Occulture

And the plot just continuously thickens. Or maybe it continually thickens. I still don’t have this grammar thing down. Anyway, I’ll tell you who does have the grammar thing down. William Shakespeare. Or Shack-speare. Or Shake-spears. Whoever that is, whatever that is, you can’t deny the utter brilliance of those plays and sonnets. And you can’t deny that the Shakespeare authorship mystery is one of the more intriguing cultural conundrums that we know of. But our guest this time around takes the authorship mystery and turns it up to 11. His name is Alan Green, and he’s worked for the past 15 years trying to solve not only who was Shakespeare, but what was Shakespeare. That’s resulted in one book, with two more on the way, and several videos and multimedia presentations available on YouTube. You will come to know a lot about Alan over the course of the next couple hours, because this is a bit of a different chat than I’ve heard from Alan before. And the Patreon extension here is well worth $2, or more, a month.

If you’re like me and you’re a fan of short stories, detective fiction and the occult, then a book like The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives is something you rush to pick up at the old brick-and-mortar. So imagine my delight when that exact book arrived unexpectedly on my doorstep one day. And imagine my further delight to see Judika Illes’ name on the front cover. Because, even if you’re not that into the occult, if you don’t know much about the people who write in this genre, Judika’s name is one you’ve seen if you’ve wandered through any bookstore. Sadly, if you’re wandering through one of those chain bookstores, her books are typically lumped into the New Age section and relegated to a dimly lit corner. But any curious bookworm will have undoubtedly seen her name at the bottom of a spine on those shelves, and that is exactly how this curious bookworm first learned the name of Judika llles. Judika is, of course, a prolific scholar, educator and author of several books of folklore, folkways, and mythology a

Our guest this time around is Aidan Wachter, talismanic jewelry maker and author of the recently released “Six Ways: Approaches & Entries for Practical Magick”, which is the basis for our conversation here today. This book really struck me in some feel spots as I was reading through it, and you will hear a bit about why and how it did that. Six Ways is a handbook of practical sorcery and magic, as Aidan knows and works it. He says that, “Magic and sorcery have many definitions, and will have many more as we move as a species forward through time. The basic idea is that there are ways of being and interacting in the world that allow for certain kinds of communication, the production of change on both internal and external levels, and the development of what could be called 'special skills and talents'. These are psychic powers or arts, in the old usage of the word: meaning 'relative to the soul, spirit, mind'. These arts of soul, spirit, and mind come down to us in various ways. They come as full-blown sys

Hey yo, so I recently chatted with Alan Brunton, the CEO of a startup called Cymatrax. Alan is planning to launch an app that scrubs white noise and bad frequencies from audio files and replaces them with better frequencies.    If you know anything about the history of the podcast here or have been a listener since its inception, you’ve probably heard me talking about experimenting with frequencies myself, which I’ve done since the jump. I’ve recorded episodes at 432, 528 and now 320 Hz, as opposed to the standard 440 or 441. And Alan is approaching this app with the same sort of mentality. There’s a long history of frequency manipulation and sound weaponization against populations, some of which we’ll get into.    But the intent of this chat is not to delve too deep into the history or the conspiracy of this subject, but instead to focus on a practical, modern solution to a damn near undetectable problem that affects us all, whether we realize it or not.    RESOURCES Cymatrax "Plant Responses to

You couldn't ask for a more dynamic personality to be in the house than Dr. Amy Hale, whose work on British Surrealist and esotericist Ithell Colquhoun is the foundation for our conversation here. Amy is a scholar of all things occult and esoteric, and has a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA. Her research and writing ranges from contemporary Cornwall to modern Pagan and occult subcultures in the United States and the United Kingdom. She’s written about topics as diverse as modern Druidry, Cornish ethnonationalism, Pagan religious tourism, color theory, the occult, and extremist politics in modern Paganism. We’ll touch on some of those ideas and concepts throughout our chat here. One note: Amy’s audio did have some inconsistencies in terms of volume, but I enhanced what I could, so hopefully it’s not too bad.   PATREON EXTENSION Listen at patreon.com/occulture Ithell’s interest in the convergence of color, metaphysics and space The Golden Dawn’s Book T and how Ithell interacted with it A concept called

GET 10% OFF OUR NEW MERCH NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 23 AT OUR OFFICIAL WEB STORE! USE COUPON CODE EQUINOX AT CHECKOUT!   Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. Search ‘The Process Church of the Final Judgment’ online and you will discover a long list of lurid conspiracy theories. The cult has been accused of being the inspiration for Charles Manson's 'crimes of the century', influencing the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, and being the root of the notorious Son of Sam serial killings. Formed in 1960s England, many of its members were drawn from wealthy families and aristocracy. Newspapers branded them the 'Mindbenders in Mayfair' and 'The Devil's Disciples'. Thing is, former members seem to have taken a vow of silence and secrecy. They’ve stayed hush on the group’s beliefs, rituals and closely guarded secrets, and they haven’t addressed even the most mundane of the conspiracy theories levied against

GET 10% OFF OUR NEW MERCH NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 23 AT OUR OFFICIAL WEB STORE! USE COUPON CODE EQUINOX AT CHECKOUT! Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. Our guests this time around are Tayannah Lee McQuillar and Katelan Foisy. They have recently collaborated on a project called The Sibyls Oraculum: Oracle of the Black Doves of Africa, which is a system of divination inspired by the Libyan Sibyls, the African prophetesses of the classical world. The deck was created by Tayannah, a tarot reader and researcher of religion, esoterica, and mysticism, and drawn by Katelan, a visual artist, writer, and occultist who specializes in vintage style mixed media art and photography. This contemporary oracle pays homage to the oft forgotten African founding mothers of the sibylline traditions. Drawing on both the African and the Classical traditions, the card art is in a style reminiscent of the Libyan mosaic

GET 10% OFF OUR NEW MERCH NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 23 AT OUR OFFICIAL WEB STORE! USE COUPON CODE EQUINOX AT CHECKOUT!   Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out.   Jason Louv is back in the house. And why wouldn't he be? We had maybe my favorite chat this year back in episode 77. I think we damn near tore the house down with that one. So if you haven't heard that one yet, I’d slather that across your earholes first and then come back to this one.   But, like any good sequel, this one stands alone, on its own. And you can judge for yourself if it lives up to the first one.   Jason is, of course, the author of the recently released John Dee and the Empire of Angels. He's also written and edited a slew of other books and teaches magic at his website Magick.Me. And he's also the guy who is fresh off a rather entertaining Skeptiko appearance which left me with both a chuckle and a reminder of why I no longe

Hey yo there. So, as mentioned in episode 96, I recorded another two hours of material with Michael Wann about the Susquehanna Mystery. We chatted about baseball’s theosophical and freemasonic connections, impact craters, Herkimer diamonds, serpent wisdom & personal transformation along the 40th parallel, which is what this clip is about. I thought this was the most important aspect of this chat and, despite it being recorded for Patreon, I thought it was worth sharing with everyone. Again, this is just a part of what was a 2-hour long addendum to episode 96. It was pretty lively, and is well worth a listen. And for just two bucks, you won’t find a better deal in the podcasting game. Well, it could be free. That’d be a better deal. But hey, I’m poor, so you know, I gotta do what I gotta do. Anyway, I do hope you enjoy this clip with Michael Wann. Sign up at patreon.com/occulture.

GET 10% OFF OUR NEW MERCH NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 23 AT OUR OFFICIAL WEB STORE! USE COUPON CODE EQUINOX AT CHECKOUT! Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. Independent researcher Michael Wann is in the house to introduce us to what he calls the Susquehanna mystery. Mike has uncovered a potential nexus of advanced-level conspiracy and occult history that centers around both the Susquehanna River, which starts in New York state and empties into the Chesapeake Bay, as well as the 40th parallel. This is a story that also has connections to John Dee and the Enochian system, as well as the technological singularity. Really, there's a ton of data here and it can be quite difficult to parse through it all in even two hours. If you're a patron, however, there's another two hours coming with Mike on this subject, and if you're not a patron and want more, please do check out patreon.com/occulture. I should al

GET 10% OFF OUR NEW MERCH NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 23 AT OUR OFFICIAL WEB STORE! USE COUPON CODE EQUINOX AT CHECKOUT! Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. The one and only Thomas Sheridan is in the house. Thomas is the author of Sorcery: The Invocation of Strangeness, self-published recently on Lulu.com, and the book focuses on magic as a real force in the world employed by powerful people, as most of us overstand by now, but it’s an honest and practical approach to defending yourself against that force. This is one of the best books on the subject I’ve read, and one of the most entertaining, because not only it is narrated by one of the most outspoken sorcerers you’ll find anywhere, it also contains a ton of awesome stories and anecdotes. And as Thomas describes himself in his Facebook profile, he has no interest in waking you up, he’s here to improve the quality of your dreaming. And hopefully a

GET 10% OFF OUR NEW MERCH NOW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 23 AT OUR OFFICIAL WEB STORE! USE COUPON CODE EQUINOX AT CHECKOUT! Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. Carl Abrahamsson is back in the house for the second time. You may remember the first time earlier this year, when Carl engaged in some sonically transmitted discourse with Mitch Horowitz. A really popular, well-received episode, but one where I had some questions left unanswered from Carl’s latest book, which is aptly titled Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward. So consider this is the redux of the meta-analysis that we began back in episode 67. This is a bit of a shorter episode than most due to some unforeseen circumstances. But I will say that it is jam-packed with some of the best and most satisfying conversation I think I’ve been able to produce. And that is strictly because of Carl and his book. This one will definitely

Hey yo. So, I recently chatted with my friends Grimsteak and James Cruz for a RAW bonus episode over on Patreon. You may remember these fine gentlemen as the hosts of the Cruzin With Steak podcast, which I have been on twice before. Grim and James hung out with me for more than two hours to chat about virtue signaling, UFO encounters, my ritual magic hesitations, media consumption habits, former drug consumption habits, fasting, frequency healing, doing mushrooms at the Serpent Mound and literally too many other subjects to list. And, as a way to drum up support for the Patreon but also for the Cruzin With Steak podcast, this episode is actually available for free in their podcast. So if you like how this clip teases you, you can get the whole thing by searching Cruzin With Steak in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice. I do hope you enjoy it, and I do hope you head on over their way to check out the full episode, which is linked in the show notes. Enjoy. Full show (web version): http://bit.ly/2KYxTS0 Patreon

Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. What better way to honor this 93rd episode than by talking about the life and work of the notorious Aleister Crowley. The Great Beast himself, the wickedest man in the world, the man who’s performed more sex magick rituals than there are pages in the book we’re about to discuss, and that’s a lot of pages, folks. 705 of them in this book called Perdurabo by our guest, Dr. Richard Kaczynski. Richard is also the author of The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley. He has been a student of the Western hermetic tradition since 1978, and has lectured internationally on these topics since 1990. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines and books, including High Times, Concordance to the Holy Books of Thelema, and The Golden Dawn Sourcebook. Richard and I are gonna essentially make our way nearly chronologically through Crowley’s life, and if you’re on Patre

As you might expect, episode with 90 with Jasun Horsley elicited some strong reactions from some folks in the occult and paranormal community. So I invited a couple folks who heard the show and had some opinions on it to chat with me for a bonus PAW Patreon show. And those folks were Wren Collier, who blogs at LiminalRoom.com, and Jerry Cthulhu, who is the co-host of the Nox Mente podcast. We covered a lot of ground in about 80 minutes, talking magic, consciousness, paranormal experiences, psychological fragmentation and a whole lot more. And be a clip from that chat. If you enjoy it, you can hear the rest of it plus all previous and forthcoming RAW episodes by signing up at the $5 level at Patreon.com/occulture. So please do enjoy. Apologies for the inconsistent audio quality. This was recorded via Zoom. Wren's blog Jerry's YouTube channel

Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. George Pendle is the author of the book Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of John Whiteside Parsons, which if ya haven’t heard has been adapted to series for CBS All-Access, and it’s airing there right now, as you read this. George makes his way into the house to talk a bit about what it was like to research and write about Jack Parsons, some of the atmosphere and aesthetic around him that shaped who he became, and his thoughts on Jack Parsons going mainstream. RESOURCES Strange Angel book on IndieBound Strange Angel series on CBS George’s website Episode 68   DONATE If recurring monthly support via Patreon isn’t your thing, we do accept one time-donations via PayPal, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Every little bit helps. Click here if you’re interested.   MERCH We recently released our first t-shirt. Check it out on our website or at our Etsy shop.   S

Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. Joe Atwill is in the house to talk about his work on typology and weaponized anthropology, which focuses on the crucial fiction known as the New Testament as well as the works of Shakespeare, JD Salinger, Ken Kesey, George Orwell and more. Joe has a new book forthcoming called The Secret Language of Oligarchs, and this is hopefully part one of a two-part series that will lay the foundation for what is a thought-provoking journey behind the curtain that reveals a symbolic framework employed by scribes throughout history. There’s about a 20-25 minute Patreon extension with Joe. More on that after the chat, which will provide you with a healthy dose of skepticism, conspiracy and questioning of authorities.   RESOURCES CaesarsMessiah.com PostFlaviana.org   DONATE If recurring monthly support via Patreon isn’t your thing, we do accept one time-donations via Pay

If you’ve been here before you know we have always questioned authority, and that doesn’t just extend to the usual suspects - ya know, the government, the church, the corporations. We questions all kinds of authority. And our guest this time around has been doing exactly that, but he’s taken it a step further and turned his attention towards authorities who are part of the occulture, for lack of a better term. His name is Jasun Horsley and he’s recently published a book called Prisoner of Infinity: UFOs, Social Engineering & the Psychology of Fragmentation. And when I first came across it that title immediately hooked me and then when I read the synopsis, I sat back in my chair and said, “Well, I have to read this.” In addition to this book, Jasun has authored seven previous books with another one coming in early 2019 that builds on his work from Prisoner of Infinity. Jasun also hosts his own podcast called The Liminalist, and has a blog called Auticulture, which is a portmanteau of autism and culture. Th

Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. My oh my what a guest we have this time around. Gary Lachman has brought his imagination to the house party, and we’ll be chatting a bit about two of his recent books, Lost Knowledge of the Imagination and Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump. Those two books are just a couple of the now more than 20 Gary has authored on topics ranging from the evolution of consciousness to literary suicides, popular culture and the history of the occult. Gary is one of, and may be the, pre-eminent esoteric scholar in the game today. Some of you know him as Gary Valentine from the band Blondie, others know him as a biographer of names like Aleister Crowley, Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung, Helena Blavatsky and Colin Wilson. And after this chat, all of you will know him as woke af, because Gary is going to illuminate the dark recesses of the sociopolitical imagina

Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out. I am so pleased and so honored to welcome this particular guest into the house. His name is Greg Kaminsky, and he is the host of a podcast called Occult of Personality. I was trying to think of a good analogy for Greg and I coming together, and the best one I could think of is the first time you heard Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg together. Greg is the podfather - Doggfather? - of occult podcasts. We’ll talk a bit about how he became that, and then we’re gonna dig into one of my favorite topics and talk about one of my favorite dudes to ever do this damn thing: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Such a fascinating figure with some downright heretical ideas. And Greg is gonna creep to the mic like a phantom and parse out this story for us over the course of the next hour. So sit back, relax, and strap on your seatbelt, because you’ve never been on a ride like this before