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
Journey Through the Realms of Mystery
How do you explain an enigma wrapped in a mystery? Prepare to have your perspective challenged and expanded as we traverse the layers of traditional and universal mysteries, where we try to discern if wisdom is gained from a book or from living life. From the arcane secrets of initiation rites to the mundane experiences of daily life, our discourse reveals how mysteries touch every facet of our lives.
Our quest doesn't stop at merely pondering the unknown; we tackle the ever-blurring line between mystery and the divine. The Catholic Church's hidden rituals and the enigmatic journey from priest to pope invite us into a contemplation of the sacred. Yet, mystery isn't just the hallmark of the past; it persists, sometimes frustratingly, in an era where answers are expected at our fingertips. Through our discussion, we dissect the tension between the allure of the mysterious and the modern impatience for revelation, provoking thought on whether true understanding is handed to us or earned through dedicated pursuit.
We culminate our session where the metaphorical intertwines with the literal in our exploration of life's spiritual pilgrimage. Together, we navigate the maze of human experience, bearing witness to the transformational power of companionship amidst trials. It's a journey as humbling as it is rewarding, reminiscent of the transition from dusk to dawn, ever reminding us of the cyclical nature of life and the perpetual opportunity for growth. Grab a cup of coffee and join us in the conversation.
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Speaker 2:We often tell people that there's two types of mysteries.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:There are traditional mysteries, okay, and there are universal mysteries. Yes, most of the traditional mysteries. We could pretty much tell you why.
Speaker 3:Why it is yes, and traditional mysteries, I think, vary a bit from tradition to tradition, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:So once you understand those, how those mysteries work, I don't think you can ever unsee that pattern, would you say I think that depends on the person, because I I feel like the revelation of a mystery affects people differently.
Speaker 3:Some people, when the components of a mystery is fully revealed to them, it may have been something they took for granted, that they already kind of sort of knew, and because they've taken it for granted, it really doesn't have the same impact. They've just sort of gone oh okay, well, that's a mystery. And then there are other mysteries that, when they are revealed, they are so profound to the individual that, yes, there's no going back. There's no going back.
Speaker 2:You are no, no no, we also have some of these mysteries where you learn one thing at first degree.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And then at second degree we sort of expand upon it.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then at third degree the same thing might happen again.
Speaker 3:Yes, because you're constantly reevaluating it and looking at it from a different layer of knowledge and a different spiritual connection.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so this sounds very clunky when we're trying to explain how these work right.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the explanation has to start with something that people already understand, right, like what is a universal mystery that people learn at a very young age, or that they recognize at a very young age Gravity. Okay, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:Every kid that's tried to walk.
Speaker 3:Sure, there's also within each individual for the most part the capacity to understand that action or that physical activity will very likely result in me hurting myself Right Because of gravity.
Speaker 2:Because of gravity Right.
Speaker 3:Right, so we know our limitations. So, even though kids are far more daring, right and they try things that are far more physical than we would as we get older. It's because of that innate sense of that limitation, we just sort of know what we can and cannot accomplish most of the time, right, you know. And that's yeah. There's a mystery in that, for sure. So then, a traditional mystery.
Speaker 2:Would be more like the great hunt.
Speaker 3:The great hunt, the great right. Potentially you have your literal mysteries surrounding initiations and surrounding the different markers throughout your life, depending on the tradition.
Speaker 2:I also think it see, I always see the universals as the ones where you couldn't explain it until you went through it, like initiation. Okay, I cannot sit here and explain to you what initiation is like, what it does, what it did for me the whole night, you with me, yeah, the whole entire process. I can never explain that to them Now, after the fact of what in the world was going on, what was happening, blah, blah, blah. Yes, but what was actually going on with the individual?
Speaker 3:How would you explain your first degree initiation to someone? I don't. My answer to that, my answer to it, has always been the same. I can no easier explain to you my initiation than I could my own birth.
Speaker 2:Right, how Right, but that's my point.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Those are those universal mysteries. Until you go through that process, until you've done it, until you've done that thousand, that walk of a thousand steps, you don't know of craft, surround the polarities right, the male and the female, and it's.
Speaker 3:it would be really easy for me to sit here and say, oh, I understand the male mysteries because I've studied them or because, no, I will never live the male mysteries. I don't know what that's like, but I do have enough knowledge to at least understand why it's important. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:You just don't have the same appreciation. Correct as a guy, would I mean vice versa. Yeah, the female mysteries, why? I know a lot of them. They don't.
Speaker 3:They don't resonate the same way.
Speaker 2:No, they don't have that impact.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And every time I talk about them, if you notice, I talk more about how much the impact was on society at the time versus where you might speak a completely different way.
Speaker 3:That's true, that's very true. The process of mysteries is fascinating because everyone, at some point in their studies, there is a mystery that you become fascinated with oh god, yes, obsessed just because, again, it was so meaningful to you, it was so. It's so important in your life and the lessons that you need to learn. But it almost, in that initial moment, feels like I got. I have to share this, I have to get the. Why doesn't everybody know that? Because they're not there yet. The same way, you weren't there yet 24 hours ago. Calm down, it's okay.
Speaker 2:I mean I, we, we have one person to this day. She is still obsessed with the will of the year and I'm like, no, there's no other mysteries there.
Speaker 3:You're circling around again yeah, that's funny, that is really funny. But also I think that certain mysteries just come down to oaths and the revealing of specific information right that is held sacred within the faith and and that's really all there is to it.
Speaker 3:I heard someone talk about the golden dawn right and the oto, which was the the some of the spinoffs of Crowley's teachings, and it's all esoteric magic and there are 33 degrees inside of the practice. But the gentleman that was speaking on them said in truth, you actually learn all the mysteries in the first degree, in the first year, but then as you go yeah, it's you're constantly revisiting them to get to the deeper layer, to get, but the way he said it was fascinating. But the way he said it was fascinating, he goes, you go all the way around to come back to the beginning, yep, to realize you already knew it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're sitting back and I love it when your student does hit and they're like wait a minute, but you told me this over a year. Yep, sure did, yep, but you told me this over a year, yeah sure did, yeah, and that.
Speaker 3:But that esoteric explanation to me was was brilliant, because he was basically saying look, there's nothing here that's going to unlock the keys to the universe for you. It's not. It's not that deep, is it? Do we believe it's important? Yeah, yeah, do we believe it's important? Yeah, but we're also not saying that these things are so incredible that we don't share it. We do share it. We share it very early. Actually, we just might present it in a way that forces you to figure it out and think about it. So I think that's pretty, yeah, it's pretty accurate. But there's always been the big debate, too, about the difference between mystery and miracle.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Are they different?
Speaker 2:Well, are any of our mysteries actually hidden anymore?
Speaker 3:A few.
Speaker 2:A few.
Speaker 3:A few of them are. Yeah, a few of them are, because I'm pretty sure even today, if they were revealed completely publicly, completely openly, it would cause a bit of an uproar.
Speaker 2:Well, I see somewhere it's like part of one over here and part of one over here, if these two ever connected up. Well, and you're sort of like because I don't know if it's me, but I'm like, how can you not make that connection, is it? I see the connection because I've already made it, or well, here's something I look I find interesting right.
Speaker 3:So again, being raised catholic, no one really knows what makes a bishop or a cardinal or a monsignor right, because that's the equivalent right. We have our numeric degrees. The Catholic priests have different titles and achievements, but the general population has absolutely no concept in that religion of what makes someone one of those ranks, and it's not just a promotion, let's be clear on that. No, there is a whole slew of spiritual mystery activity that takes place. I mean going right right up to the top, to the pope because what they're let loose in the catacombs, the pope is literally referred to, believed to be the living embodiment of christ on earth.
Speaker 3:That did not happen overnight because a group of a room full of 20 people went that Him. No, no, there is a monstrous spiritual transformation. Yes, that's taking place. They're not revealing those mysteries, nope Now. But yet I feel like no one's fascinated with that. No, in our faith it's. Everybody wants it now, they want it to be revealed, they want it to be out in the open. I want to know what it is, but nobody's sitting there going. How the hell did the Pope get to be the Pope? And don't give me the answer that he started, you know, in this little church here and studied no, no, no, no, no, no. What happened? What are the rituals involved?
Speaker 2:What did he have to do?
Speaker 3:Yes, and I find that wild. I'm obsessed with it. I was obsessed with it as a child. I remember looking at priests and going why can't I be why can't I do that A priest? That my child is a mystery? Yes, that was the answer I got. Well, I challenge your mystery and I raise you a whole lot of curiosity.
Speaker 3:But then also, the nuns get kind of shoved in the corner. They're less respected for their involvement spiritually. They are the brides of christ. Are you gonna tell me that that doesn't hold some spiritual significance? I mean, they got married back in the day, right, people? Yeah, this is not something that people, people often recall or think about. Back in the day, nuns of a certain order would actually wear a wedding dress and they were literally married to christ. They are the brides of christ and they would wear a wedding ring. Yes, it's wild, it's incredible, and I and I don't know whether in some ways I pity them or if I respect the ever-living shit out of them. That's some dedication. Yes, I have taken a husband who is not corporeal I will never physically get to interact with him, nope but yet he married my husband. Yeah, and that you're gonna tell me that there's not a significant spiritual component to that. Oh fuck you, there is some major shit going on there. I mean major, major.
Speaker 3:Then we get you know and then, of course, again, there's that miracle component. What does that really mean? Is it just that right? Did mystery just become a term for the things we cannot explain? Or is it really reserved for the things that we can explain but somebody has to work toward to understand? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know either.
Speaker 2:I mean because, again, being traditionals, we get we get our case a lot out in the pub, out, you know, gatekeeping the whole nine yards. But these things aren't always as straightforward as y'all I think therein lies the problem.
Speaker 3:People think we're gatekeeping, they think that there's something that we think that there's something that we are hiding, there's something that we are. Just that when we say that's a mystery, we are preventing you from knowing. And therefore, in modern society, when you know Google is right there all the time with the answers, they're like what do you mean? You won't tell me. Well, same thing with google, though I go. Just because you can look up the schematics of how a rocket ship works doesn't mean you understand it. No, it doesn't mean you really know how that rocket flew you just read the information that's readily available.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a difference between reading and knowing about it and experiencing it, and and being able to replicate it and continuously it's kind of wild so now I have to ask you I'm not asking you, but that first time that ever happened where you sat there and we sat there and told you hey, you know what? We taught you all this at first degree, and you, we finally turned around and throw it back in your face. What was that? What? What did that feel like? What do you remember?
Speaker 3:It's humbling. See, that's what was always interesting. It was humbling for me. Whenever someone said that's a mystery, I didn't get upset about it. I didn't. I mean I might have pouted for like a second, but you know what I'm saying. I didn't. I simply took it to mean okay, you got work to do. If you want to know this, if you want to understand this, you clearly I'm asking that first time that light bulb went off it still meant that to me.
Speaker 3:Still still meant that to me, because what it, what it meant was okay, it was revealed to you, but you were too absorbed in other things to appreciate it okay so what continual shedding right do I have to do to connect with it again and for it to be further?
Speaker 3:because that was the implication and I know what you mean. It can go any number of ways. There are the people who then step up and it's it's the ego that leads, and they're like, oh, I already know all this stuff no, you know it, but you don't understand it yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you've been exposed to it, but you're still getting the basics, you're still getting the hang of this, and so, yeah, I think I think everyone's different in that and how they react to those concepts. Okay, mysteries are not meant to be barriers. I think that's the big thing. No, they're meant to.
Speaker 2:I want to say they feel like more achievements yeah.
Speaker 4:Every time I've learned one. I'm like I'm proud of myself.
Speaker 2:It's a gold. I get a gold star. Yeah, I did this, nobody else. Yeah, every time I've learned one. I'm like, I'm proud of myself, it's a gold. I get a gold star.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did this, nobody else. Yes, and that's it. They're meant to inspire you to want to put in the effort to learn them. Versus, or I think, a miracle is solely meant to inspire your belief in the divine Right and your belief in something greater than yourself. Yes, yeah, but yeah, mysteries are are really all about you. You gotta work for it, and it's not that we're trying to not do it.
Speaker 2:No, I mean because I find myself even doing I don't know about you even people outside of our traditions when I see them. Them sit there and they're circling the drain, sort of the speak. And you're kind of like, just come on, come on, just another step forward.
Speaker 3:It also to me is like it's a very different time in our society. You know, like when we were kids and we had to do homework, your parents handed you an encyclopedia.
Speaker 2:They said have at it.
Speaker 3:Read, figure it out, come back to me with questions in 20 minutes. You know it was that we forced kids to put in the work. Now they don't have to do that. The internet and so many parents are so willing to just give their kids the answer. I find that part fascinating too. I'm like they need to work for this. They need to learn it for themselves.
Speaker 2:You need to fail.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so again we have a very different adult community where many have forgotten what it means to have to work to achieve something. And a lot of people, I think, also just go. I'm an adult now. I'm not in school, I'm not a kid, I'm not in college. I shouldn't have to do that. If I ask, you should answer.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's like one woman I heard her YouTube somewhere and she's like well, complaining. She's like I got a college degree and nobody will hire me because I don't have no experience. Is not my college degree experience? No, no, not at all. That's knowledge, yep.
Speaker 3:Technically, when you are in a hospital, any doctor who is called an intern is still a medical doctor. Yes, they have graduated. They have their degree and their license to practice medicine. However, they have someone breathing, learn the things that they learned in medical school and they spend a number of years as interns and then they go from intern to resident and that's how they become autonomous doctors.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's how in the world you can go to your doctor that you've known for a little while going. Oh so it's a sinus infection. Here's your antibiotic. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:All I have to do is hear you how you talk. Yeah, but it's. But it's wild to think that, yeah, there's so many. I mean I've met you. I mean you did, you worked in a hospital, you know, young doctor, it's so funny. All they are is broke and in a lot of student debt and god damn are they tired because they're doing all the shit work nobody else wants to do and people think, oh, you're a doctor, you must make a lot of money. No, no, right now I live with seven roommates. But yeah, I'm a doctor yes, that's.
Speaker 2:that's quite a number of years later before that starts to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's very true, and it's like that in a lot of fields. So I don't see craft any different. I do see it as something we strive for. And if we're not willing to strive, we're not willing to push ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Again, I like your they're not barriers, they're achievements.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Go out and achieve some stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, put a little like you know how you measure your kids on a wall. You know like I feel like we should do that. It should be like you know you got a witchling down at the bottom. You know like as you grow you kind of you know chart your progress.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, what is it?
Speaker 3:Witchling J-Wit. Oh my God, that's great Witchlet. Oh shit, I love it.
Speaker 2:Or coffee, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempelseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.
Speaker 4:We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing pyres. And so it is the end of our day. So walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our days. So walk with me till morning.
