Ultraculture With Jason Louv

Angel Millar joins Jason Louv to discuss his new book Supernatural Woman and the Male Initiate: Bonded Through Dreams, written with Lua Valentia — a study of the figure who appears to men in dreams across Norse sagas, Celtic myth, and the Western esoteric tradition, and her connection to poetic speech, oracular utterance, and the transformation of consciousness. They also get into what a tradition actually is and why traditions resist change, the gap between having a personality and having character, hypnotism and mesmerism as branches of ceremonial magic, and the parts of occult culture people don't usually say out loud. Recorded shortly after the death of Peter Carroll, who initiated Angel into the IOT.

Start Jason's free 16-minute Why Magick course. Five lessons, free account required, no card:
https://magick.me/p/why-magick?utm_source=ultraculture&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=episode-240-angel-millar&utm_content=show-notes

Topics: The book: Supernatural Woman and the Male Initiate | What makes something a tradition | The recurring nightmare, and the dream that ended it | Why our language for this is inadequate | Psychoanalysis, Freud, and where projection begins | The monk who gave up everything | UFOs, lust of result, and who has the experiences | Jung as the dead zone | Why every generation has to rediscover it | Plato, the muse, and possession as a real thing | The most repeating theme: character | Freemasonry, degrees, and the Shriners | Peter Carroll, the IOT, and what chaos magick left behind

Chapters:
0:00 Start learning magick — free course
0:37 The book: Supernatural Woman and the Male Initiate
6:00 What makes something a tradition
12:00 Is the encounter itself an initiation?
18:00 The recurring nightmare, and the dream that ended it
22:30 The transformation that followed
24:00 Why our language for this is inadequate
42:13 Psychoanalysis, Freud, and where projection begins
47:00 The monk who gave up everything
54:00 UFOs, lust of result, and who has the experiences
60:00 Boundaries, repression, and the psychologization of magick
63:00 Jung as "the dead zone"
72:00 Why every generation has to rediscover it
78:00 A path through the horror that's coming
83:00 Plato, the muse, and possession as a real thing
87:00 The most repeating theme: character
90:00 Freemasonry, degrees, and the Shriners
94:30 Peter Carroll, the IOT, and what chaos magick left behind
100:00 What magick should be
105:00 Combat magick and the psychological warfare years
110:00 Where to find Angel's work

Transcript:
https://audio.magick.me/ep_240.vtt

Mitch Horowitz returns to Ultraculture for a conversation with Jason Louv about his theory of human decline, the limits of spiritual optimism, and the resistance faced by paranormal researchers. They discuss practical esoteric methods, astrology and ghosts, Mitch's criticism of ideological skepticism, the state of parapsychology, Wikipedia's treatment of anomalous research, Blavatsky's influence on Gandhi, and the self-development programs behind political and spiritual figures.

Start Jason's free 15-minute Why Magick course. Five lessons, free account required, no card:
https://magick.me/p/why-magick?utm_source=ultraculture&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=episode-239-mitch-horowitz&utm_content=show-notes

Topics: Human decline and spiritual optimism | Practices Mitch returns to | Astrology, ghosts, and evidence | Skeptical cognitive bias | Parapsychology and institutional resistance | Theosophy, Gandhi, and historical memory | Lenin and self-development

Transcript:
https://audio.magick.me/ep_239.vtt

Jason and his wife Temple react to and dismantle a viral video by ex-occultist-turned-Christian Jacque Marino, who appeared on Allie Beth Stuckey's show claiming shadow work is dangerous spiritual self-harm. Temple, a shadow-work practitioner, walks through the core misconceptions point by point—not to attack Marino, but because these critiques echo the 1980s Satanic Panic and reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what shadow integration actually is. Shadow work, they explain, isn't about "becoming your shadow" or indulging destructive impulses; it's about consciously integrating the aspects of self that the ego rejects due to societal conditioning and shame. Discomfort and pain are signals—pointers to dysfunction, injury, or unprocessed trauma—and the practice is to remain curious rather than flee into substances or distraction. They trace shadow work's lineage through Jung's Red Book, William James, and modern somatic therapy, emphasizing the role of professional guidance and the scientific validation of approaches like CBT. The conversation pivots to analyzing the born-again experience itself as a psychological reframing—a subroutine that accomplishes real shifts in identification and self-narrative—and draws parallels to other "safe haven" movements, from Teal Swan to fundamentalist Christianity. They discuss monotheism's assumption that non-Christians embody evil, the fastest-growing religions in America, and the question of personal responsibility in how adults frame their childhood and past. Ultimately, this is about the return of radical fundamentalism—Christian and otherwise—and the cost of binary thinking in a complex world. Topics: What shadow work actually is and what it isn't | Integration vs. indulgence | Pain and discomfort as diagnostic signals | Jung's Red Book and the psychological lineage of shadow work | Somatic therapy and the role of professional guidance | The born-again experience as psychological reframing | Safe-haven movements and cultic dynamics | Monotheism and the demonization of the Other | The Satanic Panic returns | Personal responsibility and narrative reframing in adulthood | Fundamentalism across traditions. Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPiPg1Ufm-s

Private investigator and author Joseph Flatley joins Jason to discuss his new book on Timothy Leary's occult legacy. They cover Leary's Eight Circuit model of consciousness, its roots in his psychology work at Harvard and the psilocybin experiments that got him kicked out, and how Leary synthesized Freud, Jung, and Maslow into a single map of the human mind before expanding it into four "post-terrestrial" circuits dealing with cosmic consciousness, the Akashic records, and states traditionally accessed through magic and yoga. Flatley walks through how Leary mapped his 24-stage model onto the tarot major arcana (including two cards Leary invented: the Star Maker and the Velvet Hole), and how the system corresponds to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the four worlds. They get into the Starseed Transmissions, where Leary and fellow inmate Wayne Benner performed Enochian-style workings in Folsom Prison while Robert Anton Wilson was simultaneously doing Holy Guardian Angel invocations in Chicago and receiving telepathic impressions of Leary's escape. The conversation turns to Leary's SMI2LE formula (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension), how it prefigured the Silicon Valley transhumanist movement, and the uncomfortable question of how "follow your bliss" collapsed into consumer culture. They assess the boomer occult legacy honestly, discuss Antero Alli's critique that practitioners ignored the lower four circuits, and consider whether the internet and always-on digital life might be the actual evolutionary shift Leary was pointing toward. Topics: The Eight Circuit model and its 24 sub-stages | Leary's tarot correspondences and the Tree of Life | The Starseed Transmissions and Enochian magic in Folsom Prison | SMI2LE and the tech industry | Boomer occultism: what to keep and what to leave behind | Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising | Info-psychology as a technical manual for consciousness | Leary's deathbed and Doug Rushkoff's account. Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0z0lxbP4I8

Private investigator and author Joseph Flatley joins Jason to discuss his new book on Timothy Leary's occult legacy. They cover Leary's Eight Circuit model of consciousness, its roots in his psychology work at Harvard and the psilocybin experiments that got him kicked out, and how Leary synthesized Freud, Jung, and Maslow into a single map of the human mind before expanding it into four "post-terrestrial" circuits dealing with cosmic consciousness, the Akashic records, and states traditionally accessed through magic and yoga. Flatley walks through how Leary mapped his 24-stage model onto the tarot major arcana (including two cards Leary invented: the Star Maker and the Velvet Hole), and how the system corresponds to the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and the four worlds. They get into the Starseed Transmissions, where Leary and fellow inmate Wayne Benner performed Enochian-style workings in Folsom Prison while Robert Anton Wilson was simultaneously doing Holy Guardian Angel invocations in Chicago and receiving telepathic impressions of Leary's escape. The conversation turns to Leary's SMI2LE formula (Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension), how it prefigured the Silicon Valley transhumanist movement, and the uncomfortable question of how "follow your bliss" collapsed into consumer culture. They assess the boomer occult legacy honestly, discuss Antero Alli's critique that practitioners ignored the lower four circuits, and consider whether the internet and always-on digital life might be the actual evolutionary shift Leary was pointing toward. Topics: The Eight Circuit model and its 24 sub-stages | Leary's tarot correspondences and the Tree of Life | The Starseed Transmissions and Enochian magic in Folsom Prison | SMI2LE and the tech industry | Boomer occultism: what to keep and what to leave behind | Robert Anton Wilson's Prometheus Rising | Info-psychology as a technical manual for consciousness | Leary's deathbed and Doug Rushkoff's account. Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0z0lxbP4I8