E203 - Dr. Justin Sledge: The Occult, Witch Trials & the Forbidden Teachings of Gnosticism

E203 - Dr. Justin Sledge: The Occult, Witch Trials & the Forbidden Teachings of Gnosticism

Dr. Justin Sledge is a scholar of philosophy and Western esotericism, and the voice behind the YouTube channel Esoterica, which has grown to over a million subscribers. He has spent his career studying the traditions that history tried to erase: Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, witchcraft, and alchemy. What We Dive Into: 1. Classical skepticism is not about debunking or disbelief. It is about bracketing your personal investment long enough to let the material speak for itself. 2. Newton wrote more on alchemy and the occult than on calculus. Descartes arrived at his famous method through a mystical dream. Stripping these facts from the story of modernity has cost us access to some of the most important spiritual technologies ever developed. 3. Every other starting point, certainty, comfort, doctrine, conclusions, has a gutter waiting at the end of it. Awe keeps the garden of curiosity alive. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.im8health.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offer https://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyself code KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:57 What Skepticism Actually Means 06:21 How to Enter Mystical Inquiry Without Collapsing Into Belief 08:03 Religion, Mysticism, and the Margins 11:24 Gnosticism: The World as Prison, Christ as Liberator 14:21 The Nag Hammadi Discovery and the Many Christianities 17:00 William James and the Four Qualities of Mystical Experience 21:50 Perennial Wisdom vs. High-Resolution Differences 26:44 The Limits of Propositional Truth 31:32 Irrational vs. Non-Rational: Why the Distinction Matters 37:10 The Danger of Universalizing Mystical Experience 44:34 The World Is Stranger Than We Assume 51:01 How the Myth of Rational Modernity Was Curated 59:35 Recovering the Suppressed Voices of Western History 1:00:45 Mary Magdalene: Not a Prostitute 1:14:22 The Suppression of the Feminine and the Road to the Witch Trials 1:18:55 The Malleus Maleficarum and the Anatomy of a Moral Panic 1:24:01 Poverty, Not Practice: Who Was Actually Accused 1:26:27 The Books Justin Brought: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy 1:32:08 Agrippa and the Possibility of Induced Illumination 1:41:32 The Kabbalah and the Sefer Yetzirah 1:46:04 The Hermetic Tradition and Hermes Trismegistus 1:54:22 What Studying These Texts Has Done to Justin 1:59:51 Agrippa's Trilemma and the Limits of Reason 2:04:22 Hermeticism vs. Gnosticism: The World as Divine, Not Prison 2:13:11 Making the Best Case for the Transcendent Realm 2:19:54 Whatever Matter Is, It's Indistinguishable from Spirit 2:26:34 Justin's Personal Satanic Panic: The School Shooting 2:38:03 Generational Trauma and the Suppression of the Feminine 2:44:57 Truth as a Verb: Dialogue Across Difference 2:47:14 Are We on the Threshold of a New Renaissance? 2:58:39 Community Questions: The Most Meaningful Experience of Magic 2:59:15 When Justin Realized the Books Were Real 3:03:51 Finding the Clerical Necromantic Underground 3:04:26 Recreating Alchemy in the Modern Lab 3:07:11 Why We Want Magic: The Very Human Desire for Hidden Power 3:13:00 Modern Mythology and the Meaning Famine 3:20:10 Closing Message: Flourishing Begins in Awe ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. JUSTIN SLEDGE ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/esotericachannel ↳Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/esotericachannel ↳https://www.justinsledge.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E202 - Donald Robertson: 2,400-Year-Old Stoic Wisdom To Conquer Your Ego & Live a Virtuous Life

Donald Robertson is a cognitive behavioral psychotherapist, author of over nine books, and one of the founding voices in the modern Stoicism movement. He has spent over 30 years studying how ancient Greek and Roman philosophy intersects with contemporary psychology, and in this conversation we start where it all begins: the maxim carved into the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Know thyself. We explore what it actually meant, who said it, and why it still matters more than most self-help advice written in the last century. What We Dive Into: 1. The Stoics drew a sharp line between what actually happens and the value judgments we add on top of it. To say something "is awful" treats our emotional reaction as a fact about the world. 2. Of all the emotions that derail a life, anger gets the least attention in therapy, self-help, and honest self-reflection. 3. In the ancient world, wisdom was not something you consumed or memorized. It was something you practiced daily. Collecting insights without changing your behavior is closer to what the Sophists sold than to what Socrates taught. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.timeline.com/KNOWTHYSELF Save 20% off your Mitopure® Gummies ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:53 Know Thyself: The Three Sayings at Delphi 07:44 What Philosophy Actually Means 11:17 Socrates vs. the Sophists: Wisdom vs. Appearance 18:05 The Stoic U-Turn: Reorienting What We Value 23:59 Self-Knowledge as a Mirror for the Soul 26:59 Values Clarification and the Eulogy Exercise 35:02 Ad: LMNT 36:03 Eudaimonia: Flourishing, Not Just Happiness 39:40 Hardship as Opportunity for Character 45:31 A Brief History of Stoicism 53:22 Ad: Timeline Mitopure 54:33 The Stoics Were Way Ahead of Their Time 59:30 Stoicism, India, and Alexander the Great 1:06:31 Early Christianity and Greek Philosophy 1:14:03 Marcus Aurelius: The Man Behind the Meditations 1:19:17 Philosophy Born from Injury: Marcus and Donald 1:32:52 Uppercase vs. Lowercase Stoicism 1:38:28 The Two Phases of Emotion 1:45:47 Prosoché: The Practice of Paying Attention 1:50:40 Appearance vs. Reality: The Stoic Core 1:56:34 Turning the Chinese Proverb into a Practice 2:02:44 The View from Above and the Acropolis 2:11:28 Premeditatio Malorum: Rehearsing Adversity 2:17:27 Anger as Temporary Madness 2:23:26 De-Romanticizing Desire 2:36:58 Sophists, Rhetoric, and Modern Influencers 2:44:47 Why Self-Help Isn't More Helpful 2:56:17 The Socratic Method as Cure for Conceit 3:13:19 The King Who Rules Himself 3:17:50 The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates' Mission 3:33:44 Injustice Harms the Perpetrator More 3:36:51 Donald's Own Life: Philosophy as a Path 3:38:46 The Eleusinian Mysteries and Marcus's Initiation 3:48:21 Learning to Die as Liberation 3:55:29 Marcus's Naked Soul: Transparency as Practice 3:58:07 What the Stoics Taught About Love 4:02:05 Rapid Fire: The Great Philosophers 4:16:00 Closing Message: You Underestimate Your Resilience ___________ ✨MORE FROM DONALD ROBERTSON↳Substack: https://donaldrobertson.substack.com/↳Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1732050.Donald_J_Robertson ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donaldjrobertson/↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DonaldJRobertsonAuthor/featured↳https://donaldrobertson.name 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E201 - Dandapani: A Monk's Warning "Distraction Is Costing You Your Life"

Dandapani is a Hindu priest who spent over ten years as a celibate monk before devoting his life to teaching the world how to master focus. His central claim is simple but unsettling: most of us are not distracted by accident, we have spent years actively practicing distraction, often more hours a day than most people practice anything else they care about. In this conversation, we unpack what it actually costs to live a physically present, mentally absent life, and why that cost compounds with every passing year. What We Dive Into: 1. Whatever you do for hours a day, every day, you get good at. Most people have unintentionally practiced distraction more than they have practiced anything else, which is why concentration feels so foreign and difficult by comparison. 2. You cannot practice being present directly. Presence is simply the outcome of keeping your awareness fixed on one thing without it wandering. Trying to "be present" without training focus is chasing an effect while ignoring its cause. 3. When your attention bounces between unfinished tasks, each unresolved jump adds a small charge of anxiety that accumulates over the day. Learning to hold awareness in one place, even briefly, interrupts that buildup before it becomes stress. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://oneskin.co/KNOWTHYSELF Code KNOWTHYSELF for 15% off ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:29 What Distraction Costs Us 07:29 The Law of Practice 13:19 Life Is Finite, Not Short 24:08 Money, Purpose, and the Path of the Householder 28:08 Tasting the Super Conscious 32:21 Awareness, Anxiety, and the Roots of Stress 39:42 How to Train Focus: The Ball of Light 50:11 Eliminating Fear by Controlling Awareness 55:43 The Greatest Gift: Undivided Attention 1:01:36 Becoming a Monk: The Search for a Real Teacher 1:11:20 Choosing a Philosophy Before the Practice 1:23:26 Signs of a Maturing Soul 1:30:21 A Day in the Monastery: Practicing All Day Long 1:36:38 Intuition, Psychic Sensitivity, and Its Dangers 1:43:28 Going Narrow and Deep on One Path 1:50:14 Filtering the Mind Like a Kitchen Strainer 1:58:44 Building Willpower: Finish What You Begin 2:03:04 Reincarnation, Compassion, and Unresolved Baggage 2:13:29 How to Spot a Fake Guru 2:17:42 Ambition, Peace, and the Final Message ___________ ✨MORE FROM DANDAPANI ↳https://dandapani.org/know-thyself-podcast ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dandapanillc ↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dandapanillc 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list

E200 - Ido Portal: The Body Knows What the Mind Can't

Ido Portal is one of the most original movement thinkers alive. He has spent decades studying the body across martial arts, acrobatics, yoga, dance, and ancient movement traditions, not to master any one of them, but to ask a deeper question: what does it actually mean to move well, and what does the body reveal when you finally start listening to it? In this conversation, we go long, covering ground that most movement conversations never reach. What We Dive Into: 1.Most of us treat the body like a car to maintain, something we service occasionally for performance or appearance. Ido's entire framework starts from the opposite premise: the body is not a tool you use, it is what you are. That shift alone changes what practice means. 2.What we attend to grows. What we neglect crumbles. Ido applies this principle everywhere, from babies in hospitals to athletes on the field. Bringing undivided attention to even one part of your body for one minute, with no music, no phone, no audience, begins a transformation most people have never experienced. 3.The most important moment in Ido's own journey was admitting he didn't have what he was looking for. Not as defeat, but as a beginning. The person who thinks they already have a connection to their body is the one most closed off to finding it. Not knowing, and staying there, is the actual practice. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://drinkLMNT.com/KnowThyself Try LMNT & get a free sample pack https://www.functionhealth.com/KNOWTHYSELF Code KNOWTHYSELF25 for $25 off membership ___________ 00:00 Intro 01:44 How Most People Relate to Their Body 09:22 Movement vs. Practice vs. Exercise 10:27 Life Is for Practicing, Not Just Living 20:13 Attention as the Primary Tool 23:49 Stop Practicing for Exposure 28:12 How to Begin: Removing Leakage 35:22 Diagnostic Play and the Art of Seeing 37:30 The Ancient Schools of Practice 43:33 Tensegrity and the Body's Inner Models 49:28 Proprioception, Sensing, and the Pain of Feeling 1:02:05 Tension, Connection, and What the Body Actually Needs 1:08:00 Ido's Journey: Searching for a Real Teacher 1:13:15 Why Real Teachers Refuse to Give Clean Answers 1:23:49 What Am I Before Who Am I 1:29:23 The Chariot Analogy: Body, Emotion, and Intellect 1:36:42 Feeding the Emotional Body 1:40:14 The Weber-Fechner Law and Reducing Inner Noise 1:52:29 How the Body Reveals What We Hide 2:02:15 Pursuing Weakness Over Strength 2:05:46 Discipline, Motivation, and Real Will 2:16:02 The Practice of Sitting and Choiceless Awareness 2:37:22 What Inner Work Without the Body Misses 2:41:31 The Heart as the Missing Path 2:45:55 Community Questions: Practical Tools for the Body 2:57:18 On Animals, Archetypes, and the Spirit of Movement 3:03:02 Closing Message: Become a Practice ___________ ✨MORE FROM IDO ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/portal.ido/↳https://www.idoportal.com 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list/book-list

E199 - Dr. Caroline Leaf: How to Stop Your Brain From Holding You Back

Dr. Caroline Leaf is a cognitive neuroscientist and bestselling author who has spent over 40 years studying the relationship between the mind and the brain. At a time when neuroplasticity was still emerging as a field, she was already building clinical tools to help patients recover from brain injuries, trauma, and conditions that conventional medicine had written off as permanent. In this conversation, we go deep into a distinction that changes everything: the mind is not the brain, and once you understand that, you stop being a victim of your own biology. What We Dive Into: 1. The brain does not generate thoughts. It responds to the mind. Everything you think, feel, and choose originates in the mind and then gets coded into the brain and body. 2. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health labels are not diseases you have. They are signals pointing to an underlying thought that needs to be found and restructured. 3. You cannot change what happened, but you can change the impact it has on your present and future. Through a process of deconstructing and reconstructing toxic thought networks, the grip of the past loosens. Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself. https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com ✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: https://www.bioptimizers.com/knowthyself Use code KNOWTHYSELF to save 15% at checkout ___________ 00:00 Intro 03:11 The Difference Between Mind and Brain 07:17 Why the Brain-Is-Boss Model Gets It Wrong 12:25 Consciousness Beyond the Physical Body 14:25 Quantum Physics, Microtubules, and the Mind 21:24 Science and Spirituality Converging 23:41 Early Research: Neuroplasticity and Traumatic Brain Injury 28:50 Mind-Driven Change: Telomeres and Cellular Health 31:56 Working in South Africa: Healing Through Mental Frameworks 34:31 The Origin of the Neurocycle 40:13 The Non-Conscious, Subconscious, and Conscious Mind 49:35 How Thoughts and Memories Build Into the Brain and Body 51:59 The Five Steps of the Neurocycle 57:01 Step One: Gather Awareness 01:00:24 Step Two: Reflect 01:02:10 Steps Three to Five: Mindstorm, Recheck, Active Reach 01:09:28 Community Questions: Fear of Losing Your Identity 01:14:32 Working Through Shame, Grief, and Emotional Signals 01:15:46 Retroactive Causation: Changing the Past Through the Present 01:19:28 Intelligent Design, Choice, and the Source Behind Life 01:22:45 Mindsets, Patterns, and Teaching Children 01:25:58 Stress as Intelligence: The New Book ___________ ✨MORE FROM DR. LEAF ↳Website (for books, courses, 1:1 coaching): https://drleaf.com/ [https://drleaf.com/] ↳Neurocycle app: https://drleaf.com/neurocycle-app [https://drleaf.com/neurocycle-app] ↳Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-leaf-show/id1334767397 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dr-leaf-show/id1334767397] ↳Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DrCarolineLeaf [https://www.youtube.com/@DrCarolineLeaf] ↳Neurocycle Certification: https://drleaf.com/certified-strategist [https://drleaf.com/certified-strategist] 📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF ↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l ↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ ↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum ↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/ ↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/ 👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum ↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast ↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list