Cultish: Ritual Magic & the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Pt. 1

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Cultish: Ritual Magic & the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Pt. 2

00:03

All right. Welcome back. Ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is

00:08

Jeremiah Roberts, one of the co -hosts here. I am very, very excited. I'm here as always with Andrew in your super secret headquarters.

00:17

You'll be joining me soon. Yes, you'll be seen by the time this drops by the time this travel episode drops next year.

00:23

I'll be a married man, but you're gonna be joining me next week to be in my wedding. So I look forward to seeing you in person.

00:29

Me too. Praise God, man. It's crazy how people, when they're listening to this, they're essentially time traveling. It's like looking up at the stars.

00:35

I know. Interesting. Interesting. Uh, anyways, I am super excited. We are here with, uh,

00:41

Jack Moreno. Yes. Chen. Glad to have you with us. Thank you.

00:47

It's good to be here. Yeah. Well, uh, I'm really excited. I know we, we, uh, we've chatted just a little bit. We met up for coffee a little bit and we're kind of hearing just a little bit of timeline of yourself.

00:56

We're going to go into your story, uh, just kind of line by line. Just real quick before we jump in, tell everyone just about kind of like the very cliff notes version.

01:05

If like you were just a very kind of put your whole story in a, in a LinkedIn bio, uh, a LinkedIn resume, like very quickly, like how would you put that just as, cause we're going to unpack that.

01:14

Right. So it's there. Well, I was saved out of practicing ritual magic in a Freemason Lodge before that.

01:21

And during that I struggled with addiction. I was sexually abused and got really into the new age and all of that kind of led me on this journey that at the end ended up with me practicing ritual magic.

01:33

Okay. And, uh, before we jump in, I just wanted, I saw this, I was actually at Sprouts getting kind of my different, uh, energy drinks and stuff like that to be laser focused here in this podcast.

01:43

Um, I pulled up just this, this is an example of one of the magazines that is just out there.

01:48

Uh, this was in the checkout aisle, signs of the supernatural, the talking about there's Ouija boards, there's

01:54

UFOs, they're transcendental meditation. They're talking about, you know, all these different sort of seances.

02:00

Uh, this one's, uh, it's upside down, it says divination and astrology. Uh, so it just goes to show that this is everywhere.

02:09

So before we jump in, this is maybe something I want to make an emphasis on. And this is a discussion that we had prior, uh, when we first met up is that in this whole discussion, we talk about the occult and even with something like you hear the word,

02:23

Oh, I was somehow connected to a Freemason lodge. Everyone has that. Ooh. So it's almost like there's a danger almost that of an allure and an interest that people have almost similar just in listening to this podcast, almost similar to those who actually get into the occult and get into the stuff for real.

02:41

Right. Can you, can you just talk about that real quick? I think it's really important to have that, to talk about that before we jump in. Absolutely.

02:46

I think it's really important to, when talking about this, to make sure that the emphasis is on what

02:51

God did to deliver me out of that, because it sounds so allergic, alluring. You read that it's enticing, especially the idea that there's this secret knowledge that you can uncover and learn and unlock the keys to the universe.

03:05

That's really appealing and it sounds so fascinating. But even when talking about this, remembering that it does not save, it leads you completely on the path to destruction and the reality, not only of what was practiced, but of where it led me and of what it offered me, which was a lie.

03:26

It didn't actually offer what it claimed to offer and instead it led me far away from where I thought

03:33

I was going. Yeah. So let's just start at the very, actually Andrew, do you have any thoughts on that real quickly?

03:39

I think it's extremely important just to emphasize what Jack is saying. I mean, the scriptures talk about it in 2

03:45

Peter 1, starting in verse 3, it says, His divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of Jesus, who has called us to His own glory and excellence by which

03:56

He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

04:07

So in that scripture, we're told essentially that it's in Jesus, the knowledge in Christ and our salvation, we have access to all things that pertain to life and godliness and the occult is not one of them.

04:18

So the occult would just bring harm and danger, whereas in the scriptures and having a relationship with Jesus is to our benefit, not our spiritual detriment.

04:28

So yeah, I just want to emphasize that. Yeah. And also when we talk about the occult and how do we deal with it as Christians, obviously it's spiritual warfare, but one of the things that gets emphasized is that the battle is not against flesh and blood.

04:41

It's very easy to look on witch talk or any of these places where these influencers are practicing this stuff and to get angry, to get upset, to even mock or be disparaging towards them.

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And I see that a lot, unfortunately. But the reality is that these people are people who need to know

04:59

Jesus Christ just like the rest of us. Right. And they are succumbed to one, a faulty worldview, but ultimately satanic deception when it comes to this stuff.

05:09

So I think we do need to have compassion because a lot of them honestly do are very emotionally sensitive.

05:14

A lot of them do have like extensive trauma in their backgrounds and that a lot of times is the allure that it gives the allure of acceptance, healing, fulfillment.

05:24

But there's a lot that's attached to it that ends up enslaving them. Right. Yeah. So, yeah.

05:30

So take that being said, like take us to the very kind of like beginning you mentioned that you did. What was your background like?

05:35

Were you in a family that was together, like a broken home, which you mentioned there's some trauma upbringing that kind of was an allure yourself.

05:42

Tell us about that. Yeah. I grew up in a home that was Christian, at least by name.

05:48

We went to church. So I thought I was a Christian, but it was just like a

05:54

Sunday thing. When I was five, my parents separated because my dad was a drug and alcohol addict.

06:01

He struggled with addiction, but I was very close to my dad. So that was very hard for me the moment that they separated.

06:09

I didn't understand. I was very mad about it. And during that time, I was being sexually abused by someone in my family, not my immediate family.

06:18

But there was a lot of confusion around that for me. And by the time

06:24

I remembered it, by the time I have memories of it happening, I knew that I wasn't supposed to be doing it, but I had grown a fascination for the person.

06:32

And so I just started lying and covering it up and really doing anything in my power to hold it down while actively pursuing it.

06:42

And so growing up, continuing to act out on what I'd learned, and also going through things where I just really didn't even know who

06:54

I was anymore. I was telling so many lies that it blew my mind that when you're lying, you have to tell more lies to cover up the lies that you told.

07:02

And I was young and I really had already lost myself, lost reality, and wanted to make my own reality in a sense because I didn't want to be found out for what was happening and I also wanted to move forward.

07:17

And it was during that time, when I was around seven, that I started to have supernatural experiences.

07:26

The first one that I remember was I saw these lights in the sky, sitting outside looking over a canyon at the house of the people that used to watch me while my mom was at work.

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And they felt really, they weren't just lights, it was the power behind them.

07:43

Yeah, what age was this? Around seven. Around seven. And they felt really familiar to me.

07:49

I thought that they were the angels of my dad's friends who'd passed away, just because that was the only context

07:55

I really had for that kind of thing. My parents had stopped going to church when they separated. So I was trying to fit it into my own worldview.

08:03

But I really clung to that because I felt so isolated in hiding of what had happened to me and wanting to stuff down everything.

08:13

But I felt like these beings knew me and they saw me and they accepted me and that made me feel like I was special to them.

08:23

And so I wanted to kind of come up with a new worldview that was able to fit these things in because it was so important to me and who

08:31

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09:18

Back to the show. So did these light beings, did they speak to you? Do you remember being at that age or is it just kind of like the feeling of this presence around you that made you feel a sense of peace and belonging with these three light beings?

09:32

They didn't speak to me audibly. It was more of an impression, I guess. I just believed that they saw me and they knew me and they cared for me and I was special to them.

09:42

And that was a really big deal to me. Do you see a similarity?

09:49

I mean, have you talked to other people who have been in the new age who've had a similar background?

09:54

Or do you see a commonality just between having those sort of encounters, supernatural encounters at a very young impressionable age?

10:01

I think I've heard all different kinds of things. So not always, but I do see a lot of,

10:10

I think we all have pain in our lives and trying to find a way to deal with that.

10:15

And the enemy loves to break in and deceive us. And because of my now belief that these entities,

10:23

I later learned about aliens and UFOs and that was like, oh, well, that must be what this is.

10:29

And so now, because I placed my experience as the height of what reality must be more than scripture,

10:38

I didn't even really know scripture. When I'd gone to church, I don't remember hearing the gospel or anything like that. So experience was paramount to me.

10:46

And I wanted to fit now, whatever my worldview is around this idea that UFOs are real, aliens are real, these beings are real.

10:54

So what is this? Right. Now, that's just interesting because and you can jump in here as well, too, is that we've had other episodes where we have talked about the

11:03

UFO phenomena or even now the unidentified aerial phenomena that's being normalized so much.

11:08

It's like on the news regularly about the new UFO disclosures. And we've always tried to beat the drum that behind that whole discussion is reality that UFO sightings always lead to attempted

11:20

UFO contact. The way you do it is always through some sort of occultic means.

11:27

Yeah. And it was important for me to learn. And even to people who might be hearing this, who have had those experiences or are having those.

11:34

Yeah. This was very real to me and especially moving on in my life.

11:40

The ones that I had later were so very, very real to me and some of my strongest memories to this day.

11:45

But just because these experiences happened doesn't mean that they are good or that they're to be followed or that they're to be pursued or that this is now whatever these beings will teach me or lead me to is good or ultimate truth.

12:00

And I think being deceived into that understanding is what's is really dangerous.

12:07

No, definitely. So this is at a young impressionable age again at seven when you see these lights in the sky and it was later on where that you started realizing they're aliens,

12:15

UFOs. What was kind of like the next step? What happened after that? Was it any additional phenomena or is it just kind of like how did that progress?

12:23

As I grew up, I just really had a fascination for the supernatural, making my own Ouija boards, really wanting to have more supernatural connections with these beings that I held so close to me.

12:36

I already felt very isolated in what was going on that I was keeping a secret at around the age of seven to the person who abused me was caught abusing a toddler and was sent away.

12:47

And that was hard for me because I told myself in that moment, if I just never think about this again, it'll be like it never happened.

12:56

I lied to everyone, nothing happened because people were asking me, did it ever happen with you? And I just thought

13:02

I can create my own reality in a sense if I - Disassociation. Right. If I just never think about it, then

13:09

I can make my own life. Yeah. And so I was always kind of suppressing this and there was almost an escape element in the occult.

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And so growing up, skipping forward, said I would never drink or do drugs, saw it destroy my dad's life over and over again, cycles of the hospital and then rehab and way back home, kind of okay.

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And then back again throughout my life. But I just had a lot of pain.

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I started cutting myself in eighth grade and just really wanted to escape my self and it was easier for me to -

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I just wanted to escape the pain inside. And so whatever means possible that it was like a relief for me.

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I developed an eating disorder, trying to just have some kind of control over my life, but nothing was enough.

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Nothing actually gave me peace. It was just giving me these false senses of temporary relief, instant gratification of relief.

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And then in high school, I started trying drugs, stealing pills, eventually drinking.

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For the first time, I felt numb. I knew I'd made a huge mistake because I didn't want to feel any other way because for the first time

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I actually did forget what happened. What happened. Yeah. And so really now my new goal was always being high, always being drunk, finding an escape.

14:36

And that went on for many years. And through that time, when did the transition from just an interest in the supernatural to very tangibly realizing that I am practicing the occult, was it now

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Ouija boards, tarot cards, all of them, they're all one in the same to access the supernatural in a way that God says that's off limits.

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But what was that transition like? Was that at the same time? It was later on.

15:07

I found the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne in high school, and I loved that.

15:12

I ate it up. That suddenly it fit in the aliens, it fit in the universe, and it made me

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God. It made me the most powerful being. And that was really exciting to me. Now I could actually create my own reality.

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I could actually make things different. And so really doing everything I could to practice those things.

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I also a huge part of my life was finding my identity in people because I didn't really know who I was and in relationships and in just giving myself away.

15:39

And after high school or during high school, at the end of high school, I got in a relationship with a man who was a little bit older and lived on a

15:47

Native American reservation and started introducing me to Native American spirituality. And we'd stay up all night doing drugs and talking about aliens.

15:57

And so just not only that he believed they exist, but that they had, they were kind of an integral part of reality and of our ancestors in these things.

16:07

So a lot of ancestral worship. Right. And even though I would say there was never a point,

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I mean, actually there was when I was actually in the order, but building up, there wasn't necessarily a point that I ever thought this is a cult.

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This is bad. I always thought this is good. There was such a,

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I was so deceived into thinking that that connecting with these entities that I thought loved me by any means possible was the positive thing.

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And so after that relationship, which was physically abusive and very violent and just not good, really went even more off the deep end with trying heroin and meth and just anything.

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My eating disorder was terrible and I was just really low. Met a guy who was a drug dealer, but very nice.

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And he immediately, I felt like I'd known him all my life the first time

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I saw him. Just this, I don't even know, a familiar feeling. And so I never,

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I just immediately moved in with him. I thought that we were soulmates and he, I didn't know at the time, but he was in the new age and he started teaching me everything that he knew about crystal magic and about the universe and about our connectedness.

17:27

And I really looked up to this guy as though he was God. And so every word he said,

17:32

I hung on. And that really brought me into the more new age world.

17:38

Andrew, what questions do you have? Yeah. I was wondering how, what was it like, like thinking back that you experienced real physical and spiritual trauma at a young age, right?

17:47

Yeah. And then you have an allure to creating essentially your own reality within a new thought, new age practices.

17:53

Like you mentioned the secret, it's almost like you're living in two worlds though, right?

17:58

Like you can't change the past and what happened to you, which created almost like a disconnect from reality, but then you want to control the future with knowing that you can't actually go back and change the past.

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What was it like living within that like dualistic mindset at that time when you're dabbling in the new age, knowing that you want to change things that are coming to you in the future, but you don't have the power to change what's in the past.

18:23

That's a really good question. For me, I was living moment by moment and I really believed that.

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I suppressed so much the abuse in that I really told myself if I never thought about it,

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I'm never going to think about it again and then no one will know and I don't have to believe it. Like I really believed that I could just forget it.

18:47

And so between trying to escape myself and finding an escape in even the occult or the new age or the supernatural,

18:56

I lived moment to moment for instant gratification. So I was just surviving like in this moment,

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I'm escaping. In the next moment, I'm escaping. I don't think there was a whole lot, at least at that point in my life, of introspective thought or thinking, okay, what is this really doing?

19:12

I can't change that. It was kind of just surviving moment by moment, day by day, trying to get some sort of relief.

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19:59

Yeah, it's interesting too, because did you read Second Coming of the

20:04

New Age by Stephen Bankars? I did. There's a line in it where he basically states that if you are your own god, which essentially is what

20:13

New Age always teaches, that you're the measure of all things, you're the end of all things, is that your ultimate measure of everything is yourself.

20:21

So you're only as whole as you are. So if you're broken and your only point of reference is yourself, there's no way to go outside of yourself for healing and redemption.

20:32

So in that sense, it's interesting too, because it's like you're going through all this trauma and all of this, and even drug and using narcotics and numbing yourself with alcohol.

20:47

But then it's like you're going through all that, but you're also trying to really do spiritual narcotics as well, too, to heal yourself from the actual physical narcotics.

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It's almost like a duality between the spiritual and the physical narcotics. Does that make sense? Yes. Maybe Unravel, explain that for anyone, because so many people see this, and again, they see it as like, this is so alluring and cool.

21:14

But here on the other end, that's not the case. Share that if you could. Yeah, there's a really ugly side to escapism in narcotics, in spirituality even, because this is reality, and trying to go outside of ourself and it doesn't work.

21:32

Like you were saying, we make terrible gods, and when we're broken and we're looking to these other ways, or even the lie that everything you need is inside yourself, you just have to keep looking and keep looking and dig it out, and the light inside of you, it's a trap.

21:48

Because it's like running on this hamster wheel. I remember so many times I wrote that I felt like I was in a feedback loop, because even with these spiritual experiences, especially later on when

21:58

I did start to be really looking within and all these things, it didn't actually lead me anywhere.

22:05

I was always stuck with myself. At the end of the day with escapism, trying to escape how

22:10

I'm feeling now by using drugs or whatever it is, sex, anything, when it's all said and done, nothing's actually been healed, and on top of that, all the new stuff.

22:23

So it's like this growing snowball of guilt and shame and the weight ultimately of sin, which I didn't understand that.

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But I just felt anguish. And those things and me being my own

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God and creating my own reality and trying to manifest my life, even when sometimes it really did seem like it worked.

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And sometimes in some ways it did, but it was superficial when it did.

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I think of the secret it talks about. You can have all the money you want.

22:52

You can have all the success you want. They're all worldly things. It's the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life.

22:58

It's vanity. There's nothing really there. So it didn't actually. Nothing saved me.

23:03

I needed a savior. And this guy that was the person you were living with at the time, he was kind of like your vicarious savior at the time.

23:13

Did you also believe that what you learned with the secret that you had actually attracted him into your life, the sort of you'd manifested this reality of this relationship and now learning all these esoteric practices?

23:24

Yes. I, after the secret started looking into more, I didn't realize it at the time, but as above so below, hermeticism diving into different,

23:32

I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but different secret texts, hidden wisdom.

23:39

And so I really, I really did believe that, or I believe more that we were meant to be. And he was a

23:45

DJ at first at clubs, but then at music festivals, similar to Burning Man on a smaller scale.

23:51

So really got into the sexual liberation and I just need to be a free spirit.

23:56

And I really believe that my Christian dogma was holding me back from actually being free.

24:01

And it bothered me because I wanted to be like, everyone else seemed so free and powerful.

24:07

And there were some things that I just couldn't do. It made me feel sick. The Lord was so kind throughout my life.

24:13

It's a story of God's faithfulness and his grace and his mercy and kindness because he withheld, he restrained me from doing so many things.

24:23

He kept me safe during that time. But I was so mad because I thought it was this dogma holding me back to that.

24:30

I can't have a free mind in all those things. Yeah. And so how did that progress? How did that relationship then progress?

24:37

You said it was just more music festivals and it's indicative too of just this type of spirituality where it's always, it always starts with a book and it always starts with some sort of Eckhart Tolle book.

24:48

The internet, we're not really, we've heard this before, but it's true. It's like Eckhart Tolle book or then it's like a retreat and then it's the next thing and then it's the meditation and then it's burning man and then it's like crash and burn and then it's like,

25:01

I need to figure out a way to do the next thing and the next thing. But yeah, where did it go from there in this relationship?

25:08

Well, the relationship, this specific relationship honestly was one of the darkest, that's the darkest spot for me of my testimony because it was just awful.

25:20

And the enemy used that to get so in my mind and attack me in so many ways.

25:27

But it was very manipulative spiritually in so many ways. But he taught me that we were soulmates, more than soulmates, that we'd lived hundreds of lives, that we were each other.

25:38

In some lives we chose to have a different experience or in some lifetimes. But so I just,

25:44

I really believe that we were one and that was such a deep belief.

25:49

And so we started, or he had, but I started to do psychedelics like LSD mushrooms, really wanting to connect with him primarily.

26:00

But I also wanted to use these drugs. I was addicted to smoking moles, which is a whole other thing.

26:08

But I really wanted to use drugs to have spiritual experiences with these entities.

26:14

And I wanted them, I wanted to channel them.

26:20

I wanted to have these experiences. So I wanted them, especially later on, I believed that they wanted to see through my eyes.

26:27

Like that was a core belief of mine that they wanted to use my body. I didn't think of that as possession.

26:33

I didn't think of that as a negative thing. I thought that they loved me. I thought I was special to them, thought they'd chosen me and I thought they wanted to use me.

26:40

So doing all that, but long story shorter, our relationship ended.

26:45

And by that time I remember looking in the mirror in the bathroom and my blood just ran cold in fear because I didn't recognize whatever was behind my eyes anymore.

26:54

Whatever spirit, it just freaked me out because I knew that things had gotten dark by that point.

27:00

I was absolutely obsessed with astrology, saw everything through the lens of symbols, signs, numbers, and it just ended.

27:08

And that was ugly too. And I was left in a studio apartment alone in the

27:14

Hollywood area. And at that point, I just thought, you know, I just kind of snapped.

27:21

And I'm sorry, Andrew, did you want to say something? Oh no, I'm listening. I got to the point that I thought, okay, this restraint, these things that I feel like I can't do, that's what's holding me back.

27:35

I want the real power. I want the real wisdom. And so I'm just going to dive in. And so I got really into looking up Hermeticism, the three initiates, secret works that I found by masons that were talking a lot about Kabbalah and stuff like that.

27:55

But really, I believe that I was being led by this entity called Thoth or Toth or Duhudi, but I called him

28:02

Thoth and he's an ancient Egyptian deity. And I don't even know how

28:08

I got there really, but he became my God. I followed this being and it was right now that I'm saved.

28:19

It all sounds like words, and I praise God even for I have felt like I've been spiritually attacked before this.

28:28

And that reminded me just of just a glimpse of how terrible it used to be.

28:34

Everything I looked at was a sign or something laughing at me.

28:40

Every number was a code. Every sound like a helicopter or a police siren meant something.

28:45

Everything was this code. I was not in reality.

28:53

Would it almost be sort of be like a trauma where I was saying, I remember one time I was in a conversation with somebody who was a veteran on the street outside of an abortion mill, and there is a

29:05

Humvee that drove by. And it was like a really nice, like pimped out Humvee, you know, very nice, like bright, fluorescent green, very decked out.

29:15

But just the aesthetic of like a Humvee driving by, it was like his PTSD triggered because more than likely he probably had something, you know, maybe it was like an

29:25

IED that went off. I mean, a lot of people from the Iraq war had that type of trauma. But obviously in our situation, the reality is there's no

29:32

IED in sight. It's just a Humvee driving by. But there's like an association. Is that kind of like with all that you're going through?

29:39

Is that just how you kind of observe the world around you? It's like all the spiritual trauma and like Iraq war trauma, just spiritual trauma.

29:47

You're viewing the world through that lens. Is that kind of what's going on? Maybe I think I can relate to the idea of trauma because I did experience that after this relationship, thoughts in my mind thing, moments with people interpersonally because of the relational abuse that I experienced, even in my marriage now, things that come up so I can relate to trauma.

30:08

But I'm not sure if it's the same thing with what I was experiencing with the numbers and signs.

30:15

It was more so that I, my beliefs, like I was gung ho about it.

30:21

That was my worldview. And so I saw everything through this occult, at that time, maybe new age occult worldview.

30:30

So every number had a meaning to it. And every sign or symbol had this meaning.

30:37

So I was viewing the world in code almost. And the enemy really used that to lead me because I wasn't being led by the spirit.

30:45

I didn't know the word of God. And I wanted these entities to leave me. I believe that they cared for me.

30:51

Yeah. And so in other words, and I'll let you jump in here as well, too. But this entity that on some level, he was like an ancient, like connected to ancient

31:01

Egypt. Yeah. So all to say is that a lot of times people look at new age and the occult like it's something new and like very cool that I've never seen before.

31:10

It's really alluring to the younger generation. But in reality, it's just repackaged paganism.

31:15

Like Peter Jones calls it Neo from Ligonier Ministries. He calls it Neo paganism. And so it goes to show that even in ancient history, a lot of these ideas in ancient

31:24

Greece, a lot of it didn't come out of a vacuum. The ideas of temples in the high places or priests who would get somebody to take some sort of hallucinogenic to tap into something like that's all throughout

31:39

Asian history. So what we're even we're talking about here is really nothing new. Andrew, what's on your mind?

31:45

What do you think in here? Yeah, I was wondering, how did you get from looking into the mirror, not recognizing essentially the person that you were from that relationship that failed to going to Toth as being the answer?

32:00

Was it kind of like a I'm going to cut out the middleman, which in the relationship, the man was essentially your guru and you're going to cut him out and go directly to the source?

32:09

Was that like your type of mindset? To be honest, that part time in my life was such a blur, but he, when

32:20

I didn't recognize myself, I was already wanting, recognizing and wanting these beings to be channeled through me, wanting them to use me.

32:29

And so I think that when we broke up, there were some, or before we broke up, there were some things that I just thought, you know, this is actually bad.

32:38

I at least had some form of, this is too far, I would say more so. And after we broke up that too far line, in anger and pride and so many, and wanting to be better than other people,

32:50

I just forced myself to sever and to rebel even further. And that almost opened up the door for me to ask these entities to lead me and then led me to this

33:03

Thoth entity. And following this entity, it was, now it sounds so wild, but I share because if someone else is listening that they don't feel absolutely crazy, but it was, things were glowing to me.

33:19

Like the next thing I was supposed to do would glow. And in my case, that happened to be this Thoth tarot deck.

33:25

And so I got that and that tarot deck was made by Alistair Crowley.

33:31

And I knew vaguely that he was the most wicked man to ever live, but I was so far into that thought that, and I'm sure people can relate that are in the, that belief that he was just misunderstood or society, culture, dogma would say he's wrong, but is there really wrong and right?

33:54

And that kind of thing. So I became obsessed with these cards, dreaming about them.

33:59

I spent days just in them and, and they were now how

34:05

I saw the world and then being led to other things and skipping ahead on a walk. One day, a Freemason Lodge is like glowing to me.

34:13

And at that time, I didn't know it was a Freemason Lodge. I just saw a building. And when I say glowing,

34:18

I mean, literally like glowing. And so I sat in front of it and breathed in the energy.

34:27

And, and then when I got home, I looked up what it was. I took pictures of it and found out it was a

34:33

Freemason Lodge in LA. And that's what got me started reaching out. So in other words, you knew like you, you didn't know it was a

34:42

Freemason Lodge. Some people say, Oh, it's a Freemason Lodge. Then I'll go in and then this happens. This is like, you're just, whatever you're tapped into.

34:51

It's like, Hey, X marks the spot. And then you find out later that it is. Was it a regular or Grand Lodge?

34:58

I could tell you right now. And just while you're looking that up, it's always looking to define terms.

35:04

And so if you will look up a book by John Ankerberg, it's on, John Ankerberg has an excellent book on the

35:10

Masonic Lodge and there's in every single state, there's a Grand Lodge. And that kind of oversees all the other lodges in that state.

35:18

But every single lodge from my understanding gets, has the ability to kind of act like independently.

35:24

So it's not everyone is following these like definitive rites, rituals and creed.

35:29

There is sort of like a freedom to kind of move about and do their own thing. That's my understanding, right? Right.

35:35

I believe so. That's what I read too. Yeah. Yeah. So this was a Scottish Rite Masonic Temple.

35:41

And so reached out to them. And by this point, this is after a long time in that zone of, you know, cutting off the filter, digging into this obsessively, just looking into hermeticism, astrology, tarot, alchemy.

35:58

I was practicing alchemy. I was practicing physical alchemy, trying to transmute physical matter in order to do the spiritual alchemy.

36:09

And I was, I was in it. And again, brought me nothing. Yeah. Just deeper and deeper.

36:15

But the lie is you just, you don't have it yet. You have to keep going. Yeah. So it, yes.

36:23

Yeah. You've mentioned hermeticism a couple of times. Maybe both you and Andrew, like Andrew, you've done some research as well too.

36:31

Can we just define that? Because that is going to be a more centric part of your story as we kind of go into where that happened.

36:38

Let's just define that real quickly. If it could, what do we know about hermeticism? How do we, how do we define that? Thinking about hermeticism, we have to think in terms of what is hermeticism.

36:50

So hermeticism comes from a body of works that is ascribed to what they would say is a blending between Hermes and Thoth, right?

37:03

And this is wisdom from Egypt. And it's thought that it was developed and written around the

37:09

Potomac dynasty when Egypt was Hellenized. So there was a mixing between Greek philosophy and Egyptian philosophy.

37:18

And there's a book of writings that are ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, which means thrice holy

37:25

Hermes. And that's called the Corpus Hermeticum. And this body of writings was thought to be rediscovered sometime during the

37:36

Renaissance period. And it's from these bodies of writings that we get things like alchemy, the phrase as above, so below.

37:44

But basically all modern forms of a cultic tradition come from the bodies of writings called the

37:50

Corpus Hermeticum. So when we think of hermeticism, that's what we're talking about.

37:56

This is the base presupposition that humanity is of the same substance of God, right?

38:04

But through rites and various rituals, you can essentially become enlightened and become one with that type of substance.

38:12

That's why in alchemy, iron ore is essentially the same thing as gold. There's just a rite or ritual that needs to be performed in order for that substance to reach its final peak and state.

38:23

So hermeticism became extremely popular within the 17th century and the 18th century when this body of writings were rediscovered.

38:34

Even early church fathers wrote about this body of writings because this was developing very popularly along with Gnosticism between the 100 and 300

38:45

AD. So this isn't something that just came out of the blue. This was something that was developing, like Jerry said, a long, long time ago.

38:54

Again, it's just a rehashing of paganism that existed in the olden times.

39:00

So hopefully that is just a good overview of what hermeticism is. But I think there's around 43 different books of writing that were written by Hermes Trimagustus.

39:09

Again, quote, unquote, they don't really know who wrote them, that were discovered and then translated that created what is now called hermeticism.

39:16

Okay. No, thank you, Andrew. And then yeah, go ahead and go ahead. Yeah. And it was that being that was leading me to all this stuff, especially something called the

39:27

Emerald Tablets. And that was something I was obsessed with. And all these things just leading me to the idea that there's this airtight seal on this secret knowledge.

39:38

And that if you are chosen, if you are called, then you can learn it and you can get the keys to the universe.

39:46

And the Emerald Tablets talk about the keys of the universe.

39:51

But what amazes me is just so much of this backwardsness that the keys to the universe and that you can get the treasures of wisdom and knowledge when the

40:01

Bible says, Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I remember when I first read that verse, it was amazing to me because such an alluring thing is that one, there's these secrets of the universe that you can unlock.

40:14

And that, as Andrew was saying, hermeticism is the true religion or the true philosophy that all other religions have taken from.

40:25

And that's what I believed. I believed that religion was a lie, basically, and that I was uncovering the truth.

40:33

And that sounds really alluring and it feeds pride and it feeds all these things. But it's not true.

40:40

Hmm. Yeah. And so this is where it gets interesting. So jumping back, you kind of got this esoteric

40:49

X marks the spot on this Masonic Lodge. And then you found out it was a

40:55

Masonic Lodge. What happened then? So again, there was a lot going on in my life with those kind of things happening all of the time.

41:03

I was just haunted, honestly. But having a lot of alien experiences at that time, too.

41:10

And so I reached out to them and they basically kindly let me know that women can't be

41:16

Freemasons, at least in America. And so let me know about their connected organizations and like the

41:23

Order of the Eastern Star and things like that. And I have a relative that was in the

41:28

Eastern Star and was kind of encouraged that way, in a sense, like, oh, so -and -so was in that.

41:36

But at that time, I had gotten kind of scared. I don't know. I went back and forth between I am pagan and I want to have

41:47

Jesus my way. Because I was truly haunted. I truly believe I was possessed.

41:53

I was a wicked, awful person. No self -control. Just tormented mentally.

42:00

It was like living in a nightmare. I wish I could put in words because that's the reality of this.

42:09

It's not what it pretends to be. But it was just very bad.

42:16

And so what was I saying? No, it was that going through the referrals.

42:23

So it was the -initially it was the -not the

42:28

Metacord of the Golden Dawn, but it was the other one, the Eastern Star. And you're kind of going through that, but you had a relative.

42:35

So I told myself, I don't know about that because its symbol is an upside down pentagram and that's evil.

42:42

So I don't know. Again, while at that time reading Alistair Crowley's thing. So when you define morality, there is no morality.

42:52

So I said no to that. And I -this whole time. So on -going back to the tarot deck that I was led to, on it is the

43:02

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn because Alistair Crowley was in it and that's just -it's on the card.

43:08

So I was like, what is this? Started looking into it. Likely that brought me more into hermeticism or led me down that path more.

43:17

But I felt like this was the next step. But knowing the reality of who

43:24

Alistair Crowley is, at least knowing the facts, not necessarily believing them, being too afraid to step through that door or look into it or those things.

43:32

But I kept -it kept seeming like that's what I was being led back to. So I went back and forth for a while.

43:38

But after this and my Freemason lodge experience, I thought, OK, that I'm going to pursue this.

43:45

This is the next step. And so I looked up, again, living in L .A. at the time,

43:51

I looked up the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in my area. The original Hermetic Order of the

43:56

Golden Dawn ceased to exist a long -a very long time ago. And then it has had regroups using the same system of magic ever since, basically.

44:07

And so I found an order in my area and reached out to them.

44:15

And a guy told me to meet him at a coffee shop in L .A. to kind of discuss and see if this really was the next step for me.

44:23

And so I did. And it was just very dark. It seemed like there was a thick shadow over us the whole time we were talking.

44:31

But everything that he was talking about from astrology, alchemy, every single thing was exactly what

44:40

I believe these entities or these spirits had been leading me to and preparing me for.

44:45

So I was like, at that point, after being in that mindset in my studio apartment, obsessively looking over these things for so long,

44:55

I couldn't even have really a conversation with people because I just wasn't in sound mind.

45:03

So to sit with someone who's speaking my language was really exciting for me. And so he said that basically he believed

45:12

I was called to this. And so he asked me if I wanted to join.

45:18

And so he told me to meet him at a Freemason Lodge to be initiated as a neophyte, which so super excited.

45:31

I felt like finally, this is I'd been on this path in this journey. And finally, this is the next thing. Yeah. And I believed that it wasn't bad.

45:40

I remember listening to Fantasmic from Disneyland on the way there, because finally, the symbolism in the

45:47

Fantasmic show, like I finally understood it. And it was so exciting to me.

45:52

Are you talking about Fantasia? Fantasmic is the show about Fantasia at Disneyland.

45:58

Okay. So I just want to make clear, especially because I have such a heart for people that are in this.

46:08

I was truly lost. I was wicked. But I didn't necessarily think that what

46:14

I was doing was bad. It's not like I was like, oh, I'm going to take over the world or anything like that. On my way there,

46:21

I was just so excited that this was the next step to my weather awakening or just the next step on my journey.

46:27

And it didn't seem like that big of a deal to me because I'd already been so desensitized to these kind of things.

46:33

It just seemed like I was now putting into practice the things that I'd learned about since childhood.

46:38

Magic, sorcery, those kind of things. And so I got there. No, I'm sorry.

46:45

I'm just my brain's like thinking. Okay. I guess what's just interesting is that I guess my eyes interrupted you.

46:54

But no, it's just interesting because like in John Ankerberg's book and even in some of the dialogues on the

47:00

John Ankerberg show and even Walter Martin would have like, can someone be a Freemason and a Christian? And I think on a very, very basic level is that there's a dialogue between Walter Martin and somebody who was a representative of a 32nd degree

47:13

Mason from a lodge. And there's a conversation back and forth. But just in your experience, even though you weren't, you had just brief contact with them, we can only, you aren't really representing your experience doesn't represent the lodge, but like you were ultimately like referred out to the

47:32

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, like with your experience in a sense. So I guess like my question, just me thinking out loud is that like, how can you be a

47:42

Mason? How can you be a Freemason and a Christian? But it could be part of an organization that like referred you to a place where you can fully practice this magic, which is demonic and dangerous and abomination towards God.

47:55

And ultimately it puts you in spiritual danger. It doesn't seem to be an apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

48:02

You know what I mean? That's kind of my thinking process out loud. Right. Well, so they referred me to the

48:08

Eastern Star to be fair. So, yeah. But even at just, even at its face value,

48:18

Freemasonry and what they believe and what they practice is Gnosticism. Yeah. It's universalism and it's idolatry.

48:25

Are Christians encouraged to practice any of those things? And so I think there's such an alert to the

48:32

Golden Dawn to Freemasonry that what do they do in secret? What's happening at the top levels? Look at what they say you have to believe to join even.

48:40

And just right there, that's not compatible with scripture. That's opposed to scripture. So going in and knowing the beliefs that I had when

48:50

I'd been in it and knowing how truly Luciferian they were, I can speak from there, but also without digging and spending years, what do they really believe?

49:03

What do they say they believe? And does that match with God's word? Does that say that God's word is sufficient or are they looking for these secret things?

49:13

So anyway, I do not think it's compatible, but yes.

49:19

So ended up going to the initiation, was so excited.

49:25

A lady met me at the top of the stairs. She was in the black robe with the hood and it was really dark and candles and the whole thing, which you would think would be like, okay, this is kind of weird or okay, this is like from a movie or something like that.

49:38

But I was so, I was already there mentally. I had already been learning these things and practicing these things on my own.

49:45

So it was exciting to me. They put me in a room to do this visualization kind of thing to prepare myself almost like prayer, but not for the initiation.

50:00

And I still remember just the way it smelled and everything, but hearing them in the ritual room, yelling and stuff, it's this whole, it's this whole ordeal, the ritual is, and then being hoodwinked and being initiated and giving the oath, which

50:19

I could pull up now, but the oath... When you say hoodwinked, is that, did they tell you one thing and then did another or is that...

50:25

That's the metaphorical or however you'd say that meaning, but I literally mean they put a black like bat, like cloth over my head, black robe, black cloth, like the whole thing, red socks.

50:39

And gave, went through, I could read the wording if you want to go into that later, but it's really about going into the darkness to shine the light of knowledge ultimately, which is very

50:51

Gnostic and it sounds good, but it's a lie. And, you know, making the promise with a sword pressed to my body, like you,

51:03

I can't ever talk about it, or I'm giving the spirit world, not so much physical people, the power to hurt me, but the spiritual world, the power to do all these things to me.

51:14

And, and so that to this, to this day, or at least till recently was hard for me to talk about it just because it was such a rich, such a grand ritual and such a big oath that anyway, just knowing that he who is in me is greater than he was in the world and all the truth that I can cling to.

51:35

But what I really want to stress is it sounds so, ooh, and all this, but to me, where I was in my mind at that time, it was not a big deal.

51:44

And I think that for people that finally get there, they don't, it just seems like, oh,

51:49

I know what this really means. And it just is a representation of this. And it doesn't seem what it looks, but it comes in degrees.

51:58

It's not like one day I woke up after going to church and thought, I'm going to go to a Freemason lunch.

52:03

Yeah. Would it be almost like how maybe your old self would be thinking that you're, you're being more enlightened, but in reality, you're just getting more desensitized.

52:12

I mean, if I just right now, like pulled over to some place and all that was happening,

52:18

I'd be like, whoa, I really am having second thoughts about being in this place. But in your situation, it's like, this is just another day at the office.

52:27

Right. It's like, this is what I've been being trained for. What they're talking about is what I've been studying for so long.

52:32

This is, it, it was already in me. It was just being actualized in front of me now.

52:39

Okay. How, how did you go about having a normal civilian life, like outside of this?

52:45

Like, how did you make a living? It just seems to me like there's such a, a juxtaposition between this secret type of life being hoodwinked and being parts of rituals and then trying to actually participate in normal society.

53:01

There's gotta, it's gotta be really hard. How did you do that? That's a great question. I actually did not really associate with society.

53:09

I had, I had just, I dropped out of college pretty at towards the end of that relationship with the, the man that was a drug dealer.

53:20

I was just in a studio apartment. My family was supporting me. And so once in a while I did door dash, but for the most part,

53:29

I committed my life to all day in a studio apartment, practicing ritual magic, learning these things.

53:35

So I'm sure there, I know people in my order who had ordinary jobs and all that stuff, the one that I was in.

53:42

But for me personally, I didn't, I didn't really have a life. And so I didn't,

53:48

I wasn't really able to talk to people in the situations that I, that I was in. I would try to find people who at least were deep in the new age that we could converse, but my family and stuff like that, they knew

54:01

I was not in a good place. Okay. So in other words, you've got a very interesting linear timeline so far growing up being in a very broken home, very much desperately trying to find wholeness fulfillment through both physical and spiritual narcotics that leads you through a whole process of trying everything under the sun as far as any sort of paganism goes, which now you are in something that seems like some sort of cut scene out of like an

54:32

Assassin's Creed game or something like that. But, you know, and I'm saying that humorful, like from my perspective, that's what

54:38

I think, but the reality is like what you experienced, this is like a real reality, tangible reality, both for yourself, but also for like a lot of people out here, like this is something that's like these ideas of like candles and people doing weird stuff with hoods, like that is something that's real.

54:53

A lot of people do that a lot more than we can even think or imagine. So what we're going to do is everyone wants to know like what happened next.

55:01

Well, we are roughly like an hour in. So we are going to us. We are going to take about a five minute break, a seven minute stretch, and then we will be back in about five, six minutes to record for us.

55:12

For the rest of you, it's going to be about, it's going to be a week. So sorry to keep you on the cliffhanger, but we will jump into really what happened once you were there in the hermetic or the golden dawn.

55:23

I didn't end there. You're here with us today. So praise God for that. But it's going to be,

55:28

I'm really looking forward to the other part of this conversation. So if you guys enjoyed this episode with Jack Marino Chen, definitely let us know what you thought.

55:38

Please leave us a review on iTunes. Also, a program like this cannot continue without your support. So if you feel led to support the cultist podcast, go to the cultist show .com.

55:47

There is a donate tab. You can donate one time or become a monthly partner with us. All that being said, we'll talk to you all next week on cultists, where we enter into the hermetic order of the golden dawn.