Occult Confessions

Latest Episodes:

20.12: Leaving a Gnostic Cult (Interview Special) Jul 28, 2023

Show notes

Lynn Short was a member of a gnostic group she now describes as a cult. In our interview, Short tells us about how she developed internal sexual and psychological controls that became damaging to live with and how scandals within the organization led her to become an apostate. What are the limits of religious anti-materialism and how does a narrow conception of religion lead to deep spiritual dissatisfaction?

20.11: The Philosophy of the Left Hand Path (Interview Special) Jul 14, 2023

Show notes

Shea Bile talks about his experience creating occult groups in San Francisco and Belgium and discusses his new book about the intersection between Neitzsche and occultism. How has the German existentialist been misunderstood and how does he illuminate a path for left hand and satanist occultism?

20.10: Take a Strange Ride Jun 30, 2023

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Please allow us to introduce to you the newest podcast from the Alchemical Actors. This is our first full episode and one of two parts about Walt Disney's vision for a city of the future. For more deep dives into the weirder side of popular culture, follow us wherever you're listening to Occult Confessions. Don't see Strange Ride? Let us know.

20.9: The Poughkeepsie Seer Jun 30, 2023

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A few years before the middle of the nineteenth century in Poughkeepsie, New York, a seventeen-year-old boy sat down, closed his eyes, and dictated a book that detailed the formation of the cosmos more than a century before NASA would send out its rovers, laid out a theory of the transmutation of species several years before Darwin would publish his theory of evolution, and advanced a strong and sometimes dismissive criticism of Christianity at a time when Protestantism was a dominant cultural force in America. The book was The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a Voice for Mankind and the young man was Andrew Jackson Davis. Today on Occult Confessions, the mesmeric subject who inspired Edgar Allan Poe and predicted the advent of modern spirit communication, the Poughkeepsie Seer Andrew Jackson Davis.

20.8: Eliphas Levi Jun 16, 2023

Show notes

Eliphas Levi, who left the priesthood to pursue a life in magic, is a seminal figure in the development of nineteenth-century occultism. He carried forward largely forgotten ideas from the Renaissance and brought together the worlds of Kabbalah and Tarot. Many students sought him out and contemporary occultism would not have been the same without his influence.

20.7: Sex, Marriage, and Ida Craddock Jun 02, 2023

Show notes

Ida Craddock was an occult sex reformer who wrote about how married couples could spiritualize their unions, giving them control over pregnancy and the right to choose when they had their children. She claimed that she herself had married a spirit or angel from the non-physical realm and that such unions were common in the history of mysticism and religion. Craddock would be persecuted by notorious moralizer, Anthony Comstock, who would try and fail to purge Craddock’s work from the occult record.

20.6: Grigori Rasputin (Part Two) May 19, 2023

Show notes

In the second half of our conversation about Rasputin, the infamous magician meets his end. How did Rasputin become such a controversial figure in Russian politics. And how many tries did it take to bring down the notorious starets?

20.5: Grigori Rasputin (Part One) May 05, 2023

Show notes

The biography of Grigori Rasputin is hotly contested and frequently disputed. Did he perform supernatural feats? How much influence did he have over the tsar? Was he responsible for the downfall of the Russian monarchy? Drawing on scholars and first hand witnesses to Rasputin’s life, we attempt to cobble together a picture that is as true to the man as possible.

20.4: The Brotherhood of Saturn Apr 21, 2023

Show notes

In the first half of the twentieth century, a Luciferian order of German occultists formed to cross the threshold, practice sex magic, and achieve a form of self-deification. Like many occult groups of the same time period, they claimed to have an ancient origin stretching back to ancient Rome by way of a secret quasi-Rosicrucian group who worshiped Wotan during the period of the Renaissance. This was the Brotherhood of Saturn, created by the occult bookshop owner and writer Gregor Gregorius.

20.3: Jack Parsons (Part Two) Apr 07, 2023

Show notes

Parsons’ occult experimentation became an enormous financial and emotional liability when L. Ron Hubbard ran off with Parsons’ paramour, Betty, and all of Parsons’ savings. In this episode, Parsons attempts to recover his losses, writes a series of sometimes good and sometimes bad magical treatises, and meets his untimely end while mixing chemicals for a Hollywood movie.

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