Hello everyone, I am Dr Angela Puca and welcome to the Livestream Symposium. As you may know, I am a PhD and a University Lecturer and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Shamanism, Paganism, Esotericism, basically every religious tradition that has some kind of Magick in it. And that’s what really fascinates me from a research point of view.

So, first of all, let me see who is there.

Oh, I can see some of my Patrons which is always very, very nice.

Hi Inquisitor Rex, and hi Lady Khepera, and of course, hi Andrew and Edward, my Patrons, I’m really glad to see you guys here. Hi sp0dA, who said, there she goes. Yeah, I’m here. Oh hi Hank, nice to see you, he’s also another Patron of mine. Hi João and hi Raziel Firebat. I am always worried of mispronouncing your names or nicknames, guys. I hope you will forgive me if I do.

Hi Nyahoy, oh and hi Shaun. Hi, hyza and Alexandra, from Portugal, nice.

So Yeah, this is another Livestream, another Q&A Livestream so basically the idea is to reply to your questions. And I find it to be a nice way to interact with you guys, so apart from just having me explaining to you or delivering information to you in the usual YouTube format, you also have the chance of interacting with me. Unless you are a Patron, in which case we would interact on a more regular basis.

Oh Luminous33, new subscriber. Welcome to the Symposium then.

Yeah, and as Academic Police has said, if you have a question, it’s always best to put QUESTION in Caps-Lock so I can see better which of your comments are questions and which ones are just exchanges amongst yourselves.

GorgeousRoddy says greetings from the cool, high-desert mountains of Arizona. Nice.

And from Cambridge, UK. Hi Gisele. It’s nice to see that you guys are from all over the world. Here in northern England, the weather is not really good. It’s very cloudy and rainy. I wish I’d seen a rainbow today, I really love the rainbow – gives you hope that the sun is just about to come out again.

So I hope you guys have been… oh, feeling under the weather and so tired. I’m sorry, MrKreinen. I hope I pronounced it right.

I hope you guys have been enjoying the episodes this month. We’ve had two episodes on Rosicrucianism and on Astrology, which is a collaboration with Filip from Let’s Talk Religion. I always love to have collaborations. Actually, just recently we have started our own community with Religious Studies scholars which is nice.

Oh, I can see the first question, from Tony. Dr Puca, my native language is Arabic and my aspiration is to translate Arabic esoteric texts to English. Can I use this advantage, Arab language, to get a Masters scholarship from the US?

Yeah, definitely. Usually, languages always help. So, if you want to get a Master’s degree or even a PhD, its usually best, not only to master the subject but to have something unique about yourself, in terms of your skill-set, that will allow you to do that specific research. So languages are a great skill-set. So in my case, for instance, I did my PhD in the UK but I know Italian, of course, because I am Italian and my fieldwork was in Italy. And my research will be published and was written for my PhD in English. So I think that when you have the advantage of knowing more than one language it’s always a good thing. Always best to know more languages, I’d say. And also, one thing that is often misunderstood, outside of academia, is that academic knowledge tends to be very specific and very narrow and that is because the intent of academic scholarship is to advance knowledge in a specific field. So, if you are specialising, usually academics are specialised in a very narrow area. You would think that Esotericism is already a very small subject but actually it’s not small at all, it’s very big and wide. Then, of course, in terms of the historical span of Esotericism as much as all the different countries and cultures, so usually, at least when it comes to the academic side, you need to be narrow and for your research to be contextual. In my case, my context is contemporary Italy. So I study Esotericism there. And also I study Esotericism; I address and study and cover and tackle the findings in scholarship on Esotericism more generally for the YouTube channel but in my own academic research I focus on that, on contemporary Italy.

So Travis is asking I plan to visit Mongolia this summer and wonder if you have any connection or are aware of any Shamanism researchers there.

In Mongolia. No, I cannot recall any researcher that I know that specialises in Shamanism there. I am sure that there are but no one that I personally know. Yeah, maybe leave me a comment so that I can remind myself to look that up but nobody comes to mind. I know a researcher who studies Shamanism in Nepal, for instance, there are several researchers, that I know, who study Shamanism in India and Japan but yeah, nobody that comes to mind that does their fieldwork in Mongolia.

So MrKreinen says Dr Puca focusing on the psychosocial functionalism of religious and mystic practices, do you think Mysticism can make the transition to secularist practice?

So I guess you mean the fact that in contemporary Esotericism there is a focus on psychologising the practice. It is something that has been mentioned by a few scholars. There is a book that I often reference which is the “Scientification of Religion” by Kocku von Stuckrad, who has also been on the YouTube channel. He has been interviewed for the project and he talks about how Esotericism, especially in the 20^th century and onwards, has become more acceptable to people thanks to a sort of strategy of secularization such as the scientification. So, in a way, either explaining the practices through the lens or thanks to the tools provided by natural science or by implementing and sort of tweaking the belief system so that it could be explained through the lens of some kind of science. That includes, of course, psychology. Psychology has massively influenced Esotericism and how practitioners of Esotericism see their practices. A very common example is, well a recent example is shadow work which is a reinterpretation of Carl Gustav Jung and his psychology and definitely, Jung has been extremely influential in contemporary Esotericism. But also the idea of the Gods and Goddesses for polytheistic practitioners as archetypes that has led to the emergence of the difference between hard polytheism and soft polytheism. So with soft polytheism, you have the idea that Gods and Goddesses are not ontologically real. So they don’t exist outside of you perceiving and interacting with them. Whereas soft polytheism… that’s soft polytheism, then hard polytheism is the existence.. that Gods and Goddesses actually exist outside of your perception, so they do exist. Usually, in philosophy, we say they are ontologically existent and so, in a way, psychology has helped that form of what now is called soft polytheism because it has allowed for people to see deities not necessarily as entities living outside but perhaps as archetypes. So, for instance, Eros could be the archetype of lust rather than an entity living outside of you and you can still interact with that deity by getting attuned with your…

Oh. Hi Hank. Thank you so much for your donation

And so as I was explaining you can still work with that deity by working with that archetype. So it’s a very different way of articulating and conceptualizing your practice with the deities.

Oh hi, Justin. Hi from packing for the Yucatan. Everyone make sure to like and consider supporting Dr Puca’s important work over at her Patreon.

Oh, you’re very nice Justin This is Dr Justin Sledge from the YouTube channel Esoterica. He’s a delightful person and a friend. So I really hope that your vacation goes well, Justin. It is very much deserved, well not that vacations need to be deserved but you know what I mean. I just hope you enjoy it. You deserve enjoyment.

So let me see if there are other questions.

So Thomas Dolcelli: speaking of languages what do you think is the best way to learn one. I am dyslexic, I listen to YouTube and some apps. How did you learn?

How did I learn? Which language? I have learned a few languages and one thing that it’s important to understand is that every language works differently. So for instance a dead language or a literary language, they work differently from spoken languages. So, for instance, Sanskrit works very differently or Latin works very differently from French or Spanish or Italian and also, not only do they work differently, dead languages or literary languages compared to spoken languages but also, in some cases, specific languages have their own particularities. So you cannot really… I think that every language has their own characteristics and traits. But to answer your question in a simple way; what’s the best way to learn a language? I say the best way to properly learn a language, if it is a spoken language, is to live in the country that speaks that language primarily. But before that, perhaps, a simple way, I guess, could be if you already have a little bit of knowledge you could start watching, for instance, films, movies, and TV shows that you already know and really love in that other language with English subtitles. I think that that’s quite useful. I used to do that before I moved here to the UK actually but at the time I was trying to watch TV shows that I had already watched in Italian, because that’s my native language, in English with English subtitles because it is always easier to understand written language than spoken language; because sometimes you know your brain doesn’t really register the right pronunciation and so it’s difficult to sort of tell which word is which at first but then you, of course, you get accustomed and you start understanding the spoken language as well. So that’s my advice, I hope it is helpful.

Oh, Philip says that you’re loving the green eye shadow.

Thank you. I don’t I don’t even know how I pick my makeup in the morning because that’s kind of the first thing that I do in the morning and I wake up quite early. So it’s like whatever it comes to mind.

Raziel says can you please address the cemeteries in Napoli?

Napoli is my home city and in English is usually translated as Naples. What do you mean by addressing? Like in a video? Or addressing them in terms of explaining them? Yeah, there are quite a few cemeteries that are interesting but also churches. There’s a lot of… I wouldn’t say… usually in Italian we say cult but it doesn’t have the negative in connotation that it has in English. It’s more like, not quite the worship but there is just a set of beliefs and practices around the dead and so there are some churches and also specific cemeteries that have skulls and bones and sometimes it’s also like statues of skulls and they are thought to be to bring luck to the person that touches them. So there is a church in Napoli, in Naples where, you know, you can see that the skull is sort of eroded by people touching it all the time when they pass by. Which is interesting. But yeah, I find it interesting because there are some… I find it fascinating those beliefs and practices around the dead that are life-affirming. Because sometimes we associate death with the end of things and something that is scary and that is upon us. It’s also, perhaps, the case that death is the reason why life exists. So, I personally find it fascinating – the beliefs and practices that, around, you know, the dead in every form that are life-affirming.

Oh Hank says my penance payment.

I know what you mean but that’s fine.

So, oh, hi Cipriano. That’s my best friend. It’s always nice of him to come along with the live streams.

So, let me see if there are other questions.

So MrKreinen says thanks Dr Puca. What about atheism of Sant Mat? I thought of allegorical embodiment to be a very old traditional approach. I worked on a dissertation focusing on “creative self-actualization” through practices like transmediumship drawing parallels between these chevo and the maslows elevating effects of mindfulness meditation.

Oh, that’s interesting. But I don’t know what you mean by the atheism of Sant Mat. If you could elaborate so that I can gather what it is that you’re asking or perhaps it’s something that I’m not familiar with.

Oh, sp0dA says it’s the rivalry of modern Esotericism, the theistic approach versus the non-theistic one psychology and shadow work is part of this.

What do you mean by theistic and non-theistic? I’m not sure that I would consider soft polytheism as non-theistic because there are still Gods involved. It is more the conceptualization of the Gods that changes rather than the fact that there are no Gods. But yeah, I’m also quite fascinated by atheistic Witchcraft and I don’t know that’s part of me the struggles to understand it but that makes it even more intriguing to me because I always want to understand things that are apparently challenging to, you know, to gather and understand.

Meade says I think you’re brilliant. I learned so much from you.

Oh, that’s very nice. Thank you so much.

So Gematria says let’s talk about it being the 44th day of the year.

What does it tell us?

sp0dA says does God / spiritual entities really exists in another higher dimension or they are all part of our psyche and inside our heads?

That’s exactly what I was talking about earlier with the distinction between soft polytheism and hard polytheism. So for a hard polytheist, it would be the case that Gods actually exist on a higher or a different realm, or a different dimension, depending on how they conceptualize it. Whereas for the soft polytheist it would be more the case that they exist as part of our psyche and in a way, in our head which is a way of psychologising that kind of belief.

So question: do you feel like stregatti is more successful at reviving the folk Magic tradition than old Gardnerian Wicca? Or perhaps it’s all reinvention.

Stregatti? I’m not familiar with the.. is this an author? Or do you mean Grimassi?

Oh, João says… oh I lost it, sorry. The one chapels reminding that life is fleeting and important, memento mori.

Yes, exactly. That’s exactly what I meant. I don’t know I find it fascinating. I know that for some people it is morbid but I think that death can be and perhaps is life-affirming and things around that.

So Hank has a question: are there studies evaluating why cultures conducted specific religious practices for millennia, in some cases, while the scientific community claims that those practices have no efficacy?

There’s a lot to unpack in this question. Are there studies evaluating why cultures conducted specific religious practices while the scientific community claims that these practices have no efficacy? So first of all… there’s a lot to unpack in this question… so first of all the scientific community is a quite a generic term and science is not only natural science there’s also social science there’s also humanities. Social science, for instance, anthropology would fall under social science, for instance and when you ask about why cultures conducted specific religious practices. When scientific community claims that they are not efficacious, what does it mean for something to be effective? And when we try and explain why cultures, why a specific culture conducts a specific practice, it’s not necessarily linked to an effectiveness the same way natural science would evaluate efficacy. So I think that the issue perhaps is that this is something that, with my Patrons, I have talked about in the past. The fact that sometimes we tend to… especially in our contemporary world, so we have this theoretical framework that advantages natural science over other forms of science and over other methodologies to gather knowledge. But in reality, I argue that, and other scholars as well, I would argue that there are… the methodology of natural science is effective and useful and necessary for the objects of natural science but it is not absolutely effective nor useful to analyse the objects of other forms of science including social science and humanities. So every branch of knowledge has their own methodology and when you try to understand something with the methodology of another discipline then you get into trouble. Because it’s just, you know, it’s like trying to weigh the soul with a scale or to weigh a thought, you know, when you want to understand why you have a specific pattern on thinking and then you grab a scale and try to weigh your thoughts, it’s not useful to answer that specific question. So every research question has its own methodology, its own discipline and needs to be analysed, evaluated in terms of the kind of answer and the kind of knowledge that you need to acquire.

So when it comes to why cultures practice certain religious practices or believe in certain things. This is not a question, I don’t think, that natural science can can answer maybe there are some angles and some perspectives that they can help us with but this sounds more like something that Religious Studies could tackle in terms of, you know, why a specific culture believes something specifically. It could be related to the historical context, the political context, how people live their lives, what were their hopes and their dreams. It is very socially and culturally and as a consequence, you know, it’s not just about the effectiveness in terms of whether Magic, that the Magic spell actually works, it is all also about the service that that specific ritual provides to their community, the meaning because human beings are meaning-making creatures. We need to create or find meaning in life and so in some cases the effectiveness of a ritual is meaning-making, it’s about meaning-making in someone’s life. So that would be if, you know, effective in that sense. If we talk about, if instead, the question is why people have practised Magic for millennia even though natural science has not proven the effectiveness of Magic that would be a different question. I guess and I’m not sure whether that’s one you wanted to address but that would be quite complicated. I guess that even in that case you could have a sense that there are some aspects that perhaps natural sciences could not provide the best methodology to answer that specific question. That’s what I what I say, I think that we live in a social, cultural paradigm that believes that natural science specifically, not science but natural science has the explanation to everything in life. You know, not just, you know, the biology of my body that gets explored by biologists and other natural scientists but also they are supposed to provide an answer to metaphysical questions. So I think that that is more of a cultural… it’s more of a cultural framework that we are within, this kind of assumption that that takes the priority to acquire proper knowledge. I hope that it was clear and it made sense. Let me know, Hank.

Oh, thank you Phillip Jacobs for your donation. I was caught in answering the question and I didn’t see it earlier.

Oh João says that stregatto was Stregheria. Yeah, there is an American Wiccan-based tradition that has some Italian cultural elements in it. It’s one of those things that, theoretically that should have been one of my first videos, considering my specialism but I have to muster the courage to make that video and be very, you know, Zen about it. Because I am always very respectful of practitioners and belief systems, you know. I think that religion and spirituality are very important to people. Especially if you do anthropological research you really see, when you interview people, how much that means to them. So I’m very respectful of what people believe and their practices. And whether that specific practice has, you know, what they claim historically is actually accurate, whether their historical claims are indeed accurate. That is a different matter. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the practitioners are, you know, bad people or anything like that but you do find that there are claims of cultural authenticity or historical claims that are not really backed by any, you know, reliable source.

Let me see if there are other questions.

Gisele Batters asks have you covered Nostradamus scrying in black obsidian mirror in a video yet? Or John Dee with Kelly.

I have a few videos on Enochian Magic but not on Nostradamus, no. That would be an interesting one to cover. I think that I tend to lean more towards those topics and traditions that are practised in a contemporary world because that’s what usually interests me, the contemporary world.

Meade is asking what is meant by vecchio religione?

Well it’s… I think it’s vecchia religione and it is still connected to, it is often used in the Stregheria that we were talking about earlier. And in Italy, we don’t have any tradition we refer to as vecchia. Vecchio religione, by the way, in Italian means old religion and I’ve done all my PhD research on Italian Witchcraft and I’ve never heard of anyone referring to something like the old religion unless they were influenced by Wicca and contemporary Paganism. But I know that it is a term used by those that are interested in Leland and Grimassi’s works. But I think that usually they with vecchia religione or the old religion they tend to mean, you know, this old tradition of Witchcraft similar to the original claims of Gerald Gardner when he founded Wicca, that have been disproven over time.

Okay yeah, MrKreinen says sorry I meant Stregheria.

Yes, I did answer that. I should definitely make a video on that.

Oh, thank you, Hank, for another donation.

Yeah, as I said I should really make a video on Stregheria. I just have to, yeah, I have to do it. Especially considering my specialism in, you know, my academic specialism in Italian Witchcraft.

Luna says love your videos. Is there an academic research about Witchcraft / Paganism in Puglia and Calabria? These are two Italian regions for those who are not familiar. I’m half Italian and very curious about it.

Academic research on Puglia and Calabria? There is something about tarantism. Can you read Italian, first of all? So there is something, it’s not much, there is a book on Sardinia and its practices which is called “Rural Shamanism in Sardinia.” But yeah, have you looked up my video on Italian Witchcraft? There’s a video where I kind of summarize my PhD research and if you look in the infobox there are references and I’ve put some references about that. So when it comes to Sardinia there’s also Sabina Magliocco she’s a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and she has done research there in Sardinia as well. As for Puglia and Calabria, that’s very specific. I have studied that for my research. I didn’t focus specifically on Puglia and Calabria across regions so when my research is out, when, you know, I will publish my book hopefully this year. Well yeah, I should have it all completed by the summer. But when that’s out you will find some information that also applies to Puglia and Calabria. Specific you know research studies it’s there is something but it’s very difficult to find regional studies. I hope that there will be more in the future.

So MrKreinen says I’m under the impression that the only folk Magic practices that endure are those that proved some effectiveness in some way.

The thing is that when we talk about effectiveness that’s a tricky thing to define, to begin with. So what is effective? What produces the intended effect on the person? That’s one matter than when we talk about natural science, the way they measure effectiveness, it’s more standardized. So I think that one of the issues when there are studies in natural science that try to prove the effectiveness of these kinds of practices, is that magical practices, including folk Magic practices, are not easily standardisable. So it’s extremely difficult, I think, to make them fit a certain methodology that would be approved by, you know, a peer-reviewed journal in natural science because you need to have randomised control trials and when it comes to Magic, it tends to be more personal and very difficult to standardize. So, for instance, if I were to, you know, to have an experiment in natural science I would need 10 Shamans. These 10 Shamans need to… I don’t know, I’m giving an example here… need to try and heal 50 people and then you would sort of measure the percentage of those that were actually healed by the Shaman or maybe you could have a sample of those healed by the Shamans and another one of those, a group of those healed by the traditional medicine and see whether the percentage of those healed by the Shaman is either equal or you know, is superior to the ones healed through traditional means. But the issue is that with the Shamans, you wouldn’t have that every person that goes to the Shaman gets healed in a way that a medical doctor would heal or give medication to a patient, it’s all very different. So you go to a Shaman and they may say, well this disease actually is important to you because it will help you understand this specific thing in your life or this other thing in your life. And then they may say to another person that what they need to be healed from is something different than what they think. That actually the real disease is something that they cannot see and has not been diagnosed yet. And then you could have another case where the Shaman says no, actually this is incurable and the spirits have told me that I’m not able to help you with this. And you have another case where the Shaman says oh yes, I’m gonna heal you from this and all the other things in your life because this is the time for you to have a complete rebirth and you need to have a new chapter in your life. So it’s not as standardisable as you would have in traditional medicine. It’s more because, you know, with Shamanism and other forms, now I’m using the example of Shamanism, it is about contact with the spirits and also it’s not just about what you see in the physical world it’s also about what you are not able to see and so healing and Magic have ramifications and implications and come from places that are not measurable, visible, you cannot weigh them. So that’s the issue when it comes to perhaps proving the effectiveness of Magic practices or folk Magic or shamanic practices. I think it’s just that the method is not suitable for the intended purpose in this specific case. But I could be wrong and perhaps natural science does have or will develop new methodologies to better study this kind of thing. So I’m not opposed to natural science studying Magic or trying to test the effectiveness of certain practices. When it comes, you know, as far as I’m concerned, any form of knowledge, any form of study or experiment, they are all beneficial and useful because that’s all added knowledge. Whether it goes one way or another and what kind of implications. Any specific research has that. Of course, it depends and one can also challenge how certain studies have been conducted, how the sample has been gathered and the methodology and other things as well. But yeah, I’m not opposed of course to natural science studying these kinds of things. I just have my perplexities that I’ve just tackled.

Oh, thank you, Daniel Constantine, for your donation.

So let me see if there are other questions.

Hank says I believe proving Magic is an impossibility. Love your depth of the answer you gave. Thank you.

Oh, thank you, Hank. I’m really happy that you found it useful.

So Tony says hi, I have found everything to be connected and I practice a little of everything; numerology, tarot, spirit animals and so on. I call it spiritually eclectic. Is there another term?

I think that, yeah, I think that eclectic sounds about right. I think that this is quite common for people that approach spirituality and even Magick to be to have an eclectic approach. That’s quite common especially in the beginning but for some people, it just stays like that. There are people that just want an individually tailored practice. So maybe that’s another term that I used in my research, ‘individually tailored’ and that’s a way of saying an eclectic practice that the specific person chooses to adapt to their own belief system. Because I think that now, with the lessening of dogmatic belief systems, people tend to have, to develop their own beliefs, very personal and very individual and so, as a consequence, even spiritual practices or Magic practices tend to become more eclectic because, you know, if you have your own belief system there are certain things that will work better for that belief system of yours. So that’s why I like the term ‘individually tailored’ because they are tailored upon the individual.

So SkullCowboy says are you aware of any study on the effect of media on the practice of the occult?

Oh well, there are numerous studies on that. It depends what you mean. I have published an article, in a peer-reviewed journal, on how the use of social media has reshaped the Italian folk Magic tradition, for instance. It really depends on what you mean by the effect of media on the practice of the Occult because there are many, numerous ways in which media social media influenced your code, definitely. So if you do a search on Google Scholar, although not everything that comes up with Google Scholar is actually academic, but at least you will have a sense of the publications that are out there and in most cases. Yet, not in all cases, Google Scholar will give you academic sources.

Witch Joseph asks do you have any strong opinions on how social media, such as TikTok, is having on the practice of Magic and Witchcraft generally?

So like the effect, I guess you mean. That’s interesting and I am working on that in my academic research, the effect of social media on Witchcraft and including TikTok. It’s funny because now I’m a TikToker too, so should I include myself? But I don’t think so because I don’t think that I’m actively part of the community but I’m on TikTok. I do the same, I produce the same kind of content that I produce on YouTube but in a TikTok format. But I think there are many ways in which TikTok and social media are influencing Witchcraft, the community of practitioners. I think that one of the main ways is that there are very rapid changes in the community and perhaps another thing is that since the changes in how people believe and practice within Witchcraft is influenced, in a way, by the algorithm of social media. Because there are certain things that get pushed more than others and for instance, sometimes on TikTok, as my Patron, Andrew always likes to remind me, controversial topics or things that arouse controversy tend to attract more attention and be more pushed by the algorithm. So, in a way, you can have that, perhaps, certain changes could be also prompted by controversies that could lead to more polarized beliefs, perhaps. I’m not sure, I don’t have a definite answer but I will be working on that in my research and then I will have a better answer. So for now I only have speculations to be fair. So I think that perhaps changes will occur more frequently, that there’s more drive towards uniformity. So that you tend to lose the cultural, contextual elements because people are sharing information from all over the world. And as a consequence, you have that when people from different cultures share information they need to develop a common language, common discourses so that they can understand each other and that means that, perhaps, it is a way of creating some kind of uniformity in the community. And even though you have some communities, like those interested in Irish folklore or Irish Witchcraft or Italian Witchcraft or Afro-Brazilian traditions, so you do have sub-communities but even within those, there is, perhaps, a movement towards a certain uniformity, if that makes sense? So it’s like creating a common discourse within those communities so that you can understand each other. That used to happen in the past as well but the difference is that in the past you will communicate mostly with people around you, like physically, geographically around you. So the common discourse and the common culture and the common practice would be affected by those around you, there was a geographical context-specific element to it. Whereas now, with social media, we have moved beyond the geographical context and the proximity in that sense and in this case it is more about belonging to a group rather than to another group. And if you belong to a certain group you tend to communicate and communication is based on common understanding and to develop a common understanding you need to have a shared set of discourses and so that creates a kind of uniformity that is not based on the geographical context but rather on belonging to a specific community or a specific group.

Inquisitor Vex says damn it! I got distracted with pizza.

Well, you’re forgiven. Unless it has pineapple on it. In that case it’s a no-no. I’m the stereotypical Italian – fussy about food.

João says it’s been a symbol used in many old religions, Alchemy and Thelema. Are you talking about… which symbol are you talking about? I’m lost. Okay, there was a reply to Owen Keeling. Where did the Elven star or heptagram come from? And João says it’s been a symbol used in many old religions, Alchemy and Thelema. In Alchemy it means the seven solar system planets known at the time and at the same time seven base alchemical elements. See, my Patrons are brilliant. But yeah, if you’re referring to this one, this is the unicursal hexagram and it’s used in Thelema. It’s the hexagram but it’s called unicursal because it can be drawn without interruption, so with one course.

So let me see if there are other questions.

So, Hank, Hank JB asks have you studied Mysticism within a Pagan context?

What do you mean by Mysticism Hank? I’m trying to think what you might mean in terms of the spiritual practices. Practices that are related to moving forward in their spiritual, religious path rather than doing Magic. Yeah, let me know so that I can address the question in a more precise way.

Osama says what is this channel? I was studying Python and found myself here.

This channel is about the academic study of magic Esotericism, Paganism and all things occult from an academic point of view. All my videos are based on peer-reviewed scholarship. I sound like a commercial.

So I guess that Andrew is talking now about pineapple and pizza. [Laughter] He always likes to put that in our Patreon conversations. He has a backdrop and background with pineapple and pizza just for me, to make me happy.

So Owen Keeling says are you aware of the mud shadows mentioned in Castaneda’s The Active Side of Infinity? Are they the same as the Archons in Gnosticism?

I can see why you would see a parallel but I would say no. No, I don’t think so and usually, as I often mention, the tendency of seeing different spirits or different groups of spirits or different deities as the same. It’s a very perennialist approach that practitioners take. Perennialism means having this sort of theoretical approach to Esotericism that implies that different things from different times and different cultures may underlie the same essence, the same core knowledge or the same core belief, you know, that there is something that accommodates, you know, that that goes beyond the cultural differences and the differences in time that underlies things. But that is an approach that, you know, from the point of view of practitioners. Whereas Religious Studies scholars tend to study things in context so that is really important. So it’s usually extremely rare that you would actually find that one deity is linked to another from a different time or different culture. You know, you really need to have solid historical evidence to claim something like that from an academic point of view. Then from a practitioner’s point of view, you know, it’s belief, it’s religious or spiritual belief so it doesn’t necessarily have to abide by the historical evidence. You know one can definitely detach the evidence from the belief as long as the two are… that there is an acknowledgement the two are kept separate and not mixed.

Edward Iglesias says is pineapple another name for the spiky one? Also known as the pizza abomination.

Yes, Edward, I think that you are on my side on this.

So Osama Esmael says well since I’m a Muslim what do you think of Islamic Sufism and the works of Muslim jurists and scholars regarding it, for example, Al Ghazali and Ibn-Arabi?

I think it’s extremely fascinating. You may have already seen my video on Sufism. I think it’s so complex and fascinating and I’m more familiar with Ibn-Arabi than Al Ghazali. And Al Kindi, I really like Al Kindi. I actually studied Al Kindi and Ibn-Arabi at my university as an undergraduate during the… for the exam on History of Renaissance Philosophy. Was it Renaissance Philosophy or Medieval Philosophy? It’s been a few years now but yeah, I did study them because I am quite happy that at my university they didn’t just make us study Western Philosophy but also non-western Philosophies and that’s why I chose, you know, that specific program. But yeah, I find it to be very fascinating and I’d love to research more on that for the YouTube channel.

Luna says are you planning to do another video about Rosicrucianism? If so will you include AMORC?

Yes, I will do another, I will definitely do another video on Rosicrucianism in the contemporary world. So you may have noticed that my videos so far have covered the 17th, 18th centuries and the next one will cover the 19th and 20th century and yeah, I’d love to cover AMORC as well. It’s just that Rosicrucianism is so difficult to, you know, explain and for when to pack up all the information in one video and even if I tried my best I still think that my videos on Rosicrucianism are very dense of information. But yeah, it’s such a complex history. I think the same will happen if I ever make a video or a series of videos on Freemasonry. That must also be quite complex to research and cover.

Hugo Smith says the left-hand pineapple path.

The left-handed pineapple path. Yeah, it’s evil. Now I’m implying that the left hand path is evil which I’m not trying to do. I don’t think that.

So Bowmin Kim says can Ernesto de Martino’s works be the good start for the study of Italian Witchcraft and Magic?

Ernesto de Martino is a good way of studying. Oh yeah, now I can remember who the person interested in Puglia and Calabria but yeah, Ernesto de Martino is a good source. It’s just outdated but at least gives you a sense of what happened in the 20th century, the kind of scholarship and research that was. Yeah but Ernesto de Martino I think is still the most famous Anthropologist in Italy and Ethnographer in Italy, especially when it comes to Magic but even but maybe even more generally. But yeah, I would definitely recommend works by Ernesto de Martino, I really like him. It’s just that if you want to get a historical understanding of Italian Magic then it’s good because you get a portrayal of 20th century, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s.

What’s that Andrew? I cannot wait for Angela to get to this thread.

What’s that? If we ever meet, you know, Andrew and I along with other Patrons, I’m sure that he will try to feed me pineapple on pizza.

So Hank says mystical list: visions – not substance-induced, out-of-body experiences, various psychic experiences, telepathy, direct communication with divine and general ability to direct will.

Oh okay, so now I get what you mean. Yes, there are studies on these kinds of elements in Paganism. Yeah, definitely. Mostly, the ones that I’m more familiar with are in the realm of Ethnography, Anthropology, History of Religion. So it is more about understanding these kinds of practices from the point of view of practitioners, so how practitioners conceptualise these kinds of practices but yeah, there are studies on that. Maybe we can talk more about that in our Patreon call.

Andrew says we in the West owe a huge debt to Islamic scholars for preserving so much knowledge for the world.

Yes, absolutely.

So yeah, I guess that we could end the live stream here it’s been already over an hour. But as always, it was nice to interact with you guys and there were some very interesting questions. If there’s anything that I haven’t covered or something, you know, if you’re watching this video after the live stream you can leave your question in the comment section and I’ll do my best to reply. And otherwise, thank you very much guys for coming over and attending this live stream and yeah, so whether you are here live or you’re watching this after it goes live, afterwards. Yeah, if you like this video don’t forget to SMASH the like button, as always leave a comment and let me know if there are any questions, that I didn’t get the chance to answer, leave them in the comment section and as always, stay tuned for the Academic fun.

And don’t forget that if you like my project and want to support my work here on YouTube, I would really appreciate if you would consider supporting my work with a one-off PayPal donation by joining memberships or my Inner Symposium on Patreon and I can see that some of my Patrons and even Channel Members are here which is very, very nice. But yeah thank you all for coming and I hope that you have a lovely day and that you’ve had or are having a lovely weekend. So see you next time.

Bye for now.

First streamed 14 Feb 2022