Dr Angela Puca AP: Hello everyone, I’m Dr Angela Puca and welcome to my Symposium. As you know I’m a PhD and a religious studies scholar and this is your online resource for the academic study of Magick, Esotericism, Paganism, Shamanism and all things occult.
Today I have a very special guest here. Denis from Foolish Fish, from the YouTube channel Foolish Fish.
Denis Poisson DP: Hello, Angela what a pleasure it is to be here with you, thank you thank for having me.
AP: Yeah, thank you so much for accepting to be here on Angela’s Symposium. I’m really looking forward to our chat and Denis is the host of the Foolish Fish YouTube channel where he has gone from reviewing pretty editions of literary classics to focusing quite exclusively on esoteric publications over the past few years, bringing regular titbits of various esoteric traditions and the occasional deep dive to his viewers via his Esoteric Saturday’s videos. And keeping us up to date with what the occult publishing scene has to offer and what cool Magick-related paraphernalia to look out for on his Esoteric News videos every Friday. So if you’re interested in any of these, go over to the Foolish Fish YouTube channel and subscribe to his channel. But I am really excited to have you here Denis and I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.
DP: I’m excited to hear them.
AP: So the first one would be, could you please tell us, whatever you feel comfortable sharing, about your background in Esotericism since you have a YouTube channel focused on that?
DP: Sure, sure. Well, I studied hospitality management at university and that was incredibly boring. So instead of studying what I was supposed to be studying, I studied world religions instead. I was an atheist at the time and so I was really reading on world religions with an agenda. My intention was to disprove what I was reading but what I ended up realising was that there were some very interesting, empowering technologies in these texts that I ended up trying out for myself and turned out they worked and well I then spent, well the following 20 something years, I suppose. 25 years, I guess, trying to work out how it was possible for these texts to be so far removed from the institutions that claim to represent them in the world. And have claimed to represent them in the world, since forever, right? And little by little I started to discover the not-so-official forms of these religions and the inner workings of these religions. And maybe most importantly the aspects of these religions that happen within a person, rather than from the exterior point of view, right? And well I was very interested initially in the Christian esoteric traditions – Gnosticism in particular. And then I started thinking to myself, well if I got Christianity so badly wrong maybe I’ve got all the other religions badly wrong as well. And so that’s kind of how I started studying all the other world religions and eventually became a teacher of religious studies in a Catholic school where we had a very open-minded director of studies in our Religious Studies department. And he took very kindly, very, very as I say, open-mindedly took me on non-catholic religions of the world’s specialist. So that was very, very cool and then, of course, I started finding out a little bit more about the late 19th-century and early 20th-century occult movements. Because of course, if I’d been wrong about the religions that everyone knows or about maybe I’d also been wrong about the occult and sure enough, of course, I had been. And that became a point of fascination and of a very intense study for the next year and about 10 to 15 years, I guess that I’ve been into that. There we go. that’s how I got into it all.
AP: And what fascinates you about Esotericism? I’m curious now.
DP: Well what fascinates me is how badly misunderstood it is and I think, that that’s really been what has interested me in everything that I have ever studied is, I don’t know, I seem to get my kicks out of looking into something that I have a prejudice against and then discovering its true nature, right. And that certainly was the case for me 15 years ago when I approached certain occult ideas, started studying the works of Aleister Crowley, for example, and yes, I guess about 10 years ago I picked up my… 10 years ago… 2020, 2012. Yes, around 10 years ago, maybe nine years ago I picked up a book by the “Gallery of Magick” by Damon Brand, who’s an author that I regularly recommend through my channel as being very approachable and a great place to start.
And he’s got a few books out for beginner practitioners and I picked up a few. And one of them was “Wealth Magick,” I guess. And there were so many bits of information there that just didn’t have any explanation, didn’t have any background and so I had to do my own research, right? Where did these sigils initially come from? Where did these words initially come from Where did these techniques initially come from? Excuse me. And that’s the way I got to find out about grimoires and yeah, it all started coming together. And it was just very, very interesting for me to learn about this technology, which has very bad press and to actually experience it working for me, yeah, for myself. There we are.
AP: And if you’re comfortable sharing, how would you define yourself in terms of your practice?
DP: Oh yeah, good question. So I’ve fought against labels my entire life. I find them to be the source of so much strife and trouble and you know, I feel that the minute you define yourself as this rather than that, you then have to take on all of the traits, the characteristics that this label comes with and I really don’t like that. So yeah, I’ve never really defined myself as one or another thing. I’m a Foolish Fish.
AP: Where does the name come from by the way?
DP: Yeah, good question.
AP: I thought it was somewhat Christian. I always thought it was, had some kind of…
DP: There’s an aspect of that although I would say that it’s more gnostic than Christian. The gnostic ichthys fish, being a double helix, of course, and the double helix being a direct echo of the DNA double helix. I think it was, well I don’t think, it was Philip K Dick who believed that the early Christians were time travellers who had gone into the future and seen the double helix being represented. DNA, of course, is the most dense form of information that we know of, and there is nothing more dense in information that we know of in our environment. And so yeah, the fish is definitely related to that. It’s also related to the fact that my surname is Poisson. You know my father’s French, I spent most of my childhood in France until the age of 18 and my surname, Poisson actually is French for fish. So that kind of works together. Foolish, well the Fool is the first card, of course, of the Tarot Deck which encompasses all the rest of the Tarot Deck. Also if when you look at the Thoth Tarot Deck of Aleister Crowley, the Fool is this Dionysian figure with the horns of a bull and a tiger attached to his leg and these big round eyes. And well he is a Dionysian figure. And my first name is Denis and so Denis, which means adept of Dionysus, so that kind of comes into play as well. And of course, it’s a reminder just to not take myself too seriously because that’s something that we really need to remind ourselves of. I certainly do on a regular basis.
AP: That’s brilliant. Thank you for sharing that with us.
DP: You’re welcome. It’s a question that comes up quite a lot. I hope it helps.
AP: And how would you define Esotericism, Magick, the Occult and Witchcraft? So that we are clear, we have a clear understanding moving forward with the next questions. How do you understand?
DP: Great question and I think I would probably have different definitions for all of those words. Esotericism is a word that very regularly gets compounded with the word Occult and I think I might disagree with that. you know, I think that Esotericism… okay my definition of Esotericism is the inner work. It’s the inner experience that one has when taking part in whatever mystery, right, whatever practice, whatever mystery practice, whatever may be your cult practice. Many people think of Esotericism, as you know, the inner teachings, the teachings that are held by the select few, right? This small cabal, at the centre of a tradition or of a group and Esotericism is their knowledge. But I would say that that is Occultism, that is the hidden, right, occult being what is hidden and there’s certainly some overlap and I don’t have a problem with people using one word to mean the other and I do it regularly myself. But yes, I think those would be my definitions for those two words. And then Witchcraft is… wow, Witchcraft is an enormous topic to explore and to define. But let’s go for simplicity for simplicity’s sake. Let’s simply go with the traditional Western practice of… that’s completely false in so many ways but that would certainly be a gross simplification and, of course, Witchcraft in recent years has mainly been Wicca but there’s been this resurgence of traditional Witchcraft and people being interested in what the Witches of the Middle Ages were, maybe, into and well, because it was an oral tradition and they were heavily persecuted it’s quite difficult to get any accurate information. Wicca, of course, was well, and again another simplification of this is that it was really an attempt to de-Christianify the Golden Dawn and to make it a just more open, more religion-agnostic.
AP: And pre-Christian.
DP: Again?
AP: Pre-Christian.
DP: Absolutely to make it well, as pre-Christian as possible, but very much based on the Golden Dawn’s systems and techniques and teachings. So yes, so this traditional Witchcraft movement is really saying, okay maybe we don’t need the Golden Dawn at all. And maybe we can focus on nature and yeah, rediscover what pre-Golden Dawn witches used to do, right? Yeah and Magick altogether, Magick is a great word to explore, isn’t it? I’ve done a whole video on what is Magick.
AP: Yeah, I watched that video.
DP: Oh you did? I said…
AP: I wanted a synthesis of that video because you say many things.
DP: Oh yes, well many people have given some great definitions of what Magick is. For me, Magick is an exploration of the parts of human experience that don’t fit, well, sorry, that we don’t yet fully understand, aren’t necessarily measurable but nevertheless work.
AP: Sounds good.
DP: Go with that. Why not?
AP: Yeah, that’s an interesting definition. You know that I think that I have kind of a scholarly mindset when it comes to these things because one of the techniques that I use, one of the methodologies that I use in my research is discourse analysis, the Foucaultian in methodology. Well, it is based on Foucault, it’s basically trying to find patterns of meanings in the discourses that the community of practitioners creates around the specific term or a specific, you know, whatever you’re studying. So in this case, for instance, it would be like collecting several definitions by practitioners, contemporary practitioners, especially influential practitioners that have some kind of following, which kind of, which gives you a sense of their relevance in the community and how impactful they may be on the community. And you identify the patterns of meaning because every person would give, especially in these kinds of traditions, every person would give a very different definition. But then, when you put them together and identify the patterns of meaning, that becomes quite interesting because then you are able to identify what the contemporary community of practitioners see to be related to Magick and for instance, the things that you talked about, I think that they are representative of what contemporary practitioners would define as Magick.
AD: Great, I’m relieved.
AP: And I know that you’re a bibliophile so now we are going on to a question that I think you might really enjoy. So what do you think are the most influential books for contemporary practitioners of Esotericism and Magick?
DP: Well there are some very influential books which we can trace back most of modern practice to, I think. We won’t go too far back. I’m not talking about maybe, some people might say mythological books, mythical books, you know, books that you can find nowadays but that weren’t necessarily written when they claimed to have been written, right? Like that Sepher Razialis and so on but if we look at today’s practice, I think that most of it probably has its source in Agrippa’s three books of occult philosophy. I think that that book or that trilogy of books is probably the origin of most of what we have today. I think that if you go a little bit further down the line we get John Dee’s writings. Okay, John Dee’s writings were very influential on a lot of modern practice or a lot of practice that followed him. And then we get to the early… sorry late 19th and early 20th centuries and before that, we get to the grimoires, specifically the Bibliotheque Rouge Grimoires. I think that the earlier grimoires, the Solomonic grimoires are very influential on today’s practitioners. Excuse me, but the Bibliotheque Rouge Grimoires which were pedalled door-to-door in France, in the 18th century I guess, were incredibly influential because of how available they were, right? Black Letter Press have been re-releasing them over the past few years, maybe a couple of years. I think there’s yet another one on its way. The “Enchiridion of Pope Leon?” I think that one’s on its way but yeah “Le Petit Albert”, “The Black Pulitz” and the “Red Dragon.” Actually, if you’re in Italy, there’s actually a first edition of “The Black Dragon” on Black Letter Presses that’s still they’re still there and its lovely buckram material cover. This is the second edition unfortunately in the English version.
AP: And why do you think these are influential for contemporary practitioners?
DP: Well, I was telling you earlier on, how I was getting very interested in Damon Brand’s books, right? The Gallery of Magic’s books and interested in where those technologies had originated from. Well the majority in fact of the sigils and symbols that he uses, well they come from there. And yeah, I would say that Damon Brand is incredibly influential nowadays. It’s, I think it’s one of the, you know, starting points for many modern-day practitioners for sure. There were others, I mean, what is it? The Sixth and Seventh books of Moses and so on, right? I mean, that he gets his sigils from many different places. But it seems to be, for the most part, from the Bibliotheque Rouge grimoires, French grimoires. So then moving forward in time we get naturally the Golden Dawn, right? The Golden Dawn’s documents were published by Israel Regardie when the Golden Dawn disbanded. This has been an enormous influence, I mean yeah, you may have seen my LBRP videos. There’d be none of that without the Golden Dawn. I know some people suggest that maybe Éliphas Levi’s version might be a precursor but certainly, the Golden Dawn’s LBRP is what made the LBRP so essential, right?
AP: We are we’re talking about the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram for those who are unfamiliar with the…
DP: Thank you so much. Very good point. Yes, yes, I’m sorry, yeah I might absolutely…
AP: I know, I understand I did the same thing. For clarity, I just wanted to clarify that. So when you talk about the influence, so you think about mostly the influence in terms of practices. So the practices that have been borrowed, ok?
DP: Yes.
AP: Because also have been you know the influence in terms of the conceptualisation of Magick or other aspects?
DP: So well, yes I suppose I am talking specifically about the practice. In terms of conceptualisation, maybe we can talk about that a little later. Certainly, the books that influenced me were conceptual books, right? There were books that were more to do with the philosophy but yes we can get to that. The next book that I wanted to point out is actually one that you mentioned in the interview that we just did together, which is featured on my channel right now. Go and check it out.
AP: Yes, I will link it here.
DP: Yeah and it’s Magick, of course, Magick by Aleister Crowley Book IV, parts one to four Liber ABA, of course. That’s because Aleister Crowley, as you were absolutely accurately mentioning, has been such a… you were saying that he was a democratiser of Magick and well contrary to what many people might believe, considering how conceited he was and how obscure he seemed to make so much of his work, you’re absolutely right, he was a democratiser of Magick. His ultimate goal was to make Magick available or you know, it was what he wanted.
AP: Magick is for all, as he said.
DP: Indeed, indeed and I’m very grateful to Lon Milo DuQuette for making sure that Aleister Crowley’s dream is realized.
AP: Yeah, yeah, he’s a great author – Lon Milo DuQuette.
DP: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
AP: I also enjoy his writing.
DP: That’s right, in taking these very lofty concepts of Aleister Crowley’s who had already, you know, done his best to make them understandable to the general public and well, let’s say, hadn’t quite managed.
AP: Or managed to a certain point.
DP: That’s right. Let’s go, yeah absolutely. Well, Lon Milo DuQuette takes Aleister Crowley’s work and democratises that, let’s say.
AP: Yeah, although I would argue that Lon Milo DuQuette tends also to give his own spin to Crowley’s work.
DP: Certainly, certainly, yes, absolutely.
AP: It’s not just an explanation, it’s also an interpretation in a way.
DP: You’re quite right. And you’re absolutely right to point it out because yeah, naturally, absolutely.
AP: But I do like his work, very interesting.
DP: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So then, moving along a few decades we get Peter J Carroll with “Liber Null & Psychonaut” spearheading the Chaos Magick movement, of course, which was hugely influential for, well, until today. People are starting to get back to a sense of okay, maybe the traditional ways of doing things, maybe there’s something to it, you know, maybe there is actually some value in the particular recipes for bringing into visible presence this, that, or the other entity, right. Maybe we can pay attention to those traditional sources but what was revolutionary about the Chaos Magick movement was that it was all about what works and it was all about leaving tradition behind even, to an extent, well certainly to the extent that whenever tradition wasn’t useful, right? When it wasn’t bringing results. And so it’s a philosophy of focusing on the results and yeah, if it works then it’s good, right?
AP: Yeah, I think one of my most popular videos is the one on Chaos Magick, on my YouTube channel. And yeah, I agree with you that Chaos Magick has been influential and even, you know, even for those who are not all in with the concept of Chaos Magick, I think that it still worked in the community to sort of challenge the authority of certain traditional ways and so, in a way, it was a harbinger for a different way or even just challenging, you know, certain traditional ways of going about doing Magick but then, of course, there are people that value that way and that is fine and people that are full-on Chaos magicians and that is also fine.
DP: You’re completely right I believe, I strongly believe that you know, we should have our own path. I think that the Chaos Magick movement was necessary in its time to, yeah, I mean it’s important to differentiate tradition from effectiveness. It’s also actually important to realize that some traditions can be effective, right? So but yes, I think that it was a helpful way of thinking, a helpful, yeah, a way of disrupting the establishment, let’s say.
AP: Yeah, sometimes some disruptions can be beneficial even when you…
DP: Indeed.
AP: When you find a new way of constructing things, you know…
DP: That’s right, that’s right. Chaos is a ladder.
AP: Yes.
DP: Yes, a way of moving forward, yeah. You’ve got to move things and move things, churn things up a little bit. Two more and then I promise I’m finished. And the first would be – I’m doing this in the wrong order but it doesn’t matter. “Psychic Witch”, which is a book that came out. And the first would be 2000 I think it was 2021, it might be 2020. But Matt Irwin has been probably one of the most popular writers, if not the most popular writer on Esotericism of the past couple of years. Hugely influential, so many young practitioners are starting with “Psychic Witch” as their point of reference.
AP: And why do you think that is?
DP: And why is because of how approachable the work is. But it’s not only approachable, it’s based on tradition as well. So Matt has completely understood how to take what is valuable from tradition and I guess this is where I’m going, where I was going with my conversation on “Liber Null & Psychonaut.” The modern approach seems to be more and more, take what was useful from tradition, don’t just leave tradition, tradition was working just fine, it’s just that it was sometimes more complex and complicated than it needed to be. And Matt recognises that It’s not always possible to find a lion-skin belt to perform your Solomonic ritual and so his approach is one that is, as I say, steeped in tradition but nevertheless approachable for the average human living in 2022. And it’s wide-ranging, it doesn’t only focus on practice, it also focuses on philosophy which people want, you know, but it does so in a way that is…
AP: Accessible.
DP: Accessible, yes and not obsessed with showing the world how clever he is although in the process, of course, he does. Yeah, so that is really, really nice. And my last one, my last one is Josephine McCarthy’s corpus of work “Quareia” although all of her books are extraordinary. I’ve reviewed many of her books on my channel. Josephine McCarthy has created an entire corpus. This is just book one of three and they are free and the books aren’t free, but the contents are free on quareia.com and I think this is mind-blowing. Josephine McCarthy is, yeah, one of the great, say the greatest democratiser of Magick to date. Her methods are quite exacting. She’s got a background in classical ballet, she was a teacher of classical ballet for a very long time and so her approach is that she expects people to work but nevertheless, the outcome is nothing short of perfection. And so, yeah, for people who don’t think that they want to put in more than a couple of minutes into their practice per week, Quareia is not for them. But for people who want to become accomplished magicians, there’s nothing like it on the market at the moment. It’s yeah, her work is yeah, incredible, incredible and so safe and selfless. It’s great yeah, if you can pick up the hardcovers that’s quite nice. They’ve got some nice new covers and by the way, she’s recently published them with some very, very cool new designs on the covers, on the latest editions. There we go yeah, that’s my overview of what’s been influential to the modern-day practitioner, I think.
AP: And what have been the most influential books for your practice and why?
DP: Well, as I was saying earlier on they’ve mostly been books that have made me think about how things work, right? So more philosophical books rather than grimoires or books on praxis or anything like that. So I guess probably, to start off with, would be the Nag Hammadi Library. These are the texts that were found in Nag Hammadi in 1940?…
AP: 1945, yeah.
DP: And that gives a very different view of what some forms of, let’s say, the Jesus Cult looked like back in the first century, first or second century AD. This very different view has led me to believe – maybe not believe, to speculate that Christianity in its original forms may have had more to do with the Greek mystery cults which had been adopted by the Romans. So yeah, the early Jesus cults may have had more to do with the Roman, the Greco-Roman mystery cults who had then mixed with the Hebrew people, right? They had just taken over Judea and they had probably learned about their beliefs and so on, and so forth. So yeah, that’s kind of my hunch. It feels like the Jesus cults may have had more to do with the Romans than with Judaism altogether. Which would possibly make sense when we look at the teachings, specifically, of Jesus. I’m not talking about Paul or, you know, or any other church figure but specifically, the teachers attributed to Jesus, in the Bible and in the non-canonical Gospels where he’s talking about a point of origin, a perfect point of origin, rather than the kind of God that we can read about in the Old Testament, right, or in the Torah. And so that really kind of made me reframe Christianity in a very different way. But not just Christianity but my own attitude to the divine at all, right?
So this figure, excuse me, this figure of Sophia descending from this perfect realm down into our realm to liberate us, to give us a spark of that original divinity. Yeah, a very, very different take from the traditional take, of course, right? And then it’s a little bit later reading “Auroræ,” this is the paperback edition that I was very kindly asked to write the introduction for, where I talk a little bit about my experience of being introduced to this book where yeah, I start to understand the links between this and a Luciferian narrative, right. So some very interesting correspondences and so yeah, that’s a whole area to explore.
AP: Is that what the book is about?
DP: Yeah, yeah…
AP: So it’s about Luciferian…
DP: Gnosticism, Luciferian Gnosticism.
AP: Oh, that’s really interesting.
DP: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it’s very, very cool, very, very cool, very interesting. There’s a fascinating preface by Shani Oates which is now at the back of the book because it’s so dense. People were opening this and reading Shani Oates, it’s a really fantastic preface and just being scared off, right? But every single sentence is just, yeah, worthy of many weeks of study. But in itself, it’s quite a lot of things, this Auroræ book. It’s first of all a book of Luciferian gnostic poetry, right, directly by Gabriel McCaughry. It’s also accompanying very striking iconography by José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal, he is probably one of this age’s greatest esoteric artists and then it’s a treatise on what this is all about. Very cool but yeah, the first time I saw it, it’s a shock, it’s a huge shock. So the process of coming to terms with this shock, and to understand it and to integrate it into my own worldview and all of that. Yeah, hugely, hugely influential book for me, right? There we go. I’ve got a couple more here that I’ll go through very quickly.
AP: Yes.
DP: The first is “Quantum Psychology” by Robert Anton Wilson. A great precursor to Chaos Magick of course radically changed the way I thought about reality. Lon Milo DuQuette’s “Understanding of Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot,” which was really my introduction to post-19th century Occultism, excuse me. Extraordinary, it presents itself as an introduction to that Tarot but it’s actually an introduction to the Occult, yeah, it’s the book that I recommend the most often. And then, finally, “The Orphic Hymns.” This is Patrick Dunn’s translation. A new translation for the occult practitioner. It’s absolutely wonderful. It’s got the Greek, on the left-hand page and then the English on the right-hand page. We can’t see anything because of the lighting, I’m sorry about that.
AP: Those are the best kind of versions with the original text.
DP: Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely wonderful. I use this on a daily basis in my own practice because of course I have integrated the Greek deities into my own practice which, yeah… that sometimes surprises people that I might call myself a Christian and yet, you know, and yet integrate all of these things. But I don’t see these things as anathema to Christianity, I see them as anathema to church rules but not necessarily to the teachings attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. So there we are, that’s my very controversial heretic take.
AP: And what do you think are the concepts or philosophical underpinnings that have been more influential for contemporary esoteric practitioners?
DP: Well that’s another huge question but I think my answer is probably threefold. Theurgy, Thaumaturgy and Tantra and I know Tantra seems like it might not be related to the other two but I think that it brings the other two together. Theurgy is the practice of becoming one with divinity, it’s the practice of approaching the transcendental forms of divinity, right? So it’s the practice of changing yourself in fact. Excuse me. Thaumaturgy is the practice of creating miracles, okay, so making things happen in the real world. So some people might call it sorcery simply, right? But then Tantra is the, originally, Indian practice but it has mostly been available to the West through Vajrayana Buddhism recently. Just because it’s Vajrayana Buddhism or Tibetan Buddhism is well, it comes, some people may argue otherwise, but certainly, I forget the name of the author, it doesn’t matter and the idea is that Tantra is focused on finding the sacred in Saṃsāra. So finding what is sacred in what is generally considered to be not sacred. And I think that this is a philosophy that underpins so many occult philosophies. There’s a very strong current of the so-called Left-Hand Path which I believe is very often misrepresented and misunderstood. The Left-Hand Path is originally a tantric concept which has been applied in the West via, well I think that Anton LaVey actually did a huge disservice to the occult community. I know that he’s very, very loved by many people but he was an Atheist and his approach to Satanism was more of a stance to support Atheism rather than to support, in fact, Satanism. I feel like that then generated a lot of misunderstandings as to what the Left-Hand Path is essentially about. Anyway, these are my own opinions and I go quite, quite deep into it in a video on my own channel, on the Left-Hand Path that some people may have spotted, may have seen. But yes, think that for people who are interested in the Left-Hand Path, finding out a little bit more about Tantra could really be an illuminating experience, a really interesting experience for them, yeah.
AP: Yeah, I see why you included Tantra now.
DP: Right
AP: Yeah it makes sense in terms of, you know, when you sort of extrapolate one of the foundational philosophical elements in Tantra there’s also the rebellion against the norms and the civil rules of the society and utilizing them as a means, the words…
DP: Transgression, right, yeah.
AP: But you know it’s not just transgression for the sake of it. This is one of the things…
DP: That’s right.
AP: That I can explain because people, you know, when you say transgression and people will just say, okay that means that I do whatever I want, whereas it is a very targeted transgression. It is going against something that you despise so that you go beyond the sense of self and the narrative around your identity that you have created.
DP: That’s absolutely right. It’s going against something that you despise. It’s not necessarily something against…
AP: and the society…
DP: or what society despises…
AP: also the society but also the self…
DP: it can be.
AP: It’s not like, oh society is against this thing that I fancy and so I will do it and that’s a tantric practice. It’s both entertaining something that goes against society, so that you break the limitation that society gives you, and also something that goes against what you want. So that you break the limitations that your self-image and self-identity give you.
DP: Absolutely.
AP: If you see the tantric practices, some of them are disgusting.
DP: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right, that’s right, but you know for example there is the practice of eating raw meat or even eating meat, that is only transgressive if you are vegetarian, right? It’s not I love eating meat and yeah, society is turning vegetarian I’m doing what society doesn’t want me to do. No, no, that’s not what it’s about at all.
AP: Exactly.
DP: In the same way Tantra is very often, in the West, associated with sexual practices and that’s because there is a tiny aspect of Tantra where, well, some people, some specific people in some specific cases are expected to have an extramarital relation, right. A sexual relationship and you don’t do that if that’s something that you want to do. The reason that was a thing was that extramarital sexual relations were absolutely taboo, right? In that tradition and so if it’s not a taboo for you then that’s not the point of Tantra. That’s not the point of that, that’s not the kind of transgression that Tantra is pointing towards. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So but what’s great about Tantra is this way of saying that, no divinity isn’t only transcendental somewhere else there is divinity everywhere even in the most transgressive situations, in the darkest situations in the darkest aspects of creation there is divinity and its about finding that divinity and of course yeah, it’s a very difficult path.
AP: I love that about Tantra and there’s also present in Paganism and contemporary Paganism.
Absolutely and I think that it’s one of the main underpinnings of 19th-century practices and philosophies, you know, occult philosophies and yeah, yeah, there we are, there we go, that’s my answer.
AP: Yes and thank you for that. So yeah, I guess that we can wrap up our conversation here.
DP: Thank you so, so much. It’s been a really, really great pleasure chatting with you Angela.
AP: Likewise, I enjoyed this conversation and one on your channel so for you guys also check out the interview that I did for the Foolish Fish YouTube channel. So I will leave a link, of course, here and in the cards. So thank you again Denis for being here on Angela’s Symposium. And as for you my kind viewer if you like my work and want to keep the Academic Fun going I would really appreciate it if you consider supporting my work with a one-off PayPal donation, by joining Memberships or my Inner Symposium on Patreon. And if you did like this video please don’t forget to SMASH the like button, subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell so that you will never miss a new upload from me and, as always, stay tuned for all the academic fun.
Bye for now.
DP: Bye-bye everyone thank you.
WATCH MY INTERVIEW ON FOOLISH FISH: https://youtu.be/bU2EOl4BkJw
SUBSCRIBE TO FOOLISH FISH: https://www.youtube.com/c/FoolishFish…
BOOKS MENTIONED
‘Magick’ by Crowley https://amzn.to/3pNrJpV
‘Occult Philosophy’ by Agrippa https://amzn.to/3CGDtCx https://amzn.to/3e4pls8
‘Psychic Witch’ by Auryn https://amzn.to/3QTFcIU
Bibliothèque Rouge Grimoire
‘Le Petit Albert’ https://amzn.to/3Reba25
‘The Red Dragon’ https://amzn.to/3dPaXE7
‘The Golden Dawn’ by Israel Regardie https://amzn.to/3Krwgbd
‘Liber Null & Psychonaut’ by Peter J. Carroll https://amzn.to/3APmUms
‘Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot’ by Lon Milo DuQuette https://amzn.to/3PWzQLz
‘The Nag Hammadi Library’ https://amzn.to/3cqzTBu
‘Quareia’ by Josephine McCarthy
1- Apprentice https://amzn.to/3Cw5exs
2 – Initiate https://amzn.to/3AQU6tG
3 – Adept https://amzn.to/3PZDYu5
‘Aurorae’ by Gabriel McCaughry https://www.anathemapublishing.com/ha…
‘Quantum Psychology’ by Robert Anton Wilson https://amzn.to/3QXggjz
‘The Orphic Hymns’ trans by Patrick Dunn https://amzn.to/3pQvA5A