 G'day mate 40 here. So I saw that Colin Liddell profiled the prolific blogger Z-Man Who pretty much churns out a new column every day How does he do it? now I Haven't followed Z-Man very much the last four years Because I find his his columns are just a series of assertions about reality So unlike a Steve Saylor who tries to argue from data Z-Man just piles on a lot of assertions, so I don't don't feel value there like anyone can assert anything There's no there's no payoff for me as a reader But he does very effectively feed an audience, so I didn't realize he'd been docked by the Southern Poverty Law Center Apparently he's a software salesman But I just checked out his blog started off going on Colin Liddell's website neocrat Seeing who's who in the alt-right Z-Man profile and I read the Southern Poverty Law Center docs From February of this year, then I went to Z-Man's blog and so he's still churning out the columns every day so Doesn't sound necessarily like he's been fired or that his life's been devastated and didn't detect any change in his tone So he doesn't seem beaten down right he's become a celebrity on the alt-right and He feeds his audience right they they like what he says he apparently makes Approximately $50,000 a year in donations Which is pretty good, and he does that by effectively giving the audience The certainty that they want that the world essentially is fixed against them, so I first What is the Mandela effect I've gotten it wasn't he ducks before I don't know but what's the What's the Mandela effect but He started off as a race realist now it seems like he's gotten lost in conspiracy theories Now the Southern Poverty Law Center takedown was very careful. I mean they really marshaled their data and so The Southern Poverty Law Center is a professional organization with tens of millions of dollars in assets and when they go after someone they do with great care but let's have a look at the Colin Liddell Profile on the aircraft and so so that's why I think like why would anyone choose an avatar like this? So it is a very curious avatar The man like why does he choose an avatar the selling of a young boy? What the hell is going on there? So once anonymous blogger who was outed in February 2022 is John Christopher Zander 55 software salesman residing in suburbs of Baltimore His identity became known ironically due to a data breach at a domain registrar web host epic Which was a service that he'd strongly recommend it So I remember Z-man posting comments in Steve sailor section 2014 or so and then he turned into a Blogger race realist around 2015 Kind of a paleo conservative type And he's written for Takis magazine He may be a partial Italian-American American background says Colin he overreacted to an article that cast aspersions on Italian Valor in World War two, so It's funny. He's a Presents himself as a data guy but very emotional Like he reacts very emotionally to things So he started his Z-man blog in 2013 after history on comment sections and message boards So he started out as fairly sane and nuanced on The jq are the racial issues, but allowed himself to become associated with actual Nazis by running for counter-currents There's a strong streak of boomer fatalism and conspiracy theories Now why is his chosen avatar from homo erotic artwork by the German artist Ludwig Deesh shows the German Barbarian Alleric the Visigoth being offered a small male child right, what's What's going on here? Like why would he choose an avatar of This visigoth being offered a small male child by a dark-haired man for unknown reasons like What the hell is the payoff like why would anyone choose that as their avatar? That That is is a bit weird Southern public public law center prolific white nationalist personality identified So yeah, I do remember him as fairly nuanced back in 2013 2014 2015 then as he became more successful he became increasingly captured by his audience and increasingly fatalistic and Into conspiracy theories, so the Z-man's a white nationalist internet personality pulls in thousands of dollars per month churning out racist propaganda Rub shoulders with white nationalists at conferences on both sides of the Atlantic without ever showing his face But based on research and analysis heat watch leaves it as identified the person behind the pseudonym So Z-man gets a ton of traffic How does he do this because it's not with a careful data analysis of a Steve sailor It's with no fully emotional columns Where he makes a series of assertions about the world and how it's you know headed to hell and You know, there are dark sinister forces arrayed against us like Why is this so successful and I think good answer for this Can be found in decoding the gurus the latest podcast Says interview with men we're seeing on gurus and shamans Most generally the argument was that shamanism Reliably develops in human societies everywhere because it is just an incredibly compelling means of controlling And I can like break down that down a little bit. The idea is essentially People want control over the uncertain in their lives Yeah, so that's what makes pundits successful Right as opposed to being right or wise or true or good what makes them successful is that they give people assurance just like Successful clergy give people assurance like a successful Christian clergy gives people assurance of their salvation Like a successful Jewish clergy gives, you know people assurance about the greatness of being Jewish You know people want assurance in this you know atomized Uncertain well, so whether it's gurus religious figures bloggers YouTubers pundits politicians right people are looking for assurance and there's an enormous market the people who can sound Fully assured so I'd get I often get comments, you know How do you react as Eman's latest column where he's very you know confidently pronouncing on this conspiracy theory or that conspiracy theory and I'd throw out my hands and say I don't know how to respond to it. It's just you know a series of unprovable Assertions, you know without any evidence given for them like How do you relate react to that well He has a substantial audience people react, you know to the emotional assurance that he gives them essentially that the world is Bidest against them the dark sinister forces have conspired to rig the world against them And so therefore they're not responsible for their own misery and there's an enormous There's an enormous audience for this And for shamans and the like Both informationally so I want information about all this stuff, and then we also want outcomes to happen in a yeah information So people who are verbally fluent All right people who have strong rhetorical gifts They can master an enormous audience now. There's absolutely no connection between The gracefulness with which you speak or write There's no connection between your rhetorical firepower and You being right or true or good Just no connection between these things But if you sound assured that people feel assured if you sound confident people feel confident people like take strength from your rhetorical firepower and your rhetorical fluency and That makes for success, but there's absolutely no connection between that and being right so Trying to think of this Fox Sports personality colon colon colon colon coward He talked in a 2015 interview. I think with the ringer. He said there's no money in being right Right when he gives his strong opinions on sports his success is absolutely nothing to do with being right At the money isn't being interesting So with punditry the money isn't being interesting and it offering assurance and sounding like you know what you're talking about Even though you may not but in our favor and that creates these kind of markets of magic Competing to provide the most compelling services the most compelling means of controlling an uncertainty and it drives the ability. Yeah, that's it That's a good description of you know youtuber pundits All right, we're competing in a narrow market to provide people with assurance in Incredibly complicated atomized ever-changing world Where there's no basis in fact for many of the assurances that we're doling out So if you go to JF got a pee get you know reliable Alt-right libertarian perspective on life and You know, he sounds very convincing Richard Spencer, whatever position he's taking he always sounds very convincing right, so These are shamans of assurance and comfort and excitement Volusion of this incredibly psychologically compelling cluster of practices to essentially convince clients that this individual can can provide them with Exactly what they need and I can go up admit into more like what those techniques are But that's the general perspective on challenges and so also with influencers, right? They're here to provide you with something you need because these are extraordinary individuals and one of the ways that people you know show how extraordinary they are is by intermittent fasting, right? So people who do things that you don't want to do feel like you can't do like workouts intermittent fasting Bathing in you know, cold water for 15 minutes every morning. All right, so You know walking 10 miles a day or lifting huge amounts of weight All right, if you want to put yourself out there as a pundit and a youtuber, right? Who's you know making a strong emotional connection with people and meeting their emotional needs for assurance that really helps to? portray yourself as you know having an extraordinary story and extraordinary gifts and superhuman abilities such as intermittent fasting lifting extraordinary amounts of weight, you know extraordinary workouts extraordinary Mental workouts physical workouts, right you need to show that you're You're not yet the average Joe right you got something special Then people get comfort that they're connected to someone with something special So in in that framework that Compelling cluster of features cognitively compelling and socially compelling cluster of features, right? So what is cognitively socially psychologically? Compelling all right verbal fluency rhetorical power a sense of confidence assurance strength that just shines out through the words someone who comes across as seeing things clearly and You know someone who's going to assure you of what you need assurance on someone who's going to Divine what's going on in this confusing world kind of break it down in a way that you can understand and that Feels good and helps you you know feel more prepared and stronger better able to Struggle with the challenges that life puts before all of us What are they like? What are the key ones? Yeah So the thing that I argue in that piece in which I really focus on that piece in which I use as a perspective on all of these is Different practices that make an individual seem different from normal humanity and in so doing make them seem make it seem more plausible or more Right, so if you want to be an influencer or a pundit It helps to or a preacher set yourself out from ordinary humanity. All right Extraordinary workouts intermittent fasting you read a book a day You speak five languages All right, anything you can do that sets yourself out from the rest of humanity that makes you More worthy more likely to receive adoration and develop a following From our tenable that they have special powers. So In something that I'm reading right now, right? So Do you believe that someone's got special powers? Well, if they can do you know, extraordinarily long fast that you can't do if they can do workouts that you can't do if they do Mental challenges that you can't do if they have gifts, you know with language with Learning with degrees with it with accomplishments, you know all sorts of things that you can't then You might get more emotional assurance that this is an extraordinary person with extraordinary powers and that you will get a little taste of that Extraordinariness by listening to them connecting with them. All right, you know vicariously you can become More than what you are just by connecting with them now. I'm thinking about these always I'm trying to coin this word or I was like there needs to be a word for this for this process And I've been thinking about this word z-nise which comes from like zeno zeno's meaning foreign or other and it's like using all of these techniques to Look like you are fundamentally different from normal committees, but you there's a lot of deprivation. You have these from alkanity, right? So the YouTube ponder man someone is different from the other youtubers, right? This is someone with special gifts special rhetorical gifts mental gifts psychological gifts social proof You can do workouts that you can't do he's gone to universities that you haven't attended He's made amounts of money that you'll never be able to make he's tracked in the Himalayas he's Walked to the Antarctica All right, so you have to set yourself apart if you you want to develop a following He's converted to orthodox Judaism Nations where you claim that you know your skeleton has been reconstructed You talk about dying and coming back to life about having your body parts replaced with new body parts All of these are about a practitioner undergoing some kind of fundamental transformation about like drifting away from normal humanity And that makes it more plausible and more valid and more tenable that they can do things that that normal humans cannot And so related to this trance, you know, this thing that really defines shamanism is that they enter with seem to be these Non-ordinary states and some people will argue that over the non-ordinary state is the trance of shamanism is all about what trance psychologically does, you know and The compelling youtuber, right? They enter a different state. They're on there. They're alive. They're captivating. They're compelling Right, the youtuber the shaman preacher man the salesman Right, so it's the performance of otherness right that that's key part to becoming a successful pundit All right, you want to show that you're other that you're different that you have accomplishments that other people don't have You've had experiences that other people don't have you have physical rhetorical moral spiritual Psychological social skills that other people don't have right who wants to you know watch someone like them And people want to watch someone who's other and someone who's who's different And someone who's extraordinary will get extraordinary through your connection with them Doesn't that makes it more compelling or credible that they are doing something that normal humans cannot do is that all clear? Yeah, yeah, very clear and there's there's kind of two immediate parallels that like crop up to me I'm the obvious one related to the show that you're currently on that is that we find similar sorts of narratives obviously We've like the magical elements usually depends on whether Jordan Peterson is talking or not But in the narratives of the gurus that we look at where they often have these stories about in-house childhood They were recognized as you know special and in many cases it's actually Presented as that they were seen to have learning difficulties or some problem But this was later recognized as a unique way of approaching the world So that seems the parallel and maybe an less dramatic less supernatural way the kind of narrative that you're describing Shamans to go through and that makes me you know It's a very appealing image like as the gurus of the modern secular instantiation of shamans when we can talk about that idea But the other one which I'm just curious to get your thoughts on first There's so like superhero narratives and in popular media or like you know anime characters in Japan They often are represented in the same way having these special powers and transformational Experiences and you find those and lots of myths and legends So is the argument that that is a cognitive attractor that applies Broadly across all these contexts But there's additional elements that make it make it flow into the shamanism stream Or is that like slightly different when you're talking about you know kind of fictional figures who you can't probably directly interact Yeah, that's a great question. So I guess we can start with the second one The parallel you're drawing with superheroes I think is a great one and that's like one that I often think about where I think that really demonstrates this logic where the Storyteller the narrator the writer needs to convince you at least in this world that they're building that this person can shoot lasers out of their eyes That they can be incredibly fast that you know They can be a spider whatever that they can do things that like the average person cannot and Okay, let's have a look here at the Mandela effect A widespread false memory that Nelson Mandela actually died in prison in the 1980s Okay, false memory. Okay is the Mandela effect a false memory? Did you hear that you met with Trump and they argued no, I haven't heard that All right, so apparently Kanye West Nick Fuentes and a Milo is jumping on board so Kanye met with Trump and Trump's not gonna sign on board with anything publicly critically anti-Jewish All the Mandela effect is garbage just shows how checked out people are Okay This is from decoding the gurus. Oh So Kanye just posted a debrief on his meetings with Trump on his Twitter So what's extraordinary about Trump's new run for president is how professional his team is and So they seem to have shifted him away from complaining about the 2020 election They seem incredibly professional Group, you know highly accomplished. Is Trump gonna have the discipline to stick with an election team that knows what they're doing and with a track record of success, where's he gonna bring in a bunch of losers like Rudy Giuliani and You know the clown show who Is clown show lawyers who are protesting the 2020 election, right? So is Trump gonna be strong enough to Keep ties with professionals or is he going to bring in? Losers who simply flatter his ego. So right now it looks like Trump is running a professional campaign. Do I think Trump has a chance? Yes, absolutely, I think Trump has least a 50% chance of winning the Republican nomination and then a 50% chance of winning the general election So right now Trump's team His political team is highly professional highly skilled with a winning track record Yeah, BB Netanyahu was given a very solid mandate In Israel. He's mounted a very significant political comeback. I I don't think Israel is clearly in the bag for DeSantis, right? Israel will go with you know, whoever the winner is going to be Yeah, baby's got a mandate in that he's able to form a government that has a coherent ideology so the Interregnum the Israeli coalition that excluded baby had no ideological coherence Now BB Netanyahu is able to form a government that is ideologically a coherent. It's all on the right wing Doesn't have much of a margin just a couple of seats above what minimum necessary, but at least it's a coherent coalition and so Yeah, he's got a right wing mandate because everyone is on board everyone is his right wing is very strong for Protecting Israel they're going after Israel's best interests even if it doesn't necessarily look good And what do we have here boy? You're not afraid are you? These buzz are very great man. That is intimidating as I as I used to be and What's really fundamental to that is explaining why they can do this and other people cannot like what is how have they been? Essentially transformed to facilitate that and that that seems to explain or contribute to the fact that superheroes stories are incredibly diverse But one of the few things that all of them seem to stare is an origin story It's something that tells you why this person is other why they deviate from humanity I've actually lately been reading a lot into a superhero origin story So it's good that you brought this up and one thing that I really like about them that I think provides an interesting parallel for shaman I have never been out to keep my attention on any superhero story like they just seem like comics to me I've never had any interest in comics so Yeah, I plan to come back to LA I'll be back in LA in late January, but I'm hanging out in Australia for three months But I've never had any interest in superheroes or in comics so all my friends would read comics and it just It just seems so silly and trivial and I can't I can't maintain any enthusiasm any interest in any superhero story They're just I know it's just so aggressively low IQ and you know, I can't be bothered to try to read deeper greater themes into superhero stories It's just never ever ever ever ever appealed to me And then when they they call comics graphic novels, I can't I can't seriously I can't call a comic a graphic novel Yeah, I've heard a lot of good things about Watchman, but I may just have a mental block. I just I just can't Just can't it's just not my thing. It's yeah, I can't I tried watching the Watchman the movie the TV series I Just I just can't just can't do it. It's just just not my thing Is that they really seem to reflect people's conception of what need what constitutes essential transformation So, you know, if we go from the 1940s to now we see that origin stories change over time first there You know, it's a lot about nuclear stuff and then at points. It's about magical stuff Now it's really about like bioengineering genetic mutants as our conceptions of like a fundamental transformation changes So do the stories to convince us or to at least tell us that these individuals are different Do you have a broader question about like yeah, I tried to watch the new Watchman series, you know, centered around the Tulsa history, but it was such a dramatic distortion of Tulsa history what happened it in Tulsa I Lasted I think one and a half episodes Now I really truly tried to make it a go and I love Fargo like I love the movie and I love the TV series But the the latest series the latest season with Chris Rock Again, I just I couldn't even make it through the first episode that season. It was just so absurdly anti-white It's good to watch like 1920 so your propaganda. Yeah, but you have to be in a particular mood all right, so When you're in the mood for that kind of Massacism then then's the time. How should we think about the relationship between superheroes and shaman or of all of these narratives? I think these fictional narratives So I think what's going on across them is they're reflecting this more general intuition that if a person Claims to do things that normal people cannot if they essentially like violate our concept of what a human is capable of They have to they have to be a different kind of entity. They have to be right. Thank you think Tony Robbins A lot of gurus or influencers, right? They claim to do things that ordinary people can't like you know incredible feats of fasting physical endurance, you know Moral achievement social economic Right, it's like here. You can believe me you can trust me You can have faith in me because I can do these incredible things that normal people can't do Be conceptually different in superhero stories that deviation is used towards the narrative or the function of Exploring like what someone could do if they have special powers and you know, my father was like this. He was a preacher man and He would you know try to exude being this you know You know other right someone who was outside the realm of the normal human He was you know more disciplined. He he read more he exercised more he was more careful with his diet with his health He was more moral He wasn't just you know another flesh and blood human being deeply flawed like the rest of us now He had to had to be extraordinary to try to reach the extraordinary heights of being a preacher man Thinking about the entertainment or whatever and chauvinism this intuition is leveraged to create the experience to create the perception that this Individual can provide a service, you know chauvinism is a service So what makes for a compelling live stream? So part of it is just pure entertainment value part of it is informational value and then the third key component is a spectacle like Something extraordinary happens that just compels your attention and so this is also what the great salespeople do Yeah, he's talking about chauvinism Chauvin's this is what the great salespeople do the great YouTube live streamers do the great preachers do right? They create an extraordinary experience Yeah, I guess are important Yeah, so being Yeah, your great look any solo shows have care absolutely, you know guests make things much more interesting so being being a pundit or being a youtuber or being preacher or Congregational rabbi you are in the service industry, right? If you're gonna be successful since you serve your audience And You serve your audience by providing them assurance where they want assurance, you know complicated confusing dislocated atomized world and where you provide distraction and You You know tell them what what what feels good to them what they want to hear either that the world is biased against them or the world is not biased against them that they can achieve extraordinary things or You know, they're shadowy cabal who's running everything so you shouldn't feel bad about being a loser That they might be using similar narratives that fictional writers are at least like on it Maybe I think Kino Casino and TRS are very jealous of this Nick Fuentes Kanye West. Yeah, it's an incredible spectacle Yeah, it's someone who doesn't pick a side. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's great human drama and Nick Fuentes and Milo Unopolis and Kanye West and Donald Trump are great at producing human spectacles You just can't take your eyes away from what you know Kanye Nick Trump people like Milo, Unopolis, right? It's just a train wreck quality To their lives. It's life as a performance art A higher level if we think about them in this higher-level comparison But for them it's really about using those narratives to convince you that they can provide a service that other people cannot Yeah, and I think that brings us to your first topic, which we can also go into. Yeah, so I do want to get I want to follow up with something that you yeah Yeah, we all Milo, Unopolis is not sexually objectifying Kanye West Like, you know, let this be a meeting of minds and not of bodies. All right Yeah, we wish for this to be a spiritual transcendent, you know, Christian type of relationship here I hope they don't give into their, you know, carnal bodily urges Yeah, that's right. Milo is on record of being a letcher with black men, specifically military guys God forbid. God forbid Who kind of re-is there because in your paper you're talking about like shamanism as one of the potential first Professions to emerge in societies and cross-culturally recurrent profession and I can imagine there's some yeah So perhaps a prostitute is the oldest profession, but shaman or the person who gives assurance in a confusing difficult world Maybe the shaman is the the preacher the religious leader the Person who gives us a sense that all is going to be right with the world Perhaps perhaps that's the oldest profession But there's so many telling similarities here between the shaman the youtuber the pundit the clergyman the influencer Well, actually, I don't this is a probably a question for you So I can imagine some more progressive liberal minded people somewhat reactive to the notion of seeing Shamans as a profession and creating narratives of like their powers and I kind of stuff because there's a somewhat of an implication of potentially exploitative or at least see yeah, there's no profession that it can never be exploitative God forbid and the space cowboy. I don't get the comment about the space cowboy glib medley But there's no profession that is exempt from being exploitative and certainly shamans and religious leaders youtubers and influencers are highly capable of being exploitative But I didn't see all these parallels before I understood that the the radio host the youtuber the pundit was was primarily to Tell people what they wanted to hear and give them a sense of assurance That was a so I married an axe murderer reference. Okay, I don't know that movie or TV show Seedful approach to things but on the other hand I know from all day that shamans very much regard what they're doing. Yes as a calling But also as that's the profession and that's the that's what they do So I'm I'm wondering your article. I know for evolution around for politics or that kind of thing That's a perfectly reasonable thing to discuss shamans as a profession But do you get pushed back from like putting a potentially Western modern freedom? Mike Myers I Just don't find him very funny. I just not my cup of tea and more of a more of a Monty Python type of bloke on You know a practice which it doesn't fit well onto and Relatedly, how do the people in the communities react? Are they aware of your kind of theory around shamanism and how do they react to that? So listening to this discussion it reminds me An observation that if you feel like you understand your religion you're not religious, right? If you are, you know, authentically religious or spiritual person You're participating in a mystery, you know something that is way beyond your can Mike Myers he's Canadian, but mostly loved by Americans. I Just seems like fairly low brow humor But this this theory of shamanism, all right, just like theories of religion, right? If you feel like you understand your religion you feel like you understand the type of spirituality that you subscribe to or you feel like you you know understand that the shaman you have you have stepped outside You stepped outside the realm of Religion or of the shaman right when you when you critical critically analyze things it makes it you know verging on the impossible to You know enjoy them in the same way So it was actually being in mentality that really highlighted for me the extent to which shamanism is service as centered around a service And it's a bit complicated because on the one hand Shamans are so in mentality. They're known as Ikea day and they are regarded as as You know special powerful humans and they're charismatic and They they provide a center to social spiritual political life on the other hand It's it's quite clear to many people that that it's a service because you know You're shamanism and medicine have a similar ritual aspect. Yeah, if you're going to the doctor for assurance or because you feel lonely or confused or You know, there's something going on with you and you can't quite put your finger on it Yeah, there's a an emotional comfort element that the bedside manner to to medicine You know medicine contains scientific elements just like in a psychology contains scientific elements Daughter-door sales contains scientific elements, but medicine is not a science. It contains elements of science Yeah, the white coat. Yeah, that's a that's a good point to the bedside manner All the different things like when they they tap on your back and they listen to your lungs, right? It just has absolutely nothing to do with your health It's just people feel better when the doctor touch touches them and perform certain procedures Even though these particular procedures which are about the most common things in the world You know that tapping your knee getting a response, right? None of these have you know any efficacy Except an emotional psychological efficacy of making people feel like they're being cared for you're sick You have to choose among these to kid a they have to you're evaluating different ones There's constant talk about who's you know to what is his trans fake? Does he really know the songs like is he truly as a kid a is he just as a kid a because you know His dad was able to whatever paid. Is it always a he by the way in those communities? Yeah It's slightly complicated. So the word cicada refers to both individuals in a couple So the and the couple is usually male and female or actually every example I know is male and female, but it is the man who is called to So a simple answer to your question is yes, it's a key And it's a bit more complicated because both of them are known as the kid a they heal in something called puppet They healing ceremonies and in the healings MDMA was used by therapists for a couple decades for a band Yeah, if you if the doctor or the therapist the psychiatrist is able to give the patient You know a substance that there's going to be You know frequently a positive effect The placebo effect right even if there is no inherent value in the substance So I'm all down with the placebo effect It wouldn't bother me if any of the supplements I take only have a placebo effect No, I'm happy to benefit from the placebo effect and the world is such a you know big buzzing confusion And so challenging that If there's something that brings comfort, you know, I'm I'm totally down with it And the things that bring me comfort and that work for me and boy me up They don't have to always make rational sense. In fact They're often much more comforting and effective if they are completely outside the realm of the rational Ceremonies, it's almost always the male was called I actually in my data set of 40 something ceremonies don't have a single one in which a female is called Although I spoke to a doctor who's been in mentally for a long time And she has said that she has seen or heard of females being called So I don't want to say that females are never called these are like female day These are spirits that are no, no, sorry, sorry the the female and the couple the like a woman's a kid a woman Shaman, I was thinking symbolically like a male and female, but you mean actual couples Yeah, so okay, so I'll give you a simple version then if we want to know we can go into complex version a simple version In mentally overwhelmingly men or shaman and men are called. So how often do you read Z-man? I'm just curious how often people dip dip into him how much of a common audience we might have Just I it's been about four years since I've paid much attention to him because I just couldn't deal with the Assertion upon assertion upon assertion style that he has turning out is His daily column, but you know, I used to get asked back in there. What do you think about Z-man's latest column? You know very compelling where it makes the argument that there's this you know shadowy conspiracy that's those running things called teal and healing ceremonies men male shaman's are believed to have the power to see spirits and they Provide these services and we're complicated thing is that when a shaman is initiated, but he and his wife have to observe Particular taboos, but he and his wife come to be known as to kill a and Yeah, it's like my dad does something I've been his preacher He would never go inside a movie theater because when we were some of the Adventists have the admins to go Go to theaters. So even after he left the church, he still wanted to maintain, you know that level of purity and orthodox rabbis that I hang out with Back in the days when there are blockbusters, they wouldn't step inside a blockbuster You know in case that was Misinterpreted as you know, they were going to see something salacious even though blockbuster obviously didn't didn't rent pornography So yeah to be To be a shaman or to be a religious spiritual hero or an influencer or a particular type of YouTuber like there are all sorts of normal human endeavors and activities and Frailties that you just can't participate in Yeah, apparently Z-man's on tacky's mag. I I haven't seen that I haven't read that So a Colin Lendell reported There are a couple of these wives I know of who are also regarded as having these special powers and although I have never seen them called in one of these I bet they one of these kind of all-day healing ceremonies I have heard that these women are sometimes called in like more private people. I used to like Gregory Hood Yeah, I interviewed Z-man he was on my show and It was fine and I used to enjoy some Gregory Hood but now much of the distant riots just become too conspiratorial too much of a Isolation in a silo It's like People imply society usually encouraged you know not to talk about you know racial differences But then people get red-peeled and then that's you know all they can talk about and so I remember when I interviewed F. Roger Devlin He said the only news sources he consulted with the websites he wrote for V-Dare American Renaissance, you know countercurrents websites like that and I Noticed with a lot of the most prolific members of the the distant riot. They you know, they only read Sources from within the group and that makes them to me boring not terribly effective. I Want someone who's grappling with all sorts of different perspectives Yeah, he calls Baltimore Lagos That's that's his in-group joke about Baltimore Healing context. So yeah, I'm sorry for That was a very clear explanation and I'll remind you as well that you were explaining the what the reaction to like your framework It's kind of a complicated thing because inventory people recognize they recognize that that's a kid They are competing in that you choose them on the basis of who seems the best But there's a double narrative where you never want to signal that so sometimes I'll talk to someone And I'll be like why did so you two there's like rival gangs Okay, you know raid each other's territories It's like definitely like a gang-like social dynamic To the followers of various youtubers Why did you choose these desiccated to come and heal you and they'll say oh they were nearby or you know They're they're my wife's relatives But of course, you know the wife of many relatives in this area There are many sick kids nearby like and then when I've talked to other people It's like yes, we want to talk like that because if we get sick And others a kid are not available We don't want to give the impression that we prefer some over others or we think that some are good and others are not Do you know what I mean? Yeah Yeah, so you were you were ranking them and comparing them in your mind But you don't want to do that verbally because you don't want people to feel like you undervalue them or maybe publicly offend them Yeah, so I imagine there are concepts of like honor or equivalence to honor and in play like fierce Yeah, it's not necessarily honor and so for instance and yeah There's a funny relationship between a youtuber and his audience like some You know youtubers only want their praise And then if they ever get criticism from someone then you know, they're in their bad box And then there are the people who just come on with Sociopaths that just come on with excessive praise and then they just absolutely flip on you and They become just a torrent of hatred So all sorts of interesting dynamics between the youtuber and And his audience It feels different from from like a very honor-based society It's more like like this yeah So there's a there's a recognition that you know people it is a profession or different options and so on then right If you pray in the same synagogue, they take certain Torah classes, and then you switch out All right, that's It's a really dramatic. It can be a really dramatic development Like it's it feels like a betrayal when you stop, you know taking courses from one rabbi is switched to a different rabbi I'll switch to a different synagogue switched to a different prayer minion It was I found it much more wrenching than I expected I think the kind of bonds that I felt myself, you know building up in orthodox Judaism and You know my great reluctance to threaten those bonds to disrupt those bonds All right, just the emotional intensity of orthodox Judaism the power of the community over me The power of forming a bond with it with a rabbi The loss of freedom that would come with forming bonds with with a community with people with the rabbi The kind of ironclad nature of the commitment that would just you know wrap you up like These invisible cords of connection and commitment. I just kind of snuck up on me in orthodox Judaism I thought it would be something much more amenable to you know my Rational analysis and choice, but you just get caught up and It It shapes you I'm yet maybe it's not entirely cultured to completely focus on the commercial aspects as like the mean thing Right because it's just dealing with spiritual powers and that kind of thing So out of all the groups I've known I think Jews And synagogues are the most realistic about money Most people think somehow it's shameful to talk much about money or with much explicitness But one thing I really appreciate about Jews and Judaism is The relaxed way of dealing with the natural passions where the natural passions for money The fundraising for honor for sex for love for attention for fame for success For status Love how honest and frank and and down to earth Jews are about these you know basic passions that were Much more repressed in my Protestant upbringing where there was you know much more reluctance to To you know admit to being you know overwhelmed by these basic passions So it's not super appropriate for a shaman to be asked or to ask to be paid But I give and yet it is always expected that the shaman that you know when a shaman comes you will sacrifice pigs and chickens And that the shaman's will get the best parts. So yeah, it kind of takes my breath away how Frank You know rabbis and Jews are and hey, you know our community needs this we need to fundraise for this We need it need a new building We want to set up the school All right, so, you know, how much can you give and everyone gathers in the room and we announce You know how loud you know how much each person you know undertakes to give each month Jews are breathtakingly effective at this kind of fundraising But it is not it's a little complicated to talk about that as payment because the shaman wants to maintain There's this Maintenance of a perception on both the provider and the clients part that the shaman is here to heal you and that you Are in turn sharing with the shaman. That's another thing actually occurs with food sharing inventory You know people will for example someone might have a they might call a lot of people to help them I noticed that only the most inept congregational rabbis, you know make it obvious that they're they're only interested in you if you join the synagogue right most Most of them have good people skills. I mean kebab rabbis. I find have the best people skills like they The one group of orthodox Jews who don't judge you on your level observance. They're happy to meet you at your level They tend to be happy positive people. They're very good at reframing things in a way that leaves you happier As you exit the interaction or the conversation that you took going in but there's some less socially skilled Congregational rabbis who is very clear. They only have an interest in you if you join the congregation And the chat says making money is easy by the dip buy into the dip All right Move a house or help them construct a house and then it's expected that afterwards they will share meat They might kill a pig and distribute the meat to everyone who shared but it is not appropriate to if you are Given an inappropriate or if you let's say you help move a house or you help build a house But then the person does not share you can't for instance like demand payments You can't find that you can't so I'm thinking about all those distant right Pundits who were making the case of Bitcoin right assuring you you know buy Bitcoin You know buy into the depth of Bitcoin It's you know, I've just bought another Bitcoin it's just part of the the Charleston and Aspect of the distant right and the abysmal judgment of any of the characters on this and right and the the preference for trying to do things outside the system and This need to oh, you know, I know what's really going on like the mainstream media is not telling you the truth So if you're gonna do a YouTube show like I do I have to come with some Perspectives that you're not gonna read in the New York Times because otherwise you could just read the New York Times and get everything You need so this predisposes the youtuber and the guru and the pundit to conspiracy theories because If or you can come up with our conventional mainstream perspectives Then there's no audience for that because that need is already filled by the mainstream media The New York Times Washington Post LA Times NPR are very skilled at what they do very good at what they do so if you want to Compete with offering opinions on the news You're heavily incentivized to get into conspiracy theories and fringe ideas So you tell your audience hey you need to come to me if you want to get this, you know out of the box perspective And so it's also Drives much of the distant right pundit tree that Bitcoin at bitcoins the way to go This is and the new method of finance outside the system where we can't be de-platformed or have out checking account You know shut down and so there's preference for outside the system And sometimes it's right and sometimes it's wrong right there are plenty times when you want to work within the system And then there are occasionally times when you want to work outside the system by just having a default De facto deregur I Tendency to always look for you know outside the box outside the system solutions That hasn't served many people in the distant right very well if they are heavily into cyber currencies which increasingly turned out to be a disaster And then until we find each other constantly it's a society that Indigimously is quite litigious, but there are certain domains in which in which the transactional nature is a bit Yeah, that's that's something similar to a lot of parallels I can think of including in Japan around the provision of like funeral services There's obvious costs of money involved But a lot of it has to be phrased in no specific way not to make it seem profit-oriented even though a lot of it looks very much like Standard capitalism and just in a specific domain, but that I guess that a different Yeah, yeah, but I'm thinking that that's like in the case of like Korean shamanism Which I'm you know be familiar with if it's like there's a much more different than the word acknowledgement of payment for services and stuff But it'll depend on the context as to how much that is culture that kind answers the question of our own party receptive They are are you about evolution around for politics? I could say I think they'd be pretty open to that consideration But do you ever get accusations that you're applying westernized ethnocentric categories that don't make sense in Indigenous perspectives sure And shamanism is a topic where that has long been something that people I think for a very good reason, you know earlier you have Eliad I hope I'm pronouncing his name, right? He's so big in the field But he comes out with this book shamanism and he talks about a very particular model of shamanism which involves soul flight and hunting and gathering societies and Animal spirits, so I define shamanism much more generally as I think too many people So individuals entering would appear to be so from an academic secular perspective that the primary purpose of religion is to provide comfort and From a for an academic perspective the primary purpose of pundits is to provide comfort now whatever team you're on The pundits gonna tell you what you want to hear the primary purpose of a youtuber guru Who's commenting on the news of the day is to provide comfort to you know make you feel better to give you assurance That that is not warranted by reality so all these various professions pundit preacher youtuber Shaman doctor They're here to provide comfort. That's you know, that's their primary Purpose and why is there such an enormous need for comfort because you know the modern world is discombobulating It's atomizing The the traditional forms of you know enchantment and magic, you know, it's just No longer as prestigious or as valid or as common as it once was so you know, we move around we lose those touch with family friends community and So we keep looking for comfort Whether it's on YouTube or with our shamans Non-ordinary states to engage with unseen realities and provide services Elliot had a much more constrained definition or a much more constrained framework Siberia is the the model, you know, like I mentioned your soul leaves your body and trans there are maybe different levels There's a lot importance of flight They're animal helpers and so people have this framework and then they're going to different contexts wildly diverse contexts and Applying this very particular model. So that's just to say that I think shamanism like many topics in anthropology has been Saddled with this this problem of having a particular expectation and projecting it on the society And I think the study of shamanism is still quite wary of that And so of course I've been I've confronted that but then there is as you talked about like the particular way in which I frame Shamanism and that's something I'm constantly working on and constantly being careful about the way that I really think about Shamanism is that it is a technology It's you know me performing deviations from from normal humanist to assure you that I can do things that normal humans cannot Yeah, this is what preachers do is what youtubers do All right, that's what pundits do Influencers do they perform deviations from normal Humanity to show you that they're special So my father would do this with his extraordinary physical workouts is extraordinary mental discipline Is this from decoding the gurus? Yes, it's the latest episode of decoding the gurus But I just think it's so applicable to youtubers and and the pundits All right, so If you want to be an influencer whether as a preacher man as a rabbi as a youtuber As a pundit, right you need to show how separate you are From normal human concerns, so you don't watch football. All right, you don't watch TV Or you're into intermittent fasting or you know, you just eat an all-meat diet Or you know you bench-press 400 pounds Or you know, you just got back from a week-long silent retreat Right, you have to emphasize how different you are from normal human beings And then that provides a basis for people believing that you're extraordinary and that you might have extraordinary powers This is this can be used for good, you know, Holly Weisner is anthropologist who works with the he's South African the Duke Moncy. I'm like wary about saying their name because I don't feel confident of my ability to like Do clicks So she was recently telling me about a time when she was in the field and she woke up screaming She was incredibly anxious and they immediately started to trans dance some of the some of the People in the camp went into trans and they healed her, you know, they're putting their hands on her They're they're entering trans and she talked about like really feeling love really feeling The way that it's conceptualized there is like half death that you are you are going to so if people at your synagogue or your church All right, if they pray for you, right, you're gonna feel loved and you're gonna feel better. Yes So I was nervous going into halftime the Cowboys were trailing 13 to 6. There's this great Website here KO sports where for about $27 a month you can I can get almost all my sporting needs met live So watching watching the Cowboys come back to a 28 20 victory very solid win over the Giants today They were magnificent in the second half And then I'm watching the World Cup on SPS. That's the multicultural channel started up in Australia So ABC is the government-sponsored Highbrow channel and then they started SPS for you know, Australia's many diverse communities When Australia opened up immigration in 1970s one of the benefits of that is that we got SPS So SPS in the ABC they aim in an audience with an average IQ of around 108 110 while the commercial channels they seem to aim at an average IQ audience of around 95 Going to the edge of death is an incredibly dangerous or risky endeavor And so everyone coming out everyone clapping all night that these summons showing up for you Really is a demonstration of commitment of investment and she said the next day she felt so much better And I just want to provide that as an example of a case where I think it's a technology That could be used positively or has been positive effects, but I think that it also is often used for equity So I was wondering But ours right see this little green fella here Like he just kind of fell onto my neck and I smacked him and I thought that he was a piece of grass And now I see this piece of grass is moving So he just lighted on my neck as I was providing you with these live changing earth shattering mind-blowing insights All right. This is the kind of attack that I'm under here And this little fella started moving So I see he's not a piece of glass grass He's one of God's creatures He was crawling on my neck. I Thought I'd smashed it but it's still going You know sometimes in the same society it's used for both. I was recently Oh my god, I think this is like my favorite quote that I've ever come across from a shaman So it was from a shaman among the Sora I grew up in India and he Channeled this he's working with a young widow and he channels her husband and you know possessed by her her dead husband presumably He says something like I really want to have sex with you, but I must do it through the body of this shaman But you know There are all kinds of examples of shamans exploiting their position the perception of their power for sex for food for resources for whatever You know shamans are humans. There are people who have selfish interests at ends and want to use that to get what they want Yeah, rabbis are humans. All right, they're just as likely to be lustful angry selfish cruel exploitative as plumbers as accountants as soccer players So that was one of the shocks I used to have rabbis on a pedestal So I'm coming to you from the Royal Botanical Gardens here by Sydney Harbor looking across to the Sydney Opera House Yeah, so that's a really fascinating example of like two things I wanted to mention in response was one I have a very similar opinion to you about the criticisms of the time religion Right applied broadly. There's lots of legitimacy to those critiques But I think you can combine past them and what respect by just applying as a sensible definition that people think you can't do that But I disagree so I'm completely on board with your approach to shamanism, but what you okay? Let's have a look at this little creature who just alighted on my neck in the middle of See he's alive. I Thought that was a piece of grass doesn't he look like a piece of grass But it's alive Isn't that weird I? Smack that off smack that off My neck and then it started moving Would you not think that's a piece of grass what you were just saying about you know Performing social roles and shaman's being like parts of community often associated with healing and can actually be you know He goes providing herbal remedies and actual medicines and communities as well But I think to like Western audiences They're aware of and often very critical of the people who claim to channel that relatives right there Many people are aware of cold reading and hot reading techniques right there So for those that aren't but like people appearing to solicit the information But really using kind of innovative techniques in order for you to give them the information or hot reading being just that you collect Information through other sources like maybe you get people the right card stone and then you know extract the information from it So there's a lot of very prevalent critiques of that kind of the word is escaping me for those people but the people who channel that they're Mediums yeah, yeah, but on the other side There's the current growing industry around psychedelic Experiences and ayahuasca ceremonies and you know the kind of fascination in the text beers with taking trips into The jungle to have vision quests and that kind of thing and maybe that's always been there I think like if you go to the 80s Also expressing interest in it but seeing those things as within the same arena I think is something that people don't do and they would be more wary of applying the same kind of criticisms that they would do mediums operating in a paranormal sphere as they would to applying criticisms to you know something Which is seen as a non-western cultural context. So yeah, but I personally just be like, you know, like you say humans are humans Even the ones that are engaged in the exploitative behaviors are often, you know in other aspects of their life very nice So yeah, it's a complicated topic and I guess I'm here that leads nicely to the connection to modern gurus And I don't know how how closely you follow modern gurus The kind of people we talk about Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein and other such figures But just broadly speaking initially, do you yourself see, you know kind of parallels there or you think they're kind of different? Phenomenon with quite strong divisions. Yes, I don't think that's immediately incompatible I definitely think Shavons are different from modern gurus and I think they're probably parallels So I can I can try to elaborate on some parallels But maybe it would be better if I would ask you directed questions to to allow the parallels Shav, I know a couple of gurus Yeah, so I guess we can go from two ends one and would be to start by saying to what extent are gurus promising people control over uncertainty Like there is probably things that people find unpredictable or uncontrollable in their lives, whether it's their status or what So I remember when I'd be doing a show and people want to know what I thought who was who was going to win the election Something something like that and I never placed much stock in my predictions like making predictions very very minor part of my show But you know people want assurance that that's why they were asking Confusing discombobulating world people want comfort and assurance Whatever and the first parallel would be that gurus with with promise some control Potentially not actually being able to provide it. Do you think that happens? Yeah So the two things that immediately come to mind are one the response in the pandemic where many gurus leaned into Devaxing narratives or promoting alternative treatments after mech then hydroxychloroquine right and in those respects Yes, it's a very direct medical setting, but they are in a yeah, Dennis Prager would do that He was like all on board with the Zalensky protocol and Prager's, you know, oh look at that Magnus and cruise ship moving into Sydney Harbor, but Prager is often gotten on board with you know various solutions to life cells from nutritional ones to medical ones So very very guru like the remember the Zalensky protocol like his protocol for Dealing with the for curing covert with you know, I haven't met him In essence claiming that they have the correct procedures, you know the correct medicines that you need to guard your health And that there are these threats that other people don't recognize as threats and so there's a parallel there But there also seems to me like this might be a bit of a more of a stretch But let's see what you think Jordan Peterson and the more like symbolically inclined and maybe slightly religiously inclined in his case heavily religiously inclined gurus I think they actually give me some of the secular ones Present a kind of spiritual health right that like people today modern secular society in a kind of Weberian way are very alienated They're very atomized and they've lost their heart right and so if they engage with the kind of thinking the kind of Philosophies or the kind of traditions that they are highlighting people can regain the vitality and spiritual essence And you know in many cases become the young man that they were supposed to be so that that seems to strike me as like to Potential clear parallels. Yeah. Yeah, I think those mid-sense I think the second one I would imagine that it would be especially potent or effective if it could be connected to Things that people are dissatisfied with their life things that people want control over or want to resolve it They currently cannot oh you want, you know, whatever acts you want to be more healthy You want this something that people can't get control over but yeah, there would be some promise of a service a partner Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes, and so okay So if we're going back into this parallel with Shamanism the next question would be what gives these people the credibility These people are presumably claiming to have insight have solutions into problems that are otherwise very hard to resolve into information That is otherwise very difficult to acquire the technique again that Shaman's often used And you know as magical religious specialists They use a number of techniques to create perceptions of authority But you know the one that I have really been thinking about and talking about his this showing that you're fundamentally different from other people You say you mentioned something like this earlier that you know They think about the world in a different way, you know from an early age They have different kinds of minds But yeah, then the next if we're thinking about the parallel the next question I would ask you is are there ways in which the gurus that you just mentioned also create authority or credibility by promoting perceptions of Differing fundamentally or in interesting ways from from normal humans. Yeah, so there is the like like you say There's the part where there's often these references to always thinking differently Right that they just seen the world in a way that all of people never could and like there's this clip that I might insert here Where you have Eric and Brett Weinstein the brothers discussing their Experiences the killer busy saying that they are somewhat unique enough when they find themselves in this situation more everyone else every scientific Authority is telling them that they're wrong that that gives them pleasure and more certainly that the right you and I share a certain Delight when we do our homework and we discover something interesting and absolutely nobody else gets it That would feel bad to most people because they would feel like what am I doing wrong? Why does nobody else understand this point to you and me that feels good It is to know that you have achieved something you've discovered something And that nobody else can even recognize it gives you some sort of sense of how far ahead that you might be it seems logical But like I see it but the from my perspective But that that strikes me as what you were talking about, you know always having the shifted perception But the other component is that many of them claim to undergo a kind of trial by fire in the modern environment It's often public cancellation effort and in those cases They often say that you know where other people would have folded or kind of brought down to the mob that they were To steal a Jordan Peterson metaphor like they would go into the belly of the wheel fight the dragon and and come back Yeah, so Z-man's been docks, but he's gone into the belly of the whale He's fought the demon at the Southern Poverty Law Center and he's come back stronger than ever still knocking out a column a day Back not necessarily like fully transformed but more realized the person that they always felt that they were and now the world gets to See and they also do tend to say Explicitly at leaning to Brett Weinstein because he kind of fits them all so well But he explicitly talked about identifying others who are reliable because of undergoing similar or deals and you know I think he's a less applicable to the kind of toxic guru approach But like Sam Harris in a way displays a great sympathy for anybody that has underwent kind of cancellation effort So I don't know if that's stretching the parallel but public cancellation seems to be potentially playing the role of a ritual Transformative event which gives you like special insight and power. Yeah, I mean yeah if you can survive being cancelled All right, it's like you survive the holocaust It must mean that you're special, but in reality just because you survive Cancellation or you survive a genocide doesn't make you any wiser kinder stronger more clear All right, doesn't convey any virtue just because you survived a cancellation or a genocide It's interesting. I do want to be careful about not stretching the analogy What about so this is this is my perception that like to ask you a question So my perception is that shamanism in large part or at least in many traditions is a parentheses ship system Where you use you do take a guru or a master and you know You learn the techniques over time and in many cases the kind of secular gurus They don't emphasize that they emphasize, you know the bursats knowledge Maybe they had some some figures who you know inspired them But in most occasions they're saying it was their unique insight and they were interested in other people with unique insights But it's it's fundamentally coming from them And my my impression with shamans is rather that they are tapping into a power Which already exists and traditions and systems which are like kind of like a profession like you say So is that distinction or is that specific schools or cultures of shamanism? Yeah, so I don't know systematic work that has looked at the frequency with which shaman's Train with you know have learned from particular people I do share your impression that it's that it's quite common at the same time to do things come to mind So first it is the case that shaman sometimes do build credibility without necessarily bringing on a teacher they might you know from an early age enter trans and then spontaneously heal people but the other thing that you actually remind me of our prophets and I think Or you can start out as a commentator on someone else's blog then graduate to your having your own blog Then your own podcast you're in YouTube channel Special class or comments where you know if we think about shaman's as service providers who enter an unordinary states Prophets often are also promising services or promising control over problems that are much larger And so you know prophets are co-creating with their audience's narratives about The end of the world or large society being pit against you and your group and they often use similar techniques as What we might think of as more mundane shaman's narratives of difference narratives of fundamental transformation often It also explicitly trans but the scope of the problem is much larger And so you know maybe they have some of their authority or expertise draw on a tradition draw on learning from someone But of course they also have to have to build something much larger than that You know it's not only okay Yes, I have the training to treat these illnesses But I for some reason have to be the guy have to be the person who can get the the British colonial monster out of here Or who can you know bring back the planes that brought incredible gifts or who can liberate us from the from the end of the World I also just wanted to be clear and careful about not over-stretching the analogy with the group Okay, I think that will do it for today to gonna get ready for Shabbat It's 4 29 p.m. Here Friday afternoon Gotta get a move on Shabbat's weeks with no man. Bye. Bye