Pagan Coffee Talk
We will discuss topics related to the Pagan community. All views are from a traditionalist's point of view. The conversations are unscripted (no preparations have been made ahead of time). A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: Intro- The Morrigan, Exit - Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
Exploring the Junction of Science, Witchcraft, and Reality
Ready to have your perception of reality turned upside down? Prepare to be both enlightened and challenged as we take you on a riveting journey exploring the theories of manifesting reality, the intersection of science and witchcraft, and the compelling idea of manipulating the air around us. We differentiate between the tangible world and how we perceive it, probing into how it might be possible to alter physical reality - a concept both intriguing and laden with potential consequences. We also shed light on the power of 'manifesting destiny' and how it calls for more than just belief but active participation on our part.
Our journey doesn't stop here. Grasp the fascinating insight that understanding earth sciences could indeed bolster religious beliefs and how hope can be wielded as a potent tool in times of adversity. So, tune in, engage, and allow us to guide you through this exploration of science, witchcraft, and the realms of reality.
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Welcome to Peg and Coffee Talk. Here are your hosts, Lady Abba and Lord Knight.
Speaker 2:We cannot be manifested.
Speaker 3:Interesting. That's going to ruffle some feathers, okay.
Speaker 2:Alright, don't get me wrong. I understand we can split the atom, alright, and we can destroy reality, but to this date we have never made a fission engine.
Speaker 3:So I think what needs clarification if we're going to go down this rabbit hole when you talk about reality. I'm talking about this physical world we live in, gotcha, as opposed to the individual's reality. Right, right, because the individual's reality can be altered, we know that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's your perception of reality.
Speaker 3:Yes, perception your state of being, your emotional state, mental state, physical state all of that can be altered.
Speaker 2:Right, and you have drug hallucinations, and Well sure.
Speaker 3:But even just everybody's fond of saying mind over matter, right, right. I think part of what you're talking about is the difference between the science of physical realm versus sympathetic magic.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Alright, I mean again. There is no spell that's suddenly going to make the earth spin backwards.
Speaker 3:No, but many people have tried.
Speaker 2:Well, Superman.
Speaker 3:Leave Clark Kent out of this. Okay, we're not going to go there, okay.
Speaker 2:That's too much, alright, but there's my problem is is everybody actually believe? I believe that there are some people out there actually believe that they can change this, the way this reality works?
Speaker 3:Right. The physical gravity that they can yeah, I mean make the sun move backwards.
Speaker 2:Levitate the Pentagon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. I mean, this even goes to things like changing weather. Right, yeah, alright.
Speaker 2:Well, again, I believe we can change the weather, but we do it through the whole butterfly effect, sort of.
Speaker 3:Well, I think to the thing that we have to sort of establish in this conversation is that it's not that it can't be done, it's that we have yet to encounter a power source great enough to do it Right. Like gravity is the strongest force that we know of Right, so changing gravity is a monumental feat. That's beyond our comprehension, which is part of what makes it impossible to change Right, or at least from our viewpoint where we are right now it's impossible to change Again.
Speaker 2:Breaking the laws of physical reality is not an easy feat, uh-uh. And I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying the likelihood of us doing it anytime soon is way far off Very slim, yeah, yeah. Alright, I'm sorry, the hydro, I don't know, the collider, the big collider.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, yes.
Speaker 2:You know this is starting to get to the level of power needed to really warp reality.
Speaker 3:This has always been fun because you love physics.
Speaker 2:Oh, I do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and physics, and science and mechanics, and this has always been an area in which you excelled, and it is somewhat funny because for a witch to be that entrenched in that, you're the first person in most cases that I've seen to go hmm, can we put the pseudoscience aside? Yes, yeah, and most witches thrive on pseudoscience, that's true, they love it.
Speaker 2:The more pseudo, the more arcane it is, the better off it is, because they got more room to play, right? It's kind of like you know the reason you like I love quantum physics there's so much room to play.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, he likes getting over all our heads. Just FYI, that's what's happening right now, okay, so, so what does this mean, though? Well, I guess I guess our reality.
Speaker 2:So so what do we mean? What are we actually talking about when we're talking about manifesting destiny or manifesting reality? I hear this all the time about people going we create our own reality.
Speaker 3:Right Mind over matter.
Speaker 2:Over the whole nine yards.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I'm saying well, that's not completely true. We have matter here. A tree's never going to become a dog. Right as far as I know, it might be in the shape of a dog, but so it's working within our limitations.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, it's understanding what those limitations are Exactly Okay. So curiosity question oh God, what would you have said to the alchemists of old Right on their infinite quest to turn base metals into gold?
Speaker 2:Well, actually it is possible to turn lead into gold because you just need to take protons and electrons away. Now, if you want me to sit here and say that Alchemist learned how to do this and stuff like that, I'm going to be very dubious.
Speaker 3:Well, they never did right so far as we know they never succeeded and chances are the reason they never succeeded is because the knowledge and the science available to them at the time did not exist. We didn't have the technology that would have made it possible.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, to a certain extent this is what we're talking about that scene from Iron man 2 where he's trying to come up with that new element and his dad's kind of like sitting there showing him what he's got to do. He's just sitting there when I ain't got the technology to do it.
Speaker 3:Right. So and this is what a lot of scientists understand and why it's theoretical, right, right, I think we can do these things, but the technology is not yet there, we don't have the means, so it is futile to some extent. I think when some people are obsessed with a certain working or spell to have a particular outcome, they're probably just spinning their wheels truthfully, and I mean they could do it infinitely and waste a tremendous amount of time and effort and have nothing to show for it.
Speaker 2:I mean right, I'm not the person that does the whole entire. I'm going to cast a spell for a job, but I'm not going to fill out any applications or put my resume.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I'm going to wait for Bill Gates to pop up my house to give me this $50,000 job a year.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, this is where I worry and I see a lot of people in the community seem to be going to thinking that these unprobable things are going to start happening.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I can I get you. I think I kind of liken it to oh geez, the mermaid revolution that took place recently. Right, there's all these people that are doing like I'm a mermaid. No, You're a very good swimmer in a costume. That's not the same thing. Can you find artistry in it? Yes. Can you find peace in it? Yes. Can you find?
Speaker 2:mysteries, mysteries. Can you find?
Speaker 3:legends and sure Can you appreciate and honor this idea Absolutely, but are you going to convert yourself into an actual oceanic dwelling, half human, half fish?
Speaker 2:No, no Right. I mean, I believe a lot of things are possible with magic, but there are just some things I think are a little bit beyond.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I still, and I still believe that people actually believe, yes, that there are spells to make trees walk and yeah, I mean, it's even even healing spells.
Speaker 3:To some extent, people get in way over their head, right? Right, it is the common cold, the simple ache or pain. Sure, we can manipulate those, right, we can change things surrounding them, we can change outcomes. But there are certain things that, yeah, it's just too big and we don't have enough of a well to draw upon for the amount of power that's needed to make those kinds of changes Exactly.
Speaker 2:But again, I still have this fear where I see people doing this and or seem to be alluding to this that there are ways to create or manifest or suddenly become a fairy. We're talking about fairies with wings, not the ones that actually know how to dress.
Speaker 3:Right right, right, right, right Right right why you gotta call out your own people like that Damn, come on, nam, no, I gotcha, I gotcha, yeah, yeah, I mean it is, and I think every, at some point, every witch has a bit of hubris to believe that they can, yes, do something like that. And I do think we experiment, I think we try, and then the difference is, when it fails, how do we react? Well, I do people sit back and.
Speaker 2:Well, I think our problem is we start off and we've all done this Either we're messing with smoke from a fireplace, making it move one way, or messing with the flames or something, and then, once you're starting to realize, okay, this is easy to move around and do, then suddenly, well then, how hard is it to change a stick?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And again the problem is is when you're dealing with air you have molecules that are less put together, easier to push around?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, unlike a mountain.
Speaker 3:That's true. Yep, that's exactly what I was just thinking.
Speaker 2:You know, moving a mountain is a completely different thing Thing versus trying to move air or something else around.
Speaker 3:Right, but it has again. It does have to do with scientific basis. There you have to have an equal or greater force.
Speaker 2:Against that, yeah, and again, and then to bring again. We're bringing that science back into our religion, unfortunately, and it's there. We can't ignore it.
Speaker 3:No, it's not, and I do. I do get frustrated when I meet pagans that don't have at least a rudimentary grasp of electricity and electrical workings. And yeah, Well, I mean elements and and the science behind them, what we know I'm. There's a part of me that goes of every which went back and took a fifth grade science class.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, a fifth specifically a fifth grade earth science class. Thank you. What they would glean and what would come of that would be epic, take a basic course in biology. I mean these, these things really do have an awful lot to do with our beliefs.
Speaker 2:It really does, and I think it's something we need to encourage people to do. You need to go out, you need to learn the earth sciences.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I'm not. I'm not sitting here going. Hey, you know you need to become a scientist and the most geeked out person in the ever, but it'd be nice to know if you knew how. You know lightning actually work. Yeah, you know how the seasons actually change and how the sun moves around the earth and all this other stuff, because we've done those classes where we're sitting and we're explaining again it's fifth grade science.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's. It's amazing how many grown adults are either have forgotten it completely or it really is or they never understood it to them.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And some of them still don't understand it and they're afraid to say so. They're afraid to just go. Yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it, but it's critical because, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I mean when you're sitting here explaining the distance of the sun and the earth's tilt, how in the world it causes the seasons and how this relates to the will of the year. There's a lot of science behind that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I had a conversation not that long ago with someone in the rock community, because I do have a very avid rock collection. That's for another episode. But the discussion was about moon rock and how to obtain them and where you can still get them. And it was a funny conversation because one of my friends said well, technically you're standing on moon rock, and this, of course, baffled that they weren't comprehending. We're like the moon broke off from the earth. Right, the moon isn't is a part of it. So the rocks here are the same rocks that are there. They're not any different. So that was a. That was a fun revelation. No, it's true, I mean, but we have to, we still have to offer people hope, right, there's still has to be.
Speaker 3:There is still the want to believe. Right, it's the ex files. I want to believe.
Speaker 2:Well, again, as soon as you bring up science and stuff and religion, and stuff everybody's on a make. Okay, now we're just took all the spirituality, put it in a trash bag and throw it out the door.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're right, that's how it feels to a lot of people and that's how it feels.
Speaker 2:And I'm like but no, that ain't what we're doing. We still have that. Hmm, okay, we I mean in our religion you're not going to tell me we still don't have those mysteries Of course we do, but it just, it can be very disheartening. Once you learn the science and some of the stuff behind it. It does take some of the mystery and the lust or a way of some of the stuff we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:But I also believe it also brings a new appreciation to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That you didn't have before.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because now it's no longer this shiny little object you get to keep in the shelf or somewhere. It now becomes a tool on your counter that you can use Right, right, that's that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's. There's a lot of yeah, it's it's. I also I think about, you know, being a homeowner and I go. It's kind of like that, like I remember when I was much, much younger and something broke in my house or went wrong, I was clueless, I had no right, I just and I was calling my dad going, I don't know what to do, and he would have to walk me through these ridiculously simple things, whereas now I have enough knowledge. I may not be able to fix what's wrong, but you know what's wrong?
Speaker 3:But I can yeah, I can reasonably deduce what has happened.
Speaker 2:You can reasonably do some who you need to pick up the phone, and Carl, yes, the problem.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I understand that if I see water, I need a plumber.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3:And, but that is. There's something to that, and I know that for a lot of practitioners, especially the people who are dabbling in magic, that's where it can get very scary, because some outcomes happen that they don't expect or they didn't think would happen. Sometimes nothing happens and then, depending on which one, it can be terrifying. Oh, it can. It kind of scares the shit out of people. You need more coffee, clearly, yeah.
Speaker 2:Coffee is a solution. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3:It is the solution. Everything you got to put leg drink coffee.
Speaker 2:You got a bad love life. Drink coffee, coffee.
Speaker 3:Are you going to meet new people if you don't go to the coffee shop? So yeah, there's. Uh, this, I mean this is really, really interesting. I would love to hear you know other people's. A perspective and thoughts and experiences with this. I think for me it's a little hard because I'm like I've been doing this so long. I don't think that way. I had that same problem.
Speaker 2:I had that same problem because, again, we've been doing this for so long. It's hard to think other ways. Right, and I sit here and, like you said, you're Catholic, I'm Southern Baptist. Last time I was in a Southern Baptist church. I'm looking at Lord Oswin going. What the hell are they doing?
Speaker 3:That's funny because.
Speaker 2:I don't remember.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I haven't done it in so long, so again we have this problem is we're used to thinking this way.
Speaker 3:We can't, we don't know how not to think Right, hmm, that's a. That's a really good point, which also then brings about how, even as long as we've been doing it, we still need to continually explore the subjects yeah and be aware of what's new, because, you're right, I mean the science and the technology moves quickly. Well, think about it like this, all right.
Speaker 2:That's fast, as fast as technology moves. Just less than a year ago, you would do one of these AI pictures and they would come out really weird.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Now you do it and they're, they're kind of scary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, ai tech has moved so quickly.
Speaker 2:And that's just in a year. Yeah, and I saw last night where somebody did an AI thing. Then somebody else took that AI picture, took it to another AI who animated it.
Speaker 3:Oh, well, but some people would say is that not a reality?
Speaker 2:Is it Is virtual reality, an actual reality.
Speaker 3:That's where right it's it. Science fiction, in many ways, is now Right, it's happening. And we I mean, my God, some of the technology that exists now. Our elders would be like are you kidding me? Like I could have just gone to a website and looked up the moon phases and known the exact time of every. They were sitting there calculating it with mathematical equation.
Speaker 2:We had to learn that math, mm. Hmm, that was part of our studies. Yes, and God forbid. If so, help me if I ever have to teach someone how to do the Sun rise and sunset calculation, yeah, but.
Speaker 3:but there's a reason why we do. And then, you know, the other problem becomes we blindly believe the tech. Now, we blindly believe the information.
Speaker 2:We accept it readily.
Speaker 3:Right. Google is God Right.
Speaker 2:If Google said so, well then clearly it must be, and Wikipedia is always true. But I mean we, we, we fool ourselves into this.
Speaker 3:We do. It's a false sense of security.
Speaker 2:Could it also be a false sense of superiority?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are so sure what we know that we're going to solidify it and stick it on to this tablet.
Speaker 3:Yipes, that's a good one that you want.
Speaker 2:You know, a thousand years from now, because someone missed the decimal, they're going to continue to look at. Look how bad they find a writing.
Speaker 3:Oh no, that's so true though, oh God, yeah, yeah, yeah, because even on the Internet nothing does.
Speaker 2:Because even on the Internet, nothing, technically nothing's ever deleted, nothing's ever gone.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, it's not. Which again is is. We're living in such a different time and I mean, come on when, when I first came to Temple, the idea of having a ritual via computer or you know, was unheard of. Now we know elders that are conducting this practice on a regular basis, and conducting they're not virtual rituals, because they are taking place physically but not together. Well, I've seen people together.
Speaker 2:I've seen people in these RPGs show up in the in the game in a special area and do ritual.
Speaker 3:Oh man, wow See, that's wild to me.
Speaker 2:And then, you, and now you have a lot of the Oculus stuff and all that going on now, so how much longer until?
Speaker 3:I guess the real question is how do we remain grounded in what is reality and what isn't in order to be able to understand what we can and can influence?
Speaker 2:Well, and how disappointing when you know you. In virtual reality, we have this big temple and everything's Really dramatic and all this, and then we go to do ritual in real life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:I mean, is it gonna be that much of a let down to where you're like? I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 3:That's rough, that is wow, but that's that's fascinating because Makes me think about friend of mine has a six-year-old daughter and you know she has a tablet, she knows how to use cell phones and I think he said that they, they, she. She was introduced to an etch, a sketch, and the first thing she did Was to try to touch screen it to turn it on. She had right. She was like why isn't it working? And he was like no, you have to turn the knobs. And showing her and she was like not getting it. She was like no, no, no, but it's got to turn on first. And trying to tap it and touch screen it, it was incredible to watch and yeah, but it's, but in her, but her reality dictates it has a screen and has a screen that should work that way.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's like I remember me and Lord Oswalt were moving and my nephew came over to the house and picked up one Of his old 45s and was like this is an awful funny looking CD.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, now kids don't know what CDs are. And now kids don't even know what CDs are, god forbid, don't even say floppy around no, no, yeah, there's so many things that we are used to that they're totally new, huh.
Speaker 2:So I mean the question is is where do we go? I mean, as a religion, how do we deal with all these new technologies as stuff coming on where, yes, reality is going to be more Suggestible?
Speaker 3:we integrate, we integrate, we adapt. I mean, it's what you and I are doing right now. Again, our elders Wouldn't have been able to fathom the idea of a podcast. No, they would go wait, what do you mean? You're on the radio, you're, you're broadcasting like a signal. No, they, it would make, yeah, no sense. And Back in the day, right, we didn't do that sort of thing because that would have been, oh boy, that would have been a major problem on a number of levels, between proselytizing, just you know, being way too out in the open, giving away mysteries, there's, there's a slew of problems, the anonymity, right, there's all kinds of things that go with that that are an issue. But now, this is one of the major ways we communicate and we reach out and share ideas and thoughts Like to think about it is I need more coffee, so do I.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Peg and coffee talk is brought to you by life temple and seminary. Please visit us at life temple seminary org for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and reddit.
Speaker 4:Just hold my hand as we pass by, see your blazing fires, and so it is the end of our day, so walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day so walk with me till morning.
