Pagan Foundations of Western Civilization

In this episode of Pagan Coffee Talk, we dive into the Enlightenment and challenge the common belief that it was a triumph of Christian thought. Drawing from history, philosophy, and occult traditions, we argue that the foundations of modern science, reason, and technological progress were laid by ancient pagan societies—not by the church that later tried to claim credit. From alchemy and astrology to Stoic ethics and early cosmology, the conversation highlights how pagan knowledge systems evolved into the scientific method and shaped the modern world.

The discussion explores how myths, archetypes, and cultural memory influence human behavior, why Enlightenment thinkers like Newton and Franklin studied the occult, and how concepts like magical will parallel modern ideas of individual liberty. We make the provocative case that science is “the purest form of magic,” and that the Enlightenment represents the moment when reason-based pagan principles quietly became the backbone of Western civilization. This episode blends history, psychology, and spiritual philosophy to reveal the pagan chassis beneath the Christian veneer of the modern West.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Quick Ask

SPEAKER_04 0:15

Welcome to Taking Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials.

Enlightenment As Reason Takes Over

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Today we're going to talk about enlightenment. That sounds like fun, right? Okay. Um basically it's that period in history where a bunch of people finally decided to put down the Bible, pick up a telescope, and use reason for a change, right? Right. Um, it's pretty much the only reason we're not living in mud huts, right? Arguing about angel, you know, angels dancing on the head of a pen or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Right. This is the whole beginning of, you know, fighting against the flat earths nowadays. Yeah. So it's sort of what we're talking about here, all right? Now, when you talk to most people about the Enlightenment, this period, um, of course, you know, you you'll hear most Christians pop up, hey, it was us that did all this. Right. That's a little bit of a lie. Because the Enlightenment involved science and reason, not religion.

Pagan Origins Of Science And The Occult

SPEAKER_03 1:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

But let's be a little honest about this. Where did the sciences come from? Well, they they they came from herbalism and astrology and and alchemy and all that, all these things that are considered pagan. Right. And they are pagan. They we we created these sciences. When the enlightenment came along, all they did was just strip out all the oogity boogity.

SPEAKER_04 1:53

Yeah. Well, you know, it's well, I was gonna say for the longest time the church actually fought against science. It was it was heresy.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, before the dark ages, all right, where Christianity fought against science, we're back to the flat earthers, this is where all this comes from. Everybody in the world believed that we lived on a spear. Just like the moon, just like the sun, just like all the other planets we saw that we monitored in the sky to get dividination from. Well, and now Christians want to come, and now the Christians want to come along and go, no, we created science because our people put names to this, to the scientific theory. Well, they named it, but they didn't create it. Right. The process was already there. All they did was define it and how it was supposed to be. But I hate to be this way. All these people they look up to, Benjamin Franklin, all these other people that were involved in it. Isaac Newton, yeah, all that guess what? Every last one of them studied the occult. Yeah. Because the occult back then was not what we think of now. It's not, you know, a bunch of idiots running around thinking, ooh, every myth and folklore and you know, bad luck that is true. Right. This is not what the occult is. And no, it was reason, it was logic.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Right. I was gonna say philosophy was involved in that big thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

A lot. Do you want me to sit there and say, yeah, we had some oogity boogie that really shouldn't belong in there in chemistry and all this? Yes. All right, did we eventually figure it out? Yes. But at the end of the day, this is more of a referendum on paganism and pagan thought than it is Christian. Right. I I hate to be this way. You're not wrong. The proof is in the pudding here. I mean, when you start to think about what the occult says and what science says, you start getting this weird thing. Right. All right, so just to show off what I mean, okay? All right, go to any AI and ask an AI to compare occult philosophy to quantum mechanics or quantum theory. Right. See what happens. You're gonna surprise yourself. See what happens if you do the same thing with the occult compared to the enlightenment. See what it does. Then go back and do it with the Bible, see what happens. People are gonna be a whole lot more surprised. So what do you think so far?

SPEAKER_04 4:39

It's they're all valid points, you know. I mean, when you when you look at it, Christianity actually they bucked up against science, right? They were completely against it, and then they realized and this is my opinion, uh, from what I they they realized they couldn't beat it. So they did what they do best, they assimilated.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Well, to make it worse is science

Pagan Foundations Behind The Modern West

SPEAKER_00 5:08

history backs us up. The seven wonders of the world were created by which civilizations?

SPEAKER_04 5:14

Right. Pagan civilizations.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Pagan civilizations, right, the pyramids, all this.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

I was gonna say the Egyptians, the Stoics, the Romans, Egyptians, Stoics, on and on.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Pagan societies, all pagan society. Okay, so where's the stuff for the Christians? I'm just asking, where's their monuments? Where's their big cities? Where's I mean, they look at New York and stuff like that. I'm I'm sorry, this is all based off of pagan philosophy, the framework of the United States. All right, the chassis of the United States is pagan with a Christian framework, with a Christian skin around wrapped around it. It can even be seen in the in the whole um the Declaration of Independence. What's the first line? That these rights are self-evident before creator. Right. Why? The fact is that we don't need a creator to show that these rights are self-evident. Our existence alone says that they are. It does not require a deity to tell us. The fact that we are created gives us those rights. Is what that statement's really saying.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

Okay, so question.

Liberty, Ethics, And Magical Will

SPEAKER_04 6:37

What is the connection between individual liberty and magical will?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

This is you placing your will upon the world. How can I suppress anyone else's will? I wouldn't want my will suppressed.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

That's how you see that as a liberty, as an individual liberty.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

I see that as lit, I see that as an individual liberty.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

So they're pretty much one of those yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

I mean, it it is a rash oh, it's a rational logical thought. When we when we go back and we look at all these great ethics and morals, okay, don't kill, don't um don't commit adultery, don't try to murder people, don't bear false witness. If we go back to Ug in his little tribe of 60 people, okay, Ug going around raping women, what's gonna happen? Because there's 30 women probably in that place, and I'm sure they can pick up a rock at some point, and Uggs got to sleep at some point. It's very interesting how in the world we want to pretend like there's not actions, consequences, and people won't take those. To where in the world we can sit there and go, okay, in a tribe, we should not do these things. Right. They are self-evident because it tears the tribe apart. But what do we hear from certain places? Oh, no, no, we wouldn't be able to do this unless somebody came and told us.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I mean, come on, make it make sense. How can we build pyramids but not have the ethics and morals? I'm sorry, these are these are ethics and morals that require by any for any civilization to actually exist. And yes, we have a group of people going around going, no, these are special because we sit they're the same as the rest of the world. There's no difference, there's nothing unique about this.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

The Enlightenment proves that. This is where in the world we have this whole entire problem. This is why the Christians do not like Freemasons. Again, Freemasons were more of the occult part of this, the actual religious. They don't like those. They're Satan.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

Well, again, they still have a I would say that's probably in the early days of Christianity. It's not so much of a thing now.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

No, most people don't think about it.

SPEAKER_04 9:05

A lot of church members when when I was growing up, there were a lot of men in our church who were Freemasons.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Right. But well, nowadays most of their secrets have been published, so everybody's not as hype about it when they were more secretive. Yeah, I guess so. People had more, because trust me, I've heard those conspiracy theories.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Yeah, I heard a lot of those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

And and so, and and then again, some of them do make you raise an eyebrow. Hmm, that don't make bad sense there. I can see that. Right. And that's still like this is still why in the world Christianity has a problem with all this scientific technology. Why every AI, every advancement is some sign of the devil. Because down deep, they these pastors know the sciences came from the pagan societies, not them. And they're going around and using our knowledge and claiming it's theirs. I'm sorry, the Enlightenment had nothing to do with Christianity, very little. It was more of a pagan referendum and logic and reasoning.

Myth, Psychology, And How Stories Change

SPEAKER_04 10:11

Well, what about psychology?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

What about?

SPEAKER_04 10:15

I mean I mean, it's it's basically a search for truth, is it not?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Well, it's a search for truth, but it's also a search for those archetypes that we keep on seeing over and over again. It's asking those questions. Why do those hero stories last longer than any other stories?

SPEAKER_04 10:32

I mean, we we call it Gnosis, right? Right. Search for truth.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:38

But the roots are in like Young.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 10:43

And his crowd. But what did they study? They studied all the pagan myths.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Right. Of behaviors and attitudes and what was going on. They were not studying them as religious context, they were studying them for behavior patterns. Right. Here's your here's the problem with myth. All right. Everybody wants to sit there and go, it takes a long time for a myth to change. Yes, that's true to some extent, but there's also another part of this, how frequently it's told. You tell a story once a year for 200 years, there's only 200 chances for that story to change. Right. You're telling a story once a week for 50 years.

unknown 11:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

That's that math starts. That's a lot. That's a lot of opportunities. As kids, we can maybe listen to the story over and over again, but as adults, we go back and listen to those stories, and it's kind of like, eh, this is getting a little bit monocular.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Well, yeah. Are you with me? But also as adults, you're also more likely to notice those changes. Wait a minute. That's not what he said last time.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Well, no, I'm talking about this behavior that we see in kids sitting there watching Shrek over and over again. And the parents can play, I if I hear it one more time, I'm gonna scream. Right. The way we take in story as kids versus the way we do as adult are completely different, and everybody wants to pretend like they're the same.

SPEAKER_04 12:20

No, yeah, you're you're right. They are completely different.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

So so again, when you start these stories for kids, you can you can be a little bit more ostentatious, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:31

You can be you can be more animated.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

When you're telling it to an adult, they're gonna want some reason and logic behind it. They're not just going to accept just because it's a story, it's is the adults that catch that. Well, that just looks like a plot device. This just this is where all this stuff comes from. This is adults going, okay, yeah, this story doesn't make sense because of here. So why should we continue? Why would we not change it to root remove those inconsistencies?

SPEAKER_04 13:04

Well, I think part of it is part of the difference, and you're right, maybe you should remove those, but I think part of the difference is as adults, we're looking for what's hidden in there. Because we, you know, it's our minds have developed and we're quote unquote mature, which again, that's a debatable point. But but you know, we're more mature than children. Right. And we're act we're actively searching for something. And when we hear the stories, we're looking, we're looking at backgrounds, we're looking for, you know, some type of hidden knowledge that might be there that would that we might have missed previously.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

I can see an adult passing by the uh grandparent sitting there around the campfire, around the fire, telling the kids a story to keep them quiet in the evenings, to keep the creatures from coming around. And some parent half hearing the story, going, Wait a minute, that ain't that ain't the story I remember.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Well, yeah, and I could see that happening like after the kids go to bed. Uh-huh. Like, hey, wait a minute. You didn't tell the same story. No. Nothing changed. You did why did you change that? You left this part out. Right. And then a whole new conversation takes place.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Right. Do I believe these people think they're lying? No, I just think they're misremembering. They're just they're being editors, they're editing the story to fit what they believe. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're sitting there telling a story of Hercules and there's some feat that you just don't believe he actually did or just didn't seem to make it, you're gonna either drop it or change it into something else. True. We justify this in our own heads, right? At the end of the day, yes, humans do this. We will justify it. We will find a way to make it make sense so we can live in that life. That's human behavior.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

I was gonna say we're really good at doing that.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

But to sit there and to ignore that these behaviors don't happen is exactly what in the world I see a lot of people in the public doing. Right. They want to ignore this and only focus in on certain things. I this is not enlightenment. All right.

Why Science Looks Like Pure Magic

SPEAKER_00 15:29

The enlightenment was, and and I'll be quite honest with you, and I'm probably about to piss off a lot of people, because I honestly believe that science that we have now is the most purest form of magic we actually are performing in society today.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Wow, that's a big statement. That's a bold statement.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

All right. I uh again, it's all the woo-woo removed from our magic, going, okay, we again here's my logic here, okay? Because what we're trying to do is understand the world enough to manipulate it to our advantage. Right. And that's all magic really is at the end of the day. Regardless if you have to call upon deities or create some magnetic field or electricity to get it done.

SPEAKER_04 16:15

Right. No, I mean, you you're absolutely right. I mean, the the whole goal of magic is to understand, is to gain knowledge, to manipulate your environment, to create change. That's what science does every day.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

So, yeah, you're I mean, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Science is pure magic. It's pure magic. It is the pure concept of magic, it is the ultimate in what world we're doing. Yes, it would be nice to have an AI that can contract every molecule in the universe because then we would know everything because the data's there. We can just track it back to those events.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

And uh and the computer and the AI should be able to regenerate it.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Should be able to.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Should be able to, theoretically. Right. We're back to a form of divination. We're able to see the past and the future. If we ever achieve this. How's that not divination? It's just on a bigger scale.

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Yeah. So we're back to it's it's all based in paganism.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Again, this is what the Enlightenment gave us. This world we live in. Our rockets, our technology, the cell phone you're calling, you know, you that you're using. To listen to this podcast is only there because paganism exists.

SPEAKER_04 17:46

So would you would you basically just say that enlightenment was the moment that magic won?

SPEAKER_00 17:53

I would say that.

SPEAKER_04 17:55

You'd say it's probably the moment that, you know, the West, you know, because we divide everything to West and East. Right. But it would you say it's the West? The West formally adopted like, you know, occult principles of law and will and hidden knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yep. Again, I get all that together.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

I mean, I get to build the modern world we're in now.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Well, I I'll put it to you this way. The way I looked at the United States, because again, everybody wants to complain, going, Oh, it's all pagan. No, it's all Christ. No, it's a mix of the two. All right. It's literally the chassis of paganism wrapped in a veneer of Christianity to make it palatable to the masses.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

Right.

Closing Coffee And Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_00 18:41

So with that said, are you ready for some coffee? Yeah, let's go get some coffee.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

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 Life Temple Seminary.org for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, Discord, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a tea of blazing fires. And so it is the end of our days to walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our days to walk with me till morning break.