Misconceptions About Wisdom in Paganism

In this conversation, we dive deep into the difference between knowledge, wisdom, and intuition within modern paganism. We explore why wisdom can’t be gained from books alone, emphasizing that true understanding comes from experience, mistakes, and lived practice. We highlight how the community often confuses study with mastery, treating degrees, titles, and online content as proof of wisdom rather than evidence of effort. 

The episode also examines the role—and limits—of intuition. While intuition can act as an internal warning system, it is not divine revelation and should not override grounded judgment. Wisdom is what helps practitioners interpret intuition correctly rather than blindly following gut feelings. The conversation expands into community issues: the loss of elders, the fear of asking questions, and the growing trend of teaching people what to think instead of how to think. These insights make a powerful guide for anyone seeking authentic spiritual growth.

Ultimately, this discussion encourages listeners to embrace practice, experimentation, and critical thinking as the true path to wisdom. Whether you’re a new practitioner or a seasoned pagan, this episode offers a grounded, experience‑driven perspective on what it really means to grow wiser on your spiritual path.

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Transcript

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Quick Support And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:18

If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials. And so we're gonna talk about wisdom. Okay. Um so let's start with the dictionary definition. All right. The quality or state of being wise, a knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

All right. So based on the fruit. You know what I've always heard? What?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Oh, go on. Based on that, what? No, I was gonna say, I I remember the whole entire thing, you know, knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are fruit. Wisdom's knowing you don't put it in a fruit salad.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

I mean, you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

But no, technically, I have wait a minute. Technically, I did learn one little thing from one of our from one of our neophytes.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Technically, there is no such thing as vegetables. Everything's a fruit.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

The huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yep.

unknown 1:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

That's my other little gardening person finally told me there is no such thing. Vegetables is a culinary thing, not necessarily a farming thing. Everything's a fruit in farming.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Okay. I refuse to call it that, but okay. There's still vegetables. All right. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Anyway, now that I've gone on that tie rate.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Right, and we've gotten completely off topic.

Knowledge Versus Wisdom In Practice

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Um, so based on based on the definition, what do you think is the biggest misunderstanding about wisdom in the pegging community?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Well, everybody thinks wisdom can be learnt from a book. Wisdom isn't that that comes from a book, it's that that comes from experience. Right. It's one thing to sit down and again, just like we were, I was just talking about Eva, it's one thing to sit down and read this little book on fermentation. It's another thing to actually do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

That's where wisdom comes from.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, it comes from actually doing, living, right? Experiencing.

unknown 2:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So when you when you hear this wisdom from when you hear wisdom from people, it's because they've experienced it. In other words, they made that mistake and they're trying to keep you from making that mistake.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

This is the only way you can short circuit the process of learning wisdom is to talk to someone who's already done it to some extent.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And I think we have a lot of people that keep on thinking that gaining knowledge is somehow wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Hmm. No, wouldn't you say? Yeah, it's not. But yeah, I think that is probably the biggest problem or misunderstanding or misconception.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

See, I even say wisdom sort of like goes beyond understanding. And I've argued for years that there's a difference between knowing something and understanding it. If you know something, you can use it. Right. If you understand it, you can manipulate it to your advantage. Right. But wisdom is what comes when you start to manipulate it to your advantage and you start to realize where it's going to break, where it's not going to break, where it's going to hold. Which is back to experience.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

You know, unfortunately, we have this whole entire problem in the pagan community. When it comes to this, nobody wanted the teacher. Nobody wanted anything. Nobody wanted to hear any of this.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Right. There, there was there was a lot of that going around. And still is to some extent.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

And to some some extent, but and now all these elders that we had, the elders that, you know, I was around and you were trained by, and all this other stuff, they're disappearing. They are we are losing, we are losing that wisdom and trying to replace it with books, podcasts, vlogs. And I don't think it's working quite as well as we think

Losing Elders In The Digital Age

SPEAKER_00 4:45

it is.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

No, of course not. I mean, it can't. Um, but it's so hard without being face to face with someone and reading facial expressions and body language and the tone of voice and all of that, all of that comes together to convey the importance of what you're saying. And we miss a lot of that in the digital age because a lot of what we're getting is just audio.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Right. Or just text on pages. And I don't have problems with text on pages. I wish everybody would keep in mind, depending on the mood you're in, depends on how it sounds when you read it.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

That is so true.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

I can make a lot of comments out online and stuff like this. And yeah, I'm sorry, if you're in a bad mood and you read it, you're gonna really think I'm an ass. If you're really in a good mood, you're gonna think I'm hilarious as get out.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Well, I mean, how many times have you been banned from a subreddit because of something you said?

SPEAKER_00 5:46

That's something I said, and I'm still sitting back going, I don't see what's wrong with what I said.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Right? I mean, it's not that big of a deal.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

It's not, but how are we supposed to gain wisdom in all of this if people refuse to communicate with one another? If we refuse to talk. Yeah, we just I do see this as yes, I make comments on this and I see people, well, I'm just not even going to respond to this or I'm going to ignore it altogether. Because I, you know, it it makes me question my beliefs. Wisdom tells us that don't actually happen like you think it does. Right. If you believe in something, you believe in it. I I this is how you wind up with the having escape people, true. Yeah. I mean, they believed. They truly, sincerely believed, and they did what in the world they thought.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you you're absolutely right. When you've got true belief in whatever it is, it can be pretty dynamic in and of itself.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

But again, I will sit here and argue. Belief is not wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Wisdom's knowing w more of when not to speak than when to speak. I I sit here and and and try my best to encourage people, you need to go out and do and quit reading.

Just Judgment And Calming Reactions

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Well, I do have a question here, because in in this definition that we gave, it mentioned just judgment.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

How does just judgment fit into wisdom?

SPEAKER_00 7:36

Well, it's understanding the circumstances of what's going on. Not every problem is the exact same.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

No, the most problems are unique unto themselves for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Well, for the most part. I mean, some are pretty common. You have to have some wisdom there. Okay, because again, and uh not trying to stir up any politics here, but what's really the difference between killing someone and self-defense? There's some judgment there where we have to decide where that line crosses.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

So that that's that just judgment?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Okay. Why do you think so many people ignore that part of it and just go for the knowledge?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Because it's easier. It's easier to go with your gut reaction. It's easier to sit there and go, okay, I'm gonna stand for this and all this other stuff, but I'm not gonna actually look at the facts of what's going on. Wisdom tells us, okay, normally when we do this, we wind up getting ourselves in trouble later. It is easier to sit down, calm down, and go, hey, let's look at what's actually going on and get rid of all the stuff that really don't matter to this. What happened here? Right. That's wisdom. Wisdom's going, okay, I understand everybody's emotional. Calm down. Let's look at what actually happened. But that ain't what people are doing now. There's no judgment there. It's completely, automatically, I'm being attacked.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

True. And and honestly, that's not even knowledge. That's just that's just foolishness.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Well, again, it's not just running from knowledge, it's running from wisdom too. For crying out loud. I just give you an example. All right. I put up something on our Discord, not on Discord, on our Reddit, subreddit, all right? Which is basically asking the question of why do we call all these things shrines instead of why do we call them all altars instead of shrines? Because the definition of a shrine is this, this is what y'all are doing. It's been out for 24 hours. Nobody said anything. Bunch of people viewed it. Nobody sat there going, well, maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I haven't even got go to hell.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

My point is, why not interact? Why not say something? Why not, you know, uh, even if you disagree, it's kind of like we cannot get involved in certain conversations because we might look like idiots in the end. Well, you know, where my problem is, oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, it's just I was just gonna say where you know, my problem is I don't mind looking like an idiot. I'll ask the questions.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Well, I mean, sometimes sometimes I know like sometimes for me, I'll stay out of a conversation if I don't know anything about it. But if I have a question about something, if I may be listening to that conversation and I have a question, whether it's stupid or not, I'm gonna ask it. Because maybe it's giving me something that I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

But I have to ask this is it is it our generation? We were basically told to question everything. Pretty much, yeah. Or is that a Gen X thing?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I don't know. It could be could be a Gen X, but the question, you know, my question to that is if it is a Gen X thing, why didn't we pass it on?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Why not? I mean, because I I remember in school, there's no such thing as a stupid question. The only stupid question is the one that wasn't asked.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Right, the one that wasn't asked. I mean, it's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Again, that was drilled into our heads as kids.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Right. If you don't ask the question, you're never gonna get the answer. I mean, it's that simple.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Even if you don't really have a divested interest in the thing or anything, and you have an opinion, give it anyway. It doesn't make no sense the running and hiding. I see the commun the pagan community doing it large. It's kind of like we really can't afford anyone to ask questions about our beliefs because as soon as we do, we're gonna be in trouble, we're gonna have a problem. But nobody sees it as a way to strengthen their beliefs.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Right. I don't understand that. I I don't either. And and unfortunately, you can't make it make sense. I mean, you just can't. True. So I do have another question here.

Intuition Versus Wisdom And Discernment

SPEAKER_02 12:21

Um, where does intuition fit into gaining wisdom? Since we're talking about wisdom, and you know, we we we do we do you know, trust your intuition, trust your instincts.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Intuition, yes, we do.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

How does that fit into gaining wisdom?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

The way I'm gonna look at it is intuition is that moment where you walk into a room or something, and you just got that bad feeling, like you know, those parties that you go to, and as soon as you arrive, you're like, Yeah, this is not gonna end well. It's time to leave. This is when intuition and wisdom work together.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Or you meet that person and you're busy, and then all they automatically rub you the wrong way, and you haven't even met a wrong way.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And yeah, and wisdom kicks in going, it's time for me to get into my vehicle, go home, and get away from this place. Intuition is only that bad feeling, it's only a guess, it's not the full story, and we have to have wisdom to discern what in the world our intuition is telling us.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

So, why do so many people treat their intuition as some divine sanctioned wisdom?

SPEAKER_00 13:41

You got me. I consider our intuition part of our flight and fight and flight system.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Mm-hmm. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

All right, it's the it's the precursor to that kicking in. It's just your body sitting there going, hey, you need to pay attention to what's going on around you right now. There's some things your brain is picking up on that you're not quite putting together that flows up warning signs, hey, this might not be a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Right. It's like, hello, wake up.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Hello. We're back to the problem is until you experience that and you don't listen to your wisdom and you keep on going and you see how bad it goes, you're never going to gain the wisdom to go, yeah, that's a bad idea when I feel bad.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Well, now, do you think that people treating their intuition or their gut feelings like some divine message, if you will? Right. Do you think that that's creating more problems for us as pagans?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I d actually I think it is. I'm not saying people don't get divine inspiration, but to me that that intuition is self-contained. It doesn't, it's not the gods, it's us. It's part of our makeup.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

To have those feelings and stuff to kind of warn us, yeah, there there's some things here that your subconscious is like throwing up flags, going, hey, I don't think the intuition is a containment to the divine.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So essentially or messages from the divine. So essentially it's it's a gift. You could say it's a gift from the divine. I could. But it comes from but it comes from within.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Right. It it's along the lines of psychic abilities. It's just a little bit more subtle than actually being able to talk to spirits or any of these other things that we talk about, right? Intuition is a little bit less than that. Right. It's that moment where you're reading those cards and you you have that moment where you're flipping over that card and you know the meaning of that card's this, but for some reason you can't quit thinking about something else. That's that intuition. That's this card doesn't represent this for this person anymore. Right. The normal definition goes out the window, and you're looking, and again, I don't know about anybody else, but when I read cards, I that's when I normally sit there going, hey, my intuition, I have a I have a feeling. Is that not how we describe intuition?

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Yeah, yeah. So it's a feeling.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Wisdom is the experience to know, okay, yeah, that guy's drinking way too much too fast, and he's getting too rowdy already. There's going to be an issue later. I don't want to be involved in. It's time to go. Is there the pattern of behavior?

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Right. So is there is there a time when say intuition and wisdom would lead to completely different actions?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Can you believe so? Can you expand on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Have you ever been on a job interview and be like talking to the balls and doing the interview, but just get a bad feeling about the interview? The balls, the whole nine yards, something about them just doesn't fit well. That's your intuition going, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Once or twice, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, all right. But yeah, when you look at the job on paper, the details, the benefits, and everything, it's good. Wisdom would tell you to take the job. Intuition tells you not to. Gotcha. Wisdom and intuition don't always align. So again, you have to make that choice. Do I follow my intuition saying, yeah, if I get this job, me and this boss might be butting heads all the time, which won't make it a good work environment. Or do I do it anyway, keep my mouth shut, and knowing this ahead of time, that me and this guy's gonna butt heads and I'm just gonna have to eat a lot of crow to take the job because I need the benefits and everything else? That's where we're asking ourselves that question, where our where our wisdom and our intuition are not necessarily lining up.

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Well, then, giving that they don't always line up, why do you think so many pagans push intuition over wisdom?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Because they want that, they want that ah moment. They want the what they're really wanting is a divine revelation, not intuition. We're back to I think we're rev uh labeling things wrong here.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

We've discussed that before, yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Yeah, I think this I again, and I think this is where this is just nothing more than a lay uh a labeling problem. Intuition is a bad feeling that you get or something to guide you one way or the other. Divine revelation is just that, it's just it. It makes no sense. It's the thought that pops in your head out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

Right. It's that aha moment.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Right. It's the Eureka moment. Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

We like to describe it as the light bulb goes off in your head about something.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Or that moment, two seconds right before you use that hairdryer in the shower, and you realize it's a bad idea. And why?

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

It makes you realize there's a reason there's a warning label here. Somebody did this. Right. This to me is a lack of wisdom. This is when we see a lot of younger people do this, they lack the experience of life.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Because I mean, I I've seen the same problem with more adults getting out of college, confusing that piece of paper with experience. And they don't seem to understand, okay, what is the company actually asking for? We want you to have experience. Well, maybe not in that field. We want you to have experience working in a corporation. You understand the cultures, you understand how the rules work, you understand how in the world everything is, and I'm not gonna have to sit here and explain to you and hold your hand when you get turned down for no P because you ain't got no PTO time. Right. Because you don't understand how all this works. That's what entry-level jobs are for. Yeah, it's to get you used to the corporate life.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah. I mean, you you could think of it as the degree is your the degree is your knowledge, but without the experience, you don't have the wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

You don't have the wisdom to use it. These things work together, but they're not necessarily and I think we get a lot of them confused. We want to sit there and consider our intuition and wisdom the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah. But they're not. Intuition is that thing going, no, you should not go into that dark cave. Intuition is everybody watching a horror movie going, no, don't go outstairs. Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Don't answer the phone. Don't open that door. That door.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

If you've ever watched a horror movie in a theater, this is what wisdom is.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

I mean, that I'm sorry, that's what intuition is. It's that we know it's a bad thing. We know it's a bad idea. Don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

And I don't know why people example ever.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Well, again, that's intuition. You know, hey, yeah, you you just had some guy try to kill you multiple times and there's a knock on the door. Yeah, I'm gonna open it without thinking about it.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

So so do you think given the way the conversation's gone, do you think that a lot of people in the community are just teaching people what to think?

Teaching What To Think Versus How

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Instead of how to think.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

I I I I think you might be right there. I think we are teaching people to be more we're telling people what to think versus how to think.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Right. And there is a discussion.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I see that a lot. Yes. There is a big difference between that. Right? Getting people to think for themselves is a whole lot greater challenge than anything else.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

It really is.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

I mean, because again, we're we're back to this whole entire concept of if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. If you teach him the fish, he'll eat for a lifetime.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

It's just, it's true. All right. I mean, hence the reason why in the world, in every wildlife preserve, there's always a sign, do not feed the animals. They become dependent on it and quit acting like animals and wait on handouts instead.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

I mean that's the food you feed them isn't as good as what they're getting.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

I was gonna say that's pretty evident when you go to parks that do the drive-through experience things, and you know, you see them, you see the wild animals coming up to vehicles. It's because people are feeding them.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

And it's it's changing the way they interact with the world. It's they're so changing their behaviors. Right. They they become reliant on that.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

They they you they sort of forget how to scavenge for food.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

You know, why should I have to scavenge? Why should I have to teach my pups to to scavenge if I can just go here and find food? I'm sorry, we I'll take the least ex resistance of, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Right?

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Why use the extra energy if you can't just like everything else?

SPEAKER_02 23:53

I do have another question in this one I find it intriguing. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Okay.

Titles Degrees And The Illusion

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Why do you think so many people in the community uh treat titles and degrees as proof of wisdom instead of proof of study?

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Uh I don't see degrees as proof of wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

I know, but I'm saying uh I'm asking why do what's your opinion on why people think uh that just because you hold a third degree, then you have large amounts of wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

It really shouldn't be that way. But again, you're looking at a progression too.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

There's an experience there. I mean, there's a difference between that sophomore going into school and that senior going out.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Right. But you also know that just because the way we do our degree system is not the same way that everybody else does theirs or some other people might do theirs. So we do know that in some instances the degrees don't necessarily come with experience. You you do this amount of work and you get your degree.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

And you get your degree, or you've you've hit a level. Well, again, for us, remember it is a spiritual matter. So again, just because you finish classes doesn't mean you get first degree.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

Right. But I'm back to perceptions.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Right. Understand the perception of it, but for people to try to link degrees to wisdom, that's a little bit of a bad idea. Yeah. All right. It's just that you have shown proficiencies to be a priest or a priestess, and you've demonstrated that over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Because the wisdom and the experience comes in actually doing. I mean, I I hate to be that way. You know, it you're not going to become a very wise counselor until you actually start counseling people. Right. I'll explain it to you this way, all right? I used to be in housekeeping and I did special projects. So it means I did a lot of stripping and waxing floors. And I would explain to people, you come to me, I can I can teach you how to strip and wax floors in two weeks. It will take you about two to three years to actually become a professional.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

And that that is for you to run into all the ways that goes wrong that I didn't tell you about to begin with, I didn't think of at the time.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Because again, as simple as much, and it I know a lot of people probably sitting there rolling their eyes about this, but if you take that stripping, that stripping solution and don't add enough water in there, you got a mess later.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

And you won't know what to do until that actually happens. I don't know if I I feel like I'm not saying it correctly.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Well, and that's unfortunate because for me it makes perfect sense because I've kind of been there. So I don't know. I mean, if if anybody has a question about that, feel free to let us know. Um we'll try to rewind differently.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

I I don't know how to say this, but yeah, I mean, hence the reason, but this is why we have certain degrees of stuff where you're required to do so many hours of act like doctors. Doctors have to be observed and have to do their clinicals, they're they're they're they're monitored the whole entire time to make sure they don't kill anybody.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

But until they're in that situation.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Yeah, but well, I was gonna say, I think that even then, just because they walk out with a degree and the and the title of doctor or physician or whatever you want to call them, that does not give them a whole lot of wisdom. No, yes, it doesn't give them a whole lot of they've done their clinicals, they've done certain things to meet those requirements, but until they've been in the field for several years, they're not they're not really gonna gain any wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Because as soon as that first person that comes in who doesn't quite match up to everything completely, it starts throwing off the whole diagnosis.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Well, and it's the same thing with our third degrees. Third degrees for us, you know, to get your third degree, you have to prove that you know how to use everything that we've given you and actually run a coven.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I mean, basically, because basically, how do we handle this? Literally, your second degree, you're going to go for a third. Fine. You're running our temple for a year, and you have me and the lady breathing down your neck the whole entire time. You're making the decisions, what we're doing for ritual, what we're not doing for ritual, the timing, the scheduling, and we're sitting back going, okay. We're not okay.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Right. But my point is that even if you manage to get to that point and you get that third degree, it's not until you've actually been a third degree for several years that you're actually going to start gaining any wisdom. So you can't really say just because I hold this title. No, I have wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

No, no, the wisdom comes later. Knowledge comes first, wisdom always comes later. Like counseling, to be exact, okay? It's one thing to sit there and go, okay, we're going to teach you how to counsel. It's another thing when you sit down to actually do it. People don't always talk the way you're trained to listen to. It's easy for counselors and other stuff to, and especially priests and priests, to be pulled down a path that they really should not be going down to because of the person.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Because they want to think they're curse, because they want to think all this other stuff or whatever. It's easy to get trapped in that emotional loop with them.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

Yeah, it's super easy.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

All right. Without the wisdom to understand what's going on, to see it actually in process, you're never going to stop it and you're never actually going to fix the problem. Right. All you're going to do is reinforce what in the world the person already believes.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Well, then for anyone who might be listening who feels like they need to start building wisdom or gaining wisdom instead of just like collecting facts or knowledge.

How To Build Wisdom By Doing

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Where do you think they should start with that?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

If you're if if you're doing herbs and you keep on following the same recipes over and over again, try something different. Pick a random herb instead and see what happens. I'm not saying, you know, mass produce it for 50 billion people, make one little batch.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

That's where in the world this begins. If you've ever tried to learn how to cook, until you get into the kitchen and you accidentally grab the salt instead of the sugar, you're never actually going to learn. Until you actually do the stuff, it's great to sit there and read about all these rituals and stuff. It's different when you're actually doing the ritual.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah, absolutely. Are you with what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

There's this thing in the witches uh witch's Bible complete. All right. And Lord Minn was telling me about this when I was still learning. He's like, okay, we we this book came out. We we did the classes before they came out with the book and the whole nine yards. So they did the mail order classes from Lafarge. Right. All right. Before they published the book. In one of these sections, they talk about how to make this special black paint to paint on your walls and all this. And he's like, okay, by the time you go through all this process and stuff, let me tell you how this turns out. It's easier just to go out and buy black paint and just paint your walls and call it a damn day. Because you're doing this handmade paint, it takes about two weeks to a month for it to even dry. Yeah. You know what? And you know what? Since I've took over temple, we have never done this, we will never do this. Because that's where wisdom was. They did it.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

All right.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

I mean, I I remember him telling them about a story about when when they thought they had to get the do the whole sulfur line. All right. It used to believe that to create sacred space, a permanent sacred space, you had to put down this this um coke line of sulfur for King Kong and set it on fire. Do you know how hard it is to find that much sulfur?

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Do you know how hard it is for just every day? Do you know how hard it is to breathe in that much sulfur being burned?

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Do you know how hard it is to get it to start burning? Because what? The only sulfur they can find was the one that you actually find from the garden places, which was fertilizer, which don't burn that, just don't burn that well. It doesn't burn. But like sulfur does. Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Lord.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

So again, this is what we're talking about. I mean, there's a lot of stuff in witchcraft books that sound great until you actually try to do them and you're like, uh, this don't make no sense.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

There's the difference. Well, I got a better idea of this, all right? To to stress my point one more time. You at one time were trying to learn how to do what incense combs.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

All right. To make it even worse was you were working with Lady Keegan on this. Who knows how to do this?

SPEAKER_02 33:56

Mm-hmm. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

She literally, she's she's done it enough times.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

How bad did that go?

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Oh, it went horrible. It went horrible. Yeah, nothing they wouldn't burn. They wouldn't they wouldn't know. Yeah, it was awful.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

It was awful. And I'm not I'm not I'm not insulting you. It's just the fact is, is for you to probably really learn, you need to be in like the same room with her, going, oh no, here's where in the world you're messing up.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Which will be that thing that's not in the instructions.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah. Now I have a

Handed Down Skills And Closing

SPEAKER_00 34:34

question for you. Is it that we as southerners happen to be a little bit more used to this type of process than other cultures in the United States?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

I don't know. Why why would that kind of explain why you're asking that question?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

I'll explain it with one word. Potato salad recipe.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Are you with what I'm saying? Let me explain to everybody else, okay? My family has a potato salad recipe. The only way to learn this potato salad recipe is to be actually hand-taught by somebody else in the family. Otherwise, when you get the recipe, it's just the list of ingredients. No amount, no nothing. And if you've never done it before, you don't have a clue.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

This is very common in a lot of older style cooking, especially in the south.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

I think I think there probably are some situations similar to that in other parts of the country. Yeah. But I do think it is a little probably a little more prevalent in the South. Yeah. So yeah, maybe. Maybe we've just become accustomed to it a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Accustomed to this type of behavior, and like, oh yeah, we I I know exactly what this is.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Right. So maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I hadn't really thought about it like that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:10

I mean, to me, this is sort of uh the ultimate in wisdom.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

All right. Or you could look at it as the ultimate spell, too. So because you're just throwing random ingredients into a bowl and mixing it all together.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

For yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

To some extent. Does this make any sense on this?

SPEAKER_02 36:30

I think it does. All right. I hope it does.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

So from the lack of wisdom on this part.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Right. So this is where input comes in from other people. Let's go get some coffee. Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pegan 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 37:08

We travel down the stroden path, the maze of stone in my eye. Just hold my hand as we pass by steel blazing fire.