I'm Dr. Justin Sledge and welcome to Esoterica: Where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion.
This channel produces content relating to topics such as alchemy, magic, Kabbalah, mysticism, hermetic philosophy, theosophy, the occult and more using the best academic scholarship currently available.
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The slap in the face or punch or Freemasonry’s dagger to the back and pledge… has always made me realize I’d never do well in organized occult despite I love the subjects. As also being working class when some turd came up to slap or punch me: I’d just punch them in the face and point out the pain in my hand now will remind me just fine… and at least you got a refresher course kid… “new rule, have the initiate punch a master the pain of punch Is the same equivalent and teaches spiritual defence….why do you all look scared?” Or as with the other one: you think your cool then you realize you broke the nose of some 57yo lawyer who was just doing his job with your elbow… And again find yourself asking, “Why are you all suddenly terrified? What’d you expect to happen?” Which is why I’ve learned as fascinating as some of these occult clubs, orders etc are… I’m really to untrusting…to join them. But thanks for the peak inside Doc. It’s beyond interesting to see someone using a more artistic approach to the ritual interpretation whose direct and clear vs falling back on the language of symbolic vagueness.
I applaud Lynn and her contribution to the community! She's an absolutely incredible speaker and had me enthralled for the entire hour. As one queer occultist to another, thank you!!
2nd week Sept. 1973, cloudless high blue sky, summer temp, I explained how everything is connected thus everything is ONE. Didn't change my life. But, still... Everything Is One.
Maevius Lynn! 🎉 🌌 🌟 I wish I had disocvered her content long ago! So thrilled now to hop onto the excellent Esoterica channel of Dr Justin Sledge! 🎉 📖 📜 📚 🌌 I so appreciate her articulation and lucid explanation of key Thelemic concepts and breaking them down into a distilled instructive takeaway. Ya know, I wish I HAD gotten into Nietzsche sooner as a kind of starter beginner philosophy understanding and see how that evolves over time. Kudos to the younger starters of attempting to read philosophy and what nihilism is and is not! It's not like they're blindly egoically espousing, say, A. Rand headlong! And they can always adjust and shift any misunderstandings of concepts and intent. Which is a goal of philosophical inquiry! Otherwise, that leads into the precarious slope of allowing appropriation and misrepresentation to take hold, if it becomes an absolutist all or nothing proposition. Which, itself is a kind of unexamined gatekeeping. That aside, thank you Dr Justin Sledge, for this wonderful interview with a now favorite instructive female practitioner of a specific stream and milieu, Thelema, and informing wider ceremonial magick, for practitioners, veteran and beginner! Insightful thought provoking instructive questions! 🎉 🙏 🌌 🏹 🎯 📖 📚 📜 🌟
H.P Lovecraft has got to be the coolest author name in all known western civilization..I feel like Clive Barker, for instance would of been even more popular today if he had a name like Lovecraft
At the point of writing this comment, the channel (one of my favorites) has 666k subscribers. Ominous... But I actually came to say that I had the same notion about Jordan Peterson, Mr. Nobody Knows (and then gets criticized by the experts who deal with the subject), as he mentions for Iliade and Jung: cherrypicking ideas, separating them from context, and then using them for own rhetorical goal.
Hi, Dr. Sledge. I am one of your 'philosophy people.' I just wanted to compliment you on (and thank you for) a concise summary of ancient philosophy that doesn't suck. It was highly informative without rambling, and you didn't talk just to hear yourself. The role played by occultism in the resurgence of realism was something quite new to me. My education is admittedly sparse in that area. I know more than many of my peers, but I would sit like a kid with my chin in my hands, just listening, around you and @ModernHermeticist. In my experience, if you get any history of philosophy in the medieval period in departments in (most of) the anglophone world, you pretty much jump from Aquinas to Descartes; from there, medieval metaphysics is mostly abandoned, and the de facto 'beginning of western philosophy' shifts to the debates between empiricism and rationalism. Forget the Renaissance! Renaissance who?
ur intro is the most incredible intro to exist. Never been a cooler intro. Thank you for sharing all the info you've read. Not wording this well.....just got off from work and not really wanting to spend much time on my wording here. Thanks for everything
I paused this video several times to find and watch relevant episodes of History with Cy and now I feel like I just took an entire college course. When's the exam?
Edit : In greek mythology, the mighty monster Typhon (ΤΥΦΩΝ/ΤΥΦΑΩΝ) (typhoon, storm) father of all monsters, who was feared by the olympian gods, managed to overthrow the established order of Olympus (chaos), forcing the olympians to flee in fear towards Egypt, where they hid taking forms of animals (ancient greek - egyptian theology intersection), while Typhon was personified as Set the (olympian) god killer/hunter. Even in the ars goetia, the opening citation of the ioerbeth logos, which is in greek, clearly refers to this dual deity as one and the same (ΤΥΦΩΝ ΣΗΘ = Typhon Set). Being born a greek is a blessing. Having this language as their first and primary, one can comprehend the Logos to a deep level in my opinion. The greek society however, is, well, let's say not very fond of the studying of the occult.
Will Power equals the strength of ones magik that is used to shape reality. Just as much as we are creators, we are co-creators and so those with the Strongest Will shape our reality most. When each of us know, understand and apply our own Will Power in coherence with each other, well I imagine Heaven on Earth is the result. All the best, Namaste.
This video has been stuck in my head since the day it dropped. As a Hermetic mystic, engaging with the body has become a major part of my spirituality, with time at the gym framed as a devotional practice dedicated to Mars. I have been developing my own mysticism of the body ever since watching this video as my approach is so different from Mishima's. It has a lot to do with dismantling the ideas of beauty that hold us back from trying to achieve and developing your own confidence and personal power through physical activity. The goal is not to have a "perfect" body but to build a better relationship with the physical parts of one's being. Thinking about doing a RU-vid series about it.
I would like to know if Maevius Lynn works magic in favor of Feminism. I hope so! It needs to be supported on every level of existence. But, no pressure from me. It's just that I would support that.
As always, thank you guys so very much for all your videos that you share with the rest of us there was a question I have for ya- do you know anything about the borelest books?? cuz I've been trying to find them but they're very very hard to find. Could you maybe put a link down if you know of one or any info on them thanks
Until I watched this, I thought that Simonians had hatched their cosmology on their own, but this seems similar to these Jewish mystics. This could have been inserted into the Pauline Epistle as proto-orthdoxy was influenced by the Simonians in the later second century as they started to adopt more of the Jesus narrative in the third generation. Luke/Acts was likely written during this time. Since the Apostolikon fails to mention Paul's vision, and both Canonical Paul and Acts hits it hard, maybe this was a late addition, not associated with the historical Paul, but something that later Christian thinkers inserted in this period of Christian synthesis. It smacks of Gnositism, and could be the influence Simon's or Valentinus' followers. The Jewish texts could be influencing second century development, not the first century Paul.
People are always trying to make magic sound dangerous but if you actually practice, you'll learn that almost all of that is just talk and not actually based on anything
Wow, what an amazing video! 🎉 The production quality is impeccable, and the content is very well explained. You really know how to capture the audience's attention and make learning fun and engaging. Every detail was carefully thought out, from the editing to the soundtrack. I can't wait to see more videos like this! Congratulations on the excellent work and keep it up! 👏👏
Thank you both for sharing your delightful conversation with all of us out in the world. I adore your work, Dr. Sledge, as you know, and Lynn, you are a truly inspiring and brilliant human being, and it is very heartening to hear of your success in your chosen path. I myself am a queer woman and a lapsed Thelemite, and I left due in part to the very masculinity-centric environment that prevailed most of the time in the Order, insofar as I experienced it. It is good to know that some women are finding the Order (and the world of Crowleyana) helpful to their spiritual and personal growth. I can't help thinking that if there had been more people of your caliber, Lynn, in my local lodge, then I mightn't have been as quick to depart. Besides wishing to say hello and to sing my praises to the two of you, I wanted to share the following: Two of my dearest friends in the OTO, both magicians of quite an advanced degree of skill and experience, have been scrying the Aethyrs together for quite some time now, and they too were trepidatious about facing the dreaded 10th Aethyr. When they reached it, they did encounter a fairly strong cloud of negativity, which mainly preyed upon their sense of self worth and their confidence, at least momentarily. After a short time, however, they were both able to push beyond the miasma of ugliness rather easily, and after that, the rest of the scrying session was perfectly serene and peaceful. They had come to the Aethyr with the attitude of soldiers confronting a mortal foe, but it turned out that their native sense of inner strength was all that was required to see them through. It sounded to me as though there is something in that Aethyr which acts as a gatekeeper, and tests the mettle of anybody who attempts to pass beyond its threshold, but once one has demonstrated sufficient strength of character, the attack abates and the rest is nothing to worry about. Of course, this could be different when you arrive there yourself, and I would advise wariness and caution, but I would strongly advise AGAINST fear, since fear seems to be the weakness that this Aethyric entity preys upon the most. You show exceptional courage and strength of character, so I have no doubt that your own experience with the 10th will not go amiss. I just felt like saying that, for what it's worth. All the best to you in Ceremonial Magician Land! (Sending you bright blessings from Witchville.) --N