Angela (Dr Angela Puca): Hello symposiasts, I’m Dr Angela Puca, a religious studies PhD with horns, and this is your livestream live resource for the academic study of magic, esotericism, paganism, shamanism, and all things ult. Today, it’s going to be more chatty, and it’s going to be a way to celebrate the imminent Solstice or Midwinter, or however you celebrate this time of the year. First of all, thank everybody who is here in the chat and watching. I look forward to reading the chat, and this is a very special event because I have here, my Inner Symposium, my Patron Community, that I’m really excited to introduce to you guys. So, as you know, the only way that this project supports itself is by everybody who decides that this project is worth supporting. I’m particularly proud of my Patron community, which I call my Inner Symposium, because not only is it a way to support my channel, but we also have a Discord server. We have monthly lectures for the Magus and higher-tier patrons. There are one-to-one conversations with me, so I have interactions, like strong interactions, and we form bonds with each other, with my Patron community. And so, I would love for you to meet them, and you know, to have a glimpse of what it means, you know, what it is and what it feels like to be in the inner Symposium. And hi Joao, another Patron who unfortunately wasn’t able to make it, but here are my lovely patrons. Welcome, everybody. So, would you like to introduce yourself to our audience? We can start with Karen and then move on. Hopefully, you see yourself in the same order that I see you.

Karen: Okay, hi, everybody. I’m Karen, and I’m an American woman living in Tokyo, Japan. I tuned in from Tokyo a couple of years ago, and I’m really excited and happy about all the topics. I’ve been here in Japan for a long, long time, and the topics about the winter solstice versus the Japanese counting of the timing of the seasons and those things have been interesting to me for a long time. But I love learning about this topic, so I’m really looking forward to today.

Angela: Thank you, Karen. Karen is also helping me a lot with my preparations for my trip to Japan because, in late January, for a couple of weeks, I will go to Japan with a group of old, longtime friends of mine, one of whom has a big birthday. So we decided to go all together on this trip to fulfill our childhood dream. Because I realized that it’s not common here in the UK, and I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in Italy, basically, my generation, especially and younger, we kind of grew up with Japanese anime. So there’s a strong attachment, especially to certain anime like Sailor Moon, in my case. So, since my birthday will also be part of the trip because it’s on the 28th of January, I’m still trying to find a way to finally transform into Sailor Moon on my birthday. I’m kind of helping with that, and Karen is helping me to fulfill this very adult task of becoming Sailor Moon. Fans over here, too, in Tokyo, yes. So now, Andrew, your turn. And for all of you guys, Andrew is the one that you have to thank for the subtitles that you see on all my videos. And he does a lot of work in the background without being seen. Well, I see him, but you don’t know that he’s the one doing all these things. So, he really helps this channel a lot. So thank you, Andrew, publicly. I always tell you privately, but I think that it’s time to also acknowledge it publicly so everybody knows, yeah.

Andrew: Well, I’m Angela’s oldest Patron. Oldest, or you know, what do you mean, you could say oldest. I’m the longest-standing, three, four years ago, but I think I might be the oldest, but not so sure now becausewe got quite a few, got a good range of ages in the Symposium now, from young people to people like me who are retired. And yeah, one day, I just sort of looked at the YouTube automatic captions, and, you know, they just got all wrong and all sort of really bad. So I just decided I would clean one of them up, and I sent it to Angela. Angela said, “Oh, I’m going to upload that.” I said, “No, no, no, you can’t do that because I haven’t got any timestamps or anything like that.” But it worked. So then I made sure that every video has a decent caption to go with it.

Angela: Thank you, Andrew, that’s very appreciated. And as you know, we often get comments from people saying that it really helps, especially non-native speakers or people that have ear impairment, so it’s really helpful. Dave, it’s your turn.

Dave: Hi everybody, I’m Dave and I’m also in the UK. I’ve been involved in supporting this channel; I have no idea; it’s been a couple of years; is it more? A couple of years, yeah, a couple of years, yeah. So, I came here because I was interested in some reconstructive ancient religions, and I have always been interested in folklore. So the confluence of those things, and then I think for me, the fact that made me stay was the fact that the way Angela treats the academic treatment and presentation of materials. I like that; it appeals to the way I think. So, I’ve enjoyed the conversations inside the inner Symposium as well as the externally published stuff. So yeah, and my background is in IT, so I’m kind of interested in some of the conversations about techno-paganism, AI, and some of the humorous conversations about AI and esotericism that seem to be emerging everywhere. So yeah, that’s kind of what I get involved with.

Angela: And you’ve also seen some of my talks live, so I have, I have. And helped with, so if you held microphones and things? Yes, held mic, yes. So he’s also been a camera assistant on occasion. Thank you for that. He’s also an expert on technology and AI, so we will talk about that during this conversation.

Marcus, tell us about yourself.

Marcus: Thank you, Angela. My name is Marcus Matterattern

. I teach ceremonial magic. I live in Boulder, Colorado. I have a Facebook group with 10,000 magicians, and you can go to marcusmattern.com to learn more about me. I’ve been part of the Symposium for years. I have the best discussions with Angela, and I’m always trying to learn more about magic. And I know a lot about a little. I know my tradition of modern Golden Dawn Magic, but there’s so much I don’t know. There’s so much out there, and it’s wonderful to talk to Angela, who studied these things in an academic setting and can just give me really rigorously researched information about all these other traditions of magic and all these other different religions and just really enriches my understanding of magic as a whole.

Angela: Thank you, Marcus. And I’m also part of your Facebook group. It’s really interesting. Hank, it’s your turn now.

Hank: Light welcome, everybody, and hello. I’m Hank. I’m from the land of two seasons, summer solstice and winter solstice, up here in Alaska because in between is just a, you know, quick tailspin. So, we’re in the middle of our wonderful winter. I’m a solitary practitioner of basically mysticism, and service, I guess, is what I do. I found Angela two years ago on a quest for greater knowledge, and I have found it, and I’m very appreciative of it. So, part of my being here is to support not only her but also the broader community and get good knowledge out there. And I’m very thankful that I have this opportunity, and I welcome it.

Angela: Thank you, and you’re always so sweet. Edward, it’s your turn. Oh…

Edward: Hello, I’m Edward. I’m a librarian, an academic librarian at a university. I got really interested in Angela’s channel because, at the time when I first started studying occultism, academic occultism didn’t really exist. And it’s really good to be able to get a little bit of certainty about what at least the people were doing, and the stuff that you can know, to actually know. So it’s a unique take because so many magical type programs just give you what they think, and this is a better way. It’s like, “Oh yeah, it’s peer-reviewed. Yeah, there’s some truth behind it.” So that’s always great.

Angela: Thank you, thank you, Edward. So, I guess that we can start by talking about the solstice. What do you think about the history of the solstice? Well, obviously, you know that I have made a few videos on that. I have a video on the history of Yule and Winter Solstice and another one on whether Christmas comes from pagan midwinter celebrations, which is the latest one that I have published. In both videos, what you can find, and this is what tends to happen with most celebrations really, is that the celebrations that pagans and esoteric practitioners celebrate, and often claim that the Christian ones or other Abrahamic religions have taken from pagan or esoteric practitioners to develop in their own way, is, you know, what you can find by watching my videos and also reading the sources that my episodes are based on. It’s not that clear-cut. We tend to think, sometimes, about the development of religious traditions and even religious festivities as a straight line. You know, this comes first, and then this comes after, and so this must have absorbed everything and then reshaped it. But it’s not that clear-cut, as we can find with many pagan celebrations.

Of course, I’m a pagan study scholar, so I have paganism in mind here. But as you can see, they have influenced each other. Yes, sure, there were pagan celebrations before Christmas, and they have influenced the formation of Christmas, but it’s also true that Christmas has influenced paganism and pagan traditions. So, it tends to be both ways. Because one thing that we always need to remember is that religion is not different from any other cultural product. Every cultural product we see in history is always influenced by not just one thing but multiple factors, elements that come from the past, from different cultures, and different traditions, and they all form the thing that you find in that specific moment in time. But I’m always very sceptical of reductionists, any kind of reductionists. I know that there are others, like Justin, who likes reductionism, but I’m very sceptical of any form of reductionism. Whether it be reducing an explanation, yeah, I guess that the thing that I personally really dislike is when you try to find one answer or one lens that is meant to explain everything. That’s the core of what I dislike. Then, we can apply it to more specific things. Because by reductionism, we often mean when to explain something, you only rely on the material aspects of that. So, for instance, in historical materialism, they tend to explain everything by what happened in history, and that is the thing that only exists. And I, that is a form of reductionism, but there are many forms of reductionism, I would argue. And for me, as I said, I think that every time that you try to explain something complex with one key, one lens, to me, it’s always unsatisfactory.

I was watching something from another YouTuber the other day, which was very well-made and very interesting. It had a very strong Marxist lens to understand witchcraft and certain elements of witchcraft. I also recently contributed to a publication that is going to come out next year with a political scholar, with a scholar in political studies from the University of Barcelona. It was interesting to work on that because it was about how a political party in Barcelona is using it as a way to demonize women, specifically those who don’t behave properly. One of the theoretical lenses that was used was Sylvia Federici’s famous book. I think it’s called “Caliban and the Witch,” if I recall the title correctly. And I find her very interesting. But she’s the example of, to me, a form of reductionism because it’s just a way of explaining the use and the understanding of a witch with one lens only. Personally, I prefer not to have only one lens to understand things that are complex. So, that is what I tend to have a problem with, personally. But I don’t have anything against people who prefer to use that kind of lens, of course. Everybody can understand the word the way they prefer. But yeah, what do you guys think about… Sorry, I went on a monologue. What do you guys think about the solstice celebrations for the solstice? For me, and I think a lot of us, it’s a winter solstice, and for Andrew, it’s a summer solstice. So, let’s just say solstice; at least we can agree on that.

Dave: So, there’s one thing that occurs to me is that, if you think about the, you know, in an effort to try and simplify rather than reduce, one of the things that I’ve always found interesting is the process of contextualization. So, where stories would be handed down from generation to generation, there is an assumption that, in the past, there would be embellishment over time, there would be a core of the lineage, and the provenance of that story would remain somewhat true. So, in order for that to happen, you know that you’re getting some sort of link back to the past. And I think before I read Ronald Hutton, you know, for example, I had no idea of the level of complexity that contributes to the potential for certain celebrations to occur at this particular point in time. In the UK, for example, it was always my incorrect assumption that Christmas was a rebranded pagan event. And I think that’s one of the things that you have to realize, that it’s just far from simple. And I think there are a lot of people who have that assumption and believe that there is a much more simple overlay of celebrations that you could argue might be in terms of the way Christianity has occupied the space. But it’s also like a cultural overlay; it’s what became more common and more practised, got the narrative. So, you know, I’m interested in from a sociological point of view as much as anything.

Marcus: Cool. I will give a very simple explanation, the kind that Angela hates, but it’s… I’m also open to other interpretations. This is just mine. I think it’s useful to have multiple lenses on something. I think that we can have one explanation that you like, and there can be others that are valid for other people, and that’s totally fine. I see the winter solstice and all the solstices and equinoxes as part of a religious connection with the sun. And the physical sun, in many instances, is a physical manifestation of, and symbol of, the Eternal Light of awareness. So our own awareness is always shining, and the sun is going and going through transformations. And the sun is always shining, but it’s also going through transformations. It has its peak of power in the summer solstice, which Australia is celebrating right now. And it’s got its trough, its nadir of power, during the winter solstice. But that also makes it the time for reformulation and rebirth. It’s when the sun becomes anew. So it’s a very powerful time for magic because the sun is dimmest, darkest. This is the time of darkness; this is the time of greatest potential. And so, if you want to do magic, it’s a great time of year for putting your intentions out into the universe, starting to manifest them, and then using the movement of the sun as an aid through that process. So, as the sun becomes brighter and brighter, your manifestation becomes more and more part of the world, more and more part of the public sphere. And that can be a way to use the movements of nature to enhance your magic and your connection to the world. Use the sun and the movements of the sun as not just a symbol but a living entity that you can connect with for spiritual transformation. And I feel like we’ve been doing that for a long time. You can look back to the Western tropical zodiac and how it’s all keyed to the solstices and equinoxes and the movements of the sun. And we’ve just been looking to the sun forever for spiritual guidance. And so I find that this time of year, as much as, often cases, more than any other time of year, is the time that we look to the sun for spiritual guidance.

Angela: And what do you guys think when there is a discrepancy between when… you realize, for instance, that something that is part of your, because I know that there are some of you who are practitioners, those who I feel like they want to share, but even from a theoretical level, when there is a discrepancy between what you have believed and the history, how do you react to that? And how does that affect your practice? Would you amend your practice in relation to the newfound knowledge, or do you see the academic scholarship disentangled from your spiritual practice?

Edward: Well, I have an actual real-life example of that, specifically with solstices. When I was a kid, my favourite Christmas carol was always “Deck the Halls,” mostly because it had absolutely nothing to do with Christianity or Christmas. It was all about boughs of holly and stuff like that. Later on, I thought, “Oh wow, this is like some kind of hidden language that’s trying to bring these symbols forth.” Well, the song was written in the 1800s, and if the person was trying to bring about, you know, this says, this was some pagan leftover that they were secretly trying to sneak into the song, well, the very sources that they were using, you know, have since been not entirely discredited but questioned quite thoroughly academically. So maybe the Druids didn’t cut, you know, mistletoe with brass boughs or brass sickles. So, you know, you start pulling on one of these threads, and there’s a lot you can find out. The only thing is, it leaves you with more questions than answers.

Angela: Yeah, but do you think that it changes the practice of practitioners? How do you think that knowledge affects, for instance, in your case? Has that knowledge changed the way that you felt about it?

Edward: I think that for me, at least, I feel—I don’t know about anybody else—we all get into esoteric studies or occultism or whatever for different reasons, but one of the big draws for me was trying to find out the truth, with a big “T,” you know. And finding that things that I thought were true, and then there’s more study for, or there are different ways of interpreting, I find that comforting in a way. And it may or may not affect what I do as far as ritual practice, but as far as my approach to it, yeah, it will change it because all of a sudden, these symbols that I took for granted may not mean what I thought they meant. And that’s something that academic study gives you. So you have to be willing to change your attitudes towards practice if you’re going to take—you can do anything you want—but if you’re going to take the academic stuff seriously, then you have to be willing to, you know, at least look at your own beliefs and how you approach. So, you know, Margaret Murray’s probably the best example. You know, it’s like, no, it’s not an unbroken lineage of whatever, whatever. That affected a lot of people in the ’90s and the ’80s when, all of a sudden, Murray got debunked for good. And how did the community react to that knowledge? Did they change their beliefs or… yeah, well, some left entirely. Hank probably knows as much more than I do on this, but in my circle, which was mostly Unitarian Universalist pagans, there were people that just stopped going to magic circles because there was a strong desire to have this link to the past, and they felt that it was sort of—they were—I don’t know, people felt cheated. I think that, you know, this some of this stuff was made up, and, you know, that was the right reaction—it was made up; they were cheated. But that doesn’t mean that there was no value in it. But at the same time, that, you know, you had when you approached it, you had to come at it with open eyes, you know. You couldn’t just blindly accept things, and that was the big changing point for me. And that’s why I try, you know, now in whatever practice I have, I really value the academic approach because at least I’m not, you know—if I’m looking at something, I have an avenue to investigate it as much as I want because I might not want anything more than my belief. If it works, it works, and that’s all I care about. But if I do want to be authentic about something, then, yeah, contextualization matters a lot.

Hank: Well, to add to that, I’m a product of the ’80s and early ’90s training. Our teachers basically were upfront about it. Like, look, we’re not old; we’re not ancient; this is a modern construct. We’re using these different techniques, and in my case, it was all over, you know, globally kind of stuff. But it was about how we bring about a magical shift in consciousness, and we’re going to use all these various tools from different cultures, different religious things, to bring about this change. And it worked very well, but they were upfront that this is new, you know. It’s not… there is no ancient lineage, not for us. There are people that I believe do have it, but it worked very well; it had a very profound impact on a lot of us, and most still are.

So, I would want to talk about the Solstice as an extreme thing, depending on where you’re at on Earth. I think it matters more about how this shift affects your life and your mental being. Like here in Alaska, we have winter and a very short summer, and so the winter solstice is, “Oh, thank goodness, there’s going to be an end. Summer is going to come.” And then summer is rather depressing because you know you only get a little bit of it, “Oh no, it’s a solstice; it’s going to be winter again.” So, when I lived in the lower 48, in North Dakota, we had very balanced seasons. There are four fairly balanced seasons, and I really love that, where you have a winter, but it’s not long; you have a summer, it’s really hot, but it’s not long, and you have beautiful falls and springs. But they’re all nice and balanced, and so you can actually see the wheel of the year as we now celebrate in a more balanced reality. Up here, for instance, there’s still two feet of snow on the ground. There are no things budding out of the ground in life. Now, everything is still frozen. You have to wait until May to get anything green. You know, for us, Solstice is really a turning point. Whether you’re celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or Diwali, it’s that light; it’s that thing of, like, there’s hope of getting through this. We really are thinking about, “Okay, it’s done, summer’s coming.” And I think I would ask, how is that around the world? How does that affect it? And I think our argument today, was it Christians taking over this, or this taking that, I think there’s a fundamental need from a psychological standpoint to have a solstice celebration, regardless of what religion you’re using for it. And we’re, I think, getting into arguments that are, like, for those of us on a pagan bent, it’s kind of like defending our turf, and I don’t really think it needs to be defended.

Angela: I think you raised an interesting point, Hank. I remember that when I moved to the UK, I thought, “Oh, that makes sense. It makes sense that the eight sabbaths were developed in Britain.” To me, it makes sense because, compared to Italy, I think that here in the UK, you really tend to see those eight stages in the year with the weather. Sometimes, a stag of rain, yes, the eight stages of rain. But to me, it feels like there is much more of a demarcation on those eight stages of the year compared to Italy, where in October, when you’re celebrating the darkness of Samhain, it’s still hot, and there are 30 degrees Celsius. That is so, whereas here in Britain, to me, it feels it makes sense that the eight sabbaths were developed here.

And then I wonder, if Wicca and modern paganism were developed in another country, maybe the Wheel of the Year would have looked very differently. Although, as Hank says, and that is the case, as far as I know, solstices and equinoxes are definitely celebrated cross-culturally. I couldn’t say all cultures, and I couldn’t say from millennia and millennia because I would have to have sources to make that claim. And, you know, when it has to do with big claims like that, it’s very difficult to find any scholarship because academic research doesn’t work on millennia; it works on things that are very specific. But, yeah, you definitely… I was thinking that since I have researched Shamanism quite a bit, there are many forms of Shamanism around the world that celebrate solstices and equinoxes as points that are considered particularly magical. The way that it was conceptualized in Wicca, with the wheel of the year and the eight stages, and the way those eight stages were conceptualized, is peculiar to Wicca and contemporary paganism and has been influential because you find that even other traditions, sometimes even esoteric traditions that don’t consider themselves pagans, would adopt that way of seeing the eight sabbaths and the way they were conceptualized in Wicca. The idea of the sabbats and the esbats comes from a mixture of Margaret Murray and Leland and the interpretation that Gardner and Valiente had of those two sources, particularly because you find the idea in Margaret Murray that the sabbaths were the public festivals, and yes, but the private festivals, and then in Leland, you have the idea that every full moon, there is a reunion to celebrate Diana. And, you know, the two things were combined in their own way to create those celebrations. But what is interesting to me as an anthropologist is that if they have been influential to the point of becoming so popular and pervasive in esoteric traditions, you know, this conceptualization of the wheel of the year and the celebrations of the sabbaths and the esbats, it makes me think that it probably resonates with people and with people spiritually.

Now, you guys know because we have the Magus Lectures every month, and we have the conversations on Patreon—I don’t know how much people here on Angela’s Symposium know about this—but I personally advocate for a disentanglement. Not that it doesn’t mean that one doesn’t inform the other because, of course, they do, and it is a permeable distinction.But I think academic research is not the same as spiritual practice, and it can inform your spiritual practice. If you are a reconstructivist or somebody whose religion is tied to history, then, you know, you do you. But I think that religion is one thing, and history or academic research is another thing. So, I understand the search for truth, but academic research, and even science more generally, is not about finding the truth. Truth is something metaphysical to begin with, so you can try to find the truth by trying to understand things in history and based on academic scholarship, but I don’t think that one translates into the other because otherwise, that becomes scientism. And scientism is the religion of science, you know, believing that everything that science says is the absolute truth. And that’s not what science is about. It’s not about finding the truth, and you will find that over the decades, something that was considered to be accurate; that’s why I use the term “accurate knowledge.” In fact, science tends to find the most accurate knowledge that we can at a given time, but then we have different tools and different ways of understanding the world. So that’s why knowledge, I always say, is a moving target.

Now, personally, I also have the belief that the objective world that we are studying via science changes. I don’t think that it is as stable as some people may think. And so that’s also another element, but that’s more my personal interpretation. But more generally, that’s definitely the case that science and academia are not about finding truth. So, to me, having the absolute rule that something religious or spiritual needs to absolutely rely on history and academic scholarship is a massive limitation. It’s like saying you can only do art as long as it follows the rules of physics or something. So, it is very limiting, and I don’t think that it is the purpose of spirituality or religion. I think the purpose of spirituality and religion is very different from the purpose of academia. So one can inform the other. The only problem that I find is that, and in fact, this can be a problem that is led by the fact that people want to only believe what is proven factually, at least at that given time, is that then they start to claim that things that they experience religiously and have a very strong impact on their lives, they start to claim that those are the truth, that those are factually correct. And that’s not correct.

So that’s why I think that it’s important, especially as an anthropologist, because, for instance, when I research practices, and I participate in rituals, and I try to understand, I don’t only try to understand the history and where the practice comes from and whether they are correct in their historical understanding. For me, it’s also about why this practice was so influential. Why, you know, how come it resonated so much with the meaning-making and the belief-making and the practices that these people were doing? So, for instance, if there is a magic spell that is very effective, you’ve tried it many times, it’s super effective, and it is based on a misconception on a scientific level or a historical level, does it stop being effective in your practice? I don’t think that it would, so that’s why I say that. And this is, of course, from the point of view of an array of practitioners who believe in magic and practice magic.

I personally am not even a fan of wanting to prove magic scientifically. I personally don’t think that it’s even possible, and I don’t think that it is desirable either. I’m open to changing my mind if evidence suggests otherwise, but up until that point, which seems to be very far away from now, that’s what I think. I personally don’t think that it’s possible because the way magic works, as it is reported in field notes and what practitioners report, is completely different from how science works. Science is about repeatability, universality, and standardization. Magic is not about standardization; it is extremely personal. Something can work for me in one way and for you in a completely different way. So, that’s why I think that scholarship is important to inform practitioners so that practitioners don’t make claims that are clearly incorrect. But I think that if practitioners were more honest about the fact, “This is what I believe; this was transformative for me,” I don’t have to jump on big claims, “Oh, this is how it’s always been for millennia and millennia,” because I think that that is also dangerous from a political point of view. It just leans towards totalitarian thought, and that idea of, “Oh, because I have the truth,” that’s why I, you know since I am somebody who is really repelled by any form of totalitarianism, it’s like no, even the idea. I am an academic, of course, and I’ve dedicated my life to it, as you all guys know, but still, I wouldn’t want academia to determine everything that people do, that make that allow their life to have meaning. You know, imagine having art, poetry, cinema, and your spiritual practice all being absolutely determined to the letter by academic scholarship. How boring would that be, and how much weight are you giving to an academic scholarship that it is not supposed to have?

In fact, since I do anthropology, and that is a conversation that we need to have when we have academic conferences, one of the things that we always talk about is how we cannot influence our informants because that is a big problem that we have in anthropology. So, when I was doing fieldwork, there were my informants; they would sometimes change their answers and their beliefs based on what I was saying. So I had to have conversations with more experienced anthropologists so that I could formulate questions in a way that would not allow my thoughts and my ideas to transpire in any possible way because otherwise, they would think, “Oh, she is the anthropologist, she knows.” That’s another thing that happened is that when I was asking them, “So, what is Shamanism? Explain to me what is Shamanism,” some of my informants would reply, “But you’re the anthropologist; you should explain it to me.” It’s like, “You are the practitioner; I want to learn what you think Shamanism is. I’m here to learn from you.” But there is this idea that since you are an academic or a scientist, then you are the one who’s supposed to know, but academics and scientists, and in my case, especially in anthropology, I learn from people. So that is another problem that happens, that then I think it’s a responsibility that all the anthropologists that I know don’t want to have, but it seems that to some degree, there is definitely an influence that anthropologists play on the communities that we study, but it is something that we try to minimize as much as possible. So I can tell you that because it is something that we have full conferences on.

Marcus: So, absolutely, I think that what academics say can influence what practitioners do. A lot of it comes down to a basic human question of where does authority come from. If authority comes from tradition, if authority comes from popularity, all of these humans doing it in the past, then that legitimates what I’m doing. A lot of people are just so deep into this herd mentality of, “I’m not safe on my own, I’m not safe as an individual, I have to do what other people are doing; otherwise, I’m vulnerable and could be hurt.” And so that needs to go along with what other people are doing translates to, “Okay, what’s the most traditional magic? I’ll do that. Okay, what’s the most popular form of magic? I’ll do that.” And when you start to realize that you can be the authority of your own reality, you can have an experience, you can get results through magic, and you don’t need other people to legitimate it for you. It’s legitimate for you because you were there, you had the experience, you got the results.

When you have that kind of confidence, then you won’t be as influenced by history or what academics have to say. You may still adopt your practice because there’s this interesting tension between tradition and novelty. On the face of it, tradition doesn’t want anything new to happen, but traditions also get very old and boring if nothing new happens. So one of the benefits of religious and occult scholarship is to reinvigorate traditions, say, “Hey, here’s this new thing that we didn’t know about that’s historical,” and people go, “Oh, great, let’s integrate, let’s practice with it, let’s play around with it.” And that’s been happening with the Abramelin continuously, where the first translation we got was bad, and we still got it to work. And there has been new information and new translations coming up, so people have all different ideas about how to do it and the best way to do it. It makes for lively, lively discussion and a lot of interest in it. So I think it can be an absolutely positive influence. I think where we get into people abandoning their practices or modifying their practices just to conform to scholarship is that, a lot of times, this has to do with the personality issue of not feeling safe to do your own thing. And I think once people feel safe to do their own thing, then they can really start to embrace the tradition and not be so worried about what scholars might find or what other people might think.

Angela: Karen, did you want to say something?

Karen: Yeah, it’s very interesting about the two things—the concept of history and then the concept of, well, three things—science. Just get like Monty Python, “Two, no three, three, no four,” yeah, that gets like that. Here in Japan, I get into a lot of fights with people about what all the equinoxes and the solstices are versus the Japanese way of looking at seasons. They’re very Moon-oriented here, not even the sun. The sun thing happened around the year 700 when they felt China was getting pretty powerful, and if they didn’t have their own system, especially of writing, they would lose out. So they decided to make up all of the stuff, and some of the stuff that they made up was about the sun goddess being chased into her cave by pranksters for three days and nights and then being coaxed to come out on the third day. So they’ve got that, and everybody is pointing from that, you know, pointing to that being, “Oh, that’s Egypt,” or, “No, that’s Christianity,” that’s this and the other thing. Yeah, somebody in the comments mentioned Nihon Shoki, and then there’s also the Kojiki from around 700. But then, basically, people just let that go by the wayside through the centuries. Now it’s a way of using the lunar calendar plus a number of traditional ways of arriving at dates in Japan, where it’ll shock you—the beginning of autumn for Japan, and this will be announced on their news stations as well, is in the middle of August. And the beginning of winter, I think this year, they announced it sometime around shortly before Halloween. So that brings up, you know, because when I get into direct conflict with people, I say, “Well, do you know about the winter solstice?” And a whole lot of people just don’t even realize that that even exists.

The other point in Japan is that tradition might be boring for a lot of us, but for these people here, wow, it is totally interesting. They are into the New Year. Christmas is a conflict here. It’s a conflict between when their winter traditionally starts, which seems to be just before Halloween, and the idea of Christmas, which they like the magical element of Santa Claus. They want to do that for the kids. They like the Coca-Cola red and white, and they like all of that. More families are doing that now than they were 20 or so years ago. They like Halloween, too, but they always ask me, “What is that?” And I’m doing Santa Claus, my kids are waiting for Santa Claus to come, and, “What exactly is that?” I said, “Well, is Santa Claus coming down the chimney?” “What do you mean, chimney?” Okay, so we’ve really got it, but basically, decorations go up, and very interestingly, in my neighbourhood, they went up just before Christmas, and everybody that I talked to said, “Lovely Christmas decorations.” But there were many rabbit decorations with lights, so I asked them, “What are the rabbits doing there? I mean, is there something to do with—Gee, I don’t know.” I think four people said they didn’t know what the rabbits were doing there, but then I found out it’s the Chinese zodiac because this is the year of the rabbit.

Karen: So, they put Christmas lights with rabbits all around them, and it’s very interesting how that got mashed up there. I think what we’ve got are people who care about history, they love to study it, but then they leave it by the wayside for tradition, and then they do that, and then they leave that by the wayside for magic. There are three things happening here: they love Santa Claus, they love Harry Potter, they leave those both by the wayside for New Year celebrations, and the Buddhist traditions, and a little Shinto in there. And then they leave all that by the wayside when they go to school and study history. It’s very interesting how they separate the three things here. So, I’ve just decided not to fight over this winter solstice thing anymore. When I say, “That’s not really winter, you guys are… you’ve got that on the news, it’s not winter on October 19th, that’s not happening,” it is the solstice, and they’re like, “What is that?” No one really announces it or pays any attention at all to that.

Christmas comes down to, I don’t even think they’re doing “Jingle Bells,” which is translated into Japanese; nobody’s singing it. They’re singing the Wham song about Christmas, which is played so much here. I think I just… yeah, it’s, “Oh, if I hear it one more time.” That’s what it’s like. But it’s, “Whose version of ‘Silent Night’ are they singing?” I guess that’s Wham, too. They really like Wham. Well, it’s good information for when I come over there. You ask folks over here, no matter what their ages are, why they like it, and they say there hasn’t got to be a reason. It’s the season; it’s what it’s about.

What you get in Japan is a separation, and that’s what makes it interesting. So, you would really have to talk to academics to get the skinny on a lot of that, but it’s very fascinating how their mood completely shuts down on December 26th for anything to do with Christmas and goes right into the New Year. The New Year here is January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, and they have special customs on each of those days. They’re paying less and less attention, but the most important is the food, the family, and the lucky bags that, Lord knows, what’s in them. And then on Adults’ Day, which is now used to be the 15th, it’s now the 8th of January, or rather the second Monday of January, when young people who have turned 20, or are about to turn 20 years old, celebrate. That’s the rite of passage over here that pretty much goes with the New Year period, which used to be much longer. It used to be about two weeks because the train system used to be slow 50 or 60 years ago; it took people a couple of days to get home, so they had a two-week break. I think China is the only one doing that two-week New Year sometime in February when they do their Lunar New Year. But they’re not doing the Lunar New Year over here in Japan; they’re doing January 1st. So it’s very interesting how they’re very date-oriented; it’s got to be January 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. They’re not aware of the winter solstice at all. Most of the people I talk to know about the sun goddess story. They think that that’s pretty boring and old-fashioned, and it’s cute, and that’s about it. It’s in the museum, a couple of things. Christmas, they just love singing that Wham, and that’s what’s going on. Yeah, we just have to give up and sing it sometimes. That’s all, you know; you have to get along, I suppose. Sounds good; it’s a kind of globalization. Yeah, they love you to tell them, though, where all of the stuff comes from; they’re asking me questions about it.

The most shocking thing, I think, is what a lot of my American friends don’t realize about the red and white. I learned about that when I was visiting my friend in France, and she said, “Oh, you mean the Coca-Cola Santa? That’s 1951.” Okay, really? Okay, that’s great. What colour did it used to be? And so somebody from Norway chimed in and said, “Well, you’re talking about Nissa, the brown guy, the poor man’s guy that hangs out in the barn and waits for you to give him something on Christmas Eve.” Okay, that’s another one. But here in Japan, people don’t even care about any of that history stuff, and they don’t know “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” by the way. They don’t get that either. They just heard that the reindeer are pulling a sleigh. There are a lot of bits and pieces that they take, and I ask them about the magic element of that, and they’re like, “Well, that’s for the kids, right?” And I said, “Yeah, well, what do you think about the realization that it’s, you know, it’s fake?” “What do you think about that?” “Yeah, well, my kids just go on believing that until they’re 14.” “Oh, that’s pretty good, carrying that quite along there.”

So, I have one question, though, about the media and how that communicates. Recently, we’re all seeing things go into the public domain, and that is very interesting because when you see movies or productions go into the public domain, you’re starting to see part of what came from people like Crowley and what came from a lot of things that went before us before we were born. And one of them is “Bell, Book and Candle.” Okay, this is something I keep hearing about. I’ve heard about it all my life, and I think I’ve probably gone to sleep on it several times when it was late at night back in the States. But that thing is on YouTube now, and I just spotted that, and I said, “I think I want to give this a really good look for the first time because there’s a reason why this is sitting up here.” That is very interesting. I don’t know if any of you have seen it. It’s 1958. I haven’t, but I want you to imagine this in 1958. That’s around the time of Robert Graves’s work, isn’t it? If we’re talking about that, 1958. And so, Steve Allen, who was a really big name in those days, was out there working on parts of this film. That’s a major deal. And John Williams, whom I worship as a god of composers, was actually playing the piano on this thing. So, we’ve got a mixture of major actors, and you have a major Hollywood production in 1958, just a few years after World War II. And there’s Robert Graves out there, and you’ve got more Christians practising than probably what you have today. And you’ve got this film which is mixing… What’s in it? Do you see any paganism in this film? Do you see any practising elements of practising witchcraft in this film? And it’s coming out right at Christmas time. That is so interesting to me. That is my question for you guys.

Angela: I think that one thing I wanted to clarify again because I thought maybe it might not have come across as clear is in terms of where history and academic knowledge are helpful and where they are not. So, for instance, an example that I can give, and then we can go back to your question, Karen, is the fact that many Americans believe that something like Stregheria is Italian Witchcraft. Now, that is not true. So, if any of you guys watching this still believe that Raven Grimassi is authentic Italian Witchcraft, I hate to break the news to you, but it is not, like not at all. And very often, I get Americans asking me for sources on authentic Italian Witchcraft, and it’s like, “Okay, so do you speak Italian?” “No.” “It’s like, sorry, I cannot. I don’t have any sources for you.” But, well, there is my PhD coming out next year, so at least there’s going to be one in English. But to give you an example, there are these people who are trying to get in touch with their heritage, with their cultural heritage, with their roots, and they are practising what they think is Italian Witchcraft. Now, it is not Italian Witchcraft, but what do I think about the fact that they practice it and by practising it, they find meaning and they find connection with their roots and their heritage? Well, I say fantastic. If you find your roots, if you find meaning in that kind of practice, that’s great. I mean, keep practising it.

The problem is when you start to make claims like Raven Grimassi used to do, and he was also very arrogant. And when you make claims that what you are selling to people is authentic Italian Witchcraft, that’s where history and academic scholarship help because he was so arrogant that he would even talk down to actual Italians who were born and raised in Italy, knew Italian, and he would still talk down to them, saying that he was actually—he actually knew what Italian Witchcraft was to Italian witches that were trying to correct him. So, I think that this is where academia and proper study of history help when there are claims made, generic claims made. Now, that’s why I say, in one way, academic scholarship and science and history are important so that you know what is factual, and then you know what your own beliefs and practices are. If you’re doing something that is meaningful to you, it is helpful, it is transformative, you do you. But don’t start and claim that it is the only way to do the thing because it works for you, and then it must work for everybody, and it is the absolute truth, and it is authentic Italian Witchcraft when you completely made it up. So, you know, this is—I don’t know if it is clear if my—because I don’t want to come across as if I’m trying to devalue academia because, of course, I’m not. My whole channel and my whole project are based on that.

Hank: [Finding the mute button] Yeah. You brought up something earlier about academia. I guess that is where my line of thinking goes, from a practitioner standpoint and a historical look. You know, coming from an engineering standpoint, I look at how an architect will look at old buildings and how things were done historically. Not because every building has to be built like that, but you learn the structure, you learn what works and what doesn’t, and then you can create something new that will work. With magic, I see it the same way. We look at these old systems, and we study esoterica. How did the magicians of old, what was going on with alchemy, how did they do it, what worked, what didn’t work. And not because that’s the way you always have to do it, but because I can take from this, learn from it, and then use it in my own practice to develop my own self and move forward. Not because I want to be back in time but because I want to use the knowledge that was gained by others so that I can build upon it. That makes sense. And it’s about kind of identifying patterns rather than being dogmatic about following exactly. So academia, to me, is a gift of being able to—it’s like understanding structural science. It’s its own science in the way these people did this, and they had these results, and these ones did this, and all these different people, they created these things. Well, how did it work? And from a practitioner, we put some of these things into practice, and we see what works for us and what doesn’t. And if it creates a shift and a positive thing, we use it. If it doesn’t, well, we move on to something else.

Marcus: I want to add that it’s incredibly important for people practising more modern magic, including Golden Dawn and everything else because there’s this misconception that it was just created whole cloth in the last 50 years or 100 years, whatever the case may be. And no, a lot of these things have roots in ancient traditions. A lot of what the Golden Dawn does is very much based on sacred geometry, which the ancient Greeks were practising. A lot of the philosophy is based on Neoplatonism, which was really popular among the Greeks and also the Christian theologians, which is why so much of this comes through the Christian tradition as well. So when you start to dig into the history of the influences that created this modern tradition, then you start to realize, “Oh, there’s more going on here than just this one guy or this one story. There’s all of these people behind them; there’s all of humanity practicing magic before.” And that also helps to inform your practice of understanding, “Okay, why do we do these things? Why is this arranged the way that it is exactly?” And this is where it’s so useful to have scholars, too, to dig up new information. Here’s new stuff. The work on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn has been absolutely fantastic. Everyone in the Golden Dawn tradition, everyone practising Hermetic magic, it’s just so wonderful to find a lot of the original roots of a lot of the things that we still value, teach, and practice today.

Angela: Yeah, that also reminds me of how, in academia, you have many ways of researching these things, and they kind of look at different aspects of the practice. For instance, from a historical point of view, you would focus on, “Oh, the first edition of the Corpus Hermeticum that became very popular was actually a mistranslation.” So, from a historical perspective, when you see that as a historical fact, maybe people think, “Oh, so these people were practising a mistranslation.” But for me, as an anthropologist looking at the anthropological side, it’s more about, “What is it about this text that was mistranslated? Maybe, if it was translated correctly, it wouldn’t have had the same impact.” For me, what is interesting is what resonates with people. So, how come, you know, what about that text with its mistranslations that resonated with people? Would it have been different had the first version been translated properly?

Whereas maybe for somebody who’s focused solely on the historical side, it’s like, “Oh, you know, those people were using something that was not even the proper Corpus Hermeticum.” Whereas, as I said, for me, having an anthropological lens is more about what about it resonated with people, what about it was perceived as powerful by people. Perhaps there was even something in the mistranslation that was of particular interest that should be investigated. That’s why I think it’s also important to see the different lenses that you find in academia. A sociologist would look more at how that text and its diffusion was impactful for the society at large, or were elements of the political system fostered the diffusion of the text, as opposed to the opposite.

Every field also has a different lens to look at this text. That’s why I think it’s important to have all the perspectives, even in academia, and it’s very difficult because our field is massively underfunded, of course. But hopefully, in the future, raising awareness, even with this channel, on how important it is. I have an example of that. So, Abramelin, the first translation that really got popular, explained it as a six-month ritual, not an 18-month ritual, as it came to light later. And I don’t think it might not have caught on if people knew it was 18 months. And now that people have gotten it to work within six months, it’s like, “Can we keep doing this? Why would we do 18 months if we can do it in six months?” So, I think sometimes there are happy accidents, there are things that may be inaccurate, but people get them to work, people appreciate them, and they really start to inspire people and add to the popularity rather than detracting from it.

So, I don’t think it’s always the case that the most original, the most authentic version is always going to be the best. Maybe the most authoritative in some sense, but why, though? Why is something more ancient and more authoritative? That’s one of my pet peeves. It’s like, why does something have to be ancient for people to believe that it has any authority? I think the esoteric community suffers, as you said earlier, Marcus, from this problem of not having a central dogma and authority, and they have to find it somewhere desperately. Or was it Edward who mentioned the search for authority? Or maybe both of you raised the point. But yeah, there’s this idea, “Oh, we have to find authority somewhere, somebody that gives us the seal of approval, this is true,” that kind of thing.

It’s even in modern… how many people, it’s like, “I need somebody to initiate me. I’m not valid until somebody anoints me.” Exactly. So, you know, that kind of shifts the focus when it is about… That’s why I say academia and historic practices have different aims. It’s like when your aim is to have a practice that is effective and transformative and meaningful to you, then does it matter how many seals you have if you then don’t feel anything?

Marcus: So, I think there is some value in creating consensus because it creates a community where people can practice the same things and be doing the same things. One way to establish consensus is tradition, like if this is the most established way of doing something, the oldest way of doing something. If we’re all going to do one thing, well, can we default to doing that? So that can be useful. I think it can be counterproductive at certain points, and I don’t think it’s the only game in town, either. Like, I came into magic having studied philosophy, and so to me, like the metaphysics and the arguments for what this practice says about reality, how these symbols relate to my everyday life, that to me is often more pressing than how traditional something is. So, that’s the way I approach magic in terms of philosophy and mindset.

But the attraction within traditions to be traditional, I don’t think it translates to magicians from different traditions talking to one another all the time. Because if it were all a matter of tradition, like we would all just go back to the Greek Magical Papyri and nothing else would even be an option. But people love their different traditions. They love Thelema, they love Golden Dawn magic, they love the grimoire tradition, and so they want to practice all of these different things. And within the tradition, there’s a lot of talk within each kind of magic of tradition, and that helps to generate consensus, helps to get people on the same page, which is great for, you know, a ritual going sideways. I mean, if you need to diagnose a problem with a ritual or a problem with the result that you got from it, and you’re the only one who’s ever done that ritual because it was a chaos working that is completely off the map of anything anyone’s ever done, it’s tough. Like, who exactly are you going to talk to?

It really helps to be doing the same thing as other people. And so, for that reason, I think there is value in tradition in terms of being one of the tools that are used to get everyone on the same page.

Angela: Yeah, I think that’s more like peer support rather than necessarily something that is dogmatic. I think that it is more about building a community and building a support network to better understand something via the shared experience. So yeah, that’s totally understandable. And…

Dave: One of the things is that we often look at things like this. If we look at the edge cases, the extreme cases where you get dogmatism, then you’re always going to have to unravel that particular thought process. In the middle, you have people who are far more collaborative and far more sensible and able to disentangle fact and historical accuracy, the importance thereof, or not, because it means something to them. They’re in a practice that they’re actually getting feedback from every day, so their realized existence is different from something where you have to kind of park all that and put it down to faith. So, in a sense, you know, people who are living it and practising it tend to find out what’s important for them, as opposed to simply having their lives dictated by it.

Angela: Sorry, go on, Andrew, and then we take a couple of questions.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s a good question there. In the magus lectures, we discussed Rupert Sheldrake’s Morphic Resonance Theory, and that’s one idea that might support using older traditions because if a lot of people have done it, it should be easier. He explains it like the Wordle game: if you do the Wordle first thing when it comes out, it’s harder, but it’s easier for people later in the day who’ve had all that morphic resonant building up.

Angela: That’s a good point, Andrew. Also, if you use the theoretical lens of the egregore and the idea that there are things that build up over time, and the more people use and practice something, the ritual itself or the thing in itself becomes charged by every person who does it. So, in that sense, yeah, I can see how that would be seen as more powerful.

Hank: And then there are the demons, or excuse me, daimons.

Angela: Yes. So, let’s take a couple of questions. We have one from Jess, “Thank you so much, Dr. P, for hosting this live stream. Thank you for watching it. And I have a request for the panel: what are each of your favourite books or papers on the study of historicism that you read in 2023?” Favourite book or favourite paper, come on.

Andrew: Okay, I’ll start. This one is whatever I’m reading at the time, which at the moment is Philip K. Dick’s “Exegesis.” It’s not really esoteric, but he’s got these weird, wonderful ideas of how the world works. But there’s another one I brought up earlier in the chat called “So Spoke the Plant” by a scientist who’s also a practitioner, putting her magic into the science and coming up with amazing results. And I’d just like to say, Dr Sledge, if you write a book, it will be my favourite book after the one that’s coming out by Angela and Brill next year.

Karen: Well, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, so basically, it’s going to be all those seven original books. But other than that, I think this was Dr. Justin Sledge was talking about “The Hellbound Heart,” and I picked it up for the first time early this year, very impressed with what that’s dealing with. So, if you want to talk about something that’s more like getting into esoteric and things like that, I think it would be “The Hellbound Heart,” which was really good. But in terms of magic, yeah, Harry Potter, all seven books.

Dave: So, I was reading a couple of things that have come back to me that I’ve been reading this year that I’d read in the past. But the question asked for a paper from 2023. I was reading one that was recently published on religious comparativism, and I can’t remember the author, but I’ve been looking back through, I think inspired by your various videos as they come up, it prompts you to go and do some background reading. I was reading Leal again, and it just reminded me of the reason why I got into that in the very first place. It wasn’t particularly because of any magic significance; it was because the “psychonaut” part of the title is very similar to “Supernaut,” which was a song by Black Sabbath, so I thought, “Oh, that’s cool.” So, I got into it for that reason.

Angela: Marcus?

Marcus: I’m boring; I’m always going to recommend the same three books because these are the books that I learned to teach myself magic. They’re also the books that Damien Echols learned to teach himself magic while he was on death row in prison and learned enough magic to manifest his way out of death row and out of prison, so that’s a good endorsement. These are “Learning Ritual Magic,” “Circles of Power,” and “Paths of Wisdom” by John Michael Greer. These are basically the three books that you need to learn modern Golden Dawn magic. This one starts with all of the elements, so you should definitely try that one. These are more advanced but will take you pretty much the rest of the way, or at least give you enough to figure out the rest of the path of Golden Dawn esoteric theurgy. And then those are old, so something I read in 2023, which is a little bit older but not many people know about, is “The Dolmen Arch” by John Michael Greer. This is a Druid book, but a lot of the philosophy and the metaphysics are extremely relevant to Modern Magic, Golden Dawn Magic, so I totally recommend checking this out as well.

Angela: Hank, what about you? I was also thinking that we should do a Magus lecture on Greer because that’s also interesting in modern-day Golden Dawn, but the next lecture is going to be on Israel Regardie, so hey, good in sequence.

Hank: Oh, for me, Dr. Hanegraaff’s last book. Like I like to say, a ball-peen hammer to the third eye just opens up a lot of stuff; I really loved it.

Angela: Yeah, that’s the one that I was thinking about as well, Hank. It’s called “Hermetic Philosophy and Historical Imagination.”

Hank: I can’t recommend it enough.

Angela: Yeah, you will also find the interview with Hanegraaff on the specific book on the YouTube channel if you guys are interested in knowing more about what the book is about. Edward, what about you? You are the librarian.

Edward: Well, seconding “Anagraphe,” that’s probably one of the most influential books I’ve read in a long time. Lately, I’ve been working on a project that involves studying early modern witchcraft, and I came across this book called “Witches Enors: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft,” which is a fascinating book, more along your lines, a little more anthropological, I think. It does a great job of deconstructing what we think of as a witch, how that image has changed over time, and why neighbours were afraid of their neighbours. So it’s kind of the opposite of studying high magic; it’s more like, you know, these are all poor people that didn’t have a lot to gain. Why were they doing this? It’s a very interesting read. It’s scholarly and long, but if you get through it, I think that the chapter on gendering the witch alone is worth the reading.

Angela: Yeah, maybe I could make a video on that. That’d be good. And the last question before we wrap up is, how are each of you planning to celebrate the solstice in your own practice?

Dave: Food.

Marcus: Yeah, this is actually a thing I’m doing these days. I have a Patreon, patreon.com/theesotericmagicshop, so I’m going to be creating sigils for working with Archangel Haniel of Capricorn. The sun’s ingress into Capricorn happens at the same time as the winter solstice in the western tropical zodiac, and so this is the perfect time to work with an angel to manifest through the months of December and January but also for the whole year. Figure out what you want from this year and what you want to do with this year of your life, and develop a relationship with this Archangel of the zodiac to start to express and manifest these desires. We do it through a simple sigil that you can look at, concentrate on, and manifest, but you can also use magic and a short ritual to activate it. And if you get good at doing that, then you can join me for full ceremonial magic evocation of Haniel. So Patreon is really good for helping people get started with really simple magic and work their way up to more advanced magic. I’ve been doing this for a while because that’s what I’m passionate about, and I will be creating those sigils and consecrating them and recording audio-visual guides. So, I’m going to be deep into this energy by the time the actual winter solstice rolls around.

Angela: Sounds great.

Dave: I’ve always loved the expression “from the sublime to the ridiculous,” and listening to Marcus’s wonderful articulation, I was thinking along similar lines to Edward that I was going to go over a chocolate Yule log.

Angela: Well, knowing me and my passion for chocolate, of course, that’s also how I’m going to celebrate the solstice, that and some singing and dancing.

Andrew: Being here in the southern hemisphere, we have, of course, the summer solstice. So I’ll be in the garden, communing with my plant friends, my animal friends (mostly insects), my microbial friends, and all that, who I rely on to keep me fed and healthy.

Angela: That’s great, Andrew. What about you, Karen?

Karen: I always look at the exact time of the winter solstice here and try to, whatever time that is, be aware of it. If I’m at home, I turn and look at this bird that I’ve had for many years here and say, “Now it’s going to be dark; it’s going to be light at five o’clock really soon,” and he answers me. That’s about it. I’m always anxious to see the beginning of it getting gradually lighter outside at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. It’s exciting to me to see the moment of the longest night and see exactly when it’s going to go back.

Angela: You reminded me that perhaps a way that I could celebrate the solstice is to release the next video on the solstice, like looking up when it’s going to happen here in the UK and releasing the next video when the solstice happens and see.

Marcus: Astrological timings for video releases—you need to start this. This will be amazing for you, Angela.

Angela: So, I guess we can wrap up. Thank you, Greg, for the Super Chat, and thank you all for coming here. I will see you all on Saturday for the Magus lecture, as we do every month, although normally it is on a Sunday. But this month, you know, all Sundays are a holiday for people, so I thought it would be better to move it to Saturday. We will talk about Israel Regardie. I will release the next video also on Israel Regardie, but it will be more of a summary, and then we will expand more in the Symposium.

So, thank you all so much, and also, thank you to Edward, Andrew, and Joao for moderating the chat. Edward and Andrew are here, and Jo is in the chat, so I forgot to say earlier, sorry. I always forget to say, but thank you for also moderating chat on live streams. Thank you all for being here; it was amazing, and I will see you next in the inner Symposium.

We have come to the conclusion of this live stream. Before we wrap up, I’d like to remind you to sign up for my newsletter so that you always get all the updates about my work, more pictures, insights on my academic scholarship, and everything uncensored. Sign up for my newsletter; it’s in the comment sections, and then I will post it also in a pinned comment. If you like my project of delivering free academic knowledge publicly to everybody and you want to offer this knowledge to everybody, I would really appreciate it if you support my work with a one-off PayPal donation by joining memberships here on YouTube or my inner Symposium on Patreon, or on Ko-fi. It also offers the chance of doing donations and stuff. And if you cannot support the work financially, I also appreciate any other type of support, like smashing the like button if you enjoyed this live stream, which I hope you did, and leave me a comment down below so that I know what you thought about our conversation. Share my videos around, subscribe, and activate the notification bell if you haven’t done it already because I hope that you look forward to the next video and all my uploads. Thank you all so much for being here, and stay tuned for all the academic fun.

Bye for now!