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Hello friends.
It's me, Duncan Tressel and you are listening to the Duncan Tressel Family Hour podcast
and for those of you who are new to the podcast, the Duncan Tressel Family Hour podcast is also
known as America's number one math podcast.
I hope you're a fan of math because that's all we do here, math talk all day, all night.
We love math and today we're going to be focusing on the strange thing that happens when you
put a nine at the end of an imaginary number and subtract it by 7,000 over the root of
said number.
How when you do that, it opens up a portal to the math realm where for a few seconds
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These are the numbers that land inside of scientific calculators and if it wasn't for
the anguish of plork, we would have no math.
Let's get going with the show.
Trumbling Lord of maggots, screaming numbers in his mind.
If we do enough calculations, our souls will never die.
These are the only truths in a world of lies, every number of another name, Lord of flies.
Friends in truth, we have such an incredible show for you today that I've actually had
to add a synth track underneath me talking about the upcoming show because this show
that you're about to listen to is steeped in the occult, one of my favorite topics.
This show is not only about the tarot, but about the way ancient symbols imbued with
mythical power have made their way into every aspect of modern society.
If you're allergic to the occult, my friends, I recommend that you rip those earbuds out
and replace them with cloves of garlic because this son of a gun is going to make your occult
phobic skin break out in stigmata.
Otherwise, stay tuned.
We're going to jump right into it after some very quick business.
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The sound bed is to a podcast, what the underline is to a book.
It's a way to really emphatically declare that this is it.
This moment right now, this thing you're hearing at this very moment is supremely important.
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It's happening, man.
Whether you like it or not, you're about to get sucked into the materialistic updraft
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Not anymore, my friends.
The only true way to express love in this world is to hand someone something they're
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That's called materialism and that's the religion of the day.
So make sure you go through our Amazon link and celebrate materialism, such a beautiful
and wonderful way of life.
We also have lots of t-shirts, posters, pins, and I've got some very special limited edition
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You know what?
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But we have these new DTFH.
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As many of you know, I am moving to New York City and to celebrate that, I'm going to be
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see a link for tickets there or you can go to the Bell House's website.
Today's guest has been a writer on many seasons of adventure time.
He also has an incredible graphic novel called forming.
He is a brilliant artist and not only that, and he might not like me calling him this,
but he is an expert on the tarot and the occult.
He's an amazing human.
And this conversation is the reason that I love doing podcasts.
Everybody please welcome to the Dunkin Trussell family, our podcast, Jesse Moynihan.
Maybe it's like too many conflicting ideologies.
Jesse, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you.
Uh-huh.
Thank you.
So we got in a phone conversation, what a week ago, a week and a half ago, and we started
talking about the tarot and the occult.
And I realized that you are someone who is been, apparently does more than dabbles in
this kind of stuff.
You seem to have a deep understanding of the tarot and how did this all start?
Well I'd say, I don't know if I have a deep understanding of the tarot, but I would say
that I have an active curiosity in the tarot and in the occult and how it informs my story
telling, I think.
Ah, okay.
So a lot of people say that's one of the main uses for that, is not casting spells or like
doing Dr. Strange stuff, but is a kind of way to tune into your creative self.
Yeah.
Although I am into the casting spells part, but I think it started, my interest in the
tarot in particular started because I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's
also a comic book artist named Dash Shaw, and we were at a book, LA Times Book Awards
or something.
I remember it was at this award ceremony.
He was a nominated and for some reason he brought up tarot cards and I was reading Manly
P. Hall and stuff like that at that time, and Jodorowsky's books and stuff, his like
memoirs and that kind of thing.
He brought up the tarot and he's like, are you into tarot?
And I was like, I mean, I read about it sort of, but I didn't know what it was really except
I wasn't familiar with it deeply, and then he explained it to me in this way that made
sense to a person who does comics, and he was like, I think if you do comics, this is
my memory now of our conversation, but he was like, I think if you do comics, you should
be interested in tarot, because it's this like 78 card system that anyway you configure
it, it tells a story, and it tells a new story every time, and it gives you insight into yourself,
and I think what I got out of from that conversation was that there was this system that was so,
it was like created by some insane, you know, collective genius, and it never been accomplished
before, and has never been topped since, it's just this amazing work of art that is able
to tap into your subconscious understanding, you know, it's like just, I don't know, I
keep exploring it and keep trying to learn more and more about it, because the more I
learn, the more it blows my mind.
What are the theories about the origination of the tarot?
There's a lot of theories, and there's a lot of people disproving those theories, so it's
hard to know exactly for sure.
All I know is that I think the first recorded, the first like record of tarot cards being
used or requested by the bourgeois, like, you know, aristocrats being like, make me a
deck, whatever, to the local artist, was somewhere in the, I think, either the late 1300s or
the early 1400s, and then there's theories about people saying it originated in ancient
Egypt and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, that's what I've heard.
There's all these theories about that, but those theories were based on a untranslated
document.
Once the, I think, was it the Rosetta Stone?
Whatever, when people were able to translate hieroglyphics, all of those theories sort of
like went out the window.
Now, some people might be like, fuck you.
Like to me saying that or whatever, but that's just based on my research.
So all I go with is, my thought is, well, tarot evolved from playing cards, playing
cards emerged in that documented, probably have been coming around for years and years
earlier, but documented, I think somewhere in the early 1300s is the first someone talking
about playing cards and using them and gambling and being like, don't use those things,
or whatever.
And then after that, tarot emerged.
But the imagery in the tarot is based on ancient concepts or ancient archetypes.
So you could say, yeah, maybe the cards came into existence around the 1400s, mid 1400s
or something, but the ideas within those cards are ancient.
And someone, I mean, the interesting thing about you, I wish that we were filming this,
you, Jesse brought over one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight decks of tarot cards.
And what's interesting about it is there's pretty much in every single deck, the exact
same symbols emerge pretty much like variations on them.
Yeah, except for in this, this grand Atiello deck, the Egyptian Gypsies tarot.
Yeah, that one, that one was developed by this sort of enigmatic character.
There was a bunch of people that appeared around the same time who I think this was in
the mid 1700s, who sort of reignited interest in tarot cards, not just for card games, because
people are using them as card games.
And maybe sometimes some people were using them for Carto Manzi.
But that guy, the Atiella, who is just his name backwards, that was his like alias.
Oh, okay.
He, he, him and this guy, Pappas and this guy, what was his name?
Court de Goblin, Court de Goblin, I don't know how to say his name.
Yeah, they pushed this theory that the tarot was this magic system that could
divine the future.
And, and so he reinterpreted those cards to, to, to, um, to work in conjunction
with the cabala and all this, the grand Atiella, this was for Carto Manzi.
Yeah, that was for dividing the future.
That, you know, he became a superstar in that, in that scene, you know, or he
created that scene.
Well, what, okay.
It's when I've heard, this is what I heard about the tarot, uh, at Burning Man.
Yeah, sure.
So what I heard is that, and I thought it was really cool is that the idea is, so
there was this, the library of Alexandria.
Yeah.
And there's all this information in there.
Yeah.
Or like ancient wisdom traditions that no longer exist on this planet.
And there was a, has been a concerted effort to wipe this information out of
the popular consensus reality for some reason or another.
It's, because it's too powerful or it, it takes your eyes away from the king and
turns your eyes in the direction of the transcendent or something.
Who knows the varying reasons.
Yeah.
Just control its power.
So they wanted to figure out a way to take the information that they could
remember from the library of Alexandria, from this world religion or world
philosophy and condense it down and hide it.
And so they thought the best way to hide it is make it seem like a card game.
Yeah.
So then people would just think, Oh, people are just playing cards.
It doesn't really mean anything, but embedded within these cards is the
wisdom of the ages.
That's not what I heard.
You don't think that's it?
I mean, that goes back really far.
I don't know.
Uh, I think, I think the images, I mean, the image, those images have, uh, have,
have, have lasted the test of time.
You know, the images that are in there are, are these eternal today.
You look at these old images that, you know, of popes and of death and, you know,
towers being hit by lightning and stuff.
This is all these ancient, old, old images, but today we still identify with
them for some reason, right?
You don't have to update them to be like computers or whatever.
Like your iPhone is a new, I mean, people do, do those cards.
I don't like them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I usually don't like the modern tarot cards.
They're annoying.
Like I prefer the, what I love about, I mean, let's just grab the card on the
top of the deck here, the chariot.
Yeah.
And that's the Arthur Edward weight deck that you're,
which is that this seems to this version of the Arthur Edward weight deck.
This is, I've never seen this.
It's a different back than what I've seen.
I don't know.
Usually, but so this, um, the chariot card, what I love about it is, yeah, I can
kind of intuit from looking at it, maybe what, what the card means, but when you
start reading about it, I mean, I'm sure you could tell me, can you talk about
what, can you describe the card to the listeners and then talk about what all
the different pieces mean?
Yeah.
There's a guy, there's a knight and he's, he's got this armor with two moons, um,
on him and one is, one is usually one is frowning and one is smiling.
And, and he's coming out of a block of concrete.
He's not sitting in the chariot.
He's like a part of the chariot.
So he's like emerging out of a square, basically.
And his arms are on the square, like a triangle.
So that's the, the, the symbol, you can read into it as a symbol of the
triangle over the square.
It's, it's sort of like spirit trying to move away from the material, material world
or like having the ambition of high, this high minded ambition of transcendence,
you know, and he's being his, in the, in this deck, it's, it's ambiguous what
the wheels are doing exactly, but in the Marseille deck, the older deck, the
one, um, that emerged in around the, I think 1500s, the wheels are basically
embedded in the ground.
And, uh, so that's supposed to mean, well, or it's not supposed to mean
anything can mean whatever you want, right?
But to me, that means that the chariot, the groundedness of the square in the
earth and his move, his movement isn't determined by the wheels of his own
chariot.
He's actually a part of the planet, the planet's moving in the celestial
sky, you know, so his energy is the grounded energy is like planetary, you
know, so it's a really powerful car.
The chariot is planet earth.
Yeah.
Uh, or moving with the cosmos, you know, you're, you're, you're not, it's, it's
not like a guy, it's a much more powerful than an individual, uh, single
individual.
I never knew that about the chariot.
I've always thought that as a guy riding a chariot, I never noticed
that, that, and that's what's, so to me, this is messy.
The car, this is what's so beautiful about these things is that there's also,
he's being not to interrupt you, but he's being pulled, but in that car, he's
being pulled by two Sphinxes, right?
Yeah.
And who are sitting, they aren't, they're stationary.
So they're not going anywhere.
And one is black and one is white and you can interpret that as a passive and
active, uh, principles, uh, you know, the decision you have to, decisions
you have to make in life, being either a witness or a participant or, you
know, both not value judging either of those things, you know, but it depends
on what the question is and all that kind of stuff.
There's a sort of like, what is that called?
The, the flying eye, the side of the globe and the, the wing globe.
Yeah.
That's it.
Like an ancient, uh, Egyptian symbol right above this top, this like, yeah,
that's like the, um, what I understand that is, is a sexual, uh, unity of like
man and women, like, uh, I forget the name of it.
I forget the anima and the lingam.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
And what, did they say anything about the city behind the, I can't, I
can't remember what the deal is with the city behind it.
I, it really depends on, you know, you can look at these cards and not know
anything about them and be able to read them, you know, depending on your
intuition and the, the questions being asked.
So you don't have to like know everything about, but, but every card is a
meditation.
Like what's cool about it is it is definitely condensed data.
Like every single card, these are, you know what it is?
These are like the old punch cards that people used to put into computers.
You know, it's like, that's what it does for the human mind when you start just
that idea of like the passive, the active, don't value judge either one of these.
This chair, the chair, it's not even moving.
Then you get into like the illusion of movement, like the idea of like what,
cause I already, the, the, the card already tricked me for my entire life.
The cards been tricking me.
Well, me too, man.
The more I, I do research on these cards, I've been cross-referencing,
referencing a little, cause I'm working on my own deck, right?
As a means of understanding the cards better.
And so each deck, I, I have a bookshelf of books that I cross,
reference all the different theories about what the meanings are,
what the origins are of the images and like how they developed over time into
the, that rider weight is, is a far development beyond like the original.
They call that the esoteric deck and the original like Marseille deck,
or it's not the original, but it's like the first mass printed deck.
They call the exoteric deck.
So it's, there's all this stuff on the surface.
It's less imbued with occult imagery, you know, the Marseille deck.
Whereas the Arthur weight deck is, has so much like the, um,
the cherry deck in the Marseille is just two horses.
It's not two sinks is like, for example.
Um, but you can still, I read, I personally read from the Marseille deck
because I feel like it's more open.
Um, you can, there's a lot more freedom to interpret for, for me, for me anyway.
Oh, that's cool.
So you don't like the, the, there's too many symbols in this deck for you.
To me, I think some of the, there's too many esoteric symbols in the deck and
that, and if you're like me, like a book nerd or whatever, then I get so, I just
want to know what everything means and, and, um, and I get bogged down in that
kind of thing.
I think, uh, it's, it's more fun for me to read from the Marseille deck because
there's, it's, there's less, there's less information, but there's more you
can, no, I won't put a value judgment, but, um, I will say about the, when I was
researching the Chariot card, what I found really interesting, I got fascinated
with the, the, his armor and he's got these two moons on his, um, um, shoulders,
uh, one frowning one smiling.
And I read in Arthur Waits book, um, he compared it to, um, the, uh, he
called it about, wait, Jason and Boaz, Boaz and Jason.
The pillars in Freemasonry?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And also he compared it to the jeweled, uh, chest piece, chest plate that the old,
um, Jewish priests used to wear when they would consult God.
And I got really fascinated with that because there's only one mention of it in
the Bible and, and, and, but I remember when I was a kid, it's hard to go off on a
tangent, please, when I was a kid, my parents used to read to me, um, Christian
fables and stuff, although we're illustrated, you know, and they would show
the Pharisees, uh, with these chest plates.
And that to me was the most interesting part of the story.
I was like, what is the deal with those chest plates?
Is that armor or is that a computer?
You know, and, um, and, uh, it turned out that there are these jewels on this plus
dress, um, chest plate.
They used to consult when they'd ask God a question, depending on how the light
shown through the jewels, it would be a yes or no answer.
Right.
And, uh, so that, uh, he was equating to those yes or no on his shoulders, but
also I heard recently that Darth Vader, then maybe this is why I connected with
it, because I liked Star Wars when I was a kid.
Yeah.
Darth Vader has that chest plate.
Whoa, shit.
That's cool.
Right.
Darth Vader has that same, it was intentional.
So what I heard is it was intentional.
And there's actually Hebrew on his, if you look at the costume now, maybe, I
may be wrong.
Someone told me this recently.
Yeah.
Whoever designed his costume designed him to be like a Pharisee.
I love this.
Yeah.
No, this is to me what my, what I'm not even, I, you can even say I dabble in this
stuff, especially after talking to you.
I just think it's cool and like I love to look at tarot cards and think about it.
One of the things that makes it so attractive to me is that this, these
symbols have every single one of these symbols is like a fine wine that's been
sort of fermenting in stories and philosophies for so long.
And we don't know exactly what vineyard these grapes came from is what's
interesting and then to make it even more mysterious, it continues to get
threaded in to every piece of popular culture.
It's, if it's in Star Wars, it's everywhere.
Right.
Yeah.
So that to me is really curious that it's, this is, and this is in the satanic
panic, this was what they said was happening.
The satanists are putting their symbols inside every motherfucking thing.
Man, you know, of course, I don't believe that this is evil at all.
But I do think that it has a personality, right?
Whatever it is, it has a personality and its personality is to hide.
Its personality is to hide and plain sight and plain sight.
Yeah.
That's the thing.
What was I going to say?
Oh, that reminds me of when I was working on Adventure Time and someone wrote
me an email, a guy who was a mason, free mason, or he was part of, no,
he was a ross accrucian, I think.
And he wrote me an email because I was putting a cult symbols in Adventure
Time and he told me to stop and he was like, don't share this stuff.
And it's sacred and dangerous.
Can you hold on a second?
Yeah.
You know, man, that's such an interesting thing that there's somebody out there.
Number one, it's cool to know that Rosie Crucians are watching Adventure Time.
I think his kid was watching Adventure Time.
He's watching it with his kid.
He's wearing some like a robe in a chamber with incense burning and he's like,
wait, Joshua, turn away.
I must write.
Did he write it like, is the letter?
He wrote it in a very, he wrote it in a very heavy handed way.
Tipped or handwritten?
No, he wrote me an email.
Email.
Yeah.
And I told him, I told him that all that stuff is there.
It's already there.
Everyone can has access to it.
There's no secrets anymore, really, as far as I know.
Did he write back to you?
No, he didn't write back to me.
I said everything I, you just found like a dead crow in your car seat.
Everything I put in Adventure Time, you can find on the Led Zeppelin album cover.
You know, it's already been exposed.
Well, I'm sure Led Zeppelin got in trouble for that too.
Yeah, they did.
And that is the other app that, I mean, one thing that you hear again and again
when it comes to this stuff is, keep a secret.
Don't talk about it.
We don't talk about it because something about in the old days, there was power in that.
And I think a lot of it's probably, they don't realize why the element of secrecy is there.
But I think a lot of it had to do with self-preservation.
I mean, these cards survived through a time period where they were incinerating people
for talking about this stuff.
There was a, one of the, in this book I read about Genghis Khan, they talked about how
the Mongols, when they finally made it into Europe, what they found shocking was
that people were forced to worship one religion.
They thought that was the weirdest fucking thing.
And that's Genghis Khan.
You know, this is crazy.
So this is a, so I think maybe a lot of the secrecy comes more from a kind of evolution,
a survival mechanism that happened.
Maybe I've been really struggling with this idea of secrecy for about maybe two years.
And the value of secrets and whether or not that has value, or whether or not you use,
I think it did have value at some point and whether or not it has value now because guys
like Arthur Edward Waite, so full of secrets, he writes whole books and you don't get anything
out of them because he's so secretive and so frustrating trying to read his material
because his books are just criticisms of other people's research and almost no insight
into his own thoughts.
It's just purely outward.
He's like, if you know me, I might let you know what I know.
You know, that's sort of his attitude.
You know, in the Bhagavad Gita, there is a, one of the verses is don't disturb people
with this information.
It's just the, I can't remember exactly how the verse goes, but the idea is, look,
if somebody isn't ready for this, don't bug them, don't become a missionary.
Don't like blast them with this.
That's true.
But if you are going out of your way to read their book and their book gives you nothing,
what is the deal with that?
That's what we call a rip off.
But I've read other people analyzing his books and then I get illuminated.
You know, then I, then I understand where he's coming from, at least in part.
I'm reading this guy.
What's his name?
Robert.
It was in a book with Joseph Campbell and him.
Shoot, I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but they wrote, they
co-wrote a book on the tarot together.
And his breakdown of Arthur Edward Waite's ideas is really helpful because if you
just read Arthur Edward Waite's books, they're impenetrable.
Well, do you know, um, for me, another way to look at the idea of like keeping
some of this stuff secret, uh, you know what just happened in Yellowstone, right?
No.
So in Yellowstone, they have signs that are like, don't go off this path.
Yeah.
If you go off this path and you stumble in one of these pools, you will die in the
most horrific way, the most horrific way, one of the most horrific ways you can
on this planet, being boiled alive by nature.
Yeah.
So recently this kid with his sister, they wanted to do something called, there's
a name for it that doesn't sound entirely pleasant called hot.
Oh, it's a weird hot poppin or like, uh, hot potato in or something.
It's where you go to unauthorized hot springs and sit in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So they wander off the trail at night, they go to this, they find a pool, he's
standing at the edge of it and there's signs everywhere.
Yeah.
He's standing at the edge of it.
I guess he like wants to see if it's how hot it is to see if you could sit in it.
Yeah.
Puts his hand in it.
Yeah.
Stumbles in to boiling water, boiling acid.
Yeah.
She's filming the whole thing.
Oh my God.
What?
The video is not out there.
I look.
Thank God.
But he, and she couldn't get his body out.
Yeah.
And so she went back and's like, yeah, you know, we went in and you know, you've
got to like, as you're going out, you've got to pass signs.
Right.
You probably pass a hundred signs that say, don't go here.
You'll die.
Yeah.
So she finally gets to, to, to whoever the park ranger or whatever.
And they're like, yeah, it's, you know, we're not going to get his body out tonight.
Cause a snow storm had kicked up.
Yeah.
They came back the next day and he had completely dissolved.
Yeah.
Nothing left except his flip flop.
Jesus.
He had turned into Brian.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
So there are signs everywhere.
So in the same way, when it comes to this stuff, yeah, people say that if you get
to the, that if you start spiraling into the singularity of knowing what this is
about, you will begin to decode the fundamental, you know, fabric of the
universe and, and, and, and, and as you do that, since you're made of the universe,
you'll start to unravel yourself and then you're gone.
Right.
You'll just end up decoding yourself.
That's it.
That's the goal though.
For many people, that's the goal.
Yeah.
For many people, that's the goal.
Yeah.
Is that your goal?
Uh, I think, well, I think that is the goal of eliminating your fear of death.
Right.
So you probably want to accomplish that at the end of your life.
So you don't go too early because you want to experience fun shit while you're here.
You know, so you got time at right.
I mean, it's a good trick.
If you could do it, it's really cool.
And, and, but it is a, I mean, magic will drive you crazy.
I know I've, I've come, I've been on the edge of that a little bit.
Talk about that.
Um, just, I was doing, uh, actually it was a really simple, uh,
Kundalini meditation I was doing, uh, for a while because I was going through a
heartache or whatever.
And this, my healer person gave me this meditation to do, breathing in through one
nose and doing this mantra and breathing out the other.
What's the mantra?
Uh, waheguru, waheguru, wahegiho.
And you just, you do it three times.
Waheguru, waheguru, waheguru, waheguru, wahegiho.
Waheguru, waheguru, waheguru, wahegiho.
And you do that before that round four times while you're holding your breath and
then you breathe through the other nose.
And, um, I did that, I was doing that for a bit until, um, it really like, uh,
clears your brain out.
So it was helping me a lot because I was like really heart, heart
broken, heartbroken at that time.
And, um, so I would come out of that meditation feeling like I was riding the
crest of a wave, you know, everything was blank, but I felt a momentum underneath
me and, um, after I did that for a while, um, I actually had a hallucination
where I, um, was surrounded in golden light and, um, I was having two
perspectives at the same time.
I was a caterpillar and I was hatching out of my, uh, the golden shell.
I was like this golden caterpillar and I was also seeing the golden
caterpillar at the same time.
So I was that thing hatching out, seeing myself and also seeing it hatching
out at the same time, my hands were folded like, uh, you know,
Egyptian Pharaoh or whatever.
And I was like, just experiencing this for a while.
I was like, holy fuck, like just, um, this was so cool.
You know, I was, I was really like, um, dazzled by the experience.
And then as soon as I uncrossed my hands, um, the vision, uh, went away and I was
just, um, normal awake, you know, and, uh, that actually, it was a really
beautiful hallucination, um, which I've never, I've never had that before,
but it also freaked me out.
And, uh, I didn't, I never did that meditation afterwards.
It was too much for me.
Too much.
Yeah.
See, there it is.
Yeah.
That's the thing.
Cause you realize like, Oh, I only wanted a little bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not ready for that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's, I think that's a very, you know, that's one of the curious things
about being a human being is we don't want it all.
Yeah.
We, uh, many people say they want it all, but when you start seeing things
like that and it fucks with your reality, man, and like it really, um, and you
want, you think you're brave enough to handle that, but I, uh, you have to work
up to it.
I think some people are, they're like, you know, take me out, but I'm not, I'm,
I think I'm a, when you earth sign, you know, I need, like, I need to be grounded.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, you, we, we need to function in the world.
Yeah.
You know, you can't cross your arms and turn into a caterpillar and, and at Bank
of America for some reason.
Yeah.
But we're, but what starts happening is you, it's kind of, I think a little bit
of what virtual reality is going to start doing for people is it's going to give
them a lesson really too quickly about the, uh, subjective nature of reality and
like, look, instantly you're in another place that isn't real.
Now you think this place is real.
And I think that, so you sort of, through magic, you're starting to see this, um,
you know, you start seeing through consensus reality and you start realizing
like, Oh yeah, like, for example, a couple of days ago, um, I got stoned and went
to eat ramen down in Pasadena.
Have you been to this ramen place in Pasadena?
Which one?
God, it's called.
I haven't.
Totsuyotu, new Toto, or it's like, there's lines in front of it.
Okay.
And I made fun of it before.
Like I might, my girlfriend loves ramen.
I love ramen.
I'm never going to fucking stand in line for ramen.
Yeah.
Like a fool, like thinking about ramen that you get at the grocery store or
whatever, the shareable, like, sure, poverty cubes or whatever.
College student.
Yes.
Yeah.
But, uh, so anyway, I'm stoned and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to get
some ramen.
I don't know why I'm adding the ramen thing in.
I guess just cause like I, as I'm eating the ramen, it's so good that it's
like making me even more high.
And I'm in here.
I'm basically entering into this like very powerful altered state at this
ramen place.
Yeah.
And so, but then, so I'm in this great mood and then right across from the
ramen place is an, I didn't need to tell the ramen part of the story.
I could have cut that out completely, but God Jesus, I'm really in a
ramen kick right now.
I love ramen, man.
The best and the synergy between ramen and edible marijuana is anything on it.
So I decided to cross the street to an anthropology for no reason.
I'm just going to walk into the anthropology.
So talking about like the weirdness of consensus reality and manufactured
realities, a store is a man, a manufactured reality where some corporate
psychologists have gotten together to try to create a temple of capital.
That is a temple.
When you go into a store, you are entering into a temple that worships a
God and the God, the temple worships is whatever the particular name of the
store is.
So anthropology is a God that's been summoned up by a corporation.
And the form the God takes is the various products.
You could say the God of anthropology is the sum total of all the fucking
lip balms and little floral baggies and candles that smell like pumpkin pie.
And like it all adds together.
And then you, so you walk in to this reality bubble.
That's what a store is.
It's a fucking reality bubble.
The music, the way that the people in there are being forced to act, the way
they're being forced to dress, the people who work there, those are the priests.
When you walk into a retail store, you are in the presence of high priests who
are worshiping an entity that they summoned up through their shared attention.
And it takes the form of a fucking anthropology, right?
And you can feel the spirit itself in the same way.
If you go to a Hare Krishna temple, you can feel the spirit of something.
And I feel that when I go to moon juice, what's moon juice?
It's a juice and other stuff.
Everything's super expensive.
And the people treat you like you just walked into church.
Yes.
When you go in there.
I've heard of this place.
That place in Venice.
Is that moon juice?
It was one in Silver Lake.
This is what is, so you start getting into this stuff, hidden in plain sight.
And you begin to realize, well, I mean, this is like one of my favorite, Daniel
Johnston lyrics.
It goes, there are strange secret cults in every town.
I don't know that song.
It's a great song.
Do you know what song it is?
God, I think it's either don't play cards.
It was say, Oh yeah.
So, but you, so anyway, it's a long way of getting to a point, which is that we
think we're living in a normal mythology, mythology free, non occult world.
Right.
We think in the old days, sure, there were like people in robes and incense
and worshiping weird gods in the days of Babylon.
But that's all gone now.
Yeah.
No.
Go to downtown Pasadena, walk into an anthropology and you have entered
into a temple, a temple where a magical ritual is going on from probably
11am, 10am to 9pm.
And that magical ritual is the conversion of your life energy in the form of
money in exchange.
You get scented candles and like, not only that though, you get a chance
to experience the perfect life, right?
You know, when you walk in, it's also mundane at the same time, you know,
that that's the way that I think about Catholic Church.
When you go to a Catholic ceremony, it's so mundane.
You go, I'm bored out of, bored of tears when I go to one of those things.
Yes.
But at the same time, it's so right beneath the surface, it's fucking insane.
Well, that's why you got to get stoned when you go to church.
And I don't mean that.
It's like, yeah, stoner talk, man, let's get stoned and go to church.
Really.
I mean, that's probably the way they used to do it.
It's like you need some kind of psychedelic as the sacrament when you
enter into the space to open your mind.
And then you really will start picking up, but you don't have to go to Catholic
Church.
We are living in an age of, you could even say, this is the most occult.
This is the, we are in the most occult laden.
I don't know how you'd say it.
We are in an age, a cult imbued age.
You're putting symbols into a cartoon that we don't know their origination point
that had been used in secret rituals for thousands of years to the point where
Rosie Crucians are writing you emails.
Right.
Well, I felt like I had a duty to do that actually.
It was this opportunity that I couldn't pass up.
I felt like I had to put magic in that show, like real magic.
Things that you could do.
How many seasons did you work on this?
I worked from the end of season one until season seven, end of season seven.
So any opportunity I had to put something in there that would make a kid think,
like maybe that could be real.
Maybe I could really do this ceremony or this kind of thing or put symbols in
there that had deep ancient meaning.
You're not worried about saying, I mean, this is going to end up on what you're
saying will more than likely end up on some kind of.
That's fine.
That's fine.
I think I've said, I've said this before somewhere, but I, because I was reacting.
I felt like maybe I won't have a chance to do this again.
Work on a hit show, you know, everything I do after adventure time will be some
underground thing, something, you know, a cult, more cult niche, you know,
because I feel like I'm a niche person.
I don't feel like I have, I feel like I shouldn't say this if executives are
listening, but I feel like, which I don't think they are, but maybe they are.
I don't know.
But I, I think of myself as a niche person.
So I had this opportunity to work on this accidentally hit show.
And I was reacting against the materialism that I felt was so prevalent in my
circle of, of people I associate with the people progressive left basically is
the, that's the people I hang out with.
And within that community, I felt anecdotally, I don't think this is always
true, especially not so much in LA.
I think LA is more a weirdo place where people are allowed to believe weird shit.
Yeah.
But everywhere outside of that, if you tell someone, like my friends back in
Philly, I tell them about five years ago, I, I started getting into tarot and
they just give me a weird look.
Like I'm crazy, you know, like I'm wasting my time basically.
And that's the attitude, this materialist, uh, what do you call it?
Not anecdotal, the opposite of an empirical, uh, belief system.
And I was using this cartoon in part to tell funny stories and stuff, but
also to push my, my personal agenda of pushing magic into the world.
And, and, and that people assume that magic is real in this world.
It's an example of, uh, something in adventure time that has its roots and
magic that you put there.
Um, just there, uh, oh, there was a location spell that a peppermint
butler used to travel through, uh, the astral plane to find his nemesis or
whatever.
And I based, I based his, um, I can't remember the quote exactly, but I
based his spell based on an Aleister Crowley quote, you know, you know,
something he was like really like saying some statement about, um, uh, you
know, above and below and all that kind of stuff and as above so below.
Yeah.
I don't know if that was in there.
Oh, I've had magic man say that, uh, you know, the old hermetic idea or whatever.
Uh, so things like that.
I just wanted to put in the show casually, not call so much attention
to them, but have this magic there that kids could take for granted and not,
you know, question because I think that magic happens all the time and we are
so cynical of when those things happen, when those moments happen that we brush
them aside as soon as they happen, we might have an aha moment, you know,
this magical moment.
I can't explain what just happened.
Some phenomenon that just happened and then I immediately go back to that
consensus materialist reality and just treat that like a dream.
Man, I'll tell you what just happened to me because I think that's an important
thing that I think didn't Crowley say you should talk about it.
If it works, like that's the one thing you shouldn't keep a secret or you
should, you should announce that this spell has worked or that an experiment
has worked.
Maybe I'm mistaking something.
I read somewhere else, but I think that's a good, a friend of mine recently,
yeah, uh, needed, needed to borrow like 1500 bucks.
And so, uh, I'm like, yeah, that's cool.
Cause this is somebody I love and like, yeah, no problem helping you out.
So gave him 1500 bucks and then the next day I went to my mailbox and there
was a completely unexpected check in my mailbox for $1,498, almost the exact
amount that I'd given to this person and to me, that's like, that's magic.
That's in that, that's, I know, I mean, it's not that I don't get checks in
the mail sometimes, but it's like, certainly not the exact amount that I
just gave to somebody.
You say that to the materials and I'm like, you remember the hits.
We remember the hits.
Think of all the times you've given people stuff and you've never gotten
the exact same money that you just remembered to have a fucking coincidence.
Yeah, and it might be a coincidence, but it's, I really think it all depends on
how you think about that stuff.
Like it, it comes down to, I, I've been trying to do this, not just
study the tarot, but slowly trying to radiate that out into the real world.
So I, I don't know, it's not an original idea, but I think the world, I
try to think of the world as a living tarot and interpret everything that's
happening around me as symbols, you know, and the one moment that really sticks
out to me was this moment when I, this is some Hollywood shit, but I like went
to an agent.
I was thinking about getting an agent and I went to this big cartoon agency and
I had a meeting with these two guys and they were selling me on stuff I didn't
want.
They were saying, we, you can make the next, you can make the next cloudy with
a chance of meatballs.
I was like, I, you know, I enjoyed that movie, but that's not what I want to make.
You know, I don't want to make cloudy.
I want to make weird, weird shit that shocks people or whatever, you know, and,
and, but I was giving that to myself and the whole time they were like, we were
such big fans of, that's what they always say.
We're such big fans of your work, blah, blah, blah.
And, um, I had this weird feeling in my stomach and I didn't know how to interpret
it because I felt like maybe these guys could help me and maybe they wanted to
help me, maybe they really liked my work.
Yeah, I don't know.
And so after the meeting, I sort of felt good about it and sort of mixed, but
cautious, you know, and then I got in the elevator and this is right when I was
really starting to get into researching the tarot and thinking about the idea
of the world tarot or whatever the world around you being interpreted as symbols.
And I went down a floor to the lobby, but for some reason, the elevator
stopped and I guess maybe someone there had accidentally hit a button or
something before me.
So I stopped on the floor below their level and the doors open and it was a
black hallway.
It was all the lights were out and I walked into the hallway and
well, immediately I was like, what's going on?
Like this is like, I'm, I felt like this was a magic moment or something.
I walked into the dark hallway and then the light sensors turned on and there
was a huge roach on the wall.
And I immediately was like, I'm not working with these guys.
And I got on the elevator and went home and I just never called them again.
Cause that symbol, something about this, um, that David Lynch blue velvet, you
know, when it goes into the grass in the first scene in that movie and there's
like this idyllic suburban place and then it goes deep into the grass and
there are these insects like fighting each other.
And that's how I felt.
I had gone the level below them and saw like this underbelly, this toxic
underbelly, you know, something like that.
I don't know.
I mean, I don't want to rip on those guys.
Maybe they were nice guys, but that was my interpret that activated
something that I already felt in me, but I wasn't acknowledging.
Yeah, right.
And so it wasn't like it was, it was illuminating something that was already
there and that's how I, that's how I also feel about tarot cards.
I don't try to read the future or anything like that.
I just try to understand myself through them.
Right.
Yeah.
And that is the, you know, we were talking on the phone about this,
the, the, you know, if you want to change the color of a fountain, you
don't try to die the drops coming out.
You would start at the base of the fountain, which is the present moment.
The future comes from the present.
So yeah, shining a light on whatever the particular pattern is that you're really,
you're, you're, it's more like you're shining a light on the, I guess you
could say the, the window or the lantern that is yourself that's, you know,
projecting a world into this dimension and seeing, you know, what the formations
are at that moment with tarot, you know, cause yes, something's going to stick
out with every single card.
Like I could just randomly pick any card at all.
The two of, two of swords.
Tell me what this means.
I mean, it really depends on the question.
You know, just the symbols.
What are the, I mean, there's like two is duality, you know, so it, it, it could
be about a decision being made, you know, between choices or something or, or split
or it could also mean two people coming together, you know, to the opposites.
And there's a, um, this one is interesting because it's the weight and I don't
read from the weight, but it's like a blind lady sitting on a bench and I'm
sure this is imbued with tons of meaning.
There's a moon, so that means like, uh, sort of like a more, uh, receptive
intelligence and, uh, I don't, I don't know.
It really depends on what, what the question is.
Well, I would think just from what you're saying, it makes me think of like
what an impending thing I'm doing.
I'm moving to New York.
So like I will apply that stuff like, oh, decisions and dualities and like to,
um, the unknown herb, she's blindfolded.
I don't know what's going to happen, but, um, the point is like any, any of these
things can like help you begin to excavate and then you can get even lower and
deeper and then you start hitting, you know, the, the fear place through these
cards, you can start like banging up against the thing you're trying to ignore
with the cards, which is always uncomfortably awesome.
Actually, that makes me remember now that the reason why I started doing,
doing that world tarot kind of like, um, idea was because actually was influenced
by my parents who were super, were super Christian when I was growing up and they
were always communicating with what they, what they called God and God was
giving them signs all the time.
They would see signs on, on a license plates and stuff like that.
And they would make their decisions based on those things, you know, like where to
move her that in my mom, remember almost got hit by a car one time and then she
saw a license plate that was like a vanity plate or something said blue
something and she was like, Oh, we got to move to the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Something like that.
You know, that was God telling me that I love that.
Yeah, I love that too.
That, you know, that's, I grew up with that.
So that, that way of, that way of logic makes sense to me.
It seemed to work for my, I could see it working for them in a practical way, in a
pragmatic way.
And so it's that thing where if it works, just do it, you know, you don't have to,
it doesn't have to make sense within your peer group, you know, depending on who
your peer group is, well, then if your peer group is the one that you're using to
make your decisions, then your peer groups of fucking vanity license plate, you
know, if that's what you're using, if, if like, you're, then that's your God.
I mean, this is a, um, this is one of the, uh, in the, in the Bhagavad Gita, this
is, uh, one of the verses actually was going to put into the last episode.
It's one of my, it's for chapter seven is my favorite chapter in the Bhagavad
Gita currently.
And chapter seven is Krishna saying those who worship the demigods go to the
demigods and whatever it is that you place your attention upon that thing, I
will become basically is what God says.
So I, I will, your, your God, whatever it may be, is like a swimming pool inflatable
raft and what it gets inflated with is the energy of Krishna.
And so the form that it takes, whether it's a fucking statue of, um, Buddha or
whether it's, uh, Ananth, Ananthra, or whether it's your lover or your job or
your career or your fear of death or your identity as an atheist or your identity
as a theist, the energy in what it's holding it up is Krishna taking off.
Like, Oh, you want me to wear this costume?
Okay.
That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
So it's cool.
And I think that when you begin to, um, free yourself, like you're saying from
this, the terrible manacles of worrying about what you're fucking intellectual,
goddamn intellectual friends think, whether what they think is for better or
for worse, that's their thing.
And it's fine.
But Jesus God, God help you.
Yeah.
God help you if you're letting, if you're letting the opinions of people around
you, because you know, the thing is like, look into yourself.
I mean, you, you might not be a confused person, but I'm fucking a lot of the time.
Oh, me too.
Yeah.
Unbelievably confused.
Yeah.
I'm confused a lot.
Just confused.
And like, and then when, and when I contemplate like notions of myself, who am I?
What am I?
What, what's going on here?
Yeah.
Like, who do I think I am?
Right.
And then that always gets very confusing.
Yeah.
So that's how I feel.
And when I've talked, and now you say you're confused sometimes.
Sure.
Yeah.
Deep confusion.
And then when I talked to him, to like some of my closest friends, they are
definitely fucking confused.
I think people are, there are people who are much more confused than me, but
yes, like to a debilitating degree.
So, so when you realize that the odds are pretty good.
Yeah.
To that person who's like laying, laying down the materialist POV on your
ass secretly at night, as he's falling asleep or she's falling asleep or whatever.
She's freaking the fuck out too.
Right.
I don't know what I am.
I'm, you know what I mean?
I'm, I know I'm depressed.
Yeah.
I know I have to, I'm not this, I'm not, I don't feel depressed, but a lot.
Like, I remember just talking to a materialist friend and I'm not saying
there's any kind of correlation here, but you know, we got in this whole
conversation about the validity of science versus what we're talking about.
And like, you know, the usual, it was exciting for me.
I like getting smackdowns from the materialists.
I got, I got smacked down from materialists quite a bit.
Yeah.
But then towards the end of the smackdown, you know, yeah, he was talking
about how many fucking medications he's on because of his terrible, terrible depression.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like not to say that your materialism or atheism is making you
depressed or whatever, but the, whatever the thing is that you are
worshiping is clearly maybe not creating the kind of harmony in your life that
you would, you would like necessarily if that thing that you're worshiping is
the very surface level of the universe, which is a quite beautiful thing.
Yeah.
The atoms, the deepest levels, the, the quarks, the, then this fundamentally
mysterious things that are underneath the quarks or whatever.
Right.
That's cool.
But yeah, I like to romanticize that.
I mean, I think they should, but they, a lot of them, them, sorry, but they, they, I
hear a lot of scientists who put those, I, those, they're, those investigations
into a sublime context, you know, in order to replace the revelation of, of religion
or spiritual belief.
And I think it's a noble effort, but I, I don't think that it is a direct replacement.
I think that those things can exist.
Those things need to exist.
The material investigation is totally valuable and very, you know, I, I value it
highly and I respect the people who that's their thing.
You know what I mean?
But I think that it can't replace revelation.
Can't replace the, that energy fill that you get from having a transcendental experience.
You know what Alex Gray calls it?
Yeah.
I'm going to say it wrong.
A theophany.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know, like a sudden realization of God or a sudden realization of a, of a, of a
spirit that is not impersonal.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
There's nothing better than that, man.
There's nothing better than we're even fraying as fraying is that, or, or as, you
know, I mean, as an ultimate awe inspiring as, as, as that, you know,
well, it's a game of hide and seek with Krishna.
Yeah.
You know, that's why I love the, the symbol of Krishna because it's a little, you
know, it's a boy most of the time, a little kid and you're a little kid too.
And this whole thing is like a, a fantastic game of hide and seek with the unit,
with the, with that, which all things originate from, and it's hiding inside
itself right in front of you and your friends and your dogs and your cats in
moments of intuition, where you have some great realization.
I love that.
That makes me so happy.
And then I love praying to it and I love thinking about it.
And I love, wait, you know, I've been doing this so much more lately too.
Um, going to bed, praying, waking up, praying, and then doing prayers for the
confusion.
You ever do that prayers for a confused, not for the confusion, but when
you're in the midst of like, so, okay, so I've, I mean, like in my most
desperate moments, yeah, saying thank you for the, so like, you start getting
into this place, realize like, okay, the process is this, we'll just make it up.
Let every phenomena that comes into your life is like a cube of energy or
something, right?
It doesn't have to be a cube.
You make it whatever shape you want.
Sure.
So here comes, I think I'm lazy.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I think I'm lazy.
He's coming down the conveyor belt of the mind and you as this alchemist, as it
comes down, can actually instantly transform it by being like, thank you God for
letting me have a mind that can be aware that I think I'm lazy.
Thank you.
Just for that experience of being able to think that I'm lazy.
Thank you.
Just for that.
Thank you God for this experience of when you get paranoid, thank you God for
this experience of paranoia for giving me the ability to protect myself in this
way or to think, but you just start focusing so it takes, immediately takes
your mind off the weighty, always ever changing, never ending like a cat with a
laser light being shined at you from the universe.
It immediately moves your eyes from the laser point to that, which is shining
the laser, right?
I've never done that.
It feels great.
It's a really, you'll forget to do it.
Yeah.
But because I had this dream where I was, um, I was in, it was a really cool dream,
but in the dream, I was like just walking in a field or something and some
dream place and I started that like saying, it's like weird gratitude prayers.
And when I did that, this energetic form would like appear over my head that
looked like the top of a mosque or something.
Like just like, you know, archetypal, like sacred geometry.
Just like immediately just forms like, oh, like whenever I say thank you to
the universe, it makes these things appear in dreamland.
So anyway, I've been doing that experiment with some, um, with a lot of success.
And when you don't feel like saying thank you, you even say thank you there too.
Like you can just start thanking the universe for every single thing.
I think I forget to do that a lot actually.
Easy to forget.
Yeah.
I think cause I'm on, I'm in a, I'm in a constant state of, uh, protecting
myself, you know, so it's, it's hard to, when the, the hits come, it's, it's
hard to turn that around and, and, and like you do, like thank your, your consciousness
for being able to even register that kind of stuff, uh, paranoia and that anxiety.
Yeah.
I was reading in this Houston Smith book, there's like all these, I guess.
Aspects of God are, are perfect aspects of God.
And one of them, the, the, the things which are good, fundamentally good.
What is fundamentally good?
And one of the things in, according to this, that is fundamentally good is
existence itself, fundamentally good to exist.
It is better to exist than not to exist.
So it's fundamentally good to exist.
So just that creates a baseline to give thanks for it.
Just, okay.
I just get to feel this now.
This is incredible.
You know, can I read something to you?
Sure.
Yeah.
Have you ever read, um, Victor Frankel's man search for meaning?
No.
Okay.
Check this out, man.
I'm going to read this to you really quick.
The, so this is like a guy who is in Auschwitz and he's being, um, he's being
like marched in the morning on some kind of death march.
And with, and he's like standing next to somebody else.
They're being marched to do work.
And the uphold by fucking Nazis, a man marching next to me whispered suddenly,
if our wives could see us now.
I do hope they're better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us.
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mine.
And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time
and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew
each of us was thinking of his wife.
Occasionally I looked at the sky where the stars were fading and the pink light
of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds.
But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness.
I heard her answering me, saw her smile or Franken encouraging look.
Will or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun, which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me for the first time in my life.
I saw the truth is it is set into song by so many poets proclaimed as the final
wisdom by so many thinkers, the truth, that love is the ultimate and highest goal
to which men can aspire.
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human
thought and belief have to impart.
The salvation of man is through love and in love.
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know
bliss, be it only for a brief moment in the contemplation of his beloved in a
position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action.
When his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way,
an honorable way, in such a position, man can through loving contemplation of
the image he carries of his beloved, a chief fulfillment for the first time in
my life, I was able to understand the meaning of the words, the angels are
lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
Yeah.
That's a, that's how I've been feeling a lot lately about, you know, all
the shit that's been going on with, uh, no, I don't want to get too deep into
the, it's okay.
Go ahead.
No, I feel like I'm going to dig myself a grave because you're going to talk.
Everyone's been talking about Westworld on the podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because, you know, I really think that, that dude is a robot.
That cowboy.
No, go ahead.
Go ahead.
It's that this is that, that thing that he's talking about is the thing I've
been trying to achieve in myself for as long for, I guess, since my mid 20s is
this, and in the Bhagavad Gita, they, they, they call it the, the three gunas,
right?
Yes.
Is it gunas or junas or, uh, I've heard it pronounced goons.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I always say goonas.
You could say, okay, but you know what I'm talking about.
The, it's probably junas.
Who knows, you know, whatever three modes, the three modes, one being chaos, right?
And like being lost in the tides of your environment, like how being completely
affected by everything that happens around you, being like having no power.
Motive ignorance.
Yeah.
And then the other one is being, um, being on the roller coaster of life, having
those highs and lows, and which is in the state that most people are in, right?
Yes.
Um, that are like normally, normal functioning people mode of passion.
Yeah.
Mode of passion where, uh, and then the, the, the highest mode, which is you're
easily toppled from once you acknowledge that you're in that mode or whatever is
goodness, right?
Is, is being this, that Buddhist, whatever, compassionate detachment where
you're not affected by the, the, the, the hurricanes of life, yes.
You know, and to me, like that third one is the one I, I really try, uh, have
been working slowly, working towards, uh, in order to tame my reality, you know,
and not be bolder when, when, uh, when a guy, you know, horrible, like homophobic,
you know, like Mexican hating president because I'm president.
I'm not walking around, um, completely fucked.
And surrounds himself with like a cabinet of just monsters.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, so I've seen, like this is just this thing that I've seen for my
friends as an example of, of that description, you know, of where you walk
into a cafe and you're like, how's your day going?
And they're like, how do you think that?
Yeah.
And then you have to, you have to, um, you, you have to participate in that drama.
Well, you have to help them not worship the demigod.
It's like, cause when we worship a demigod, we don't just worship the
demigod through like giving the demigod flowers or pouring honey on some statue.
Well, the way we worship the demigod that is Trump is with our fear, our anxiety,
our terror, right?
You're feeding that fire.
You're feeding your, you are, you are, so you're, what you are doing every
single moment of your life that is clouded by fear, you are sacrificing that
moment to Trump, you are giving that moment on the altar of time to the, to
this being that you've created in your mind that you think Trump is, whatever
he may be, doesn't seem like a sweetheart.
A lot of what he's doing, he fucking assigned, uh, the attorney general is
this like rabid hater of marijuana.
It was really, you know, and all the other things.
Okay, fine.
But this is, so to get back to the idea of the goonas.
Yeah.
So the idea is these, these three modes interact not just in, within a person,
but in nature too.
So this is a constant dance that's happening between these three energetic
states essentially.
Uh, and the idea is that even the mode of goodness is still just a temporary mode
and that it is the transcendent fixation on the thing behind the modes that is
the true pathway to liberation.
So even being in the mode of goodness, you know, sitting on drinking green tea
in your cabin, in your sustainable cabin with solar panels and your beautiful
garden, compost pile, no waste, even in that place, if you have not connected to
the transcendent, then you're, then you're still going to be in a, uh, you're still
in a bit of a precarious position, but it's the, so it's like seeing as, as, as, as
absolutely blasphemous as the thing is, is to say Trump is Krishna.
Yeah.
Trump is God, his cabinet, you know what I mean?
This is a manifestation of the divine on earth and then, and then within that, you
know, and you've been, we've all been given a wonderful riddle.
Crack the code.
How do you love him?
You know, how do you figure out?
Sure.
That's, I think that's, I, I really think like everyone's coming out.
I mean, everyone in the echo chamber of Facebook echo chamber is coming out.
Everyone that we know who, who we all talk to and all interact with who ignores
it completely ignores the other side.
We all just riot in, in, in anger, you know, and we don't participate in the
other side of the coin, you know,
and our anger is scared anger.
So it's, it's the worst kind of anger too.
A lot of the anger that people are displaying isn't Martin Luther King anger
cause his anger was filled with love.
Yeah.
And they talked about Neem Karoli Baba when he got angry, it was just love.
It was like his anger was love.
This is a scared petty anger where people are holding up signs that say, you
know, rape, uh, Melania Trump or like, you know, I didn't see that.
Yeah.
That people are doing that.
Or people are like, you know, uh, some people are, are making up fake stories
about attacks is an attempt to like, uh, in some way or another demonstrate the
world that we're now entering into.
Now I'm, I think they're real fucking attacks that are probably happening too.
But we, if we, when I say we, if there's a sum total of humans on the planet,
who's ideas, let's figure out a way to create a more perfect union, right?
And that's a beauty.
That's a, that's a really beautiful idea, a more perfect union.
How can we harmonize in an even better, more accelerated and advanced ways with
the people around us?
The way to do that is not to lie.
The way to do that is not to, uh, become the thing that you hate.
So anyway, and also the way to do it is like, come on, man, we got to see past this too.
It is to love Trump.
Doesn't mean you don't fight every step of the fucking way with this.
If his assholes start doing stupid things, there's so many beautiful, um, methods in
place, you know, the, the, to help, to fight this, you know, there's lots of ways that
we, that if stuff emerges that we need to fight, that we can fight.
Yeah.
So that's there for us.
It's just, and, but as we're doing that, I'm doing the thing where I say we, uh, I hate it.
Why do I do that?
I think there's another thing is this fucking collectivization in language where you
start doing like what we must do.
Yeah.
Honestly, I don't know.
That drives me crazy.
I feel so conflicted about that actually, because I guess I'm supposed to, I'm supposed
to share, uh, like be empathetic and, and less individualistic or something.
I'm supposed to, uh, be communing with my fellow brothers, you know, but also I'm
like, at the same time, I'm, I'm like, you don't represent my nuanced thoughts.
Like what you say isn't exactly me.
Right.
That's how, that's how I felt about, um, that's how I felt about, uh, because I'm
half Japanese and there was this thing, not to change the subject, but there was
this thing on Twitter when I was actually paying attention to Twitter a long time
ago, there was this thing, um, where, where this lady online was saying, um,
cancel Colbert or whatever.
Do you remember when that happened?
She was an Asian lady because Colbert made an Asian joke that actually, um, was
making fun of people making Asian jokes, but within the context of context of an
Asian joke, that's my memory of it.
And so she tried to start this Twitter, online Twitter, uh, thing against him to
get him fired.
And, uh, and she said, um, you don't, I forget what it was, but it was something
like I'll say, cancel Colbert and I was like, why are you representing all Asians?
Like I'm not you.
You're not me.
Like you're not speaking for me, but you're acting as if you are by saying we and
this kind of stuff, like saying all Asians, uh, feel this way.
I was more insulted by her assertion that she spoke for me.
It's obnoxious.
That's crazy obnoxious.
I was like, I got so angry at that.
It's the, the, what I love about what Victor Franco wrote about, and I love about the
concept of theism or God is that it gives you this blasphemous ability to, in the
face of whatever the horror is, because Victor Franco, it can't, you're getting
marched by Nazis and you can't get much worse than that.
Yeah.
That's the worst.
And even in the midst of that, he's feeling this trend, transcendental love for
the beloved, and the beloved doesn't act for him.
It was his wife, but this is, I think one of the gifts that this stuff that we're
talking about gives you, is it lets you lift your eyes from the human level to
something far, far greater and something that will last, something that won't go
away.
Now, when you do that, the idea is like, okay, from this platform, I can really do
good in the world.
Yeah.
If there's a fight against Trump or whatever, I can, from here, I can react
with confidence, whereas from the human level, it becomes so frightening and
pointless and ridiculous.
And repetitive and, you know, redundant, this redundant, uh, drama that, that
keeps happening over and over again.
And that, what that book that you're talking about, that's sort of, for me,
that, that the highest goal of like where I want to be able to get to, to be in a
situation of pure horror and be calm and, and, and be observing the sublime in that
moment.
Like if I can get to that courageous point, that's where, that's where I wish I
could get, you know, uh, could get to.
And that's, I don't know.
Yeah.
I don't know if I will or not, but, um,
well, the next time you, what I do, what I'd like to do is when I am in a
particularly shit spot throughout the day, whatever it may be, that's where I'm
like, Oh wait, can I find, if I can remember?
So, so I have a mnemonic trick.
So the, if I'm really feeling bad, I ask, well, what, wait, what am I
forgetting?
What am I forgetting?
Cause most of the time what I'm forgetting is that God is inside everything.
So when I'm feeling really bad, I'm like, what am I forgetting?
What am I forgetting here?
And then it's like, Oh shit, I forgot again.
I forgot again.
Okay, okay, okay.
Can I find it here?
Can I find it in this moment here with the, like with a pulsating doom hangover?
Yeah.
Can I find it here?
And then you start doing the, so now at least it gives you a game to play inside
the horror, because instead of being in the horror, which is to react to the
whatever the thing is, right?
And then you're reacting to it.
It gives you a mini game to play inside of, which is like, wait a minute,
wait a minute, like what you said, where is the, in this tarot card, where is the
wisdom, where is the love or the, for me, it's God.
And I, you know, and if you find it, then bam, instant transformation of the
experience and that's also going to affect the way you interact with other people.
I hope, you know, the way you treat other people who, who have different opinions
that you have had different experiences than you, who have different things that
they're rallying against, you can find that common light and they can feel it.
Yeah.
And then it doesn't, then they don't give a shit about what you, what you think
about some material world drama, you know, they acknowledge you as a human
being, as a living, living being.
They know you're seeing past whatever the thing is, into the deeper thing.
And I like to make, I like to make friends with those people, people who
have really different views for me.
Yeah.
They're the best.
I have a friend Seth who's like a conservative Republican and I love talking
to that guy.
They're the best to talk to.
Yeah.
Cause you learned that you can't be in the filter bubble, man.
You got to get out of the filter bubble.
If you get stuck in that fucking thing, you will get so lost and it doesn't,
it doesn't matter because you're not doing it.
It's from that.
I saw the preview of that movie.
You were talking about what it's called.
Oh, hyper normalization.
Yeah.
Where it shows all the computer, computer servers that, and you know,
like the, the, the stock footage that always represents tweets coming into a
server, flickering lights that are, it's like you've transformed your outrage
into flickering lights on a server somewhere.
Then those flickering lights are being filtered so that your tweets are only
going to people who agree with you anyway.
So who fucking cares?
Right.
Go yell your outrage in a hole might as well.
Yeah, go dig a fucking hole and scream about it feels good.
It feels good to do that.
Cause it's like you're, you're getting feedback from a mirror.
You're just looking at yourself and screaming and feeling, feeling good about
it feels great.
Yeah.
The likes feel good.
Yeah.
The likes feel good, man.
That's how we're going to end right there.
Okay.
That's our final, this is the final.
Give me some likes.
This is the true realization from the great esoteric wisdom of the ages.
It's nice to get likes on Twitter.
This is nice.
Man, this has been, although I had to quit Twitter because I couldn't take,
I couldn't take it.
Dude, have you been watching black mirror?
No.
Okay.
You got to watch the first episode of the latest season of black mirror.
I'm not going to go, but the premise is it's a world where you can,
rate every interaction you have.
Oh, Jesus.
So when people pass other people, they like click their phone to give them like
likes, but if you have low, a low score on this thing, you will like have trouble
getting a good apartment.
You know what I mean?
It fucks you up.
You can't get a good job.
It's really cool.
Anyway, look, man, you're the best.
How can people find you?
Uh, just my website with Jesse Moynihan, Jesse Moynihan.com.
That's where I update my, my comics and, and I have blogs and all that kind of
stuff on there.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
Man, you should give a tarot card class.
I still need to take tarot card classes, I think.
Well, you know, they say the best way to learn is to teach.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
Man, if you took one, I would sign up in a heartbeat.
Think about it.
All right.
Cool.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Thanks Duncan.
That was Jesse Moynihan everybody.
If you like Jesse, why don't you go to his website?
Jesse Moynihan.com.
Much thanks to me undies.com for sponsoring this episode.
Go to me undies.com forward slash Duncan to get 20% off a brand new pair of underwear.
Be sure to give us a nice rating on iTunes.
Use our Amazon links, subscribe to us and subscribe to the idea that you're
surrounded by secret wisdom and you can harvest it at any moment.
I'll see you guys next week.
Hare Krishna.
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