This Week in Witchcraft (S1 E9)

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Welcome to this week in witchcraft The elements have been conquered with intense heat and witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan.

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Can you spot it out in the wild? I'm dylan hamilton and with me are michael dirham and andrew hudson.

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Michael has uh witchcraft that he has Pulled out of the wild for us today Right. So in thinking about what witchcraft is that it is the demonic appropriation of alternate authority

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That it's about trying to establish standards that are deceptive by nature that are

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Contrary to the standard that god has revealed in his word Illuminated by his only begotten son jesus christ

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Thinking about how does witchcraft operate as the praxis of paganism?

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where in paganism there is a despairing oneness to everything

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That there is no way to find a point to stand outside of things to get that actual objective uh truth of the matter

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But you're always caught despairingly so from within The the world so there is a it's it's pantheistic.

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You're you know, everything is a one big muddled hideous mess. So Where witchcraft is the praxis of paganism?

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It is always Morphing things changing things twisting things perverting things, but this is not seen as evil by those who adhere

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To paganism whether it's the neo -pagan constructs that we deal with today in our culture, um in the west in the rejection of christendom rejection of biblical standards and so on whether it's the paganism of old and if we look at pagan philosophers that were dealing with Their own philosophical quandaries about how does this world work in which we you know in which we live the concerns of the philosophers were also about You know how?

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Why are things always in motion? How can anything be real and standardized and so you have the idealism of plato?

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You have the the forms of aristotle and you have all these efforts to try to get at what?

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How does this world work in which we live? But they believed in the ancient culture believed in the gods and there was a god over every single little part of The created order that they witnessed and uh when earthquakes were going

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When volcanoes erupted or when bad weather was there or you know, it was a famine or a disease broke out

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Or you know wars went the wrong way I mean, they always had these explanations in terms of the gods who were

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Capricious and they were hard to please and hard to control and you just never knew how it was going to turn out But the idea that everything was in motion and changing is deeply rooted.

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So i'm talking about evolution Evolution is not a new idea not something that that darwin or those who preceded him

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Came up with but the idea of everything evolving and changing goes all the way back to the ancient mythologies wherein

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You have the ideas of even the platonic dualism of spirit and matter wherein there was a sense of devolution from spirit down to matter in terms of moral quality that the more spirit more pure spirit, uh being was the more

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Right and good and holy and untainted that being was Though there was matter this was created by those who were corrupted there was a long chain of aeons of spiritual beings who

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Brought about in descending order and descending morality and descending value

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Brought about the physical realm, but but what is this? This is change

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This is in a sense Evolution, even though you see a descending order in that But this is a progression wherein things are not standardized but changing and it's chaotic and who knows what's going to happen and the stories of how

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The in the among the ancients of how the earth was created Has to do always with the gods and chaos fighting one another

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There's babylonian mythology and egyptian mythology about gods fighting one another and a god dying and out of the carcass emerges earth

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I mean, this is this is all about chaos. It's all about things that are not planned not controlled and just you know things happen and then more things happen and then more things happen and there's not a sense of Purpose in the beginning if there was any kind of purpose at the beginning.

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It was completely Erroneous and thwarted and as you move forward you just see chaos again and again and again

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Well, this is the basic premise of evolution wherein there was there was no forethought There was no real plan.

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It was chaos It was accidental and stuff happened and then more stuff happened and then more stuff happened even though there was this idea

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Lacing around evolution that things were moving were evolving from lower forms to higher forms

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As we've talked about before in the neopagan despair You know, maybe earth was better off without Parasites like humans, you know destroying mother earth and so on and so forth.

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So it's not so it's not so much about You know, are we really higher life forms or not the question that the issue the fundamental

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Aspect of evolution is that there is chaotic change that moves forward

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Right, so there's not there's not a sense of anything being Objectively standardized set in concrete and these realities don't change

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There's not a sense of that. So this is what funds witchcraft Is this evolutionary mindset this mindset of chaos and change the things just change and move forward?

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That's why there's absolutely no moral obligation For a word to maintain its same definition

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Over any course of time. This is why any moral standard doesn't have to stay the same and in fact in fact because of evolution being the the the funding of of the entire

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Pagan worldview this just chaos and change moving forward if there's not a moving forward if there's not a changing of things then

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That's when something is wrong that you're not You're not you're not affirming the fundamental basic doctrines of paganism stuff changes everything is fungible right this happens either in the

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Materialistic worldview of the 1800s and the 1900s Or in the more obviously pantheistic worldview that we're moving into So everything has to change

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And witchcraft is always at work changing definitions terms the way these words work together

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And think about it If you're not an advocate of evolution if you're not an advocate of hey things change and it's all chaotic There's no purpose.

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You just have to go with the flow Otherwise, we won't survive Then the same goes with practitioners of witchcraft if you're not going to practice witchcraft with us

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If you're not going to be a part of the change things happen, you can't fight it. This is fundamental to reality

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If you're not going to practice witchcraft along with us in all these different changes You know, obviously you're a heretic and you need to be opposed

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Church discipline right and interdiscipline takes place but this is why they're

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I think sometimes like how can you how can you do that? How can you say? this

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Man is a woman or how can you say? That this evil is good, or how can you say?

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How can you invent these new terms that have never been around? How can you live in such a confusing absurd worldview?

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You know and so on and so forth and there's a lot of misunderstanding there But what it is is there's a there's a consistency witchcraft being the praxis of paganism

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Paganism being just the the whole uh worldview brought on by the assumptions the presuppositions of of evolution being the root doctrine so I'm sitting here thinking about this in our intro to the show.

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We talk about how witchcraft has become more cosmopolitan So it's it's kind of like the presuppositions have not changed from plato and aristotle to now

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Um, but they're just wearing different uniforms, right? It's like the same play but it's ran by a different team

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We're a different set of uniforms and i'm kind of thinking too, you know, it it's the same mistake that the pagans of old make and I don't think we should be deceived by this narrative that evolution came out of the discipline of science

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Or natural theology. I think evolution comes out of capital t theology It's actually a set of presuppositions put onto the discipline of science where they're they're cooking up evolution rather than this deceptive uh narrative saying well, we have all this evidence and using the scientific method we come up with Evolutionary theory, but it's it's actually backwards.

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It's it's presuppositions pagan presuppositions that allow for this type of process thought or progressive change in either creation or theology

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Right. Yeah, so once adam and eve, you know Go to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and eat from the tree so that they themselves can make those definitions that they can

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Define for themselves What is right and what is wrong? Because man is not god because we are

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Changing because we're like flowers in a field that was here one day and has gone the next When we're trying to define good and evil for ourselves, that's going to be an ever -changing ever -changing act that from one generation to the next

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Is going to result in chaotic absurdity rather than I mean the alternative to that that chaos is one generation telling the next

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Thus sayeth the lord So i'm i'm thinking of the scripture that Your sin will be visited on the third and fourth generations

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Do we see that in evolution where we might have had some? Evolutionary theorists who had a morality that they would find the things that are going on in evolution now repulsive but it's it's just the

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The natural ends of what their children and grandchildren or what they gave to their children and grandchildren You could look at it like in the natural sciences a chemist with their reactive

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Agents combining them in a process and yielding a product That reaction is then fed back in the product has now become the future generations reagent to mix with another agent to produce another product or As michael if you've talked about previously

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This new thesis that has come out is now someone else's Uh, rather synthesis the synthesis that has come out from previous reactions is now someone else's thesis

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And we'll encounter a new antithesis And yield further results right, so hagel's dialectic is based upon this

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Idea of change this chaos this change is moving forward And of course there's an idealism with hagel where he thinks we're going to save the world through ideas and purifying ideas through this constant synthesis but Even in the earlier forms of evolution that people are more historically aware of There is an idea of man being far more active in the role

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Right of of the physical of the material evolution going on and we call that eugenics Right, yeah, it's a natural result.

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Yeah. Yeah. So in eugenics What are you trying to do with eugenics where you're actually using gotta save the species gotta save the species through the through the biological process of breeding only certain types of humans

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And getting rid of the undesirable types of human beings so the answer the answer to salvation in this chaotic change that we're experiencing is their elimination of Undesirable biological specimens, correct?

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now moving forward out of the more materialistic biological mindset to a more spiritual mindset a more a more pantheistic than ever mindset

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As everything is getting re -infused Remythologized and so on we're still encountering eugenics today

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But it's not a biological eugenics it's a Idealistic eugenics.

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It's a it's a doctrinal eugenics. It's a we're you know, what we need to do is to cleanse to cleanse our culture from wrong ideas people with dangerous ideas

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Subhuman. Yeah are subhuman right because their ideas are not part of the change moving forward

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They're not practicing witchcraft along with us And so we need so there's a eugenics that still goes on today

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But it's not purely biological Though they can't free themselves entirely from it because they're still using racism and Classifications of race to talk about their new eugenics.

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They're saying whiteness and so on and so forth just thinking about synthesis antithesis

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Is Hegel the regulative principle regular principle for worship or praxis for paganism

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I mean like it it seems like in order to change definitions. That's almost what you have to do Is thesis antithesis into synth into synthesis?

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That's what we're getting when we see pep people practice witchcraft and it's like he's laid out the the practice um in very

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Clear terms. Yeah, so as soon as there is this clear rejection of the word of god as the standard

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And the felt need to have another standard come alongside it and to be emerging with or through descartes whoever whatever philosopher there is um, what hegel did is simply try to Identify where things were going

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How things were progressing so what he saw was here's a rejection of the thesis Let's say that's christendom and here's here's an antithesis.

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Uh, let's call it, you know, pure rationalism Okay, and then here's the synthesis and then And he so he's identifying the march forward of ideas and so he gets inside.

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Okay, this is how this is what we're gonna do So he had an idealism now the thing with idealism is that it's going back to the kind of natural science and chemicals

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It's it's extremely reactive to everything. So what marx does he gets a materialistic dialectic?

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Right, so he goes for the materialistic dialectic in that sense. Um, but that doesn't work, right? We don't have the um, the revolution

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Everywhere that he's thought should occur. So that's when you have the the next Movement for the next evolution forward with the frankfurt school where you have um

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Gramsci and others saying oh, okay. Well, it can't be purely materialistic here. This is going to be a cultural it's going to be a march to the institutions a change of the of the cultural moving forward, but hegel is the

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You know the og of it all right and it makes sense that Marx and being the materialist has produced the bloodiest results

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Yeah, exactly. So that's a good point. So, you know a materialistic version of this is going to end up with a lot of death

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Yeah So anyway, so back behind it all. Um, we have to recognize that the reason why we see so much witchcraft going on today is because of these fundamental assumptions of evolution not

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Not necessarily everything's getting better and better but that everything's changing and changing and it's chaotic without reason

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Well that uh wraps up the witchcraft section let's go on to content that we would suggest michael we'll start with you

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Okay, um a book by thomas j nettles by his grace and for his glory

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A subtitle a historical theological and practical study of the doctrines of grace in baptist life and what tom nettles does is he goes back to the origins of Baptist life and he talks about How they got started the difficulties that they encountered not being accepted by several of the state churches and then he talks about particular portraits of important baptists in historical life

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And it's full of interesting stories and important observations

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And it's a great read Uh, I would recommend durable trades by alan c correction rory groves uh, it is really about Trades which have stood the test of time

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Surpassing the industrial revolution and into the modern age quote -unquote modern age It also does go into how

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Beneficial it would be for family in that This would either take you out of this home Or keep you in the home or at least be able to have your children doing things with you.

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So if you are looking for Something a legacy of work to continue on into future generations.

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This will be a good book for you to Review it would provide a good overview or survey of the landscape

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Before we move on to mine quickly asking you to this question. We'll start with you. Andrew What trades would you pull out of there for you to either?

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Pass down or for you to engage in right now. Do you have like a top two or three? Uh, i'm gonna put my eggs in the basket of auto mechanic the current climate is one where Knowing how to service vehicles

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Will become just as valuable as the the vehicle that itself As people will not be able to keep up because of the treadmill of inflation the cost of goods and services will continue to increase

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Michael what about you? I would say anything that deals with um food So if you're gonna you know

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If you can if you can be a livestock herder of some kind and then be a butcher as well This is you know

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If you can help if you can raise your own food and then raise food for other people that's going to be a very important skill

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Plus it's something that you can bring alongside your children and involve them in just basic meaningful chores

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Showing them the importance of of those daily responsibilities Yeah, i'm I agree with that. We're doing that with killian right now

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He's got eggs that he can go grab and we're teaching him how to protect things that are Precious to our eating every single day.

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So and i've got about 10 that I want to employ in my own life Um, including the butcher in the food supply and stuff like that But um, we're not going to list mine or talk go into that I'll just recommend a soil owner's manual how to restore and maintain soil health by john sticca or steica

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I can't tell how to pronounce that but it's a really short read and pamphlet and it's got some resources in it that you can

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Go to to understand your stewardship of soil As it's a biome, but what you're doing is you're stewarding livestock that live underground

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So there and there are a myriad of creatures that live beneath your feet that you are

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Largely unaware of and the right combination of care And rest on I would say rest in the sense of no tillage and on your soil can go leaps and bounds into Not just preserving but improving soil for generations after you and there's a lot of practice being done on this in places like north dakota and minnesota that have yielded much fruit

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And that wraps it up for today We are always very thankful for our listeners tuning in every week and for supporting us by rating reviewing and sharing the show