S5E10 - The Secret Knowledge (Theosophy)

0:15 Chris: We're on our way, headed to downtown LA. That rhymed downtown LA stuff. Say what it is. Kayla: Am I supposed to know what it is? Chris: You know what it is. Kayla: We're going to a building that was built in 1927, just a stone's throw from USC, if you know Los Angeles at all. Chris: So. Kayla: Right. Just outside the heart of downtown, we're getting to go and visit something that is, like, part of old Los Angeles. Like, this is. It's. It's both, like, route experience and route content. So. Very excited. Chris: Yeah. Plus, it's, like, technically a class. I guess we're going to talk about stuff. So it's.

0:55 Kayla: Are we going to get graded? Chris: I certainly hope so. Kayla: I'm just going to say it again. I'm so excited. This is. This is the. This is the kind of thing that I love and I'm probably gonna have joined it by the end of this episode. Chris: Welcome to Culture. Just weird. I'm Chris. I'm a game designer and data scientist.

1:39 Kayla: I'm Kayla. I'm a tv writer. And I am also welcoming you to cult or just weird. Chris: Thanks for joining us again. So it's been a while since you've been to a class. Right? How was it? How was it going back to class? Kayla: Two things. Two initial thoughts. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Very disappointed that I wasn't graded at the end of it. Chris: I know, class. I know. Kayla: Smass class. Smass class. Smass. Chris: What the hell is that? Kayla: Like. Chris: Oh, like pish posh. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, it was barely class. Like, it wasn't like a lecture hall. Kayla: It was not. Chris: It was a round table. Kayla: Yeah, I disagree that it was barely a class. I think it was actually quite probably one of the more informative classes I've taken in recent memory because this was literally somebody who was personally schooled in the teachings that were learning about and was then bringing those learnings to a larger group. And this is very esoteric knowledge. This is knowledge that is. This is information that's not common in western thought, you know, outside of theosophy circles, esoteric circles, occultist circles.

2:54 Chris: Yeah. And the discussion leader was more like, he definitely took the bulk of the speaking time, but, like, not in a bad way and more of like a teacher sort of way. Like he was. He was instructing on the concepts. Kayla: So to, you know, I just don't. Chris: Want people to think that were in, like, a lecture hall. Kayla: We were not in a lecture hall. We were in, like you said, like sitting in the round. We're all sitting around a table. So this class was called. It was called a weekly study group. Not really a class. It's called a study group. Chris: So I was right. Kayla: Yeah. It was titled the pearls of Wisdom from the secret doctrine, Jogchin and Vedanta. And this is what went to today. And so the way it was. Chris: I got some pearls.

3:36 Kayla: I definitely got pearls. The way it was set up was that there were three specific readings that were pulled from sacred texts in this school of knowledge and related schools of knowledge. Chris: Well, you did say the name of the class, which I don't even know if that gives it away. So the problem with this topic or not the problem, the thing that makes it a little bit challenging is that it's so broad, it cuts such a broad scope in terms of, like, the topics it covers. And the other, in fact, that's one of the key defining features I would actually say about this topic, is that it is supposed to be sort of like, all encompassing of religious knowledge, traditions. But let's just cut to the chase and say what it is. Topic is theosophy. And Kayla and I today went down to the old theosophy hall, the United Lodge of Theosophists in downtown LA, founded in 1927.

4:42 Kayla: This building was amazing. Chris: It was haunted. Kayla: It was definitely haunted. It's almost a hundred years, for sure. Chris: Haunted. Kayla: Almost 100 years old. And I want to get into a description of the building. I just want to quickly finish my description of the class. Chris: Oh, yeah, please do. I just. I was interrupting just to, like. We should probably just tell everyone what we're talking about. Kayla: It's theosophy, guys. You know, we've talked about the. We've talked, I think probably the first time we talked about theosophy and its founder, Madame Blavatsky, was in season one, when we talked about tulpas. That was probably the first time we talked about theosophy. And it has come up multiple times since then, because DNA is kind of. Chris: In a lot of things. Kayla: Yeah, yeah. And so it's kind of cool to go to the source in a lot of ways.

5:27 Chris: Yeah. Well, what's weird about it is, and we'll get to this, because we have this weird format today. We went to this class, this discussion group, before doing, like the. Before really doing the bulk of the research on the founding and the history and the yada, all that context stuff we normally do first. We're actually doing that second this time. So there's definitely an element of. We'll get to that for our own purposes, even from our own perspective this time. Kayla: So this class that went to, this study group that went to, there were three readings that were pulled from various texts, and essentially, the study group was a close reading of these three related texts where all of us read them together. The teacher of the class, the leader of the class, who has more training, gave kind of his understanding of the close reading, and then it was opened up to discussion amongst all of the other students, because it seemed like the idea was that everybody here are students, including the person leading the class. So we're all here to learn from each other and give our interpretations and, like, find that wisdom and that intuition within that. So much of this school of thought is centered around.

6:40 Chris: Yeah. This particular branch of theosophical movement, from what I understand is that is another one of their sort of core themes, is, like, everybody's kind of a student. There's no real. There's no leader, per se. There's just, like, a bunch of people studying the thing, which I think is kind of cool, actually. Kayla: Obviously, everybody listening will want a description and understanding of what theosophy is. Chris: We'll get to that. Kayla: Can you give a little. Just a little summary, just so people who maybe have never listened to our other episodes have an understanding? I can give my layperson summary, but you're kind of the shepherd of this episode. Chris: I'm the shepherd. Sode.

7:21 Kayla: You have some literature with you that you could. Chris: What else do you want me to skip? Because we picked up. Sorry, I have to do that. There we go. We picked up a couple of little pamphlets. This one says theosophy. Simply stated, kayla, I'm not just gonna read a pamphlet on the podcast, but I think I can give a summary. Like, it the problem or the. Again, the challenge with this, as I said previously, is that it cuts this broad scope. So it's like, because of that, it's kind of hard to pin down, like, exactly what it is. At its core, it seems like it's just people who are truth seekers, and I know that's a bit of a loaded word these days. Not truth seekers like you might see on a twitter profile, but more people who are interested in the study of knowledge. It's very close to just philosophy.

8:17 Chris: In fact, I. I kind of think it basically is just a philosophical discussion group, but it has this esoteric eastern knowledge flavor to it. Kayla: Right. Chris: And I will get into, like I said, I'll get into more details about, like, where it was founded and who founded it and schisms and yada, yada. But that's kind of. At the core of what it is. And that's why it's a little hard to pin down, because it's not like it's these people in this place with these beliefs. It's like. It's loosely a bunch of people that are interested in philosophy, but they call it theosophy. Kayla: We are talking about an organization that's been around for, what, 150 years? Chris: Yeah, a little less than 150, I think. Kayla: So that's why truth seekers comes with a different connotation. This is people who. They're not trying to figure out what's in your vaccine. They're trying to figure out what is the true spiritual nature of, like, existence. Right, right.

9:14 Chris: But I also can't say. Kayla: Not even existence, but, like, existence in the universe. Chris: Yeah, yeah. And I also can't say for sure, like, there probably are anti vaxxers. I have no idea. Like, that's kind of the thing is that it's like, it's very. Kayla: That's not the core of the. Chris: It's very open. Like, you know how some of our groups have high dogma? This is like anti dogma. Kayla: It's like that was talked about in the class today. Yeah, that was actually. I don't want to jump ahead. What I want to do is I would really like to just kind of set the setting because this building felt different. Chris: Oh, yeah. Kayla: Than other buildings that I've been in. And again, this building is almost 100 years old. And you felt that when you were walking in. It is in a part of Los Angeles that at the time, it's very different now. It's kind of a more disenfranchised area. Again, it's the USC area. It's a more disenfranchised area. So it's very interesting to have this heart of a philosophical movement seated in this area. So it was cool to pull up. And in an area where there's a lot of homeless folks, where there's a lot of closed businesses, where there are not a lot of people walking around or shops to pull up to a building that says theosophy Lodge in a big old looking sign. And then, yeah, you walk up to the entrance, and the entrance is all ornately carved.

10:44 Chris: I think that was the thing that was such a tone setter for me, that stone arch entrance. And it had their motto, which I haven't said yet, but their motto is, there is no religion higher than truth. So that's like in stone as you're walking through. And I'm like, I don't even remember the last building in Los Angeles that I walked into that had a stone, even aetherius and some of these other sort of more ornate places. It's not stone. There's something about stone. I don't know, maybe I'm obsessed with stone. It just felt different. Kayla: And then the, like, the writing on the door felt vintage and then the interior felt vintage. And it. I'm not going to be able to accurately describe the, like, the vibe of this place, but it did feel like walking into what you want a masonic temple to feel like what you want a place with secret knowledge to feel like you've never seen this show. But I was just having such flashes of. There's this show that I watched called Lodge 49.

11:48 Chris: Oh, yeah. Kayla: Wonderful, fantastic show about essentially like a masonic lodge of secret knowledge, like, you know, contrasted against the bizarre realities of everyday life. Very good show. Go watch it. But this is what that felt like. It felt like somebody wrote this. To be the platonic, like, lodge is the best. Chris: The platonic cult. Like I said to you when were walking down the hall, I was like, now, this is how you host a cult, because it was just very. But I know it's not. It's different. It's not quite cult. It's more like fraternal order. Kayla: It felt very fraternal order. It felt very like.

12:30 Chris: And I think that's because of the. Kayla: Somebody who wants and craves knowledge. You walk in here and you feel like, this is where I'm going to get it. Chris: Yeah. So I think just to describe it for our audience, if you're doing, close your eyes and imagine, especially if you're. Kayla: Driving, don't close your eyes if you're driving. Chris: It's like the floor, even the hallway floors are carpeted, so everything has this sort of aura of silence. And the air seems. The air feels old. It wasn't dusty and dust. Kayla: No, it didn't feel dirty or musty. Chris: But it felt like stale air, almost. Kayla: Even though stale is the right word. It felt like heavy. Like this air has been here and will be here. Stale, I feel like, has a connotation that I didn't feel like I was coming into this. And it was like my bread's hard. It felt like an institution.

13:24 Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So the air felt heavy. It was silent. And there was a lot of wood. You know, there was a lot of, like, wood paneling and like. Like mahogany type stuff. And there were like a bunch of different rooms. Like, some rooms were like, oh, yeah, that's the kitchen. And some rooms were like, the room were in was just, like, a meeting room, but then there was, like, a couple, like, office rooms where I'm like, I don't even know what the hell this room's for. There's, like, a bunch of books in there and, like, a device. I'm not sure what it does. Kayla: It looks like maybe they were set aside for different kinds of meetings. Like, there was one room that had a whole bunch of chairs all in a circle. There was another room that looked like somebody's and office where they would hold court to, like, people listening to what they had to say. Like, they didn't all look the same, but they looked like maybe they were for different purposes.

14:07 Chris: Yeah, it had an old timey vibe overall. And then we also checked out. We checked out their auditorium, which we couldn't find the light to. So it was, like, not quite pitch black, but it was pretty dark in there. Like, to the point we couldn't really. Kayla: See anything after we had been told that it was haunted, explicitly, like, oh, yeah, no, this is haunted. Chris: Like, yeah, it's haunted in there. And we get in there, and it's like, when I say, like, the air was heavy elsewhere. The air was light elsewhere compared to this. This was, like, just utter eerie silence in this auditorium, and it was totally dark. Could not find the light. It was like, I don't believe in ghosts, except for in that room. Kayla: I'm sure it's just the. The way we constructed buildings 100 years ago is different than the way we construct buildings now. Like, for example, it was 89 degrees today in Los Angeles, and I was not hot in this building, and I'm hot everywhere.

14:57 Chris: I was not hot in this building. Kayla: And I was especially not hot in that auditorium. And I think it's just, you know, it's probably related to the way that we constructed back in the day, but it just was. I made you, like, stop moving around. I was like, just stop and listen, and you can't hear shit. Chris: Stop. Hammer time. Kayla: Hammer time. And it was a cool space to be in. Chris: And when were walking, when were trying to find the room, before we got to the room and saw that there were, like, six or seven other people there might have been nobody there, like, walking in and going down the halls of this place, were like, are we the only people that have been here since 1927? It had that feel to it. But then we get into the room that actually hosted the discussion room, and then there were people there who were very welcoming.

15:47 Kayla: They were very welcoming. This was. It did not feel like this knowledge was being gatekept in any way, or this information was being gatekeeped in any way. It felt like they were really trying to do kind of the opposite of that. As difficult as it was to figure out how to attend a class, that was probably not intentional. Chris: Yeah, I don't think that was intentional. I think that was just, like the folks in this class jumping through the hoops. Kayla: The folks in this class had been together for a long time and were very welcoming to you and I, who are incredibly new to what were talking about. Chris: And I'll also say it was simulcast, simul meetingd, whatever, simul discussion on Zoom. So there was a zoom room in addition to the physical, in person room that were in. And the zoom room had, what would you say, like, twelve ish people?

16:30 Kayla: I think so. Chris: 15 people, something like that. And they were international. There were, like, some french people, there were some german people. I think there were people in other countries. So it was pretty cool. I don't know. Like, were in this, like, it was a small discussion group, but then also there were people from all over the world. Even though it was small, it was. It was interesting. Kayla: What. What would you say that this class was about today? What would you say that were talking about? Chris: Well, I took notes. I know you took notes, too. We did some readings, actually, before we did the readings, we started with a. Well, actually, it did start with a reading. It did start with, like, a statement that we did not close read, but was more of just like a. Like a vibe statement.

17:18 Kayla: It was something to meditate on. Chris: Something to meditate on. And then we had, like, what was it? Like, five minutes or so of silence, of silent meditation, five to ten. Kayla: There was some light guidance from the instructor. And then, yeah, were just in the space thinking on themes of that reading, which were inaccessible to me. It was clearly esoteric and maybe accessible to somebody who is more learned in these ideas. But, you know, I even wrote down some thoughts afterwards because it did bring some things up for me. Chris: I know we've said this several times now on the show, especially this season, but it did kind of feel like church. You know, like, it kind of felt like I was sitting there and I was like. Aside from, like, the physical space didn't really feel like church, aside from the oldness and the mahogany. But, you know, round. You don't go to a round table church. But the idea of, like, meeting with some folks on a Sunday morning to, like, meditate and then go over the readings with somebody who's like, more versed in it. That's very church like. That is church. I got that. I got that vibe from it. And my favorite part, I think, was that initial meditation. I really liked that we kicked off that way because it just kind of, like, set a tone.

18:30 Kayla: Yes, absolutely. And I agree with you that it feels like church, but I guess it's not even a but. And why I think I find myself responding to Sunday mornings more like this or more like at the ISKCON temple versus going to Catholic Church or going to a service at the Ethereus society. Is there really is a difference for me as somebody who, like, okay, yes, skeptic, but is thinking about, like, the nature of reality and consciousness, it is much. And somebody with ADHD, it is much easier. It is much easier, accessible to have these conversations in an interactive way and by, you know, loose meaning of conversation, to have these engagements in an interactive way versus sitting and simply listening to somebody with more knowledge tell me the stuff.

19:29 Kayla: And yes, this was a teacher giving his interpretation of the close reading, but everything was opened up to discussion. Everything was opened up to specifically calling for doubts, calling for questions, calling for alternative interpretations. And it was even clear that this study group that we walked into has been meeting from. For years. It seems like these folks all together, and one of these students who was not leading the class made it clear, like, oh, yeah. Well, my interpretation of this is actually quite different from our teachers. Let's talk about that for a second. And so that was cool to see, like, oh, hey, he's got a completely different, like, a kind of a diametrically opposed idea here that is still welcome and is still part of the discussion. And that kind of thing feels more like I'm going to keep coming back to that.

20:17 Kayla: I'm not going to keep coming back to. To etherea society or more traditional church. It doesn't engage me in the same way, but, like, kirtan hell yeah. This. Absolutely. Chris: Yeah. I think church with a different flavor that's, like, more palatable to you or to me. Right. Like, when I say church, I mean, like a community meditation on a Sunday morning followed by some sort of discussion. Right. It had that. I don't know, I just noticed. I just noticed that parallels, I think especially. Cause it was Sunday morning too. Right. That made it particularly, like, noticeable, but yeah. And I also liked the combination of the ritual meditation and discussion. I feel like maybe that's the other thing that made it feel churchy, is that I don't feel like you really get that so much. I don't know where else you really get that. I don't know where else you get that combination. It's like you either go for a lecture or you go for, like, meditation. You never really go for, like, meditation.

21:19 Chris: Then lecture. Kayla: Right. Chris: And I just. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like it did a good job. Kayla: Maybe like, world religion class. Chris: Like, yeah, and like you said, even with, you know, the meditation aspect of regular, of christian church followed by the discussion is not really discussion. It's. It's one way lecture. It's not the sort of two way or multi way discussion that this was. Kayla: The sermon is not inherently interactive in this way. Chris: Yeah. So we did a close reading. I'm gonna go ahead. Since they gave us a handout, I'm just gonna go ahead and read it because I think I want our audience to kind of get the same feeling, the same picture we did. I'm specifically thinking of the comment you made a few minutes ago about, like, yeah, we read this thing and were like, what? Cause it is to a layman, to a newbie, to a neophyte like ourselves, not super parsable.

22:22 Kayla: This needs. This requires guidance. My closest experience to this is reading Nathaniel Hawthorne in high school english class and then being like, what? And then the english teacher explaining it and then, oh, okay. Like, it's literally, it was that. Chris: It was very similar to that, actually. One of the. This wasn't the teacher today, but one of the members was an english teacher. And I was like, wow, that totally tracks, because, like, that's exactly what I did in English. In high school English. Kayla: There were also ties. I don't want to say any specifics because these are people's private lives. But there were also ties to. To manly P. Hall in this class, which I was very excited about, if you'll remember. Manly P. Hall was talked about in our first episode of this season because he founded the philosophical Research Society. So I just. Something that I've, you know, side notes, something that I've loved about this season and kind of focusing on the groups that are available to us in our geographical area is that they're all connected.

23:23 Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Every single one of them is connected. Chris: Yeah. Mainly Pl. He's also considered, if you recall, he's also considered the father of american esotericism. That's hard to say. But anyway, let me get back to this passage that we read. It's relatively short, so you guys kind of get a picture of what we're talking about here. The pristine consciousness of the originally pure essence is present. Like, pure space. The pristine consciousness of the naturally perfect nature is present like planets and stars reflected on the surface of a calm ocean, and the pristine consciousness of all pervasive compassion is present like a flawless gem. Those are the intrinsic characteristics of the pristine consciousness present in that way. The essence is present as Kaya's. The nature is present as light, and compassion is present as continuous.

24:23 Chris: Since the basis that arises through the aspect of compassion is present as unceasing, it is the pristine consciousness that pervades all. The nature is present as luminosity, because it is clear. Compassion is present as the pristine consciousness of Vidya, though manifesting individually. Since there is no cessation in the aspect of omniscience, it is neither an agent nor an action. As such, the aspect of omniscience is present as the trio of pristine consciousness that are present in the basis. So, you know, obviously. Kayla: Yeah, duh. Chris: I mean, I say this every day. Kayla: I say this every day. Yeah, I felt. I'm not gonna lie, I felt like a dumbass after he read this, because I was like, I don't know at all what we're talking about. And then as the class talked about it became clear why I don't know what we're talking about. All of those words, even though it's like, I know those words, all of those words mean something specific in either theosophy or jog chen vocab. So, like, when somebody says luminous mind, like, yeah, I know what that means in English, but I don't know what that means in these traditions. So having somebody who's able to spell out, like, what does pure consciousness or pure awareness or kayas or luminous luminosity, like, what do those mean in the context of these spiritual walks?

25:52 Kayla: And I don't know if we've said it yet, but jog Chen is a very esoteric form of Tibetan Buddhism. I don't know if we talked about it in the tulpas episode, but it is related. The school of beliefs that gave rise to tulpas as a concept in Tibetan Buddhism are similar in the schools of thought around Jog Chen, which we might be pronouncing incorrectly, but who knows? How do we spell it in English? It's spelled dzogchen. And it zhogchen kind of means, like, you know, the utmost, like ultimate yoga kind of thing, like the highest spiritual path, most esoteric.

26:33 Chris: So you got Tibetan Buddhism, which is already pretty spiritual, and then this is, like, super secret Tibetan Buddhism. Kayla: That's my understanding. Chris: Just super spiritual. Kayla: And so that's specifically what were talking about today. Chris: Right, right. And. Yeah. And I just remember, like, getting to the end of that passage and being like, that was word salad. And then, like, immediately after I had that thought, the discussion leader, I don't want to call him. He didn't want to call himself teacher. They wanted to be called students, which I think is super cool. He said something like, wow, wasn't that just so profound? And I was like, oh, it was. Oh, sweet. I had no idea. Kayla: So I don't want to sit here and do just, like, let's do our own close reading, because, again, we're not students. This is our first. Like, this is our first dipping our toe into the water.

27:22 Chris: We're all students. Kayla: We're all students. But we don't. We're not well versed in this stuff yet. Chris: This is literally very green, students. Like, bright green. Kayla: We're just repeating what we learned today. What. There's a lot. Okay. My biggest takeaway was there was a lot to take away from here. There was a lot in terms of teachings here, stuff that we're not even gonna get into. But my biggest takeaway was that this was explaining kind of like a foundational belief in theosophy, in jog Chen, in this study group, of this idea of. I think it was referred to as three wisdoms. So there's primordial purity, which, from my understanding, is like a dharma datu, the ultimate source. It is the source from which, like, everything. The source from which everything rests upon. So it's the source that exists outside of our material world.

28:17 Chris: It's like an ontological possibility space, if that makes any sense. And if it doesn't, we'll get into it a little bit. Kayla: Then there is spontaneous presence, which I think refers to the piece of the universe waking up to itself. It's us. Existing is spontaneous presence. Chris: Now, is that synonymous with pristine consciousness? Kayla: I don't know. I think the goal is to, like. Chris: You get that guy here. Kayla: Get back to that. I did write spontaneous presence, and then I put a little arrow to naturally perfect nature. Chris: Okay? Because a lot of what we talked about and a lot of what is in the close reading or not, a lot of what is in the passage that I just read is about this pristine consciousness. But you were on number two. So what was number three in the.

29:04 Kayla: Number three is compassion, which was explained to us as, like, this is beyond the desire to do good for others. This is, like, the kind of the ultimate form of wisdom that will generally lead to one behaving in the path of lovingkindness. But compassion is kind of synonymous with wisdom. And the overarching kind of theme that we talked about, I felt the conversation was going back to many times, was describing reality in this visual of primordial purity. Picture it as like a black disc. Picture spontaneous presence as like a white disc resting upon it, and then this compassion, this wisdom, as a smaller black disk within that white disk. So I think to me, if I.

29:52 Chris: Could interrupt here, that particular imagery is from the secret doctrines, which we will get to when we talk about what is theosophy, actually. So the secret doctrines is a piece of literature written by HP Blavatsky, Theosophys founder. Kayla: Interesting. Okay, so my big takeaway was that it kind of felt like there is an inherent source underlying all of existence. Spontaneous presence can manifest from or on that source, and that tends to be us. And then kind of our goal as sentient beings is to get back to that, a place of pure consciousness, pure awareness. So that's kind of like there's the black background, the white circle, and then the black circle within. And that, to me, represented, like, the source us, and the little piece of source that we're trying to get back to within us. I don't know if that's the correct interpretation, but that's kind of like what it felt like were talking about.

31:04 Chris: Yeah. I also got a lot of. I sort of mentioned this a second ago, but the pristine consciousness kept coming up, which, for the layman, I think you just kind of think of that as a soul. Right? It's this true you, this true self that existed before you were born will exist after you die and has always existed. And that's kind of the thing that we're trying. One of the things we're trying to access, like you were just saying, is we're trying to get back to that. That pristine self, that sort of soul. Kayla: Of a self, gets clouded by, I think, what they refer to as ignorance. So, like, our memories, our experiences, our labels, our identities, the kind grasping is.

31:48 Chris: A thing that they constantly grasp many times. So when I say grasp, yeah, it's like, it's the attachment. Like what we call worldly attachments. A lot of times, I think, in these sort of traditions is when they say grasping, they mean those, like worldly attachments, having desires or having things you dislike. They kept saying likes and dislikes is sort of like a shorthand for the grasping or for the worldliness. Kayla: And so I think the enlightenment is disconnecting from those things and reconnecting to this soul state, this pure awareness, this pure consciousness. Chris: Yeah. They also used a metaphor that I liked a lot, involving fluid versus solid. So they seem to have a predilection for things being fluid or changing. And that's more of a thing in its fluid form, is it's more true self than a thing in its frozen form. And so they were basically saying, your true self, your what I might say soul, your pristine consciousness, is sort of like water, and then it crystallizes into this solid form. It freezes into the solid form. When you are born into this world and become a physical human being. And what you're trying to do, maybe a little bit, is melt yourself back down into that fluid form, because that's the more true nature of a person and especially vis a vis outside the self. So when I think of, like, Kayla is.

33:25 Chris: I have this sort of frozen picture. I have this. I think of her in terms of labels and identities and likes and dislikes and all of these things that are sort of like, we consider to be static, when, in fact, Kayla is much more like and any human, by extension, much more dynamic than that. Like, Kayla likes Mac and cheese today, but tomorrow she likes Mac and cheese with broccoli, and her dislikes also change. And her identities are also fluid, and everything is sort of fluid in that manner. And so I think one of the things that they were also talking about with that metaphor was, like, seeking to unfreeze our concepts in regards to how we view things outside of ourself, but especially other human beings.

34:12 Kayla: Yes. And there's two specific tools that were talked about in order to achieve this goal of enlightenment or resting in this kind of, like, pure knowledge. There was tretcho, which was to cut through, to release. So, like, cutting through the veils of the mind and the self. And there was Togol, which is a specific kind of meditation where you need, like, a teacher to teach it to you. This is not something you can learn on an online course. This is like a teacher to student practice. And that means, like, crossing over or clearing away shadows in the mind. So those were two, like, specific tools that they talked about to reach this state where you go from ice to water. There's a lot. There's a lot more here, you guys. Like, I'm literally looking at my notes, and it's like.

35:06 Kayla: And I do want to point out one thing that I wrote here, because I think it's important and will be important at the end of the show. This was a quote from the teacher. He was talking about this process of becoming the water. Again, the goal is not to fall into rigidity and dogmatic thought. And I thought that was really important, that's kind of, like, part of this belief system is kind of what you mentioned, the anti dogma. Chris: Yeah, I actually wrote that specifically. Theosophy seems to be anti dogmatism, anti rigidity. And I think that was probably. I wrote that at the same time you did when he was taught, because it was actually in reference to achieving the thing that you want to achieve. Like, he was. That that particular statement by him was saying, like, I think he was saying, like, if you achieve. If you access this pristine consciousness without being, like, prepared in some way, then you run the risk of being too dogmatic about that, even.

36:02 Kayla: Right. Chris: Which I thought was, like, an interesting, like, self check and spoke to me to be like, this is like, of all of the cults or maybe weirds that we've talked about, this is definitely one of, like, the least dogma and actually anti dogma. It feels like dogma is antithetical to this. Kayla: Yeah. The class would not have been what it was if when that other student went. Well, my interpretation of this, like, the way I operate in this faith, is diametrically opposed to what is being taught here, but I am still learning, and the teacher, the quote unquote teacher is still learning from me, and we are having a valuable conversation with each other, and we are engaging with each other. I mean, the person who had this diametrically opposed idea was also married to another theosophist student in the class who had a different belief system, and that's people who are together living in the same house. It seems like the anti dogma is not only necessary, but, like, almost celebrated in a way. At least that was what I took away from this class.

37:04 Chris: Yeah. And we could go on, like. Like I said, it was. It was a. How long was it? It was, like, two and a half hours. Kayla: It was two and a half hours. Chris: It wasn't all close reading of that one passage. We also did close reading of another passage. There was also the meditation. Kayla: There was two other passages. Chris: There were two other passages. Kayla: There was a passage from a larger passage from the secret doctrine, and then there was a very short passage that was kind of just, like, closed it up like food for thought. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. That was only, like, one sentence, so we could go into a lot more of the close reading, but I think that kind of gives you a taste of the things that we talked about. And specifically, I'll sort of summarize that taste. Theosophy, at least from our one experience, feels like it's very much about this study, this trying to parse these writings, these statements. There's writings from Blavatsky, but I think they also do close readings of other works from other wise masters, as they might call them. So, like, they like Ralph Waldo Emerson, too, for example. So it's not just from Tibetan Buddhism or from Blavatsky. It's from anyone they might consider a wise master.

38:16 Chris: But this is what they do, is they kind of take these things and see if they can read them and interpret them in a way to get nuggets of wisdom. Kayla: I mean, the Bible came up multiple times, and not in a, like, just in a very fluid way. The Bible was quoted just as easily as HP. Blavatsky's writings were quoted like it was, you know, I wrote together my kind of summation of a lot of what we're talking about was literally from the Bible to be in the world, but not be of it, which is an idea in the Bible, but it inherently related to what they were talking about in theosophy. Chris: Yeah, so I I wrote, like, I.

38:57 Kayla: Wrote a lot of notes. Chris: I wrote a lot of notes. Like, some of, like, half of my notes are just kind of, like, trying to record what was being said about the content, and then half of them are, like, me just sort of musing, like, as to what theosophy is, because I just kept having these, like, musings about that. So, like, one of these things I wrote, one of the notes I wrote down is like, theosophy is kind of like, let's confuse ourselves and then try to sort it out. It's like, it kind of feels like there's this weird element of, like, let's read something that to a layperson, to anybody without insider knowledge on this, let's read something that makes very little sense. And then if we, like, sort that out, the process of sorting it out is sort of like the point.

39:42 Chris: And then I also wrote, like, a tabletop puzzle. You know, it's like, let's take this perfectly good picture, and then let's break it up into a million pieces, and then let's go through the process of putting those pieces back together. And the point is kind of like doing that. Kayla: Yeah, that's true. Chris: Seeking baby so it kind of felt like that. It's like, let's confuse ourselves and then try to figure that out. And I think that makes sense because the stuff they're studying is not. You know, I made this. This note, too. Like, it's very much like the self. It's very much like the wisdom of the self. Like, they're not studying chemistry. They're not studying biology. They're not studying sociology or economics. They're studying, how do I be a wise person? And so there's this. I think that's almost like, how you have to go about it is to do this weird breakdown, build up sort of process, because how else you're not gonna run an experiment on yourself, or maybe that is running an experiment on yourself. I don't know.

40:39 Kayla: I mean, that sounds very similar to this process, because this is all about doing as much reading as you can and learning and then kind of figuring out how to incorporate it into yourself or access it within yourself so that you don't need. There is this process of gathering and then breaking down and gathering and breaking down the goal. You have to read all of this. You have to read all of these texts, and you have to learn about all of this stuff in order to no longer need it in order to access the wisdom inherently within you. And that was a really interesting concept. Chris: Yeah. And I also think that there's some, like. And maybe this is just my interpretation, but there's some, like, agnosticism toward exactly what it is you're even reading. Like, you know, I don't think it necessarily matters if you're reading, you know, Buddha's writing or Blavatsky's writing or whatever. And I know I already said this, but, like, the other note I took here is, like, it's also, like, kind of a to reading entrails or tarot card reading, where it kind of doesn't matter whether it's chicken guts or cards or words from some wise book. The point is the words themselves. The point is my interpretation of this will reveal some sort of wisdom here. The words themselves. And maybe it's just. That might just be me, too, because, like, I had the, like, oh, my God, this is the word salad.

42:09 Chris: I don't know what any of these words mean, but it definitely felt like there was some element there where, like, you could kind of interpret these words in different ways. And the way you interpret it reveals what it needs to reveal about yourself and about, like, the wisdom about yourself. Does that make any sense at all? Yeah, I think, like, the analogy to, like, tarot reading, like, it's not about the cards. It's about the, like, interaction. Kayla: Yeah, I think the cards are, like, a tool that are intentionally built and that's important. And the interpretation of the reader is as important using those tools. Chris: Right, right, yeah, I think tool is a good word. Like, it gives you a token to kind of like, focus on as, like this is, you know, like a deafening rod or something. Right. Like, this is like a thing that allows me to focus, but I'm actually using, like, my intuition. Maybe I shouldn't say differenting Rod because I'm, like, saying these bullshit things, but what I'm trying to get at is just the idea of having a token that allows you to focus your thinking in a certain way. And it almost feels like even philosophical writings are kind of like that in a way.

43:19 Kayla: Sure. I mean, it's just like reading the Bible. Like, you sit down, you read the Bible, and you can. Chris: Yeah. Especially something like psalms. Kayla: You can be like, this means what it says on the tin, or you can spend your entire life trying to interpret it, which, like, that is religion. Chris: And there's different parts of the Bible. I'm sure there's different parts of the readings that we did today, too. But some parts of the Bible are, like, Steve did X and then he did y, and then God did this to Steve, and David was the king from x year to y year, and blah, blah. And then there's other parts of the bible, kind of like psalms that are more wisdom oriented, that aren't clear. Like, we've talked about this before, like mythos versus logos. Right. They're not really about like a character, a plot, or a setting. They're more of about a vibe.

44:05 Kayla: Right. Chris: And a vibe is intentionally sort of like, intended to be a mirror. I think that's where they did talk about reflection today a lot. And I think that's where that, to me, hits home, is that a lot of these writings and the tools that we're talking about are kind of like mirrors, and they reflect back to, if we put some effort towards them, they kind of just reflect our own image back. But, like, how else are you going to see your own self without a mirror, right? Kayla: Because the whole thing is that their whole thing is that all the knowledge that you need, all the wisdom that you need, is already inside of you. You are born with it. It is there. But how do you access it without, like, what you're saying? How do we access that knowledge? And this is a tool to do so? Yeah, it's a really good analogy.

44:57 Chris: I also made a note of, like, this sort of reminded me of philosophy. Who needs it? Because we talked about that work from Ayn Rand earlier. This season just in that. That essay is about, like, it's good to think about thinking. Like, it's good to have an intentional philosophy. And that's kind of sort of like, the Venn diagram isn't, like, you know, super overlappy there, but there's definitely. There was definitely a flavor of, like, we are here to think about thinking. We are here to intentionally select, to intentionally ponder the way that our brains work and not just go through every week without thinking about that kind of thing. I also wrote that it was theosophy as sort of, like, I just have all these. Theosophy as this, theosophy as that, theosophy as sense making of a nonsensical situation, which is consciousness.

45:51 Chris: Because, like, a lot of the things that they talked about were. I don't know. What was the first thing in the trio that you mentioned earlier? Kayla: Primordial purity. Chris: Primordial purity. And what was it called again? It was like, dharma. Kayla: Dharma Datu. Chris: Dharma Datu. Right. And the way they described that was like, it's everything, but it's not everything physically. It's, like, everything conceptually. Or it's like this. This base space for all things. Not all things as they are, but all things as possibilities as they could be. So talking about stuff like that makes me kind of go like, that definitely sounds to me consciousness is trying to grasp at. I have woken up in this bizarre circumstance where I can see things and I can imagine things that don't exist. Probably unlike other animals, I have this imagination thing, and it's mad confusing to be conscious and sentient in that way. And so it kind of feels like it was. And it's not just theosophy. It's like, anything that deals with metaphysical and epistemological questions. It's kind of us going like, I'm awake.

47:07 Chris: What the hell is going on? How do I even. Kayla: You wake up from a nap and you're like, what the fuck? Chris: Yeah, like, how do I know what I know? How do I know that anything is anything like it? Just. I don't know. I got that vibe from it, too. Kayla: I think that's why I love this kind of stuff. I love what we got to do today. I love that this is, like, work that people are doing in these small groups of, like, trying to make sense of something that inherently feels nonsensical. And when you think about it, like, is fucking nonsensical. Like, what the hell is going on? What is, I don't know, piece of the universe that has woken up to itself. What I'm sorry.

47:51 Chris: Or maybe not. Kayla: There's a neutron star. Chris: Consciousness may be fake too. Kayla: Simulation. And there's a black hole somewhere. This is nourishment that a part of your mind body needs. I don't know what part of it is, but it is human nature to think about this shit. That's why religion has been around for so long. That's why. That's why we have a show. It's literally why we have a show. Because everything that we, almost everything that we talk about in this show is a version of people doing this. Chris: Yeah. And similar to other spiritual traditions, but definitely trying to sort out the unsortable, right? They talked about ineffability and things that are eternal versus things that evolve and change, come and go. Feels a lot to me. Like, I mean, these are philosophical questions that we still don't really and may never have answers to. Like the question of prime causality, right? Like, okay, like, why am I doing a podcast? Well, because blah blah and then that. Because blah blah and then that. Because blah blah. And then where does the chain of causality end? Like, there is no real good answer to that. Because even if you go back to the big bang, then you say, like, what caused the big bang? Oh, I don't know. Maybe there was something before that.

49:13 Chris: Even in modern sort of like philosophical sciences and philosophical research, that's a question that everybody still deals with, is like eternity versus not eternity. Like finite versus infinite. Was there a prime cause for everything? Can anything be traced back to a prime cause? Or is there just an infinite regress to chain of causality? Like, these are sort of the questions that they seem like they're trying to answer in theosophy. Kayla: So are we done? Is that it, or no? Chris: Because I have to get. We have to do the cultures weird thing where I give you context. I have to tell you about how they were founded and all the scandals. I'm just speculating. I haven't.

50:03 Kayla: We just assume that there's scandals. Chris: I'm assuming they're scandals because they're scandals with everything, man. What I haven't done my research yet. Kayla: What I've learned these days is that there's always going to be scandals. And I think just a lot of life is learning to take what you like and leave the rest when it's applicable. And I'm hoping that's applicable here because I really enjoyed the work that we did today. I really enjoyed the conversations that we had. I really enjoyed learning about this stuff. And like, I hope to do more. There's other classes that they have. I'm excited to sit in on them. I'm excited to return to this class. I have a similar feeling as I did after leaving the ISKCon temple. And unfortunately, this is a similar setup where went and visited, and then we learned about some of the stuff that's gone on since then or during. But take what you like and leave the rest is what I hope we can.

50:57 Chris: Maybe we'll call this episode take what you like and leave the rest. Also, Kayla, I don't want you to think that I'm going off the new age deep end here, either personally, and I think that this is off the. Kayla: Deep end for both of us. Chris: Yeah, I know you will. From what I understand. I think that I am still welcome in theosophy as a materialist rationalist, from my understanding. Kayla: I think I already said this to you, but I'll say it on the podcast. The first place that I learned about Jog Chen, the Tibetan Buddhism esoterica, was not from today's class. It was not from learning about theosophy. It was from infamous skeptic and atheist Sam Harris, who prides himself on being a materialist and also is super into Jog Chen and has even, I believe he studied specifically with a teacher, a well regarded teacher in this school of belief. So, like, if Sam Harris is allowed, like, if Sam Harris. If Sam Harris gets to do it, he's way more of a materialist than I am.

52:08 Chris: Yeah. My interpretation, first interpretation of the class today was maybe also indicative of my bias. Right. Because, like, if I'm sitting here going like, well, I don't believe that there is actually an existence of a soul or of a yemenite pristine consciousness, then sort of necessarily, if I'm going to participate and get something out of it has to be sort of like, well, I'm interpreting it in this way. Kayla: Yeah, it gets to be a metaphor. That means what you need it to mean. Chris: Right. Kayla: That's how I've engaged with, like, christian theology. That's how I've engaged with other theologies that we've talked about on the show. And, you know, there's something interesting about religion and particularly a school of philosophy or thought like this in that it is both a personal experience and a group experience. And it's kind of fun to figure out, like, how you can have these conversations in a classroom setting, in this, like, round robin setting, while also having your own personal relationship to it. And that was demonstrated in our class today. So I feel like if you need metaphors to make it work for you. Then. And then that's what works for you.

53:23 Chris: The white circle on a black background. That's real, though. Kayla: Well, I mean, what's not real about it? Chris: That's not a metaphor. Kayla: What's not real about it? What's real about it? What is real? Chris: I was making a joke. Kayla: I'm not. Tell me what is real? What is the nature of reality? Chris: All right, so the next thing that we're gonna do here is I'm gonna do a little more research into, well, what is theosophy? Where did it come from? Blah, blah. And then we'll come back to the studio, and I'll. I'll give you the download, and then we can talk about whether this is a cult or just weird. Kayla: Sounds good to me.

55:16 Chris: All right, y'all are probably coming back from, like, some pensive music or something, because I wasn't really sure how to. How to transition between, like. Because we're doing it backwards this time, right? Like, we discussed the class went to, the two classes went to, and now we're doing the context in history and whatnot. So there's not really, like, a. We went to class in between. Like, there's no audio for that. So I think I will have just put, like, one of those, like, long, pensive, radio labby type musical tracks. Kayla: That's why we have it. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: I do also want to say that we. In addition to the two classes that we talked about last time, in between that recording and this recording, went to another Zoom class.

55:57 Chris: We did. Kayla: So I think we're getting sucked in, my friends. Chris: We've been to a third zoo. Yeah. Three is a charm. It's. It. Now we're a theosophists. Oh, God. Kayla: And that class was led by a llama. And when I say that, I mean the same title that is in Dalai Lama. Chris: Dalai Lama, not animal. Kayla: Yeah. This was led by someone named Lama Karma, who has studied this stuff for many years and is now sharing those pearls of wisdom with the likes of you and me. Chris: It was actually super cool, and they had somebody there to kind of help translate because, like, parse it for. Parse it. Kayla: Noobs like you and me. Chris: Yeah. For us, noobs. Really fascinating stuff. But this isn't about the classes. This is about theosophy more generally. So you guys have context of what it is? I don't know. I don't really know what it is. So you know this. You won't. I won't be able to tell you what it is.

56:50 Kayla: I mean, honestly, I usually do this the opposite way, but I kind of appreciate that we're doing it this way, because I feel like this is the more common experience, at least for me, of, like, oh, I get really into something, and then, like, later I look it up and find out that there's, like, I don't know, something bad. I find that there's a controversy section on Wikipedia. So this is us going and now finding the controversy section on Wikipedia. Chris: Yeah. You guys are getting the more authentic experience. I think it's also more authentic to theosophy because it's more like they. Well, we'll get into this, but their belief is in, like, divine revelation versus, like, observational evidence. So I feel like that's kind of what we did. We're like, let's just go get the personal experience before we do any sort of, like, research.

57:31 Kayla: Right. Chris: Anyway, Kayla. Kayla: Yes. Chris: Can you do me a favor and no. Oh, okay. All right. Well, then let me just skip ahead in the script here. Kayla: What favorite can I do for you? Chris: Oh, you can do? Kayla: Okay. Chris: Can you tell me about a few things you are seeing around you right now? Kayla: I see you. Chris: You see me very grateful for that. Okay. Kayla: We have our computers, we have our soundproofing, whatever the hell you want to call this thing. What is it? Chris: I don't know. Kayla: Soundproof wall or, like, soundproof wall. That's very frustrating to deal with. There's a bed in our spare room. I can keep going, but it's not enough. Chris: No, that's enough. That's enough. Because now I have an entirely separate question. Can you describe a few things that are around you right now?

58:20 Kayla: Okay. You emphasized that sentence differently. It's the same words, but you emphasized it differently. Chris: I actually didn't quite use the same words. The first sentence I said, can you tell me about the things you are seeing? Kayla: Okay. Chris: In the second sentence, I said, can you describe a few things that are around you right now? Kayla: It sounds like you're using are in a very active way. Why are you saying are like that? Are you a pirate? Is this a pirate theme? Chris: Yeah. So theosophists are pirates. Kayla: That's extremely. Chris: Now, the difference I'm trying to highlight with these two questions is that the product of our senses, and our senses are only tools for interacting with the universe around us. The product of our senses is not the same as the actual thing. So the first question I asked you was, what are you seeing?

59:11 Kayla: Right. Chris: I specifically phrased it that way to say, like, okay, what are the things that your brain is telling you that your eyesight is blah, blah, whatever. I didn't ask you what is around us. What are the things that are around us? Kayla: So you're saying one is like a subjective experience versus an objective experience? Chris: Almost exactly that, but it's kind of, like, philosophically relevant. Kayla: See, this is where my brain. My brain doesn't work good like this. Chris: Well, your brain is kind of what I'm talking about here, too. Our senses interact with the universe, and that produces some effect in our brains that then becomes our interpretation of the world. Kayla: You know what it sounds like you're doing?

59:53 Chris: I'm trying to, like, break down your capacity to reason so I can recruit you into a cult. Kayla: Sounds like a, yes, b, it sounds like you're about to start quanting. Quanting. Chris: I'm about to start quanting over here. Kayla: Sounds like you're going to start quanting. You're about to start spouting some quantum flap doodle. Chris: Some quantum flap. That's the thing with quantum flapdoodle, is, like, it's very close. Like, especially if you're not a physicist. It's very close to actual quantum physics, so it's really tough. But you're right. I do sound like that. Maybe I am. I don't know. But our senses interact with the universe. They produce some effect in our brains that then becomes our interpretation of the world. And crucially, there isn't really, like, a raw reality, air quotes I'm doing right now. Raw reality that we can check that work against. Right? Like, I can't check my visual cortex interpretive image of the computer I'm looking at right now against the. I don't know, quote unquote real computer, because what would I use to check that work? I would just be using my senses again to do that. Right?

1:00:59 Kayla: I'm so angry at you, and I know we've talked about this on the show before. I'm so. I'm never gonna get over this. Chris: Prepare to be even more angry. Kayla: I'm never gonna get over the fact that when you and I first started dating, we got in a big fight over web or not. You can, like, prove that reality exists. And you were like, you're an idiot. Reality exists. And I was like, but how do you know? And now you're sitting here being like. Chris: Oh, well, the quantum physicists say, no, I didn't say. And you're the one that brought up quantum physicists, first of all. Second of all, I was in the Ayn Rand cult at the time. Third of all, that's not exactly what I'm saying, although all these things are kind of that. Kayla: I'm very grateful that one of our big early fights was about whether reality. Don't show me that. Don't show me that. Get it away from me.

1:01:41 Chris: Do you remember this? Kayla: Please stop. Yes. Right now. Chris has turned his computer around, and in the middle of his script, smack dab in the middle of his script, is a picture that I never want to see again. It is a picture of the dress. Do y'all remember the dress? Chris: Infamous dress. For those of you that don't remember the dress was an Internet phenomenon back in what, like, 20, 1514? Kayla: Sounds about right. Chris: One of those where half of all humans thought that this dress was colored blue and black, and half of the rest of humans thought that it was white and gold. Kayla: And like, those are two wildly different. Like, it's not like, oh, that looks blue and black versus that looks like purple and brown. It's like, those are two very different colors. Opposite spectrum of color palettes. And the people who thought blue and black were like, there's absolutely no way this isn't blue and black. And the people who thought white and gold were like, there is no way this isn't white and gold.

1:02:37 Chris: Yeah. So aside from the obvious fact that it. That it's blue and black, have you ever seen it, this again, the actual dress? Kayla: No, I'm sorry. Have you ever been able to get it to look white and gold for. Chris: Yourself with great effort? Yes. And then it relatively easily goes back to blue and black for me. I know this whole part of the script is about how ambiguous it is. And even then, as I'm looking at it's so hard. It's so hard for me to get it to look white and gold. It's really difficult. But again, this illustrates that there's a difference between the real object and the product of my brain processing visual information. Depending on whether my brain interprets this scene as brightly or dimly lit and what color the light is, it will tell me with certainty what color the dress actually is, and your brain will do the same and give you a different answer because you assumed a different lighting scenario. But we're both looking at the exact same picture. Hey, check out this image.

1:03:44 Chris: And before you ask, it's just a regular jpeg. It's not animated Gif. Gif. Kayla: Are you doing some color theory shit. Chris: On me or some such. Kayla: Okay, I see it. Yes. Chris: You see that moving image? Kayla: I'm not gonna lie. It doesn't look like it's moving at all to me. Let me see it again. Chris: You're keeping that. Kayla: Hold on. Let me see it again. Chris: Cause I picked that one. Cause to me, there's so many of these optical illusions that are like, it's not moving even though it looks like it is. And I picked this one. Cause I'm like, man, that one really looks like it's moving, but for you, it doesn't. That's so funny. Kayla: If I move my eyes, it looks like it's moving. I see it. I see what you're talking about.

1:04:25 Chris: We'll put these on Instagram. Kayla: That is very clearly, movement can be seen, can be detected. Chris: Well, yeah, we'll put a few optical illusions like this one on our instagram for the show. But there are dozens of them. There are dozens of such optical, illusory effects. The one that we're talking about right now, because we're an audio program, is it looks like a weird, sort of, like, purple and red spiral, but it's set up in such a way that your eye, like, your rapid eye movements will cause it to look like it's actually rotating, even though it's totally not rotating. Again, just another thing to kind of illustrate, like, what our brain is producing isn't necessarily exactly what is there. Did you know that it takes 80 milliseconds for your brain to process visual input? So what you are seeing always has happened at least a little bit in the past.

1:05:22 Kayla: I do know this. Can I tell you why? Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Because back when I was a teenager, I was into some stuff. I was very into the beats, the beat culture, like those guys, and they were very into some of this stuff. And they had a whole thing about how, like, particularly, I remember Neil Cassidy talking about this, of, like, we are always visually. And then I think, other sensory inputs, we're always just a little bit behind, processing it. Like, just. We're processing it after it's happened just a tiny little bit. So one of their goals was to get as close, to close that gap as much as possible. Close that gap with experience and reality as much as possible.

1:06:07 Chris: How did they do that? Drugs. Kayla: Drugs. Writing poetry. Driving really fast in a bus. Chris: Driving really fast. I guess that makes a weird sort of, like, very tangible sense. Kayla: Anyway, that's, I think, the first place that I learned about this concept. Chris: Did you know that according to a study in 2022 last year, our brains don't actually give us even the moment to moment snapshots that our eyes retina takes? And if it did, we'd perceive reality as a dizzying blur that's already perceived as the dia. Yeah. When I read this, I was like, yeah, I think mine's broken because that's what mine is. Our visual processing averages out and smooths out the images that we receive from our eyes. Do you know how far in the past they found that our brains take visual data in for this smoothing process?

1:07:00 Kayla: I don't know. Chris: Up to 15 seconds. Kayla: No, I don't believe that. I refuse. Chris: 15 seconds. Kayla: No, no. Chris: That's the horrifying thing I've ever heard. Kayla: Please, I don't want to talk this anymore. Chris: That you are seeing in your field of vision right now. Maybe from up to 15 seconds ago. Kayla: I feel sick. I don't like that. I don't like it. Chris: I don't like it either, frankly. Kayla: I don't care for that. And, like, I'm grateful for it because, like, I prefer the reality to not look like a dizzying blur. Like, you know, I prefer watching a movie that looks like a movie and not these, like, newfangled, like, high frame speed movies where it's like one of.

1:07:43 Chris: Those goddamn food tiktoks where it's just like, image, image. Kayla: Not image. That's a different thing. But yes, that, or like when Peter Jackson did the Hobbit in, like, the. Chris: Like, oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it looks. Kayla: And I don't want to look at it. Chris: I like the motion smoothing on my parents tv. Kayla: Yes, I don't like that thing. Chris: Oh, God, it looks so weird. Kayla: I'm grateful for my brain trying to give me a more pleasant experience of visual reality, but I'm gonna be sick. I really don't feel good about that. Chris: Oh, God. The trade off for that is existential horror. But that's okay. How can I. Oh, it's better to see stuff good, right? Kayla: Sure. Chris: Now let me pump the brakes here and sort of channel my old argumentative with you self. I'm not as sense as our fundamentally unreliable guy. I'm not even sure that I'm, like, a reality is fundamentally unknowable guy. After all, when I say the product of our senses is not the same as the actual thing, what the hell do I mean by actual thing?

1:08:41 Kayla: I would like to also know. Chris: I don't have access to an actual thing, quote unquote. Neither do you. We only have our observations. So to posit that there is somehow a reality underneath, even though it makes sense in a way, it also kind of lacks meaning. Kayla: If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around here. Chris: Exactly. Kayla: Does it make a sound? Oh. Chris: Oh. Kayla: That really kind of hurts my face right now. Chris: Right. It's not that it doesn't. It comes down to what we think of as actually existing. Can something exist? If I'm just saying, like, it probably does, even though you can't detect it. I'm scared that which is undetectable might as well not exist. Now, note I've changed my vocabulary slightly here. I've gone from, like, sensory input to observation to talking about detection. We have many more tools for interacting with the universe now than just our eyeballs or even just our six senses. Experiments that probe the inner workings of atoms don't correspond to any of our built in senses. And we have to do work to translate the results of those experiments into readouts on computer screens that our eyes can read in English. So do experiments such as this debunk the idea that reality is unknowable? Do you think we've crossed that barrier?

1:10:00 Kayla: I don't know. Chris: I don't know either. Kayla: Look, okay, I just want to. Okay. When I was a kid, one of the scariest thoughts that I could think of, I still don't know why, one of the scariest things I could imagine was a telephone ringing in an empty house. Chris: And I think, especially when it's coming from inside the house, especially when the. Kayla: Gulf inside the house, that was the second serious thing. And I think it was kind of butting up against this idea of, like, how can something be ringing if there's no one there to hear it? Who is doing the hearing, then what is. What is hearing? And if there is nothing hearing, then what is the sound? What is going on? I think I felt like, ooh, ghosts. But in. In my brain, I think my brain was grappling with some of what we're talking about right now with better words.

1:10:48 Chris: Yeah. And some of these experiments, I'm talking about quantum level experiments of observing the very tiny, and I use observe loosely here, but some of those feel like they are kind of doing what Neil Cassidy was trying to do and just get closer and closer to, quote, unquote, this, what we will call platonic ideal, the real. And that brings us to what this is called. The name for this idea comes from one of its earliest philosophers, Plato. It's called platonic realism. And it's the idea that there is, like, a really for reality underneath the one we can perceive or detect. And all were able to grasp of that reality is just the shadows, the metaphorical shadows. It casts.

1:11:34 Kayla: Is that what the hell Plato's cave was talking about? Chris: Yes, this is Plato's cave. That's what Plato's cave is about. Plato's cave is about. It's a metaphor for the fact that we live. We all live in Plato's cave, baby, and all we can see is shadows, and we can only interpret the shadows and try to figure out what the objects are. So if you've ever heard of the platonic ideal of something, that's why it's called the platonic ideal is because it exists in this, like, immutable form that we can only grasp at knowing. Kayla: I'm sorry, I'm having. Chris: Are you having a problem? Is your brain updating your knowledge of what Plato's cave means? Yes, because it's been memed to death. So you don't.

1:12:16 Kayla: It's been memed to death. A and all of the Plato's cave memes are hilarious. But the only time I've never had Plato's cave explained to me in any other scenario other than english class and film class. And those are very different. Interesting utilizations. Chris: What's film class like? What if you're watching a movie in a cave? Kayla: Yeah, which I would love to do. No, just the idea of, like, I don't know. I'm not an english teacher. English class and film class are, like, pretty much the same thing. But thinking about it in a way that's more like about society versus about reality or about, like, art versus about reality. And so to change, it's an extensible metaphor. Yeah, yeah, of course it's about reality, but it's just. I'm having a. I need a second. Chris: No, I mean, those are all valid interpretations, right? It's. It's a really. It's a powerful metaphor.

1:13:01 Kayla: I mean, it's why I think a lot of Qanoners and people of that ilk also gravitate towards this metaphor because there's a lot of feeling of like, oh, we are all living in Plato's cave because of what the media is showing us. The media is showing us the shadows, and we need to get outside of the media. Mainstream media. I think probably flat earthers like it too. We need to get outside of what the mainstream media is showing us and get to the reality. Get to the truth. Chris: Yeah. Now, I kind of mentioned this already, but personally, I'm not really a platonic realist. I think that a quote unquote reality kind of just doesn't make sense. It feels like make believe to me. Again, if something is undetectable. And when I say that, I include senses, but also experiments and direct observations, like, you know, if I can see this planet move, then that means that there's probably another thing next to it. Or, oh, we know dark matter exists because otherwise galaxies would fly apart. I count that as well. That's true. That's how we knew it exists. First they would fling themselves apart. But I count all that when I say detectable, right? I don't just mean shit I can see in front of me. But if it's undetectable by any means, then it's not meaningful. And meaning is synonymous with reality to me.

1:14:20 Chris: If I can posit a reality or a piece of it, thats undetectable. Whats the difference between that and positing the supernatural? Whats the difference between me saying, theres a heaven you cant detect, theres a magic you cant detect, or theres a layer of reality that exists beyond detection? Kayla: Yeah, I guess when you think about it, like, if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if theres no one around to hear it? Just because there's nobody around to hear it with their ears doesn't mean that there's not indirect methods of observation to understand. If the tree fell, if it made a sound, there's other ways to figure that out. Chris: Like the metaphor, whatever the metaphorical Neil Cassidy in that situation would be like, yeah, but if I push closer, maybe I could detect it this way. Or if I push closer, maybe I could hear it. Or if I push closer, maybe I could put a microscope on it. Or if I push closer, I could use an experiment that's designed to, like, indirectly observe subatomic particles or whatever.

1:15:21 Kayla: I mean, this is what Marconi was trying to do. He thought that sound waves never disappeared, and so you could go back and hear whatever forever. So he would say, yes, it does make a sound because I think that we can observe it. Obviously he was wrong, but he was on that track, right? Chris: So that's why it's like, even though it sounded like I was sort of contradicting myself in a weird way, and it's still a little bit mystical because, like, I don't know if there's a reality anywhere anymore. Kayla: What does that even mean? Chris: That's my position is like, what does reality mean? It feels a little bit silly to say, but it's also like the position of a lot of philosophers and theosophers. We're here to discuss theosophy, of course. What's so funny?

1:16:10 Kayla: Context. We always just have so much context. Chris: It's because we're always trying to come up with some clever way to start them. Like, remember the dress. Anyway, that's like theosophy. Like many other systems of thought and spiritualism, theosophy is heavily concerned with the quote, unquote, true nature of reality, if such a thing exists, which your mileage may vary, but theosophy motto is as there is no religion higher than the truth. So they are truth seekers. And that certainly was evident, I think, from the class went to and the zoom discussions that we participated in. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Now, if you're wondering. Okay, you know, I know their motto. There's no religion higher than the truth. And I also know they're concerned with, like, metaphysics, nature of reality, and epistemology, the knowability of reality. I kind of know what they're about, but what are they? Are they a club?

1:17:06 Kayla: What is it? Chris: Religion? A cult? Just weird. Kayla: That's what we're here to do, baby. Chris: Well, we'll get to some of that, but overall, this is actually kind of a hard answer to pin down as precisely as other groups we've covered on the show. I think we mentioned this a little bit in our discussion of the classes, but. But at its most core, theosophy is what its name translates to, divine knowledge. It's a synthesis between spirituality and knowledge, and that knowledge is gained internally, not externally. That is, via meditative and introspective practices rather than empiricism and observation. Theosophy as, like, whether it's a group or what, though, is hard to pin down. As I've been doing the research for this episode, I've sort of thought of it, like, halfway between something with well defined borders, like, let's say, like Scientology, and then something that's more, like, diffuse and difficult to define, like empty spaces.

1:18:02 Chris: It's kind of like halfway between that. Like, it's not really a group, certainly not a single group. But there are theosophical groups. It's also a movement, a set of ideas and practices that are tied together by certain themes. But on the other hand, these themes and ideas have been around for a long time, going by different names, and they're still around again, going by even different names. Kayla: It kind of seemed like in the group that went to, yes, there were maybe agreed upon interpretations, but also it was open to other interpretations as well. So even the dictionary of terms is fluid and interchangeable. Chris: And it's because theosophy by design encompasses so much. They are well aware of the pedigree of their movement, the fact that they have so many things that they draw from. In fact, one of the key defining features of theosophy is that they seek to universalize the experience and teachings of all and any prior wisdom traditions. So wisdom traditions, quote unquote, being a phrase that's deliberately casting a broad net to catch everything from religious wisdom traditions like the five wisdom books in the Old Testament, which, if you're curious, are job proverbs, ecclesiastes, ecclesiasticus, and wisdom, to shamanistic practices, to secular wisdom teachers, even to science and so on. So theosophy is basically saying, like, okay, we encompass all of that stuff, and we're trying to find the threads of truth by studying all of these guys. And they do have favorite guys.

1:19:36 Kayla: Who are their favorite guys? I love guys. Chris: Theosophy. Kayla: Theosophy is what guys under your supervision. Chris: Theosophy is not really like a wisdom primary source. They're like a wisdom tradition aggregator. They're like a podcast for spiritualism, basically. But again, they do have favorite sources. So Plato, as we discussed. Kayla: No. Why is everybody so into Plato kind. Chris: Of explained that just because of the cave. Kayla: Did he do anything besides cave? Chris: He did a lot of stuff. Yeah, I mean, he had political ideas that he wrote about. He had all sorts of philosophy that he wrote about. And I think that they're interested in all of it, but they're particularly interested in the cave. So they're interested in Buddhism, they're interested in Hinduism. They have a healthy serving of kabbalism and hermeticism with fresh hot cup of gnosticism to wash it all down.

1:20:34 Kayla: And all of those things are my favorite things. All of those things are. You know how like, Oprah has her favorite things? Chris: Huh. Kayla: These would be my favorite things. Chris: Is that like, if you had to sing the favorite things song? Kayla: Yeah, like agnosticism, kabbalah, trees of life, and hermetic traditions. Chris: I wonder if they're into festivus. Kayla: I'm sure if it got you closer to the truth, they'd be into it. Chris: Actually, I guess they're into everything. Now, we've talked a lot about how much we liked the classes we took, and I personally am always down for good philosophical discussion. I liked the classes, but I do have to say that this universalizing idea of theirs is one of the things that I do want to call out. Just personally rubs me the wrong way. You and I were kind of talking about this the other day off podcasts, but like, there's something, God, I wish I had like, a good word for it. But there's something that just bothers me about, like, I don't have any problem with trying to parse the widest variety of sources. I think that's fine.

1:21:39 Chris: I think it's more that there's this sort of notion, and maybe not from the lodge went to and maybe not from theosophists today, but we'll get into it a little bit from some of the early theosophists. There's this notion that it's, like, above everything, there's this notion that it's like, it's deeper than the deepest truths. It's like, you know, this idea that it encompasses everything just feels arrogant to me. Kayla: Yeah, I think if you're saying. I think it's one thing. If you're saying, like, we study everything so that we can, like, get the closest to it versus our approach is the best approach. Like, those are two slightly different. You don't have to say, like, our approach is the best approach to be, like, we study everything. They don't. It doesn't have to be. And I do agree with you that, like, I didn't get the sense from the classes that went to that this was, like, looking down on any other methodologies for, quote, unquote, finding the truth, like, other religions and things like that, because we talked to people that were attending the class that were like, oh, I got to this through these other, like, I got to this through, like, studying Joseph Campbell or I got to this through studying, like, christian mysticism.

1:22:48 Kayla: And now I'm here. This is, like, this means the most to me. Not, this is the. This is more important than those other things. Just this one has mean the most to me, and I feel like that's fine. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: I don't necessarily think that. And you know more than I do, but I don't necessarily think that, like, the original leaders of these groups had that mentality. I think there was maybe a little more of this, like, arrogance that you're talking about. Chris: It's a bit different. Yeah, for sure. Which we'll get to that, I think. Yeah. Like, the students that we met felt like theosophy was a step on their journey, and it didn't feel like it was like, well, if you go off of this, if you go off theosophy path, you're just missing out. Kayla: Right. Chris: And I don't even know if, like, the notion is that it's the best. It's more of. It's like, the notion of, like, everything.

1:23:37 Kayla: Is right, but we're everything is part of us. Yeah. Chris: Yeah, right. Like, everything's not part of you. You're also. You're part of reality. Like, in fact, in, like, this weird sort of, like, meta way, it feels like theosophy, at least from some of its earliest founders, has this idea that it's separate from reality in this platonic sense. The philosophy itself, the movement itself, is the platonic real thing that all the world's religions are just grasping at. And I think that's why I take issue with it. I don't think that exists. I think that theosophy is part of the discourse, part of everything else. And, in fact, they. So just as an example of this, theosophists insist that they are not a religion. And I think, again, this is not talking about the class went to or the people we've been interacting with. I think that they're much more chill than this.

1:24:33 Chris: But the early theosophists insisted that they were not a religion, although one of its founders, its most important founder, HP Blavatsky, who we mentioned earlier, did refer to it as the modern transmission of the once universal religion that she said existed deep into the human past. So it's not a religion, except it is, but it's a revival of ancient proto religion. Kayla: I guess this idea that there was one true ancient religion, and then we lost our way and split up into all these kind of false religions that are just a shadow of their former selves, and then here we come along, we have access to in the 18 hundreds. And I'm like, you guys, I'm gonna aggregate everything that I learned through all these other religions and say that this stuff that I've come up with, which a lot of it is probably, like, you know, lifted or plagiarized, this is the true religion that was, like, before all these other guys, which it's like, it's not before all these other guys. It's. You're an amalgamation of all these other guys. And it's cool if you get to, like, one unified thing, but I get what you're saying.

1:25:34 Chris: I think that's what you're saying right now is ultimately my. My issue with it. Generally, those early members were really averse to calling it a religion, and members themselves are adherents to all sorts of other religions. You can be jewish or christian or buddhist or even an atheist and be a member of theosophy, and that's certainly true today. But in terms of what is theosophy, they really didn't like it being called a religion. However, religious scholars seem to be mostly universally in agreement of calling it a religion or a religious movement or a new religious movement. I wanted to mention this adjacent to the discussion about the universalizing nature of it, because it kind of feels like the same impulse to me, the same impulse to be above the religious fray, to be deeper than anyone else's deep truth.

1:26:21 Chris: I kind of felt like the whole, like, we're not a religion thing is illustrative of that. Let's talk now a little bit about where theosophy comes from, and I do mean a little bit. Once again, you're not going to tell. Kayla: Us the ancient or the one true unifying religion that encompasses everything pre early man had that we don't have access to anymore. You're not going to tell us about that? Chris: Yeah, that's the thing. We could spill so much pixel ink covering the influences on theosophy, because it's sort of, by its very nature, is like, wants to study everything. So. Kayla: Which is cool, which I get. But I will say that since we've gone to these classes and I've started looking into this stuff on my own, it's like, oh, yeah, I would like to learn more about this stuff. Anytime I, like, crack open a book or start reading about a concept, it just feels like, oh, I need to read another thing so that I have context for this. And then I go to read that, and it's like, oh, I need to read another thing so that I have context for this. It feels like turtles all the way down.

1:27:19 Chris: Yeah, it's like a Wikipedia binge where you're like, ooh, click on that link. Ooh, click on that link. Kayla: But it's like, click on that link so that I can. Like, I tried to. I cracked into an Aleister Crowley book, and I was like, I can't parse this. And then I googled it, and I. Chris: Read like, well, he was on drugs. Kayla: Well, he was on drugs. But this particular book, the Internet's consensus was like, oh, yeah, if you don't have an understanding of, like, the hermetic kabbalah tree of life and, like, maybe some gematria, it's like, this is gonna be useless to you. And I'm like, okay, I thought that I was going back to the store. I thought I was going back to like, okay, I'll Shukarli. That's like, very, like, og. Right? And, nope, you need a lot more stuff before that. So now I'm on a quest to understand the tree of life. That's my next goal. Chris: I certainly think that theosophy students we met kind of already gave us that sense. Gave me that sense because a lot of what they were talking about, especially the guy that was sort of like in charge of the meeting, he definitely gave the impression of, like, you know, we're trying to uncover these ancient wisdoms. And to get there takes a lot of work.

1:28:15 Kayla: Right? Chris: And you have to, like, peel back the layers. And at the time, I was kind of like, I don't really know what you're talking about, man, but cool. Sounds fun. But as you started doing that a little more just on your own, I think that might have been what he was talking about, which is like, okay, I want to understand this thing, but if I don't understand this other thing, then I can't understand that. But to understand that thing, I have to understand. So there's this chain of things. Kayla: Yeah, I learned that. The tree of life. So when we say the tree of life, we're talking about the symbol that you've all seen before, where it's like ten nodes, kind of on a map. Chris: It's like geometric looking. You might not have seen it actually.

1:28:57 Kayla: You've probably seen it somewhere. Chris: It's a mysticism thing. You've seen it if you've seen an evangelion. Kayla: I thought that its origins were in jewish kabbalah, which is the origins for western esoteric kabbalah, christian kabbalah, and hermetic kabbalah. But apparently jewish kabbalah may have also taken it from an earlier religion. It may be somewhat syncretized. So it does feel like you can never quite zero in the. On a true origin point here. And that's because at the end of the day, it does feel like most, if not all, religious endeavors draw from their predecessors and other sources. Chris: It's almost like people have always questioned the nature of their reality and how knowable it is. And that has translated into different things in different cultures, but it's always the same sort of quest, right? And in fact, that's. That's why I led with the whole optical illusion thing, because it was the only thing that felt broad enough to underpin any of this. It's not really about any one specific cultural context. It's about this relationship between our consciousness and reality that gives rise to all these different things, of which theosophy is one of them. So it's impossible, in a succinct way, to discuss all of the predecessors and influences on theosophy. But what I can do is list a few of them and talk about what they have in common.

1:30:22 Chris: In fact, I already listed their faves and we've already discussed some of these common themes. And you were just talking about kabbalah. But still, let's summarize a little bit. So theosophy is heavily influenced by wisdom traditions and in particular, wisdom traditions that allegedly harbor some sort of secret or esoteric knowledge. In fact, the dictionary definition for esoteric is intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest. So they're really into that secret knowledge kind of shit. So am I. Yeah, I'm like, I get it. Secret knowledge is like intellectual heroin. These wisdom traditions that theosophy draws from also typically feature divine revelation as a preferred path to knowledge. Here's a quote from Encyclopedia Britannica.

1:31:14 Chris: Theosophical writers hold that there is a deeper spiritual reality and that direct contact with that reality can be established through intuition, meditation, revelation, or some other state transcending normal human consciousness. Again, very evident from just our few interactions with it. So the forebears of theosophy are also traditions that feature the esoteric secret knowledge type thing and also some sort of divine revelation. So, like neoplatonism. Neoplatonism. Kayla: I don't know how to pronounce neoplatonism. Chris: Neoplatonism. Kayla: That's a really good name. Neoplatonism. Chris: Neoplatonism. So Plato, but new neoplatonism. So that, for example, has those features. And I have to give credit here, by the way. It's actually super logically consistent that if you believe in a reality that is fundamentally undetectable or inaccessible via observation, then the only way to gain knowledge about such a reality is through revelation.

1:32:18 Kayla: Right. Just a quick question for you. In this context, are the words like divine revelation and enlightenment kind of synonymous, or those poking at two different ideas? Chris: I think they're synonymous, but I'm also not a llama. You know what I mean? I'm not 100% sure. And a lot of these ideas hinge on some pretty specific nuances, as evidenced by when we took that third class. I remember when the guy was talking about how they had to debate the meaning, how to translate this particular word from Sanskrit that was like, didn't really have a good translation in English, so they had to kind of come up with their own. And it was very particular.

1:33:02 Kayla: Yeah, the word they landed on was relaxed equipoise. Chris: Yeah, relaxed equipoise. Which was like he said, it was like the fourth or fifth thing that they landed on. Like, they're like, well, first we discussed maybe it's this, and then it's that. And then finally we landed on relaxed equipoise. So it was like, obviously they did, like, a lot of effort to, like, get to something that meant something very specific. So, anyway, I'm just saying that because, like, I don't know exactly. What I can say is, when I say divine revelation, what I mean is revelation through some means that involves, a, it's internal, it's introspective, it's God giving you, and b, it's spiritual in some way. It's some sort of, like, non materialist way. Okay, like, I have intuited this truth about the universe, and maybe it's God, right?

1:33:55 Kayla: But it's not just like, oh, you're walking down the street one day, and then suddenly somebody shoots a lightning bolt into your head, and it's like, oh, it is revealed to me now. It's more like you have to. You do internal work to achieve a state of enlightenment or revelation. Chris: Right, exactly. But again, could be God. It's just not in this. Not in theosophus case. In theosophys case, it's like, no, it's via, you know, accessing this pristine awareness that they talked about. Gotcha. Anyway, they also have a ton of other influences that share these characteristics to more or less a degree. Gnosticism, rosicrucianism, Buddhism, especially of the tibetan variety, Hinduism and kabbalah, just to name a few. And just to give a sense of the common thread here, this is what Britannica has to say about Kabbalah. Esoteric Kabbalah is also tradition inasmuch as it lays claim to secret knowledge of the unwritten Torah. Divine revelation that was communicated by God to Moses and Adam, end quote. Which is cool as shit because it's basically saying, like, there's secret knowledge that most people don't know about, like, within this ancient tradition, this jewish tradition, right?

1:35:05 Chris: And it comes from this divine. So in this case, it is from God, right? Like, there's this divine revelation that happened to Moses and Adam, and we're trying to, like, get access to this secret, divinely revealed knowledge, which is dope. Kayla: Can I tell you a side story? Chris: Can you tell our audience a side story? Kayla: Tell whoever's listening this is divine revelation to the audience, divinely revealing. Yes. There is a jewish Kabbalah center not too far from here, like, kind of maybe 20 minutes away in a predominantly jewish neighborhood. And it is apparently, like, I read articles about it, likening it to in the amount of money and pizazz involved, likening it to, like, mega churches or Scientology.

1:35:52 Chris: No way. Kayla: Apparently. And I plan for you and I to go to the Kabbalah center, just like, personally. Cause we gotta go. But it's the Kabbalah center, especially for zazz. Many, many celebrities have been involved. Like Madonna was famously. Chris: Celebrities are involved in Kabbalah? Kayla: Yeah, Demi Moore was into it. Many, many famous celebrities have been involved at the Kabbalah center. So therefore, it has a shit ton of money. And rather than kind of having the atmosphere of theosophilage that you and I went to, where it was, like, old and, like, old shaft of light. Chris: Coming through the window and illuminating the.

1:36:33 Kayla: Dust in the room, it wasn't trying to be flashy or grab you with, like, ooh, there's a lot of money. This is clean, this is pristine. It was grabbing you with the fact that, like, this is old and this is well worn and this is a place to come and, like, you know, read your book about the knowledge. No, the kabbalah center is like, you go, tell me. Chris: It's like neon signs and, like, go girls. Kayla: There's like, club music playing and it's like, wait, seriously? It's. Yeah, it's not go girls, but it's more like. It's more like, from what I've under, from what I understand, it's more similar to, like, a mega church experience. Chris: Wow. Kayla: Than like, you know, some of those. Chris: Megachurch experiences are very entertaining. Kayla: They're attracting followers with money and flash and also this access to secret knowledge. But it's like secret knowledge with my veneer teeth versus secret knowledge with my corn cob pipe.

1:37:22 Chris: Right. Interesting. I cannot wait to go. But anyway, that's about the most concise I can be with Theosophy's roots without starting a religious studies department at the University of Cult is just weird. Kayla: Which is next season. Chris: Right. But what about the actual founding of the movement? Is it just a word to describe thinking about esotericism and divine revelation? Or is it, like, a thing? And you might guess the answer to that is, yes, it's a thing. Otherwise, why would there be a hundred year old lodge in south central La? And yes, it is a thing. And we already mentioned its most prominent and important founder, 19th century spiritualist and maybe world traveler hp Blavatsky.

1:38:04 Kayla: I don't like it when you say maybe like that. Chris: So this season is apparently our russian immigrant comes to America and starts a cult season. Kayla: I was going to ask if there were similarities between Ayn Rand and Hp Blavatsky, which feels kind of, like sexist. Chris: But I don't know those two things. For starters, russian immigrant comes to America and starts a cult. But rather than being born into and growing up in revolutionary Russia, which, like, completely explains Rand's writings and philosophy, Blavatsky was born into the russian empire in the mid 18 hundreds when spiritualism was big. Kind of everywhere, which explains her writings and philosophy. Kayla: And I think it's particularly big. There's something about Russia where some of this stuff is very big there.

1:38:48 Chris: Could because of her. Kayla: Like, ISkCon is big there? Chris: Yeah, I don't know. Could because of her. I didn't encounter that myself. But she is russian. Specifically. She was born. Well, actually, I guess. Well, let me be clear. Born in 1831 in what is now Ukraine, what was part of the russian empire at the time, during a cholera epidemic, into an aristocratic and military family. The father was in the military. The military part of the equation meant that she moved around a lot as a kid. And now I'm going to skip, like a ton of her. Like, her family went here and there, and then she did this at this age, blah, blah. And I'm just gonna get straight to the fun, disputed stuff. Starting in her early controversy section on Wikipedia, pretty much starting in her early adulthood, she traveled around the world, probably. Or, well, probably not.

1:39:40 Kayla: Wait, really? Because maybe this is where we first learned about tulpas. Was her going there and learning about emanation bodies, her going to Tibet? Chris: We're not sure. Kayla: Oh, no. Chris: Quoting from Nicholas Goodrich Clark's Helena Blavatsky biography, she did not keep a diary at the time and was not accompanied by relatives who could verify her activities. Public knowledge of these travels rests upon her own largely uncorroborated accounts, which are marred by being occasionally conflicting in their chronology. End quote. These world travels were also supposedly where she meth the masters. Totally uncorroborated. Blavatsky claimed to have the best, goodest secret knowledge bestowed upon her by these masters.

1:40:25 Kayla: Why can't anything cool ever happen to me? Chris: Who she definitely met, definitely aren't out of town living with their parents this summer in Canada. But, like, you'll meet her really soon, guys, I swear. And she's really pretty and she's great. Older than me, and she likes comic books. She's real. Sorry, I mean, the masters. The masters are real. Here's a quote from her Wikipedia summary as presented by Blavatsky. Theosophy teaches that there is ancient and secretive brotherhood of spiritual adepts known as the Masters, who, although found around the world, are centered in Tibet. These masters are alleged by Blavatsky to have cultivated great wisdom and supernatural powers, and theosophists believe it was they who initiated the modern theosophical movement.

1:41:10 Chris: Through disseminating their teachings via Blavatsky, they believe that these masters are attempting to revive knowledge of ancient religion once found all around the world, and which will again come to eclipse the existing world religions. End quote. So there we are again with the whole, like, theosophy sitting on a perch above everything else, universalizing thing. And speaking of the masters and how definitely real they are, according to Blavatsky, these masters had superpowers, including clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, the ability to control another's consciousness. So, like, mind control, the ability to dematerialize and rematerialize physical objects, and the ability to astrally project their bodies, giving the appearance of being in two places at once and making dolpas, all real things that people can do. As for her visits to Tibet, it's possible, but unlikely that she was there.

1:42:12 Kayla: Why? Chris: Critics and biographers have expressed doubt about the veracity of Blavatsky's claims regarding her visits to Tibet, which rely entirely on her own claims. Lacking any credible, independent testimony, it has also been highlighted that during the 19th century, Tibet was closed to Europeans. Kayla: I remember reading about that, and I remember reading, but maybe it wasn't her. But I remember reading about people at the time, westerners smuggling themselves in various ways. Chris: Yeah. So that's actually my very next thing. No, that's good. People can test that and say the exact same thing. Like, westerners smuggle themselves in. Tibet was open to western traders, so she might have entered that way. So it's definitely not impossible.

1:43:04 Kayla: Right? Chris: Like, it's not impossible for her to have gotten into Tibet. It's just like, it would have been hard, very difficult. There was also. I didn't include this, but people have also questioned, like, her physical constitution and ability to do so. At the time, she claimed to do it, okay? Because it was, like, very remote, and it's not like they were wanting her there, so it's not like they were sending out sherpas to help her up the mountain. So if she was gonna get in, it was gonna be, like, physically very taxing, which was something that, at the time, she didn't seem like she would be capable of. Kayla: That says who? Chris: Not impossible. Not impossible. Kayla: I feel very protective, but there's a.

1:43:47 Chris: Lot of reasons to doubt this. Kayla: I don't like that doubt. Chris: And without corroborating evidence, that's a better doubt. Kayla: I don't like the doubt of, like, I don't think she could have done it, because she didn't look like she could have done it. Chris: Well, that's. Yeah, I. It's not as good of a doubt, but it's. I think it's worthy of mentioning. Anyway, back to the masters. These guys, aside from the secret ones that Blavatsky claimed she was in contact with, they were like the usual suspects from history, right? It's like, oh, well, Jesus was one, Buddha was one, Confucius was one. Kayla: These aren't guys she met. You're just saying these guys were all masters.

1:44:27 Chris: These guys were all masters of the past. Okay, past masters, pastors. But she did say that she met the ones of today. And then I will also caveat that by saying one of the superpowers was like, they could extend their lives, like, an extreme way. So it's very possible that she was like, yeah, I met Plato. Yeah, he's one of the masters. He's still living in Tibet. Kayla: He's hanging out in Tibet. Chris: Very possible she thought that. But again, all of that is basically in line with currently a theosophical idea aggregating this ancient philosophy. Right? It's like we have ideas from Jesus and Buddha and Plato, which we've seen. Kayla: In self realization fellowship, which we've seen in ISKCON, which we've seen in this and that and the other.

1:45:09 Chris: I'll also note here how similar her claims about the masters are and were to spirit channelers. Like a single person makes a claim to having divine knowledge, which you must trust because it comes from a superlative source. In the case of Jay Z Knight, that superlative source is the ancient lemurian warrior spirit Ramtha. In the case of other channelers, its other super duper spirits. In the case of Catholicism, its priests channeling Jesus. In the case of Blavatsky, its these master, they just happen to be like live people rather than spirits. But the structure is the same. Kayla: It's soul phone, but you don't have to call the afterlife. You just have to call some really old guys.

1:45:51 Chris: And in case you were wondering, her claims about these masters and other various paranormal phenomena that she witnessed or produced were disputed even in her own time. Obviously, skeptical rationalists such as myself are going to be extremely skeptical of a lot of her evidence free claims about supernatural stuff. But even potential believers, we haven't ruled this out type people. I'm pretty much ruling this out type person. But there's like, we haven't ruled this out, but we're investigating it. Even some of those folks contested her claims at the time. Specifically, I'm talking, there was this whole controversy from a group called the Society for Psychical Research, basically, where they had someone study her claims and as a result of that study, debunked them.

1:46:36 Chris: Now, I say controversy because this study was based on information provided by someone who had a prior disagreement with Madame Blavatsky, which is important context. Kayla: Yes, it is. Chris: Now, we're also getting very much into, like he said this, she said that, like this person that had a conflict with Blavatsky, you can also argue that the conflict itself was about fraudulent claims. So it was like, did the fraudulent claims create the conflict and then led to the next thing where it got debunked? Or is it that this person just hated Madame Blavatsky and therefore gave these biased accounts? Pro Blavatsky theosophists claim that the psychical research expose on her was a hit piece based on biased sources. Anti Blavatsky, pro realists claim that the expose was legitimate regardless of motives. Take from it what you will. But she did have a lot of other critics, though. For example, like Carl Jung apparently really hated her.

1:47:35 Kayla: That is very interesting to hear because of some stuff I've read recently about Carl Jung. Chris: Yeah, that's why I mentioned his name. There's some other names that I don't think people would be familiar with because I wasn't. But I definitely wanted to mention him because it's sort of in the same wheelhouse. Carl Jung is the collective unconscious guy, which is a big deal in theosophical newage, all of this spiritual stuff world. So they're kind of like, they're basically adjacent. So I'm kind of highlighting that she had critics even within her own sort of spiritualism area of focus.

1:48:15 Kayla: He was also super into gnosticism, which the Venn diagram of gnosticism theosophy. That middle part is way bigger than the outside circle. There's so much overlap. So it's interesting to hear that he was super into gnosticism, but not into this particular person. Chris: Exactly. And then there's definitely some stuff in theosophy that smells really funny. She has a whole ass cosmology, which for the most part, is pretty fun to read about. It's the usual primordial order from chaos kind of stuff, but then it gets into the evolution of humanity, and humanity races.

1:48:57 Kayla: Oh, I don't know anything about this. I just know that this exists. And. Ick. Chris: She had this idea of quote unquote root races that all humans were ultimately derived from. And she gets, like, really specific. There are seven of them, and they also have their own sub races, which I'm not even gonna get into any of that. Kayla: Oh, no. Oh, I don't feel protective anymore. This is gross. Chris: So there are seven root races, and their appearance on earth is in chronological form from, like, super ancient to modern day, starting with the polarian root race. Kayla: Okay? Chris: They were, by the way, they were non corporeal and they reproduced by dividing. Like amoeba museum.

1:49:40 Kayla: Wait, people did this? Chris: The polarian root race did this. Kayla: So, okay. Chris: Which I think that the root. The fact that they're a root race, them human, it's not super clear to me. I think they were just humans that were, like, balls of energy that split, like amoeba. I don't know, man. They're called Polarians. Following that were the hyperboreans. I think they looked more human like, with skin and stuff. Like, they were more like corporeal. They were colored golden yellow, apparently. Then next comes the Lemurians. Hey, Lemuria. We just shouted out Ramtha, too. What are the odds of then? Number four. We're onto number four. Now is the Atlanteans, because you have to have the. Obviously the.

1:50:26 Kayla: If you have Lemurians, you got to have the Atlanteans. Chris: Yeah, exactly. Like. And plus, like, Atlanteans is kind of like. I feel like that's table stakes for this kind of stuff, you know? Like, you have to, like, you kind of start with the Atlanteans and go from there. Kayla: I know. I just side eye Atlanteans now. Ever since we learned about the Atlantis nazi connection. Chris: Don't worry about that, because the fifth group is the Aryans, okay? Which encompasses the modern era and, I think, all of known history. Now, again, this is 18 hundreds. Okay? So this is pre Aryans becoming a big thing in the second world war with Nazi Germany. But this is some of the fertile ground, maybe, where that comes from. I haven't done a lot of research into that sort of.

1:51:09 Kayla: That connection. Chris: That connection. At some point I want to, but it's like, I've poked into it before, and it's the same kind of thing where it's like one link leads to another link, and it's like, I'm not sure if Aryans, as a cultural group of people ever existed. There's Aryans thought to have lived in. Kayla: The Caucus mountains, right? Chris: Yeah. In more of the indian subcontinent region, or maybe the Caucus mountains or maybe Germany, or maybe they moved from one place to the other. All I'm saying is I don't know that much about it. All I know is that the Aryans, for her, were the fifth root race of which our current manifestation of humans belong to.

1:51:50 Kayla: That, okay. Chris: Then there's the 6th root race, which there doesn't seem to be a name for these guys. Kayla: They're just guys. Chris: They're coming in the future. Kayla: Oh. Chris: And I can't possibly summarize this, so here's what CW leadbeater, another theosophist. This is one of theosophy schism guys. I want to make that clear. Like, this particular thing that I'm about to read is from him. Kayla: So it's from. Not from Blavatsky. Chris: Not from Blavatsky. Kayla: It's from somebody who schismed off of Blavatsky. Chris: Someone who schismed off and wrote his own stuff about the seven root races. Okay, here's what he has to say. Kayla: I don't think this is gonna be good.

1:52:31 Chris: According to CW Leadbeater, a colony will be established in Baja California by theosophical Society under the guidance of the masters of the ancient wisdom in the 28th century for the intensive, selective eugenic breeding of the 6th root race. Kayla: Sounds like your antia stuff. Chris: Oh. The master Moria will physically incarnate in order to be the manu or progenitor of this new root race. By that time, the world will be powered by nuclear power, and there will be a single world government led by a person who will be the reincarnation of Julius Caesar. Kayla: This is a. This is a mish mash.

1:53:12 Chris: That's why I couldn't summarize it. Tens of thousands of years in the future, a new continent will arise in the Pacific Ocean that will be the future home of the 6th root race. California, west of the San Andreas fault, will break off from the mainland of North America and become the island of California off the eastern coast of the new continent. I don't know why that last part is relevant. End quote. Kayla: Because he really likes California. I've got to say, I don't think any of that's gonna happen. Chris: Probably not. Kayla: I just don't. Chris: You don't think Julius Caesar's gonna reincarnate and then leave the nuclear power master? Kayla: The nuclear power master rate? I don't think it's good. And I think that people need to. Chris: Drugs, Kayla. Kayla: I think people need to step away from the eugenics. Chris: Yeah, just step away from the eugenics. Go home, sir. You're eugenics.

1:53:55 Kayla: Like, it's just. It just always comes up and it's like, what are you doing, Urantia? What are you doing? Celestial seasonings? You doing theosophists? Chris: To be fair, this is when eugenics was, like, kind of popular everywhere, right? This was early 20th century. So, like, unfortunately, everybody was like, yay, eugenics is cool. At that time. Kayla: It's kind of like when went and saw that, like, spirit photography exhibit or spirit photography presentation, the guy was like, technology influences, like, the beliefs of that time or the evidence of that time. Like, kind of. Yeah, the society influences the weird ass beliefs all the time. Your spirituality is still going to be shaped by your societal shit.

1:54:40 Chris: I mean, we said that with blavatsky and with Ayn Rand, too, right? Their beliefs are shaped by their experiences. Anyway, then that 6th root race will eventually produce the 7th root race, which is the final one. Kayla: Wait, so this is. So the Julius Caesar group is going to eugenics, their own race, and they're going to make a new one? Chris: Yes. Well, okay. So I think Julius Caesar is actually one of the last arian folks before the 6th root race comes into being. It's not super clear because all this stuff is made up, but there's the 6th root race, who we don't have a name for. Or maybe they did, and I just couldn't find it. And then they will give rise to the 7th and final root race.

1:55:27 Kayla: Okay. Chris: Which will be a. They'll be sexless spirit beings of pure energy. Kayla: Cool. Chris: And then I assume they go on to become antagonists on an episode of Star Trek or something. Kayla, your thoughts on root races. Kayla: Get him out of here. I think that spiritual leaders and thinkers betray their bigoted thoughts through their cosmology, and it's a real bummer. Chris: Yeah, I think once you get into, like, once you start trying to apply any of this crap to, like, to humans, to, like, to sociology, it's kind of like trying to apply it to, like, quantum mechanics and other sciences. Like, when you try to apply it to sociology as a science, this is what you get when you try to apply it to quantum mechanics. You get quantum flapdoodle when you try to apply it to, like, anthropology.

1:56:26 Kayla: Right? Chris: You get this, like, really racist shit. Kayla: Yeah, well, yeah. And if you have. You're living in victorian times and you have eugenicist beliefs, and then you're going to be like, oh, here's my cosmology. And then it's just going to reflect the, like, crappy, bigoted eugenics of your time. That doesn't seem enlightened to me. That doesn't. That doesn't seem. If I were to say, like, what pieces of wisdom were actually divinely revealed to HP Blavatsky, I would not consider this to be part of it. This does not seem like divine enlightenment at all. This seems very low vibration. It does. Chris: You're here first, guys. Culture, just weird. It's calling it low vibration. It's funny that you mentioned. It's funny that you mentioned these leaders doing a disservice to their own movements, because that's my very next note here is Blavatsky, and certainly ledbeater don't speak for all theosophists, even back then.

1:57:22 Kayla: I don't get to think that this is important to the body of belief and knowledge in modern day theosophy. Chris: I don't either. But then again, I don't know. There are people in the class we took where they're really into UFO's, so who knows? They could be like, yeah, Lemuria and Atlantis. Yeah. But they also could be into Lemuria and Atlantis in the more sort of, like, naive, benign way that doesn't get into the whole, like, well, you see, there was a master race that once lived here. They could be doing it in a more, like, I don't know. Okay. Way. Kayla: Right. Chris: So we're talking about some of these, like, other leaders, other founders of Theosophy, and we specifically talked about here, HC leadbeater, the schism guy. Important to mention that. Yeah. The reason he schismed was because he was extremely controversial. They didn't really care for the whole eugenics thing. And larger theosophy. He was also accused of some. Sorry, this makes an appearance in every episode now. But sexual abuse of minors.

1:58:27 Kayla: God damn. Chris: So all that stuff got him expelled from mainstream theosophy. Kayla: So that's good. Chris: Good on them for that. But theosophy has a surprisingly large number of schisms, considering that it's anti dogmatic and doesn't really have membership requirements. And it kind of says it encompasses everything. Kayla: Right. Chris: So there's another excerpt that I have to take from one of the many encyclopedias that I read that I really love because of how deliciously chaotic it is. Kayla: Oh, God. Okay. Chris: And how much it illustrates the problems inherent with, like, I'm in contact with the secret, infallible guy. Like, problems that are so inherent that they even present problems within the group that believes in that kind of stuff.

1:59:07 Kayla: Right. Chris: So to appreciate this expert, though, I gotta list out a few people first. And again, this is like the really quick and dirty version. Each of these people are more than historical footnotes in their own right, but in 2023 and culture, just weird. They just get a bullet point, I guess. All right, first, Henry Alcott. Henry Alcott was one of the three co founders of theosophical Society in New York City in 1875. And then next we have William Kwan, judge, WQ judge. He's the third co founder of the New York City Theosophical Society, along with the aforementioned Alcott, Anne Blavatsky herself. Kayla: And we definitely talked about him in one of the classes.

1:59:48 Chris: And then we have Annie Besant, who became the head of a theosophical society founded in Adyar, India. She's a great example of someone who's fascinating in her own right. She was involved in women's rights, indian independence, socialist causes. She was also a freemason. And despite being a leading figure in theosophy, she was publicly an atheist and scientific materialist, which I don't know if we've really said it explicitly yet, but theosophy is kind of antithetical to scientific materialism. Belief in divine revelation is pretty opposed scientific materialism, which holds that you need to gain knowledge through empirical observation. So she's like a really fascinating figure in her own right, but she was also one of these three sort of theosophy drama. Let me just read you this excerpt. So again, co founders Henry Alcott, WQ judge, and movement leader Annie Besant.

2:00:47 Chris: During her lifetime, Blavatsky had suggested to many different people that they would be her successor. Three of the most prominent. So if you're wondering why there's schisms, that's why. Three of the most prominent candidates, Olcott, Judge, and Besant, all met in London shortly after her death to discuss the situation. Judge said that he, too, was in contact with the masters and that they had convenient. Kayla: Wow. Chris: And that they had provided him with a message instructing him to co delegate the society's esoteric section with Besant. Okay, so we see, like, a little mexican standoff going here. We have, like, three people, right? And now, like, judge and saying, like, oh, I'm on Passant's team. Alcott, however, suspected that the notes from the masters which judge was producing were forged, exacerbating the tensions between them. I know you're not supposed to question that stuff unless you're in a power struggle, passant then attempted to act as a bridge between the two Mendez. While Judge informed her that the masters had revealed to him a plot that Alcott was orchestrating to kill her.

2:01:54 Kayla: Ooh. Chris: In 1893, Besant came down on Alcott's side, actually, in the argument, and backed the internal proceedings that Alcott raised against judge. So again, judge was saying, oh, the masters told me that Alcott is scheming to kill you. Kayla: Right? Chris: And then she was like, I'm not so sure about that. I'm gonna side with the other guy. A two stage inquiry took place, which concluded that because the society took no official stance on whether the masters existed or not, which is true, Judge could not be considered guilty of forgery and would be allowed to retain his position. Kayla: Okay. Chris: Judge then announced that the masters had informed him that he should take sole control of the esoteric section deposing Besant, which she rejected. Amid calls from Alcott that Judge should stand down. And April 1895, the american section voted to secede from the main society, end quote. And there's more to that. But I just like the whole triumvirate there, right? It's like Caesar, Mark Antony, and third guy was the third guy.

2:02:58 Kayla: I don't know. Chris: I don't know. Kayla: The knife. It was the knife. I can't even say, like, well, you really should just have, like, a very clear lineage of succession if you're one of these. Like Blavatsky's if you're one of these leaders. But Rla Prabhupada did that and didn't fix it. He was like, we're gonna. Before I die, I'm gonna set up all these systems, and it's gonna be like a whole system so that there's no questions and problems here. And then instead, it seemed like he just kind of empowered eleven of these guys. Chris: Well, he didn't really get schismed, though. He just. Kayla: Yes, he did. Yes, he did. The new Vrindravan guy was like, I. Chris: Am the guy in West Virginia. Yeah. I don't know. Either way, Logan Roy could have benefited from learning from these examples, I'm sure. One of these schisms, though, occurred right here in Los Angeles, and, in fact, is the group that you and I participated in.

2:03:52 Kayla: Okay, wait, so the group that went to is schismed off from Blavatsky? Chris: Schismed off from the main group, yes, from Blavatsky's group. That would be the United Lodge of Theosophists, founded here in LA in 1909. Kayla: Ooh. Chris: And they are somewhat centered around that WQ judge character from the previous schism story. So that's probably why he came up in the readings that we did. Kayla: He did. Chris: And don't forget, he was the guy that was like, I'm totally in contact with the masters, you guys. Now that Blavatsky's gone. Kayla: Wait, did we go to a good place or a bad place? I liked it. I don't care. I liked it. Chris: Good. I think. But I don't know. We said this at the time. There's a lot of b's here. I'm sorry. Here are their main tenets that set them apart from other theosophical movement pieces, whatever you want to call them. First of all, recognition of WQ judge as HP Blavatsky's colleague and co worker from the beginning, and hence one of the original founders of theosophical movement.

2:04:53 Kayla: Okay. Chris: Two, exclusive adherence to the unaltered works of HP Blavatsky and WQ judge, along with only those other works that are philosophically in consonance with the aforementioned. So there's some, like, I don't know what that means. That's schism control. That's like, these are the true works. Kayla: We have schismed often. You cannot schism again. Chris: And none of the other schisms are the right works. Only our schism plus blavatsky are the correct works, which, considering the other schism with the eugenics thing, not a bad idea. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Three, rejection of any other authorities in the form of, quote, unquote, leaders or teachers, and reference to all of its associates as students with emphasis on self reliance. So again, schism control. None of these other leaders are valid. And then referring to ourselves as students, which we totally. I got that. They all said they were students at the place went.

2:05:48 Kayla: Schism control is. We'll have to keep that one for later. Chris: Yeah, we'll put that on a t shirt, too. But I like the student thing. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Number four, absence of organizational elements such as constitution, bylaws or officers, and complete reliance on the similarity of aim, purpose, and teaching as the only basis of unity. Kayla: Oh, man, that's, like, both so good and so bad. Because I have been a part of so many groups that were, like, just rendered impotent because of the over reliance on ground constitutions and bylaws and those kinds of things. And so it makes me go like, well, fuck that. Everything should just be, like, anarchist, and we all just, like, decide. And, you know, there's problems there, too.

2:06:31 Chris: Well, these guys are. That. These guys are the anarchists on that side these days. I think. I think that it kind of depends on the situation, too. And I think that if your situation is like, we're a bunch of people trying to, like, become enlightened via the truth, that seems much more amenable to me than something else. Like, that seems very amenable to the chaotic, ground up, self reliance sort of thing. Kayla: The problem then becomes, though, you don't have protocol for dealing with bad actors. Chris: You don't. Kayla: So it's like if somebody is an abuser or if somebody is trying to gain power or somebody is trying to take the group in a bad way. Chris: But there's, like, there's no power to gain. Right. Like, there's no leadership, sure. But, like. And then it also gives you plausible deniability. Like, if somebody turns out to be an abuser in, you know, the Chicago, sorry, Chicago theosophical Society, then, you know, the La branch can just be like, well, we all do our own thing, so we have nothing to do with that.

2:07:27 Kayla: Yeah, I'm more on the side of this than the bylaws. Chris: Yeah. And then it also allows you to go, like, well, I don't know about some of that stuff Blavatsky said. Kayla: Right, right. Chris: Anyway, number five, anonymity of living persons who write on behalf of ult United Lodge of theosophists to protect against exaltation of personalities. Kayla: I am so into that. Chris: And self advertising. Oh, boy. Kayla: Oh, boy. That is a good one. I like that one. Chris: That is a very good one. You can kind of tell from these tenets of theirs, kind of like what they're trying to fix about what happens. Kayla: I know. I'm super into this. Chris: All right, now, we've talked in the show about this already, but it really bears mentioning. Again, theosophy has been hugely influential, huge y o o g in the spiritualist movement in the 20th century, and it essentially gave birth to the modern new age movement, which itself now has many of its own children. So here's another reading from Botanica. In 1970, american theosophist David Spangler moved to the Findhorn foundation, where he developed the fundamental idea of the new age movement. So there you go, right there. Theosophist David Spangler invented new age.

2:08:44 Kayla: All right. Chris: I know it's more like organic than that. It's not like one guy suddenly came up with it. But to the extent that we can kind of, like, point to an origin point, that's the origin point we kind of point to. He believed that the release of new waves of spiritual energy signals by certain astrological changes for the movement of earth into a new cycle known as the Age of Aquarius, had initiated the coming of the new age. He further suggested that people use this new energy to make manifest the new age. Kayla: Like Roko's basilisk. Chris: Exactly. And this terminology of new age comes from none other than Blavatsky herself, who, quote, announced a coming of a new age. She believed that theosophists who embraced buddhist and brahmanic notions such as reincarnation, should assist in the evolution of the human race. End quote. So if you want to know where all this stuff comes from that we've been talking about on the show, it comes from Theosophy, which we have mentioned. But just to. Just to say it, just to hammer.

2:09:45 Kayla: That home, I think that we need to remember this when we get to the criteria. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: Because this seems like an inherently very niche group, and it is just not at all. It is the backbone of current western mystery thought and clearly new age belief. And that's everywhere. Chris: Yeah. That influences niche in terms of members today, but in terms of its influence, it's definitely not. It's that and actually the membership. It's interesting there's such a contrast between the membership and the influence. The membership really took a hit because of a lot of these controversies around Blavatsky and around some of the following schisms and members and power struggles and guy who likes Eugenics and blah, blah. So that really made it take a hit. But then it had enough staying power. And again, is it theosophy that has the staying power, or is it the universal quest of human beings to understand their place in the universe of which theosophy and many other things are? One, is that the staying power?

2:10:58 Chris: I don't know, but if you have to trace a line to it from one named thing to another named thing, you can trace one from theosophy directly to new age. Kayla: I think that theosophy just did a very good job of tapping into an inherent human desire, drive, need, whatever you want to call it, and, like, whatever metaphors they drummed up to describe our human experience of, like, knowing that we are in reality and there is a reality beyond the senses. They were able to put a map on it that you and I and people were able to, like, cling on to and go like, this makeshi sense. This makes more sense than the panic I feel in my soul over the.

2:11:45 Chris: 15 seconds of delay you have. Kayla: Yes. Chris: And there's so many connections. It casts such a wide net. It comes from so many spiritual predecessors, and it has, via new age, a lot of spiritual successors as well. Remember the etherea society? Kayla: Oh, do I? Chris: Their Wikipedia page starts with the following statement, and theology of the etherea society is regarded as firmly based in theosophy. Kayla: That makes sense. Yep. That guy was definitely a theosophist. Yep. Chris: With, like, six sided sources for that statement. Kayla: Abs fucking lutely. That makes so much sense. Chris: Do you remember their belief in being able to essentially, like, pray or meditate good vibes in the direction of world crises to help make the crises better?

2:12:30 Kayla: That was their whole thing. Chris: That is a new age belief traceable directly to theosophy with gasoline poured on it by the idea of the hundredth monkey effect. Kayla: Oh, geez. Chris: Have you heard of the hundredth monkey? Kayla: I have heard of the hunter, yeah. Yes. There was a book that I really liked when I was a teenager that was about nuclear disarmament. Chris: I almost certainly came across that book title when I was doing this research. Yeah, the hundredth monkey effect. So there was this research that was done by a biologist or ecologist or something. I believe it was in Japan earlier in the 20th century. And basically it found that if you teach enough monkeys something, then I think it was like washing their food or something like that, in this case. So if you teach enough monkeys something, then that idea will spread. And the original research didn't make any sort of claims as to whether or how or whatever. How does this idea spread? There's a lot of controversy surrounding now that experiment and things about it have maybe been debunked, but it went on to take a much greater meaning because it was interpreted as meaning the ideas will spread magically.

2:13:46 Kayla: Yeah. If 100 monkeys over here learned it, then 100 monkeys on another island will also learn it even without interacting. Chris: Well, eventually all of them will eventually. Kayla: Learn without having to interact with the original group. Chris: Exactly. So the normal way of interpreting that is like, oh, yeah, you teach enough monkeys something, and then eventually it'll spread via regular social contact. Kayla: Right. Chris: But somehow via, like, I don't know why this particular research got glommed onto or which aspects of it lent itself to misinterpretation in this way. I read some stuff basically saying that, like, the research really wasn't at fault, it was really just the later interpretations. Can't say for sure, but, yeah, the interpretation ended up being the dominant interpretation. It got spread in. It got spread in our culture. Was that if you teach enough monkeys something, then it will just supernaturally, paranormally would have you invisibly spread to other monkeys.

2:14:46 Kayla: I literally remember reading that in this book, and as, like, a 14 year old, I was like, wow. Chris: Yeah, that's so cool. Mind blowing. Kayla: And then a couple years later being like, I'm sorry, that doesn't make any fucking sense. What are you talking about? Chris: Does it sound similar to anything that we just talked about? Kayla: Probably. Chris: That's what the etherea society does. Kayla: Oh, that's their whole thing of, like, we can. Yeah. Raise the vibration. We can help people by just thinking in their direction. Chris: So that's when I said, like, gasoline poured on it. So there's this new age belief that via enough good vibes, that we can bring about this age of Aquarius, this new spiritual age just by you and I going to live in the commune with all the other cool hippies that are putting out all the good vibes. And as soon as we get 100 monkeys, or in this case, humans, as soon as we get enough, it'll have this transformative effect that will transmit everywhere without us having to actually go talk to anybody, because that's totally what happened with these monkeys. That's not what happened with these monkeys, but that's what they thought happened with these monkeys.

2:15:47 Kayla: And I think, unfortunately, I think that's a pretty insidious belief. Chris: Yeah, I don't care. It doesn't sound great when, like, when you. Kayla: I think most groups. I do think most groups marry their idea of, like, we must do good works with meditating nicely at people and doing, like, physical material, like, go out and feed and clothe people. I think most groups that are like, yay, good works do both. But I think that the outsized importance on, like, the real work, the real good work that you're gonna do, follower of this new belief, whatever, whichever one it is meditating good at people. I don't think that's the way to enlightenment and the way to materially help others.

2:16:40 Chris: Yeah, I think an over reliance on that is damaging. Kayla: I think at worst, it can lead people away from reaching out, helping, being helped, and actually becomes a very isolating, deactivating. Chris: Yeah. What's funny is we also. I was talking about this with Kayla the other day. I feel like such a podcast when. Kayla: I say that, well, we are married, and we do live in the same house, and we do fucking pontificate all the goddamn time. Chris: That's mainly the caffeine's fault. I was gonna blame it on you, but it's really the caffeine were talking about, how that's also a common thread in religious history is the dichotomy between faith and good works that exists in Christianity, too. That's one of the main differentiating factors between Catholicism and Protestantism is works like what gets you into heaven, good works or faith. So it's interesting that exists in other wisdom, religious traditions as well.

2:17:41 Kayla: It's just so clearly good works, you guys. Chris: Well, you should be Catholic then. One more thing before I ask you a question, and I promised I would talk about this when were discussing the class, is that it was really. It was really tough for me to, like, get us into those classes in the first place. Kayla: This is just a brief little secret knowledge. Chris: Yeah, super secret knowledge. Like, how did it go? It was like, so first I went to their website and tried to contact them that way because they have a contact form on their website. And then the contact form, I got an email from someone, and it didn't say, like. Like, the email wasn't saying who they were with or what. It was like, I only found out later that it was because I submitted a contact form, and it was like, you should call so and so, or maybe call this other person so and so. And it was like, that's all the email said. It wasn't signed. It didn't say, like, blah, blah from theosophical Society. It said those two sentences, and that's it.

2:18:43 Kayla: And then you said, great, thank you. Just checking. Like, is this in regards to the inquiry I sent on the united logic of theosophist website? And the person responded with, I don't know. Chris: I was like, okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that it was. Kayla: I'm sorry, this is my favorite quest. Chris: And then I called, and I called one of the numbers, and it was out of order. Kayla: Yep. Chris: And then I called the other number, and it was. I think that was when I got the full mailbox, maybe. But then, like, someone called me back, and then I had. I have to. There's, like, a little bit of a phone tag with that. Cause, like, I wasn't around, and then I had to call them back. Anyway, I finally did get in touch with this person who was just, like, some random guy. Like, none of these are like, you know how this is like, a very ground up type thing were talking about? Like, it's very. Just sort of like, oh, this is people. There's no organization to it. Never more evident than when talking to these people on the phone.

2:19:37 Chris: Literally, I was just talking to some dude who was, like, about to go pick up his kids from practice or something, and he just sort of said, like, yeah, well, you know, we talk about this. We have some zoom meetings, and, you know, sometimes we meet on Tuesdays, and here's where you can get some more information. Blah, blah. Very kind gentleman, very nice guy. So then I followed his instructions to go to the website, but then the website led me to another one of their websites, which I later found, like, the original. The initial website was, like, not supposed to be in service anymore, but it was still up for some reason. And then the new one just directed me back to the old one. Chris: And then finally I emailed him again, and I was like, I don't know how to get the zoom link for these classes that you're talking about. And then he's like, oh, you have to click this button and submit a form. And so I'm like, okay, I have to submit a form again. That didn't really work last time, but I guess I'll do it again. And then I submitted another form, and I had to say which classes I was interested in and why or whatever. And then once I submitted that, I got an email from somebody else, and then I corresponded with this guy on email for a while, and. Wait, no, he was. Sorry. Two things happened. One is, I got another phone number. As confusing as this sounds right now, it was more confusing at the time. I got another phone number.

2:20:54 Chris: I spoke with somebody else. He said he like, do you have ten minutes to talk? And then he talked my ear off for, like, an hour. An hour and ten minutes. Kayla: This is just signing up for a class. Chris: This is just signing up for. This was just to get into the class. So I spoke with him for, like, an hour with him. I was talking with him long enough that I was able to talk about, like, hey, you, this is for a podcast. What do you think? Once heard the title of the podcast, he was not interested. He did not like the name of the title of the podcast. Kayla: Fair enough. Chris: And so that was kind of a dead end. And then I finally got links to the Zoom classes from another person that replied to the form, and that was the guy that was running the meeting that went to physically on Sunday, and that's how we finally got zoom links to classes.

2:21:42 Kayla: So, anyway, the pursuit of secret knowledge, you went on your own journey. Chris: Absolutely. Was an odyssey in pursuit of secret knowledge. Kayla, I want to turn it over to you, because as an obsessed person, you have not been able to keep your claws off of theosophical research. Kayla: I didn't google anything about theosophy. I just googled everything around theosophy, which is theosophy, which is apparently theosophy, which. Chris: Apparently is the same. Kayla: But I didn't really know that. So unfortunately, I learned a lot of things. Chris: Tell us some things. Kayla: I just want to say one thing of, like, if any theosophists are listening, I just. I think that especially the name of our podcast and some of the things that we do where we, like, talk about the controversies that I think is important for you and I and for our listeners as part of our own truth seeking, as part of our own search for what is the truth and what do we believe and what do we listen to. And I think it's also a big position of this show that take what you like and leave the rest is generally valid. And there's a lot of stuff that.

2:22:51 Chris: I have learned, but it was a blue and black dress. Kayla: It's definitely a blue and black dress. There's a lot of stuff that I have learned from these classes and from listening to you and from doing my own tangential research, which, I'm sorry, overlapped with yours. There is a lot that I am taking away from that. I am very excited and grateful to have learned, and I'm looking forward to going back to some of these classes and sitting on these zooms and learning about stuff that I have no footing in. I just want to make that clear because we're talking about a specific group, and we really enjoyed and liked and found a lot of. Of value and benefit in what we've gone and done. And also, it's important for you and I to have the full picture and talk about very human stories that are often parts of spiritual, philosophical, religious movements.

2:23:46 Kayla: There's my little soapbox. Chris: Understandably, our title puts off people, which I get because there's usually negative connotations with the word cult and with the word weird. Even you have to listen to our show or already be in agreement with us. That weird is good to know that. So I don't blame people for saying, I don't like the title of your show. Fuck off. I totally get that. And I also don't want to, like you were just saying, the folks that we've actually met through this via the classes and even the people I talked to in my confusing odyssey to try to get to one of these classes. Super nice people.

2:24:26 Kayla: Yeah, some of the most gracious and welcoming. Chris: Yeah, super nice. Like, did not have to talk to me, but, like, didn't have any idea who I was. Took time out of their day to chat with me for either ten minutes for the first guy, or an hour and ten minutes for the second guy. Kayla: Like, the class went to on Zoom in between the two recordings, there was somebody in that class who was private messaging me throughout the entire class with, like, supplemental information because they were like, oh, well, you're new. You don't know. You don't have the context for this. You don't have the contact for this, like, helping guide us through the class totally out of the goodness of their heart. Chris: And I'll also, actually, I'll say one more thing. The quantum flap doodle. They had a little bit of quantum flapdoodle, but of all the quantum flap doodle I've heard, really. Not that it was actually very close to.

2:25:10 Kayla: Close to reality. Chris: Close to reality. Kayla: Yeah. It wasn't. Chris: I will give them credit for their flap doodle. It's barely doodle. So I have a physics degree, so that's why I'm able to say this. Kayla: That's why you're talking about that. Okay, so you're turning it over to me because. Yeah. Yes. Once went to these classes, it kicked off a little bit of a hyper fixation for me. And I will say a lot of this stuff I have an inherent interest in, and inherent fascination in. I keep talking about when I was a teenager. Chris: Don't say. Kayla: This was a lot of stuff that I was very interested in as a teenager, and that's always gonna be a part of me. This always is gonna be a part of me. So when we start talking about this stuff, I'm like, yes, I wanna be a theosophist. Yes, I wanna. I want to be a hermetic kabbalist. Yes, I need to learn everything about this. I know I have uncovered every school and group in the greater Los Angeles area that talks about this shit. And I'm dragging you to all of them, because I'm very excited.

2:26:05 Chris: Secret knowledge journey. Kayla: Secret knowledge is there. But part of what I discovered as I was reading about specifically hermeticism, kabbalah, and gnosticism. Chris: Okay. Kayla: And a little bit of theosophy, because, again, it's gonna go in theosophy, much like it is the backbone of, like, new ageism. It's also, like, kind of a backbone of Los Angeles. Chris: Really? Well, because the group that went to was founded here. Kayla: Correct. So you said they were founded in 1909, and then there was that big building in 1927. So one of the biggest destinations in Los Angeles is the Hollywood bowl, which is an outdoor concert venue in Hollywood.

2:26:52 Chris: It's like one of the two or three. If you're going to a concert here. It's like one of the two or three boys. Kayla: You're going to the bowl. It was built by theosophists. It was built by a theosophist. Chris: Wait, so hold on. That's big. It's like he was just out there with a hammer and nail excuse. Kayla: He was a lady. Chris: I misgendered. I am sorry. So she was out there with a hammer and nail, single handedly building this venue that is not made of wood, now that I think about it. Kayla: Yep. No. So a wealthy heiress back in 1918, Christine Wetherill Stevenson was a Los Angeles Theosophical Society member and wanted to put on a play or a performance that was about the life of the Buddha and essentially funded the building of the original Hollywood bowl in order to put on this performance. And it was, like, such a smash hit success that the city of Los Angeles viewed theosophists as like, oh, we love those guys. Those are super cool guys. They put us on this cultural map, in a way.

2:28:03 Chris: Wow. So, so that she was a member of theosophical, like, this. The. The ult. Like, the la. Kayla: It was Los Angeles specifically. Chris: Yeah. And then because she was a wealthy heiress, she was like, I can fund this thing. And then it was theosophy that was putting on the. The play or the. What was it play. Kayla: It was like a player performance, like a musical kind of thing. It was a play about. Chris: It was theosis that put it on. Kayla: It was her and other theosopher. Chris: Another theosophy. Kayla: Yes. But she founded. Chris: Wow. She funded the building, the house that theosophy built. Kayla: And it's interesting that you talked about Annie Besant. Chris: I did. Kayla: So there is another theosophy lodge in Los Angeles. Oh, that is not the United lodge of theosophists.

2:28:47 Chris: See, it's these schisms, man. Is it the Annie Besant schism? Kayla: It is. I don't know what, who, when, where. All I know is that it is called the Besant Lodge, and it is up in Beechwood Canyon, which is kind of near the Hollywood sign. Chris: Okay. Kayla: And it's funny, because I have, like, a friend that lives right there, and I was like, oh, my God, I've driven by this lodge. But when I was looking up this lodge, which, again, is similar to ult, I think a lot, maybe smaller or, like, fewer classes, but similar in that it's like we're seeking the truth, blah, blah, I learned that it was part of something originally called Crotona. What have you heard of Crotona? Chris: What? Kayla: So Crotona was one of. This is. I'm reading from wikipedia now. Krotona, k r o t o n a, was one of three important theosophical centers in the United States during the early part of the 20th century. Originally built in Hollywood during 1912, the colony was eventually relocated to Ojai in 1926, where it operates today as the Kratona Institute of Theosophy.

2:29:46 Chris: No shit. Ojai is just a little north of La. It's just a town. City, town, village place, resort village. Kayla: So, yeah, this colony, this was essentially a commune built in Hollywood in the early 1910s to house a bunch of theosophists and their events. And they called themselves Crotonians. Chris: Crotonians. Kayla: And then eventually they were like, ugh, Hollywood is suffering influential. Chris: Yeah, this is the thing. There's so many, like, threads. There's so many threads going into theosophy and so many coming out of it. Kayla: Right? And then I also found just related, just slightly related to the Besant Lodge. They put on lectures and events in conjunction with ecclesia gnostica, which is also up in that area and is a neo gnostic church.

2:30:46 Chris: It's all part of it. Kayla: It's all the same stuff as theosophy. There's other stuff that I learned on this journey that we'll put into a bonus episode, or I'll scream about on the discord, if you haven't been on the discord yet. But it was just really interesting to learn about all of the different ways theosophy still exists in a city like Los Angeles. There's multiple theosophy lodges. There's gnostic churches. There's a hermetics school. There are different Aleister Crowley Thelema groups. Like, this stuff is very alive and well. My brain is full and is intrinsically tied to the foundations of the city.

2:31:29 Chris: I love that. Kayla: Yeah, me too. Chris: Very interesting. And this whole time, we still haven't even talked about PSR. We still haven't even talked about the philosophical research society. Kayla: Oh, yeah. Chris: Manly P. Hall goes back, which all ties into that too. Like, some of the students that we met at the class on Sunday were interested in that kind of stuff too. I forget exactly what it was. Kayla: One of the people studied with Manly P. Hall. Chris: That's what it was. And like, yeah, like, directly contact. Kayla: If you read anything about, like, theosophy, you're gonna end up at Manly P. Hall, and then you're gonna end up at philosophical research society. And then it just becomes an ouroboros in a good way. Chris: All right, before I get, like, irretrievably confused here, let me just say what my sources were pretty succinct this time. Encyclopedias, wikipedia and Britannica, works of several Blavatsky biographers, including Nicholas Goodrich Clark, theosophyult.com, comma, altla.com. I think that last one is the one that's supposed to be not there anymore. And then, fittingly for the divine revelation episode, our own personal experiences. Okay, so is it a cult or just weird?

2:32:40 Kayla: Mm mm. Chris: Okay. Kayla: Criteria me, baby. Chris: Charismatic. Hallieder. Kayla: I. Yeah. Chris: You know what we're gonna run into with this one again? Too many schisms, past and present. We're gonna be like, is it now versus when it was founded? Kayla: No. Okay. Yes, you're right. I shouldn't say that, because if we. Chris: Said now, if we said now, I'd be like, no. Especially if you talk about the United Lodge of theosophists. It's purposely leaderless, but if you go back to OG, it's like, oh, my God. Yeah. Madam Blavatsky, totally charismatic leader. Kayla: Yes. And in that class that we took, her books were. All her books were piled high on the table, and they kept referring back. Back to, essentially referring to the secret doctrine, which is a book that she wrote as kind of a foundational Bible.

2:33:24 Chris: That's true. Kayla: I think that HP Blavatsky still fits the charismatic leader bill for me. I think she founded it. Chris: No, I think you make a good point. Just because she's not. Just because she's long dead and not the current leader of the movement, even the headless, leaderless version of that movement still pays a lot of reverence and knowledge, respect towards that person. Kayla: So feel free to correct us any theosophists who are listening, but I think. Chris: It is high and charismatic leader expected harm. Kayla: I don't get a sense of harm here. Chris: I'm gonna caveat that with, like, I don't know, the exact trace of things like root races and whatnot to, like, 20th century atrocities, but. And if I had to say, like, today, like, what should you expect to be harmed? If you, like, should you expect to, you know, have a group that, I don't know, doesn't feed you for three days and then does weird stuff and blah, I would say probably not. I don't. I don't get that at all.

2:34:29 Kayla: I don't get that, either. Chris: Presence of ritual. Kayla: Hi. Yeah. Chris: In fact, one of the things that I liked the best about this class is that it was, like, this hybrid, like, meditation and then discussion, rather than just discussing or just meditating. It was like, first there was that ten minutes of let's read something, and then quietly, without saying anything, just sort of, like, enter a meditative state, reflect on it, pick your nose, do whatever you want, silently. And then after that, there was discussion. I really liked that. I thought that was a strength. So I'm gonna count that as a plus one for ritual. Kayla: I like a good hybrid. It's reminding me of an event coming up at ecclesiastica, which is a Yde discourse slash Halloween party. Discourse lecture Halloween party. And I'm like, yes. This people gets me. All of your parties are discourse party.

2:35:19 Chris: Discourse parties. Kayla: Yeah, I agree with you. Chris: Niche within society. You said we're gonna talk about this one, right? Kayla: I think it's not. I would have, before learning this. Chris: Clearly not. Kayla: I would have said, like, oh, yeah, who knows about theosophy? But it's like, even if you don't know the word theosophy, you know about theosophy. Chris: Yeah. Kayla: You cannot escape new age culture, na niche, antifactuality. Chris: I'm sorry. So here. Okay. Kayla: It's high. By their own admission. Chris: Before we get into it, I will say that this season has been a weird season. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: Because going to things and interacting with the people there makes it a lot harder to then dispassionately say whether you agree with them or nothing publicly on a podcast.

2:36:05 Kayla: Well, that's why I say, like, I think that this is high by their own admission. I think that if we. If we're. If we're saying. Okay, when we say factuality, when we say facts, we're talking about, like, the scientific method. We're talking about, can this be reproduced? Can this be peer reviewed? Whereas what their pursuit of truth is not based in, like, scientific fact. It's based one's internal experience. It's based one's pursuit of the interpretation of truth. I could be wrong, but I don't think that what the facts say is important here. Chris: Well, we didn't get into this, but when we talk about how theosophy, at least as originally formulated, is intended to encompass all world religions, it's also supposed to encompass sciences and all other methods to knowledge as well. So, like, first of all, talk about arrogant. It's not just religion that they're trying. It's, like, religion, wisdom, traditions, tribal, like, shamanistic practices, science, like, everything. So they do kind of have science as, like, one of their. Well, this is one of the traditions. This is one of the wisdom traditions is science. Science is part of it. And I think that's what gets you into trouble.

2:37:19 Kayla: Yeah, I think it's anti factual. I don't say that in, like, a yemenite. You're telling people the wrong things. I just think that it's. It's my definition of. Chris: It's not based on empiricism. Yeah. It's not based on observation and empiricism. By definition. By definition, life consumption. Kayla: Okay, small. Chris: Small. But I mean, like, I. Kayla: This is hard, because I don't know how it can be small, because, again, I tried to read, like, one book, and I was like, I need to read, like, I need to be well versed in 40 other things before I can even parse this one book. And I think that's pretty common here. There's a lot to learn and draw from, and that can take over your life.

2:38:00 Chris: But they're not, like, out there, like, saying, you have to come live on the compound. Kayla: They're not doing that. Chris: You have to polish theosophy yacht. But then again, we did meet that lady, that student who said that she had been doing this sort of research her whole life, but. But I don't know if that's life consumption. That's just life. Yeah. Like, we're all sort of. Yes. All of us are on spiritual journeys, whether we like it or not. You know, like, we're all kind of doing that all the time. Kayla: I'm gonna say medium, because I really do think that, like. And this is also based on, like, you know, hanging out in the subreddits around this stuff. It just seems like there's a lot of. If you wanna get a handle on this, you do have to dedicate a lot of time and energy to understanding it. So I think it's at least medium. Yeah.

2:38:45 Chris: Dogmatic beliefs is our next criterion. Kayla: I don't think that applies here. Chris: I don't think so either. As much as there's some things in the thinkings of theosophists that are certainly common. Kayla: Sure. Chris: And there might be some things that they say they would disagree with, I think they would disagree with. Oh, well, materialism is also not the only means to knowledge. All that being said, they're, like, anti. Kayla: Dogmatic, especially in the classes we took. It was like, we do not want you to get to a place of dogma we want to actively work against. Chris: Yeah. There was definitely even one part where they were like, dogma can be dangerous. So I think it's one of the least dogmatic of the groups we've covered.

2:39:29 Kayla: The class were in, literally made space for diametrically opposing beliefs and held them both as valid. So that was really indicative for me. Chris: In the, like, the all encompassing ness of the initial formulation of it. Yeah. Kayla: Dogmatic. And have this structure. Chris: Right. Chain of recruits slash victims. Chain of recruits. Kayla: I don't know. You tell me. It was really hard. It was really hard to get there. Chris: Yeah. Is this anti recruiting? Because, like, I was really trying to weasel my way in, and it was. It was tough. Kayla: I really. It feels like the recruiting that goes on here is people discovering it and coming to it themselves, which is not recruiting these people going out and, like, trying to get new folks.

2:40:10 Chris: And we asked people. We pointedly did ask them at the end of the class, how did you get into it? And everybody sort of had a personal story of, like, well, I was doing this, and I discovered it this way. Nobody was like, this guy sold me hard on it. There wasn't any of that. So I would say low here. Safe or unsafe exit? Kayla: I think safe. Chris: I think safe. Except for, like, the masters apparently wanted to plot to kill Annie Baanjde, and that didn't seem safe. But also, the masters aren't real. Kayla: Right. Well, what is real? It's meaningless anyway. Seems safe. Yeah. I think that if I wanted to join theosophy, I could leave it anytime I wanted. Chris: Yeah. At this point, I would have to unsubscribe from a few email lists, which that's another thing that's very unsafe, by the way. Cause you have to click on subscribe. It's very small.

2:40:58 Kayla: I do think it was as hard as it was to get into some of these classes, and some of these classes are only available by, like, going to a class and learning about it and getting on a mailing list. That while that feels like gatekeepery, it also feels in line with the traditions of learning directly from a guru or learning directly from a teacher. And, like, I think that's kind of cool that even though it's, you know, it's more difficult for you or I, we can't just, like, sign on to a flashy website and, like, click join the zoom link. Having to work at it a little bit and, like, actually get to know the people and be invited is. That's special in its own way. Chris: Yeah. But I would say safe exit. I don't think I'm gonna get bugged if I don't show up again.

2:41:38 Kayla: No, I don't think so either. Chris: All right, so we got high charismatic leader. We got low expected harm with the caveat that we don't know that much about certain relationships between the original movement and bad stuff that happened later. Presence of ritual, high. Niche within society, very low. It's very present within society in many ways. Antifactuality, high life consumption, medium ish. Dogmatic beliefs, very low. Chain of victims, also very low. It's not very recruiting, safe exit. Kayla: So it's just weird. Chris: It's definitely just weird. Kayla: Like, could make an argument for religion. Chris: But, like, it could be religion, but too many other things are low. Right? Like, the only things that are high are charismatic leader, presence of ritual, antifactuality. The rest is low. I think if we had, like, one or two other things, we could make a case that it's in cult slash religion. And then the fact that it's not niche, clearly, to me, would put it in religion, not cult, but it just doesn't hit enough. So I think it's just weird.

2:42:38 Kayla: It's just weird. Chris: And now that I think about it, that kind of makes sense, because, again, it's so all encompassing, it just doesn't really fit neatly into borders. Kayla: Yeah. Chris: So it's not really a thing. It's really hard to pin down, again, kind of like empty spaces in that regard. Kayla: The nebulousness is part of the attraction and the nebulousness. There's a paradox there. Yeah, I don't have more to say on that. Besides, there's a paradox. Chris: The closer you look at it, the more uncertain it is. Oh, my God. My own quantum flap doodle. Just for this episode. Thank you for going on all of these journeys around Los Angeles with me, Kayla, and uncovering all these. These weird societies around here. I can't wait to go to more of them.

2:43:21 Kayla: Oh. Oh, thank you. Chris: I'm literally just getting started. Kayla: We are just. We've got Kabbalah center to go to. We've got the hermetic school to go to. We've got gnostic mass to go to. I'm going to buy myself. I'm going to buy myself some tarot cards. Like, we have a full play right now by the time we come back next season. And again, do we need to push. Chris: Off next season's theme to the followings? Kayla: We only have one more episode after this, don't we? Chris: We do. That's what I'm saying. Kayla: We're, like, the penultimate episode at the. Chris: End of our season. Like. And we have, like, 87 places to visit. Yeah. Kayla: We might just be doing some of that, like, for ourselves in life and. Chris: Not for the content. Kayla: Yeah, I know. Chris: What I don't understand that as a millennial, I don't get how to not, like, monetize every aspect of my life.

2:44:04 Kayla: On Instagram by the time we come back to the next episode. And then, yeah, the season after that, I'm gonna be fully. I'm gonna be ascended. I'm gonna be a master. Chris: You're gonna be just one of those, like. Like, energy beings walking, sexless energy being that spawns themselves. Kayla: Hell, yeah. Chris: Oh, boy. Last but not least, if you want to discuss the episode, of course, go to our discord, which you will find a link to that in the show notes and also everywhere else that we are on social media. Kayla: And thank you to everybody who we interacted with on our journey to learn more about theosophy. Everybody who was in class with us, we really appreciate everything that you shared with us and making us feel so welcome. Chris: This is Kayla, and this is Chris. Kayla: And this has been cult or just everything?