Liminality and Species of initiation

17:56the Golden Dawn. Um, and you know, I've told that story. that's wellworn ter territory about how I discovered them and you know it was some a book from some dead dead lady's apartment kind of led me there and uh and that was a threshold moment but I chose to walk backwards out of the threshold. I chose to say I'm not going to do this. That was a no call, no show for my first initiation ceremony. And I went and I chose to be a bartender and a and a musician in New York City instead. And

18:30uh I mean it left a black mark on my soul for sure. Um that whole experience was all the you know that was when I became dark you know that really that whole period made me very dark person. Um uh but again there's that free will and determinism component. You know in life you're going to get where you need to go. You're going to start here, you're going to end here. And it's just about you going to take the straight line or you going to go the circuitous path. And of course I I always learned the hard

19:05way. So I took the circuitous path and and I built a house of cards. God knocked it down and then okay, let's try this again. Go back to the Golden Dawn. And so that's exactly what I did. And uh and and you know since then, right? Because the Golden Dawn is is predicated for anybody who knows anything about Golden Dawn ritual. All you're doing is go is in the liinal space. You're in between those pillars the whole goddamn time until you get to the inner order and then you're there's

19:34another place they put you, you know? So you're constantly in a liinal space in the Golden Dawn and in initiatic orders. You're between the pillars. Um that's that's what it means to be an initiate. And if you harden in any way that you if you become if you become rigid um in ways that are complete entire, you know, like there's it's it's there's it's there's a difference between having a very strong opinion and and being completely rigid where there's no exceptions to this

20:15rule, you know, there's no give um on something. Well, you know that you're not really in the liinal space anymore because liinal space is about divesting you of everything that it was prologue to this moment. And um it is a it is an amnionic space where you can be born again. You can be born again. And you need to we need that's why we need initiation in order to change. Most of the time, you know, it's either initiation or severe trauma, near-death experience. Somebody you is very close

20:46to you dies. You're beaten within inches of your life. You're in a train wreck, whatever, what have you. It's like these we need initiation to create this like, okay, from this day forward. And now it's not even just the fact that people are initiating you and you're standing there between the pillars, but like you go through something. You you have an ordeal. you know, and it makes you believe that this is a new day. We need that. And I'm just talking about the psychological

21:18components. Forget the astral and the etheric and the symbolic and and the deeply deeply, you know, psychosspiritual components of ritual which are there. But just if you want to talk about it on Yungian terms, because this is where this all comes from, limonality and things like that. It all comes from Yungian psychology which people they're too heavy-handed with it. They don't know what the [ __ ] they're doing uh with with Yungian and psychology. But, um, that's where we get the idea of this and and and if you want

21:49to talk about it like that, it's it's about creating the potential. Um, something happened. You know, you're on this straight road and but something happened and it puts you off in a in a different direction. Um, I would say, you know, point of no return, trauma, you know, when when my when my friend died, I was I was never going to be the same. But there was a war. Which way would I go? Would I go deeper into drugs? Would I go deeper into self-loathing? Because I walked away from this person who was my friend, but

22:28who was struggling. He had an addiction. I felt I couldn't help him, but I walked away. I would tell you that right now. You know, like you should make amends with your loved ones. There's a lot of [ __ ] out there telling you like it's okay to write people off. No, it's not. Not if they mean anything to you. It's not okay. I guarant [ __ ] you know who says that? People who haven't experienced suffering. Real suffering. You know, okay, somebody called you an [ __ ] Somebody made you embarrassed.

22:56You know, so big [ __ ] deal. when that person is gone cold dead in the ground, you you realize what a piece of [ __ ] you were, you know, because I I should have been I I could have been the better person and therefore I should have been obligated to be that better person, but I let the weakest parts of me whisper in my ear and make me turn away from what I knew was the right thing in my heart. you know, envy, you know, resentment, get the better of us. This is a tale as old as [ __ ] time. This is we keep

23:32telling ourselves these trying to teach ourselves these lessons. But that was that was a that was the the the transformational moment because in the in an initiatic order, you can walk away anytime you want until that doesn't mean you're not going to be like, let's say for instance, you go through the Golden Dawn and you make it to the theoricus grade, you know, air. If you leave in that grade, you're in that grade for the rest of your [ __ ] life. You know, you're in air for the rest of your life.

23:59If if you leave, so you better be you better be comfortable with that element, which I am not. So, but but you you can turn around in initiatic orders. But the real heavy stuff for me has always been, you know, irreparable life changes that are just You know, I used to say when I was a little bit more cynical that life is kind of just boredom punctuated by the unthinkable. — Um I'm not sure I agree with that anymore, but but um but yes, so I mean there's there's lots of uh liinal I

24:40still have the liinal moments. They just come in in different forms. In magic, what you're going to do is you're going to be very specific about what kind of threshold you're walking through. You know, it's it's becomes less about less like, you know, um total life destruction, renovation, and more so like, okay, I'm I'm an initiate in the Zelada grade, Zotter Adeptus Minor. the things I'm going to face are going to have to do with, you know, the liinal space I'm going to be in is

25:14uh finances, property, you know, uh health, my physical body, things like that. Those that's and then there's there's there's uh you know, astrology that comes into play, your professions and things like that. Which house is is it for you this year? I think I'm in a I'm in a third house year, I think, or I'm entering into a third house year. Yeah. Um, so profession year. So there's stuff like that that you can kind of take a look see if there's any major transits, you

25:45know, that any planets transiting your, you know, your your natal positions or your natal houses and things like that. And and that will definitely show you like, okay, this is what we're going to focus on this year or uh or whatever period of time it is. But I mean — you know it it just it gets we veer off the path of when you talk about limonality especially for me I could be very high flulutin about it and talk about initiation but truly like like the most transformative experiences have

26:18been when my have been like life has delivered those to me. M — uh sort of related on this maybe you can speak to this more but it's my intuition because I think there's maybe it's correct, maybe it's not. I wouldn't really know because I'm not as far along. Um but you know as somebody myself who's always just fascinated with different aspects of consciousness and engaging in a tangible relationship with aspects of consciousness is uh from I'm I've been largely interested in

27:13substancebased interactions. Um, but kind of over time been drawn more now to being able to like you had spoken to more specifically being able to direct in my baseline sober state, my sober baseline mind state. being able to hone my own faculties in order to achieve uh engaging with these different uh aspects of consciousness because I've always found it fascinating and interesting and I still do the substance-based um inducement of experience and I don't deny that that is that has its benefits for certain instances or

28:13that it has its own forms of initiation. But I don't intuitively feel like those initiatic experiences are the same um sorts of initiatic experiences one goes through in a more uh in a more systematic lineage. you know, such as someone yourself. You're more you've experienced both substance substances um in different varieties as well as your uh path of initiation and your whole journey being as far along as you are now. I feel like you have a pretty uh a pretty uh solid understanding a little bit of

29:04both ends of that spectrum. And so I would love to hear if you could speak to, you know, I hear a lot of people either describe things like, well, I mean, I I think they have the association that doing a a particular drug is going to give them the same initiatic experience as something like an order would. And it just to me I don't think that that is even the the right way of looking at it at all. — Not at all. Not at all. Um there's a couple of things. You're not in control when you take a

29:47substance. The substance is in control of you. Um secondly, the substance comes with its own hierarchy of intelligence, its own onlogical hierarchy. And you you know if you're not trained you that's like people say like oh the plant mother was speaking to me. You don't know what the [ __ ] that thing is. You you there's not like I believe you that something but you don't know what it is. You might think you know because somebody in some you know in a head shop told you like I

30:18don't know it's it's whatever plan the mother earth or something like that but you don't know. And what's even funnier is you don't know how to test that. You're you're going on somebody else's word. Now you are bound you are bound to an ontological chain. They have visited your your not only have they been inside your body, they visited an your entire etheric field. Uh and so that's a very you know would you do that with a per with any person you know would you do that with any

30:55spirit you know no we we summon spirits into a triangle at a good distance you know be sure but when you embibe a substance that comes with its own onlogical hierarchy of intelligence and spirits everything has that hierarchy to one degree or another attenuated energies that are intelligent and they can lie just as well as we can, especially if you're in a disadvantaged state. Um, I will say that, you know, some some substances are good at giving you a moment of presence of severity of of clarity in terms of but

31:40that's not that's a lesser initiation. Some people need the lesser initiations. thing is you don't want to become dependent on it you know otherwise that clarity turns to you it's not clarity anymore um another thing is you never get to discover who you are who are you untouched untainted you know what do you stand for you know they used to say like it's not recovery it's discovery spent so much of my life taking substances whether it's [ __ ] coffee or cocaine you know or whiskey or what have you,

32:15you know, [ __ ] taking prescription medications for for schizophrenics just for fun, you know? It was unbelievable. I took Cerakquil. You'd be asleep for 40 48 hours. We used to call it the prison pill, you know, if like you just you had it was like you were in a bad mood, you were depressed, just pop one of these [ __ ] you'd be asleep for two days. It's, you know, it's it's not it's it's not a way to to be in the world. You know, you don't know who you are. You don't know who you are. Let the

32:48liquid be clear. Let me see what it's about. Let me taste it the way it tastes. You know that speaking metaphorically, we're talking about embibing souls. I mean, embibing drinks. I'm talking about the soul. Let me What is my what what is my base state like? Let me experience that for God's sake. And you know, know myself. We say know thyself and then you take [ __ ] drugs. That's not knowing yourself, pal. You know, you need to know how you you how you you act under pressure. And the

33:20thing is like there are other ways to go about it than having to be dependent on a material substance. You should be dependent on yourself. You can do it. You just need to learn how. The easy way is to put something in your body. You know, that's the easy way. Now, I I admit I I I have to admit, you know, it's hard to find reliable teachers and I talk about the Golden Dawn because my experience of it, I I'm 100% positive, was providential. I was meant to do this in my lifetime. That's why I walked away

33:57and I was smacked in the mouth and brought, you know, kicking and screaming back to the to the door. I was supposed to do this. Therefore, you know, my time in the Golden Dawn was providential in that I did not I never knew what the Golden Dawn was beforehand. I wasn't like these [ __ ] internet nerds out there like they know everything. They collect the robes, you know? I've got my got my fire wand, you know? It's like I didn't do that [ __ ] I was just a guy, you know, who like was

34:25interested in some of this stuff like kind of like the way you were. I learned about Freemasonry through like investigating the government stuff like that, you know, and like all the Dan Brown books and like, you know, Robert Lis and all those kind of like uh fantastic fant they they kind of um sensationalize that kind of stuff. And that's how I learned about it. Um, and then all of a sudden I'm in the Golden Dawn and I didn't I didn't have any expectations to project onto it. You

34:58know, you talk to people and they're like they talk about how like frustrating it was and you did all this [ __ ] beforehand. You pumped your [ __ ] head full of stuff like how I what to expect. What is a spiritual experience? And then you go through this completely archaic system that has hierarchy which nobody likes anymore. um requires discipline, which nobody likes anymore. You know, it's these things are not in vogue. They're not they're not systems that normal that like modern people

35:30like find allable. So, um but that doesn't mean that they're not great, you know, it's just that can we live up to them? And that's the thing. If you look at the Golden Dawn, it's like their strictctures are like way way way lax compared to some like being in the neoplatonic school of theology or something — like you got I mean like an a an a modern person there's no [ __ ] way there's no way that they could even get into the gate of the academy. That's how

36:04far [ __ ] behind we are. Like we are we are in like remedial math here, you know? like like it's it's it's going to take a it's going to take a lot to to get us to like where we need to be and people want to take drugs. Now the thing is also that I do have to say I don't include in this category um like I don't include initiatic alchemical substances that are that are properly prepared and done by a by a master alchemist. I do believe that those substances can be initiatic because of the state of

36:40consciousness that the alchemist has to have already cultivated in order to be able to make these things. So um that I see as a totally different thing — and there's a whole process of exaltation going on and purification and I mean — yeah I mean — yes — the virtue — and the thing is the thing is like yeah we talk about the kikon and stuff like that and of the alusinian myth first of all we don't [ __ ] know what that was. We don't know what was in it. It's a lot

37:10of hearsay, rumors, conjecture. We don't have a recipe. We can infer based off of the urgot that be, you know, that like grows on the grain that was supposedly on the hills there, but we don't know what it was. We don't know what what they were doing, what they were drinking, um, uh, what they were embibing. Now, that's the first case. The second case is again you know that was an initiation that was a lesser initiation. I had that lesser initiation, that lesser liinal threshold

37:46where like it my like investigation into like the the falsehood of everything was happened in in tandem with you know recreational drug usage, marijuana, LSD, things like that, psychotropics, psychedelics, um enthogenic stuff, not stimulants, not narcotics, uh but stuff that's going to like open your mind a bit and uh that's a lesser initiation for sure. The Alusinian Mysteries was open to the public, you know, it wasn't a priestly initiation like you know where like they were doing this behind closed doors

38:21something like Dendara in Egypt you know where it's like this is just for priests. No, like anybody could do that. Um mostly there were certain qualifications but like it was open to the public. Um, and you know, I do think there I entertain the idea that there was a psychedelic or antio component to, but I don't think that was the end- all beall. I it's not it's not possible because what happens when you do that is that now you've gone from you use all this fancy language about,

38:53you know, noetics and things like that, platonic theology, but at the end of the day, you're requiring a physical answer to a to a spiritual question. You're you're you're requiring the fact that like okay, what's the spiritual component of this? All right. Well, it had to have been it had to have been because they took a substance. You know, it's like people who say like the pyramids had to have been built by aliens. It's like you're you're reducing this down to

39:21um what is familiar to you and you're looking at you're examining spiritual things not on the same page that the people who wrote this stuff. You're retrofitting this stuff for what you have experienced and what makes sense to your materialist paradigm. You can be like gung-ho into the occult and spirituality and still be looking at it through a materialist paradigm. You won't even realize it, you know, like you were born with this shirt. You have no you don't even realize that you're

39:54doing that. So it's to a certain extent it's not productive to this to being able to understand spirituality. And I don't say this from an analytical. I I have experienced these things and so like the way people are describing them and talking about them is not the way they are actually experienced, you know, because there is commonality. If there was no commonality and everyone experienced it differently, there'd be no [ __ ] way we could communicate this. And there are vast chains,

40:28transmissions of initiation, you know, like we have people because there are commonalities to experience and and like the drug thing is it's I mean it's it's just cracking the door. — It's just cracking the door. — Well, I think one of the terms I've heard you say multiple times is a species of initiation. Um, and I think that's the perfect way to describe this because it's exactly that. It's a species. It's not the only form of initiation. There are not

41:09there's all I mean even if you look at uh psychedelic induced experiences themselves there are different species within within within all that I mean there's completely different uh experiences in terms of how different forms of substances affect your consciousness And so to say it's all achieving the same realization or uh revelation or experience is just crazy to me. Um but I want to I have a few more questions on that, but I want to wait because it's kind of related to a couple questions

42:00that are coming down the line. Um, — okay. — If you're cool with that, I want to ask uh — yeah, I just the the the only thing that I want to say in tandem with that is like — I'm not like I'm not anti like I don't you know the the drug culture tends to have this thing where it's like if you're not with us, you're against us. I'm not against it, — right? — You know, do whatever the [ __ ] you want with your life. You're really not that

42:24special. You you know, like it's you you might hold yourself at some we're part of the rebellion. we're the counterculture. Okay, go scratch. You know, like you're you're not that significant in the overall scheme of things. None of us are. Um, but do what you want to do. But if we're talking about initiation and and and those spiritual processes, I do think that I've been around long enough. I know long enough. you know, I I know enough and I've, you know, I've

42:58been able to demonstraably, you know, proceed along this trajectory of initiation for long enough and successfully enough to be able to say like drugs ain't it. It's almost it's kind of an idea that comes into my head is thinking about using like a like an artificial fertilizer versus cultivating like a healthy biodnamic soil that's going to be sustainable or something like that. — That's an amazing analogy. — Thank you. — Put that in a book so nobody steals it.

43:36— All right. Um Austin asks, "Thoughts on dreams from a magical viewpoint. Personally, the intensity and frequency of my dreams has increased significantly, and it's hard to know what to think. Do we take them seriously? Do we disregard them? Is this our subconscious slash other entities actually interacting with us and telling us things?" Well, I mean, you've had a lot of crazy dreams. Why don't you start, — man? Um,