Leaving the occult; the growing popularity of orthodox Christianity; what orthodoxy offers: not a lecture but participation in a ritual; symbolism and literalism; finding a spiritual orientation without institutional support; overcoming relativism as a first step; the dismissal of truth by postmodernism; a story about someone finding their direction in the Jehovah’s Witnesses; recklessness encouraged by our culture; the allure of occultism described by a convert to orthodox Christianity; strange parallels between occultism and Christianity; genuine initiation versus false initiation; the process of becoming a lost soul; occultists who do not actually believe in what they evoke; entities as existing beings versus entities as types of relationships; the shared nature of humans and discarnate beings; the nature of demons revealed through their manifestation; the machinations of the nameless god; spiritual LARPing; the absence of a guiding framework and the presence of a harmful framework; what the divine wants for us: sacrificing the self to the self; idolatry and deification; the lack of magick in Christianity; the drawbacks of magick versus its experiential value; the Abramelin ritual and the embedding of magick in a religious tradition; the pitfalls of superstition in Christianity; an instance of an exorcism gone wrong; the nature of superstition; saying yes or no to demons versus attempting to expel demons from others; possible future trends.
Rod Dreher (2023). On Leaving the Occult, https://tinyurl.com/5n6j8tnn (theamericanconservative.com). Accessed January 2023.
Conner Habib (2022). Against Everyone with Conner Habib Episode 202: The Problem with Magic (part one) with Phil Ford & J.F. Martel, https://tinyurl.com/586n69vc (patreon.com). Accessed January 2023.
Danya Issawi (2022). What to Know About the Balenciaga Ad Scandal, https://tinyurl.com/ym6fybhv (thecut.com). Accessed January 2023.
George Kapsanis (2005). Theosis: Deification as the Purpose of Man's Life, https://tinyurl.com/2p94p55s (greekorthodoxchurch.org). Accessed January 2023.
Mitchell B. Liester (2000). Hesychasm: A Christian Path of Transcendence, https://tinyurl.com/24ktnd5a (theosophical.org). Accessed January 2023.
Samuel Liddell MacGregor-Mathers, trans. (1976). The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage. Wellingborough: Thorsons.
Samuel Liddell MacGregor-Mathers, trans. (1995). The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King. Boston, MA: Red Wheel Weiser.
Intro music by Alan Chapman. Outro music from loops by users mildperil, Tumbleweed, and VladEisch at looperman.com.