Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 455: Gabriela Herstik

Episode Date: August 7, 2021

Gabriela Herstik, profoundly enchanting and supremely cool, powerful witch, joins the DTFH! You can learn more about Gabriela on her website, GabrielaHerstik.com. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Athletic Greens - Visit AthleticGreens.com/Duncan for a FREE 1 year supply of vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase! Upstart - Visit upstart.com/duncan and see how Upstart can help you with your debt. Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site.

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This is Audible. Journey Town Classics and the Gimlet Boys present Lies of the Moon Butler by Denon Sinch Read by Gail Bench Chapter 2 Dark Side of the Moon Butler Hunt woken for a few blissful moments imagined himself to be back in the servant quarters nestled in the silken sheets that were given to all Royal Moon Servants, even the Butler.

President Cartwright was no fool and she understood that it was the little things that gained the greatest loyalty. The sound of a buzzer in the whooshing slide of the Vibratech security door woke him up to the reality of his situation. He was hanging buck naked in a Telethic Suspenser Beam, a sonic spiderweb of subacoustic sound that was keeping him immobile, completely vulnerable, and totally exposed. Beams of bright light suddenly filled the chamber, making him blind and paralyzed.

All he could see was light. All he could feel was the pulsing vibration of the Telethic Suspenser. It was strangely pleasant, soothing, calming, but the voice on the other side of that light was stern as the crack of lightening against a dry willow. Well, well, if it isn't the coming Butler, Snapped Guard Finch, I guess you think you got one over on us, Gautrexian mutt?

And with that, the soothing pulse of the Suspenser shifted and heated up. It felt as though we were being roasted over a blazing fire while rodents nibbled at his face. Welcome to hell, Butler Hunt, said Guard Finch. What you are experiencing is the cutting edge of moon torture equipment. With a simple press of a button, I can make you feel anything. Ever wondered what it feels like to have your thumb smashed in a door? With all due respect, I know what that feels like, whispered Butler Hunt. Well then, said Guard Finch, that was going to be the only torture for today.

But since you have so much experience and bad feelings, let me introduce you to the sensation of being tap-danced upon by a troop of 700-pound jazzer-sized instructors wearing red-hot high heels made of molten lead. God, no, gasped the Butler. There was the sound of a beep and a dry robotic voice whispered, running tap-danced torture simulation 498. For a horrible moment, he felt the sudden pressure of flaming hot high heels against his exposed naked flesh when the security door whooshed open again in a voice that made his

heart surge with love and fear filled the room. I told you I would handle this, Guard Finch. The voice of President Cartwright was soft, but carried with it the weight of a gavel made of a thousand mountains. We'll talk about this later, Gregory. Be gone. Yes, my president, said Guard Finch, and Butler Hunt heard the sound of his boots marching from the room. So now it's just you and me, said President Cartwright. Her voice is playful as a cat with a wounded mouse. Do you know what I went through to become president of the moon?

Cassandra asked, turning off the blinding lights. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that President Cartwright was wearing an official interrogation uniform that had been specially made for her by torture expert, Dan Lee Frye. It was a beautiful leather suit, dyed in purple. It accentuated every curve of her luscious body until it reached her thighs, where it spread down in tendrils of violet leather that ended in her torture boots. Military grade open-toed boots with razor sharp heels. His eyes fell upon her boots and beautiful exposed feet. Now you know why my feet get so sore, Butler. I've been spending more and more time

in this hard chamber interrogating more moon citizens than I would like to admit. It seems that Emperor Gautrax is not quite as dead as we thought, but I'm sure you already know this, traitor. No, Madam President, said Butler Hunt. A tear rolled down his cheek across his beautiful lips. They made eye contact, and then Butler Hunt began weeping. Greetings, my beautiful ones. It's me, Duncan, and this is the Duncan Trestle Family Hour podcast, reporting to you from Austin, Texas. Of course, what you just heard is an excerpt from the upcoming Audible erotic classic, Lies of the Moon Butler. Check that out on Audible. The entire Moon Butler series is pretty incredible. Friends, we have a glorious podcast for you today.

Gabby Hurstick is here with us today. Holy shit. Strap in. Get ready to learn about witchcraft, sex magic, and much, much more, including how to banish those dark energies and potentially demonic forces that might be clustered about your home and maybe even in your heart. We're going to jump right into it, but first this. I want to thank Athletic Greens for supporting this episode of the DTFH. My friends, I don't have to tell you that if your brain had nipples, these days would seem like a sander that somebody had non-consensually shoved those nipples against. We're in stressful times. Let's just face it. There's so much insanity going on, and we need a way to simplify our existence. This is where Athletic Greens comes in. Follow me here, friends. I know

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forward slash Duncan, and you're going to get a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs today. Thank you, Athletic Greens. My dear loves, if you enjoy the DTFH, won't you subscribe to us over at Patreon? It's patreon.com forward slash DTFH, and for our current beautiful DTFH family members at Patreon, I've secured a great office space here in Austin, and so we will be back to our normal programming starting at the usual time, Monday, journey into boredom, our meditation, and Friday, our family gathering. If you're interested in joining us, why not subscribe? You're going to get access to our Discord server along with commercial free episodes

of the DTFH and much more. Now, with us today is a very powerful witch. I don't know if there's a hierarchy of power when it comes to witches. It just feels good to say a very powerful witch. One thing's for sure, she's brilliant. She's an amazing author. She's, I don't know, supremely cool. So these things, all of us be combined to make someone powerful. And if you're interested in witchcraft, then you really should check out her website, GabriellaHirstik.com. That's G A B R E L A H E R S T I K dot com. She's a profoundly enchanting, wonderful person. And I was really, really blown away by this conversation. So here we go. Everybody, welcome to the DTFH Gabriella Hirstik.

Gabriella, welcome to the DTFH. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Oh my God. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I want to congratulate you. I follow your Twitter and your socials. And I want to congratulate you on a, did you say a thousand consecutive days of practice? What? That is nuts. How many, wait, I started Calculate. What is that? It's over three years? Today, August 5th is two years and nine months of daily practice. Oh my God. That is, that is just so impressive. Thank you. It made me wonder, what does that look like for you? What is your daily practice? Yeah. Well, I just want to say first off, I am single with no children and pretty much,

I work for myself. So I have a lot of luxury when it comes to how I use my time, which I feel like if I had a family or if I was in a relationship, maybe it wouldn't be quite as much of a priority to literally not miss a day. So I always tell people, don't do what I do if you miss a day of meditating. It's not a big deal. Just get back to it. Just keep going. I'm just very competitive with myself. So I was like, I can't lose this streak and now I really can't. But my daily practice is about an hour in the mornings, every morning. It's definitely a mix of different traditions, I guess. I have some ceremonial magic in there. I start off with the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, which just clears the space of any negative energies,

puts the archangels around me, that kind of thing to just really center myself. I do a daily prayer to one of the goddesses I work with. I do seated meditation. And then after that, I will pull tarot cards and journal. And I have this ongoing gratitude practice with one of my best friends, where every day we send each other voice notes of what we're grateful for and then talk about it. So I record that and just say all the things I'm grateful for as part of my practice and then end my practice with affirmation. So there's a lot of different pieces of it. And tomorrow I'm going to be traveling. And when life gets life-y, like when it hits a fan, there's definitely things that like, okay, I don't have to journal today,

I don't have to pull my tarot cards, whatever. But the seated meditation and the LBRP are non-negotiable. I will do that in a bathroom. I will do that while I'm seated with my eyes closed. Those are just things that I have committed to. But most of the time, I would say about 95% of the time I'm able to do the whole practice because I prioritize it. It's just something that, especially after the past year of just everything being absolutely bananas with COVID, I've really, really been able to see how much of a sustaining force and how much of an empowering practice it is for me to have that time just devoted to going inward, being with myself, really accepting where I am that day. And there's times where maybe I don't

feel the best coming out of meditation, but I would say that 97% to 99% of the time I leave my meditation practice feeling better than when I went in it. Wow. Now you said a lot there. I think something I've always been very interested in, and I've actually tried it once, is the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram. And because now I've just primarily studied Buddhism, I've sort of gone away from your lineage, not for any other reason than it's just mainly for what you just said. I got kids. I don't know if I wish I had the time to do an hour every day. And I think I could make that work. But regardless, I wonder if you could sort of give me a brief teaching about the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram.

Yeah. So the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram is one of the first rituals that you will learn in really any kind of like Western mystery tradition, which is the lineage of the Golden Dawn. Aleister Crowley's work is a part of that as well. But this is specifically a ritual based in Golden Dawn magic, which works with the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, which originates as a symbol and glyph of the universe and Jewish mysticism. But the kind of Kabbalah I study is overlaid with different hermetic principles like tarot cards and planets and all that kind of stuff. So the lesser banishing ritual is a ritual of the elements and of the body. It aligns you with the Tree of Life through the highest fear, which is like

the Godhead to the material realm. And really what it does is it aligns your personal will, which is visualized as this horizontal line with the divine will, which is a vertical line. And this forms across in the body. You can imagine like going through like, you know, your head to your toes is like this divine energy, and then going from shoulder to shoulder is this human energy. And that's what's called like that, that beginning of the ritual is what's called the Kabbalistic Cross is where you really like align yourself with the divine with the highest possible frequency available to you. And then you go around the room and you make pentagrams. And what these pentagrams do is that they banish this, they banish any kind of negative energy, any

energy that's not aligned with this divine 100% divine light. And as you're doing these pentagrams, you're speaking these different Hebrew words that just kind of reinforce this idea of banishing this energy. So you've aligned yourself with the divine, banished energy around your room, you visualize these pentagrams in every direction surrounding you. And then you call in angelic forces, the four archangels or four of the archangels that correspond to the different elements and different directions to, to really connect you with earth, air, fire, water as these like different kind of embodied expressions of the divine. So you call in these different angels, and then you finish again with this ritual called the Kabbalistic Cross, which continues to align

you with the divine. So even though it's considered a banishing ritual, you are still doing invocations, which means you're calling forth these different energies and entities. So like, it's like you're vacuuming and then like, like energetically vacuuming a space, and then you're like calling in like reinforcements to make sure that like, you know, there's not nothing is going to get muddied up again, for lack of a better word. So it's definitely like a weird ritual, it uses Hebrew and it works with archangels that are found in the Bible. So I mean, golden dawn magic is like, it is based in like Abrahamic religions, which I totally get isn't, you know, something that a lot of people, something that people are, maybe it doesn't resonate with them,

right? We each have to find what kind of practices and lineages resonate with us. But I, I grew up Jewish, my dad's a rabbi, I had a bat mitzvah. So for me, like the, the Hebrew part of it and the, the working with this kind of Jewish mystical current in a way that's not necessarily Jewish feels very resonant. And I just really enjoy the ritual. It's just something that like, I feel like it's kind of like part of my psychic hygiene, I would say it helps me just feel like I'm really cleansing my space. And then when I do my meditation and affirmations, that's kind of like the more microcosmic, like going inward, focused cleansing that I do. So it's more of like a compliment. And it's, it's a ritual that you can really like adapt. There's

different versions of it. But yeah, it's something that I, I enjoy doing it, but I definitely feel like some people love it. And some people are like, I don't like this at all. I think it's beautiful. I've seen, I've just watched videos of people doing it. So I'm right now, I'm really interested in spiritual hygiene. I started, I don't even know why I started doing it. I started looking at the Islamic purification rituals and then started thinking about the, my friends who have taken ayahuasca, I never have. And you know, the report of being cleansed or purified of some kind of, you know, I don't know what you would even call it. Maybe you have a word for it. But I'm really interested in that right now, just because just purely out of curiosity,

I did this cleansing ritual that they recommend and was astounded by the shift in my energy that happened right away. What, if you had, what are the words that are used for what dark energy or for the lingering stuff that can get caught on a person or in a space? What is that? And obviously you must think of it as something more than like symbolic. Like you, many people like consider it to be as real as a disease. What is it? That's such a good question. I wish I had like a concrete answer, but I feel like part of this journey through like the metaphysical is like knowing things are, are there, but not necessarily being able to like quantify them in like a logical way, because they're things that kind of divide

that like very logical aspect of reality, right? These are like subtle forces and subtle energy. So like I would just describe them as energies. I personally like, you know, some people might describe them as demonic entities or spirits. Like there's a wide array of like what people conceptualize as demons. Some people think that they're manifestations of our psyche, right? Like I know that some people think that they literally are actual demons. I'm probably somewhere between them. I don't really spend too much time like trying to figure out the what exactly. I just kind of like do my best to make sure that I'm, you know, centered and that I'm protecting myself and like doing these kind of like purification rituals as well as like in meditation I do shielding. So I

literally visualize like a sphere or bubble around me and like declare that only energy that vibrates a hundred percent divine light and works in my highest favor can like penetrate that shield and that kind of those kind of exercises to really keep out those forces. But I think there's a lot of different energy. I think there's a lot of different expressions of those kind of like more difficult to handle energies, I guess. I think, you know, they can be collective residue of like our, you know, like our fear. It kind of comes in egregore. Like with COVID, like all of us are, I mean, I'm still working through and untangling the trauma of the past year. You know, like so many of us are lived in these deep states of fear where like our nervous systems

were fried. And like, you know, when you focus on something and when a collective, a group of people is focusing on something, it's like drawing in that energy and it becomes its own thing, right? It's like a egregore, like, which is kind of like a spirit that comes to be when a lot of people focus on a certain thing, which may or may not be like a living entity, but is definitely a real energy. And I think that can be part of it. I think part of it can be like, you know, maybe being really stressed and having like, not having a good day and being around other people who are negative and then you bring kind of like those people's energy into your space. Or if you're on land where there was, you know, like really intense negative violence that happened,

like those energies can get trapped there in the physical land. So there's definitely like a lot of different manifestations of that kind of like darkness, which is why I think that having any kind of like practice that you do, whether it's using smoke or, you know, saying like a cleansing mantra or doing the LBRP and like, it starts within, right? Like if you're in a place of being centered and you're in a place where you feel like you are protected and you are doing what you need to do to really like not linger in those other people's dark energies or in these spirits or whatever, like when you have that kind of inner protection, then I feel like it's a lot easier. It's like do so in your, you know, in your space. And of course, like mental illness is real. Like that is

also can feel like a spirit outside of yourself, like haunting you. So I don't think there's one one thing, you know what I mean? I think that's part of the beauty of having like a spiritual practice or living a spiritual life that we got to create these practices and we got to use the tools that work for us, that resonate with us, that help us like maybe focus less on the what and more on the why. So we can like move, move through these states of, you know, darkness and feel at least like we're in control because like, are we, are we ever in control? I don't know, which is, you know, I wonder that a lot. Yes and no. Well, I mean, look, I'm telling you, maybe the reason I'm interested in spiritual hygiene right now is because I'm in Austin staying

at a chain of Airbnb. And it's like, you know, you walk into some, you walk into some of these homes and it's like outside of just the, you know, funky carpet smell. If you have the slightest openness, you can feel something if something's off, you know, and in the same way you, you know, just even talking to you, I could see that your space is all sparkly. And I knew if I was there with you, I would be like, ah, when we went to, when I would go to Ram Dass's house because he had practice, a beautiful love-based practice, it was like walking into some kind of like, you know, it's, I don't know, Tolkien elf house or something, just pure love and like, and you walk into some like some of these Airbnb's and it's like, holy shit, what happened here? Like, what was going on?

And then I, then my next thought is, or is it a screen that's allowing you to see a reflection of your unacknowledged stuff? So I'm not going to linger on this much longer, but is there a, and forgive me for trying to find some kind of cliff notes, easy way of doing that, but is there like a more simplified way of cleansing a space that doesn't involve memorizing Hebrew words and doing the lesser banishing ritual, something we can just do when we walk into one of those weird fields of darkness that often appears in just houses that we find ourselves going into? Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that real magic doesn't need any tools. And I think that there's a couple different ways you could really like, protect yourself and visualize. Like, you

can go into space and like doing something, especially in a place like an Airbnb, which is like, people are constantly coming and going, which leads to like a very liminal space because there's not like anything really like grounding that energy. It's very temporal, I guess, because it's like between here and there, you know, there's not even like a hotel staff, right? Like, it's like very, I mean, I guess the people that live there, but like, I don't know. I, you could go into a space and like clap and just like go, when you're banishing something, you traditionally go counterclockwise. So you could like, start in the back and go counterclockwise and just clap and declare like, any negative energies that don't serve my highest good, that are not aligned with

100% divine light are banished here. Like, if you have salt, you can sprinkle salt in the corners. You can, you know, like, some places don't allow you to like burn herbs and not everybody has access to like herbs, but you could do some kind of like spray Florida water if you have it. And then you can just do some visualizations, like visualizing a sphere of protective light, like emanating from your heart and growing into a sphere around you and pushing out any negative energy. And you can visualize that kind of like metallic or mirrored sphere, like surrounding the whole environment that you're in. Wait, wait, what's that? What's the mirrored sphere? I saw that. I'm so sorry to do this to you. I know I smoke DMT once and went into some kind of metallic. What is that? What's the

metallic? What is that? I personally, I like visualizing like a mirrored orb around me when I need a lot of protection, because like, I feel like it reflects and refracts any kind of unwanted negative energy back into the universe. You know, it's like, you declare that only that which serves your highest good or whatever, whatever kind of language resonates with you, maybe like, only, you know, like I only let energy that is good for me into the space and any negative energy is reflected, refracted, you know, sent back to sender. Like I think that it doesn't have to be a mirror, right? You can visualize different colors based on kind of the energy that you want to draw in. So if you're really looking maybe to have like a more calming space, you could work with like a

blue sphere. If you work with astrology, you could like, you know, connect that to Jupiter. So it's only like very like good auspicious energy that is moving into your into your space. But I feel like the mirrored sphere is like very good at like really protecting you. So you can visualize that like encompassing your whole Airbnb, your room, you can visualize it around you. Like if you're in a crowd and you're like, I do not want any of these people's energies, you can kind of shield that way. But yeah, those are some examples. And just like, centering yourself right, taking breaths, like stomping your feet, clapping your hands, like kind of jolting that energy, any negative energy away is another way to do it as well. Yeah.

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you know and as I was thinking what are we going to talk about I started thinking about God I use the word a lot but then I start thinking like what do I even mean by that word I I don't understand the term God anymore than I understand the term goddess and I wonder if you could teach me about that. Yay well I feel like that's kind of the weird enigma with these things too it's like once it's like an energy that you like like even if you say you don't understand it I feel like you really have a beautiful balance of both of those energies like I I kind of conceptualize the way that I conceptualize the divine feminine the goddess is like the it's pretty similar how I can conceptualize the divine masculine I really think that there are two ends of a spectrum but

there are different extremes of the same energy or you can think of it as like yin and yang where there are complements with little pieces of each energy but I have a different I have kind of a couple different ways of conceptualizing them one is more of a cobalistic way of thinking about them where the divine feminine is more of like the form and the actual physical embodiment of the energy of creation like the body the earth the energy of like sexuality as embodied and felt through the flesh whereas God would be more of like that kind of force energy the spark of creation the creative expansive energy um so like that's kind of one way to think where they're both you can find one through the other like they're both energies of like wow something coming to life

where like the divine masculine might be more of like the seed that that initiates it but then the feminine is more of the expansive energy that is able to like hold that kind of force but for me the way that I really work with goddess energy the way that I think about that and conceptualize it in my own practice is the energy of love the energy of connection to all living beings both you know like all sentient beings the earth um the cosmos and I also think of it as a frequency that I can tap into that is um liminal that's intuitive that is not in the head but that is felt through the body that is felt in the heart that is expressed through creativity um and I'm writing right now about the divine masculine and it's really interesting because I do think that they're

very like complementary energies of that like you can find the masculine through this kind of like warrior phallic feminine energy um seen through goddesses of war and like love and you can also find the divine masculine through the emotions and through compassion and through being grounded in that so I don't necessarily even think of them as separate just personally like I really like feel in service to the divine feminine specifically because we are living in a time that is so um patriarchal and that has been so kind of patriarchal for so long that I feel like if we want to find balance between these two extremes the pendulum has been so far swung in the the masculine kind of mode of reality that like to get to the balance we

have to swing the other way we have to go to the feminine we have to go back to like the you know anti-capitalist more feeling more um flowing kind of energy before we can find um a midway point and that's kind of why I feel like like I feel like you are I mean I know that's part of the what you study but like you have such um your heart really shines through with everything that you do I mean I feel like you really do have such a beautiful balance of that kind of like masculine and feminine so even if you don't necessarily like understand it I feel like you embody it really beautifully thank you well I would like to you know I like the way I understand it right now I get I get to be around my wife and watch her breath you know give milk I mean it's the most

when you watch it and you think about it it seems like something a baby made up you know it's like the way humans are like just the idea of like well you put your mouth on your mother and then sweet milk I've if you ever tasted breast milk oh we've got not as an adult you gotta get you some it's you got to you gotta taste it because it's sweet it like at least my like it's it's sweet but it's it's it's like intense and it is it's you know it is this it is for lack of it's it's love it's this pure white like condensed love and then it like changes if the baby is sick it changes and gives the baby nutrients to help the sickness it's the most on one level I know it's like it's just the way things work but on another level it is the most absurdly beautiful thing you've

ever seen in your life and so I think I kind of can understand the goddess from that perspective of it's this like dreamy sort of impossibility that's what makes the entire planet or at least the all sentient beings that have mamas like stay alive but then yeah and which is weird because I was watching this awesome video popped up on Reddit of a squirrel mother just like laying back with her kids suckling at her and I'm looking at the squirrel mother's expression and thinking of my wife's expression when she's exhausted and the baby's drinking her milk and then thinking about like oh my god it transcends species you know what I mean this is the same is that the goddess it's that you know give it just is giving and it and not um and it can't I don't know how to put it it's

so merciful it's so ferocious in its giving or something you know like it's ferocious in its ability to just give itself to things so is that a description of it I would I would say so definitely I think for me like one of the aspects of the divine feminine too is this idea of imminence of this divinity being present in everything which is also a very tantric view where you know like god is exist in everything even that which we consider you know like unholy or dark like the divine feminine is a lot of the goddesses of love are also goddesses of war there's there's this intense duality with it and you know like a lot of the more patriarchal Abrahamic religions like there's this idea of transcendence that you have to leave the body to find the divine that you know

the divine like god is in a cloud somewhere god is not here but really the goddess to mean like goddess religion and like that kind of goddess energy is one of seeing this incredible beauty and power and just like sacredness this holiness in and everything in a squirrel in a tree right like in being able to make eye contact with somebody it's a very transcendent force but it is also very full of dualities that kind of contradict each other which I feel like is a very like magical thing in general to kind of have these contradicting forces that also complements each other I'm curious why if okay so you have recognized you clearly recognize this like complete imbalance in this old crusty antiquated patriarchal bullshit that just isn't even working anymore that's the problem it's

just not I mean I think it maybe it was working during the industrial revolution or whatever but now it's not even working and nothing that's humiliating it and it doesn't want to be humiliating it so that's making its dig its heels in even more but I'm curious why write a book on the divine masculine in a time where you know it feels like things are already imbalanced enough towards the masculine why does the masculine get your attention right now versus you know the going in the other going in the other direction okay so I do want to clarify I I'm writing a chapter I'm writing a book called sacred sex which is about sacred sexuality and I have a bunch of different chapters that speak of different ways of working with sex as a spiritual tool as a spiritual path

one of the the one of the chapters is on the more divine feminine as passed through these um temple precesses of the ancient days which were women who would serve the goddesses of love and engage in sexual rituals with people who would come and worship the goddess um so they're known as sacred prostitutes I I think that kind of sacred and profane I don't really dig that so I call them erotic votaries there's a chapter on that but I also think that there's no space for men to be emotional or to be connected to their pleasure or to feel that more quote unquote kind of femininity within them and um I think that it's patriarchy is as much of a disservice to men as it is to women I mean women we got the brunt of it more you know like we're

the ones that receive the violence more and we're the ones that are really shushed in many ways right but there's no space for men to connect with their emotions there's no space for men to think about their pleasure in a way that's not this trope of toxic masculinity so it's really important for me to include a chapter on what it means for the divine masculine to be embodied but I am writing a book about goddesses called goddess energy that'll be out sometime next year so that's definitely where more of my focus is on but I definitely felt like it was it feels really important for me and it also is something that like you know like I'm sure that you have this with your podcast and your comedy it's like when you're working on something even if it's for an

audience like it heals a part of you or you learn about yourself through it and for me it's like as I'm writing these books like I my life kind of turns into this like alchemical furnace that just like burns with whatever I'm writing about and writing about the divine masculine it it's healing my relationship to it because I do have animosity and resentment towards towards a patriarchy you know and um I don't want to have that especially as a woman who like also worships the divine masculine and who also like likes men like um I just it was it's something that I'm doing because I think it's really important but it's also something I'm doing because like I know that if it's something I need it's something that other people need as well oh god yeah I mean we don't

even I don't like guys don't we understand like divine masculine there's that's the other thing that's going on is I think like a lot of guys are like you know really not wanting to be assholes to and like wanting to sort of figure out wait what is what where is the part of me that is like this is this is what it is like I'm a dad you know and like part of being a dad there's like a I have to distinguish like a good dad and all the good things I learned from my dad from all the like my dad had PTSD man my dad was like you know like which I think what we call toxic masculinity a lot of times it's just PTSD it's just yeah um so it's like like untangling those two things is such a mind fuck because you know there's all the all the things associated with masculinity

I think are like are also things associated with what happens when you come back from World War 2 like the way John Wayne acts that's the way somebody who saw his friends get exploded or something would act it's like you don't show emotion you don't feel pain you're constantly like exercising or something and like you know what I mean so untangling the two things is a real mind fuck and I know a lot I think a lot of guys want to be able to successfully do that but then also don't want to like be phony in it because there's nothing worse than that when a guy's like faking being like that I'm a good guy oh yeah I'm healed oh yeah thank you Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH Squarespace is great

if you've been listening to the DTFH for any amount of time I'm sure you've heard me to the Squarespace horn but it never stops being amazing I use Squarespace for my website duckatrustle.com every single week I use Squarespace and almost every week Squarespace gets better and better they keep adding super cool stuff to it for example if you want to do awesome looking email campaigns Squarespace has got what you need to do that if you're in a hurry like you want to get a website up right away you could do that they've got mix and match templates you could just throw something together but if you want to make something incredible and deep subtle nuanced as beautiful as the undergunt of a mermaid swimming through the crystalline waters of

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you to bring your dreams into real life Squarespace go to squarespace.com forward slash Duncan for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code Duncan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain again go to squarespace.com forward slash Duncan for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code Duncan to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain thank you Squarespace but that's the thing too it's like we're not giving space for this healing and there's this kind of idea that like there's a weakness in admitting that you're not okay there's weakness in that healing when I think that that is such an act of like compassionate strength to admit

that like you need to do the inner work I mean we have the way that we failed veterans in this country is horrible I you know it's the patriarchy the blood of the patriarchy is not on any specific person's hands it's not on any generation's hands it's something that's been happening for a long time but I really do feel very amidst a lot of fear with the future of just like the earth there's a lot of hope for the generations that are doing the work the generations to come that are doing the work and that we gotta redefine what masculinity means to us in service of all people who identify as masculine or who have we all have masculine energy you know what I mean like it's these energies divine feminine divine masculine they that's the language that we have

because it's the language that we've had and I you know as our language evolves it'll be more supportive and expressing that these are not things that are related to genitals like these are energies that all that exist within all of us that we live we live in because we live in a world of duality you know what I mean like until we don't live in that kind of polarized world um until that time comes like we have we have to work with what we have in this physical realm and that means using this kind of dualistic model of the divine to to find our way through life in and um I think that healing the masculine and yeah just like healing we're doing it but it's it's definitely um it'll take time yes and probably maybe too much time let's hope not

yeah I would love to talk with you a little bit about sex magic I um it's something that I have tried in the past with some pretty amazing results to the point where and I don't mess with it I've got freaked out by its efficacy and then you know and but um I'd love to like I think one thing that is a secret something that secretly haunts a lot of folks is porn and like when we're talking about the sacred and the profane you know to me like if I do have to think of something profane which I agree with you I mean I think getting too caught up in that then you've got guilt and then you next thing you know what are you what are you you're like whipping your back or something in a non-fun way you know you're like you become like secretly like you feel like a secret freak which is the

worst kind of freak to feel like you want to be a public freak but but um is you know do you think that like porn is like collect like is one of those things that brings darkness into a person's life or has the potential to maybe enforce some of the toxic masculinity stuff and like in like or do you feel like there is a way to you know to to like actually that porn and sex magic can happen together as it could just be another tool I'm just curious your thoughts on it because there's an entire like raging debate over whether or not it's like fucking people up you know if neurologically or whatever I'm just curious what your take on that is um okay I have to be very blunt and honest and say like I don't watch porn because it gives me fomo like I'm like I want

to be doing that and doing these weird things and having this like crazy sex so I've just like never really been somebody who who watches it I have a very uh active imagination and a plethora of sexual energy to work with so like I just um I'm you know I just want to say like I'm saying this as somebody who's like I have friends who do porn um I support sex workers unconditionally like I think that decriminalization of sex work would help us have less uh maybe bad kind of examples of porn but I think it's it's kind of like anything it's how you use it I mean like even if you don't watch porn you watch movies and like I would those kind of reenactments of sex are also like pretty harmful sometimes and totally like not real and I'm like there's not even any it's you know there's definitely

layers to it I think that um it can be a tool I part of the the practice of sex magic is raising sexual energy so like you could totally watch porn as a way to begin that process but like like any kind of magic there's a lot of a focus and attention that goes into it and I do think that if you were to like watch porn the whole time it could you know like you're not going to really be able to focus on your intention like I I don't want to I I don't think it's necessarily like um a good or bad thing I think that there are better ways of making porn that are ethical and that support everybody involved and um there are ways that are you know totally probably like not consensual and like like like anything else um I really feel like with the

internet we're able to kind of see how like everything really exists on the spectrum like the internet's great like I can talk to you I can do zoom rituals with the lodge I attend and I can also like probably you know like hire a hitman or do something horrible on it you know like find the darkest depth so I think with porn it's more of like somebody's relationship with it and it's like anything like you can you know feel a psychological need for it which can you know it's like I was I was smoking too much weed and gave myself bronchitis and then COVID happened like I loved weed and I was using it for anxiety and then I just got mentally um addicted to it right like yes it's not to say that weed's a bad thing but it is to say that I wasn't using it

responsibly and I didn't have the best boundaries with it so I think like it can be a tool it's not really I can't really speak from experience with using it as a tool um but I do think that there's some really really like incredible um re-envisioning re-imagining re-envisioning um of what porn could look like like I um really love um four chambers they're a really cool like group headed by this amazing woman named Vex that does like a lot of very magical and surreal and like artistic porn so um and you know there's like a lot of ethical porn now and a lot more like feminist porn so I think it's like anything like the tide's changing and I think it will I mean I would like I know that there's a cult porn out there I just haven't really wandered

into that water but I'm sure that um as we continue getting deeper into this esoteric revival that we're in that that'll definitely show up more. What is raising sex magic and what does that mean that I raising sexual energy I mean is like you know is it is it just the same thing as when you think someone's hot and then you start getting turned off is that just a way of saying that or is it can you just describe that a little bit more? Yeah so sex magic really is using sexual energy for an intention it can be an intention like getting to know yourself sexually erotically more it can be um manifesting something like money it can be um as an act of devotion so like I work with sex magic as a way of like I give my sexual energies an offering to the goddesses that I work

with um you can do sex magic to like I used it to find an apartment it can really be anything because sexual energy is is life energy that's literally how we're creating life it's anybody who's ever been horny knows how powerful and how like physical that feels I mean like you know like when you really are like oh my god I need a fuck or like this person's so hot I can't like it feels you feel it in your body all sex sex magic is is working with that intentionally and there's layers to it I mean you could literally just like focus on an intention and masturbate and like visualize the energy moving towards your intention and then as you're laying in the afterglow like visualize what it would be like to feel like to have that intention

manifest that's a really simple kind of way and then you can also like circulate the energy the sexual energy like through your body and do breath work with it and visualize like a sigil or like like becoming a different a goddess or a god or like um you know like connecting to like somebody else's energy there's there's lots of different ways to do it but really what it is is working consciously with sexual energy which like I would argue is the most powerful energy we have simply because it's the energy that sustains life you know like it's literally like why we're all here even if we're um you know for test two babies or if we're like it doesn't really matter like that that energy is still like it's still creative energy it's still life-giving energy um so it's

really just using that for a desired purpose and um there's a lot of different ways to do that but it's also fun I'm like if we're gonna masturbate or fuck anyway like why not make it a magical practice um and I think right now too like there's such um there's such like a rejection of the flesh in a lot of spiritual communities there's such a rejection of sexuality as a part of like the spirit that I do think that sex magic is super important because it reminds us that like actually like many many ancient cultures many ancient traditions many ancient religions have worked with sexual energy as a part of spiritual practice I mean like you see it in Kabbalah you see it in in Tantra you see it like there's it's it's actually not something that's separate like

they're two sides of the same coin I mean like anybody who's had sex like knows the liminality of it and knows that kind of like power that comes from your ego being dissolved like it's called you know like orgasm and french's le petit mort the little death like it is literally an ego annihilation that allows you to connect with something bigger so it's really just using that intentionally um in a ritual setting which can be as involved or as simple as you want it to be and all can you talk a little I just think this is something people out there need to hear and I would imagine have some thoughts on this is like do you think okay consensual sex does not just mean like the person you're with is saying it's okay don't you think consensual sex

means don't do sex magic on people who haven't told you that it's okay for you to do that even if you know what I mean isn't there like isn't there a way you can having never someone having never met someone kind of encroach on their space it's using this these some of these techniques yes I think that I personally like I won't do sex magic most of my sex magic practice is solo I always suggest if you are starting a sex magic practice if you want to get to know yourself in that way or manifest like starting with yourself first and laying that foundation and understanding your erotic energy um is always going to be more fruitful and then you can work with somebody else um trust is a really important factor whether it's somebody you're

you know having like doing sex magic with that's maybe like anonymous or a partner I think having that trust is super important but um I I think the thing with magic too is that like I could tell you what I believe I could tell you that like I personally only practice sex magic with people who are aware and consenting yes um but that's that's me everybody's gonna I think a big part of being a sex witch or working with sexual energy in this way is having your own set of ethics having your own belief system and knowing what feels right for you because it has to resonate with you um so like I mean I have I have like thought about people and sent energy when they don't know about it but also how many of us have masturbated while thinking about people that have no idea

or masturbating about them good point so it's not really as black and white as we think and also like with love and sex magic too it's like if there is not a seed of reciprocity like if I'm doing sex magic about somebody who has absolutely no idea I exist like that there's nothing there's no seed to water that's not probably gonna manifest you know like it's like if I'm doing a love spell or sex magic around somebody who likes me a little bit then I can cause that to grow and expand but if that's not there then it's like you know not nothing's gonna really happen and like things get tricky like I personally am just in a camp of like I don't fuck with anybody else's free will I fuck with my own free will I do what feels aligned for me but like I just personally

like I'm like I don't really cast hexes I don't really do that kind of thing like I do think there's a time and place I definitely believe there's a time and place but just because like that's just like the kind of moral stance ethics that I believe that aligns with like with my practice so it's not as black and white as people think and it's also like not gonna be the end of the world if you like think about somebody when you're doing sex magic like do you want to start off that way probably not but like also like I don't think a pit in hell is going to open up not a pit in hell but more of like an unfair like let me ask you this can you tell when other people are doing that to you oh um yes I think so but I think it's if I can it's

with people that like I already kind of have an erotic connection right like and I'm definitely like very perceptive and definitely like probably like you know like I I don't really use the word psychic but I definitely have those qualities but it's like I'm not I feel like there's a lot more people like honestly jacking off to me that I are just strangers on the internet that I never want to know about than like people that like I do want to know about um so like I I don't really spend so much time wearing it I think wearing about it I think that kind of goes back to like to like my um the psychic hygiene stuff like that's just like I protect my energy so like only that which I'm like oh like I want to know about kind of moves through that sphere yeah I just you know it's

sometimes I mean without getting into you I don't embarrass anybody or just sound like a complete limber I do think folks should know like it's not like it's not like it's a one-way street it's like if someone's sensitive they might be able to like you know catch a glimpse of like oh you're doing that that's okay it's like I mean you know it's sweet you know or whatever but also I don't know I just wonder like I think technology is going to get to a place where the energy that you're cleansing when you're clapping and doing that stuff is not going to be something that people just talk about but rather it's going to be like oh that's some new form of dark matter some quantum field or something that we just couldn't uh measure uh but people are already intuited so I

when you start thinking about that and then you start getting into like the interdependency that we all also already talk about the web of life at the connection then in their consent becomes really curious in the sense that right now consent is more about the physical body I'm with you is this okay versus like can I send energy through the weird psychic mucilial network that connects us to shift your consciousness a little bit in a way that serves my purposes you know it's interesting I don't know I mean not I don't need to get in the way I don't even there's probably something already written out there about occult consent but it's just something I was curious to me yeah but then it also goes through it's like if you're sending healing energy to somebody and

they don't consent to it right like what these kind of these energies are you know different but also it's like what is that like that's technically like a hex because that person doesn't consent to the energy but like is that okay so there's definitely layers of nuance I definitely think that like yeah like you know like if if somebody were to do a lot of sex magic on me and I were to meet them I'd probably either like if I already like them then I'd probably be like why am I so attracted to this person or turned on by them or I'd be like this person is giving me the heebie-jeebies and I don't want to be around them right um but yeah I definitely um I feel like just because it's like a feeling I don't necessarily like I just like I'll just block block that out

if it doesn't really resonate which is you know sometimes the best thing you can do is just like not give something more attention not give something more energy and feed it because when you don't want to pay attention to something that's like that's yeah it's not really what you want to do now oh yes and thank you for that answer it's super cool and that's I never considered the healing hex whoa that's so wild like do we have to I can anyone listening I can send to all positive healing please I'll take every little bit of it right even Christians who are like I'm in a pray frame like please please pray for me please send me good energy that's totally fine like I accept it like I don't care if you're praying to Jesus he was a Jew like he's we're fine it's good

like um but yeah it's like there's I think that as humans again like we have this kind of very polarized way of thinking and we want to think things are good or bad but like it's not it's never that black or white especially with like any kind of esoteric or occult thing especially with energy which is like its own you know exists on a different kind of like layer of reality yes now last question we've got about eight minutes I love occult movies but because I'm friends with many people who practice magic who are witches I get offended by the depiction of witches in a lot of these movies that you that come out these are like you know like I like in my wife too or we'll I like I love Ari Astor he's great I like a lot of his movies but some of his fucking movies

are like who's like who paid for this movie is the catholic church getting in here you know what I mean like like hereditary for example you know what I mean like and I've heard this movie compared to rosemary's baby rosemary's baby is a depiction of like satanist and I think there's a lot of in there that isn't necessarily that far away it's a little like over emphasizing some of the like it's like do it's like pointing towards like a rapey thing I've most satanists I've ever met are really into like power but they're also into like your own personal authority they're not like that but anyway the whole point is the way in general the occult is depicted in movies do you get offended by that do you watch movies where it's showing witches it's like you know hurting kids or

doing these rotten things and feel like offended by it or are you able to just like enjoy it without feeling like getting feeling like it's a personal attack I I kind of I have mixed feelings honestly at this point I kind of just like like it like I'm thinking of like the witch that came out like what like five or six years ago and I love that movie I love like the the witch rubbing the baby's blood on her and then like them all just like on the broomsticks and naked I'm like I want to be in the forest with my friends around a campfire like floating naked in the woods it sounds amazing I personally like I'm the kind of person like I don't really like if I'm hate watching something it's more of like this looks so dumb I'm gonna really enjoy it versus like I hate this I want to

like spend energy on it I'm just like I'm of the camp that like it's much more powerful to make something irrelevant and not give any energy to it than it is to hate something and give energy to it like I really believe like if you hate somebody just pretend they don't exist don't even give any energy because it's like so much worse than like hating them and like thinking about them and sending them energy and having them in your sphere so I personally like I like the depictions of movies like I love hocus pocus like I love like yeah like the witch I love the movie the love witch by Anna Biller that came out in 2016 or 2017 maybe so I think they're really fun but I actually like I feel like I watch like five tv shows and that's it and like I know like three movies so I'm like

I'm not like a cinephile I would say I really do appreciate a good film and I do like love a good witch moment but I actually feel like I probably watch more of like the cheeky representation of witches than like the more new stuff that's coming out that's like like I know there was like a Salem tv show and like um there's like a couple other witch shows recently like I don't really even watch those as as much but like I like Sabrina I watched the first season and I thought it was pretty good but um it's not gonna get Sabrina's not gonna trigger QAnon people that's a problem I've gotten some creepy messages from QAnon people who are like you fucking devil worshiper you eager and league with the devil it's like what the fuck because you know I mean how

many you know how how far away are we from the from the kindling getting lit again you know that's where I just get like a little whatever I didn't mean I don't want to end on a dark note we now have four minutes left I can't believe it because it feels like a millisecond went by talking to you um I thank you so much for coming on the show and I wonder could you please give me and the listeners a little blessing please for this for the new moon okay so yes the new moon or whatever phase uh the cosmic cycle will the cosmic clock will be on may everybody listening be held in a hundred percent pure light that heals you that cleanses you of any worries of any anxieties of any negative energy may you be connected to the universe on all planes and

always always may you remember your divine power that you are a spiritual embodiment of the divine here as a human to enjoy the pleasures and the play and the wonder and the sadness and the whole array of human emotions in this life and that you are infinitely powerful that nobody can take that power away from you and that your heart continues to guide you through the unknown and that it continues to inspire you with its strength and resilience and that you never forget just how incredible you are ah thank you I needed that umbrella thank you so much it was so nice to meet you and I hope I get to see you in the real world someday yes me too how can people find you you can find me on the internet um i'm super active on instagram and twitter which are both

gabby her stick g a b y h e r s t i k and my website is gabriella her stick dot com which is g a b r i e l a h e r s t i k dot com um you can find all the links to my books there which you can buy at bookstores and I have a patreon and sell ritual guides and all of that stuff is on my website your ritual guides are awesome you y'all have to check these out they're so cool what a what a wonderful thing you're giving us well okay thank you I know that you you have to go thank you so much it has really been a joy chatting with you thank you so much Duncan howdy Krishna thank you that was gabby her stick friends all the links you need to find gabby are going to be at duggin trustle dot com big thanks to our sponsors athletic greens

upstart and squarespace you can find those offer codes at dugget trustle dot com and I hope you'll use them and a big thank you to you for continuing to listen to the d t f h I love y'all ps if you happen to be listening to this on friday august 6th I'm going to be appearing saturday night that's august 7th it's my first show and like 16 months at the vulcan gas company if you go to my twitter at dugget trustle you can find a ticket link there if you want to come see me work on material on saturday night along with some other great comics I love you guys and gals and all in between and out of between I'll see you next week until then hurry Krishna a good time starts with a great wardrobe next stop jc penny family get-togethers to fancy occasions wedding season two we do it

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