The Cursed Occultism Episode

After having to record 3 times, it was starting to look like the Dark Forces were trying to keep us from revealing the truth, but Katie and Preston are committed to bringing you the best religious education they can. 

Occultism is a big, nebulous, misunderstood topic. It’s actually an umbrella term for a bunch of ideas that don’t belong to any one religion. The word occult refers to secrets. Occult practices are things that are greater than what you can observe with your senses, but also something that requires you to master a skill.

Practices like alchemy, astrology, divination, magic, tarot, and reiki would all be considered occult. Occult practices gained popular during the 1960s and 1970s as part of the counter-culture movement. 

In this episode, we also touch on Hermeticism, which is a religion based on secret knowledge. 

And lastly, what’s the occult without some Nazis? The Nazis had some wild beliefs about Atlantis and Hitler having hooves.

Tune in to find out more about Hermeticism, Alchemy, Astrology, and more.

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Katie Dooley  00:09

atheist secret secret of God a secret. Hey, Preston, Katie, you know what happens? When you dive too deep into the alcohol?

Preston Meyer  00:19

Bad things are happening to deer? Yes, seriously

Katie Dooley  00:23

bad things like your audio disappearing from your first recording.

Preston Meyer  00:29

And then your second and then the second

Katie Dooley  00:31

recording. So yeah, guys, don't be careful. This is our warning. This episode is cursed. Cursed episode. That's the title. This is a cursed episode. That's what I'm gonna call it. Yeah, that's right. So that's what we're talking about this week on the

Preston Meyer  00:47

holy watermelon podcast.

Katie Dooley  00:50

Three is a magical number. So hopefully third time is the time. All right, so we've had some spooky conversations. Yeah, so far.

Preston Meyer  01:04

And now we're really leaning into spook Tober

Katie Dooley  01:07

October and the alcohol is really super vague, right?

Preston Meyer  01:11

This huge umbrella for a whole bunch of ideas that aren't really exclusive to one specific religion. It's just kind of this nebulous thing though. The word occult comes from the Latin occultists which means hidden, usually referring to knowledge of a particular kind of secrets.

Katie Dooley  01:32

Secret Secret, secret. Yes, so the occult is anything sort of supernatural but not religious is I mean, we know religious is religion, excuse me, is also a pretty broad and vacuous term but anything has kind of a half decent definition is anything supernatural, that wouldn't be considered. Divine. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  02:02

it's, I mean, it fits into the discussion of religion pretty slowly. But what is a cult is not always, like dogmatic kind of religion, but sometimes a little bit. It's like religion a little bit tricky.

Katie Dooley  02:27

So some of the things that fall under the call it would be alchemy, astrology, magic, spiritualism. Any type of like psychic medium divination, this I mean, I was thinking about this the other day. This is why the Harry Potter books are so contentious because like, every subject they learn, isn't called.

Preston Meyer  02:48

Right? didn't even bother teaching math and Hogwarts. Did

Katie Dooley  02:52

they? Um, they had one called arithmetic z, which is not arithmetic. No, it's the magic of numbers, which I think is super cool, but they don't really talk about it just that Hermione takes it as an option because she took every option in the third book.

Preston Meyer  03:06

The fact that the study of numbers, whether it's magical or mathematical, is optional. feels a little weird.

Katie Dooley  03:17

You're clearly someone who likes numbers then because it's someone who hates members. Thank God, it's optional.

Preston Meyer  03:23

If we're talking like 1112 13 year old kids not taking

Katie Dooley  03:28

mine. No, I was saying are you talking about Hogwarts? Yeah, okay. It's like it's it's real life. I guess it depends if you're muggle born or not. Cuz then you would have done regular school.

Preston Meyer  03:41

So the muggle borns would have done regular school until what the end of grade six in North American Standards five. Yeah, sure. Yeah, cuz I guess when you turn 11 is when you start Hogwarts, you'd be skipping grade six as well. So you wouldn't even have done algebra yet. In most curriculums here.

Katie Dooley  03:58

Sure. Magic. Why do you need math? Do you have religion? Why do you need science? We're digressing? Pretty. We're digressing pretty hard here. As precedents and occult traditions are can be very similar to other religious traditions in that it's greater than what you can observe with your carnal senses.

Preston Meyer  04:23

Yeah, they they differ a little bit that they require mastery of some kind. Like your average Calvinist Christian, doesn't worry about mastering anything. He's a lot more worried about just making it through life and hoping that he's not already consigned to eternal damnation. But with no thought of mastery of any supernatural thing at all right. And so that's kind of the thing that makes the cult interesting is that they'll based Yeah, it's very skill based. It's pretty fascinating that way. And almost everything that is Since directly theological does end up fitting into this realm of pseudoscience, just because there's actions that promise effects, but they can't really be reliably reproduced in laboratory settings, it's so tricky way to go.

Katie Dooley  05:20

And if that's our definition, then a lot of things actually fall under the occult. And we have another definition that we'll chat about later. That's actually from a pastor about the the occult. And yeah, if it's just something fantastical, that can't be explained with science, there's a lot. Oh, yeah, that may, we would normally wouldn't consider being a cult that could be

Preston Meyer  05:42

you ever hear how there's a story going around? That you've probably heard that scientists don't know how bees can fly? This idea has been going around for

Katie Dooley  05:54

a long time, because they're chubby and adorable. Not even a little bit aerodynamic.

Preston Meyer  05:59

Yeah. And their wings are tiny. So I learned the secret behind this ridiculous statement. There was one scientist back in the 1930s. who's like, huh, I don't get it.

Katie Dooley  06:14

Damn, okay. Yeah. And

Preston Meyer  06:15

every other scientist who works in the field of aerodynamics is like, come on, you can figure this out. And the one scientist who said, I don't get it did later on say, Oh, this is how it works. Yeah. And for some reason, here we are, almost 100 years later. And people are still quoting, this idea that scientists don't know how bumblebees can fly. Science is tricky, but it's not that tricky. Tricky.

Katie Dooley  06:50

So with that being said, there are instances of the occult, all throughout history, in all human societies. This is not a western idea and Eastern idea or a heathen idea or whatever, that they're everywhere, everywhere they call to everywhere, always.

Preston Meyer  07:12

It's interesting that it's got a negative. It's got a lot of negative press in the West. Whereas out east, it's not even looked at as weird. It's just like, Yep, this is part of life.

Katie Dooley  07:28

This is part of what we do. Yeah, we we definitely have made it a lot darker than it is and as we explained by tomorrow, hopefully you see that as well. That's it's not just like our last two episodes, disappointingly not oaky. spooky, but

Preston Meyer  07:48

but it does show up an awful lot in our horror stories, because it's so poorly understood by so many people, that it does make a nice element to add to a scary story make it a little bit cooler. Sometimes.

Katie Dooley  08:05

The conversation we had about voodoo though, right? Yes. Many major religions have a mystic branch which could be considered a cult. So there's Kabbalah in Judaism and Sufi Islam and Islam. And there's others in other religions as well. It's not just those two. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  08:21

I think one of the bigger ones of Christianity, historically speaking, would be the Rosicrucian tradition, right? And historically, an awful lot of Freemasons are Christian. And there's just a tiniest little bit of occultism in Freemasonry as well, depending on your your branch of Freemasonry, I guess.

Katie Dooley  08:43

Yeah, and how deep you go, just like anything,

Preston Meyer  08:46

right? That everything is a matter of depth. It's a spectrum, spectrum, take a drink.

Katie Dooley  08:55

Feel Levi was a French esotericism that popularized the term cultism. So this is from Wikipedia. It says unlike older forms of esotericism, occultism, does not reject scientific progress or modernity, modernity, excuse me, Levi had stressed the need to solve the conflict between science and religion. Something that he believed could be achieved by turning to what he thought was the ancient wisdom found in magic. So if you think of something like alchemy, there, there is a it doesn't work, but there's a scientific process to it to do something magical. So I can see how he's bridging that gap,

Preston Meyer  09:32

for sure. So with things like this, we get into the realm of sound therapy, Reiki, some parts of even the generally accepted, alternative medicines can get a little bit funky in this area.

Katie Dooley  09:50

And again, this is another one of those definitions where it's, you know, can't quite be explained but there's something happening and there's a process to it, but it can't be repeated in a lab which is The problem with some of these, and yeah, I would call that cult. I'm less angry about this now the third time around. But I mean, it's still a good point to bring up is that, you know, in few been on the social media at all in the last, let's say six months, you get these people who are so against vaccines, because there's no scientific process, but then they're willing to try crystal healing or essential oils. And then they are fundamental Christians on top of it. And it's like, Kay, well, one science, one is the occult, and one is religion. So it's weird to me that you pick the occult over? That's right. I said, crystal healing has a cult.

Preston Meyer  10:53

Yeah, I mean, technically, it is a little bit funky and doesn't hold up in laboratory settings at all.

Katie Dooley  11:04

And here's the other definition quote that I alluded to from this is from Steve Bong, the lead pastor of Summit, Christian church. He says the occult is any practices that leverage supernatural powers or knowledge apart from Jesus Christ. Again, this is where I don't quite understand how you know if it's Jesus or the devil, but it comes back to the not quite science, not quite magic, definitely not religion.

Preston Meyer  11:30

Right? It's so weird that this is how he's drawing a line, when the average Christian believes that everything good comes from God, and everything that's not good doesn't come from God. And then we get into the question of is a thing good. And that's an entirely very

Katie Dooley  11:52

terrifying slope into an existential

Preston Meyer  11:56

crisis right. Now, you have some practices that tend towards fraud a lot more than others. But an awful lot of religions end up slipping down that slope, too. So absolutely. What's, what is the line? It's a little too tricky for even one expert to say, Hey, this is the deal.

Katie Dooley  12:19

Well, and then. I mean, I think there's no leader on time but the gift of discernment. That's quite a popular thing to talk about, especially in fundamental Christianity. Well, it how do you know that's a gift from God or not, and be like, I mean, you tell me but isn't Jesus supposed to be the only one we're all walking around with supernatural powers? And

Preston Meyer  12:39

anybody who is blessed by him can meet all the prophets and the apostles in the Bible also doing miracles pretty often Okay,

Katie Dooley  12:47

so that's fair, but like a 21st century 23 year old can be blessed by Jesus to put in theory, okay. It's just whether how do we know it was Jesus or not? That's the real trick. On the same website, this made me lol. It said a cultist include Freemasons, witches, psychics, mediums, Satanists, necromancers and voodoo practitioners, which I just found very close minded, to say the least. It

Preston Meyer  13:19

sounds like a list of villains. Yes. Right. This is produced with an agenda for sure.

Katie Dooley  13:24

Absolutely. Because, I mean, I guess you could put some voodoo practices under the occult, but they would just call them voodoo practices, right. It's not like this other thing. Only if you are a LaVeyan. Satanist. Would you fall under the occult if you're basically an atheist, Satanist? No. And I mean, most Freemasons and I think most traditions are pretty normal. Yeah, I think there's I'm sure there's a few. There's a few Dodd ones and everything. But for sure.

Preston Meyer  13:59

And, like we said earlier, matter of depths definitely comes into play here.

Katie Dooley  14:04

I mean, you can go too far in anything. You go too far and on to the dragons.

Preston Meyer  14:08

So that was a thing.

Katie Dooley  14:12

This didn't come up. Previously, we haven't

Preston Meyer  14:17

done an episode on Dungeons and Dragons, but Dungeons

Katie Dooley  14:19

and Dragons in the occult.

Preston Meyer  14:20

I'm sure somebody has done it. We can get into it further later. Okay. But there was a whole season of Riverdale. Archie and friends get way too much into what is not legally speaking Dungeons and Dragons. And people die. Wow. Yeah. Which, honestly, is just playing up the Satanic Panic from decades past where the stories went around that people would get way too into Gentians and dragons and commit crimes.

Katie Dooley  14:51

If you've ever met anyone who's played Dungeons and Dragons, you know, that's highly unlikely. Anyway, so we're going to talk about some specific branches of the occult, starting with astrology. Astrology

Preston Meyer  15:06

is a really fascinating thing. And it's unfortunate that astrology really solidified its claim on the name before astronomy became a separate thing,

Katie Dooley  15:18

because we've all miss spoken.

Preston Meyer  15:21

Yeah, for sure, because astrology does mean the study of the stars. But it's different than astronomy, because we're studying the stars to make ideas about what's happening here on the Earth, with people's lives and world changing event

Katie Dooley  15:38

personalities. And he can marry it's a good fit. I'm so smart and Aries I did not. He's a Virgo.

Preston Meyer  15:46

I don't even know what my wife star sign is. Because I don't remember what all of the star signs sign up would be a cancer. I believe you.

Katie Dooley  15:59

I only know this because my birthday is after hers. And that's the star sign before mine. That makes sense.

Preston Meyer  16:09

I'm a Gemini cuz I remember when I was like 10, that was important to everybody.

Katie Dooley  16:16

That's when horoscopes got real big.

Preston Meyer  16:19

Yeah, it's weird that it's become a popular thing. And I haven't looked at the stats recently to see if it's actually currently on the rise. But there was a time when astrology was dying out pretty obviously. And then it just kind of made its comeback. It's super weird. Looking back historically, emperors, kings, and definitely some American presidents have all found it terribly valuable to get into astrology and to consult astrologists it helped them make important decisions about running governments. Whether or not now is the right time to go to war kind of business isn't helpful. It doesn't do it. It started to lose popularity when scientists started proving during the Enlightenment era, that there wasn't any evidence that the earth was the center of the universe. And so that helped a little bit. It really lost steam on the scientific method and systematic trial and error and evaluation showed that it was completely unreliable and predicting anything at all ever.

Katie Dooley  17:34

What do you mean not all Leo's will marry Aries

Preston Meyer  17:37

right now. Yeah, it's it's just crazy talk. Most people are familiar with the use of astrology to excuse fault someone's personality. Oh, she's not a bitch. She's just a Scorpio.

Katie Dooley  17:55

You know, you know it's not in our notes I just thought of is Mercury retrograde? That's a huge excuse for people. I'm tired. Mercury's in retrograde. There's actually a website called is mercury in retrograde.com. And literally, you have to type in and be like yes or no. It is pretty great. I think we are in retrograde right now. I'm feeling a

Preston Meyer  18:21

little tired. It has more to do with my sleep patterns lately.

Katie Dooley  18:24

And mercury? Sure.

Preston Meyer  18:27

Maybe it's just because there's a ship stuck in the Swiss canal. Again, oh, maybe

Katie Dooley  18:32

the ship is stuck because of mercury. Maybe.

Preston Meyer  18:35

Because there's a another website. Basically, the exact same idea just is the ship stuck. So talking about, you know how the star signs don't really line up with anyone's personality, really in real life. The signs in the skies are also read to find messages from the gods and to predict important events. And so astrologists would help out national leaders with big decision making relative to these ideas. which sounded really helpful 1000s of years ago, probably until people realized, oh, no, that doesn't actually work.

Katie Dooley  19:17

The whole world doesn't orbit around me.

Preston Meyer  19:22

There have always been criticisms against astrology because of the obvious things that are wrong with it. People usually bring up the issue of freewill, the fact that everyone is able to make choices, or at least we feel like we can and the fact that we can discuss whether or not we have free will, helps the argument that we do have free will rather than everything being determined by the stars.

Katie Dooley  19:48

I chose not to marry an Aries

Preston Meyer  19:50

right? Did that specific option actually come up?

Katie Dooley  19:56

Do you mean the conversation of you're not an Aries? Should we be like Ever Sure,

Preston Meyer  20:01

let's go. That's not what I meant.

Katie Dooley  20:02

I don't know what you should know. I didn't. I didn't I didn't bet him that way either.

Preston Meyer  20:08

Yeah. Do you ever date an Aries at all? No,

Katie Dooley  20:11

that's fine. Oh, okay.

Preston Meyer  20:14

Nice. Somebody's really worried about astronomy. Alright, astrology. Yeah. Wow. Here we are. And I made the mistake. Another argument that has come up against astrology is the fact that people with wildly varied birthdays can die in the same battle, meaning the star sign at the time of your birth does not have really a very measurable difference on your actual fate.

Katie Dooley  20:44

No, don't.

Preston Meyer  20:46

But it looks like its present popularity really relies. And I've said this a few times about a few things on the counterculture from the 60s and 70s. It's now in almost every newspaper. If they're making any real money, it's, it's usually in there. They're paying somebody to make stuff up or maybe they're ripping off of older publications.

Katie Dooley  21:11

You mean they're an actual astrologist hired by the New York Times to write horoscopes? Yeah, I think so. Actual astrologers. Yeah. Okay. Not just some board I'd heard.

Preston Meyer  21:24

I mean, I'm education does it take to be an astrologist?

Katie Dooley  21:30

I'm gonna look this up on or off. I'm really curious. Now.

Preston Meyer  21:33

I think if you're professionally paid to write horoscopes, you're as much of an astrologist as anyone else could be.

Katie Dooley  21:42

Shady Preston, I didn't realize that's where you're going.

Preston Meyer  21:45

That's, that's my feelings on Wow. So I'm curious whether or not flat earthers buy into astrology, an awful lot of flat that Flat Earthers talk about this solid dome that's above the earth and the stars are just kind of painted more or less on this dome. And it doesn't help that this idea is taken from a translation choice. From the Old Testament, they from the Hebrew Bible. And I just haven't been able to have a conversation long enough with a flat earther on the subject to get into this particular question. Do

Katie Dooley  22:27

you think they would? What's your hypothesis? I

Preston Meyer  22:30

don't. I don't feel like I can make a proper hypothesis. I don't I would guess. Maybe. Oh, wow. I mean, if you're gonna buy into flat Earth, there's a decent chance you'll buy into it. So really glad that

Katie Dooley  22:47

you're you're not on the fence about this even a little bit. You just have a really strong, I'm close

Preston Meyer  22:52

to the fence. But um, it's true. I'm not on the

Katie Dooley  22:59

I think they would like yeah, I'd say more likely yes, then

Preston Meyer  23:03

no, that is my current operating hypothesis until I have a chance to test it and finer. Not actually, it's not an opportunity I'm really hunting for if it shows itself all I'll engage you

Katie Dooley  23:19

if you guys know anyone that's a flat earther send them our email. Yeah. Now, my favorite occult practice. If one could have a favorite occult practice, Alchemy, turning metals into gold, right? You think science. But science tells us it's impossible.

Preston Meyer  23:40

No, no, science doesn't tell us it's impossible. It's very difficult. Very difficult. Hugely energy consuming. And extremely dangerous. Yeah.

23:52

Probably why like, I love those three things.

Preston Meyer  23:58

Yeah, Alchemy is it's pretty nifty the idea of turning one metal into another metal it's it was really popular is like this great magnum opus. So finding the the philosopher's stone and turning lead into gold or mercury into silver or whatever you have into something better. And then, as tests failed and failed, people said, Ah, it's impossible. And then the Manhattan Project says, Hey, we actually can turn these things into other elements. And but bad bombing? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  24:42

results. So alchemy is based on four four classical elements, earth, air, wind and fire. So everything they're not actually wrong. It's just rudimentary is that everything is made up of a careful balance of these elements. Yes. The stones were sent to me a fire. And yeah, the Manhattan Project prove that yeah, there's fire in those rows fired. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:11

Yeah. And I think it's really interesting that the, the properties ascribe to these these fundamental elements of earth water, wind and, or air rather. And water. I put so much thought into I don't even know if I said all four. Water, fire, air and earth. Yes. Those are the four. Very good. Yeah. Let's say quick, I'm good. So the idea that these elements have these properties that we're now actually really exploring, like, the question of particles and waves, are they the even the same thing, but behaving in a particular manner at a particular time? It's all really tricky and really fascinating. And these questions aren't new questions. They're just being asked in new ways as we learn more. I think it's really interesting that alchemy is as weird and magical and mystical and philosophical as it is. There's a lot of good science attached to it. Even though it's not always part of the practice.

Katie Dooley  26:28

I'm sure they made a lot of scientific progress trying to turn metal into gold. Oh, not what they wanted to do. But I'm sure they learned a lot.

Preston Meyer  26:35

I think you're right. It's, it's pretty fascinating to me,

Katie Dooley  26:40

right? I like he says my favorites. Alright. So the last President mentioned, the Philosopher's Stone is the basis of this and it is considered the perfect transmutation of the elements. And the set to bring immortality. The elixir of life is supposed to be

Preston Meyer  27:02

the Philosopher's Stone dissolve dissolved,

Katie Dooley  27:05

I was thought of as the word I was looking for Thank you dissolved into it, that the stone physical hard stone does not exist anymore. Right.

Preston Meyer  27:14

And the real question is, did it ever, but there's an awful lot of philosophers and, and Old School scholars, who are very convinced that it was a real thing. And that's why the old Biblical patriarchs live to be more than 900 years old, in some cases, because they had this thing that kept them alive for so long. And now it's lost to us. And that's why nobody lives to be more than 120 years old anymore.

Katie Dooley  27:46

You know, who found the Philosopher's Stone?

Preston Meyer  27:49

Indiana Jones, yeah.

Katie Dooley  27:50

This is a fun aside before every part of the Philosopher's Stone was published. Like shortly before Indiana Jones, and the Philosopher's Stone was published.

Preston Meyer  28:03

I always thought that was fascinating. I discovered that years ago and then forgot about it. And thinking of it again, it's just brings me a little bit of happiness that there was a book published to an American audience that said, Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone, and then very shortly later, the American publishers are like, Americans don't know what the Philosopher's Stone answer let's call a Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,

Katie Dooley  28:28

maybe it was because of the poor Indiana Jones sales may have nothing to do with the quality of that novel series.

Preston Meyer  28:34

Maybe.

Katie Dooley  28:39

Alchemy is not strictly limited to Western traditions. Hindu and Buddhism, also include alchemy. The Buddhists are said to possess the philosopher's stone and Tibetan Buddhism. It's actually a brilliant pearl. I imagine like a big like baseball Pearl, like a honkin, Pearl.

Preston Meyer  28:58

I think that's fair. It's gotta be special, right? Yeah. And I mean, how many times have you misplace something that's regular Pearl sized?

Katie Dooley  29:07

Frequently, all of my pearls are gone.

Preston Meyer  29:13

Yeah, so I would want something that's important to be a little closer to baseball sight. At least if you loosen the couch cushions you'll notice it.

Katie Dooley  29:22

And in Hinduism, some figures are described as possessing or using a stone that has the same properties as the Philosopher's Stone.

Preston Meyer  29:34

Yes, pretty much everywhere. And I think that's really cool. Alchemy is also really often associated with fear G divine works that how God operates in the universe. So it's basically theology is the the method of creating the universe. And so alchemy is attached to this, and it's study is also the study of the The nature of birth, death and resurrection. So I thought that was actually kind of interesting. The philosophy of alchemy is some pretty nifty stuff and can get very theological. And going back to my love of words, it's no accident that alchemy sounds a fair bit like chemistry. The owl if you want to break up the word just shows evidence that we've looked at it through a Muslim Arabic lens for a long time. And show me all meaning that yes, yes. And shimmy is basically just the French word for chemistry.

Katie Dooley  30:45

The chemistry Yeah.

Preston Meyer  30:49

But fancy and foreign and missing. Oh,

Katie Dooley  30:52

I love it. Yeah. So they basically have the same meaning. Yeah. Which is funny. Yeah, but they're very different. Yes.

Preston Meyer  31:02

So very different.

Katie Dooley  31:04

To funny. No, I like I like your word asides. President. Me

Preston Meyer  31:09

too. I think words are great. Next, on our list, we have magic. We've talked a fair bit about this over the last month, so I don't want to spend a whole lot more time on it. But basically, magic is the use of rituals to affect something in a way that seems unlikely to an outsider, often relying on the assistance of spirits or gods or anything supernatural.

Katie Dooley  31:36

This can also include incantations, I want to say like potion making, but that's not the right thing when they'll make

Preston Meyer  31:47

elixirs Yeah, I

Katie Dooley  31:48

guess so. Were the like more? Yeah, mortar and pestle up powders and things like that. To see are wicked. But yeah, all of those practices would fall under magic. Spiritualism also kind of a fun one. This would be your taro and your crystal balls and your seances and your psychic mediums. What else would fall under spiritualism? We G boards.

Preston Meyer  32:18

Man we G boards are some really potent part of our popular culture.

Katie Dooley  32:24

Absolutely. Yeah. So all that communicating with the dead essentially, our spirits is falls under here. So this is super common. Around the World. This is not a Western Eastern thing. Everyone wants to talk to their dead relatives.

Preston Meyer  32:42

Yeah, it's everywhere. Every religion deals with it in some manner or another. And there's, there's some traditions that are like, hey, you need to be really careful about this and others are like, You're gonna be fine as long as you're talking to the people you want to talk to.

Katie Dooley  33:00

And I'm just gonna say and then if you look at like Chinese folk tradition, that's the basis of theirs talking to dead relatives. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  33:10

yes, I was um, Shinto and voodoo traditions all based

Katie Dooley  33:13

upon. Yeah. And all in your ancestor. So what am I have big questions, and I alluded to it earlier in the episode is how do I separate talking to an evil spirit, or having this as the evil or malicious gift as opposed to being a gift from God? Because this is a huge topic, right? If you if you Google, the occult, I would say is the majority easily 60% of the websites are about how bad it is. From Christian websites telling you to stay away from it's actually really hard to research.

Preston Meyer  33:47

So being told as a kid don't touch the Ouija board, you'll invite dark spirits into the house. And I'm like, or maybe maybe alone

Katie Dooley  33:57

if we get a friendly one. Well, we get Casper

Preston Meyer  34:01

right that's that's gotta be an option. They can all be evil, we can

Katie Dooley  34:05

all become bad once we die, right?

Preston Meyer  34:10

Spiritualism is so vague and, and big. And within every tradition, there's going to be some acknowledgement that there's good spirits and bad spirits that you can interact with. Because in real life, walking down the street, there's good people and bad people you can interact with. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  34:30

It's really interesting to me that these were I don't remember the exact numbers but statistics out of America is the majority of Americans are religious. And the majority of Americans also believe in ghosts and spirits, which I mean, even considering they tell you those people that's true. That's absolutely true. Kind of weird to be concerned. They tell you to like don't go near it. But then there's people like Sylvia Browne called his way into it because Wayne fans makes a ton of money off of it. So even when there's definitely there's definitely overlap between religious America and people who are paying Sylvia Browne to talk to relatives.

Preston Meyer  35:12

Absolutely true. Absolutely. And it's weird because if you read into the Hebrew Bible, it specifically forbids dealing with people who have familiar spirits that they deal with. And really, that's the only the only strong basis we have for why Christians and Jews would be uncomfortable with fortune tellers and, and witches and whatnot, is this idea that my book says don't do that. But if you don't believe in the book, what reason? Do you have to believe that idea? Right?

Katie Dooley  35:51

Excuse me? Yeah, it's

Preston Meyer  35:52

a little weird. And, of course, when it comes to spiritualism, there are so many scam artists and have been for hundreds of years. Recently, we have stories like Tiffany, Butch, we talked about a little while ago. And famously, we've got Ed and Lorraine Warren, the couple that's the center of the conjuring series, which is, interestingly enough, the second highest grossing horror franchise in all of human history, second only to Godzilla, which makes a little bit of sense there. He's been around for

Katie Dooley  36:27

a while has been present. I just had a great idea. Yeah. What if we go and get our poems read and do a bonus episode on it? Oh, I like that. Yeah. Okay. Just go to some weird psychic ladies basement. Sure. And we won't tell them that we're not married to each other. Ah, okay. I

Preston Meyer  36:49

know where this can happen.

Katie Dooley  36:51

Okay. I mean, like, literally just drive down the basement and you'll find the psychic, but this is true. Okay. Okay. I really excited now. Unless, sir, yeah, if you guys fancy idea, drop a line artist card, but I'm really excited. So even if you think it's lame, I'm probably gonna do it.

Preston Meyer  37:10

Next on our list, we have hermeticism, which is kind of a big thing, an awful lot of the time when people talk about via call, this is what they want there a lot of the time. And this is a tradition that seems to have popped up in Egypt in the first century of the Common Era, under influence of Jewish and Christian mystic doctrines. And also Greek philosophy. There's a really interesting amalgamation of these things. And the great thing about synchronisation is that when smart people pick the best parts from a bunch of popular things, the result is pretty compelling. And it lasts a long time. We still have hermeticism, today, 2000 years later,

Katie Dooley  37:52

and it's pilot, we're, we'll do a full episode on hermeticism because it definitely warrants it. And there's things that are from the Hermetic tradition that you don't even know, right down, you know, I didn't know one another, another Christian site bashing the occult. So hermeticism is, is centered around Hermes, Tristan Augustus, he's he's sort of the central figure. He is a syncretic combination of Hermes and thoughts. Two very similar gods from Greek and Gyptian. Tradition, tradition. Thank you. So here's a made up person. Smash two people together. Yep. And so here's the code. I think this one is for podcasts as well. followers may name Hermes Trismegistus, whose life is shrouded in mystery. He didn't have a life. Remember, he's not unreal. As the one who unites all all cult teachings and practices, some believed he was a god, others demigod, still other views him as a philosopher and strove to live by His teachings. Again, not real just makes me a little bit angry, also really funny that they're just warping. Like it doesn't take a lot of googling to figure out that Hermes Trismegistus is a made up person.

Preston Meyer  39:09

No, if you google him the first entry and the little sidebar, when you use Google on a desktop device, it will straight up say, this is an amalgam character, so

Katie Dooley  39:19

it just bothers me that they're like, making shit up to push their beliefs on the alcohol anyway. My notes is I just can't handle people making up stuff to foster a weird agenda, which is true. I can't handle that.

Preston Meyer  39:35

Right. It's, it's frustrating. Trismegistus is a really interesting name to me. Hermes, seems like it's just the the Roman equivalent of mercury who is part of this amalgam. But trust me justice is a name with a real meaning for sure. It means thrice great. And if you compare this to the The grammatical precedent we have of the Holy of Holies, or the Sanctum Sanctorum, or king of kings, which mean like the most holy place or the highest King, we're here we got a tripling instead of a doubling. So this dude has got to be the absolute greatest, he's got to be the shit. Exactly. And that's a really bold name for a made up character. That's the head of your traditional ideas. But I like it, it's a little, it's a little special.

Katie Dooley  40:33

I like it, I think it's great. So her medicine is considered by religion by some just like Jenna ism is, it's better fits into the pair religion category, because it can actually be quite compatible with all other religions. And so many people are only interested in the philosophy or the mat magic ignoring the theological piece of hermeticism. Yeah, it's,

Preston Meyer  40:59

it's easy to adopt a thing if you want to just dump some parts that don't fit with your existing worldview. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  41:05

And a good example, is actually the term good vibes, which I literally saw on a coffee mug the other day, it was like hermeticism deals with good and bad vibrations, that is a hermetic idea. So you can see how, like you said, I sat on a coffee mug the other day, this is something that is just the philosophy of it, it's become part of our culture without having to attach to the theology of it,

Preston Meyer  41:32

right. And we've actually got a good handful of little ideas that seem to have originated with hermetic traditions that have crept in in common use the phrase as above, so below has become pretty popular. And this of the original statement is that which is above is like to that which is below. And that which is below is like to that which is above. And that means that we are able to understand heaven, based on what we are able to perceive here and predict heaven based on what we see here. And that's a pretty interesting way to go through life. Instead of an awful lot of people who say that heaven is completely unimaginable, you couldn't possibly understand it and your current state, which just sounds like a really rough way of saying, Stop thinking about it, or you'll realize it's nonsense.

Katie Dooley  42:30

Yeah, that's sorry, I'm sorry, a little rebellious. Katie is like, well, if it's so great, I can understand why do I care? Like why do i Sure, okay. If I can understand, and I'm not gonna give it two shits about it, if I can understand it, is it even worth my Yeah. Is it worth my time to care? Okay, doesn't sound like it. Right.

Preston Meyer  42:53

So, an interesting way to look into the future and the world around you, I guess. There's, I've talked about this before how some pantheistic Christian theology is derived from just adopting ideas from other Eastern traditions over the course of the counterculture movement, there are some Christian traditions that have adopted the pantheistic idea directly from hermetic traditions. And so those ones, if you're worried about how long or where the source of this idea is, you can look at how long they've been talking about it. And if they've been doing it for more than 100 years, more than likely Hermetic tradition. And those handful of Christian traditions that actually talk about reincarnation, definitely are taking this from the hermetic texts more than from other Eastern traditions. precedent.

Katie Dooley  43:49

Yeah, they did something bad would you do? I went down a rabbit hole. Oh, no. Where did you go? So when you google occultism Nazi occultism comes up a lot. Oh, no. So I learned all about Nazi occultism and it was a wild ride. I bet. Did you know? Hitler had whose? I

Preston Meyer  44:14

have never heard that before. Oops.

Katie Dooley  44:18

I can make Clippy clap knows. Who's, that's why I always wore shoes to hide. So on top of that, Nazi occultism is based in Arabic. I hate this word. Very awesome. Very ossipee Thank you. Not so cultism is based in Ariana Sufi, which is an esoteric ideology, which you'll remember from our Wicca episode. esotericism is hard to define but it's basically secrets understood by small group people. So airy, airy ossipee is the wisdom of the Aryans implying that somehow area ends are better or smarter than other people

Preston Meyer  45:03

always think that's funny because Hitler seems to have a wild idea of who the Aryans were. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  45:09

he's definitely confused with like the Vikings, for sure.

Preston Meyer  45:13

But I was like, we know the Aryans are the people who brought the Vedic religion to India. And since that's the only place in the whole world where we see that religious tradition, historically speaking, it's a lot more likely they were a lot closer to India than, say, the opposite end of Europe.

Katie Dooley  45:34

Right? They're all a little darker than he thinks they were. That's for sure. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  45:39

I think most scholars agree that they were probably Persian indo Arab, somewhere around there. But it's like, the Far North Western Europe is a big to get that

Katie Dooley  45:51

blond and blue eyed. Ya know? They're also claims that Hitler was a demon, either not in addition to its so the person that he actually dedicated my income to has, like gone on record saying that when Hitler spoke about the final solution, his voice changed, his character changed. I was like talking to an entirely different person. My guess is that he's just a psychopath. But claims about

Preston Meyer  46:20

something I'm really passionate about, you might notice a change in my tone, talking

Katie Dooley  46:24

like, say, 10 I'm really passionate about the cult. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah. And then, in addition to that, there were a lot of really weird fringe beliefs throughout the Nazi movement, including that Aryans are descended from aliens, they were really fascinated with the Holy Grail as seen in Indiana Johnson, and the Last Crusade, I was gonna say Indiana Jones And The Holy Grail. That's not real. Lucifer, astrology, Atlantis, just like really into some weird ass theories. And I was reading in like, how, how? And then I remember that q&a And the thing, so yeah.

Preston Meyer  47:20

Right, it makes it a little bit more understandable. It's

Katie Dooley  47:23

like if you're that far gone already than Atlantis is actually not that much further to go. Right.

Preston Meyer  47:28

So shortly from that point, it's interesting to me that the Nazis were such great bad guys for Indiana Jones because of their occult interests. It wasn't just because they're the bad guys in the time where we have Indiana Jones, it's because of what they were into.

Katie Dooley  47:47

And I mean, it just helps make the Indiana Jones stories more fantastical. A little bit. chicken or egg?

Preston Meyer  47:53

Generally speaking, or in this in this

Katie Dooley  47:58

did, were you more likely to become a Nazi because you already work cuckoo bananas, or to Nazis become cuckoo bananas. You know, I mean, like, would you already believe in Atlantis and you're like, let's and then some guy comes and says, let's kill all the Jews. You're like, yeah, okay, can gamble with that. Or we like I agree with killing all the Jews. And then they're like, What do you think of Atlantis? And they're like, Yeah, okay.

Preston Meyer  48:20

I think both. I think some people joined up because they were already troubled. And some people became more troubled because of their association with the party. I don't have a solitary answer.

Katie Dooley  48:35

I mean, you're probably right. But it is probably both. And some people never would have gone as far as Atlantis.

Preston Meyer  48:42

Right? There's nobody who bought into everything. 100% Or sorry. There's, you can't say that the whole group bought into everything.

Katie Dooley  48:51

I mean, we know that there were Nazis that didn't even agree with what the Nazis were doing. It was their own. You

Preston Meyer  48:56

had people who are actually party members who did not think it was okay.

Katie Dooley  49:00

What am I trying to say? I'm self preservation. Yeah, for sure. So what I was looking for, it's a spectrum. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  49:10

That's twice in one episode. Wow. Awesome. Sweet. It's, it's a wide varied world, and it's really quite fascinating. But occult traditions don't tend to be specifically religious on their own. Instead, they're usually treated as a science or more accurately, a pseudoscience, used in conjunction with an altogether independent dogma. Usually, the thing that bothers most monotheists, as far as I've been able to observe, is that these pursuits are perceived to distract from the worship of the one true God. And sometimes also suggest that there is an alternative path to immortal glory or salvation. There's actually a reasonably entertaining movie that came out a couple of decades ago, called the last sin eater. And the idea that there is somebody other than Jesus who can take away your sins is not terribly foreign to this idea. Scandalous, right. And it stresses a lot of people out makes people uncomfortable about how much they know about their faith, and what they need to know about their faith to really feel like they're faithful. And just makes people uncomfortable. Yeah. There's

Katie Dooley  50:35

also the risk of letting the devils in, right, which we'll talk about in two weeks.

Preston Meyer  50:43

We're gonna have some good fun with that, as we creep ever closer to Halloween.

Katie Dooley  50:51

I, my final thoughts are that the occult is not actually something to be feared. And it's so vague that when people say Don't dabble in the call, ask them to be more specific, for sure, just to see the look on their faces, because most of them don't know what they're talking about. And I can see that. So I didn't know what she was talking about until we researched this, right.

Preston Meyer  51:13

It's such a wide, wonderful world. And there is a little bit of mystery and magic to it, depending on how you define those words. And there's no reason to go around stressing and being afraid of all of these things that you're not familiar with. And hopefully we can help out with that and help you become more aware of what's really going on

Katie Dooley  51:37

see mystifying the mystical, Katie and Preston. Together, we fight crime and ignorance. And mostly, it's definitely not crime. I'm not built for that. vigilantism

Preston Meyer  51:49

is discouraged. But fighting ignorance, I think is a good pursuit. And I'd like to thank you all for joining us as we've been doing this for as of this episode, a whole year. Well, you

Katie Dooley  52:09

it's fantastic holding hands. Everyone knows

Preston Meyer  52:11

the visual medium, working out.

Katie Dooley  52:16

Yeah, so we thank you all so much for a great year. And we want to keep going. And the best way to do that is to support us any way you can, which can look different. You can follow us on social media, like comment share, you can join our Discord channel where we've been having some really great conversations recently. Or we've

Preston Meyer  52:35

got Patreon. We would love to make a little bit money doing this. So we can do it full time and maybe even do this weekly, instead of bi weekly just thinking that today to be great. Yeah. And if a subscription model doesn't work for you guys, there's always Spreadshirt

Katie Dooley  52:53

we have all our great merch.

Preston Meyer  52:56

And we're slowly building up our collection of things so that you can have more and more options as we develop. We're pretty excited about that. And so thanks for joining us. Please be with you. By the late Middle Ages