Witching Hour With Carolyn Elliott

1:07:42

1:07:42

Witching Hour With Carolyn Elliott

by Ruwan Meepagala

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3.8

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talks

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Meditation

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Everyone

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576

Carolyn Elliott is an author, occult researcher, and the founder of WITCH magazine. We talk about "magic" and magick, abundance and poverty consciousness, and bedknobs and broomsticks (metaphorically).

Magic Abundance Sexual Energy Transformation Relationships Education Archetypes Addiction Financial Abundance Energy Transmutation Existential Kink Romantic Relationships Life Transformation Rituals Spirits

Meet your Teacher

Ruwan Meepagala

New York, NY, USA

Meet your Teacher

Ruwan Meepagala

New York, NY, USA

Transcript

Hello, How are you? This is episode four from the Ruano Podcast Vault. This is with my friend Carolyn Elliott. She's the co-founder of W. I. T. C. H. Magazine. She also has written some awesome books and here we spoke a couple years ago when I was dealing with some money issues. I mean, That's what attracted me to Carolyn's work. I mean, We were friends before then, But she spoke and she and I shared the stage a few times in different events and I remember this one event, It was a sexual energy event. I was speaking about sexual transmutation. She was speaking about your energy and abundance and I was really fascinated because I happened to be broke at the time. So, Like someone talking about how to make money in a way that felt good was really interesting to me. So, Sometime after that, I was still dealing with some money things and it was really interesting speaking to Carolyn because I met her when she was super broke and now she's super not, Like she's quite affluent at this time. And it was really interesting hearing her philosophies specifically from a magical perspective and I really like speaking to Carolyn about these mystical things because she comes at it in a very practical way. Magic and this kind of talk and mysticism is not for everyone, Of course. I have a mixed view on it, But I love hearing her perspective because it makes sense. I see the value in it and if it's your thing, Awesome. If not, It's just an interesting perspective. So, I hope you enjoy this episode negative four from the vault. This is Carolyn Elliott, All about witchery, Episode negative zero four. You're listening to the Ruwando podcast, Perpetual orgasm, Infinite play. Please subscribe on iTunes and enjoy the show. Cool. So, I got to start by saying thanks for many reasons, But one is that I wanted to speak to you about having this and literally 10 minutes before we Facebook message to confirm, I got a check in the mail for this bartending gig I did a really long time ago and completely forgotten about. So, I don't know if your presence on my airwaves attracted that dollar amount to me, But thanks. You are so welcome. Very welcome. Oh, Wait. So, We've started. We're going, We're live. Yeah, I called over that. I don't, I don't, What's the word? I don't need consent to start interviewing. Ooh. Ooh. Okay. So, You are very welcome. I'm glad to hear that about your check, Ruwan. That's awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm sure we'll cover a lot of things if there's no script, Obviously, But I mean, Having this is something that I heard you speak about many years ago and I was totally intrigued because it was something I could use work on. But I did know, And I hope I'm not blowing your cover. I did know that perhaps your having this wasn't where you wanted it to be at the time. This was, I don't know. I forgot when we met a few years ago, But this last year, It seems like you've blown up and have done really well. So, I would love to hear what has shifted for you. I'm sure it's many things, But would you speak about that a little? Oh, 100%. Yeah. So, First thing I should start off by saying, I always teach above my actual level of where I am because I'm always trying to teach myself the lesson first and foremost. So that's a little bit something quirky about me, But it always works out because I always learn the lesson that way. Yeah. I think that is a universal thing. Like everyone says you become better at something once you teach it, But you do it more consciously, I guess, Than most. It's true. Yeah. It's sort of like, It's one of the magical things that I do is once, Yeah, I teach it and I grow into it as I teach it. So yeah. So my happiness level has expanded very considerably the past year. So this year I made six figures working as a coach and teacher online in a location, Independent little business here, And it's been amazing. So I got to move from my hometown of Pittsburgh to Bali, Indonesia, Which was, It was a dream of mine. I didn't even know I had until it became a possibility. Like I had some success with a launch I did this summer and I broke up with a guy that I was seeing and I was like, Man, I want to get out of town. Where do I want to go? And I was, And then it just like, Welled up in me, Like I want to go to Bali. And I remembered that as a little girl, I used to sing Bali high from the musical South Pacific. Anyways, It's really neat. It's definitely a dream come true. I have no idea what that is, But Bali sounds awesome. It's a song. It's an old song. I love old, Old musicals from like the forties, Fifties, Sixties, But yeah. So the process of that, There were a few different elements. One teaching it, Hearing myself explain it to other people, Hearing myself work with other people on it. A huge thing, I would say like a pretty big breakthrough that I had. Oh boy, There's so many. I want to jump in for a sec because the thing was mentioned about this musical I'd never heard of. I've heard of South Pacific, But I don't know the song, But I'm in your class thrill on creating influence online. You posted some questionnaire, I hope I'm not blowing too much of it, But one of the questions was what are some of your guilty pleasures to study? I didn't really think much of the question. I was like, Oh yeah, I YouTube all the DFC fights. I look up history of people on Wikipedia, Whatever. But then something popped into my head, Which was I'm interested in the lives of poor people and I had no idea where that came from. And I looked back in my past and like, Yeah, I've done like all my role models growing up are like these blue collar workers that I sought out. And like, I really wanted to be a cab driver for a while. And my first documentary was living on the street and I was like, Oh, That's a very strange, Unconscious desire I seem to have had my whole life. Oh yeah. The romance of poverty. Yeah. Um, So when you, I saw when you posted that and I was like, Oh man, We got a lot to talk about because that was a huge thing for me. Um, I guess in maybe around this time last year I started looking at, Uh, You know, So we've, I think we've talked about this before and this is one of the maxims that I try to apply is that to my life is having as evidence of wanting. I found that to be very true in a lot of ways. So I look at what I have in my life and um, I take it as an experimental investigation as like, Well, Am I actually the person who wants this? And usually I find out that I am that unconsciously I am. And, Um, And my idea that I don't want whatever I have is just some sort of fantasy. So I was taking a look and asking, I'll go ahead. It's really interesting thinking about, Uh, You not wanting what you want or wanting things that you don't want. Like we have to split the psyche into two pieces, Like your conscious and unconscious, Which, Uh, You know, It's, It gets complex from here, But I just want to throw that out. It is a little, Yeah, Totally. It is a little complex and there is this sort of division between the unconscious and the conscious mind. And the thing is just that I continually find that my unconscious is so much, It's just such a bigger part of me than my conscious mind. My conscious mind is like this little, Like a little icing on the cake or just this like this buzzing sort of voice that seems like it knows what's up and what it wants that actually has like barely any relation to the reality of who I am. But it takes all the credit. It totally takes all the credit. Yes, Exactly. You got it. So I was looking at like, Okay, Well, What was the unconscious? What's the unconscious part of me that wants to struggle because I was making money, I was getting clients and yet I was still putting somehow getting myself into these situations of struggle. And what I found was that there was this part of me that loves the drama of not having enough of like the tension of like, Will I or won't I be able to pay this bill, Eat next month? That loves the like, Oh, Nobody understands me enough to, You know, Want to pay what I deserve. And I'm so misunderstood and so complex and nobody can access, You know, I mean, Just like a lot of it though. So there's the romance part, But a huge part of it is fun. Which is hard to admit, But it is kind of what you just described is kind of fun for a time. Oh hell yeah. It's fun. It is so fun. It's like, There's this energy to it and like, It really makes life, You know, Yeah, Just more dramatic. There's this emotional like intensity and uncertainty and you can be like rescued at the last minute by, You know, Something coming through and there's this like con like a redemption drama every month. Yeah. So it's fun. And so I was taking a look at that and I also found that there was this piece of it where I really liked the drama of wanting money to prove something about me. So I wanted not only to have money come in, But I wanted the money that was coming in to prove that I was worthy, To prove that I was wonderful, To prove that I was a real adult person. Yeah. I definitely resonate to both of those things. Yeah. And there was something, There's something about the drama of proving that I, I mean, I'm still working it out because I still do this in my relationships with men thinking somehow that if I draw the right man to me, That will prove something about my validity as a woman, Which is complete bullshit, But you know, It's in there. And, And I was doing that with money. And what I found is that that drama of proving it's basically like the most repulsive thing ever to money itself or to who might be the right person for me, Because it's, How do I say that energy of trying to prove or trying to get in order to validate. Yeah. It's just unattractive to like a human. Yeah. It's unattractive. If you personify everything. Exactly. It's unattractive to everything. It's, It's an energy of repulsion. And, And I realized that I was doing that and, And so I took time to really get off on all of the fun that's there in poverty that we were just talking about. And that's a key ingredient, I think, To getting free of any bullshit pattern is to first take a lot of time to 100% get off on it and enjoy it to its fullest and give myself permission to enjoy it. So I took it, It was like a month or two that I was just really allowing myself to have a ton of fun with the tension and the stress and the will I or won't I of my poverty. It's basically like the alchemical tenant of like a bedding something. For those who don't know what we're talking about, Just try to bring it down to regular speak, Like in order to like, Let something complete in your psyche, You need to actually express whatever emotions want to express. Is that correct? 100% Yes, You are completely correct. It's the alchemical process of a bedding. Yes. Yeah. So could you like give us an example of something you did to rebel and the romance of poverty? Yes, Absolutely. So I remember I was sitting and looking at my bank account online and looking at it being empty and not having any clients lined up for the next few weeks, Not knowing how I was going to pay rent or pay, You know, Any of my other bills, Feeling my heart racing, Like that old anxiety, Like, Oh, Here I am. And why, You know, What have I done with my life? Why did I major in English? What's wrong with me? How did I become such a wreck of a human being? You know, The old, Like the whole storm of thoughts there. And, And being in the process of, You know, Remembering that I was working on a bedding and accepting and embracing this. And so I felt that start to come up. And I just allowed myself to remember like, Oh, Yeah, This is like, I love this feeling. This is like my favorite feeling. I love this anxiety, This tension, This worry, This getting to like, Hate myself and hate all of my past decisions. This is like my favorite thing. And you're not just saying this to yourself. You're like actually letting yourself like, Feel it. Yeah, Yeah. When I understand when I just say it, People can think that it sounds like sarcastic or ironic or something. No, It's like, Going into my bedroom, Laying down, Like, Feeling it fully from my genitals up through my torso and my heart, Like, Full enjoyment, Like, Like, It's a day at Disney World, Like, It's just like the greatest thing. It's like, It's acknowledging. I mean, So the way that I understand it, You know, Like, Carl Jung said that enlightenment is making the unconscious conscious. And the thing about the unconscious is that it will stay unconscious as long as I don't enjoy it, As long as I don't want to approve of it and embrace it. And I want to be like, No, I don't, I don't like what you like, Go away. So the only way for me to make the unconscious conscious is for me to get on its side to get to enjoy what it enjoys. So my unconscious totally enjoys poverty, Totally enjoys that drama and that emotion and that stress loves that. So in order for me to make it conscious, And in order for me to integrate that, You know, The shadow right there. I have to let myself enjoy what it enjoys. Yeah. And it's so interesting when you say like, I let myself enjoy what it because like, You I and it is the same is both you. It's both Carolyn, Right? Yeah, Exactly. It's so weird. Yeah, We identify with the conscious, You know, Couple of percent out of our whole self. Yeah, I mean, You're saying like, You're saying to the rest of yourself, Like, Oh, Let's do what you want to do today instead of like, Yeah, It's like almost like the dictator, You know, Coming and hanging out with the people. Yeah, Exactly. It's like, It's also like carnival, You know, Like in Italy, They would have carnival would be the time when the servants got to be act like the king and the king acted like servants. So I throw a carnival in mind and reverse the order of things. Interesting. Yeah, This is like, Literally, This is so timely for me, Because as you saw on Facebook, Like this is something I just realized like half an hour ago. So I'm sure I'm gonna try this, This rebelling. Most of most of the podcast episodes don't affect me personally as much. So I'm super grateful for this. Oh, Yay. Well, I'm grateful that you're asking me like the most, Like, This is like the core questions of my life that I think about. So, Yeah, Yeah, It's powerful stuff. And the funny thing is also, You know, How do I say if we get like, Can I get like super metaphysical or a few minutes permission? I might translate for you. But yeah, Go for it. Okay. So there's a way in which this conscious mind this I that I usually identify with that part of me, I like to call it my spirit. Like it's the part of me that that is full of shoulds, Like an idealistic things like I should be able to you know, I should go to yoga every day and I should, You know, Eat way more carrots and chocolate cake and I should go. Yeah, It's nice to bring it up. And it's my conscious mind. It's like the part of me that like, Knows how life quote should be. And then I like to I generally think that my the unconscious part of me, Which I'm usually busy, Like shaming and trying to push away and not trying to enjoy what it enjoys. That part of me is it's my soul. Really. It's like, It's the part of me that is here in the mud of this material world. That is that how do I say that wants what it wants? And you know, Wants chocolate wants to be poor doesn't want to go to yoga, You know, All these things. And it also is the part of me that has memories and the way that I see it is my soul, My unconscious is, Is actually the magical part of me, The actively creative part of me. So it's like the feminine part of me. It's like it receives these impressions and it creates based on the impressions that it receives and a lot of the impressions that it receives come from my spirit, The conscious part of me. Okay, Just jump in with a little translation. So like when you say magical, I understand you mean, In the sense of bringing intentions into like the material world, Is that right? Right, Which is in the sense of generating synchronicity. So the thing is, Though, For me and for most everybody, Is we have no idea how to get our spirits and our souls on the same page. So usually what happens for me and very many other people is my spirit is constantly sending energy of shame and judgment to my unconscious, My soul. And then what my soul does is it creates synchronicities that confirm my shame. Because the soul is creative and generative, It gets like fertilized by shame, And then it creates more situations to feel shameful about. So that's some of the deep power in doing this kind of carnival work, Which I also like to call existential kink. Because it's getting off on things in my existence that my conscious mind doesn't like. That would be a great book title. Oh, Thank you. Oh, I may go for it. I go between like a coffee table book called Existential Kink. Yeah. So it's like, My spirit is, I think that as being sort of the masculine directive part of me, And when my spirit takes a look at my life and the things that my unconscious, My soul is creating and says, This sucks, This is stupid. What's the matter with you? You're poor. You don't have a boyfriend. You suck. Like that shaming energy. My soul is very receptive and just continuously create synchronicities that perpetuate that. Interesting that you mentioned the spirit conscious self as being the masculine part, Because it just made me think like, Oh, I guess everyone identifies with their masculine like aspect of their self. And I don't want to get too abstract, But it's probably because we live in this masculine productive minded world that we only consider the I in ourselves to be that productive side. Oh, Hella. Yes, Absolutely. Completely precisely. Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah. Sorry. It was a realization, But go on. Thank you. Yeah. No, It's such an important realization. And it's so important because like, It's hard to even have the conversation about what's happening politically and historically globally right now. Because so many people don't understand that point that we're talking about, Which is that, You know, Men, Women, Children, Everybody has been taught to make the feminine part of themselves shameful and unconscious. And that's how we have all become so disempowered and alienated. That's how I mean, It's like, The way I see it is, What's been happening on the planet for the past 2000 3000 years, It's been an incredible time of, Well, Dark magic in the sense of magic that holds people back and oppresses them. Because when when we are all integrated, Like when we have, Like, Total approval and embrace of our feminine of our, Of our soul of this, Like creative, Fertile, Synchronistic part of us, You know, We're all sovereign beings, And we're unstoppable. And we can have a beautiful world. So whatever, I don't know, I mean, People have various conspiracy theories about it. I don't know if it's any, I don't like I don't generally don't like conspiracy theory aesthetics. I think it's just maybe something that's just been happening in the world for a long time is this disempowering of everybody. Yeah, It's so here, Like, Reconciling these things, Because I mean, If I look back on a superficial level of why, Like, My finances aren't where I want them to be is because a few years ago, I decided to, You know, Be like, Hey, I've been oppressing this instinctual part of myself, And I'm just gonna do whatever it wants for a while. And like, That's kind of how I found one taste and orgasm and sex and how we met and I had tons of fun. But now I'm broke. And I've honestly been kind of shaming that part of myself very recently being like, Oh, I kind of went too far in the other direction. And now I'm kind of like, Split into two halves. Yeah, Well, So I want to circle back to that point and and talk more about your specific situation Ruon, Because there's a lot there. Maybe just like to round out this talk about like the global magical situation is my sense is that we are at this moment now where it is not sustainable for any of us to simply be identified with this masculine conscious part of ourselves. We're all in fucked up situations. Like, Pretty much everybody. So and the earth, The environment is in a wildly fucked up situation. Like the North Pole was like, At 32 degrees. Yeah, That's crazy. Like, What the hell? Anyway, Christmas Day in New York was like 75 degrees, Which could be a fluctuation, But certainly global warming as well. Yeah. So there's stuff like that happening. And what that means to me is that this is a time where either we learn how to fully integrate ourselves, Our masculine and feminine, You know, Or we just die. So that's exciting. And also, When I think just to help put this into a fuller perspective, For those listening at home, When I think about what does a fully integrated person look like? I really think and I always, I'm a weirdo, Witch Christian, Because I love Jesus so much. And I think that the cool thing is that Jesus fully incarnated, Like that was his big magic trick. Like the resurrection and stuff was cool. But his main thing was that he fully he fully incarnated. And what I mean by that is that he had no shame and no judgment for the feminine part of himself. He completely united his spirit, His masculine side, With his creative feminine side, He embraced his body, His circumstances, You know, That's what forgiveness means. Forgiveness means you forgive everything that you've created around you that your feminine has created around you. You embrace it. You don't judge it. You don't shame it. You just get completely down with it. And you're like, All right, What's up now? That's really interesting. I with the Jesus thing. I've never thought of it that way. Yeah, Well, I mean, He. So he talked about one of the words that I think was translated, Later got translated as forgiveness is a Greek word metanoia, Which means to turn around. It actually like it has a relationship to the idea of reversing the flow of a river. So the river's flowing one way and you totally reverse it. And that also got translated as repentance, Right? This idea of like, You know, Jesus coming into town and saying, Repent, Repent. Well, Actually, He was saying, Hey, Everybody, Let's have a metanoia. Let's change the flow of the river. Because the way that our river is currently flowing, This is why he was always insulting the Pharisees. He's like, Because the Pharisees were very masculine. They were very like, Righteous and like, Oh, We only eat these foods. We only hang out with these good people. And we don't have anything to do with these like dirty, Poor people. So Jesus was trying to reverse global warming like 2500 years beforehand. Yes, Sir. Yes, He was. What a guy. He was such a guy. What a mensch. I mean, He was the mensch. I love him. And I mean, I think I really think that one of the reasons he incarnated as a man was because he was like, Whoa, This is the masculine side of things needs extra help. And he was like, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna do this. The masculine side of things needs extra help. Extra help. So I'm going to show everybody how it's possible for a man to have complete approval of my feminine, My creative dimensions and not be a judgy, Righteous Pharisee. Gotcha. Yeah. So I'm curious. I didn't think we'd go into Jesus, But I'm open up a whole new story. So do you think what do you think of like the whole Immaculate conception and all that? Like, Son of God, Like, How literal are you looking at Jesus as like a prophet the way Islam does? Or I can't much are you into the Christian story? So that's a good set of questions. So I'm 100% into the miraculousness of the miracles. So I think I'm gonna have to like rationalize it and try to make it into like, Oh, Well, The real history was that Mary actually had sex with Joseph, Whatever. I don't care. Like to me, I'm like, Oh, No, That was an Immaculate conception. He was divinely like, Yes, I go for that. So and to me, It's the same sort of miracle creation story as like Padma Sambhava in India, The guy that was created to that in Buddhism was born out of a Lotus when he was eight years old. And that sort of spontaneous creation and the spontaneous generation of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin creation, To me speaks of the way that let's see, How do I say I'm not going to be able to articulate it very well. God damn it. I can't explain every miracle. Yeah. It sounds like you take it more literally, Because I look at those stories, And I was raised both Catholic and Buddhist. And I you know, I try to, You know, I like to converse with every kind of religious belief or philosophy. And with all those stories, I always look at it like, Oh, That's just a metaphor for something. Oh, Literally than that. Oh, Yeah, Because Oh, And I'll tell you why. Because it's more offensive to take it literally. Like, It's an offense to my rational mind, Which is the whole problem to begin with, Right? Like my rational conscious mind, That's what fucks me up. So whatever offends my rational conscious mind, If I can deeply embrace it, So Jesus, His whole existence, His his whole existence, Personally, Was amazingly offensive, Like the idea that like, One, It's like the intersection of the finite and the infinite, Which we all are like, Here's the thing is like, We are all equally as offensive and miraculous. So, Boy, What am I gonna slow down my brain because this is like a huge field of what I'm talking about today, For anybody who feels like going and researching it comes a lot out of reading all of Kierkegaard, All of Heidegger, And all of a very intelligent book, With a few very other intelligent books. One is called the offense of poetry by hazard Adams. And one is by Owen Barfield called poetic diction. And so poetry and Jesus has have a lot in common in the sense that they're both offensive to a rational sensibility that wants facts and wants things to make sense and wants language to mean what it means and not mean like 50 others. Yeah, It's so interesting because it sounds like you're using your conscious mind to set up beliefs that disrupt your conscious mind. It's kind of like, Like almost like intellectual suicide. It sounds like, Oh, My gosh, Ruan, Nobody has ever seen me or understood me so fully. Yes, That's all that I ever work on. Hmm. Interesting. Yes, I am me and Kierkegaard. I learned this from Kierkegaard God gift props. Me and Kierkegaard are all about intellectual suicide. We're all about getting priming the conscious mind to to die, You know, To, You know, Die while you're alive. Well, Yeah, Because like, I know, Along with like this, Like fascination with the romance of poverty, I have a huge fascination and actually hope it doesn't go away with the romance of insanity. Like, I mean, That's, You know, That's what led me to psychedelics and a lot of, You know, The other other adventures that you know about. And and like, I mean, That's where creativity comes from and all that stuff. We could talk about that forever. But yeah, That's really fascinating that you do it on the on a belief level. Oh, Yes, Yes, Yes. Um, I mean, Yeah. So there's, That's, That's how I do it. So I, I use all of these really awesome philosophical perspectives to help me to help my conscious mind understand why it needs to surrender. So that's, So part of why I love believing in miracles is for the very reason that they are offensive to the part of me that wants to know and understand and, You know, Be able to rationalize everything. So, So this offense, And when I say offense, I also mean paradox. So this Kierkegaard wrote about this a lot about how Jesus is like the ultimate paradox. He's both human and divine. And he's both the all powerful son of God and this like, Weak ass carpenter dude who basically anybody could beat up. So, I have a very obvious question. With this, You know, Intellectual suicide. Even me who really loves this mysticism stuff. I look at like, Oh, Well, I mean, If you totally disregard or kill your intellect, Don't you put yourself like subject to all these terrible things? Like, If you don't think you're going to get into trouble, Especially materially, Don't you think? So excellent question. And yes, Because I have done that. So that's, So like, With psychedelics, With just like magic, Like I've gone through months of my life where I was totally like in archetypal inflation, And completely identified as a thunderstorm goddess, Not even able to like, Think human thoughts only able like, I would just hear like lightning and thunder. And those were my thoughts. It's hard to like, Make sure you're making rents when you believe you're such an entity. Absolutely. It's impossible. So I got into tons of credit card debt. Yeah, Blame. Yeah. So I that's exactly what happens. And I see that happen with magical people all the time. It's very normal. So that archetypal inflation is not enlightenment. That's not the thing. It's, It's, It kind of feels like the things that feels really great for a while. But it's not the whole thing, Because it's not the whole integration. Because when we when I say integrate the spirit and the soul, Because like that what I was doing, That was just sort of like being completely identified with the soul. And not like not involving the masculine part of me whatsoever, Just being in the unconscious, Unconsciously in the unconscious, But in offending your masculine self, Wouldn't you create the same kind of dissonance that most people have with their feminine self? Good question. I'll try to answer it. My instinct is to just say no. That's fair. That's a nice, Feminine answer. But yeah, But I'll try to explain a little bit better because so I'll explain to you like what it is that I work on today. Which is, You know, I don't want to go back into that condition of just being archetypally, You know, Like, I'm not a feminist. I'm not a feminist. I'm not a Christian. But I want to go back into that condition of just being archetypally inflated and feeling really awesome, But also not being able to read or write or tell time or all of those things that, You know, I've lost the ability to do in that state. So what it is that I work on today, And what we work on in thrill and what we work on in influence in various ways, These things is all about. Let's see, How do I say the whole work of getting the spirit to approve of, To join the side of the unconscious of the feminine. When we do that, We're able to function in the world with our rational lines, With our conscious mind, And have the feminine part of us be creating beautiful, Fun, Wonderful things, Instead of birthing the shame that we fed it. So it's like, It's the best of both worlds, Because we get to have experiences of synchronicity that are really delightful and rich and wonderful. And we get to still be able to read and write and be on time and pay bills and fulfill responsibilities. So I run with the metaphor of birthing. That's just where my mind goes. So if you're not inseminating your soul with shame, What are you doing? Exactly. If you're not inseminating your soul with shame, So this is the whole thing that I work on, This is what I work on with myself, My clients' classes, You learn to inseminate your soul with joy and approval and just embrace this rich, Rich, Conscious, Deliberate, It's like you make the rational choice to embrace the irrational part of you. And when you do that, There's this immense love. So that's the cosmic romance. So if you listen to, This is why this is another layer of metaphysics, But one of the people that I really admire is Lon Milo Duquette, Who's written a whole bunch of books on magic and is the current leader of Thelema, I forget the name of the organization, But the one that Crowley founded. And he has this really beautiful thing where he talks about the story of creation in Western mysticism. Oh boy, Maybe I am getting a bit too far out, But it has to do with this spirit part of us, Who he tells it in the form of a fairy tale and it's based on the cop, The cop who's fairy tale and it's based on the cop, The, The kabbalistic tree of life. But I'll just tell you the fairy tale version. There's, There's like this cosmic king and queen and the cosmic king and queen have, Two babies. They have a son, The prince who is the spirit part of us. And they have a daughter, The princess. And somehow the princess falls all the way down, Down, Down, Down into this material world where we are. And the prince is kind of like hovering above in the realm of the spirit and the realm of the shoulds and the pure intentions and the ideals. And the whole esoteric work is for the prince to find the princess and give her a kiss, Embrace her and bring her back to the palace. Do they have to make them brother and sister? Well, Here's the thing, Right? That's a great question because it's a bit scandalously incestuous, Isn't it? Creation is kind of inescapably scandalously incestuous. Oh man. Yeah. I could talk about this for a long time too. And you know, Speaking of romance, You know, The romantic poets in Britain were all like super incestuous. Just putting that out there. Oh yeah. Dude. Yeah. Well, We can, We can talk Byron, Shelley. They were all really into their sisters. Oh yeah. And they actually acted on it. This is, This is such a huge scandal for me. It's blown my mind. I had no idea. Oh yeah. This is like, Sometimes I feel like I should teach like English classes again, Except I should teach like Carolyn's sexy English class. Yeah. That's some sexy perverted English class. Yeah. Byron, Shelley, All about their sisters. Was he down with that too? Or. I don't know about Rumi, But Rumi wasn't a British 19th century romantic poet. I just wonder, Cause he talks about lovers a lot, But also, You know, Brotherhood. I was wondering if maybe something got mistranslated and he's actually talking about banging your sister or something. Completely possible. I mean, So anyways, So there's, There's something inescapably incestuous about the, The cosmic drama. And I think that in part that's because, You know, We all are one big family after all we all, You know, Have genetic things in common. So anyways, That's so there's, So we are all this feminine embodied incarnated lost princess. And we, When we, When we access, You know, The princely part of us, Usually we don't complete that romance. We don't, And maybe partly because there's a taboo around it. There is, I, This is, I mean, This is a really deep, Intense territory to start to think about, But like, Hell maybe the, I don't know, Maybe the incest taboo has something to do with this, You know, Why we haven't figured this out. Esoterically who knows there's all sorts of stuff that could be going on with the human psyche. Oh, That's like another, That's a, That's a landmine. Yeah. Let's go into that another time, But this is, That's something that I've recurrently thought about is I've like gone into like my own weird Freudian stuff and looked at that is there's some intensity there. Um, Do you have siblings in real life? I do have siblings in real life who I'm fortunate. He never listens to any of my podcasts. What up Damon? Hey Damon, Damon Elliott. You're so cool. Yeah. My little brother would never listen to my podcast anyways. Yeah. But, Um, So anyways, This, This work of union, That's to me what we're here to do. And, Um, All of, Anyways, I'm just, I'm kind of rambling now, But yeah. So I want to bring us back to the original having this thing or really just, You know, Playing with things in your psyche, Whatever on conscious behaviors or thoughts you want to, To tinker with or reconcile with. Um, Because it seems like there's a common theme in magic where you personify, Uh, Aspects of yourself that you probably wouldn't personify. So in this fairytale, You know, Like there's the prince and the princess, Um, Earlier, I believe you were speaking about money as if it was a person, Like you kind of conflated, Like attracting a lover with attracting money and like how you were saying like you had these certain behaviors that were certainly propulsive to a person. If you, If you treated them that way and it was repelling money, Can you say a little more about that? Oh, Yes, Sure. So, Um, The, Oh boy. Um, Where to even begin. So I am, I guess I'm, I'm very Jungian in my outlook often. And something about that is that all, Just like we were saying, Ruan, That there's, You know, Who we, Who we usually identify ourselves with in our normal thought processes or whatever, It's just like the tiniest fraction of the being that we actually are. And the being that we actually are has all of these, Um, Various elements and drives, Um, That basically contain the whole information of not just like the heritage of humanity, But the heritage of, You know, The elements, The earth, Everything it's all in all of us. And as is evident in our nighttime dreams, Right? Like we have nighttime dreams and we might see whole other worlds. We might dream that, You know, Sometimes I have dreams that like, I'm a little boy and I'm talking to my grandfather and we're in a field full of corn. I don't know what that's about. I've never been a little boy. I don't know. But some part of me is some part of me has. And, Um, So, You know, All of us contain these multitudes. So a huge part of magic. So in many ways, Like magic is just the work of becoming who we already are. And what that entails is, Um, Loosening the identification with the ego, With this little one percent conscious part of us and learning how to embrace and integrate the knowledge and the power of all these other beings that are within us that are us. Something that Jung said that I thought was, Is very, Very wise. And I have to think about it all the time is somebody asked him about synchronicity, You know, About like having a situation where your internal landscape seems to line up with something in the external world that feels like coincidence and it feels magical. And it's like, Whoa, What is happening here? There's like, I had a dream about something and now I, The thing that I saw in my dream is in front of my face in the real world. What is up? And what is up? He said that that synchronicities happen in the presence of archetypes. That if there's synchronicities happening in your life, It's a sign that an archetypal force is becoming active. And if you think if you kind of go work backwards from that, It makes sense that pretty much all magical rituals from all times and places are designed to align the individual and the group with one or another archetypal force. So for example, Native American rain dances, They are aligning themselves with the rhythms with the archetype of the storm of rain. And as they align themselves with that force, That pattern, That rhythm, They invoke the presence of that archetype. And then along with the presence of that archetype comes the synchronous arrival of rain. And likewise, You know, Ancient European fertility rights like around this spring equinox, Having some events where like all the young ladies go out and have sex with all the young men in the fields and we have some great bonfires and we have a lot of dancing and partying. Invoking that energy of sex and fertility invokes the surrounding field of, You know, Of synchronous fertility for the land. So getting in touch with an archetype, So like, On a more personal scale, I've been inspired by the sorcerer, Jason Miller, We talked about this before, He has a wonderful book called Financial Sorcery, Which is all about working with Jupiter, The archetype, You know, Zeus, Jehovah, Jove. So I work with him. And on Thursdays, Every so often about a few months, I do a full scale offering to him like a beautiful meal, Usually some form of roast meat, Which Zeus traditionally is into. And I sit down and I treat it like having dinner with grandfather. And I tell him, You know, What my business plans are, And I asked for his help and for his inspiration. And I thank him very deeply for everything that he's done for me in the past and just, You know, Give him this like very sincere conversation. Yeah. And, And third day being Jupiter's day, Like Thursday, Thursday. Yes, In French. Precisely. Exactly. Thank you for that clarification. Yes, That's why I do it on Thursdays. And, You know, I will dress up in business wear. And I'm invoking the whole archetype of being helped by grandfather. And it is like a date, It sounds like. Yeah, It's like a formal date with, With as if I had like a rich cosmic grandfather who was going to help me. Yeah. And so, You know, I'm buying him dinner and I'm showing up in my nice outfit and I'm talking, You know, Everything that grandfather would want to hear about his granddaughter's life. Yeah. And I want to point out like, So for the people who might be listening to all of this and might, Who might not buy into any of the magical stuff and things is all crazy. I want to point out that even if you don't believe in cosmic forces, Something like this, A ritual like this is influencing your subconscious mind. Like that's what all say all rituals are psychodramas for that reason. And whether or not there's something external, It actually doesn't matter because you are influencing something within you. Precisely. Yes, I agree, Ruan. And it's, That's why it's so funny. Like I don't really concern myself with, How do I say, I mean, Whatever model of it that we choose to explain it with, Right? Like I prefer the miraculous because I find it more exciting. And I'm like, I said, I like that offense. To kill your intellect. Yes. To have it surrender. Because that's, That's when really, You know, Really exciting stuff can happen. So for example, I'm a fairly accomplished witch. I'm nowhere near as accomplished as Jesus, Right? I can't turn water into wine, But I completely believe that that's possible. Like every inch of me believes that that's possible. And I believe that it's possible through a deeper and deeper integration of the conscious with the unconscious. That's what alchemy, That's what magic is. And we have these psychological terms to talk about it, Which, You know, Like you said, Psychodrama, Like we can say the unconscious rather than the soul. And we can make it all sound quite reasonable, Which is cool. Because it is kind of like it. But the thing is, No matter which frame or which discourse that we talk about it in, It's, It's more powerful than we are. Yeah. Yeah, I really appreciate your perspective, Because I haven't spoken in this language in a long time. And, And the very simple Roald Dahl quote comes to mind, If you don't believe in magic, You don't experience it. And I noticed even like in our conversation, There's certainly a part of me that wants to reject certain things. And maybe that's why I'm jumping into to translate more for myself and for the audience, I don't know. But I do remember, You know, With synchronicities, And like you and I both lived in intentional communities. And looking back one of the biggest benefits to such a place is where everyone is on board with the same beliefs, Magical or not, It becomes so much easier to see those synchronicities, Because you're no longer worried about your community reinforcing your observations, Which I'm noticing in this conversation, Like, I make my mind is a little opening to these things, Which I haven't really thought about in a while. Yeah, Absolutely. And yeah, That's something that I miss about that. And that's one of the reasons why historically, Right, People have joined together in groups to do this work. And I think what's really important about this work is because it absolutely becomes more powerful as your peers reflect and reinforce it, Which is why we should totally start a coven, Ruwan. Yeah, I do really want to go to Bali. Like when you said I think was it six months ago, You you moved? Is that right? Well, I've been here. I moved sort of for the winter. So I'm actually leaving Bali at the end. So I'm going to start of March, I go to this. Oh, Okay. I thought you set up shop in Bali. Well, I mean, I've been here for like, Five months. So that's Yeah, But anyway, It's a long time. Yeah, Exactly. So but I will probably come here again. We'll figure things out. We'll do all sorts of cool things around the world. I think that this is absolutely like a gigantic renaissance time for witchery. In fact, I was talking to Andrea Balt, The editor of rebel society last night, Who speaking of synchronicities happened to be in a bird living one block away from me. And I saw her post something about it on Facebook. And I was like, Because I've written for rebel society for years. I know of her for years, And I've never met her. I was like, Andrea, I am a block away from you. Let me take you out to dinner. Awesome. It was very awesome. So I got to have dinner with her last night. And she is so brilliant, So wonderful. We had such a great conversation. And we were she was telling me about how excited she is about this time. About the internet, Making a renaissance possible. And I was like, Man, She is so right. And I said to her, You know, I absolutely agree with you. And I think one of the fascinating nexuses within this renaissance is specifically a renaissance of magic that the internet has made possible. Yeah, It's so cool, Because people who have like unique perspectives can find each other now and create that global, Global coven, If you like and covenate. Yeah, The global coven is happening. It's so gorgeous. And it gives me so much hope for what may be possible. And also, There's this amazing, I was mentioning to Andrea that there's this amazing confluence for the first time, Like, Even even you could arguably say for the past 100 years, That Western culture has been integrating, You know, Indian or Buddhist yogic ideas. But actually, In a in a way, It's only really been very recently through the internet, That some of the most far out ideas from Tantra or yoga have really gained widespread circulation in the Western consciousness. Yeah. And that kind of cross pollination is actually very similar to the cross pollination that happened in the, The Renaissance Renaissance, The European Renaissance, When, You know, The people rediscovered the ancient Greek writings and philosophies, And that was like a gigantic cool revelation to them, And changed the whole patterns of their thought. I think that something very similar is happening right now with Westerners being able to discover these, You know, Intense things with within Buddhism and yoga, That are like, Very deeply alter the way that we are able to think and talk. Yeah. And the other way around, Too. Oh, Yeah, Of course. Yeah. It's, Whoo, It's, You can't even really talk about Western and Eastern anymore. Right? Like, I don't even know what those words mean. We need better words. Yeah. Well, It is kind of like, To put use the language used before, Like a masculine productive industrial side with, Which was traditionally Western, But not necessarily anymore. And then the other side, Which is more like, Earthy. And they're kind of all mixed together. What a time to be alive. Yeah, Totally, Man. It is wild. So yeah, So if you want to grow your happiness, Go deep into accepting the parts of yourself that your conscious mind wants to shame. And start with the things, The manifestations in your life that your conscious mind wants to shame, Because those manifestations, Those are like the babies of what your your conscious mind has been fertilizing your conscious mind has been fertilizing your soul with. So first thing, Embrace those babies, And then happier babies get to be born. Awesome. I love it. Yeah. Thank you so much. Actually, One like, One tiny glass question. Do you still smoke cigarettes? I do not. How did that? That just popped into my head. Because one thing I certainly shame, Which I don't do often, But when I feel dramatic, Either because of life circumstances, Or because I did something theater related, I definitely like suddenly want to hold a pipe or a cigarette or something. And I Yeah, I have no idea why I'm asking this question. But you're making me want one right now. The funny thing is, Here in Bali is I used to smoke club cigarettes a lot too, Which became illegal in the United States. They're totally legal here in Bali, Not just over them from Indonesia. Right, Right. Yeah, This is like the home of club cigarettes. And so I smell it wherever I go anyways. And chocolate cigarettes, Man, They sell chocolate cigarettes. I know, Right? This is so dangerous. But anyways, Um, Well, You know, Oscar Wilde said that a cigarette is the perfect pleasure, Because it always leaves you wanting more. Plus, There's something amazing about there's so primal like and magical where there's this like glowing ember, And this plume of incense, Rising so close to your face. And there is nothing about the draw of it knowing it's a destructive thing. And like you are inhaling a toxin and that that all in itself is is romantic. And I'm getting right with it in this moment right now, Actually. It's so romantic. I don't want if you quit, I don't want to I don't want to know, I can I can I can talk about it. I swear. Is it is so romantic. And it is like an a symbolic embrace of the inevitability of death. I think that's why we find it so sexy and like James Dean or anybody else is because to smoke, To know that it'll it's killing you, It'll kill you. And it's like, Yeah, All of life is going to kill you. So, You know, Smoke if you want to. And the thing, I mean, The reason that I decided to quit had to also with the way that let me see, Having said all of these wonderful celebratory things about smoking and cigarettes is. I a huge part of my magical practice is liberating myself from addiction. So there's a way in which my cigarette smoking was not just a beautiful choice filled, Conscious embrace of impermanence and death. It was an unconscious attachment to, You know, The sensation, Whatever, An addiction. So I like to say that addiction is made up of attachment and aversion working together. So you take some attachment, You take some aversion, Roll that up, You got an addiction. And my whole way, Like my whole being is like permeated with addiction. All of us are like all of us who basically aren't Jesus. We're full of addiction. And so part of getting free of any addiction is this embrace that we've been talking about this, Like seeing what's happening, Not shaming it, Really approving of it, Really agreeing with it, Really getting on its side and enjoying it. So part of my process of becoming free from addiction to cigarettes was going fully into, You know, What we were just talking about, Which is like, What's so awesome about it and not shaming myself for smoking and really just celebrating and enjoying it fully. And the weird thing is, I mean, With this alchemical process of abetting is when I truly, Fully, Fully without shame, Give myself permission to enjoy something and get off on it, It starts to lose its fascination. Because the, That fascination, That addictiveness, That's a push-pull that comes from holding on to the forbidden taboo part of it. Yeah. Like once it's not a taboo to look at whatever, Do whatever, It's not as interesting. Yeah. Once there's no push pull, It's just like, So, So that's sort of happened to me with the cigarettes and I just became uninterested. That's really cool. I've had similar things with other vices. And I didn't, It certainly wasn't a conscious process. I just didn't give a fuck and said, Well, I didn't want it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. So like now my big challenge is the main challenge in my life is working on my addictive issues surrounding like my romantical relationships, Because all of this deep wisdom that I've just laid down and have applied in various other arenas of my life, It's, You know, I'm still stumbling with it around, Um, Actual, Like the experience of Eros with another person. So like, All of which is just to say that I'm still teaching myself what I'm teaching. And, Um, It's, It's fascinating. Yeah. I know I said last question a second ago, But now I, Oh, Do you feel like, Uh, The fact that you perhaps haven't been involved with men lately, Has that helped with the free attention being able to be focused on other things like your money situation, For instance? Oh, 100%. Yes. Yes. Hugely. Yes. Okay. Well, That's a simple, A simple message to everyone. If something's lacking, Maybe it's a good time to focus on other things for a bit. Thank you so, So much for this conversation. I had so much fun. So much fun. Great. Yeah. Thank you so much. Um, Yeah. We'll talk soon. You have to run. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. If you want to be a part of the virtual audience for future episodes, Make sure to follow me at proudcast. Io slash Rwanda. See you next time. Yeah. Okay.