March 27, 2025 • 51 mins
Tracking Wisdom
Season (Not in a season) Episode 18
Exploring Spiritual Awakening: Insights from Michael Lydon and Alan Chapman
Recorded - 01/06/25
DESCRIPTION
The discussion centers around the enlightening dialogue between Michael Lydon and Alan Chapman, both of whom delve into intricate topics related to spiritual awakening and the mystical practices that accompany it. Lydon, a spiritual teacher, engages Chapman, an adept in Western magic, to explore the intersection of ancient wisdom and contemporary spiritual experiences. Central to their discourse is the concept of Magia, particularly as it relates to the teachings of Aleister Crowley, a pivotal figure in the realm of Western esoterica. Chapman elucidates how Crowley's practices, often misconstrued as merely occult, actually serve as profound tools for enlightenment. He posits that Crowley's life arc embodies an enlightening process that Crowley himself failed to recognize, thereby framing magic as a legitimate path towards spiritual awakening rather than a mere pursuit of power or control. This perspective invites listeners to reconsider the value of magical practices within the broader context of spiritual development, challenging conventional narratives that often demonize such explorations.
Takeaways:
- The conversation between Michael Lydon and Alan Chapman explores the intricate relationship between spiritual awakening and mystical practices.
- Alan Chapman advocates for the understanding of magic as a legitimate tool for enlightenment, diverging from its typical occult connotations.
- The discussion addresses the perennial philosophy, suggesting that all spiritual traditions share an underlying truth that transcends their individual doctrines.
- Chapman emphasizes the importance of having a knowledgeable teacher to navigate the complexities and potential delusions inherent in magical practices.
- The episode highlights the potential dangers of becoming attached to blissful states during the awakening process, framing awakening as an ongoing journey rather than a final destination.
- It is underscored that each individual's experience of awakening is profound, and there is always a further horizon of understanding and exploration to pursue.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
Good morning, everybody.Welcome back to another episode of
(00:28):
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.I'm Ryan.
And I'm Peter.
And we are going to talk todayabout a interesting and interesting
conversation that we watchedbetween Michael Lyden and Lydon.
Right, that. Yeah, I thinkit's Lydon, Michael Lydon and Alan
Chapman. And let's see. SoMichael Lydon hosts this conversation.
(00:55):
He's a spiritual teacher andhis guest was an author, Alan Chapman.
And they talked about themesof spiritual awakening, mystical
practices, and theintersection of ancient wisdom in
the modern experience. And inparticular, Magia.
(01:18):
So specifically, Alan Chapmanis a teacher of Western magic. What?
Well, okay, so I don't wantto. It's basically what people would
think of when we say theoccult. It's like he teaches from
(01:39):
Alistair Crowley, like hestudied Aleister Crowley and who
is kind of the mage of Westernmagic from the 18th, 19th century.
19th to 20th century.Somewhere in there, the age of spiritualism.
(02:01):
But. So Chapman says that herecognizes in Crowley's work or in
the arc of his life, anenlightening enlightenment process
that Crowley himself didn'trecognize. And so that's the basis
(02:22):
of. Well, basically that's thebasis of most of Chapman's work.
It seems like he startedpursuing. He has a big background
in lots of spiritualtraditions, Buddhism and others,
but came into contact withCrowley's work and started studying
(02:51):
it and then started havingexperiences from doing magical practices.
And he recognized them asbeing. He recognized magic as a tool
of enlightenment. So that'swhy he's in this perfectly okay group.
(03:16):
Now, I'm reluctant to say pok in.
This conversation with Michael Ayden.
So, yeah, so I, I do have aquestion about. So Perfectly Clear.
Okay. Is a members only groupand we're sharing content like we're
(03:38):
discussing members onlycontent. So I'm kind of, I don't
know, maybe we should, like,before we publish, we should investigate
that.
It's fair.
I mean, it's not like it's aclosed group. It's. Well, I mean,
it's meant for anybody who haseither taken the course or has been
(03:59):
awakening. So if you've takenthe course and you have not transitioned,
you're still. If you've, ifyou've taken some of Jeffrey Martin's
one or more of GeoffreyMartin's courses, including the free
ones or the finders course andits derivatives. Even if you haven't
(04:22):
transitioned, they'll. You canbe. Admit you. So anyway, just to
put that disclaimer.
Yeah, I will do investigation.We're not sharing the conversation,
we're just sharing some.
Right. Tidbits our responseand his work. Yeah.
(04:45):
All in all, that generallyfalls into a fair use scenario.
Right. So. So Chapman haswritten a bunch of books on magic
as a tool for enlightenment.Basically teaches magic as a spiritual
(05:09):
teacher as opposed to as anoccult teacher, which is interesting.
And, and he does. I mean,this, I think this is the problem
is that some of the mostinteresting stuff is from the questions.
So we can talk about it, but Idon't know if we can publish it.
(05:32):
So we were saying just beforewe came on, there's a question of
someone asked a questionbecause he was under psychic attack.
I mean, this is someone whoobviously is. Works himself in the
context of magic, which is nota context that I have at all. But
he was bringing the questionto Chapman. I'm currently under psychic
(05:59):
attack. What do I do? AndChapman was very skeptical and said,
well, I mean, the first thingyou have to do is decide whether
you're delusional or not,because it's easy to be delusional
about these kinds of things.Things. And, and he wasn't being
flippant or, or dismissive.It's just this is part of working
(06:21):
with magic is you have to, aswith most. As with any spiritual
practice is you have tounderstand whether you're deluding
yourself. Which is why at acertain point it's critical to actually
have a teacher of some kind.But so in the end, I think the questioners
(06:48):
said, well, the person who'sdoing it told me they're doing it,
so I know that I'm notdelusional. Yeah. They said they're
launching psychic attacksagainst me. It's like, well, I don't
know. That's just aninteresting scenario to me. Like,
what the heck are you doing?Like, what, what? I don't know. I
(07:08):
mean, how do you travel incircles where people use the. The
kind of the discipline thatyou're mutually engaged in negative.
To harm you. Yeah. But as weknow, I mean, as anyone knows from
our culture, that's the waymagic is seen.
(07:31):
Sure. Yeah.
Right. It is primarily knownas black magic. And then people have
to defend it, saying, no, no,no, there's white magic and.
Right.
You know, I mean, the wholeChristian, Western, Christian, even
Judaic, I would guessorientation is, you know, the institutions
(07:52):
are all saying, oh, this isall bad stuff. It's all forbidden
tools of the devil, whatever.Right. I will say that. Well, we'll
get. When we get to the angelpractice. I have something to say
(08:14):
about that. But, yeah. Sogoing, I guess, going to the beginning,
Chapman says that Crowley gotinto a lot of trouble for himself
(08:39):
because he was doing thesepowerful practices and he actually
got on an awakening path, butdidn't know it. And now I don't think
he says that Crowley wentthrough Dark Night of the Soul. I
don't think he said.
He didn't say that specifically.
That's not my impression.Like, oh, and then he got stuck in
Dark Night of the Soul, andthat's why he had trouble. Which
(08:59):
is normally what you expect tohear is a story of someone who had
trouble with an awakeningprocess. So I think it's interesting
that Chapman doesn't say that.So I'm kind of curious to look at
some of his books and find out.
Yeah, they. He didn't seem toexpound much on what he spoke about
(09:25):
kind of generically. Like,he's known and he didn't help himself.
Yeah, he's. He's kind of knownas being unsavory. Yes. And that,
you know, whether or not hewas or wasn't, he didn't, like, help
himself in that regard.
Right.
But I don't. They didn't giveany context on what exactly he's
(09:47):
known for air quotes oranything like that.
Yeah. So I think. Yeah. Andthat's something that we can probably
wiki.
Probably.
But yeah, so he. He said thathe's innocent of most of the charges
that are generally madeagainst him because I guess his reputation
(10:09):
is, oh, here's an example of abad guy. He's like an evil magician
kind of thing. But they.Chapman says he's. He's innocent
of most of the charges, buthe's morally responsible because
he brought it on himself.Right. Which is. Yeah. It's kind
of vague, but I think. Whatwas the overall comment you wanted
(10:42):
to make about this. Thisvideo? I thought you'd said there
was like.
A. I do, but I want to touchit last. I feel like it's way off
track.
Oh, okay.
This spawned an observationfor me, but it's really not very
relevant to the conversation.
So one thing I thought wasreally interesting in how I experienced
(11:04):
this conversation was thatalthough I didn't. I wasn't familiar
with the context. I recognizedmost of what Alan Chapman and Michael
(11:25):
said. Michael Lydon. Irecognized most of What Michael said
and Alan said, like, I waslike, oh, yeah, okay, that makes
sense. Oh, yeah, I know whatyou're talking about. Which is weird
because it seemed like. Well,there weren't that many questioners,
(11:48):
but I did. I just think it'sinteresting to be in a place now
where I recognize, where I canlisten to people have this conversation.
And I felt like. I think Iwrote my journal. I felt like I was
participating in theconversation. I think I was hearing
some people talk saying, oh,that's interesting. Oh, I wonder
(12:10):
what that's about.
Right. I think one. Perhapsthis is part of why. And one of the
things that I found resonantin the discussion was Alan's talk
of the teaching behind the tradition.
(12:30):
The tradition behindtraditions. Yes. And which I translated
as the perennial philosophy.
Yeah. And so in many ways,that's exactly what we've been kind
of talking about for the pastfew years is this assertion or assumption,
expectation that there is anunderlying. An underlying teaching
(12:51):
that is present through allthe various sects and. And branches
of wisdom and spirituality andphilosophy. So I liked that. I thought
that was a really interestingtake. And that he seemed to touch
on at least how I heard it.Maybe I'm mistaken was something
(13:15):
along the line of, like, eachhint. Use the word institution, I
don't think. But like,tradition, like, starts off essentially
on this.
Exactly.
And every time, at some pointloses that kind of connection to
the original teaching. Which,again, is something we've. It's a
(13:37):
soapbox I've been on.
Right, right. Well, no, I wasgoing to say he actually clearly
states the thesis that youintroduced at the beginning.
Yeah.
Which is that all teachingsare true. Once a teaching becomes
an institution, then itbecomes. It loses track. I mean,
(13:59):
it loses focus because. And hedoesn't say this, but as we've said
in the past, then theinstitution becomes focused on being
an institution. And you haveto be very diligent in understanding
or looking for the truth inthe institution. And you have to
(14:19):
have a very good teacher.Like, only the best teachers of the
institution will be able tohelp you see the truth. And most
of the teachers are teachingdogma. They're teaching the party
line. They're teaching theinstitution. And even. I mean, so
this is me being real cynical,but I think even people, probably
(14:45):
even mostly people who areprofessionally trained Right. In
seminaries and whatnot, don'tget it. Yeah, they. Because they're
trained by the institution toteach the institution. It's like,
oh, so we were talking about,you know, trauma therapy, training
(15:08):
and that, you know, in oneparticular school, and that's. I
would expect it's true of anygood program that in order to learn
the technique, you healyourself using the technique on your
own trauma. And I think thatthat's not something that's done
by most institutions that.What's the word? I don't want to
(15:36):
say ordain, but that turn outteachers in any. And I mean when
I say teachers leaders. Right,that, that, that I guess I have to
say ordain leaders. Right. Ordesignate or certify. Right. That
kind of thing. They, you know,they are dean Ordain leaders of the
(16:00):
institution.
Right.
They don't ordain skilledpractitioners of the practices that.
Yeah, I, I don't know. I meanthat's, that's a very cynical take,
but I think it's a fairly safe one.
It is, but I mean you thinkof, let's take a more secular example.
(16:22):
You talk about like a doctoror something. You could have a top
doctor from an Ivy Leagueschool who is top of their class
and you could have somebodywho turned out of a medical school
at the bottom of their class.And by and large forward facing to
the public. Nobody's thewiser. And obviously there's gonna
(16:42):
be different levels of skillthat are involved with different
practitioners. And justbecause you passed doesn't mean you're.
Just because you pass thedriving test doesn't mean you're
a good driver.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So,yeah, so Chapman does comment a lot
(17:03):
on that. Not in terms of theWestern church or Christianity or
anything like that, just ingeneral. And I think, I mean, any
points to. What we've talkedabout before was enlightened beings
(17:30):
who are bad actors, you know,people who actually are awakened
but don't. Haven't addressedtheir conditioning. And so they,
they are awakened and they canteach awakening, but they can also
do really bad things and abusestudents and kitten scandals in that,
(17:54):
that whole story that we're sofamiliar with. So, so yeah, so I
think that's why, I thinkthat's why I recommended this to
you because it's a verydifferent, like least clearly talking
about the same issues thatwe've always talked about. And yet
(18:15):
he's talking about it from theperspective of, of being a magician.
Like what? A magician.Obviously not in the entertainment
sense, but a practitioner ofmagic or as he calls it, magia.
Right. It was also presentedas Western religion, Western esoterica.
(18:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sointeresting. But I think again, it's
going outside of kind of ourmutually familiar or Our collective.
Collective between the two ofus. Knowledge of different religions,
(18:59):
like Buddhism, Christianity,maybe a little Judaism, to something
which is quite alien to bothof us. Yeah.
I'd never heard of this reallyat all. I mean, I guess if somebody
had said, did you know thatthere's a thing called magic or,
you know, I might havenominally been familiar that something
(19:22):
like that existed, like Wicca,you know, I don't know anything.
Exactly. Same. Same here. Iwas aware of Aleister Crowley as
a historical figure. And Imean, basically, I probably know
him from fantasy fiction, likeCthulhu, like Lovecraft. I think
(19:44):
Lovecraft probably referred toCrowley in some of his. His stories
or any. Any, you know, fantasyfiction that names, you know, like
historical.
Sure.
Magic texts.
Right.
You know, so you.
(20:07):
You had mentioned the angelpractice. What. What was your. I
mean, I had. I had a. You say.You go first.
Okay. So. So I think it's atthe beginning of the question period.
Right. That he introduces apractice like. Because people are
(20:28):
saying, well, what.
This was about midway through,I think.
Okay. He paused for somequestions and then. Yeah. And then
they went. But basically, Ithink people were saying, so what
do you, like, what's anexample of a practice? Like, how.
How is this done? And. And heessentially led a meditation for
(20:48):
five minutes. He was veryshort. But he said, you know, you
close your eyes and you justrecite this phrase.
I remember, if you want me to.
Yeah. I consent. I consent tothe presence and action of my holy
(21:09):
guardian angel.
Yes.
Okay. And so that's the keyphrase. And he recites it as the
leader. And he says, you canrecite it yourself if you like. And
he says. And then you justwait, and then you repeat it, and
you just see what arises foryou. And the other part of it is,
(21:42):
if you have already met yourguardian angel, know its name, you
can. Instead of repeating thephrase, you can say the phrase once,
and then at each subsequenttime, you can just use the angel's
name to intend the samephrase. And if you don't have an
(22:07):
angel's name, you can just usea word that is meaningful. Meaningful.
Is that what he said? Yeah, soI thought that was very interesting.
And then another thing that hesaid was that the angel that you're
(22:29):
invoking is actually your ownenlightened nature. And so that I
thought was very interestingbecause he talks about experiencing
entities. And I think it wasbefore this. Right. That he says
(22:51):
that he had already written abook. I think he'd already written
a book. Crowley, he has apartner, and he had written a magic
book, I think. I think thatwas the advanced Magic for Beginners
that he wrote. One of hisearlier books, he wrote with a partner.
And then he was on someretreat and this entity came to him,
(23:16):
I think is the way he tellsthe story. And that the entity told
him that he had to teach andhe didn't want to. And then, and
then I believe after that hegot. He then went to his partner
and said, hey, we have to dosome work. And then they did the
(23:40):
practice together and theyboth spoke to the entity. Isn't that
right?
Something along that line.
Like they had a mutualexperience of a being. That was my
understanding.
Okay. I don't rememberspecifically the mutuality of it.
Okay. Which I thought wassignificant. But so this is the point
that confuses me is that ifthe entity is your own enlightened
(24:09):
self, then how can youmutually experience it? And I mean,
I kind of hear myself sayingthat and say, well, that's a stupid
question because we've kind oftalked about this before. Like, yeah,
I mean, that is the nature ofawakening experiences, is that you
become aware that, oh, thisisn't my experience. This is the
(24:30):
same experience that, youknow, and especially if you do group
work or dyad work, you seelike this other person is experiencing
what I'm experiencing and yourecognize, like we're. We're seeing
the same thing. So I guessthat's what this is. It's just interesting
(24:52):
that. I mean, I guess ifyou're sufficiently oriented, like
if you're both. They bothstudied the same teacher and the
same works of Crowley, then Iguess that's going to be sufficient
mutual conditioning that theyhave the same experience. Yeah, but
(25:14):
so what I'm. I guess what I'msaying is I don't really believe
in external entities. I don'tknow. I'm kind of feeling paradoxical
because I don't believe inexternal entities. And I also do
believe in external entities.And I think we've touched on this
before. Right. That kind ofgoing to Hoffman's model. I believe
(25:43):
that we contact otherconscious agents that aren't part
of the normal space timeinterface that we under Hoffman's
model have evolved into. Andthen it's weird.
Yeah.
And they're supernaturalbecause they are outside the space
(26:06):
time interstate. They're notpart of the normal interface that
we're using our true nature toaccess other consciousness that's
not. Hasn't involved. Hasn'tevolved with our interface. And so
they're really strange andparadoxical and. But so I don't know.
(26:30):
I guess what I'm. I guess whatI'm doing is I'm verbally shifting
between kind of a conventionalorientation of, oh, I don't believe
in entities. They're justexpressions of our own true nature.
And a more absoluteorientation of, oh, yeah, of course
(26:55):
there are. Of course there areother consciousnesses.
That's kind of the wholepoint, I find. So I. I guess this
is where I should do moreresearch because I don't know enough
about the context of thisteaching to understand. Obviously,
(27:19):
naming something incites theillusion of other. Right? So you're
invoking or finding the nameof your guardian being, angel or
whatever, and then to call itat the same time, basically like
(27:44):
your higher self.
So this is where I feel morecomfortable with it, because where
I feel comfortable with it iswhere it kind of intersects my Buddhist
lessons. Buddhist. What I'velearned from Buddhist teachings.
(28:06):
Buddhist teachings. So I thinkI mentioned before Tibetan deity
practices. So I did that. Ican't remember the name of the deity,
but I went on a retreat whichwas about. All about doing this,
this long recitation aboutthis specific Tibetan deity. And.
(28:31):
And the teaching by those twoteachers was this deity is an expression
of yourself. So you're notinvoking an outside entity. You're
invoking a way of visualizingyour own nature.
Right?
And they're strange. I mean,you know, they might have forearms
(28:54):
and many, many eyes or sign.They're these creepy deity images.
And so. And so, you know,there's obviously this ancient tradition
of using visualizations andarchetypes, images to represent or
(29:21):
to access your inner nature.And I'm more familiar with the teacher
Michael Lapsang Tempa onInside Timer, who does a Green Tara
practice. And I've done that alot. And he teaches the same thing.
You know, you're using yourimagination to create an image of
(29:47):
an entity, and that entity isactually an expression of your own
true nature. And the way hesays it is that you can think of
this entity as representingyour teachers. Like, if you have
teachers, this is theembodiment. This is the mental embodiment
(30:11):
of your teachers. And then hesays, if you don't have a teacher,
it's the embodiment of yourown true nature. And in my personal
experience, my teachers, myactual teachers are those who bring
me to my own experience. Andso I can see that how your teacher
(30:34):
really equates to your owninner nature, because that's all
that a good teacher does.
Right?
Basically, if a teacher says.If a teacher says you have to worship
me or it's all about me.That's not a true teacher. Now we
(30:58):
get into the sticky partbecause of course, as we said, there
are awakened beings who areteachers who do that. Yeah, but it's
not wholesome. So it doesn'tmean that they're not awakened. It
just means that you'reprobably in trouble. They might not
be in trouble, but you'regoing to be in trouble because they're
(31:21):
allowing their conditioningto, you know, create misbehavior.
But. Yeah, so.
That makes sense to me. And Iguess what I was saying was, I don't
know specifically if that'sthe way that he was intending to
(31:42):
teach it.
You mean the, the angelpractice, the.
The distinction or resolvingthe paradox of this is your true
nature and there's this like,sense of other, other self ness to
(32:04):
the being. But the way youexpress the, the Buddhist teaching
around it is the way I wouldreconcile it within my own understanding.
I, I think what we have to.Let me try this out. I think the
(32:26):
paradox resolves because.Okay, so Hoffman has the ultimate
one, right? The, the superconsciousness, the culmination or,
or what unification of all,all infinite conscious agents. And
(32:47):
that inherently each consciousagent, that is the nature of each
concert agent. It's like, youknow, each of us as a wave are actually
the ocean.
Right?
And this is where, you know,the metaphor breaks down again because
we're not a part of the ocean.We are the ocean. And it's hard to.
(33:12):
It's. This is where, you know,as we say, the language breaks down
because, you know, you say,you don't really want to say I am
God, but if you can't saythat, then you're not really getting
it. But it doesn't mean I, thehuman, am God. It means I the true
(33:34):
I is. There's only one true I.I mean, I am is. That's the. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. But I mean, that's thetricky part. And I think that's the
(33:56):
tricky part with all teachingsand particularly with magic. I think
magic seems to be. Well, Idon't know. I mean, like I said,
I don't, I don't know anythingabout magic except for popular culture
or maybe a little bit of lesspopular culture. Right. But it's
all external reference asopposed to from practice, inside
(34:20):
the work.
Right.
It has the reputation ofbeing, let's say that it has the
reputation of being verysubject to abuse, very dangerous,
very. I don't know, but Ithink that we've learned this all
(34:43):
along. In, in terms of talkingabout awakening experiences, there
are hazards that you have tolook out for. So if you're approaching
any practice.
I.
Mean, it's not even a questionof whether you're approaching with
the, with the intention ofawakening, because you can have awakening
without intending it. So ifyou come into contact with awakening,
there can be risk because ofthe way the conventional self responds,
(35:09):
because of the way the egoresponds. There can be traumatic
experience from awakening.
Yeah.
And so I think that's focusedon our culture looking at magic or
(35:32):
talking about magic orportraying magic focuses on that
aspect. It's like, oh, wellthen you're going to get possessed
by the devil or demons aregoing. You can't control the entities
that are going to show up.Those are the typical stories.
How much of the occult, howmuch of that is driven from Judeo
Christian institutions?
Well, of course, I mean, Ithink that's true. Is that. I think
(35:56):
to me the big question is why.Oh, I know the Chapman calls it Western
esoterica. That's why. Becauseit's the local version of other practices,
(36:18):
unorthodox, I guess, practicethat gets attacked by the local institution.
So the local Westerninstitution is the Christian church
and the local unorthodoxpractice is magic. And so the church
(36:39):
has got it out for magic.
Yeah. And I think they wouldhave the same sort of message towards
shamanism or yes, evenGnosticism if there were really a
strong competitive communityaround that. I don't know how much.
(36:59):
I know it was bigger in thebeginning. As far as I understand,
narcissism has essentiallyfallen away and doesn't have very
much following. But I don'tknow that for sure.
Is that not. Did I not referto it? Did that. Didn't Gnosticism
(37:21):
come up in this talk?
I don't remember hearing that.I was listening to it at two times
speed, so it's possible.
Yeah. I'm trying to find thesearch command in.
It's at the bottom.
Oh no, I'm in Google Docs. Oh,find. Okay. Find G N. Oops. Come
(37:52):
on. It took that long to typeS. No match. Gnosticism died. Gnos.
(38:12):
Oh well, who knows if that'sthe way the transcript is gonna spell
it. That's YouTube transcription.
I mean this, this is mycontinued internal battle around
(38:34):
messaging and my concerns withrigidity within institutional messaging
about demonizing alternativephilosophies and thoughts and approaches.
It's a brand new iPad. This islike two months old.
(38:58):
What happens?
Just it keeps on crashing. No,Every time I try to Type in this
Google Document search. Itcrashes. Well, it doesn't crash,
it just closes the app prettymuch. Well, it's the app crashing,
right? It's not. Right.
It's not the iPad because it'snot an Apple product.
(39:18):
Yeah. Crazy. I, I type Nliterally. I'm trying to type N to
spell gnostic phonetically.No, as soon as I hit the N key, it
shuts the document. It closesit. It's crazy.
Maybe it's telling ussomething there.
Yeah, maybe there's an entity.Anyway, so, so you were saying.
(39:48):
Yeah, nothing that I haven'tsaid before specifically, but the,
the basic premonition premierepremise that was being presented
here was that there was anauthentic higher spirituality and
the tradition behindtradition, which I greatly appreciated
(40:08):
as far as a teaching and a wayof approaching these teachings. His
discussion about gettingcaught up in awakening. So like you,
you, you get there's thepotential to get caught up in the
(40:29):
seeking of awakening, but thenthere's still yet another hazard
of getting caught up in beingawakened. Or I don't know how you
would phrase that, but thatwas an interesting description.
Well, so, yeah, it's a, it'san assumption, I think, about choices.
(40:57):
So Jeffrey Martens has taught.I don't want to say he teaches still
because apparently he's kindof moved on with a lot of stuff,
but did I tell you that Iheard he's. I found out he sold the
whole finders thing. Like he'snot associated with that.
(41:21):
I know there's been some.
It's not that he's notassociated with it, but he doesn't,
I think he doesn't own it.He's still like on the website. Yeah,
but I think it's. Which isapparently why it looks good now.
Okay, I'm just guessing. I.Just guessing, but. Because I complained.
Yes.
Bitterly before about. But. SoJeffrey is very, very. I don't say
(41:56):
agnostic. He's very openabout. Is that, what's the word about
being unattached to something?Being very over open with something.
It's not agnostic.
No.
Like, like when you have twocomputers that aren't. Or, or that's
(42:16):
software that's not attachedto a platform, they call that agnostic.
Okay, well anyway, you know,he has, he has the locations and
he says there's no bestlocation. It's like you do what you
want to do. If you want tostay in one location, that's what,
(42:38):
that's your choice. That'swhat you do. And if you want to explore
and keep on you know, and soin that sense, it sounds like Chapman
has the position that the. Thecorrect way to experience awakening
is to continue to explore. Andso he talks about getting stuck,
(43:03):
getting trapped in bliss, andit's like, but, you know, because
I had early on said, oh, Ireally want to get to location three,
and like, that's where I wouldhang out, because that's the location
that's like the mostpositively described. And one of
(43:25):
the descriptions is everyoneloves to hang out with someone who's
location free, like, justgreat to be around. It's like, oh,
I would love to be like thatright now. I no longer really feel
that way. But it's not becauseI think it's a bad choice. And it
sounds like Chapman is sayingit's a bad choice. Like, you shouldn't
(43:48):
get stuck in bliss states. Imean, I think it's a question.
Of what's your intention?
What's your intention? Right.I mean, if you're. If you're looking
for relief of suffering, Idon't understand why you could possibly.
How you could possibly gowrong being in bliss states.
Right.
It's like you've done it.You've relieved your suffering. But
(44:10):
I. But what he's saying isawakening is not an endpoint. And
this is actually what the AIsummarized too. Awakening is not
an endpoint, and therefore youshouldn't look at it as an endpoint.
Like, if. If you're. I thinkwhat he. What he's pretty much saying
(44:33):
is if you have the attitudethat awakening is a destination,
then you're missing the point.
Yes. I don't think he wassaying it's wrong in any way, but
I think that was what he was saying.
So I think the way I would putit is that the nature of awakening
(44:56):
is that it's an ongoingprocess with infinite potential until
you reach the mathematicallyindefinable one. Right. I mean, it's.
It's infinite. I mean, that'swhat Hoffman. Hoffman's ontology
describes or postulates,because you can't describe it because
(45:20):
it's mathematically inaccessible.
Right.
Due to whose theorem? Oh,well, an important mathematician
whose name we can't remember, which.
I mean, now I'm gonna. Butthat theorem, I think, aligns well
(45:43):
with what Alan was saying inthat moment, which was, number one,
take any individual incarnate,and their current experience is like
the. The most profoundawakening that they've experienced.
(46:08):
Right. So, like, you have,like, everybody's experiencing that
profound profundity, you know?
Right.
Regardless of how muchawakening, I guess if you want to
put a quantified term behind it.
Right.
It doesn't matter becauseevery time. And so there's that function
(46:30):
and that the, The. The nextpart of that is that there's always
something more beyond the horizon.
Exactly. That's what I wasgoing to say is that he kind of.
He. He says the infinite. Hedoesn't call it the infinite, but
basically the infinite isalways calling you beyond the horizon.
(46:51):
Yeah.
And I think. But I don't knowif that's. Let me think about it
for a moment. I mean, I guessthat's true. I guess that, you know,
if you are making the choicethat I'm going to get into a bliss
(47:14):
state and I'm going to stick.Stick there because I'm tired of
suffering. What you're doingis you're following conditioning,
which seems obvious. I mean,when I say that, it's like, oh, yeah,
that's absolutely what thatis. So in that sense, you're not
(47:38):
awakening. You're not. Yeah, Iguess in a sense, you're. You're.
You're not continuing yourawakening. Yeah, I mean, we keep
on coming back to this ideathat awakening is the process of.
(48:08):
I was going to say walkingaway from your conditioning, but
it's not that. Right. It's theprocess of integrating your conditioning.
And what do I mean by that? Ithink the. Everybody has conditioning.
(48:32):
We can never, as human beingsbe free of conditioning. Because
the definition of a humanbeing is a thing in space time, which
is itself. That's like theultimate conditioning. Well, it's
the ultimate condition in our.As far as we can know. I don't know
(48:52):
how to. It's hard to expressspace. Time is the base of our concept
of reality. And in that. So inthat sense, it's the ultimate conditioning.
Right. It's the conditioningthat underlies all other conditions
that we know so far. Oh, thatsucks. I just realized, like. Oh,
(49:16):
so we could get out of spacetime, get out of the interface and
find more conditioning.
Yeah.
Oh, I just realized that. Whydid I just realize that? That's so
weird. I mean, I guess. Iguess that's just to say that every
level of consciousness is acondition until you get to the prime.
(49:41):
Yeah.
That's the only unconditionedstate which is. Okay. It's so weird
to walk through that because Italk about the unconditioned.
Right.
I mean, that's the way Iexpress it. It's when I touch that.
(50:06):
So I guess that's a. That's abig question. Is when we have awakening
experiences. Are we touchingthe prime. Are we touching just above
where we are?
Well, this may be a good timefor me to jump off on my observation,
(50:29):
unless you have anything morespecific, because I feel like this
is going to take us in acompletely different.
I need a momentary as well, but.
So I will link this. I can'tlink this. I can't link this. Well,
hopefully that was useful toyou guys. I'm going to end this episode
(50:49):
and we're going to pick upthis conversation in the next episode
because I think it's going to.
Oh, okay.
I think it's going to digressinto something different and I'd
like to be able tocompartmentalize these discussions
a little bit. So.
Okay.
Thank you for listening. Talkto you next time.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
(51:13):
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com
for more information and content.
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
Good morning, everybody.Welcome back to another episode of
(00:28):
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.I'm Ryan.
And I'm Peter.
And we are going to talk todayabout a interesting and interesting
conversation that we watchedbetween Michael Lyden and Lydon.
Right, that. Yeah, I thinkit's Lydon, Michael Lydon and Alan
Chapman. And let's see. SoMichael Lydon hosts this conversation.
(00:55):
He's a spiritual teacher andhis guest was an author, Alan Chapman.
And they talked about themesof spiritual awakening, mystical
practices, and theintersection of ancient wisdom in
the modern experience. And inparticular, Magia.
(01:18):
So specifically, Alan Chapmanis a teacher of Western magic. What?
Well, okay, so I don't wantto. It's basically what people would
think of when we say theoccult. It's like he teaches from
(01:39):
Alistair Crowley, like hestudied Aleister Crowley and who
is kind of the mage of Westernmagic from the 18th, 19th century.
19th to 20th century.Somewhere in there, the age of spiritualism.
(02:01):
But. So Chapman says that herecognizes in Crowley's work or in
the arc of his life, anenlightening enlightenment process
that Crowley himself didn'trecognize. And so that's the basis
(02:22):
of. Well, basically that's thebasis of most of Chapman's work.
It seems like he startedpursuing. He has a big background
in lots of spiritualtraditions, Buddhism and others,
but came into contact withCrowley's work and started studying
(02:51):
it and then started havingexperiences from doing magical practices.
And he recognized them asbeing. He recognized magic as a tool
of enlightenment. So that'swhy he's in this perfectly okay group.
(03:16):
Now, I'm reluctant to say pok in.
This conversation with Michael Ayden.
So, yeah, so I, I do have aquestion about. So Perfectly Clear.
Okay. Is a members only groupand we're sharing content like we're
(03:38):
discussing members onlycontent. So I'm kind of, I don't
know, maybe we should, like,before we publish, we should investigate
that.
It's fair.
I mean, it's not like it's aclosed group. It's. Well, I mean,
it's meant for anybody who haseither taken the course or has been
(03:59):
awakening. So if you've takenthe course and you have not transitioned,
you're still. If you've, ifyou've taken some of Jeffrey Martin's
one or more of GeoffreyMartin's courses, including the free
ones or the finders course andits derivatives. Even if you haven't
(04:22):
transitioned, they'll. You canbe. Admit you. So anyway, just to
put that disclaimer.
Yeah, I will do investigation.We're not sharing the conversation,
we're just sharing some.
Right. Tidbits our responseand his work. Yeah.
(04:45):
All in all, that generallyfalls into a fair use scenario.
Right. So. So Chapman haswritten a bunch of books on magic
as a tool for enlightenment.Basically teaches magic as a spiritual
(05:09):
teacher as opposed to as anoccult teacher, which is interesting.
And, and he does. I mean,this, I think this is the problem
is that some of the mostinteresting stuff is from the questions.
So we can talk about it, but Idon't know if we can publish it.
(05:32):
So we were saying just beforewe came on, there's a question of
someone asked a questionbecause he was under psychic attack.
I mean, this is someone whoobviously is. Works himself in the
context of magic, which is nota context that I have at all. But
he was bringing the questionto Chapman. I'm currently under psychic
(05:59):
attack. What do I do? AndChapman was very skeptical and said,
well, I mean, the first thingyou have to do is decide whether
you're delusional or not,because it's easy to be delusional
about these kinds of things.Things. And, and he wasn't being
flippant or, or dismissive.It's just this is part of working
(06:21):
with magic is you have to, aswith most. As with any spiritual
practice is you have tounderstand whether you're deluding
yourself. Which is why at acertain point it's critical to actually
have a teacher of some kind.But so in the end, I think the questioners
(06:48):
said, well, the person who'sdoing it told me they're doing it,
so I know that I'm notdelusional. Yeah. They said they're
launching psychic attacksagainst me. It's like, well, I don't
know. That's just aninteresting scenario to me. Like,
what the heck are you doing?Like, what, what? I don't know. I
(07:08):
mean, how do you travel incircles where people use the. The
kind of the discipline thatyou're mutually engaged in negative.
To harm you. Yeah. But as weknow, I mean, as anyone knows from
our culture, that's the waymagic is seen.
(07:31):
Sure. Yeah.
Right. It is primarily knownas black magic. And then people have
to defend it, saying, no, no,no, there's white magic and.
Right.
You know, I mean, the wholeChristian, Western, Christian, even
Judaic, I would guessorientation is, you know, the institutions
(07:52):
are all saying, oh, this isall bad stuff. It's all forbidden
tools of the devil, whatever.Right. I will say that. Well, we'll
get. When we get to the angelpractice. I have something to say
(08:14):
about that. But, yeah. Sogoing, I guess, going to the beginning,
Chapman says that Crowley gotinto a lot of trouble for himself
(08:39):
because he was doing thesepowerful practices and he actually
got on an awakening path, butdidn't know it. And now I don't think
he says that Crowley wentthrough Dark Night of the Soul. I
don't think he said.
He didn't say that specifically.
That's not my impression.Like, oh, and then he got stuck in
Dark Night of the Soul, andthat's why he had trouble. Which
(08:59):
is normally what you expect tohear is a story of someone who had
trouble with an awakeningprocess. So I think it's interesting
that Chapman doesn't say that.So I'm kind of curious to look at
some of his books and find out.
Yeah, they. He didn't seem toexpound much on what he spoke about
(09:25):
kind of generically. Like,he's known and he didn't help himself.
Yeah, he's. He's kind of knownas being unsavory. Yes. And that,
you know, whether or not hewas or wasn't, he didn't, like, help
himself in that regard.
Right.
But I don't. They didn't giveany context on what exactly he's
(09:47):
known for air quotes oranything like that.
Yeah. So I think. Yeah. Andthat's something that we can probably
wiki.
Probably.
But yeah, so he. He said thathe's innocent of most of the charges
that are generally madeagainst him because I guess his reputation
(10:09):
is, oh, here's an example of abad guy. He's like an evil magician
kind of thing. But they.Chapman says he's. He's innocent
of most of the charges, buthe's morally responsible because
he brought it on himself.Right. Which is. Yeah. It's kind
of vague, but I think. Whatwas the overall comment you wanted
(10:42):
to make about this. Thisvideo? I thought you'd said there
was like.
A. I do, but I want to touchit last. I feel like it's way off
track.
Oh, okay.
This spawned an observationfor me, but it's really not very
relevant to the conversation.
So one thing I thought wasreally interesting in how I experienced
(11:04):
this conversation was thatalthough I didn't. I wasn't familiar
with the context. I recognizedmost of what Alan Chapman and Michael
(11:25):
said. Michael Lydon. Irecognized most of What Michael said
and Alan said, like, I waslike, oh, yeah, okay, that makes
sense. Oh, yeah, I know whatyou're talking about. Which is weird
because it seemed like. Well,there weren't that many questioners,
(11:48):
but I did. I just think it'sinteresting to be in a place now
where I recognize, where I canlisten to people have this conversation.
And I felt like. I think Iwrote my journal. I felt like I was
participating in theconversation. I think I was hearing
some people talk saying, oh,that's interesting. Oh, I wonder
(12:10):
what that's about.
Right. I think one. Perhapsthis is part of why. And one of the
things that I found resonantin the discussion was Alan's talk
of the teaching behind the tradition.
(12:30):
The tradition behindtraditions. Yes. And which I translated
as the perennial philosophy.
Yeah. And so in many ways,that's exactly what we've been kind
of talking about for the pastfew years is this assertion or assumption,
expectation that there is anunderlying. An underlying teaching
(12:51):
that is present through allthe various sects and. And branches
of wisdom and spirituality andphilosophy. So I liked that. I thought
that was a really interestingtake. And that he seemed to touch
on at least how I heard it.Maybe I'm mistaken was something
(13:15):
along the line of, like, eachhint. Use the word institution, I
don't think. But like,tradition, like, starts off essentially
on this.
Exactly.
And every time, at some pointloses that kind of connection to
the original teaching. Which,again, is something we've. It's a
(13:37):
soapbox I've been on.
Right, right. Well, no, I wasgoing to say he actually clearly
states the thesis that youintroduced at the beginning.
Yeah.
Which is that all teachingsare true. Once a teaching becomes
an institution, then itbecomes. It loses track. I mean,
(13:59):
it loses focus because. And hedoesn't say this, but as we've said
in the past, then theinstitution becomes focused on being
an institution. And you haveto be very diligent in understanding
or looking for the truth inthe institution. And you have to
(14:19):
have a very good teacher.Like, only the best teachers of the
institution will be able tohelp you see the truth. And most
of the teachers are teachingdogma. They're teaching the party
line. They're teaching theinstitution. And even. I mean, so
this is me being real cynical,but I think even people, probably
(14:45):
even mostly people who areprofessionally trained Right. In
seminaries and whatnot, don'tget it. Yeah, they. Because they're
trained by the institution toteach the institution. It's like,
oh, so we were talking about,you know, trauma therapy, training
(15:08):
and that, you know, in oneparticular school, and that's. I
would expect it's true of anygood program that in order to learn
the technique, you healyourself using the technique on your
own trauma. And I think thatthat's not something that's done
by most institutions that.What's the word? I don't want to
(15:36):
say ordain, but that turn outteachers in any. And I mean when
I say teachers leaders. Right,that, that, that I guess I have to
say ordain leaders. Right. Ordesignate or certify. Right. That
kind of thing. They, you know,they are dean Ordain leaders of the
(16:00):
institution.
Right.
They don't ordain skilledpractitioners of the practices that.
Yeah, I, I don't know. I meanthat's, that's a very cynical take,
but I think it's a fairly safe one.
It is, but I mean you thinkof, let's take a more secular example.
(16:22):
You talk about like a doctoror something. You could have a top
doctor from an Ivy Leagueschool who is top of their class
and you could have somebodywho turned out of a medical school
at the bottom of their class.And by and large forward facing to
the public. Nobody's thewiser. And obviously there's gonna
(16:42):
be different levels of skillthat are involved with different
practitioners. And justbecause you passed doesn't mean you're.
Just because you pass thedriving test doesn't mean you're
a good driver.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So,yeah, so Chapman does comment a lot
(17:03):
on that. Not in terms of theWestern church or Christianity or
anything like that, just ingeneral. And I think, I mean, any
points to. What we've talkedabout before was enlightened beings
(17:30):
who are bad actors, you know,people who actually are awakened
but don't. Haven't addressedtheir conditioning. And so they,
they are awakened and they canteach awakening, but they can also
do really bad things and abusestudents and kitten scandals in that,
(17:54):
that whole story that we're sofamiliar with. So, so yeah, so I
think that's why, I thinkthat's why I recommended this to
you because it's a verydifferent, like least clearly talking
about the same issues thatwe've always talked about. And yet
(18:15):
he's talking about it from theperspective of, of being a magician.
Like what? A magician.Obviously not in the entertainment
sense, but a practitioner ofmagic or as he calls it, magia.
Right. It was also presentedas Western religion, Western esoterica.
(18:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sointeresting. But I think again, it's
going outside of kind of ourmutually familiar or Our collective.
Collective between the two ofus. Knowledge of different religions,
(18:59):
like Buddhism, Christianity,maybe a little Judaism, to something
which is quite alien to bothof us. Yeah.
I'd never heard of this reallyat all. I mean, I guess if somebody
had said, did you know thatthere's a thing called magic or,
you know, I might havenominally been familiar that something
(19:22):
like that existed, like Wicca,you know, I don't know anything.
Exactly. Same. Same here. Iwas aware of Aleister Crowley as
a historical figure. And Imean, basically, I probably know
him from fantasy fiction, likeCthulhu, like Lovecraft. I think
(19:44):
Lovecraft probably referred toCrowley in some of his. His stories
or any. Any, you know, fantasyfiction that names, you know, like
historical.
Sure.
Magic texts.
Right.
You know, so you.
(20:07):
You had mentioned the angelpractice. What. What was your. I
mean, I had. I had a. You say.You go first.
Okay. So. So I think it's atthe beginning of the question period.
Right. That he introduces apractice like. Because people are
(20:28):
saying, well, what.
This was about midway through,I think.
Okay. He paused for somequestions and then. Yeah. And then
they went. But basically, Ithink people were saying, so what
do you, like, what's anexample of a practice? Like, how.
How is this done? And. And heessentially led a meditation for
(20:48):
five minutes. He was veryshort. But he said, you know, you
close your eyes and you justrecite this phrase.
I remember, if you want me to.
Yeah. I consent. I consent tothe presence and action of my holy
(21:09):
guardian angel.
Yes.
Okay. And so that's the keyphrase. And he recites it as the
leader. And he says, you canrecite it yourself if you like. And
he says. And then you justwait, and then you repeat it, and
you just see what arises foryou. And the other part of it is,
(21:42):
if you have already met yourguardian angel, know its name, you
can. Instead of repeating thephrase, you can say the phrase once,
and then at each subsequenttime, you can just use the angel's
name to intend the samephrase. And if you don't have an
(22:07):
angel's name, you can just usea word that is meaningful. Meaningful.
Is that what he said? Yeah, soI thought that was very interesting.
And then another thing that hesaid was that the angel that you're
(22:29):
invoking is actually your ownenlightened nature. And so that I
thought was very interestingbecause he talks about experiencing
entities. And I think it wasbefore this. Right. That he says
(22:51):
that he had already written abook. I think he'd already written
a book. Crowley, he has apartner, and he had written a magic
book, I think. I think thatwas the advanced Magic for Beginners
that he wrote. One of hisearlier books, he wrote with a partner.
And then he was on someretreat and this entity came to him,
(23:16):
I think is the way he tellsthe story. And that the entity told
him that he had to teach andhe didn't want to. And then, and
then I believe after that hegot. He then went to his partner
and said, hey, we have to dosome work. And then they did the
(23:40):
practice together and theyboth spoke to the entity. Isn't that
right?
Something along that line.
Like they had a mutualexperience of a being. That was my
understanding.
Okay. I don't rememberspecifically the mutuality of it.
Okay. Which I thought wassignificant. But so this is the point
that confuses me is that ifthe entity is your own enlightened
(24:09):
self, then how can youmutually experience it? And I mean,
I kind of hear myself sayingthat and say, well, that's a stupid
question because we've kind oftalked about this before. Like, yeah,
I mean, that is the nature ofawakening experiences, is that you
become aware that, oh, thisisn't my experience. This is the
(24:30):
same experience that, youknow, and especially if you do group
work or dyad work, you seelike this other person is experiencing
what I'm experiencing and yourecognize, like we're. We're seeing
the same thing. So I guessthat's what this is. It's just interesting
(24:52):
that. I mean, I guess ifyou're sufficiently oriented, like
if you're both. They bothstudied the same teacher and the
same works of Crowley, then Iguess that's going to be sufficient
mutual conditioning that theyhave the same experience. Yeah, but
(25:14):
so what I'm. I guess what I'msaying is I don't really believe
in external entities. I don'tknow. I'm kind of feeling paradoxical
because I don't believe inexternal entities. And I also do
believe in external entities.And I think we've touched on this
before. Right. That kind ofgoing to Hoffman's model. I believe
(25:43):
that we contact otherconscious agents that aren't part
of the normal space timeinterface that we under Hoffman's
model have evolved into. Andthen it's weird.
Yeah.
And they're supernaturalbecause they are outside the space
(26:06):
time interstate. They're notpart of the normal interface that
we're using our true nature toaccess other consciousness that's
not. Hasn't involved. Hasn'tevolved with our interface. And so
they're really strange andparadoxical and. But so I don't know.
(26:30):
I guess what I'm. I guess whatI'm doing is I'm verbally shifting
between kind of a conventionalorientation of, oh, I don't believe
in entities. They're justexpressions of our own true nature.
And a more absoluteorientation of, oh, yeah, of course
(26:55):
there are. Of course there areother consciousnesses.
That's kind of the wholepoint, I find. So I. I guess this
is where I should do moreresearch because I don't know enough
about the context of thisteaching to understand. Obviously,
(27:19):
naming something incites theillusion of other. Right? So you're
invoking or finding the nameof your guardian being, angel or
whatever, and then to call itat the same time, basically like
(27:44):
your higher self.
So this is where I feel morecomfortable with it, because where
I feel comfortable with it iswhere it kind of intersects my Buddhist
lessons. Buddhist. What I'velearned from Buddhist teachings.
(28:06):
Buddhist teachings. So I thinkI mentioned before Tibetan deity
practices. So I did that. Ican't remember the name of the deity,
but I went on a retreat whichwas about. All about doing this,
this long recitation aboutthis specific Tibetan deity. And.
(28:31):
And the teaching by those twoteachers was this deity is an expression
of yourself. So you're notinvoking an outside entity. You're
invoking a way of visualizingyour own nature.
Right?
And they're strange. I mean,you know, they might have forearms
(28:54):
and many, many eyes or sign.They're these creepy deity images.
And so. And so, you know,there's obviously this ancient tradition
of using visualizations andarchetypes, images to represent or
(29:21):
to access your inner nature.And I'm more familiar with the teacher
Michael Lapsang Tempa onInside Timer, who does a Green Tara
practice. And I've done that alot. And he teaches the same thing.
You know, you're using yourimagination to create an image of
(29:47):
an entity, and that entity isactually an expression of your own
true nature. And the way hesays it is that you can think of
this entity as representingyour teachers. Like, if you have
teachers, this is theembodiment. This is the mental embodiment
(30:11):
of your teachers. And then hesays, if you don't have a teacher,
it's the embodiment of yourown true nature. And in my personal
experience, my teachers, myactual teachers are those who bring
me to my own experience. Andso I can see that how your teacher
(30:34):
really equates to your owninner nature, because that's all
that a good teacher does.
Right?
Basically, if a teacher says.If a teacher says you have to worship
me or it's all about me.That's not a true teacher. Now we
(30:58):
get into the sticky partbecause of course, as we said, there
are awakened beings who areteachers who do that. Yeah, but it's
not wholesome. So it doesn'tmean that they're not awakened. It
just means that you'reprobably in trouble. They might not
be in trouble, but you'regoing to be in trouble because they're
(31:21):
allowing their conditioningto, you know, create misbehavior.
But. Yeah, so.
That makes sense to me. And Iguess what I was saying was, I don't
know specifically if that'sthe way that he was intending to
(31:42):
teach it.
You mean the, the angelpractice, the.
The distinction or resolvingthe paradox of this is your true
nature and there's this like,sense of other, other self ness to
(32:04):
the being. But the way youexpress the, the Buddhist teaching
around it is the way I wouldreconcile it within my own understanding.
I, I think what we have to.Let me try this out. I think the
(32:26):
paradox resolves because.Okay, so Hoffman has the ultimate
one, right? The, the superconsciousness, the culmination or,
or what unification of all,all infinite conscious agents. And
(32:47):
that inherently each consciousagent, that is the nature of each
concert agent. It's like, youknow, each of us as a wave are actually
the ocean.
Right?
And this is where, you know,the metaphor breaks down again because
we're not a part of the ocean.We are the ocean. And it's hard to.
(33:12):
It's. This is where, you know,as we say, the language breaks down
because, you know, you say,you don't really want to say I am
God, but if you can't saythat, then you're not really getting
it. But it doesn't mean I, thehuman, am God. It means I the true
(33:34):
I is. There's only one true I.I mean, I am is. That's the. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. But I mean, that's thetricky part. And I think that's the
(33:56):
tricky part with all teachingsand particularly with magic. I think
magic seems to be. Well, Idon't know. I mean, like I said,
I don't, I don't know anythingabout magic except for popular culture
or maybe a little bit of lesspopular culture. Right. But it's
all external reference asopposed to from practice, inside
(34:20):
the work.
Right.
It has the reputation ofbeing, let's say that it has the
reputation of being verysubject to abuse, very dangerous,
very. I don't know, but Ithink that we've learned this all
(34:43):
along. In, in terms of talkingabout awakening experiences, there
are hazards that you have tolook out for. So if you're approaching
any practice.
I.
Mean, it's not even a questionof whether you're approaching with
the, with the intention ofawakening, because you can have awakening
without intending it. So ifyou come into contact with awakening,
there can be risk because ofthe way the conventional self responds,
(35:09):
because of the way the egoresponds. There can be traumatic
experience from awakening.
Yeah.
And so I think that's focusedon our culture looking at magic or
(35:32):
talking about magic orportraying magic focuses on that
aspect. It's like, oh, wellthen you're going to get possessed
by the devil or demons aregoing. You can't control the entities
that are going to show up.Those are the typical stories.
How much of the occult, howmuch of that is driven from Judeo
Christian institutions?
Well, of course, I mean, Ithink that's true. Is that. I think
(35:56):
to me the big question is why.Oh, I know the Chapman calls it Western
esoterica. That's why. Becauseit's the local version of other practices,
(36:18):
unorthodox, I guess, practicethat gets attacked by the local institution.
So the local Westerninstitution is the Christian church
and the local unorthodoxpractice is magic. And so the church
(36:39):
has got it out for magic.
Yeah. And I think they wouldhave the same sort of message towards
shamanism or yes, evenGnosticism if there were really a
strong competitive communityaround that. I don't know how much.
(36:59):
I know it was bigger in thebeginning. As far as I understand,
narcissism has essentiallyfallen away and doesn't have very
much following. But I don'tknow that for sure.
Is that not. Did I not referto it? Did that. Didn't Gnosticism
(37:21):
come up in this talk?
I don't remember hearing that.I was listening to it at two times
speed, so it's possible.
Yeah. I'm trying to find thesearch command in.
It's at the bottom.
Oh no, I'm in Google Docs. Oh,find. Okay. Find G N. Oops. Come
(37:52):
on. It took that long to typeS. No match. Gnosticism died. Gnos.
(38:12):
Oh well, who knows if that'sthe way the transcript is gonna spell
it. That's YouTube transcription.
I mean this, this is mycontinued internal battle around
(38:34):
messaging and my concerns withrigidity within institutional messaging
about demonizing alternativephilosophies and thoughts and approaches.
It's a brand new iPad. This islike two months old.
(38:58):
What happens?
Just it keeps on crashing. No,Every time I try to Type in this
Google Document search. Itcrashes. Well, it doesn't crash,
it just closes the app prettymuch. Well, it's the app crashing,
right? It's not. Right.
It's not the iPad because it'snot an Apple product.
(39:18):
Yeah. Crazy. I, I type Nliterally. I'm trying to type N to
spell gnostic phonetically.No, as soon as I hit the N key, it
shuts the document. It closesit. It's crazy.
Maybe it's telling ussomething there.
Yeah, maybe there's an entity.Anyway, so, so you were saying.
(39:48):
Yeah, nothing that I haven'tsaid before specifically, but the,
the basic premonition premierepremise that was being presented
here was that there was anauthentic higher spirituality and
the tradition behindtradition, which I greatly appreciated
(40:08):
as far as a teaching and a wayof approaching these teachings. His
discussion about gettingcaught up in awakening. So like you,
you, you get there's thepotential to get caught up in the
(40:29):
seeking of awakening, but thenthere's still yet another hazard
of getting caught up in beingawakened. Or I don't know how you
would phrase that, but thatwas an interesting description.
Well, so, yeah, it's a, it'san assumption, I think, about choices.
(40:57):
So Jeffrey Martens has taught.I don't want to say he teaches still
because apparently he's kindof moved on with a lot of stuff,
but did I tell you that Iheard he's. I found out he sold the
whole finders thing. Like he'snot associated with that.
(41:21):
I know there's been some.
It's not that he's notassociated with it, but he doesn't,
I think he doesn't own it.He's still like on the website. Yeah,
but I think it's. Which isapparently why it looks good now.
Okay, I'm just guessing. I.Just guessing, but. Because I complained.
Yes.
Bitterly before about. But. SoJeffrey is very, very. I don't say
(41:56):
agnostic. He's very openabout. Is that, what's the word about
being unattached to something?Being very over open with something.
It's not agnostic.
No.
Like, like when you have twocomputers that aren't. Or, or that's
(42:16):
software that's not attachedto a platform, they call that agnostic.
Okay, well anyway, you know,he has, he has the locations and
he says there's no bestlocation. It's like you do what you
want to do. If you want tostay in one location, that's what,
(42:38):
that's your choice. That'swhat you do. And if you want to explore
and keep on you know, and soin that sense, it sounds like Chapman
has the position that the. Thecorrect way to experience awakening
is to continue to explore. Andso he talks about getting stuck,
(43:03):
getting trapped in bliss, andit's like, but, you know, because
I had early on said, oh, Ireally want to get to location three,
and like, that's where I wouldhang out, because that's the location
that's like the mostpositively described. And one of
(43:25):
the descriptions is everyoneloves to hang out with someone who's
location free, like, justgreat to be around. It's like, oh,
I would love to be like thatright now. I no longer really feel
that way. But it's not becauseI think it's a bad choice. And it
sounds like Chapman is sayingit's a bad choice. Like, you shouldn't
(43:48):
get stuck in bliss states. Imean, I think it's a question.
Of what's your intention?
What's your intention? Right.I mean, if you're. If you're looking
for relief of suffering, Idon't understand why you could possibly.
How you could possibly gowrong being in bliss states.
Right.
It's like you've done it.You've relieved your suffering. But
(44:10):
I. But what he's saying isawakening is not an endpoint. And
this is actually what the AIsummarized too. Awakening is not
an endpoint, and therefore youshouldn't look at it as an endpoint.
Like, if. If you're. I thinkwhat he. What he's pretty much saying
(44:33):
is if you have the attitudethat awakening is a destination,
then you're missing the point.
Yes. I don't think he wassaying it's wrong in any way, but
I think that was what he was saying.
So I think the way I would putit is that the nature of awakening
(44:56):
is that it's an ongoingprocess with infinite potential until
you reach the mathematicallyindefinable one. Right. I mean, it's.
It's infinite. I mean, that'swhat Hoffman. Hoffman's ontology
describes or postulates,because you can't describe it because
(45:20):
it's mathematically inaccessible.
Right.
Due to whose theorem? Oh,well, an important mathematician
whose name we can't remember, which.
I mean, now I'm gonna. Butthat theorem, I think, aligns well
(45:43):
with what Alan was saying inthat moment, which was, number one,
take any individual incarnate,and their current experience is like
the. The most profoundawakening that they've experienced.
(46:08):
Right. So, like, you have,like, everybody's experiencing that
profound profundity, you know?
Right.
Regardless of how muchawakening, I guess if you want to
put a quantified term behind it.
Right.
It doesn't matter becauseevery time. And so there's that function
(46:30):
and that the, The. The nextpart of that is that there's always
something more beyond the horizon.
Exactly. That's what I wasgoing to say is that he kind of.
He. He says the infinite. Hedoesn't call it the infinite, but
basically the infinite isalways calling you beyond the horizon.
(46:51):
Yeah.
And I think. But I don't knowif that's. Let me think about it
for a moment. I mean, I guessthat's true. I guess that, you know,
if you are making the choicethat I'm going to get into a bliss
(47:14):
state and I'm going to stick.Stick there because I'm tired of
suffering. What you're doingis you're following conditioning,
which seems obvious. I mean,when I say that, it's like, oh, yeah,
that's absolutely what thatis. So in that sense, you're not
(47:38):
awakening. You're not. Yeah, Iguess in a sense, you're. You're.
You're not continuing yourawakening. Yeah, I mean, we keep
on coming back to this ideathat awakening is the process of.
(48:08):
I was going to say walkingaway from your conditioning, but
it's not that. Right. It's theprocess of integrating your conditioning.
And what do I mean by that? Ithink the. Everybody has conditioning.
(48:32):
We can never, as human beingsbe free of conditioning. Because
the definition of a humanbeing is a thing in space time, which
is itself. That's like theultimate conditioning. Well, it's
the ultimate condition in our.As far as we can know. I don't know
(48:52):
how to. It's hard to expressspace. Time is the base of our concept
of reality. And in that. So inthat sense, it's the ultimate conditioning.
Right. It's the conditioningthat underlies all other conditions
that we know so far. Oh, thatsucks. I just realized, like. Oh,
(49:16):
so we could get out of spacetime, get out of the interface and
find more conditioning.
Yeah.
Oh, I just realized that. Whydid I just realize that? That's so
weird. I mean, I guess. Iguess that's just to say that every
level of consciousness is acondition until you get to the prime.
(49:41):
Yeah.
That's the only unconditionedstate which is. Okay. It's so weird
to walk through that because Italk about the unconditioned.
Right.
I mean, that's the way Iexpress it. It's when I touch that.
(50:06):
So I guess that's a. That's abig question. Is when we have awakening
experiences. Are we touchingthe prime. Are we touching just above
where we are?
Well, this may be a good timefor me to jump off on my observation,
(50:29):
unless you have anything morespecific, because I feel like this
is going to take us in acompletely different.
I need a momentary as well, but.
So I will link this. I can'tlink this. I can't link this. Well,
hopefully that was useful toyou guys. I'm going to end this episode
(50:49):
and we're going to pick upthis conversation in the next episode
because I think it's going to.
Oh, okay.
I think it's going to digressinto something different and I'd
like to be able tocompartmentalize these discussions
a little bit. So.
Okay.
Thank you for listening. Talkto you next time.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom podcast. Join us
(51:13):
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com
for more information and content.
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