Ep. 231: "FURRIES ARE SHAMANS!" Ari Freeman On the Horrors of Furry & Brony Sorcery

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jason: I feel the controversy just trying to butt its way in a way it doesn't normally would podcast. (05:09):
undefined

Jason: What is the esoteric significance of furries? (05:15):
undefined

Ari: Our furries, the Aghori of the West. (05:18):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, there we go. That's a scary furry. (05:21):
undefined

Ari: Jason, you may not know that there is, since the beginning of the internet, (05:24):
undefined

Ari: been an entire furry religion going on. (05:29):
undefined

Jason: So, well, here's another question. Are furries also modern shamans? (05:31):
undefined

Ari: This is the official first, (05:38):
undefined

Jason: The very first video podcast of the Ultraculture podcast. (05:41):
undefined

Jason: I've uploaded Zoom calls in the past, but that's not the same. (05:46):
undefined

Jason: So you and I are appearing side by side with like an animated city background going behind us. (05:50):
undefined

Ari: Oh, okay, cool. (05:55):
undefined

Jason: It looks like a real new show. You can't see it on your end. (05:57):
undefined

Jason: But why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself? You've been on the show before. (06:00):
undefined

Jason: But tell us about how life has been in wizarding. (06:06):
undefined

Ari: Okay, well, thanks very much, Jason. And thanks, Heats, for having me on again. (06:11):
undefined

Ari: I've been a longtime fan of your stuff. And I think we have a similar mission as educators. Yeah. (06:15):
undefined

Ari: And people who explore weird phenomena to bring back stories that hopefully (06:22):
undefined

Ari: people can use. What have I been doing? (06:26):
undefined

Jason: That's a good way to put it. I like that. That sounds so normal when you put it like that. (06:29):
undefined

Ari: Well one one of my this is going to piss off some of your students already but (06:34):
undefined

Ari: one of my missions jason is to de-spook the occult oh well (06:38):
undefined

Jason: I'm fine with that. (06:43):
undefined

Ari: Yeah i know you are yeah and and i will get into that in a second with with (06:44):
undefined

Ari: the whole theme of this discussion (06:50):
undefined

Ari: what have i been doing well this year i'm releasing a whole bunch of stuff Tell us about Ari (06:53):
undefined

Jason: Freeman and who you are. (07:00):
undefined

Ari: Ari Freeman, I am a public wizard in New Zealand. (07:02):
undefined

Ari: I spent seven years as the apprentice to the official wizard of New Zealand. I'm now independent. (07:06):
undefined

Ari: He's sort of taken to Facebook with angry old man rants, but that's okay. (07:12):
undefined

Ari: I am a musician, and I perform public shows and magical performances as a funk wizard. (07:18):
undefined

Ari: Dressed in a Saki Dugla outfit and of headline festivals doing that. And I'm a writer. (07:27):
undefined

Ari: I have one book already out called Pragmatic Magical Thinking that is magical (07:33):
undefined

Ari: theory in the tradition of people like Ramsey Jukes, (07:39):
undefined

Ari: who's the other guy in my world who's doing magical theory. (07:43):
undefined

Jason: Wait, does he live in New Zealand now? I thought he was in South Africa. (07:50):
undefined

Ari: No, Ramsey Jukes lives in South Africa, but I've interacted with him a little (07:53):
undefined

Ari: bit online. Oh, good. He's a great guy. I hope he's doing well. (07:56):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, he seems to be okay. He's, yeah. (07:59):
undefined

Ari: And I've got a magical-themed album on which I played all the instruments recorded (08:02):
undefined

Ari: by myself, and I built quite a few of those instruments myself, including this guitar (08:08):
undefined

Jason: And a bunch. (08:14):
undefined

Ari: Of other guitars. So if you like, we could end this with a guitar solo. (08:15):
undefined

Jason: Well, then you'll be the first musical guest also of the Old Culture Podcast, (08:21):
undefined

Jason: so you'll be making multiple records here. (08:25):
undefined

Ari: Awesome, awesome. And then I have two more books coming out this year. (08:27):
undefined

Ari: The first one, my magical themed album is called You Can See Everything If You Look From Nowhere. (08:33):
undefined

Jason: Okay. (08:38):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, and it's coming out at the end of this month on March the 30th, my time. (08:39):
undefined

Ari: I live in the future, so in a future time zone. (08:45):
undefined

Ari: So it may come out on the 29th for you guys. Okay. (08:49):
undefined

Ari: Watch for that. I have a book called Tarot for Skeptics coming out with Aeon Books this year. (08:53):
undefined

Ari: It's got a full course on the Marseille, the Rider-Waite-Smith, (08:59):
undefined

Ari: and the Thoth decks, all taught in parallel. (09:03):
undefined

Jason: That's amazing. (09:08):
undefined

Ari: If you read about the first 40-50 pages of this book, you'll already be reading (09:11):
undefined

Ari: tarot and getting results, even if you're a skeptic. (09:18):
undefined

Ari: Cool. and it answers questions like what's really going on with psychics and (09:22):
undefined

Ari: things like that what's really (09:27):
undefined

Jason: Going on with. (09:28):
undefined

Ari: Psychics yeah oh you want to know yes (09:29):
undefined

Ari: so i'm what i call a magical pragmatist pragmatism is the philosophy started (09:34):
undefined

Ari: by william james who's probably your most important philosopher pragmatism is (09:41):
undefined

Ari: also used by science the philosophy of science. (09:48):
undefined

Ari: And it's the idea that you should ground truth claims in what you can actually do in the world. (09:52):
undefined

Ari: So if something produces results, something about it must be true. (09:58):
undefined

Jason: I'd say Plato is our most important philosopher, by the way, (10:03):
undefined

Jason: in the Western esoteric tradition, but Henry James made a good contribution. (10:06):
undefined

Ari: William James. (10:11):
undefined

Jason: Henry James also made a good fictional contribution. (10:12):
undefined

Ari: Henry James was his brother, but I meant William James's pot. (10:16):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, variety is a spiritual experience. (10:20):
undefined

Ari: That's right. (10:22):
undefined

Jason: Yeah. (10:23):
undefined

Ari: And my point was he's probably the most important American philosopher. (10:23):
undefined

Jason: More than, that's also a controversial claim if you put him above Emerson and Thoreau. (10:27):
undefined

Ari: Hmm. I think I would, but I am there. (10:32):
undefined

Jason: Shots fired. I'm not sure we go so far, but interesting. Okay. (10:36):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, so you mentioned the Varieties of Religious Experience, (10:41):
undefined

Ari: which even got name-dropped by Crowley. (10:44):
undefined

Ari: It was part of the AA reading list. (10:48):
undefined

Jason: That's right. Interesting. (10:51):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, yeah. (10:52):
undefined

Jason: I just ordered a copy, actually, for that reason. (10:54):
undefined

Ari: Oh, it's great. It's really good. So the idea is, (10:57):
undefined

Ari: I'll try and put it simply, when you look at someone who's religious, (11:02):
undefined

Ari: the question shouldn't be whether you (11:06):
undefined

Ari: can prove you know god is real or whether they're really talking to angels because (11:09):
undefined

Ari: these are always grounded in subjective experiences probably a better question (11:12):
undefined

Ari: is can they can they with their belief system get something done that you can't (11:18):
undefined

Ari: without that belief system interesting (11:24):
undefined

Jason: And what was what was his conclusion. (11:26):
undefined

Ari: Yeah he he He brought up as many examples as he possibly could on what prayer (11:28):
undefined

Ari: does and religious experience and (11:34):
undefined

Ari: transcendental experiences and the Holy Spirit and all of these things. (11:37):
undefined

Ari: Now, what I'm doing is defending magic on the same principles. (11:42):
undefined

Ari: Chaos magic already allows you to adopt a belief system for a duration of an experiment. (11:49):
undefined

Ari: But I argue that sane people believe different things on different days and (11:55):
undefined

Ari: different things on different parts of days, (12:00):
undefined

Ari: and that the real problem that causes people real cognitive dissonance is when (12:01):
undefined

Ari: they try and have one belief system, and you can't get through life with only one belief system, (12:07):
undefined

Ari: or if they try and reconcile belief systems that won't work together, (12:13):
undefined

Ari: but only because they can't compartmentalize them. (12:20):
undefined

Ari: So someone who is a really good scientist but goes to a Catholic church and (12:23):
undefined

Ari: prays to the Holy Spirit on Sunday can probably do that because it's contained (12:28):
undefined

Ari: within the Sunday service and it doesn't invade his life during the week. Excellent. (12:33):
undefined

Jason: And so, for instance, somebody could also be a furry on the weekends and compartmentalize (12:40):
undefined

Jason: that from the rest of their identities. It could be anyone. (12:44):
undefined

Ari: And we'll definitely get into that, yeah. (12:49):
undefined

Jason: Well, let's just go straight to it. Now that I'm in like the Piers Morgan type (12:51):
undefined

Jason: format, I feel the controversy just trying to butt its way in in a way it doesn't (12:54):
undefined

Jason: doesn't normally would podcast. (13:00):
undefined

Jason: So let's just this was your this was your idea of something to discuss. (13:01):
undefined

Jason: But I'm all like I'm going to expand it. (13:05):
undefined

Jason: So shocking, controversial topic for today. What is the esoteric significance of furries? (13:08):
undefined

Ari: Oh, can I go harder? (13:14):
undefined

Jason: Oh, yes. (13:15):
undefined

Ari: Are furries the Aghori of the West? (13:17):
undefined

Jason: Oh, absolutely. Well, we're definitely going to do that. But I would say that (13:20):
undefined

Jason: is a subset of the pure esoteric meaning of furries. (13:24):
undefined

Jason: Because I have other ideas, but let's start with that one. (13:27):
undefined

Jason: So are furries the Aghori of the West? (13:29):
undefined

Ari: Okay, give me a moment. (13:32):
undefined

Jason: Can you explain Aghoris too? (13:34):
undefined

Ari: Give me a moment to explain this. Firstly, I have a concept which I've heard (13:35):
undefined

Ari: you talk about, but I've been given a term and a shout out to Aurora for coming (13:40):
undefined

Ari: up with this term after I explained the problem to her. (13:46):
undefined

Ari: It's called inversion without liberation. (13:48):
undefined

Ari: Inversion without liberation is when you try and rebel against a system you (13:52):
undefined

Ari: found oppressive, say your parents' religion, but what you do is invert their (13:57):
undefined

Ari: values so that everything that was bad is now good and vice versa. (14:02):
undefined

Ari: And many people dedicate their lives, you know, like Anton LaVey on the Church (14:08):
undefined

Ari: of Satan, or even Crowley himself fell into this trap for a lot of sections of his life. (14:12):
undefined

Ari: But you're still playing the same game by the same rules set by the oppressor. (14:20):
undefined

Jason: Yes, yes. (14:25):
undefined

Ari: Cool. Okay, so that's the first point. That's the first term, (14:27):
undefined

Ari: inversion without liberation. (14:31):
undefined

Jason: So an example of that would The one that I usually give is, if you are a Christian (14:32):
undefined

Jason: and you become a Satanist, well, you're still working out of the same book there. (14:37):
undefined

Jason: Are you free from Christianity? No, you've just inverted it, (14:41):
undefined

Jason: as you said. So I like that phrase, inversion without liberation. (14:45):
undefined

Jason: Stop before you skip ahead. Today's sponsor is me, because I don't have sponsors, (14:48):
undefined

Jason: because sponsors won't touch my content with a 10-foot pole. Are you feeling stuck? (14:53):
undefined

Jason: Why not try Magic and the Occult at Magic.me, my school for magic, (14:57):
undefined

Jason: meditation, and mysticism. (15:04):
undefined

Jason: As seen on the Duncan Trussell Family Hour, Midnight Gospel, (15:06):
undefined

Jason: Days Digital, Gaia Online, Netflix, Team Human, Vice, and not yet updated on (15:09):
undefined

Jason: the site, Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin. Just check out all the stuff that you can learn. (15:14):
undefined

Jason: The Magic of Tarot with world-renowned tarot master Lon Milo Duquette. (15:18):
undefined

Jason: Introduction to Magic with me. (15:22):
undefined

Jason: Meditation, Chaos Magic, Astrology, Meditation, Unleashing Your True Will, (15:25):
undefined

Jason: and lots, lots, lots more. (15:31):
undefined

Jason: And of course, we're about to start a brand new course, The Adapt Initiative (15:34):
undefined

Jason: 2, which starts on the 16th. (15:37):
undefined

Jason: You still have time to join. It's going to be incredible. The Adapt Initiative (15:41):
undefined

Jason: 1 changed people's lives all over the world. (15:44):
undefined

Jason: Revolutionizing not just their ability to master the occult, (15:47):
undefined

Jason: but to master their finances, to master life, to revolutionize their career, (15:51):
undefined

Jason: their relationships, everything. (15:54):
undefined

Jason: It's going to be phenomenal. (15:56):
undefined

Jason: Check out what students are saying. They are over the moon, pun intended, (15:58):
undefined

Jason: with how excited they are about this course. (16:02):
undefined

Jason: And check it out. You're going to be learning all kinds of cool stuff from ceremonial (16:05):
undefined

Jason: magic to Kabbalah to astral projection. (16:09):
undefined

Jason: We're talking about the big leagues of personal transformation and consciousness (16:11):
undefined

Jason: evolution here. You're going to have an incredible time. (16:16):
undefined

Jason: Meet us in class. It's adept.magic.me. You still have a few more days to sign (16:20):
undefined

Jason: up, but that's it. All right, back to the show. (16:24):
undefined

Ari: From the Western eye looking in, the Aghori, Firstly, a short summary, (16:27):
undefined

Ari: and you know more about this than me, so you can correct me, (16:32):
undefined

Ari: but they are Shavis, and they believe that... Shavites, yeah. (16:35):
undefined

Ari: Shavites, yeah. They believe that... (16:42):
undefined

Jason: They don't shave. They don't shave. Neither do I. They do worship Shavis. (16:44):
undefined

Ari: So, the Godhead is perfect and good in Agori belief, and therefore, (16:50):
undefined

Ari: because creation is created by the Godhead, all creation is good, and therefore, (16:56):
undefined

Ari: it's up to the ascetic to overcome their negative emotions about things they (17:02):
undefined

Ari: find bad, disgusting, immoral. (17:08):
undefined

Ari: So, for instance, part of the Agori path, if I am correct, is eating and drinking (17:10):
undefined

Ari: from human skulls, painting oneself with cremation ashes, (17:16):
undefined

Ari: and generally embracing death and hanging around funerals and death fires, (17:22):
undefined

Ari: getting close and personal with excretement and other gross things, (17:29):
undefined

Ari: walking around completely naked in public, potentially. (17:34):
undefined

Jason: Not unique to them, but yeah. (17:40):
undefined

Ari: Cool. To rebellious Westerners, there's an issue here that maybe misses the point. (17:42):
undefined

Ari: These people look awfully goth and very cool and rebellious. (17:49):
undefined

Jason: Yes. (17:54):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, yeah. So this is possibly the point of Agori is that they're rebelling (17:56):
undefined

Ari: against tenants of their own society. (18:01):
undefined

Ari: But because we have our cultural clothing or cultural filters, (18:03):
undefined

Ari: we see them as something cool when they're trying to be the exact opposite. (18:08):
undefined

Ari: So what is the most uncool thing to Western occultists? I argue it might be furries. (18:16):
undefined

Jason: I think you're right. Somebody pointed out to me, it's actually very, very hard. (18:24):
undefined

Jason: I do my best, you know, it's like, it's very, very hard to practice anathema (18:30):
undefined

Jason: in the chaos magic sense. (18:34):
undefined

Jason: I found some good hot buttons, for instance, cop consciousness. (18:36):
undefined

Ari: Right. (18:40):
undefined

Jason: Western occultists can't, like, I'm really good at that. Like, (18:41):
undefined

Jason: they just cannot handle it at all. It was really funny. (18:44):
undefined

Jason: Anything that sounds like it's an opinion their dad might have is always a winner. (18:48):
undefined

Jason: So I'm fast and furious with the sounds like dad yelling at Fox News opinions (18:52):
undefined

Jason: because I know how much it winds people up. But yeah, furries. (18:57):
undefined

Jason: Somebody pointed out to me once, what can you do in America that is actually (19:01):
undefined

Jason: socially unacceptable in America? (19:05):
undefined

Jason: Because I don't know about New Zealand, but America, parts of it at least, (19:08):
undefined

Jason: are pretty anything goes. It's very hard to shock people. (19:12):
undefined

Ari: Yeah. (19:15):
undefined

Ari: We have a very love and love attitude. (19:18):
undefined

Jason: Gotcha. But America also has this, you know, really deep seated. (19:20):
undefined

Jason: I don't know what to call it, you know, capitalist impulse. (19:26):
undefined

Jason: So I think it's like the worst things to be in America are poor, (19:30):
undefined

Jason: overweight and mentally ill. (19:35):
undefined

Jason: And all three all three will make you socially unacceptable i'm not saying that's (19:37):
undefined

Jason: a good thing of course i'm just saying that you know when you really get down (19:43):
undefined

Jason: to what what is unacceptable to americans but furries yeah if you just want (19:46):
undefined

Jason: to go all the way all at once all the. (19:51):
undefined

Ari: Way okay so i am not myself a furry but i have hung out with them and just to prove that i have (19:53):
undefined

Ari: I've captured some of these costumes and I've used fairy characters in my (20:01):
undefined

Jason: Musical performances I just saw the fur, I didn't see the face. (20:08):
undefined

Ari: This is a rabbit's head (20:12):
undefined

Jason: Oh god, here, move it in front of your face there we go, a little closer towards (20:15):
undefined

Jason: the mic oh yeah, there we go, (20:21):
undefined

Jason: Do that again. This is going in the first 30 seconds of the video now. (20:24):
undefined

Jason: I can see its nose, but not its eyes. It's quite disturbing. (20:30):
undefined

Ari: I wrote some songs that have animal metaphors for psychological types of human being. (20:34):
undefined

Ari: And the rabbit is someone who always toes the lions. He's very scared of confrontation. (20:42):
undefined

Ari: And so we'll have a song i wrote called rabbit on the (20:48):
undefined

Ari: moon and and the rabbit would (20:51):
undefined

Ari: come out in the crowd while while we were playing the song cool then i have (20:54):
undefined

Ari: another song with that same band that band was called lupus luna which means (20:58):
undefined

Ari: wolfman and the other one was a wolf character these were all made for me these (21:01):
undefined

Ari: were made for me by my god friend who's a musical furry so (21:07):
undefined

Jason: He is this was made by a furry. (21:12):
undefined

Ari: Yeah yeah wow (21:14):
undefined

Jason: Yeah here move it towards the center so it's like looking into the mic there (21:16):
undefined

Jason: we go because i can know it's cut off halfway yeah there we go that's that's (21:19):
undefined

Jason: a scary furry aren't furries are supposed to be cuddly aren't they that looks (21:24):
undefined

Jason: like a horror movie character. (21:27):
undefined

Ari: Fair my my furry friends are somewhat more more out there and and creative with (21:28):
undefined

Ari: with it they're dark dark fairies i guess they're not dressing up as cartoon (21:35):
undefined

Ari: characters okay anyway so i have I've been in costume as a wizard out in public (21:40):
undefined

Ari: with these furry werewolf characters and things around me. (21:45):
undefined

Ari: And so we've done a lot of, I don't know what you call that, (21:48):
undefined

Ari: public culture jamming, whatever. (21:52):
undefined

Ari: Yeah. And I've had them appear at my musical performances. So I've spent some time. (21:54):
undefined

Ari: I am as squeamish as anyone else about fur piles. (21:59):
undefined

Jason: Wait, what is a fur pile? What is a fur pile? I'm not sure I want to assume what that is. (22:03):
undefined

Ari: Do you want me to be blunt about it? It's sort of, how much would you like to (22:09):
undefined

Ari: dress up as a teddy bear and jack off a man? (22:14):
undefined

Jason: Not very much, I have to say, not very much. But that's called a fur pile. (22:17):
undefined

Ari: I think most of, to be fair, most of it's just people who like to cuddle, and I pretty much don't. (22:24):
undefined

Jason: Right, right, right, I understand. I understand. So, well, here's another question. (22:31):
undefined

Jason: Are furries also modern shamans? Because classic shamanic practice, (22:36):
undefined

Jason: of course, has you find your totem animal and practice shapeshifting, (22:41):
undefined

Jason: at least hallucinogenically. (22:46):
undefined

Ari: That's right. Jason, you may not know that there is, since the beginning of (22:48):
undefined

Ari: the internet, been an entire furry religion going on wait what's i'm actually (22:52):
undefined

Jason: If if i don't know about this i'm actually embarrassed professionally it's. (22:58):
undefined

Ari: Called it's called other kin and (23:02):
undefined

Jason: Oh yeah of course i know other kin. (23:04):
undefined

Ari: Yeah and it takes the idea of basically the idea of transgender but it applies (23:06):
undefined

Ari: it to trans speciesism oh yeah (23:11):
undefined

Jason: This has been huge on tumblr forever the other. (23:14):
undefined

Ari: Yeah yeah so these people believe they have the (23:16):
undefined

Ari: souls of an animal or everything an animal (23:19):
undefined

Ari: or a fox or a mythical creature so they (23:23):
undefined

Ari: dudes who have the souls of a dragon or elves but (23:26):
undefined

Ari: i did go out once on another forum to because (23:30):
undefined

Ari: i'm somewhat of a social anthropologist and and (23:33):
undefined

Ari: ask why are you always kind of like cool things like why are you always dragons (23:37):
undefined

Ari: and why are there no like fly furries maggot furries and one of them said oh (23:42):
undefined

Ari: no i do know an earwig furry an earwig otherkin sorry where (23:48):
undefined

Jason: Do you have to get to in your life that. (23:53):
undefined

Ari: You think (23:55):
undefined

Jason: You're a reincarnated earwig. (23:55):
undefined

Ari: I'm not sure. (23:59):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, I'm not sure either. But here's the thing about that. I take them seriously (24:00):
undefined

Jason: because, you know, here's one of the things. (24:04):
undefined

Jason: The population of the planet has, what, doubled since the 1960s at least. (24:07):
undefined

Jason: So if you believe in Hindu, excuse me, if you believe in reincarnation, (24:13):
undefined

Jason: as a lot of religions do, Hinduism, Buddhism, even Judaism believes in reincarnation. (24:17):
undefined

Jason: If you believe in reincarnation, you got to ask, well, where are all those extra souls coming from? (24:21):
undefined

Jason: Unless souls are subdividing, presumably it's animals who are graduating into (24:26):
undefined

Jason: the human kingdom, which would explain the proliferation of fursuiting. (24:31):
undefined

Ari: Absolutely. Well, I have asked that question to spiritualists. (24:36):
undefined

Ari: I'm basically like a social anthropologist, so I basically go out and figure (24:41):
undefined

Ari: out what other people believe. I've always been fascinated by what other people believe. (24:45):
undefined

Ari: The answer to that one, Jason, is spiritualists who believe in reincarnation, (24:48):
undefined

Ari: the New Age reincarnation people. (24:53):
undefined

Ari: Don't think that we have consecutive lives exactly. (24:55):
undefined

Ari: Basically, there's no time on the other side. So therefore, you can just split (25:00):
undefined

Ari: up your soul into many different ways. (25:05):
undefined

Ari: So they even say that you might be three or four people right now. (25:07):
undefined

Jason: Oh, so we have a quantity over quantity issue then. People are spreading themselves too thin. (25:11):
undefined

Jason: Everyone's walking around with like a 16th of a human soul. That would explain a few things too. (25:16):
undefined

Ari: Well, no one goes through time once they're dead, according to spiritualists. (25:22):
undefined

Ari: So all of your lives are happening all at once, even the ones in the Renaissance (25:26):
undefined

Ari: and even the ones when you were an earwink. (25:30):
undefined

Ari: I see. (25:33):
undefined

Jason: I don't know. I used to feel this way because it sounds cool, (25:34):
undefined

Jason: but as time goes on, I've adopted actually much more of a linear perspective (25:37):
undefined

Jason: on things, just through firsthand experience. But who knows? (25:41):
undefined

Jason: Who knows, really? But it's like one way or another, even if we're not simultaneously (25:45):
undefined

Jason: incarnating, that raw soul stuff has got to come from somewhere. (25:49):
undefined

Jason: I mean, are people reincarnating backwards in time from the future, (25:53):
undefined

Jason: which would suggest that the furries win? (25:56):
undefined

Jason: It's kind of like Terminator 2 with Terminator's taking over humanity, (25:59):
undefined

Jason: except it's, you know, the F-1000 furry running towards people at full speed. (26:03):
undefined

Ari: I'm not sure if the furries win, but the furries don't give a fuck about being cool. (26:08):
undefined

Ari: And that is a way out of Inversion Without Liberation. (26:13):
undefined

Jason: So do you feel that, do they, have they told you that they feel, (26:17):
undefined

Jason: are they deeply free or are they just confused? (26:21):
undefined

Ari: They seem pretty free when they're running around like teddy bears on the street. (26:24):
undefined

Jason: Are they spiritually free? Have they liberated? Is, okay, is becoming a furry (26:29):
undefined

Jason: the true way out of the Matrix, the Black Iron Prism? (26:34):
undefined

Jason: Yeah. The scheming of the demiurge. (26:37):
undefined

Ari: I don't have the answer, but I argue it is one way out of inversion without (26:40):
undefined

Ari: liberation. And if you're going to be a Western agori, don't be a black metal goth. (26:44):
undefined

Ari: Go to something that actually grosses you out and learn to be okay with it. (26:49):
undefined

Jason: I support this. I'm not sure. (26:54):
undefined

Ari: I want to (26:56):
undefined

Jason: Become a furry, but I am an initiated agori, but over there. (26:56):
undefined

Jason: So it's just extra goth points for me, you know. (27:01):
undefined

Jason: But yeah, could I become a furry? This. (27:04):
undefined

Ari: Is the type of thing (27:07):
undefined

Jason: I would have done in college. But now I'm going to be on YouTube talking about (27:08):
undefined

Jason: it. This would be a hilarious YouTube project. (27:12):
undefined

Jason: It just started, I don't know, this compilation of furry wizardry video. (27:15):
undefined

Ari: Okay, let's take it further, because you suggested and teased out the idea. (27:22):
undefined

Ari: Are fairies good magicians? (27:26):
undefined

Jason: Well, I was saying. (27:29):
undefined

Ari: Are they free? (27:30):
undefined

Jason: Excuse me, are they free in the spiritual sense, in the human sense? (27:31):
undefined

Jason: Have they achieved some type of enlightenment? (27:35):
undefined

Ari: I think we've sort of covered that. They were at least escaped the inversion of that liberation. (27:38):
undefined

Jason: You said they seem free when they're running around, but I'm wondering if you (27:43):
undefined

Jason: had any firsthand testimonies from them saying that their life is improved. (27:47):
undefined

Jason: And they've become what they always wanted to be or whatever. (27:52):
undefined

Ari: Some of them are pretty interesting in magic at least so yeah i don't know okay (27:55):
undefined

Jason: They seem to. (28:01):
undefined

Ari: Have a lot of fun okay much way more than the average person but (28:02):
undefined

Jason: Are you talking about the fur piles there. (28:06):
undefined

Ari: I try not to look at the fur because (28:07):
undefined

Jason: That could that could be the thing that's the the cherry on top. (28:11):
undefined

Ari: Uh polyamory is a big thing and the and the fairy community (28:14):
undefined

Jason: Yeah polyamory is a big thing everywhere now i don't. (28:19):
undefined

Ari: Understand it (28:22):
undefined

Jason: At all and it's like i tweet i put on twitter last week (28:23):
undefined

Jason: or something like nobody wants to be in your polycule sorry i (28:26):
undefined

Jason: didn't hope you're not offending anyone out there it's just like like i i you (28:29):
undefined

Jason: know it's kind of like the groucho marks thing of i wouldn't want to be a club (28:33):
undefined

Jason: of any any i wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member (28:36):
undefined

Jason: and that goes like times a hundred for yeah maybe i'm just maybe i'm just old now but yeah. (28:40):
undefined

Ari: Well my bottom line is i don't think human beings should be ever considered (28:47):
undefined

Ari: to be a smorgasbord it's a bit gross well (28:53):
undefined

Jason: You know it's succinct and to the point. (28:59):
undefined

Ari: Though okay (29:02):
undefined

Jason: So furry magic though is this like a whole new branch of this is. (29:04):
undefined

Ari: A thing (29:07):
undefined

Jason: Okay so tell us more. (29:08):
undefined

Ari: Yeah so i'll give you an example if (29:10):
undefined

Ari: you want if people want to know more about this they can buy (29:13):
undefined

Ari: my first book pragmatic magical thinking which is (29:16):
undefined

Ari: available on aeon books and amazon etc the most (29:19):
undefined

Ari: interesting most in-depth and most (29:23):
undefined

Ari: Detailed example of how to (29:26):
undefined

Ari: generate a tulpa which is a (29:29):
undefined

Ari: theosophic term for a spirit that you a magician creates comes from the brony (29:32):
undefined

Ari: community who are fans of my little pony fun what is it my little pony friendship (29:41):
undefined

Ari: is magic friendship is friendship are you (29:48):
undefined

Jason: Afraid that i just had that like right ready to go like top of top of memory. (29:50):
undefined

Ari: So they and and in the depths of this sort of forum and this was I found an (29:55):
undefined

Ari: academic paper on this Jason (30:07):
undefined

Ari: there is by a PhD student which is all documented in my book (30:10):
undefined

Ari: There is a detailed description of how one generates a tulpa exactly along the (30:17):
undefined

Ari: lines of a familiar spirit. (30:24):
undefined

Ari: Cool. So basically, through a meta... (30:29):
undefined

Jason: This was the whole tulpamancy thing that was happening all over the internet (30:31):
undefined

Jason: and 4chan and all that? Okay, okay. (30:34):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, it was centered, apparently, around the bronies. (30:37):
undefined

Ari: So they would spend months and months and months meditating and doing imagery (30:41):
undefined

Ari: and things until they could have a conversation with a sub-personality. (30:47):
undefined

Ari: And then they'd go further and imagine using active imagination techniques to (30:53):
undefined

Ari: imagine that their new friend was sitting beside them or behind them. (30:58):
undefined

Ari: So they're basically generating an imaginary friend. (31:04):
undefined

Ari: But they talk about how this can take a year to create this familiar spirit (31:07):
undefined

Ari: and how convinced the magician can become that they have split into another personality. (31:13):
undefined

Ari: Cool. And, you know, we have psychological phenomena that are similar, (31:20):
undefined

Ari: like dissociative identity disorder, but there's this, like, (31:24):
undefined

Ari: dissociative identity disorder on purpose. (31:27):
undefined

Ari: But there's this more detail than I have found outside of a Renaissance grimoire, (31:29):
undefined

Ari: and it came from the Bronies. (31:34):
undefined

Jason: Have you compared it to, like, the Tibetan tulpa stuff? (31:39):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, at least what I haven't done is read the Tibetan source material, (31:44):
undefined

Ari: but I've read a lot of the theosophical stuff. (31:49):
undefined

Ari: Now, I can tell you this, the term tulpa was created by theosophists from a (31:52):
undefined

Ari: Tibetan word that is something more like tulkus. (32:00):
undefined

undefined

Ari: So the idea of a tulpa is already a Western sort of fudged term of the original Tibetan technique. (32:04):
undefined

Ari: And I think it originally was something like if you become a meditation master (32:12):
undefined

Ari: in the Tibetan system you can like project astrally project yourself in a way (32:17):
undefined

Ari: that other people can see you over time and space to turn up and deliver messages (32:23):
undefined

Ari: and things but in theosophy it became (32:28):
undefined

Ari: they mashed it together with the concept of the familiar spirit oh (32:32):
undefined

Jason: That's really interesting so that means that concept is basically a theosophical creation. (32:38):
undefined

Ari: Tulpa appears to be a theosophical creation of a Tibetan idea, (32:44):
undefined

Ari: which was something more like tulkus. (32:50):
undefined

Jason: Which is wild because it's become you know, whether you call that you could (32:52):
undefined

Jason: also call that making servitors right, or evocation. (32:58):
undefined

Jason: That technique is everywhere. It's one I actually don't recommend people do (33:00):
undefined

Jason: because you're splitting parts of yourself off, which I find that in practice is not worth it. (33:06):
undefined

Jason: But that said, it's wild that just by essentially mashing up, (33:13):
undefined

Jason: whether intentionally or not, the idea of the familiar and this tokus, (33:18):
undefined

Jason: that they created an occult technique. (33:22):
undefined

Jason: I mean, that kind of shows, says a lot. (33:25):
undefined

Ari: There are outside of the brony example, there are people on the internet, (33:27):
undefined

Ari: on YouTube, who are demonstrating that they can at least perform as if they (33:33):
undefined

Ari: are two different personalities. (33:40):
undefined

Ari: Like and there's a dude (33:42):
undefined

Ari: who went on you thinking aloud who's I said a dude I don't know a transgender (33:45):
undefined

Ari: person on you thinking aloud who's got a complete female persona and a complete (33:50):
undefined

Ari: male one and can even do a duet singing on the guitar and it's very weird wow (33:55):
undefined

Jason: That's very that's very shamanic as well yeah that's incredible yeah this is go ahead oh. (34:03):
undefined

Ari: Sorry i'm just gonna say the some of this the strangest and most present examples (34:14):
undefined

Ari: of magic will come from the cringy places of the internet i tell (34:21):
undefined

Jason: You yeah so that's kind of what i was just gonna gonna riff (34:25):
undefined

Jason: on where i was thinking as you were saying that it's (34:29):
undefined

Jason: it's funny how we have this there's like this academic magic (34:32):
undefined

Jason: world where people are reading crowley and writing papers and (34:35):
undefined

Jason: all of that and writing books and it's the occult (34:39):
undefined

Jason: publishing and and then there's and almost (34:42):
undefined

Jason: all of that is studying the past right it's studying folk (34:45):
undefined

Jason: magic or things that emerged in a grassroots (34:49):
undefined

Jason: or perhaps a more grassroots way in the past but at (34:52):
undefined

Jason: the same time magic is a emergent phenomenon (34:56):
undefined

Jason: that is occurring everywhere all the time and so at the same (34:59):
undefined

Jason: time it's also just happening it seems organically in some in basically the (35:02):
undefined

Jason: least socially acceptable places places on the internet there was also the whole (35:08):
undefined

Jason: there were there were also the 4chan nazis and keck and all of that absolutely (35:12):
undefined

Jason: all these fringe groups discovered magic and uh i. (35:16):
undefined

Ari: Suspect these people have actually read chaos books (35:21):
undefined

Jason: Okay at least chaos magic right okay but they're not that's they're not like (35:25):
undefined

Jason: academically studied it seems like because i know i know that when the kek thing (35:30):
undefined

Jason: happened it was because people had found one book on magic on scribed about (35:34):
undefined

Jason: how to make memes and the whole thing was based off of one book that was distributed as a pdf so. (35:39):
undefined

Ari: This gets really weird and this is beyond anything i can make truth claims about (35:45):
undefined

Ari: but the 4chan community got very excited when they found out because like they're into dugan (35:50):
undefined

Ari: and Alexander Dugan is into chaos magic and the idea of the spectacle and the idea (35:59):
undefined

Jason: Of a can of worms right there, that's a big can of worms it's a yes and it's, (36:04):
undefined

Jason: his own weird twisted version of it. (36:10):
undefined

Ari: Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong. So, and by the way, this is just here, (36:13):
undefined

Ari: guys, if you want to try it out. I'm not endorsing any of this stuff. (36:18):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just saying that because basically Dugan appropriated (36:22):
undefined

Jason: the chaos star, and he seems to have incorporated some chaos magic ideas, (36:28):
undefined

Jason: but it's really Duganism. (36:34):
undefined

Jason: You know, it's like it's and it's like I feel like his his ideology, (36:36):
undefined

Jason: the fourth political theory ideology probably only really makes sense if you're (36:40):
undefined

Jason: Russian, I think, because it's all about geography and a multipolar world and (36:44):
undefined

Jason: allying with China and a transcending political ideology and all this stuff. (36:50):
undefined

Jason: That's very much about the Russian and it's also very much about the Russian (36:54):
undefined

Jason: attitude esoterically towards America because he straight up says that there (36:59):
undefined

Jason: are good angels which run Eurasia and bad angels that run the West and that they're an open war. (37:04):
undefined

Jason: Anyways, so interesting side tangent. (37:10):
undefined

Ari: Again, it's a rebellion. You know, it's a yeah, it just kind of makes sense. (37:15):
undefined

Ari: I think he's looking at the West and trying to figure at how to rebel, (37:20):
undefined

Ari: but still using the formulation of the West. (37:23):
undefined

Ari: I've seen one interview with him, and he was very, very shifty on what his personal (37:31):
undefined

Ari: involvement with Putin actually is. (37:37):
undefined

Jason: I've heard people saying that it's actually not that much, and that the Western (37:39):
undefined

Jason: media has kind of exaggerated it because he's such a colorful character, (37:44):
undefined

Jason: and he actually doesn't really have that much pull with Putin. (37:47):
undefined

Jason: That may be a Western perception. so he may be kiddy about that because he doesn't actually have any but. (37:50):
undefined

Ari: That said he was he was that's what came across yeah oh (37:55):
undefined

Jason: Okay okay okay yeah that said you know he's enough of a player and a target (37:58):
undefined

Jason: that i'm sure you saw his daughter was assassinated yeah at the beginning of (38:03):
undefined

Jason: the ukraine war you know with a car bomb that i think was i'm not sure i think (38:07):
undefined

Jason: it was actually meant for her not him but that was pretty pretty targeted. (38:12):
undefined

Ari: Yeah let's start (38:17):
undefined

Jason: I mean you know you wouldn't I wish that on anyone, even somebody like that. (38:18):
undefined

Ari: So further on the Aversion Without Liberation idea, if this is an idea you think (38:23):
undefined

Ari: is useful to your listeners. Yes, I think so. (38:27):
undefined

Ari: I have a joke as to why the Hindus appear to be immune to the Christian missionaries. (38:30):
undefined

undefined

Ari: So a Christian missionary walks into a Hindu temple and he says, (38:38):
undefined

Ari: This is Jesus Christ. He is God incarnate, and you should worship him as the one true God. (38:42):
undefined

Ari: And the Hindu goes, yes, of course, we'll put him right next to Ganesh here. (38:49):
undefined

Ari: We love gods here. We've got so many gods. We'll put Jesus right here. (38:53):
undefined

Ari: And the Christian goes, oh, no, I'm sorry, you're misunderstanding me. (38:57):
undefined

Ari: He's the one and only God. You're only allowed to worship this one God. (39:01):
undefined

Ari: Jesus is this human incarnate form. (39:06):
undefined

Ari: And the Hindu goes, yes, of course, all gods come from Brahman, (39:08):
undefined

Ari: the one unified source. and Jesus is one of his millions of avatars, (39:13):
undefined

Ari: so we'll put him right next to Ganesh. (39:18):
undefined

Ari: And the Christian goes, no, no, you're only allowed to worship Jesus. (39:21):
undefined

Ari: And the Hindu goes, yes, yes, all worship of gods is ultimately pointing towards (39:27):
undefined

Ari: the one Godhead, Brahman. (39:32):
undefined

Ari: And basically, they can incorporate Jesus, which is the escape route from a (39:34):
undefined

Ari: visual elaboration, and have created a rule system where they can never be annexed. (39:40):
undefined

Jason: Yes, it absolutely makes sense. And I think that that was done intentionally. (39:47):
undefined

Jason: And it's like, you know, it's been said, I think this is true. (39:52):
undefined

Jason: Also, there are more religions in India than in the rest of the world combined. (39:56):
undefined

Jason: And, you know, the idea of Hinduism itself even is a Western construction where, (40:01):
undefined

Jason: I mean, you know, Hindustan is the actual name of India. (40:06):
undefined

Jason: So it's this idea of Hindustan ideology. (40:09):
undefined

Jason: But that's a blanket that covers hundreds, if not thousands, (40:13):
undefined

Jason: of religious groups that we don't really have a sense of as much in the West, (40:17):
undefined

Jason: in the same way that we don't have a sense that there are over 50 ethnic groups (40:21):
undefined

Jason: in China, right? It's just like, we don't get that. (40:24):
undefined

Ari: Including some non-Asian ones. (40:28):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, right, right. And…. (40:30):
undefined

Ari: Which is wild, yeah. (40:33):
undefined

Jason: But I lost my train of thought. (40:36):
undefined

Ari: Hindustan. (40:39):
undefined

Jason: Hinduism, right. So the Indian way has always been to embrace other religions. And it's theological. (40:40):
undefined

Jason: It's actually theologically coherent, right? In a way that Christianity isn't. (40:49):
undefined

Jason: It makes sense and is satisfying mathematically the way that you just described it. (40:53):
undefined

Jason: Everything's pointing to the one. That's how they see it. (40:58):
undefined

Jason: It's like, that actually makes sense. Why would one individual born in the Middle East be special? (41:01):
undefined

Jason: Of course, there's a counter-argument to that that I'm sure, (41:08):
undefined

Jason: you know, the counter-argument is, well, those are all pagan gods, (41:11):
undefined

Jason: and there only ever was one incarnation, and then that would be the Catholic argument. (41:14):
undefined

Ari: Okay, so here's my challenge to that, though. I argue there is actually no difference (41:19):
undefined

Ari: between polytheism and monotheism. (41:25):
undefined

Jason: Okay, let's hear it. (41:27):
undefined

Ari: Yeah. basically the problem (41:29):
undefined

Ari: is in the english language and possibly you know i speak german as well so it's (41:32):
undefined

Ari: a problem in german so it's possibly through european languages we have this (41:37):
undefined

Ari: problem with the word god and basically we use the god for too many things and (41:41):
undefined

Ari: we it's a loose term so i argue that the (41:46):
undefined

Ari: the place that the spiritual type of entity that used to be, (41:51):
undefined

Ari: for instance, say Jupiter or Mars or Thor, (41:58):
undefined

Ari: is now taken, for instance, in Catholic theology by angels and saints. (42:03):
undefined

Ari: That is, you pray to an angel and saint for the same reason, (42:09):
undefined

Ari: same types of reasons, you'd pray to, say, Thor. (42:12):
undefined

Ari: You want nicer weather, so you pray to a saint. So as a spiritual archetype, (42:15):
undefined

Ari: construct, or concept, or literal being, a saint or an angel is actually a god. (42:21):
undefined

Ari: It's just when we're talking about paganism, we call them gods. (42:29):
undefined

Ari: And when we're talking about Catholicism, we have these other categories. (42:32):
undefined

Ari: So given that Catholics are polytheists. (42:35):
undefined

Ari: Now, I have met Catholics who admit to that. (42:40):
undefined

Jason: Well, that's what I was going to say. So, you know, I think you're correct. (42:43):
undefined

Jason: Clearly and you know this is a big part this is a big point of contention during (42:48):
undefined

Jason: the the protestant reformation where protestants would protestants you know (42:52):
undefined

Jason: consider catholics to be pagan because they're saying what is what are all these (42:57):
undefined

Jason: these saints this is i this is, (43:02):
undefined

Jason: completely missing the point this is paganism this is idol worship this is downplaying (43:05):
undefined

Jason: the role of the intercessor and what is with mary and it seems like it they (43:10):
undefined

Jason: and so they openly call Catholics, pagans, or polytheists. (43:14):
undefined

Jason: So I'm not arguing for either one of these positions. Well, I am saying that (43:17):
undefined

Jason: I'm not arguing whether it's good or bad, but I do think that Catholicism is (43:22):
undefined

Jason: clearly pagan and polytheist, as is orthodoxy. Yeah. (43:27):
undefined

Ari: So hopefully, that's my argument for the way Christianity is polytheistic. (43:32):
undefined

Ari: However, the reverse is also true. (43:39):
undefined

Ari: All of the Eurasian mythologies, and I mean this, I mean Chinese mythology, Japanese mythology, (43:42):
undefined

Ari: all of the European ones, Norse mythology, Greek mythology, but also all the (43:50):
undefined

Ari: cultures that evolved from Asian mythologies, the Native American Indians, (43:54):
undefined

Ari: The Polynesians and Austronesians, And I come from New Zealand and have Maori (43:59):
undefined

Ari: family members, so the Maori mythology is important to me. (44:03):
undefined

Ari: And I've had experiences with those gods too. (44:07):
undefined

Ari: So all of those say that there is a universal godhead that is undifferentiated (44:11):
undefined

Ari: through an act of creativity. (44:19):
undefined

Ari: It produces the world, and it starts with a splitting act, which is the logos, (44:21):
undefined

Ari: which causes difference. and only with difference can you have our perceptual world. (44:26):
undefined

Ari: So I can only know your view because I know you're not me. (44:32):
undefined

Ari: But that's an illusion. Now, that appears to be a mythological story saying (44:36):
undefined

Ari: everything comes from a universal godhead that we have been telling perhaps for 40,000 years. (44:43):
undefined

Ari: So basically, more than half of the world's mythologies have that in there. (44:49):
undefined

Ari: And you find it over and over and over again. And if you guys want the academia (44:55):
undefined

Ari: on this, the book, which is astounding, is called The Origins of the World's (44:59):
undefined

Ari: Mythologies by Michael Witzel, who was the Harvard professor of Sanskrit. (45:04):
undefined

Ari: And it's just an incredible academic bomb (45:09):
undefined

Ari: With screds of evidence for a way mythology is a 40,000 year old story and it (45:15):
undefined

Ari: rather it's the answer to and rather undoes the idea of Jungian archetype (45:21):
undefined

Ari: archetype theory generating mythology. He says no, they're just really old stories. (45:28):
undefined

Jason: So his argument is that well I'm unclear on his argument. (45:33):
undefined

Jason: It's something like they're only stories, they're not neurologically based or. (45:37):
undefined

Ari: What he's got evidence for because if all those cultures have the same story (45:41):
undefined

Ari: the question is what was when was the last time that (45:47):
undefined

Ari: these people were all one culture and it was 40 000 years ago that's the last (45:51):
undefined

Jason: Time so he says that there it was all one it was one united culture. (45:55):
undefined

Ari: He makes the case that we've been telling (45:59):
undefined

Ari: we're still telling stories that are 40 000 years (46:02):
undefined

Ari: old wow and he's got there's nearly (46:05):
undefined

Ari: 200 pages of references in this book this guy knows his enemies you know it's (46:09):
undefined

Ari: even if you disagree with it it's one of the most beautifully written academic (46:14):
undefined

Ari: cases and he waited till the absolute end of his career before he put this out (46:18):
undefined

Ari: which was around 2012 he's still around it's that controversial (46:23):
undefined

Ari: it's just one of those things that i believe will become the golden bower of (46:27):
undefined

Ari: our new age but no academic wants to touch it because they can't argue against it (46:32):
undefined

Jason: What is the current do you know what the current consensus is otherwise? (46:38):
undefined

Jason: Are people working off the idea that they're still working off a Jungian idea? (46:42):
undefined

Ari: So the Jungian idea is the reason that we tell and Joseph Campbell took this (46:49):
undefined

Ari: line and had a lot of evidence for it, (46:53):
undefined

Ari: but it's the idea that we tell the same kinds of mythologies over and over again (46:56):
undefined

Ari: and our religions look quite similar because humans have inbuilt and culturally inbuilt archetypes. (47:00):
undefined

Ari: So everyone has supposedly everyone has a mother and a father and therefore (47:09):
undefined

Ari: there's always father and mother archetypes there are problems with this there (47:15):
undefined

Ari: are cultures that don't have any fathers and like people are already going what (47:18):
undefined

Ari: the hell are you talking about Ari there are cultures that only have uncles (47:22):
undefined

Ari: where the where the children belong to the mother (47:27):
undefined

Ari: nobody keeps track of who the daddy is and (47:32):
undefined

Ari: that children remain in the sister's house where the women have all the property (47:36):
undefined

Ari: and that the children are raised by the mother's brothers so that the fathers (47:41):
undefined

Ari: never raise their own kids and no one cares about who fathers are. (47:49):
undefined

Ari: So something as fundamental as fatherhood is not anthropologically universal. (47:53):
undefined

Jason: And do those same cultures that are fatherless tell father mythology? (47:59):
undefined

Jason: Like are they still telling the same mythology as everyone else or is it. (48:06):
undefined

Ari: Significantly well i would suspect not okay (48:09):
undefined

Ari: yeah so so (48:13):
undefined

Ari: vitzel just asked the question well could these stories just be really old and (48:17):
undefined

Ari: it could be could be the mainstream of influence actually be that we're still (48:21):
undefined

Ari: telling really old stories that go back to before the current races that we (48:25):
undefined

Ari: have on earth were on it, you know, when we had common ancestry. (48:30):
undefined

Ari: And he comes up with a solid case for 40,000 years. Now, I'll give you a couple of examples. (48:34):
undefined

Ari: So i live in you know i live in the southern part southern hemisphere so australia (48:41):
undefined

Ari: is close by and we're pretty damn sure that the australian aborigines have been (48:45):
undefined

Ari: there for 65 000 years now that's like the short end of the story that's (48:49):
undefined

Jason: Got to be the oldest culture on earth at this point though right is there any (48:54):
undefined

Jason: is there any culture with continuity going back that far. (48:59):
undefined

Ari: There's no culture that is as isolated while having continuity as them. (49:03):
undefined

Jason: Wild. (49:11):
undefined

Ari: So obviously African culture is older, but it's so intermixed. Okay. (49:11):
undefined

Ari: By the way, 65,000 years is the short end of the story. (49:17):
undefined

Ari: The wider hypothesis puts it 80,000 years. It's incredible. (49:21):
undefined

Ari: And that's changed really fast because in the 80s, people thought they'd been (49:26):
undefined

Ari: there for maybe 40 40 000 years um so things are changing fast i'll give you another quick fact in (49:33):
undefined

Ari: 2000 either 2013 something like (49:42):
undefined

Ari: that they found some bones in morocco that are homo sapiens and they're 300 (49:45):
undefined

Ari: 000 years old or older and so that doubled the human story because before then (49:52):
undefined

Ari: And when we were kids in primary school, because we're roughly the same age, (49:58):
undefined

Ari: they told us that homo sapiens had been around for 150,000 years. (50:03):
undefined

Ari: So there's incredible changes in anthropology and human history going on now. (50:08):
undefined

Jason: That's something that's always really fascinated me, that the past is always changing also. (50:13):
undefined

Jason: It still blows my mind, for instance, that we didn't really... (50:20):
undefined

Jason: First of all, we didn't know hardly anything about ancient Egypt until the end of the 19th century. (50:24):
undefined

Jason: And we didn't even know that Sumeria existed until around that period also. (50:31):
undefined

Jason: So we may have known about Egypt earlier, but things were being just excavated (50:43):
undefined

Jason: at that time, and hence the massive public fascination. (50:48):
undefined

Ari: Uh but now we've always said the items from egypt but the thing you're reaching (50:52):
undefined

Ari: for is that hieroglyphs were deciphered in the 1820s gotcha (50:58):
undefined

Jason: Okay thank you so these huge (51:03):
undefined

Jason: advances overturn everything that we (51:06):
undefined

Jason: knew previously and they're continuing to happen all the time like the ones (51:10):
undefined

Jason: that you just described i see these things go by and then it like goes by in (51:15):
undefined

Jason: google news feed and it strikes my interest for half a second but although we (51:19):
undefined

Jason: have so much information now it's very hard to correlate it or remember and. (51:24):
undefined

Ari: So when you (51:28):
undefined

Jason: Look back at the things that have just happened in the last 10 years of that (51:29):
undefined

Jason: magnitude it's probably endless. (51:33):
undefined

Ari: So just this week we've had a major news (51:35):
undefined

Ari: story in new zealand from the chatham islands which is (51:38):
undefined

Ari: a new zealand territory they have found an (51:41):
undefined

Ari: ocean going waka buried in a beach a (51:44):
undefined

Ari: waka is a maori name for a for a (51:48):
undefined

Ari: vessel so it includes boats and ships (51:52):
undefined

Ari: and canoes and and the ones (51:54):
undefined

Ari: that we've got have all been like large trees (51:58):
undefined

Ari: that were dug out like so a lot of the canoes (52:01):
undefined

Ari: were like carved from a single tree but this one has (52:04):
undefined

Ari: at least 450 pieces and then (52:07):
undefined

Ari: you know that they're about to start trying to put it put it (52:11):
undefined

Ari: together and which means i suspect it's really (52:13):
undefined

Ari: huge and i've been the polynesians and austronesians were the best navigators (52:16):
undefined

Ari: on earth they got to south america they got the they got the kumara which is (52:22):
undefined

Ari: not only a peruvian vegetable but it's also peruvian word and it's sweet potato but in In Māori, (52:27):
undefined

Ari: a kumara is what we call a sweet potato. And... (52:36):
undefined

Ari: The word for that vegetable in Peru is kumara. (52:41):
undefined

Ari: They also have genetic evidence. So it's just, it's true. (52:46):
undefined

Jason: That's wild. And they got there. Do you know when they got there? (52:50):
undefined

Jason: It was before the Europeans? (52:54):
undefined

Ari: Way before the Europeans, but we're not sure. It's probably about 1000 AD or something. (52:56):
undefined

Ari: But we don't have written records. So it's genetic evidence, (53:02):
undefined

Ari: horticultural evidence. (53:08):
undefined

Ari: But there's Peruvian indigenous bloodlines and the people from Rapa Nui who (53:09):
undefined

Ari: are very very closely related to Maori Rapa Nui is Easter Island I (53:18):
undefined

Jason: Guess this is all getting revealed by modern genetic testing. (53:23):
undefined

Ari: And we're (53:28):
undefined

Jason: Still just beginning to understand that. (53:30):
undefined

Ari: They navigated they navigated by the way without the concept of longitude. (53:33):
undefined

Ari: So the Westerners required special clocks that work on rocky waves, (53:42):
undefined

Ari: special clockwork, like high-level clockwork, developed in, I think, (53:47):
undefined

Ari: the end of the 15th century. (53:52):
undefined

Ari: The Maori and Polynesians did it without any clockwork at all. (53:53):
undefined

Ari: They didn't have clockwork. (53:59):
undefined

Ari: So they did it through, I argue they did it through magical thinking. (54:00):
undefined

Ari: Like they had a... And part of what magical thinking is, is using the right (54:04):
undefined

Ari: side of your brain to solve problems instead of the left. (54:09):
undefined

Ari: So it's going to come in terms of spirits because the right side of the brain (54:12):
undefined

Ari: attributes personhood to objects and pets and microphones and things. (54:16):
undefined

Ari: And it's going to come in terms of relationships and it's going to come in terms of story. (54:20):
undefined

Ari: But what the right side of your brain doesn't do is talk. (54:25):
undefined

Ari: So if you're a culture with philosophy that's always written down, (54:29):
undefined

Ari: you're a left brain culture. (54:34):
undefined

Ari: So when we look at these cultures that solved incredible problems, (54:36):
undefined

Ari: and this is what my first book, Pragmatic Magical Thinking, it's about, (54:40):
undefined

Ari: We look at them and go, well, they don't really explain themselves, (54:44):
undefined

Ari: and they don't have philosophy, and they don't have books. (54:48):
undefined

Ari: But if you look at their technology, and by the way, technology is separate from science. (54:52):
undefined

Ari: Some of the technology and some of the things these people could do were sometimes (54:58):
undefined

Ari: better than the Europeans of the same time. (55:02):
undefined

Jason: I'm super interested in Maori magic and cosmology and gods, and I'd love to (55:06):
undefined

Jason: know more about that. because I know hardly anything about it, if anything. (55:13):
undefined

Ari: Well, it maps so closely to all of these mythologies that say at the top there is a universal godhead. (55:19):
undefined

Ari: So in the beginning, there is a state called the nothing, which is called tekore. (55:27):
undefined

Ari: This is the same story as you find in the Greek system where it is called the (55:34):
undefined

Ari: night or it's called chaos. (55:40):
undefined

Ari: It's brahman do you know what i mean so this is what michael witzel and the (55:44):
undefined

Ari: origin of the world's mythology's thesis that these stories are really old because (55:48):
undefined

Ari: there's this common mythology now the way he the way he builds it is like okay (55:54):
undefined

Ari: so if these are old stories rather than archetypical (55:59):
undefined

Ari: framework of our brains and bodies and things that produce the same stories (56:04):
undefined

Ari: over the time then there should be exceptions right there should be cultures (56:08):
undefined

Ari: that don't have this and then we know that it's a and there are cultures yeah that's (56:12):
undefined

Jason: That's kind of what i was fishing for a little bit earlier yeah. (56:17):
undefined

Ari: Okay so there's the southern (56:19):
undefined

Ari: africans the australian aborigines (56:23):
undefined

Ari: the andaman islanders which are where those (56:27):
undefined

Ari: sentinelies those those people who don't like (56:30):
undefined

Ari: people turning up on their island come from and the (56:33):
undefined

Ari: yeah those cultures are have (56:37):
undefined

Ari: a completely different structure to their mythology so for instance none of (56:41):
undefined

Ari: those cultures talk about the beginning of the world they just don't care they (56:45):
undefined

Ari: talk about the beginning of human beings but the world the world the world's (56:50):
undefined

Ari: either always been here or at a certain point it was just a timeless (56:53):
undefined

Ari: mishmash out of which everything comes and you go back to that timeless place (56:58):
undefined

Ari: when you dream and things like that which is the aboriginal dream time so so (57:02):
undefined

Ari: there are just like there's cultures that don't have fathers, (57:07):
undefined

Ari: there's cultures that don't have the creation myth. (57:10):
undefined

Jason: So it's just a non-starter, but it's assumed that humans started at. (57:16):
undefined

Ari: Some point into an (57:21):
undefined

Jason: Eternal world. (57:22):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, that's right. It's almost a world without time. (57:24):
undefined

Ari: The world has always sort of existed. It's like the imaginal Henri Cobain. (57:31):
undefined

Ari: It's like there's a state that's just always there that you can visit magically (57:36):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, I mean, time is so clearly a complete modern construction, (57:44):
undefined

Jason: and we hear from cultures, (57:50):
undefined

Jason: certainly pre-electricity cultures, pre-electrical lighting cultures all over (57:52):
undefined

Jason: the world, that life is much more timeless and is lived almost. (57:57):
undefined

Ari: As a timeless dream. well children go through time differently than adults and (58:01):
undefined

Ari: some of my magical experiments (58:07):
undefined

Ari: for a long time i ended up going through time really differently than all my (58:09):
undefined

Ari: friends and it was really disconcerting how so it's like all of my because i'm 43 like all of (58:13):
undefined

Jason: My friends were going. (58:20):
undefined

Ari: Yeah with so much all of my friends were were saying oh man time goes by so (58:22):
undefined

Ari: fast and i was like time crawls it's like every day i i came to the conclusion (58:28):
undefined

Ari: by comparing stories with my friends that i was going through time like four (58:35):
undefined

Ari: times slower than the people around me that's (58:39):
undefined

Jason: A good thing. (58:41):
undefined

Ari: I guess so yeah (58:42):
undefined

Jason: Well then you'll die for you'll die four times. (58:44):
undefined

Ari: Less quick yeah that's right yeah that's that yeah so i guess i think you can (58:47):
undefined

Ari: use magic to or magical experience to to (58:54):
undefined

Ari: change your your the way you experience time yeah (58:59):
undefined

Jason: I thought since my teens actually that magic in a lot of ways comes down to (59:03):
undefined

Jason: a matter of time manipulation. (59:09):
undefined

Ari: And of (59:12):
undefined

Jason: Binding time which is. (59:13):
undefined

Ari: You know (59:16):
undefined

Jason: The thing that distinguishes human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom (59:17):
undefined

Jason: or the mammal kingdom outside of opposable thumbs is our ability to bind time (59:20):
undefined

Jason: and to work in the dimension of time for instance by writing things down or (59:27):
undefined

Jason: making a promise to oneself that is resolved in the future. (59:31):
undefined

Ari: Or that (59:34):
undefined

Jason: Something is memorialized like a statue that is completely unique to us it seems (59:36):
undefined

Jason: it seems as far as we know and i think that a lot of magic comes down to working (59:43):
undefined

Jason: with that ability in various ways. (59:48):
undefined

Ari: Yeah absolutely and another thing you find in the western magic tradition is (59:51):
undefined

Ari: one of the ways you know these people were tapped in is that they appear to (59:57):
undefined

Ari: get way more done in a human lifetime than seems reasonable yes (01:00:03):
undefined

Jason: What do you think what do you think that trick consists of. (01:00:07):
undefined

Ari: I think there's a lot of things that people claim about Western occultism and (01:00:12):
undefined

Ari: Western magic tradition that aren't true. (01:00:17):
undefined

Ari: But I think one of the things that is true is it strips your life of the things (01:00:19):
undefined

Ari: that you don't want to do by focusing on the will. (01:00:29):
undefined

Ari: And it doesn't get talked about enough. (01:00:31):
undefined

Ari: It's really magic as a form of creativity. creativity like it's really an exercise (01:00:36):
undefined

Ari: and trying to push creativity as far as it will (01:00:43):
undefined

Jason: Go i think so i think so yeah yeah and (01:00:46):
undefined

Jason: it's really exciting when you put it like that too suddenly it's (01:00:50):
undefined

Jason: less scary it's not scary now it's really seems like very (01:00:53):
undefined

Jason: very exciting that's what one of the things that drew me (01:00:56):
undefined

Jason: to it that idea of kind of (01:00:58):
undefined

Jason: a master art that subsumed all other arts that (01:01:01):
undefined

Jason: would allow me to explore because i was interested in in writing (01:01:04):
undefined

Jason: but i was also an artist and i was (01:01:08):
undefined

Jason: interested in in digital computers and the (01:01:11):
undefined

Jason: web as it was coming in all and i had all these interests (01:01:14):
undefined

Jason: and i wanted to find something to do with my (01:01:17):
undefined

Jason: life where i could put all of those creative impulses into it and then then (01:01:20):
undefined

Jason: i found magic which is i think called a great work for a reason and still to (01:01:25):
undefined

Jason: this day i mean i everything i do i do basically myself and i've had to learn (01:01:30):
undefined

Jason: all I've had to learn how to be like 70 different people. (01:01:34):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, that's right. (01:01:38):
undefined

Jason: Yeah. And I think that's a common experience. That's not just me. (01:01:39):
undefined

Jason: I think that's a common type of experience. (01:01:42):
undefined

Ari: Well, I played about eight or nine instruments on my album that's coming out (01:01:45):
undefined

Ari: at the end of the night. And it's a 100% one-person project from start to finish. (01:01:49):
undefined

Ari: So one of my missions is to, by examples, show people... (01:01:56):
undefined

Ari: To really understand a person, you can't just use your modern ideas of how things (01:02:04):
undefined

Ari: work or your own cultural things of how things work and just project onto them. (01:02:09):
undefined

Ari: So the whole world of magic became way more exciting to me when I learned by (01:02:14):
undefined

Ari: reading about alchemy and stuff that our ancestors believed that the world of (01:02:20):
undefined

Ari: concepts was the spirit realm, (01:02:26):
undefined

Ari: or at least the spirit realm contains the world of concepts, but they overlap. (01:02:28):
undefined

Ari: So when they say, when they talk about spirits, (01:02:34):
undefined

Ari: you've got to understand that to an alchemist or an indigenous person, (01:02:38):
undefined

Ari: and there's examples where this, people are going to come with examples where (01:02:42):
undefined

Ari: this isn't true, but often the case. (01:02:47):
undefined

Ari: Number one, the number one is a spirit. The number two is a spirit. (01:02:50):
undefined

Ari: Number two is trying to get different things done in the world that's different to number one. (01:02:54):
undefined

Ari: Songs are spirits. They're little packets that contain willpower by the person who created them. (01:02:58):
undefined

Ari: And you get songs stuck in your head, and that's a spell. By the way, (01:03:04):
undefined

Ari: there's no sound causing that. (01:03:09):
undefined

Ari: So music isn't even sound. (01:03:12):
undefined

Ari: The alchemists believe that one of the ways that the godhead produced the world (01:03:18):
undefined

Ari: was through maths and through ratios and things that were akin to musical harmony. Yes. (01:03:25):
undefined

Jason: Pythagoras believe that also. (01:03:33):
undefined

Ari: There yeah absolutely in fact he's the one (01:03:34):
undefined

Ari: who came up with the idea that we should have 12 notes and (01:03:37):
undefined

Ari: music so he's the father of music theory it's (01:03:40):
undefined

Ari: incredible yeah so when you realize when the world of concepts is the spirit (01:03:43):
undefined

Ari: realm then suddenly you realize that they're talking about maths and music and (01:03:49):
undefined

Ari: they're talking about things that are way more relevant to our modern world (01:03:54):
undefined

Ari: when they're talking about spirits than we realize. (01:03:58):
undefined

Ari: And it's just sort of starting with Descartes and the Enlightenment mission. (01:04:00):
undefined

Ari: We sort of created a line in history where we stopped trying to understand our ancestors. (01:04:04):
undefined

Ari: And I'm trying to help heal that gap. (01:04:09):
undefined

Jason: So ironic because Descartes aspired to be a member of the invisible Rosicrucian (01:04:12):
undefined

Jason: brotherhood in his youth and wrote a letter to them as is the ancient. (01:04:17):
undefined

Ari: Tried and true tradition and (01:04:21):
undefined

Jason: Ended up becoming descartes and torturing a bunch of animals he was a real oh (01:04:24):
undefined

Jason: really he was yeah apparently he was a real bastard to, (01:04:30):
undefined

Jason: you know it's kind of like what's that like let's yeah for so let's take apart (01:04:34):
undefined

Jason: a dog to see if there's a soul in it like that type of thing have. (01:04:38):
undefined

Ari: You read ian mcgillchrist the master in his emissary about brain lateralization and (01:04:43):
undefined

Jason: Culture no i don't know about that. (01:04:47):
undefined

Ari: It's such a good book for magical theory. (01:04:49):
undefined

Ari: So dissecting things is such a left brain activity and talking to spirits is a right brain activity. (01:04:53):
undefined

Ari: So part of the reason our culture is (01:05:02):
undefined

Ari: makes this magic division where some things are magic and some things aren't (01:05:05):
undefined

Ari: and like some things are spooky and some things aren't is because we've forgotten (01:05:08):
undefined

Ari: how to describe the world in terms of the right side of our brain and right (01:05:13):
undefined

Ari: side of the brain sees people where a tree is a person yeah yeah (01:05:18):
undefined

Jason: And that's that seems to be completely hardwired. (01:05:24):
undefined

Ari: So that my argument is there is real problem solving that actually helps you (01:05:26):
undefined

Ari: survive to be had with that side of your brain. (01:05:34):
undefined

Ari: And it's very easy to point out because Emma Gilchrist builds the case that (01:05:36):
undefined

Ari: your entire perceptual system goes through the right side of your brain first. (01:05:42):
undefined

Ari: So you can't actually perceive very much at all with only a left side. (01:05:47):
undefined

Jason: Huh, okay. (01:05:51):
undefined

Ari: Yeah. So the right side is dominant, which is why you titled it The Master and (01:05:53):
undefined

Ari: His Emissary. The left side thinks it's in control, but the right side is always (01:05:57):
undefined

Ari: the one presenting the world to (01:06:02):
undefined

Jason: The left side. Does that suggest that pretty much everyone is in a state of (01:06:04):
undefined

Jason: magical thinking all the time, even people who think they're being hyper-rational? (01:06:08):
undefined

Ari: So our first interaction, Jason, we had a debate about where the magic is real. (01:06:13):
undefined

Jason: That was fun, that was great, yeah. (01:06:21):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, and one of the things I said to you is, Jason, the question is not whether (01:06:22):
undefined

Ari: we can have magical thinking and rational thinking. (01:06:29):
undefined

Ari: It's magical thinking all the way down. You can have better magical thinking (01:06:34):
undefined

Ari: and worse magical thinking, and that's all you can have. (01:06:38):
undefined

Ari: Even science has faith-based constructs built into it. (01:06:42):
undefined

Jason: Would it be fair to put that in another way as, (01:06:45):
undefined

Jason: is it a scale of magical thinking or is it a scale of precision in understanding cause and effect? (01:06:51):
undefined

Jason: Whereas the more you understand cause and effect at a more and more fine-tuned (01:07:03):
undefined

Jason: precise level the more that approaches science modern science whereas more primitive (01:07:07):
undefined

Jason: understandings of cause and effect might be more akin to what we look down as (01:07:14):
undefined

Jason: look down on as magical thinking. (01:07:19):
undefined

Ari: So again the right side of the brain which is the one more prone to magical (01:07:22):
undefined

Ari: thinking although there are left side of the brain types of magical thinking (01:07:27):
undefined

Ari: too but the right side is more prone to what Western culture would do magical (01:07:30):
undefined

Ari: thinking tends to see the larger picture so it's a gestalt situation whereas (01:07:34):
undefined

Ari: the left side of the brain likes details (01:07:40):
undefined

Ari: so the choice is this you can be talking about more stuff in terms of cause (01:07:42):
undefined

Ari: and effect in an imprecise way or you can be talking about a smaller amount (01:07:49):
undefined

Ari: of stuff in a more precise way and the more precise you want to be the less (01:07:55):
undefined

Ari: of the world you're encompassing (01:07:59):
undefined

Jason: That's interesting also because as a general hypnotic principle, (01:08:02):
undefined

Jason: using vaguer and vaguer and vaguer language tends to induce trance in people, (01:08:06):
undefined

Jason: whereas using more and more and more and more precise language, (01:08:12):
undefined

Jason: basically as you were just saying, (01:08:16):
undefined

Jason: brings them out of a trance-like state of consciousness and into a different (01:08:18):
undefined

Jason: trance, the trance more of ordinary daily reality. (01:08:23):
undefined

Ari: No, that's really interesting, yeah. (01:08:28):
undefined

Jason: Which would kind of go along with what you're saying a bit. (01:08:30):
undefined

Ari: Yeah so a scientist who's probably trained doesn't talk in terms of facts at (01:08:32):
undefined

Ari: all while they're being a scientist so we've got this we have some really bad (01:08:39):
undefined

Ari: ideas about what science is for people who are not trained in science (01:08:44):
undefined

Ari: science is not about facts at all science is about predictions so you have a (01:08:48):
undefined

Ari: set of data and you try and predict the way the world will go by looking at (01:08:54):
undefined

Ari: the tests and the data and the meta-analysis of that data. (01:09:00):
undefined

Ari: So scientists, like for instance, when they had the Higgs boson experiment in (01:09:04):
undefined

Ari: the Large Hadron Collider, some journalists asked the scientist, (01:09:08):
undefined

Ari: so is the Higgs boson real? (01:09:13):
undefined

Ari: And the scientist would go, well, you know, 99.9999 whatever it is, (01:09:16):
undefined

Ari: 0.6 chance that it's (01:09:21):
undefined

Ari: real and they go no tell us yes or no is it real it's like no i'm a scientist (01:09:24):
undefined

Ari: it's 99.99996 probability that it's real and that's that's how you talk if you're (01:09:29):
undefined

Ari: being a scientist it's not about facts and it's about making predictions do (01:09:36):
undefined

Ari: you know me and following (01:09:41):
undefined

Jason: A process of. (01:09:42):
undefined

Ari: Following everyone who's yeah everyone who's ever been a scientist ever is filtering (01:09:43):
undefined

Ari: that science through a human perception system (01:09:50):
undefined

Ari: so you're never, it's a bit like placebo effect in drug testing, (01:09:53):
undefined

Ari: the placebo effect is not there because it's a convenient baseline to measure anything, (01:09:58):
undefined

Ari: it's super inconvenient it's all kinds of factors that come in that have nothing (01:10:04):
undefined

Ari: to do with the chemistry, (01:10:09):
undefined

Ari: if we could get rid of it, it'd be great, the placebo effect is there because (01:10:11):
undefined

Ari: you can't get rid of the placebo effect in a conscious patient (01:10:14):
undefined

Ari: And by the way, placebo effect includes the color of the walls of a hospital, (01:10:18):
undefined

Ari: what the doctor's wearing, how they're talking to you, whether they have their (01:10:23):
undefined

Ari: degree on the wall or not. (01:10:26):
undefined

Jason: Right. (01:10:28):
undefined

Ari: The size of the name of the pill. (01:10:29):
undefined

Jason: Right, right, right, right. (01:10:31):
undefined

Ari: Which is magic. (01:10:32):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So the magic never fully escapes, even in science. (01:10:35):
undefined

Ari: The perceptual system, you're never completely certain. (01:10:42):
undefined

Jason: Well, you definitely see it in mass consciousness, where, (01:10:46):
undefined

Jason: for instance, with the political polarization in the world, (01:10:52):
undefined

Jason: I don't know how it is there, but certainly in the US, People have a completely (01:10:59):
undefined

Jason: talismanic relationship to language at this point, where if they hear, (01:11:03):
undefined

Jason: they're no longer interested in ideas or thinking through things. (01:11:10):
undefined

Jason: If they hear something that in their mind sounds like a talking point that the (01:11:14):
undefined

Jason: other side would have, it's just a talismanic thing. It's like, (01:11:18):
undefined

Jason: oh, you're part of that tribe. (01:11:23):
undefined

Jason: It's being used as a tribal marker. right and that's like all it is that you know what i mean. (01:11:24):
undefined

Ari: So lionel snell who's who writes under the name ramsey jukes and you interviewed him at one (01:11:30):
undefined

Jason: Point he talks about legend. (01:11:36):
undefined

Ari: He talks about how a lot of a lot of people who think they're being rational (01:11:38):
undefined

Ari: are actually using banishing magical thinking so but i would put it (01:11:43):
undefined

Ari: A lot of the political stuff going on now, which is happening in most countries, (01:11:52):
undefined

Ari: including New Zealand, can be looked (01:11:57):
undefined

Ari: at by transference and projection and psychology, those three terms. (01:11:59):
undefined

Ari: So what happens is people (01:12:03):
undefined

Ari: read read something and it proposes (01:12:07):
undefined

Ari: that someone up at this type of person should be their (01:12:11):
undefined

Ari: enemy and then they do what i call shadow boxing where they pretend to have (01:12:13):
undefined

Ari: an argument in their head as if someone's the enemy and then instead of having (01:12:19):
undefined

Ari: like we're trying to have here a human to human conversation they'll go well (01:12:24):
undefined

Ari: you're a work this or a mega that (01:12:30):
undefined

Ari: And so therefore, your position is this, and this is my attack. (01:12:33):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly it. (01:12:38):
undefined

Ari: Project, project, project, project. And so I have a wizard technique to overcome this. (01:12:40):
undefined

Jason: Okay, okay. That sounds useful. (01:12:46):
undefined

Ari: Which is, you have to get a little pissed off with them and go, (01:12:48):
undefined

Ari: I'm sorry, I'm here and I am a human being. (01:12:52):
undefined

Ari: And what you've done is put a costume of an enemy in front of me and you want (01:12:55):
undefined

Ari: me to wear it and I refuse. (01:12:59):
undefined

Ari: So if you want to know what i think you can ask me what i think and you won't (01:13:01):
undefined

Ari: know what i think until you ask me because i guarantee i will i i will surprise (01:13:06):
undefined

Ari: you with what my actual positions actually are and i have made friends with (01:13:12):
undefined

Ari: fundamentalists with the atheists who argue (01:13:17):
undefined

Ari: fundamentalists with mega (01:13:21):
undefined

Jason: People so you find that opens up the conversation. (01:13:23):
undefined

Ari: If you do that and they start going okay and like very few people (01:13:25):
undefined

Ari: if you point out that they're dehumanizing you and you insist on being talked (01:13:33):
undefined

Ari: to like a human being they almost always turn around and have to talk to you (01:13:39):
undefined

Ari: like a human being I'll tell you an example (01:13:44):
undefined

Ari: I went along to a theosophy meeting because I like checking out what people do. (01:13:49):
undefined

Ari: So they invited me along. And then there were some people turned up and they're (01:13:54):
undefined

Ari: like, oh, do you want to come to a party on the weekend? I'm like, yeah, sure. (01:13:57):
undefined

Ari: So I went along to their party. And when I turned up to their party, (01:14:01):
undefined

Ari: only then was I told that these were COVID conspiracy people celebrating the (01:14:04):
undefined

Ari: first anniversary of their lockdown protests. (01:14:10):
undefined

Jason: Okay. (01:14:15):
undefined

Ari: Cool. And so at that point, I could have just gone home. I was like, (01:14:16):
undefined

Ari: no, I'll stay and talk to these people. (01:14:20):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, and so these people, because conspiracy people tend to treat conspiracy as a collection. (01:14:21):
undefined

Ari: So it's never one conspiracy. It's always a one. (01:14:28):
undefined

Jason: It's always a conspirituality. It's a very complex homemade religion. (01:14:31):
undefined

Ari: So they all agreed about that COVID was a hoax or a government manipulation (01:14:37):
undefined

Ari: of the population or various things. but everyone else had their own kind of fascinating things. (01:14:43):
undefined

Ari: So one guy started, like I started talking to him and he's like, (01:14:50):
undefined

Ari: started rabbiting on and on and on about Jewish banking and how the Jews are (01:14:54):
undefined

Ari: controlling the world and everything. (01:14:59):
undefined

Ari: And so I just looked at him straight in the eye and I was like, (01:15:01):
undefined

Ari: you know what? Just consider me part of the Jewish conspiracy. (01:15:05):
undefined

Ari: He said, what do you mean? It's like, I have Jewish ancestors. (01:15:09):
undefined

Ari: Just consider that When you look at me, just go, oh, I'm actually talking to one of them. (01:15:12):
undefined

Jason: What did he say? (01:15:18):
undefined

Ari: We had a really nice human conversation for the next two hours because he stopped (01:15:21):
undefined

Ari: projecting bullshit onto me. That's quite a trick. (01:15:27):
undefined

Jason: I feel like this is a really subtle trick because depending on who you are, (01:15:31):
undefined

Jason: if you don't have quite as, some of us don't have quite as direct smooth of (01:15:35):
undefined

Jason: a control of vocal tonality. (01:15:40):
undefined

Jason: Sometimes I feel like these could end up in violence if they were misunderstood. (01:15:43):
undefined

Ari: Yeah amazing eh like he could have kicked me out of the party but he ended up (01:15:48):
undefined

Ari: actually we had a really nice human conversation (01:15:53):
undefined

Ari: what do you think about this one and he stopped dehumanizing me when I told (01:15:57):
undefined

Ari: him I was part of the Jewish conspiracy laughing (01:16:00):
undefined

Ari: So it's really just projection there, Jason. It's projection. (01:16:06):
undefined

Ari: And if you can get people to stop projecting onto you, and you've just got to (01:16:09):
undefined

Ari: stand your ground and say, I'm not putting on that costume. (01:16:13):
undefined

Ari: I'm not going to let you. I'm a human being. (01:16:16):
undefined

Jason: It would be very healthy worldwide for people to learn how to do that type of thing. (01:16:18):
undefined

Ari: It's worked for me over and over. Yeah, Ari, you can't walk up to a whole protesting (01:16:25):
undefined

Ari: gang that's holding sticks and do this. (01:16:31):
undefined

Ari: Yeah, I'm not saying that. I'm saying when you have a one-on-one interaction (01:16:34):
undefined

Ari: with another human being, you can get away with this. (01:16:37):
undefined

Ari: I've gotten away with it over and over and over for years. (01:16:40):
undefined

Ari: I've been practicing this for, I don't know, 15 years. (01:16:44):
undefined

Jason: Okay. Oh, okay. Okay. So. (01:16:49):
undefined

Ari: When you first (01:16:52):
undefined

Jason: Started doing it 15 years ago, did it always go smoothly or did you have some (01:16:53):
undefined

Jason: interesting experiences? (01:16:57):
undefined

Jason: Yeah, it just seems to work. Right away, it worked right out of the box. (01:16:59):
undefined

Ari: To put this in perspective it's not (01:17:02):
undefined

Ari: just someone sometimes i was walking for seven (01:17:05):
undefined

Ari: for over seven years i was walking around in (01:17:08):
undefined

Ari: a wizard costume in public doing street philosophy and having (01:17:11):
undefined

Ari: people walk up to me and then going on about whatever was on (01:17:14):
undefined

Ari: their mind so people were projecting you know (01:17:17):
undefined

Ari: nice nice things like harry potter or weird (01:17:20):
undefined

Ari: things like oh you're some sort of a cult witch i mean like all day every day (01:17:23):
undefined

Ari: and i i think i was having a hundred photos taken of me a week in some points (01:17:28):
undefined

Ari: i was certainly meeting hundreds of people every week hundreds of new people (01:17:34):
undefined

Ari: and i was also having my image put on all over social media (01:17:39):
undefined

Jason: It's incredible it's incredible. (01:17:43):
undefined

Ari: Yeah uh one (01:17:44):
undefined

Ari: one pretty funny and weird wizard story (01:17:49):
undefined

Ari: is i for like (01:17:52):
undefined

Ari: a couple of weeks i i tried out a dating (01:17:55):
undefined

Ari: app and and and (01:17:58):
undefined

Ari: finally like if i if i'm at a party i (01:18:01):
undefined

Ari: i can i can generally like charm people into conversations pretty damn easily (01:18:04):
undefined

Ari: but if but yeah i wasn't getting any bites but i was like because you know i'm (01:18:08):
undefined

Ari: a big hairy dude and these dating apps are for sporty people look at me in the (01:18:14):
undefined

Ari: mountains or no look at you know they're not they're not (01:18:18):
undefined

Jason: That's pretty funny. Well, we've covered a lot. Let's see. We've been going for a couple hours. (01:18:57):
undefined

Jason: I think we've gotten to the bottom. (01:19:04):
undefined

Ari: If people like my ideas, I have just sort of about a month ago started a sub stack. (01:19:07):
undefined

Ari: And if you search for Ari Freeman Wizard, that's A-R-I Freeman, (01:19:13):
undefined

Ari: F-R-E-E-M-A and Wizard, maybe you can put the link up. (01:19:18):
undefined

Ari: And a lot of the things I talked about today are there. So, got (01:19:21):
undefined

Music: Music (01:20:05):
undefined

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 231: "FURRIES ARE SHAMANS!" Ari Freeman On the Horrors of Furry & Brony Sorcery

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

All Episodes

Ep. 231: "FURRIES ARE SHAMANS!" Ari Freeman On the Horrors of Furry & Brony Sorcery

On Purpose with Jay Shetty