Advertise on podcast: Ultraculture With Jason Louv

Jason Louv and Temple Gold read reactions to r/exevangelical, starting with grandparents who never saved for retirement because they expected the Rapture, then a mother who drove her daughter to a church parking lot at midnight to read her diary back to her, and parents who turned away their own daughter but took in a disgraced ex-pastor for months. They talk about spiritual bypassing, religious trauma, true will, whether evangelicalism functions as a cult, and why "Christian witch" might be a contradiction in terms. They close on a lighter story about a cat named Beaker. 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-242-witches-ex-evangelical&utm_content=show-notes Now enrolling: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, taught live by Jason from a new translation of the 1533 Latin. Founding enrollment is $797 and closes October 6: https://magick.me/p/agrippa?utm_source=ultraculture&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=episode-242-witches-ex-evangelical&utm_content=show-notes Topics: Reddit stories from r/exevangelical | Grandparents who didn't save because the Rapture was coming | A midnight diary confrontation in a church parking lot | Parents who sheltered a disgraced pastor over their own daughter | Spiritual bypassing and religious trauma | True will versus religious obedience | Is evangelicalism a cult | Christian witchcraft as a contradiction | A lighter closing story about Beaker the cat Transcript: https://audio.magick.me/ep_242.vtt

Jason Louv and Temple Gold read and react to tarot stories from Reddit and around the internet, starting with Temple drawing the Fool four times in a row. They cover a relationship pulled apart by ChatGPT tarot readings, a thrift-store deck with a bad reputation, and an oracle reading about a household goblin, then talk through confirmation bias, religious fear, and tarot as pathworking rather than fortune-telling. 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-241-tarot-stories-reddit&utm_content=show-notes Now enrolling: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, taught live by Jason from a new translation of the 1533 Latin. Founding enrollment is $797 and closes October 6: https://magick.me/p/agrippa?utm_source=ultraculture&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=episode-241-tarot-stories-reddit&utm_content=show-notes Topics: Reddit tarot stories | Drawing the Fool four times in a row | ChatGPT tarot readings and a relationship falling apart | Confirmation bias and religious fear | Tarot pathworking | An oracle deck and a household goblin | Tarot court cards and elementals Transcript: https://audio.magick.me/ep_241.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

Alan Chapman's new edition of Aleister Crowley's Magick Without Tears got his publisher sued by the OTO. We talk about that, the real story behind the Book of the Law, and whether this world is a Bardo we're just passing through. Topics: The OTO copyright lawsuit | The Book of the Law and Rose Kelly | What practical magic gets wrong | The Great Work as lineage | Global awakening — why it won't happen the way people think. Alan Chapman: https://barbarouswords.com

In this episode, Jason explores one of the most important texts in world spirituality: The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross. St. John was a 16th-century Carmelite monk who helped St. Teresa of Ávila reform the Carmelite order—and was kidnapped and imprisoned by rival monks for nine months, during which he composed this classic text on spiritual transformation. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why the "dark night" is not depression, but a necessary stage of spiritual development - The three signs that distinguish true spiritual purgation from mere lukewarmness - How God "weans" the soul like a mother teaching a child to walk - Why divine light appears as darkness to the unprepared soul ("a ray of darkness") - The ten steps of the ladder of love leading to union with God - How suffering is more secure than pleasure on the spiritual path Key quote: "He who shines with the greatest light shall cast the darkest shadow." If you've ever felt spiritually dry, disconnected, or like God has withdrawn His presence—this episode reveals why that experience is not only normal, but essential. --- 🔥 JOIN THE WINTER SOLSTICE WORKING — December 20-21 This episode connects directly to what Temple and I are doing this weekend: a live two-day intensive timed to the exact astronomical moment of the Winter Solstice—the longest night of the year, when darkness peaks and light begins its return. This is not a course you watch alone. It's a live working we do together: - Death meditations & shadow integration - Kabbalistic pathworking - Guided Bardo journeys - A ritual timed to the precise moment of the solstice Join us for the most potent time of the year for powerful, deep inner work. → solstice.magick.me

BLACK FRIDAY ENDS TOMORROW AT MIDNIGHT: friday.magick.me This episode goes out on the final day of the Black Friday sale for a reason. What you're about to hear is Eliphas Levi's chapter on The Magician from Transcendental Magic (1856)—the first chapter of the first modern book on ceremonial magic ever written. Levi is going to lay out exactly what it takes to become an adept—"a person who is achieved by will and by work." He's going to talk about the four powers of the Sphinx: To know, to dare, to will, to keep silence. He's going to talk about why most people never make it. And he's going to say something that hit me hard when I first read it: "Those qualified for initiation no longer finding initiators, and the leaders of conscience becoming in the laps of time as uninstructed as the vulgar, the blind have grown weary of following the blind." That's the problem I've spent ten years trying to solve. That's why Magick.Me exists. That's why I built The Adept Initiative. Listen to Levi. Really listen. And then decide: Are you ready? KEY PASSAGES: • "To know, to dare, to will, to keep silence—such are the four words of the magus" • "Those qualified for initiation no longer finding initiators, the blind have grown weary of following the blind" • "Once started, we must reach the end or perish. To doubt is to lose one's reason, to pause is to fail, to recoil is to plunge into an abyss" BLACK FRIDAY ENDS TUESDAY MIDNIGHT: → The Adept's Path — $397 Adept Initiative I & II + Solstice Working (Dec 20-21) This is where Levi would tell you to start. → Complete Mastery — $997 (Limited spots available) Everything + 12-month library access + Solstice If you want to go deep—if you want the complete toolkit—this is it. → ULTIMATE — $1,797 (Limited spots available) Complete Mastery + year of direct mentorship with Jason This is for people who heard what Levi said and thought: "I'm ready. I want an initiator." 👉 friday.magick.me Links & Resources: 🔥 BLACK FRIDAY SALE: https://friday.magick.me 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🧘‍♂️ Free Guided Meditation and Mailing List: https://start.magick.me 🌌 See you in class! ✨

BLACK FRIDAY SALE: https://friday.magick.me — Our best three offers OF ALL TIME. Sale ends December 2nd or when we run out (slots limited)! In this episode, Jason dives deep into epistemology—how we actually determine what's true and what's not in an age of overwhelming information, AI-generated content, and competing narratives. He explores practical frameworks for critical thinking, discusses the difference between knowledge and belief, and offers tools for navigating uncertainty without falling into either gullibility or paranoid skepticism. Topics covered: epistemological frameworks, critical thinking tools, media literacy, discernment practices, the role of intuition vs. analysis, and how magickal practice can sharpen your ability to perceive truth.

BLACK FRIDAY SALE: https://friday.magick.me - Three paths to mastering magick, available through December 2nd only! After a year away, Jason Louv returns to discuss practical, modern Thelemic magick for functional adults. In this episode, he explores what it actually means to discover your True Will, the four fundamental principles of magick, and how to live authentically in alignment with your deepest purpose. This isn't magick for escapists or those seeking to avoid reality—it's magick for people who want to engage more fully with life, take responsibility for their existence, and become the best version of themselves. Jason breaks down the core practices and mindset shifts that have helped thousands of students transform their lives through the Western esoteric tradition. Links & Resources: 🔥 BLACK FRIDAY SALE: https://friday.magick.me - Our best three offers OF ALL TIME. Sale ends December 2nd or when we run out (slots limited)! 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🧘‍♂️ Free Guided Meditation and Mailing List: https://start.magick.me 🌌 See you in class! ✨

Watch the video version of this podcast on YouTube! Yes hello! Thee Very Wizard of New Zealand himself, Ari Freeman unlocks the DREAD and FORBIDDEN SECRETS of Furry Sorcery and Brony Tulpas in this conversation with Jason Louv in this, the first "actual YouTube show" episode of the Ultraculture Podcast! THINGS MAN WAS NOT MEANT TO KNOW become, most unfortunately, KNOWN. Dare ye enter the Thunderdome??? About Ari: Leading what appears to be a charmed life, Ari Freeman is, aside from being a professional musician, a writer, fortune teller, and music teacher from Christchurch New Zealand. Recognisable as the frontman of the psychedelic funk band Rhomboid, and in his one-man-band project Blues Professor. He served seven years as the apprentice to the Wizard of New Zealand before becoming a published author of 'occult books for sceptics'. His first book Pragmatic Magical Thinking is out with Aeon Books (London) and a two volume Tarot manual, Psychic Results for Sceptics & Magical Results for the Reality Hacker come out in May and November of 2025. His solo album You Can See Everything If You Look From Nowhere is set for release on 30th March 2025. Ari performed all the instruments, many of which he built himself, sang and recorded this multi-dimensional album entirely in his home studio. Links & Resources: 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🃏🔮✨ Introduction to Magick - The world's best course on practicing real magick, right where you are sitting now: https://www.magick.me/p/intro-magick 🧘‍♂️ (NEW!) Free Guided Meditation and Mailing List: https://start.magick.me 📖 (NEW!) Free Introductory Magick Course: https://www.magick.me/p/why-magick 🌌 See you in class! ✨

Fresh from the archives, this is a talk on the Revival of Magick that I gave at the now-defunct Catland Books in Brooklyn, NY in 2014. The quality is so-so as it was filmed on a handheld digital camcorder, but I've done my best to clean up the sound and video. In the talk, I discuss how 3rd millennium magick radically differs from the magick of the 2nd millennium, and talk about Terence McKenna, shamanism, the Book of the Law and lots more. Links & Resources: 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🃏🔮✨ Introduction to Magick - The world's best course on practicing real magick, right where you are sitting now: https://www.magick.me/p/intro-magick 🧘‍♂️ (NEW!) Free Guided Meditation and Mailing List: https://start.magick.me 📖 (NEW!) Free Introductory Magick Course: https://www.magick.me/p/why-magick 🌌 See you in class! ✨

In this episode of the Ultraculture Podcast, I reflect on the recent attack in New Orleans, exploring its implications and the interplay of spirituality and cultural conflict. I critique the notion of universality in religion, highlighting significant disparities among belief systems, particularly regarding Islam, and discuss the historical role of the Western esoteric tradition in promoting free thought and the need for vigilance against ideologies that threaten individual freedoms. Links & Resources: 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🃏🔮✨ Introduction to Magick - The world's best course on practicing real magick, right where you are sitting now: https://www.magick.me/p/intro-magick 🧘‍♂️ (NEW!) Free Guided Meditation and Mailing List: https://start.magick.me 📖 (NEW!) Free Introductory Magick Course: https://www.magick.me/p/why-magick 🌌 See you in class! ✨

Jason Louv explores the intricate relationships between psychoanalysis and occult practices, emphasizing the importance of personal narrative and psychological awareness in fostering self-understanding—including an active meditation for meeting higher levels of yourself! Links & Resources: 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🃏🔮✨ Introduction to Magick - The world's best course on practicing real magick, right where you are sitting now: https://www.magick.me/p/intro-magick 🧘‍♂️ (NEW!) Free Guided Meditation and Mailing List: https://start.magick.me 📖 (NEW!) Free Introductory Magick Course: https://www.magick.me/p/why-magick 🌌 See you in class! ✨

Jason Louv interviews Barbara Mendes, a multifaceted artist known for her underground comics and contemporary art. Mendes, affectionately known by her pen name Willie Mendes, recounts her artistic journey that began in the 1960s, during a time when female artists often faced discrimination and marginalization. She reflects on the challenges that women artists experienced, noting that much of the comic book industry, as well as the fine arts, was dominated by men. Despite these obstacles, Mendes pursued her passion for painting, which she describes as her true love. Throughout the conversation, Mendes reveals her spiritual evolution, which has shifted from exploring Eastern philosophies and African spirituality to embracing Orthodox Judaism later in her life. She shares anecdotes about her family history rooted in rabbinical tradition and discusses her initial rejection of religious teachings as superstition. However, her spiritual quest led her back to her Jewish roots, guided by a longing for faith and connection. Mendes recounts how significant events, such as the influence of various books on mysticism and spirituality, shaped her understanding of Judaism and inspired her art. Mendes discusses her experiences studying Hebrew and Torah and how they deepened her artistic expression. Through her mural projects, she dove into biblical themes while utilizing vibrant colors and imaginative storytelling to convey her interpretations. Her relationship with the Orthodox community has been complex; while she embraces many rituals, she also grapples with the patriarchal aspects of the tradition that feel constraining at times. Mendes articulates how the dynamics of being a woman within the Orthodox framework can be challenging, but she finds empowerment and strength within her experiences. The interview takes a thought-provoking turn when they discuss the concept of divinity and gender. Mendes introduces her idea that the traditional male depiction of God does not account for the feminine aspect of divinity. She references the cultural shift from ancient matriarchal societies to patriarchal religions, suggesting that women have long been marginalized in religious narratives. Mendes proposes that a more balanced understanding of spirituality should involve recognizing the feminine face of divinity alongside the male. As they explore the intersections of art, spirituality, and societal changes, Mendes shares her vision for a future defined by gender equality and compassion. She highlights influential figures like Golda Meir, the former Prime Minister of Israel, whom she views as a powerful representation of women in leadership. Mendes envisions an ideal where women's contributions are celebrated as essential to societal progress rather than secondary to male leadership. Mendes also brings forth the topic of angels as symbols of guidance and support, drawing parallels between her artistic imagination and the reality of human relationships. The conversation culminates in Mendes's belief that art is a tool for personal and societal transformation. She emphasizes that while her artistic inspirations are deeply personal, they reflect universal themes of hope, resilience, and the quest for understanding. The dialogue concludes on a celebratory note, with Mendes discussing her ongoing artistic endeavors, including her new paintings and her gallery in Los Angeles. She invites listeners to engage with her work, emphasizing her commitment to using art as a means of expressing her unique vision and fostering a deeper understanding of spirituality. Overall, the interview provides a rich tapestry of insights into Mendes's life, exploring her journey as an artist, her spiritual explorations, and her perspectives on gender dynamics in both the art world and religious traditions. Links & Resources: 🌈 Magick.Me - Online School for Magick, Meditation, and Mysticism: https://www.magick.me 🃏🔮✨ Introduction to Magick - The world's best course on pract...