey, let me insert a commercial. This is called the dice game of Shiva, how consciousness creates the universe. This is a book I came out with in 2009. So I guess I'm also saying that it all comes back to consciousness. That much said, religious studies. I was just sending an email today about a book in religious studies published by none other than Princeton University Press to someone I said, Well, I think this woman missed the point. I think most of it misses the point. Although, very likely, as Hugh Urban says yes, Jack Parsons and curly probably corresponded at X time in my place and so on. All of that is legitimate. It doesn't take us very far, and it doesn't take us very far in the direction. I think you want to look into. I would say simply that if you are going to be genuinely empirical, genuinely empirical. You have to take the whole of human experience into account. Not just the five senses and not just the five senses as focused on the typical repeatable experiment. And the experience of humanity is full of exactly what you're talking about. And throughout all cultures throughout all places times, the only exception is ours. And that could well be because we've had it hammered into our head for the last 150 years that it's nonsense. So, so if you're going to be genuinely empirical and genuinely consider all the evidence that is the evidence of human experience, you have to bring this religious experience into it. Now, that doesn't mean you have to believe every last little thing everybody said, in fact, examining this religious experiences paranormal experience requires as much or more skeptic but genuine skepticism. I don't know exactly how you think of the word skepticism or skeptic, but at this point. I don't think of skeptic in what I believe it's an original sense and I don't think it's used its original sense that is to say, I really want to know. I don't know yet but I do want to know the skeptic today and when someone says I'm a skeptic. They're basically saying, Yeah, I know this is all bunk when they know nothing of the kind. If you really want to take you have to take this into account and you can't just write it off and say, Well, it's all imagination it's all just illusion it's all here by here's another little one. It's all anecdotal. It's all anecdotal. Yeah, yeah, the whole human history of history of human race is anecdotal. You're not going to repeat the battle of the water battle of water fortunately. You know, yeah, you have to be skeptical, genuinely wishing to know genuinely incorporating all of this, as well as scientific findings into some kind of world view. Now, has our civilization done that yet. No, it has made every step to do the exact opposite to divide everything up and exclude all sorts of things. And that resulted in confusion, dissociation on a mass level, anxiety, depression, willingness to believe all sorts of absolute rubbish. That's what we have. Okay, let me, let me kind of go back to Hugh urban. There's no problem in the soft sciences. I see a problem in the hard sciences in their insistence on materialism which, as I said, I think is at least influenced by a social engineering mean that likes to see things go that way. In the social sciences. I think the way that has kind of manifested itself is this kind of postmodernism as you said, you know, relativism well nothing can really be true or understood you just interviewed a guy and well we'll get into that in a minute Gregory who's done a cross cultural analysis and near death experiences. And I will interject this story, because it's really important I think his work is super important. So, again, when you go cross culture over time the benefit of our audience. It's the best way to kind of weed out the social, the social construct part of something, you know, is this just something we've cooked up in our own cookie culture, or does it extend beyond time into other cultures. So Gregory Shushan does some very important work and says, let's look at near death experience. Let's look at that across cultures across time. And he finds, aha, I'm finding consistent threads. And he's trying to explain to me as methodology and he says, it's difficult work to do, because you're dealing with different accounts. And then our first hand accounts, all of them are second hand accounts, but some of them are like third hand accounts. A guy told me that a guy told me kind of thing. He said but through that, you know, you can still put together some good information. And then he kind of sat on paraphrasing you said, until you talk to other people in academia, who say, we can't rely on any accounts of anyone who ever lived, because it's all polluted by. This is kind of the ultimate postmodern. It's all polluted by culture. It's all through this lens of, you know, cultural culture culture, which is contrived, and it's, you know, some micro aggression individual versus, but this is real dialogue that they have among people. And when I look at religious studies as a whole, I just go, this is just gobbledygook, who is listening to any of this as being real. And I guess I'd return to the other question, do you think there are they for real are they really, who are they speaking to who's listening to any of that stuff. I agree with the researcher in so far as I know about what she said about near death experiences I mean I certainly read enough about them I have not had one per se. But yes, I mean my wife is watching the Netflix series on this right now and you know I'm not really that interested in it, because you know I've read so many of these cases, they all sound the same, which validates them but it doesn't make it for very fascinating So that kind of dialogue of the of the man you discuss with academics in a hard academics is I think very legitimate and very powerful. I am not really going to attempt to defend conventional religious studies in academia. I don't have a PhD because I didn't want one because I didn't want to become a professor, and the older I get the bladder I am I didn't, because I realized what an intellectual trap that is. And besides, particularly if you want to like get tenure or retain some kind of, you know, there's a lot you just can't say it's likely inquisition except you don't get burned at the stake. No, I wouldn't defend that stuff at all. And I think that kind of research that you're talking about and the kind of dialogue you're talking about. Well of course no two people are ever going to agree on everything or sometimes even anything, but I think it's a perfectly legitimate and I'm glad this kind of thing is happening. And all I can say is there's a lot further to go. You know, we're going to stay on Dr Gregory Shushan for a minute. First off, he is, I guess in some respects maybe a living example of what you feared right so he's going down the academic route. He's been starved basically I mean they toss him a little something here or there with some affiliation to do something he's a brilliant guy. But you know, once you put on those, as you're saying those academic handcuffs, you're really kind of stuck you can't find it, you never figure out another way to earn a living. So you're always going going back and kissing the hand. The other interesting thing the super interesting thing the most important thing about his, his research is he comes to the conclusion, and it's pretty radical, but he really backs it up is that virtually every religion has developed their beliefs about the after life from near death experiences. And he has some amazing accounts. And one of the things that he did that was really smart about his research. He looked at primarily indigenous cultures. So, you know, leaving Christianity and other mainstream religions off the table but then bring them in at the end and saying there's no reason to believe that they would be any different. So he goes and looks at all these different religious traditions and Native American traditions and oceanic traditions and just all over the world throughout history. And he says invariably and there's even documentation among those accounts, where the shaman will say, Oh, you know what, Richard just had a near death experience that sounds real. We need to change our beliefs, because they really did go to the other side, they really did bring back some information, and then those become the beliefs and they become part of the religion. Well, I am again, not familiar with Dr. Shoshan's work, except as you described it, just a superficial responses. That's makes a great deal of sense. I think I would be a little more cautious about saying that all religious theory all religious teaching comes from near death experiences. Just to clarify, he said they're afterlife beliefs. Well, even so, but I think you could argue about whether it's 100% that or a very significant part of that, but it certainly seems basically plausible. Another thing that is of course, even more problematic is visits from the dead. And for people to have visits from recently deceased family members, often in a way that is, well, cannot be written off entirely as imagination or wishful thinking. I used to edit a magazine called noses, and we would get chiefs of these things in. We didn't publish the stuff that wasn't the kind of thing we published it. I would, you know, send them back with a polite note. But they were sending us because they didn't know who to send it else to send it to. Most of these people aren't going to tell their families and friends, because if you start talking about that your family and friends become your worst enemies. Yeah, oh yeah, bullshit, you didn't believe that. You know that you know all that business. In any case, I think what he says is what you say of his work sounds very plausible. As far as my own work goes, I am a writer, I have various day jobs, doing various things including writing. And that gives me an enormous amount of freedom. And it enables me to write and say anything I want, because I don't belong to a church. I don't need to care about a tenure or an academic position that I never wanted anyway. I can say what I want, and people are free to take it at face value. This is what I say, you can agree with 73% of it and disagree with the other 27%. It gives me a great deal of freedom at least to be reasonable intellectually honest about where I'm coming from, which freedom I would not, I believe have in the, in the university. Okay Richard let me try and come back to the book on a couple of points that I think are interesting that everyone is interested in you reference black magic. It's going to be immediately that's where everyone goes, can I do people really can they cast a spell, it's a fear based thing, you know, might I be the victim of magic. And you kind of say, both, you kind of say well, you don't need to worry about it too much, but the best you can tell from your research is there is a reality to that. Do you want to speak about that at all. Well I think there is a certain reality to it. And one case that comes to mind is, and this happened a number of decades ago was this taxi driver of Honolulu Irish taxi driver Honolulu who got involved with a native Hawaiian girl. And the mother really did not like this at all. And, you know she told him to hold off but he didn't. And he suddenly started to become subject to paralysis from the feet up little by little by little by little. So, then someone who is familiar with these things said, you know I think there might be some magic involved here let me go and talk to this mother. I don't know, maybe there is maybe not, but I think that maybe if he gets on the next boat to the mainland things will be alright. And you know that evening this cab driver was right and took the next boat to San Francisco. But interesting thing about this, if you take the story. Let's say the stories to. And there are others like it. One is this cab driver didn't believe in any of this stuff. Right. To, he didn't know it was happening. So you can't say it's all suggestion, it's all playing on someone's credulity, if they don't believe in something in the first place, and they don't know that it's happening. Now, not to throw out a pointer that may be misused, but if you're casting a spell on someone, you don't want them to know about it, because they can take countermeasures. So this, I say, takes it a little bit out of the realm of the nascebo effect, you know, believing something will harm you and it will. So I think there's something in there. I think it's possible to become particularly if you're psychologically weak to get very much afraid of this, and in a way to almost bring it upon yourself, whether by imagination or whether you're letting something in. I think there is something to it. You know, and of course it's always discouraged largely because it usually backfires on the practitioner, eventually at any rate, someone once said, there are no old black magicians, they just look old. I think there, I think this sort of thing does happen. The reason I'm being perhaps a bit almost equivocal about it is that when someone's by starts buying into this, they start buying into, you know, the Hollywood version of it. And that's because our life imitates art, all of those people you just you've just shown are basically doing that. Hey, you know, this is what let's be the Hollywood occultists that we've seen about in all these movies. Hey, that sounds like fun. So, I think all of those elements have to be factored into it. And this is not to say that every attempt at this kind of thing is real or valid, or has any consequences, but I'm willing to the possibility that some do. Richard, this is the point though, that is the launching point. That's the beginning. And, and I feel like you're kind of leaving you're just going to bring us to that point and say that's the end of it. I mean, take it take any one of those little tidbits that you left hanging there is the river reality to it. It certainly seems like there is, from an anthropological standpoint, people have gone to other cultures studied voodoo studied curses studied shamanistic practices throughout the world that do this and consistently as you're alluding to they come back, at least the ones who are honest about it and say, it's pretty undeniable that there seems to be witnessed accounts of this people are disinterested parties witnessed it all the rest of that. So that's one tidbit that we just can't leave hanging out there. We then need to say, how would we begin to investigate that how would we understand that how would we understand how to wrestle with that in our lives, and then equally with the celebrity magic, you know, and you mentioned the Hollywood thing. And I was not only talking about, you know, Damien Eccles, but musicians, who we all know have talked for a long time about selling their soul to the devil in order to gain certain powers, but we cannot just take that stuff and just dismiss it because we're kind of given, we're kind of given two different versions of it by our culture. One part of our culture the scientific culture just denies that any of that could possibly be true, but eat it they just say, don't pay any attention to it, it can't possibly true be true. And it's a whole other part if you go to Netflix. And if you go to just popular culture and you look at celebrities. There's a wink in a nod. Well, of course this is true. Of course, this is how the universe really works. And let me tell you how to marshal these entities for your benefit. And why the hell wouldn't you, if you can get the spirits on your side. I love your point about there are no old black magicians they just look at. Give me the scientific evidence for that are we at the point where we maybe need to start taking this stuff seriously and start applying some real research into understanding what's going on. Well, I guess my response to that is okay. Design an experiment that would satisfy. I think you'd have a bit of difficulty doing it. And oh by the way, this stuff is not quite like stuffing makeup down the rats throat until you figure out how much it takes to kill him. Because frankly it doesn't matter whether the scientist is a good mood, or bad mood or whatever if he's stuffing this makeup down the rats throat. The rat will die with a certain amount of makeup in its gut. You know some statistical basis. But in this stuff that the mental, because you're dealing in, shall we say mental realities, the mental state of the investigator has an enormous amount to do with it. I mean, even more than in a quantum experiment that the Dean Raiden thing is just experiment is certainly an example, but any of what are you going to do go to a magical ritual. You know, well, what findings did you determine. I suppose you could. But Raiden is doing that I don't know if you've seen his latest book but his latest book is a magic book. About magic about bringing magic into the lab and I appreciate where he's going I don't know that he'll really get there, but and I interviewed him about that. But why not. You know he's saying if this is a aspect of nature, and we need to understand more broadly kind of what you're saying, beyond the five senses. Why wouldn't we try and apply the scientific method to it. I commend him for at least opening himself up to it. And if he can develop experiments that test this kind of thing and knowing him maybe a little bit and knowing his work a little bit. I have no reason to doubt that he could. I'm all for it. And let's find out what he discovers. It's not that it's off limits. It's certainly not like it's a matter of faith. It's just simply, okay, go there if you can. Nobody in my humble view is ever going to get to the end. If only for Carl Popper's reason, you know, you know, you think you've got final results you just given up the game. So it's legitimate. I support it. I of course, like everybody else, no only a tiny fraction of what's going on in this work, but I don't see any problem with it. I'll be interested to see their conclusions. So that's certainly fine with me. No, I agree. And I also agree those limitations. I respect because he does such careful work anyway, but I also respect just the effort the saying, Okay, I realize it's the kind of post materialism science that says, Okay, I realize the games up and realize we can't really measure everything. But with those limitations now acknowledged, what can we seem to understand. So I'm going to bring one other guy into the equation. I'm sure you haven't heard of this guy, but he's fantastic. He's just been so influential to me as I ran across him because I've been, I was doing a series of shows on evil. Things that we all kind of acknowledge, you know, horrible crimes that people are doing against children or stuff that we can all point to and say, Ah, in this great discussion of is there such a thing as evil is there such a thing as a moral imperative. Well, at least we can say, Yeah, that to me probably does go in that direction. So I'm doing these shows. A clinical psychologist from Grand Rapids, Michigan, named Tom Zinser Dr. Tom Zinser and practice for a long time says Alex you don't really understand the difference between evil and darkness. He goes on to tell me that in his practice. He had pretty broad practice worked with a lot of different people did a lot of hypnotherapy in his work. Kind of along the normal lines, you know, I'm afraid of spiders I'm afraid of water, but then had also gotten into work with people who had been victims of satanic ritual abuse, which if anyone has any doubts is very, very real. I don't know about the satanic part of that because we really don't know what that word means, and we can reference your excellent book, how God became God and you can see that historically if you go looking for Satan, he kind of slips through your fingers. Maybe if you just stick to the theme of the satanic perversion do harm to other people. Hey, that pops up a lot through culture. Maybe I'll pause right there and let you speak to that. Yeah, well I think in terms of the world we know it. There is such a thing as evil. I will say categorically about you although I know nothing about you. I would say that categorically about every person who listens to this or ever listen to this. You have known some good in your life and some evil. This is very wild. But you both, you know, what good and evil is through experience. And this goes back to the book of Genesis, which, although a myth, in one sense is profoundly true in another, the human race wanted to know good and evil. So here we are. You got what you wanted. And you get to experience both no matter how rich and lucky you are how poor and miserable you are. So there is that. I don't know that's that's that's kind of what I have to say that so you know, okay, maybe maybe then Richard can I pull you back into, because you do a beautiful job of this in pull you back to your other book, or one of your other books for many books, how God became God, where you trace back this story of the devil, as he pops up, and how he kind of changes over time in order to advance the story or to advance where they want to take the story in terms of the religion. Do you have any, any thoughts on that you want to share any of that. Well, I'll pull together some thoughts. No, not so much from that but from the truth about magic. I am willing to say that contrary to scientific theory or not, there is such a thing as thought forms. There is to say, thoughts have a certain substance in the world of the catalyst called yet zero the world of forms you experience it in dreams fantasy so on. And if a certain thought form is given energy through focus, either revered or feared as someone I think it was Andrew Carnegie you put it that way. It will have a kind of objective existence. It is a human creation, it's a collective human creation. But because it's had so much energy poured into it. It has a certain quasi independent, at least flavor of existence. So do I believe in the devil in the personal form. No, I think there is this devil in this collective thought form has a word in the world of magic is called an egregore collective thought form it's what I just said, Satan, the devil is an egregore. This entity this thought that has an enormous amount of power and you can, you know, you can tap into it if you want is Jesus and egregore. No, I think Jesus was a historical figure. And is Christ consciousness and egregore because Jesus as a historical figure is kind of a cop out. I mean, Bart Ehrman who is essentially an atheist thinks Jesus is a historical figure to he was some wandering guy went around and set a couple of things. I mean, I just you almost come to the point of saying that in the in the book, the truth about magic, you say the Christian gods can best be understand as an egregore that Tibetan Buddhist call it a topa. I am down with that I think we are co creators of our reality. You know, but if you really want to go there I mean you're going to piss a lot of people off but wouldn't wouldn't a lot of Christ consciousness which is definitely real people experience it when they have a near death experience. Wouldn't a lot of that be best understood as a collective thought form. I wouldn't say so. But obviously no under obligation to agree with me. As I said, really in many of my books. If you peel back your experience. You get back to some pure witnessing I capital I. And the Hindus call this odd man. The Christians call it the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God or I am. And that is not an egregore, because that is fundamentally what we are. And it is consciousness because, as I said conscious creates conscious creates the universe. So no I don't think those things are egregores. Now that much said. A lot of energy has been given into this image of Jesus this image of God, and all of those things are God for example I believe in God if you want to answer that question, but I also believe that God is far beyond our conceptions of him. Nevertheless, being humans were bound to form some conception of him. Well it would be, is it a human for of course it is because we're humans. As he often he said in horses had God, they make them look like horses. That's kind of necessary part of our experience. And I think, frankly, we have to do that part of it, while realizing that it's not the absolute truth. While thinking when you think these images of yours are the real thing, you become an idolater. And that's what idolatry is, you think some image is the thing it's represented really, whether that's a statue, a doctrine, the image on a stained glass you see in church. It's a little different, but I have to cast some light on what I think I've really been interested in near death experience I've probably 100 shows on it. Because I think in a lot of ways, I don't think it's like perfect, but it does kind of cut through a lot of the cultural filtering and other just personal egoic filtering that we apply to the spiritual experience. At least that's what it seems it seems kind of a little more authentic. I've interviewed a number of Christians about their near death experience and I've gotten varied responses. Ian McCormick as a guy who came on and you know there's Christians like Ian who are attempting to kind of co-op the near death experience, even though that's not what the data suggests and say hey if you didn't see Jesus like I did. Man you didn't have a near death experience that was Satan messing with you on the other side. And I've also interviewed other folks who have had a near death experience and have encountered what they understand to be Christ consciousness in a very direct way and and and they report that consistently and researchers in near death experience can tell you statistically how many people do. So I'm wondering when you say what what differentiations are you making how do you understand the historical Jesus as different than this kind of co-creation that is Christ consciousness because or do we even I'm jumping in there. Do you believe that when people encounter Christ consciousness through a near death experience or maybe through another spiritually transformative experience. What do you think they're experiencing. I am not going to be lured into the trap of saying what other people did or didn't experience. And I too many times you hear oh you couldn't experience that those your imagination. I'm not going to fall into that trap I'm not going to say where these people did experience Christ consciousness or not because I don't know, because I didn't have their experience, but I will say this, it does seem that these near death experiences, the entities and realities encountered in them. To reflect the belief system of the individual. That is why this man says he you know hey man if you didn't see Jesus you just weren't there. It's also why you read the Tibetan book of the dead, and all of these forms have the forms of the Tibetan gods. Why because that's their conceptual structure, you have an experience and you fit in your own conceptual structure. And this is true of day to day mundane experience as it is in the near death realms, because yeah I have a computer in front of me I'm fitting it into my conceptual structure. If I had a different conspec contact context, I would, you know, not know what it was for think it was a work of the evil one or you know something like that. Those experiences can be genuine. They are going to be closed in the shall we say visual language you can best understand and I'm most familiar with usually. Yeah I guess where I was going is how does that relate for you to the historical Jesus. Most Christians believe that Jesus is special different unique that that time period is special different unique that the moment when he was crucified or particularly when he was resurrected is a particular turning point in history. Do you see any evidence of that from your research. What evidence from research but as I say in this book theology of love. I think it is at least possible that the historical Jesus reached a level of Christ consciousness that is rare. And is therefore perhaps more enlightened than we are and may even be able to help us from other realms. I'm not sure I would say anything very different about the Buddha. So do I think Christianity is exclusively or uniquely true. No I don't. I think Jesus probably had this level of very high consciousness. And because one is because what is in oneself is deathless as I said to you before. Yeah, he probably can manifest. I don't know. I can't really say a lot of the book I just held up is based on a course in miracles, which is allegedly channeled from Jesus. Now do I know that this was channeled from Jesus. No, did the woman who is channeled through know others from Jesus. No shoot this I don't know I don't know who it's from, but it does have its own peculiar authority and I have to pay attention to it. So, you know, it's the thing is, maybe the essential point in all this is we're being called on so many instances to say do you believe or not. And this is the Christian, this is the Christian mentality. And it's been transferred to the scientific mentality and all sorts of mentalities. But no, I don't particularly have to believe. I'm willing to consider a lot of possibilities. I mean one important esoteric maxim I learned was neither accept nor reject. This gives you an enormous amount of freedom to say, Well, it may be so phenomenologically it looks so. But I don't have to, you know, sign, you know, the Augsburg confession in regard to it. An open minded inquiry. The possibility that one may well be wrong. The possibility that everyone else may be wrong to are all points of view that really need to be, you know, maintained when one delves into these areas. And let me just kind of bring this back from the brink before I push it back to the brink which I'm about to do in a minute but this book that we're talking about is in many respects, extremely practical for a bunch of people. Even myself, I found comfort in your kind of even handed approach towards and practical approach towards. Hey, don't believe everything, but don't disbelieve everything either. And just pointing people towards areas that they might want to investigate further. And in that respect, I think the book does a great job, and it is very conversational. And it's easy to get through, and it's easy to bounce through some chapters and say, Hey, what about the tarot. What is that all about. There's some good historical information, a little bit of debunking on some misunderstandings and then some practical information. Same for astrology same for after death spirits, all that stuff so there's for many of us, even folks who feel like they've been on this path of spiritual investigation. Find little nuggets in this book that they're going to find very helpful is that been, is that been your experience what kind of feedback have you gotten. Yeah, I've gotten feedback like that. In fact, I sent a copy of the book to one of my oldest and closest friends is very much not a believer in this sort of thing and he said he enjoyed it and read out some passages to his sister and you know got something out of it himself and getting feedback like that, which is good because it's exactly what I intended. And I just want to say something I mean I, when I'm speaking in this book, I'm speaking from my own personal authority in the sense that this is what I have to say. This is not what the church says this is not what the lodges of felon say this is not what the us, you know, department of whatever at whatever university said, this is what I have to say, what does that put on you. Well, you're equally free to accept or reject it, or perhaps both or neither on your own authority. And there is a strange verse in the New Testament, where it said the crowd wondered Jesus, because he spoke as one having authority and not as the scribes. Now what's what's very interesting about that is if you pay attention to it, that would have to mean that the people in themselves, whoever they were, has some inner capacity to recognize real authority versus some guys blabbering on a chat. And that means you have your own authority, and that has to be your ultimate touchstone agree with what I say don't agree with me say like me don't like me it doesn't matter. I think you really have to bring that back to this, and also admitting the possibility that I might not be right or I might change my mind tomorrow. That's new information may need leads to new conclusions. You know, and I think that's what true skepticism is about. It's a desire to really know, be honest about what you don't know. And, you know, always being willing to say well I can always know more. I'm never going to know everything because I don't think that's possible in a human existence. But there's always another direction of going further to go. That's one of the main points of my book. Excellent. So Richard, one more point if I can and then I'll let you go you've been very generous with your time here. But I'm going to return to my little story about my buddy Tom Zinser. Again, the psychologist clinical psychologist from Brand Rapids. And he starts encountering these people who have experienced satanic ritual abuse. And as you know that's a very controversial topic for a lot of folks, but it really shouldn't be any little bit of investigation of that. That's honest and fair. You will find that for whatever reason there's people who are engaging that activity, and it's extremely harmful to the victims and I've interviewed at least one of the victims here. Lucas who was involved with the Detroit case in Belgium which kind of made national news, you know back in the 90s when it happened so these things are very real. And they're always countered with kind of a disinformation thing like satanic panic, which I guess is real in a way to, but there is a fundamental truth to it so it wasn't just panic it might have been exaggerated by fundamentalist Christians who took it too far, but there was a real truth to it. So this is what Tom Zinser found so he's working with patients, and he's finding out that they really have been traumatized sexually abused in a lot of cases at very young ages. What he finds that's particularly important and interesting for our discussion is the incidence of disassociative identity disorder, and that that may be actually a mechanism a tool to engage with the extended realms, and that these practices of doing people in order to create this dissociative identity disorder might actually be a tool. Well, lo and behold, go look at MK ultra, and you'll find exactly that that's what they were engaged in they were intentionally trying to do that. If you interview Whitley Streiber like I did, you'll find that that's what they were engaging in. There does seem to be a mechanism, almost a science to reaching these extended realms through disassociative identity disorder. Is that anything you've stumbled across and do you have any thoughts on that. I have no idea I've never heard, although it's an interesting one. It makes a certain amount of sense on the face of it, having just heard it. But I want to go back because you screened through an enormous number of satanic figures, a few moments ago. And these people are all over the place. I got Anton Zandor LeVe. Well, I can't point to him that you see him here somewhere. Let's show the picture of let's show the picture of him and Michael Aquino that's, that's my go to guy who they were big buddies. Well, you know, if you look at the evidence of him, I mean he's a pedophile, and the evidence of him and his wife abusing kids and I pulled that up on the screen in case we want to talk about it. I don't, I don't know. I don't know about his particular case. I mean, I, I mean he was a colonel in the US Army intelligence, which, you know, oh my God. But on the other hand, I guess that's the person you may want that knows how to do this stuff or He was publicly a Satanist though. I mean, right. So he was a member. He stayed in the military and said, Hey, I'm freedom of religion. I'm a Satanist. You know, this is what I do. This is how I practice. And so yeah. Well, I do know other people who call themselves Satanists who seem on the faces to be actually really quite decent and ethical people. So, you know, Satanism isn't this bamboo. There are really people doing this. You know how you know how you know that there is a satanic ritual abuse going on. Definitely. Because you have to apply the principle. If you can think of it, somebody's tried it. That is basically probably the epitaph of the human race. Yeah, you thought of it. Somebody's tried this. The epitaph of real epitaph of the human race is probably it seemed like a good idea at the time but we can bypass that. So yeah, I think this thing exists. But I would be very cautious about saying everyone who kind of seems to fit the label of, you know, the temple of set or the left hand path as they sometimes call it is doing these kinds of things. I do believe people are doing these things in the name of Satan. On the other hand, in terms of just sheer statistics. How many people are doing this in the name of Jesus Christ and Catholic churches. I mean, numerically, which group is larger. Go down the list of churches. You know, LDS churches. You mentioned Catholic churches, you can go to all the other strange groups that now have come out the same thing. So yeah. And cults, cults as well, including all the ones including Indian cults and all the rest of them. So, no, I get your point. I get your point on that. It's really more of a, and that's where I wish you would have gone more in the book because the way I see it is there's certain energies that people are tapping into. And that's what my buddy Tom Zinser said he said look, there is darkness and darkness is like a gravitational force. It's not bad per se. It's just the relief through which we see lightness, but through we see light, and that light is really the game light is what it's about and you would agree with this because that's what your book is about. It's about achieving oneness with the good with God with the moral imperative to do right, which we all know what's the right thing to do. But darkness is always there and available to us, and it doesn't mean that it's evil. Our acts of being drawn to the darkness in order to satisfy our problems is what evil is. This is what Dr. Zinser told me and it makes a lot of sense. It would also make sense in terms of, hey, the satanic people, the serial killers who are claiming connection to spirit entities, same thing. They're just trying to tap into something that relieves them of the feelings that they have because they feel the dark force, and they don't know how to get to the light force. There was a good sermon. Do you have anything to say about it? Well, one of the chapters of my book is called the life force, and which is sometimes called Chi or Prana. And what is it? Well, one thing is the difference between a living human being and a corpse, which are, as you know, otherwise anatomically identical at least at the outset. And this life force is morally neutral. And that is one of the appeal of the Star Wars series, because the Star Wars actually series talks about the force. And the force is morally neutral. There is the light side of the force and there's the dike side of the force. You can use electricity or nuclear power for the most benign and helpful means you can use them for the most means. So, you know, why you choose one or the other well, then that gets into a very, very complicated moral questions. But yeah, that's what I have to say about it. Well, excellent. I think the torture session. No, it has been torture. It's been an awesome dialogue and I appreciate your openness. I mean, you didn't back off of any questions or anything like that, which I. And it's fun to engage in these kind of dialogues that take us beyond what we normally talk about. So this book that people are going to want to check out the truth about magic is out now on Kindle. Richard's many other books are available as well and you'll find just some great stuff in there from somebody who truly is a spiritual seeker that we want to keep in touch with so Richard thanks so much for joining me. Thank you very much. And just to reinforce one point that might not be already clear. I want to say it was a pleasure from beginning to end. Oh, fantastic. Thank you, Richard. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you so much. Thanks for your interest in my work. Thank you so much for joining me today on skeptico. The one question I'd have to tee up from this interview. Isn't this why evil matters? How are we ever going to get to that next level of understanding of this stuff if we can't get past level one? That's a total inside baseball kind of question. But if you're still with me, you're probably playing inside baseball with me. So jump in there with an answer. Plenty of places to do it. Track me down. However you see fit. Until next time, take care and bye for now.