Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 570: Sasha Crespi

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Sasha Crespi, exceptional magician/illustionist and mystic, joins the DTFH! If you'd like to learn more about Sasha, or book him for an event, visit SashaCrespi.com! Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: Squarespace - Use offer code: DUNCAN to save 10% on your first site. Freeze Pipe - Visit TheFreezePipe.com and use code DUNCAN for 10% Off your first order! This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self.

My name is Dale Schlott. I've been calling my growth daughter. I love your girl. You can carry your yard. You'll see her do it any year. Age away. Your family, your family. A well-broomed yard. A little man.

A little man. Just watching, doing the set. I want to invite you to come now. I want to give you my podcast. Yard Kapp, interview my neighbors. I have confrontations with my neighbors. You will see here recordings of small claims caught interactions I've had with people near me. Most importantly you're gonna get tips on how to have a stellar yard. A pristine lawn.

A signal to your neighbors that you know how to live your life. Signore your neighbors. This is a possibility. You can't move your god damn yard. It helps with the mosquitoes. It helps the neighborhood, while watching Dylan! God help! You can find it anywhere! Is that it? Take a listen to Yard Care with Dave Shalot. It's Dale Shalot!

You can find that at all of your streaming services, I am Duncan Trussell. You are listening to the Duncan Trussell Family, our podcast. Hello. I am one of the only people on earth who has never felt pain, who has never experienced suffering. My day-to-day life is full of joy, pleasure, out to that.

Good food, good friends, good drinks. I have wonderful dreams. And if I'm not having dreams, I have a very deep, peaceful sleep. I am in a polyamorous relationship with six very successful brilliant women who also happen to have incredible asses, perfect asses, and who also happen to be incredibly kinky in their own ways. Each of them coincidentally having one of my many fetishes. So if you are listening, that means that you must be

interested in hearing spiritual advice from me. So I would like to suggest that the best way that I have found to really get in the flow, to really get to that spot where I'm ready for my trainer, a world record holder winner of over seven different gold medals in a variety of sports, who also happens to have an incredible ass. They come over, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to work out and I'm ready to get injected with a variety of very advanced age reversal substances that are not available to most of you because of your social standing. I'll admit it, there were a few times where I was at 90% instead of 100% until I discovered this very simple technique that I'm going to share with you now.

What you want to do is get one of your lovers to wearing no clothes stand on one side of your indoor Tennis court now your other lover Doesn't know that they're there. It's kind of like a surprise party So when they walk in thinking you're gonna be playing tennis with you They see your other lover and then they get so turned on that they will run to them. And that's a beautiful thing to watch is they leap over the tennis net and I just

love the way the sound of sneakers echoes in my indoor sports arena, particularly on the tennis court. It just sounds cool, almost like Star Wars lasers or something, but they will be gonna make love. And then, this is where it gets really fun. Come running in dressed as, you know, creature of your choice, I do big foot. Now, you probably wanna talk to your lovers about this first and find out what cryptid they get turned on by.

Hopefully they both share a cryptid. Some people don't, so you might have to get creative with your outfit. But fortunately for me, Daniella and Issa, they just ran the big foot. So yeah, run out. They will get scared at first. If you're able to do a good big foot, yeah. And then they will get even more turned on.

And it's really funny. It's a really funny feeling because they think you're bigfoot. They don't know it's you. So it's exciting as they try to very kind of very quickly seduce you and you get to experience those first days when you're hanging out on your yacht with them seducing them and they were seducing you. So they will seduce you as bigfoot, then inevitably they'll find the zipper or whatever and unzip.

You'll watch them. They're disappointed at first. They both wonder who was I giving a blowjob to. And then boom, there you are. And they love you so much and respect you so much. They're gonna laugh and then they'll pounce on you. And so I do that any time I'm going right before I work out and it gets me in the zone. That's how you do it. You just have to know how to kind of push yourself friends. That's what it is. I think we live in a time where people are kind of addicted to convenience. They're gonna maybe like do the whole tennis court lover trick, but they're not gonna do the big foot outfit.

They're not gonna go all the way. So you gotta go all the way in life. You gotta go all the way because when you cross that boundary, when you cross that place that you just thought there's no way I could do that and you're there. Smelling that, that smell that, you know, it's unique to tennis courts and love making. A combination of tennis balls and chalk, I don't, but they chalk my tennis court every day, fresh chalk. And you hear that sound, the sneakers as they are thrown off of feet and sort of skitter

on the tennis court. And you're seeing it all through your big foot costume. You know, when you finally get there, that's reincarnation. Every time you push through, you reincarnate. We could reincarnate 50 times in a day. I wouldn't have time to reincarnate 50 times in a day. It is and I am not complaining and I feel very, very grateful for the life I live. But you know, it's a lot when you have to pleasure eight lovers eight

beautiful lovers with perfect asses There's sometimes there's no time. Yeah, do I want to take every single one of them on my pleasure blimp I do To spend individual time with each of them, sucking on their feet, being spanked. I do. And sometimes that's not possible. To me, that's the other thing we all could do a little better at,

which is like, look around you, that's your reality. That's how things are. Sun Zoo, the great war strategician who based on pictures I've seen, beautiful ass. One said, he who does not know the battlefield is sure to lose the war. You gotta know the battlefield, know the terrain, know the time frame. No, if you have any more DLR or 49, 49 Zen Zen rocks, two of my favorite sports enhancing synthetics. Know if you have enough indoor urgent care to give you that kind of vitality that you're going to need to go through, pleasureing all of your lovers that week.

You need to know that. And make adjustments so that you can't. Don't leave one of them out in the cold. Don't do that. Don't. Don't leave it. You happen to me once. I forgot about Vanessa. Forgot about Vanessa. Forgot about Vanessa.

She had just had a beautiful, handmade ball gag diamond studded created by Desanika Zanons, who is that Brazilian ball gag artist. People, you know, wait years to get one of these gags. She had a hand made, my initials in diamonds on the ball itself. And because I forgot to show up to her dungeon, she was so mad. She threw it away. I don't blame her.

Never happened again. She taught me a lesson. She taught me many lessons. So you can do it. You can do it. You have the energy. You have the human incarnation. You have the vision. All that's left is for you to just push back a little bit against that wet, towel, invisible membrane that we call the learning curve. Just push back a little bit. You don't have to climb the mountain in one day. Little steps.

A journey of a million miles begins with one step, one step. And then the next thing you know, you're training every day. Your lovers are pleasure. The tennis court has fresh chalk every day. Instead of, I know many of you, I read your emails. You walk out into your indoor tennis courts and it's just, you see that same paint. You see that same paint. And you just, you just want to leave this planet.

You just want to go anywhere but here, anywhere but your indoor tennis court. And then one of your lovers comes out, sees that, yep, no chalk today, just the same old paint. And you see the paint in her eyes. They're worried, you don't want them to worry about you. You have to come for them.

You promise that soon you will have the tennis courts redone. And you'll have a chalkman there. But the problem is inside. Inside. You're not sure you're really going to do that. You have made the decision internally. Because that's really all it takes you make that decision and then the universe will roll over like a Christmas pop Let you scratch it's

Valley Let you rub its trillion tough-dee ears million, tough-dee years. Make the decision. Your lovers deserve you at your best. We're going to cut to a quick commercial and we will be right back. I want to thank FreezePipe for supporting this episode of the DTFH, but most importantly, for healing my Bong trauma. If you are like so many other Americans, then you have Certified Bong Trauma.

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had the soldiers not been smoking for military certified bongs. Those are horrible. They're horrible. Aside from the fact they're ugly, they're camouflage, they look like shit. Aside from the fact the glow of the weed cherry could get you killed on the battlefield, it was the pain from smoking these things compared to mustard gas that if you ask me,

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Friends, we have an incredible podcast for you today. Really, really cool podcast and a special podcast because in the history of the DTFH, I have yet to interview a magician. I have yet to have a conversation. I mean, I've interviewed magicians like people who practice ceremonial magic. But I've never interviewed anyone who practices the art of deception. And Sasha Cresby is a very special magician. Because when we discuss this on the podcast, sometimes it's weird. Magicians, people who do sleight of hand coin tricks, they're somehow missing that

like mystical component that you might expect Sasha is this wonderful mix of the down-earth understanding of human perception that magicians have and the mystical, which is why he has such wonderful magic magic shows and also why he was an incredible podcast guest. I want to thank my friend William for recommending him for the show Otherwise, we never would have crossed paths and if you want to find more about Sasha or if you want to

even book him for one of your parties then go to Sasha Cresby.com and all the links you need to find Sasha are going to be at DuncanTrustle.com Before we jump in I'd like to invite you to subscribe to my Patreon. It's patreon.com for its last DTFH you'll get commercial free episodes of the DTFH along with if you want to you can hang out with us once a week. We all get together just about once a week. Also you can find all my upcoming shows at DuncanTrustle.com and now everyone prepare to be delighted by the great magician, Sasha Crestby! I will bless, take care of me. I will love you. It's the Duncan Trash of the William.

The William. Dasha, welcome to the DTFH. I've been looking forward to this conversation all week. How are you? Thank you. I'm grateful to be here and all as well. Moving forward. How are you? I'm wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. I'm grateful to be here and all as well moving forward. How are you? I'm wonderful. Thank you. I'm doing great. We got some rain here in Texas. So it cooled everything off. It's been boiling here. So it's nice. And I am excited to get to spend some time with a magician, mentalist, illusionist. And because I've realized, you are the first magician,

illusionist that I've had on the DTFH after all these episodes. And nice. There's a lot of reasons I'm excited for it. One being that when you have kids, one of the great things about having kids is that you can astound them with the shittiest magic of all time,

because they don't know about anything about the possibility of just putting your hands behind your backs, switching coins. They think you've teleported them, you know? And it fills them with such joy joy and it's such a it's such a delight uh And you know like now Sometimes forest my oldest will say what's behind my ear because sometimes I would like put a treat my end or something and act like I pulled it from behind his ear and

Somewhere in there. I began to realize, whoa, like, I guess this is what it's like to be a magician. Only you have conquered the adult nervous system and the adult perceptual mechanisms and the adult ability to like discern, to control adult attention spans. And then something about that creep me out, Sasha. Something about that made me just get really like, feel real weird and start wondering, what, how often am I being fooled? And so I'm sorry for the big introduction here,

but I wonder, what are your thoughts on that as a magician, understanding the fallibilities, the flaws, how easy it is potentially to trick people, to distract people, is that made you cynical at all, or is there an aspect to it that makes you feel, I don't know, like a little less certain about what's going on in the world in general. Well, that's a beautiful question, and I'm thankful for it. There are so many places we could go, but let me start with like a brief philosophical

thought. We are constantly dealing with illusion in our lives. One of the main ones being the illusion that we're in control. And one of the odd things about being a magician is that to some extent we are completely in control. We are setting the conditions for an experience. So a magician creates the illusion that they're out of control, that there is no control. Some people, some magicians joke about the fact that magicians are some of the most honest people in society because they tell you they're going to deceive you and then they do. Right.

Right. That's a playful thought, but I'm more interested in sharing the truth through the arts of illusion. Right. Right. Right. Now, I want to give a more concrete answer to your question. A big part of magic is perception engineering, attention control, and we can, I'm happy to divulge as much as you'd like to within boundaries that, but I'm very happy to share anything

about that. And lastly, it does make you a little cynical about things in society, especially about your own nature. And that's maybe one of the main lessons of magic, which is respect your own nature to the deepest extent. And your nature dictates that you are the easiest person to fool. The person who fools you the most is yourself. The human mind is the greatest illusionist. And no one lies to you as much as you lie to yourself.

So yes, it's ultimately one becomes skeptical of their own thoughts, I guess. Wow, that is deep. But it's so, wow. Yeah. No, no. Yeah, Yeah. Okay. So this, I love the part that magicians are the most honest people. And I think that, you know, even if the news or even if like pharmaceutical commercials which you all don't have out there, but we have in the United States,

did just come out and say, we're gonna just trick you. Our goal here is to give you the sense that you're incredibly sick, or that this product that you're seeing on the screen and the surrounding, beautiful landscape, the beautiful people, the balanced lives of the people using the product,

is normal, and you're fucked up. But if people using the product is normal and you're fucked up. But if you buy the product, you're going to be fine. I mean, this to me, this level of deception, it reminds me of magic. It is magic in the sense that they know what you know about the human mind, about your own mind, but they are not playfully engaging with the human mind, but are in a sinister way and a vampiric way trying to do this horrific magic trick of making us think everything's fucked up in the world were fucked up. And here's the solution. I don't just mean commercials.

I mean, any punent political, anyone with a political agenda, you was trying to manipulate you. He wants, they understand the workings of the human mind. And they don't announce that upfront. You know, and that is where it becomes evil. Is you, would you consider that black magic? Do you draw that distinction between good magic and bad magic? Definitely.

And I draw it both in the spiritual sense of like dark magic and light magic, but definitely that is one of the most manipulative and obscene ways of controlling attention and directing it to terrible means. It's like that count idea of using other people as a means to an end. And in this case, it's like using them as a means for attention, money, perception, all of those things. So I got obsessed with a genre of YouTube video. I don't, if you haven't seen it, I'll send it to you after. It's people filming street magicians

and then claiming they're using real magic, like the magicians are so talented that people who are watching, like they are in league with the devil, they are using actual occult magic to do the stuff that they're doing. There's no way it's humanly possible that anyone could do what they're doing.

And these people are genuinely disturbed. But I must say, watching some of the videos that they were showing, I'm like, maybe, maybe they, I do, like, maybe whether, it seems like in a weird way, it would be easier if somehow you were able to find a grimoire or gain some metaphysical abilities to teleport coins or make things appear that weren't there then to actually learn how to do it

the way that traditional magicians do it. But I have to ask. Yeah, to sell your soul to the devil to change one playing card into another. That's what I would do if I sold my soul to the devil. Easy, right? It's easy because the card tricks are hard. You tell me, tell you, man, I've gone in.

It's like, I'm gonna learn how to do that. And then it's like, fuck that. I am too dumb. I can't count cards. I'm gonna lose track. I have ADHD, but I'm curious, because clearly you have a very, you are a spiritual person.

Good. Is there some truth to it? Like as a magician do you ever find yourself trying to maybe learn how to do magical feats that would be considered? No, that's actual the thing. The, you know, true miracle versus sleight of, and all the other things that go along with it. This is a great question, and I think the answer has surprised me, and it's kind of been a process of being disillusioned by this. Most magicians are scarce in magic. They have very few experiences within themselves that they can explain, really

magical experiences. And one of my teacher's teachers was called Eugene Berger. He said, would you go to a doctor who doesn't believe in medicine? Well, most magicians don't believe in magic. So it's really shocking to me as a magician who's interested in both magic tricks, and I did that for the first 10 years of my magical education. And also, as a taric magic, all forms of it, it's shocking to me how close-minded many magicians are to these other forms of magic. And as my teacher says, when you scratch underneath the surface of most magicians, you'll find a mindless skeptic. And yeah, for a long time, magicians have this role in society, and they still do. We choose about debunking the mystical. Right.

Right. Amazing, Randy. Very well. Yeah. Randy is a great example. Sorry for interrupting you there. I'm sorry. Derren Brown is one of my favorite magicians of all time and he's a huge skeptic and his whole thing is about debunking a lot of supernatural feats or

the ways we elude ourselves However, he lies about the way he does his own magic and he lies about most of his feats He says they're psychologically inclined, which have a truth to it, but the main basis of it is magic tricks. So to close out my answer for now, I guess, most magicians don't believe in real magic and would be totally opposed to saying, I use magic to do this.

Right. However, they're fine with deceiving you by saying, oh, yeah, I use the art of psychological manipulation and so there's a strange double standard in my mind. Right. Right. Yeah, there is like a There's just in what you said psychological manipulation. There's enough ambiguity there Like what does that even mean and when you say psychological manipulation? What is your definition of the psyche anyway? And within that psychological when you say psychological manipulation, what is your definition of the psyche anyway? And within that psychological manipulation,

how much of your instinctual understanding of who you're performing for is actually clairopathic, is actually tuning into some group consciousness. Is a comedian, you know, we are magic tricks or jokes, but there is like, you must tune into the audience. Like you have to, you feel the consciousness of the audience. And if you don't feel that,

they don't think you're listening to them. Like they, you're cut off from them. So you have to sort of open up to that field. At least that's my theory on it. So yeah. I have that. You, I don't know if you've ever read, there's a great book by Resa Aslan

about the like historic Jesus. I usually don't get into this shit, but it's a good book. All right, let's do it. Well, I'm called. God, it's do it. Well, let's be called. Oh, God, it's called, I'll have to look it up. I have like my memory for things I can read a book and I can't remember the name of the book

and I'll remember details from the book where I never remember the name. But in the book he says there, there are all these references to Jesus historically, but none of them as a Messiah, rather all of them called them a magician. I don't know if you knew that or not, but that was the term given to him in those days as a magician. Interesting.

Yeah, and so I just wondered what are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on, and I don't mean it in a cheesy way, but the weird kind of healing or the weird The weird transformation that can't happen when your mind is blown by some kind of great trick What again, what a great question Well, let's start with magic The word magic comes from ancient Aramaic, sorry ancient Persian, and they were the followers of Zarathustra.

The priests that followed Zarathustra were called the Magi, and they were labeled that by the Greeks who were referring to them as people with secrets. They knew things. So with some extent Jesus was a magi. Now, he wasn't a follower of Zarathustra, but he knew things. Yeah. Now, if you were to ask some magicians,

for example, I spoke to David Blaine about this, he believes Jesus was a straight up magician. I'll let David clarify that, but, you know, some of the magic could be, but he certainly was a very enlightened being. Cool. You know, some of the magic could be, but he certainly was a very enlightened being. Now, maybe that wasn't the question you asked, but that was just a quick answer. No, sure, no, I love, right.

Well, I mean, this is a, and I've changed water into wine. So there's, there's, there's, you know, incredible. And also, wow, man, you gotta, you gotta open a vineyard, you don't need the vines, you just need water. You're set. The, in stories, like named Crowley Baba who is Ramdas's guru and you hear stories.

From, I've heard it now from multiple people about things that would happen around him that are astounding and possible. There's no, just no way, like crazy stories of a variety of things. Generally, a kind of ability to know you, like not just know like who you are as a person, but to tell you everything about you, just to instantaneously know all that. And I've heard that from enough people who I trust now that I completely believe it, but that also he would, he didn't like it when people like thought he was doing this.

He would say, I'm not doing it. It's not me. It's God. It has nothing to do with me. This is just, and he meant that too. I don't think he was being humble. Like, he meant that these kinds of secretesities were things weren't embodied inside of him.

But also what he said is, all of this, the miracles and stuff, the whole point of them isn't to seem incredible or powerful, but to grab attention so that you could teach a deeper truth, that first you draw them in with a, oh my God, look, the orbs are appearing or you know things about my past that I've never told anyone or all the varieties of things.

But then the next thing you realize is that this person just loves you. Like this is just a, you're around a person who maybe is just mostly love. And so that the tricks themselves are secondary. What are your thoughts on that? Do you have that component in your,

when you're doing shows, do you have like the intent behind it is more than just doing tricks? Definitely. You know, I don't want to entertain people as much as I hope to delight them, just because everything is always trying to entertain us, including these marketing at campaigns, and you know, the birds right now and so that's maybe maybe my intention for now is much deeper than hopefully entertain people. And there is a big component of love and connectedness and that's really the message I try to share with magic at this point. And magic is a symbolic art and I think you can really get these ideas across. For example, I may borrow several wedding rings at a party

and then link them together permanently. And I don't have to say we are all connected. Look, the symbol is so strong that, you know, it speaks deeply to the psyche beyond words. Now I want to say one more thing, which is this distinction between, let's say, magic tricks and real magic in all its forms, it fascinates me and I try to, as I said, share truth through the art of illusion. And to me, what I'm seeing for now is that magic tricks and all of these really magical experiences, which are ultimately being faced with something much bigger than yourself, which you don't yet understand, these experiences and magic tricks point to the same truth.

And one truth is, more is possible than you allow yourself to believe. And beliefs are boundaries which we self impose. Now, I don't quite like when magicians say anything is possible. That's an anti-rational thing. Like, contradictions are impossible, but way more is possible. So when you anti-rational thing. Like, contradictions are impossible, but way more is possible. So, when you experience an experience of a real magic, it's not impossible, it is clearly possible. It's just outside of your box of beliefs. And if it's okay, I'll just share a quick metaphor, which has helped me kind of understand this for myself, which is, at birth, we are given clay or putty. And through on our childhood, we build a little clay box,

or ceramic box. And inside of this box, we place everything we think we know about existence. Most of these things are inherited. Some of them are taught by our teachers, a lot learned from experience. But the role of magic in all its forms as magic tricks or these magical experiences is to come in whenever you've let your box drive for too long because ceramic is deeply brittle. So a magical experience is just pokes your box and it breaks because it's become brittle and you're reminded that there's so much more than you allow yourself to conceive. And we can't live without the box, which in this metaphor is the ego. So a recommendation, I guess, philosophically, is just to build the box, but to make it

more malleable. And remember that the box is not true. It's simply a metaphor. Thank you Squarespace for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Squarespace is what helped me make a website that I am so proud of That I've actually had the website tattooed on my chest flesh-colored ink I haven't figured out how to do the links yet If you've got a podcast if you have anything

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Duncan, when you're ready to launch his Africa Duncan, you're going to get 10% off your first order of a website or a domain. Deepest bows to you, Squarespace. And we can't live without the box which in this metaphor is the ego. So a recommendation, I guess, philosophically is just to build the box, but to make it more malleable. And remember that the box is not true. It's simply a metaphor. Well, there isn't there's something scary? What do you think?

Well, what do you think about? No, go ahead, please. I'd be curious in knowing how your magical experiences, whether they've been with psychedelics or synchronicities, have informed your open-mindedness. Yeah, I mean, my takeaway from most of them is just that clearly consciousness is not localized. Or if there is localized consciousness,

that localized consciousness is more akin to like a tributary in a river or something that happens to temporarily be you. And so that because, I mean, if this is the case, which I've certainly, so many experiences that I've had, I can't, I don't understand how it couldn't be the case. But if that is the case, and you knew that, and really wanted to pull one over on society as a whole, you would do to create the illusion to society that actually consciousness is in you only,

it's a byproduct of your neurology, it's, you're not floating in an ocean of consciousness, it's just sort of like exhaust or something from your bio computer. Sources? Yeah. Generally gets written off like that and really like, I don't know, it's something to happen when our Neo-Core tech's got to a certain level of complexity. That's all it is.

So if you get enough people believing that, but you know, in fact, that there is this shared consciousness, then now you have power over people. It's extraordinary powers over people. You have the ability to do so many things. And then it's similar to, if you know when the eclipse is going to happen, and nobody else does, you can make people think you made the sun disappear. You know, it's that kind of stuff. We just haven't got another point yet of quantifying consciousness in any real way.

And so, at least in a way, you know, that's the AI thing. Well, why everyone's so freaked out by AI. I think one of the reasons is it forces everyone to really look into the idea of sentience and then you realize, how do you even know of something sentient? How do I know I am? Contra-privileged, yeah. Yeah, so that's, that would be my answer to you is that clearly we are in some kind of consciousness field that can carry data sets and that that field of consciousness I think isn't even limited to planet Earth, meaning some of the data sets moving through that are

limited to planet Earth, meaning some of the data sets moving through that are like not from not terrestrial or or even not from this dimension or something like that. Oh, it sounds absurd, but no, it sounds quite rational. We live in a deep mystery and we're often too distracted to accept it. Yeah. The deeper back you look, the more mysteries, it's just like, we can't deal with the unknown. So we're constantly like shutting ourselves off. We're like, this is so crazy. Like, what is going on in this existence? Yes.

Yeah. And the clay box, that you're talking about, the clay house, some people at the clay prison cell, whatever, the particular thing is that you've constructed around you. I think where it gets really funny is even without like trying to open the door, break the box, puncture the box, just a general magnification of the box itself shows that it's full of holes, completely permeable. And that in a weird way, you've invented the idea of the box because you can't bear somehow to realize you are that consciousness.

Like you're more consciousness than box. And I think for some people, that's really scary. Because they're like you said, no control there. There are what you associate as control. Where do I hang the pictures in my illusionary box of suffering? How do I make the bed here? My illusionary cats and all the little components

that I associate with comfort, when you start realizing, oh, no, no, no, that is a, that's a clay, that's a freshly made, not even putting a kiln clay box. And I think that's really scary for people. I mean, what do you think about that? Well, two things come up. There's a story about Houdini, which is my favorite Houdini story, but I'm going to totally paraphrase it and render it super brief. So apologies to magic historians, correct me in the comments. But something on the lines of, Rodin was escaping from a prison,

and he was behind the cell and really struggling. And as I remember reading it in his book, he was sweating and really struggling to get out of this prison. And one of the guards were sort of smiling at him or messaging him in some way, and did this action, which is kind of like a sliding action from afar and who didn't just slit the door open and the lesson was His mind trapped him in the prison because the door was always open Wow, wow right

Yes, I That is beautiful and I you know, I think, CS Lewis said the gates of hell are locked from the inside. Or that's a good one. A good one, right? But and, you know, I think that, you know, when you when you look at your was a Aramaic, the Aramaic, definition of magic, the holders of secrets, right? To me, that is the secret. Or if you want to find like the, the holders of secrets, right? To me, that is the secret. Or if you

want to find like the, the, the pinnacle of secrets, it's just that. It's that you, at any time you want to, can shift out of whatever your particular subjective conditions are, your internal conditions, and just no longer be there. And it's as easy as sliding open a door. And if there are secret societies, which I do think there are, and I imagine that, there's a few, and then I think some of them, I'm not so sneak, some not so secret,

but some are secret, not because they are trying to gain power, or be deceptive, or trick people, but because there secret, not because they are trying to gain power or be deceptive or trick people, but because there's a sense of like consent. It's like, what is the joy of like freeing yourself from a prison that you've created? If somebody else comes and does it for you, it's almost like they don't want to spoil that moment that I think someone can have in a lifetime where you realize, oh my God, I don't have to be in complete misery, I don't have to live in a terrifying world

or everything's trying to kill me and there's horrors beyond comprehension waiting around every corner. In fact, in a moment, I can flip the coin so to speak and I'm in heaven. And I think that is such a relief or such a powerful, maybe an initiation into something that that's why they say, shh, don't say anything. Even though I guess I just said it, but I'm not in a secret society, so I'm allowed to.

Yeah, well, as we were saying, can I share a brief story about overcoming the mind to be? I would love it. Son, great. Thanks. So this is sort of what I would call a real magic story. And it begins like this. I've been writing a book called The Book of Secrets. And within it, I reveal the sexiest secrets I can given by a magician. So like how to change water into wine, how to guess a stranger's pin number, that type of thing. And it's a book about power ultimately, which is a very interesting conversation and magic. And within the book, I needed stories that would redelite and mystify the reading audience, because I'm constantly sort of tearing down and giving a very rational explanation.

My friend had this story which I loved, which was she was at a concert, her name is Julia. And it was a rock concert outside in England in 2017. And a man in front of her was a Rastafarian, and he started humming. And within seconds the entire crowd started humming together and you could no longer hear the rock concert, which I found beautiful. But that's not the story. I had asked Julia to write this story and put it in my book, but she never did, because Julia has now passed away. All right. And now we come to the real story, which is I was in at home in Italy, and I got, I was

feeling kind of uncomfortable in the car after a party. So I closed my eyes, started meditating in hopes I would feel better, and I didn't. And my phone rang, and it was my mom, and she said, Sasha, I have terrible news. And I asked her, give me a second to prepare. Okay, what is it? Julia passed. And I said, Julia, who? Julia de Simone.

Now, Julia was, I think, 21 or 22 at the time. One of my really dear, dear, dear friends in life. Just a beautiful soul. So I answered, I need a moment to be with this mom. I'm okay. My friends drive me home and I went to war. Now, let me, that was maybe not a subtle way of saying this, but I entered the shower and I kept saying, I need to speak to Julia. I need to speak to Julia. And I entered the shower and it ended up lasting over half an hour. And I kept saying to myself,

line, you've lost because I no longer play the game. And I kept repeating it, line, you've lost because I no longer play the game. And this went on and on and on. It was a mantra for a while. And I entered an altered state of consciousness without the need of any exogenous substance, and I entered, except for water, I guess, I entered my bed and I connected with Julia. And she said several things to me. Now we come sort of to the punchline. One of them was, what can I share here? She made me promise I would allow myself to have more fun

because Julia was such a fun person, a shining star. And then she said, take care of this specific brother of mine. I want you to become close here as well. I died. And I asked her, how did you die, Julia? And if I had to, let me take a small step back. If I had to explain the experience of connecting with my friend who passed away,

it felt as if all of my chi, all of my vital energy went down to my belly button and really condensed there. Right? And then this conversation began, but it wasn't my conscious mind formulating questions or listening. It felt like a conversation was taking place and I was kind of hearing it, overhearing it. Okay. So eventually Julia says to me, look, I've written a letter for you and my mom will find it amongst my things in university. I never got to send it to you. I'll send it to you.

And several other things were said, but that was in it. And then I asked Julia, how did you die? Silence. Julia, how did you die? Silence. Julia, how did you die? Silence. And at this point, the illusionary mind starts coming in and I recognize it and it starts conjuring images. Oh, maybe it was a drug overdose, maybe a bank robbery.

And I recognize it, but no answer to Julia, how did you die? And this goes on for a few minutes. The doorbell rings, my mom is there and she's crying and I'm smiling because I'm having this deep experience with my friend. And she said, why are you smiling? I said, mom, we're in very different states of mind right now. Just tell me, how did Julia die? And she started crying and said, oh my God, Sasha, it's so terrible. A peanut allergy. Oh my God. Now to anyone else, that would be a tragedy.

And it was, of course, but my friend Julia loved, given on our previous conversations, she found it hilarious that she made Diave a peanut allergy. We had laughed about it. So in this moment, I felt her come in and laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing. Of course, my mom was, you know, I saw her laughing. And she said, what the fuck is wrong with you? I said, Mom, we'll talk about this tomorrow.

The moral of the story is, two weeks later, Julia's mom, who of course is at her university dorm room, finds a letter for me that Julia had never posted. And she sent it to me and it arrives to me in Dupresa imagine how far that is how long that takes yeah on the life-fifth, which is my birthday wow Now now for the longest time was the end of the story But I needed to tell the story to her mom and just to close this out in January of this year I met her and I said,

I really have to tell you a story. I need to tell you in person. And I said, you picked a restaurant. And she picked a restaurant called Vardo. Sorry, Vardo, without knowing. Now, in Tibetan, the medicine. Oh, Vardo. Yeah, Vardo.

Oh, dang. That's brilliant. Now, I- Wait, can you tell everyone that Vardo is in case people are just tuning in. Sure. Bardo is an in-between state that happens after death, which I believe lasts between 40 or 42 days. You know which one that is?

I think it's 42, but I always get it confused. Okay. The answer to life, the universe and everything, baby. Yeah. Okay, the answer to life, the universe and everything, baby. But within those days, the spirit is still available on earth for conversation and they're kind of closing out their lives. I hope that's a good enough answer. So it was ironic that she picked this restaurant called Bardot and the story ends here because I eventually told her the story and the part that hit her the strongest, even more so,

than the letter, was when I said, Julia, how did you die? And I didn't get an answer. Julia, how did you die? And she, I didn't get an answer. And she started crying. And I said, why are you crying? She said, because to this day, I still don't know how that my daughter died. I know it was a peanut allergy, but I haven't gotten the results of the autopsy after two years. So this is a wild story. One of many, but it reminds me that more it's possible than we allow ourselves to believe. And if we just sometimes confront our mind and get it out of the way, we may be surprised. That is thank you for that telling our story. I'm so sorry about your loss. That is,

I mean, obviously, any age when someone passes is terrible, but that is just those, I, those are the kinds of things that piss me off. I think that's why grief has a component of anger to it, because even stories like that get my blood boiling a little bit. The last but this is a positive story. Oh no it is I know and I'm an idiot so I'm still mad at that. I'll get past it but I'm still a little annoyed with the way the universe works. But how long would you want to live? Oh God. I mean, no, I, I, it's weirdly, I'm less worried about my own death. It's just like when you lose your mom, when you

lose a dog, when you lose those are the, it's very selfish. Really. You're like, Hey, I want you to stay here on this planet. Don't continue your evolutionary journey as a soul. Don't transcend. Just say, conqueror, guys, and people do that to dying people. They sometimes hospice workers will talk about how people will not die until their family leaves the house because they feel guilty about dying. They won't let go until they're alone. It's really interesting, interesting,

but to get to your story, your magic story, I have noticed within experiences of like communing with people who have recently passed, there does seem to be a synchronicity component to it. It's not just that you experience them, but somehow mixed up in it is some other thing which almost confirms that you are having a real experience. Some other like incredible synchronicity tied into the event itself. Like these, it implies to me, oh, is this some kind of fourth dimensional, some fourth dimensional geometry that we can't see here, but that when someone starts

shifting into that, a little bit of it comes out. And what that looks like is synchronicity. You want to look like is what we call miracles, because we're seeing a shape or a, I don't know what you would call it, a manifestation of something outside of time. And so that produces the effect of, generally some kind of temporal miracle happens. It's really curious, man. It's incredible territory to explore,

but I try to remind myself as a young man to be aware of Exploring it because I find that all of the to enter deeply and be unbiased open and unafraid But to be aware of the illusion Which you know is constantly we're constantly creating for ourselves. It's like one has to know how to identify and kind of be a wary of their own illusions. And I'm not saying that in regards to any of your stories or mine, it's just, how do you know what to take from an experience or what to leave?

How do you know, maybe in a psychedelic journey, what is, let's say, air quotes real, and what is illusionary? You know, I'm gonna have to, like, that's the kind of question where I would really, I would have to spend some time thinking about it. I think it's one of the most important questions. What is truth?

Like, how do you know for sure that you are contacting truth, whatever it may be, physical, an idea these days, especially. But you know, and I can't remember which Buddhist teacher it was, but they were sort of talking about like ways to maybe, this is, they didn't use your words, but similar ways to break out of that clay box. And one is notice color. So in other words, like instead, if you just, which gets you down to a kind of elemental reality,

in other words, like when you are looking at color, that is the color, that's what it is. Don't remove your stories about it. I like in your story that you talked about recognition of when your mind started creating some fuzz in front of the contact you're having. You know, to even be able to do that, you have to understand your mind enough to know the difference between your mind and some other thing. And so that would be a prerequisite to really inoculate yourself from tricking yourself, I would say.

But so finding some kind of fundamental basis, but then also not becoming an absolutist regarding that fundamental thing. In other words, yeah, sure, you're seeing color, but also you must simultaneously realize that color is changing because we're in time space and it's fading out, but you're framing of time as produced the illusion of some constant color around you.

And Buddhism is an absolute and relative reality. So if you are going to like understand the truth, you must weave within it the realization that it is not a permanent truth. It is generally a changing situation and ultimately in the grand scheme of things completely unreal yet simultaneously real. I think in the,

the hurry, Chris just call it something like a synchixin kabeta tatfa, simultaneous oneness and difference. So, this is a roundabout way of sort of saying like you, you trust yourself, don't like turn into a fucking nihilist, everything's like a fog of atoms that my brain is like transforming into some kind of universe. That's all. But then also don't become an absolutist or an eternalist, you know, and then imagine that whatever it is you're seeing has a real permanent nature to it. The glass eternally. And somewhere in there, in between those two, I think there is a truth that's very hard to hold.

If you're looking for a nice clay chair to sit in and feel like you have some stability. You know, if you're addicted to that, something in there, I think, is a truth. But, and you know, basic stuff, you know, you credit your pen stuff, you know, you credit your pen number that you apparently can extrapolate, something you can pull from people's minds

which is fascinating. You're credit card. I can explain my not works. I would love to know how that works. So that I can, but if you know my pen number, just like, I'll, you know, I'll, no, I'll bleep it out. I'll bleep it out. Sorry guys, I tried.

Yeah, I'd love to share how the pen number thing works. There's of course, two elements of it. Why it works and how it works. And the secret in magic, which a great magic historian and inventor Jim Steinmeier says is, if you wanna figure out how the trick is done, don't ask how, ask why. This episode of the DTFH has been sponsored by BetterHelp. It is so easy to forget the fact that you have an organic bio-com, which is instantaneously forming reality around you based on fluctuations in some infinite void. What's even more astounding is that people have

this as their method of understanding what reality is and somehow they think. Knowing everything we know now about computers, PCs, Macs, these things break down. Things get a little wobbly sometimes. Sometimes you get a virus. And if that happens to things made out of matter, steel, I guess everything's made out of matter, steel, no computer is made of steel. I don't know what my MacBooks made of,

but I know for sure that they fuck up every few years. I know for sure that my inability to be more careful, and I go to certain websites and fests them with all kinds of bugs, and I have to get those bugs out of the computer. I don't mean to mechanize the human psyche. I'm just, the comparison here is that these are, these are predictable organized machines. We're not. I don't know if you've ever seen paintings of neurons. And looking at that insane web of connections and realizing that's you. But if you ever do that, it will make you want to get therapy. Because we need help sometimes. I know I do.

I know I have. And it is substantially improved my life. It doesn't have to be for some deep, festering wound either. I mean, it's like the gym or something like that. You just, you go, you feel so much better when you leave. And it can last. It has for me. It's not the kind of thing where you just feel good for a few hours. Sometimes, like if you really need it, which many of us do, it will change the trajectory

of your entire life. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online. It's easy to use. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. So it's easy, no waiting rooms, and if you are not vibing with your therapist, you could switch.

Find more balance with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Duncan today to get 10% off your first month. That's better H-E-L-P.com slash Duncan. 10% off your first month. Thank you, better help. If you want to figure out how the trick is done, don't ask how, ask why. Why is the chair that way? Why is there a cloth on top of the chair?

That type of thing? Not how does the trick work. Wow, cool. So quick thought, but the pin number, yes. The reason why it works is this is sort of my own, let's say explanation of it is a form of manipulation of context. Let me give you a really clear example. If you box inside the ring, then you may make millions of dollars. If you box out, box outside of the ring, you may lose millions of dollars. Yeah, it's all in the context. Right. So get anyone the easiest way to get someone to give you their pen number is simply to give them a piece of paper say write your pin number and then give it back to me and that's exactly how I do it

But without an appropriate context, you know one whatever do that. Right. But by creating a context, this is important. By creating a context, a people neither understand or understand the rules of people will behave in extraordinary ways and a lot of people have taken advantage of this in a negative way so to be concrete if I just give you a piece of paper Duncan and said write your pin number give it back to me you would say no fuck off yeah but if I said I want to try a psychological experiment this is a bit odd I read about it in the book and

it may or may not work, but what they say is You need a piece of paper. Do you have one? Okay, no, so take a piece of paper and write your birthday there But don't show me because I'm gonna try to figure out what it is and Then underneath that write something personal. Let's let's use something that is inanimate Let's use something really something like a pin number. Don't worry, you won't show this to anyone. Now you've just gone someone to write their pin number on the piece of paper. It's just the creation of a context, in this case a mind-reading demonstration, which you neither understand or understand the rules to.

So I'll give one more example from everyday life. Uber created a context in which it makes sense to send your 10 year old daughter to school in a different car every day with a human you don't know, don't know the name of and never are in contact with. Yeah. Outside of the context of Uber that would seem fucking crazy. So you get someone's pin number by creating a context that they don't understand or understand the rules of.

But you still have to like get the paper from them. You still have to somehow look at it. Or you would, is that, that's the part you probably can't tell me is that's the part I rather not tell out in the if you're really interested. There's a lot of magic books within the field called mentalism, where you can find the explanation to that. Yeah, wow, that is so cool.

And so interesting when you just think of society as the super context, the same magic trick of capitalism happens. I mean, where in any other context does it make sense to sell your life energy to someone who is getting much more value from it than you are? Like there is no context.

Like if you shift the context into just a conversation with a fan buyer over, I don't know, over like a nice midnight coffee or something. And the vampire's like listen, how about I buy your blood? I'm gonna buy your blood, you're gonna be weak, fucked up, I'm not gonna give you as much as it's worth, but eventually I might like increase the amount of money I give for your blood if you continue to let me drain you

Like you don't fuck you know way, but the exact same thing is like what runs the economy and Yes, you know context that's so interesting when you start looking at the Magic yeah beware of montaille beware of context right you may behave in very strange ways under the right context. You know, Nazi Germany was an extreme example, but we're living different versions every day. Right, yeah, right. And, you know, I guess this is what, this is why magicians become skeptics.

This is why there's pen and teller. This is why is because somewhere in realizing the fallibility of the human mind to understand context and all the other aspects of the art, you get scared for people. You realize, shit, if I know this and I'm doing magic shows and entertaining, surely other people must know this

who aren't doing magic shows but who are trying to gain power. And then you want as much as you can pop that balloon because you do recognize how like dangerous that is. That is dangerous. Like take any run of the Melcoleater. And if they know any of these tricks and just come up with their own way of doing it, creating that context, then suddenly they've got their followers believing that they're Jesus or talking to an alien mother ship or whatever the thing is. The two most powerful manipulators of context I know of, you'll like one of them, is Sasha Baron Cohen, and Darren Brown. If you don't know Darren Brown, I push anyone, please, D-E-R-R-E-N

Brown, so not Darren, but Darren. He's a, he started as a magician and a hypnotist, and he essentially is a super sorry in England, and he does these big scale shows that are very much like the Truman show. For example, he hypnotizes a guy to believe it's a zombie apocalypse and then for weeks Hax's television and has his favorite news channels, yes, has his favorite news channels make fake announcements of an imminent asteroid impact, then wakes him up inside of a hospital with 2,000 actors dressed as zombies and tries to teach him about leadership, compassion, generosity through a wild, large scale experiment.

And this is all true. That is, so there around, I don't know how I haven't heard of that, but I cannot wait to watch that. That is, yes, who shows on Netflix. Whoa. Yeah, you know, this is interesting. I never thought of Sasha Barron-Cone as a magician, but it is magic, isn't it?

It is definitely a form of, he's doing a magic show. He's- He is the archetype of a magician. He's one of the most famous archetypes of a magician in society today. Specifically the trickster. Because my teacher who has a magic school, his name is Jeff McBride, and he says that we can be tricksters, sorcerers, oracles or sages. This is just a model.

But the trickster, Sasha Baron Cohen is the ultimate trickster, and the trickster hurt themselves and revealed their own foolishness to ultimately reveal society's foolishness. Wow. And they break boundaries and that's the main thing they need to learn. Sasha Baron Cohen is incredible. Yeah. For creating context. I agree.

It's amazing. Brutal sometimes. Sometimes a little sadistic to me. Like it's sometimes he brings you know, but still incredible, incredible his ability to like maintain the character, to not break. And you know, there's editing or I agree with you. So this to me is like, sometimes when I'm walking down the street and I'm not looking at my phone, but you look around, it's not a zombie apocalypse. It's even weirder than that.

You just look around and literally everyone's like staring at their hypno rectangles completely not there. They're looking into their phones. Or another way to put it would be the other my oldest is, you know, figure out how to use the Amazon Alexa. All this the oldest for. And it's really funny to watch them talk to a robot. It's really because they get frustrated. Oh, yeah, I'll add it sometimes. It's really funny, but he He wanted to know what the weather was like outside And he says to the Alexa Alexa. What's the weather like now?

My wife and I are laughing because it's like forest go outside Just just lost oh wait my Alexa is talking listen. Oh, I said I activated the weather I'm like sorry, that's my bad. I can't control my power sometimes Amazing amazing work, but yeah, you know, it's like so the context I mean what better way to get Amazing work. But yeah, you know, it's like, so the context, I mean, what better way to control context than to convince people that reality or truth is in their phone versus their direct contact

with reality. Now you've created the perfect conditions to trick people because you wanna know what people are like. Don't go and meet the people. Don't go meet a trans person. Don't go meet, I don't know, an immunologist. If you are on the other side of things, don't go hang out with an actual scientist.

You know, whatever the thing is, whatever your particular interpretation of some, you know, whatever the thing is, whatever your particular interpretation of some like demonic force in the world, don't try to understand them through your phone, go and meet them in person, then make a judgment based on that, or hopefully meet your sample size as a little bigger than that. And so, you know, I think this is the why the phone social media is really terrifying, based on what you just said. It has produced a context within which an artificial,

warped reality is being accepted, is this must be what the world is like. And that is a very dangerous situation if the whole planet is beginning to accept whatever the thing is spitting out of them is this is what's happening. This is the world here in. Wow, man, that's good. Or your glasses or your new apple, Oculus glasses. Yeah. Oh, there you go.

Rings up something I really feel the need to say and I like to also hear what you think about this, which is power. And this is, you know, my, and now it borrowings from some of my teachers, Eugene Berger, Jeff McBride, but magic is ultimately about power, whether it's magic tricks, or whether it's magical spells, and on a superficial level, like on a really silly level,

a magic trick is about power, because I can do something you can't. On a theatrical level, magic is about power because the magician plays the role of God, and they create problems and then they solve them one after the other. That's why as tellers, that magic makes for terrible theater. But really, magic is about power because the magician has a tremendous responsibility with his or her tools.

And I feel strongly to mention all of these things we've just spoken about, it brings up a really important conversation about asking oneself what ones intentions are and what ones values are. Yes. And yeah, and I just, it's a conversation. Maybe I feel strongly about it because I don't hear it being had within the world of magicians nearly enough. Right. Magicians, in my opinion, need to have more conversations about power and how to use that power. And more importantly, what are the ethics and values they use that power towards? And it's very tricky. Okay. I have a story to tell you based on what you just said.

When, you know, when Ramdas was alive, they would have these Ramdas retreats. You know Ramdas, he's a... Yeah. Okay. They would have these retreats a couple times a year in Hawaii. I started going to those and I got to hang out with some of these teachers. Like Jack Cornfield is this like brilliant Buddhist teacher. And he knew Carlos Castaneda.

Yes, and yeah, and you know, I was telling him, I don't like him. And the reason I don't like him is the story of selling lizard's eyes shut to produce something. It's horrible. It's some terrible thing where you say it's just animal torture basically disguised as magic and so I was selling jack you know that's when I stopped reading it because it's like after you I hear you're sewing lizard I don't care if you're telling me out about the fucking time machine I don't want that whatever that. And Jack, this big smile on his face, like Duncan,

not everyone thinks compassion is the goal, that not everyone thinks that, you know, for some people, power is the goal. It's not about compassion. And I've heard some, some sorcerers look at compassion as like an early, neophyte phase of understanding reality that if you get stuck in the compassion place You never can achieve what you're talking about which is power unrestricted power power not constrained by any kind of morality or ethical

System other than what is your will? What do you want? What is inside of you that you truly want? And you get it. That's what you do. Your job is the universe. You are the universe expressing itself. The universe wants whatever your thing is, a Ferrari, a mansion, a...

A apartment? An apartment these days. It's a roommate in an apartment, but whatever you do, yeah. Whatever the thing is, that is your job. You're getting this, your little job as a little tendril of the universe is to extantiate your will into the world

through any means that you can. And that actually is true compassion. That if you wanna talk about real compassion, it's not assigning some ethical system to your interactions with people. It's actually fully being who you are and what your will is. So this is the slippery slope of the sorcerer. It starts off like that. And then the problem is you get what you want,

God forbid, and then you want something else. Something else, something else, and something else, and more and more and more and more and more and more, and then you realize it's a trap. You're, you're the universe stuck in a little circle. You know, there's, but it's set up. It's us. Yes. Or a voice that poor well circle. You know, there's set up its ass. Yes.

Or a boy with that poor fucking snake, chewing its own tail. A complete dumbass. Yeah, so I think that's power. And or rather that's like embodied power, right? It's like if you start thinking your power is in you, just like if you think you're conscious, this is in you. Now you're going to inflate yourself. Now everything is like your creation, everything is and then that's where and but for that to work, other

people need to be powerless, right? For power to really work, you have to be more powerful and equal level of power, fucks the whole system. Lut. I couldn't agree. That was a fun way of expressing that. There's a quote that a friend of mine, Diane, taught me and it's deep and it's beautiful. First of all, power is also about knowing

when not to use power. Ah. But her quote was the following. use power. But her quote was the following. The purist form of manifestation requires no manipulation. Instead, be so present and trusting that the whole of existence is in your service. So all of the Alistair Crowley shit, all of these, you know, chaos magicians, and all their forms, to me it's a very unenlightened approach. As interesting and fascinating as it is, and it should be explored, instead, why not be in harmony with existence, and hopefully, in time, time will be okay.

Yes, yes. That's it. I mean, that's my view on it. And also, I'm sure, I mean, I'm not sure, but it's you've ever actually tried to practice any kind of ceremonial magic chaos magic, any kind of like bona fide magical tradition. You get results.

And then what happens is you, like at least my experience with it is the results that I thought I wanted ended up being like really detrimental to my life. Like the stuff I was like squeezing into existence, it turned out to be not great. Karma generating, it just turned out to be not great. Karma generating, it just turned out to be not great. And yeah, it this... What cost?

At what cost? Well, we'll never know. I mean, you never know, because karma, it's not like whatever the negative effects are just happened once. It echoes through time. And I've read that as you get deep in your practice of magic, and again, using any kind of like, spatiality is obviously it's just a way of articulating something,

but the idea is like there's the Godhead or the well of creation or whatever you want to call it. He's there. He's there. The top of the cop holistic tree of life, and a magician is getting closer and closer to that. But the closer you get to it, the more you realize you are it. And so to even maintain the identity of a sorcerer a magician, you have to stop at some point. At some point, you can't keep going in or you no longer give a shit

About being a magician. It's actually what happens to acid dealers a lot of the time is You know as they say don't get high on your own supply they End up Taking so much LSD That they're an initial if they did have an initial profit motive, that just, they don't care anymore. Now they just want to give LSD to people. And this, I actually read the DEA in the United States, that was one of the problems with like following supply chains of LSD is they break down because they stop being like based on money. And they just, they give

it, they start giving it away. So I think this is sort of the weird parallel there is. To maintain your identity as a sorcerer, you have to maintain your fucking identity and the more you start relaxing into what your friend said, the less you want to exert energy in being like Harry Potter or whatever it is you're trying to do. The great Messiah or whatever it is because you really start realizing I really don't not that I'm not important but I don't really need to do anything. It's already happening. I don't need to like get my trees around my house to like go into photosynthesis. You know they're they're gonna do that and what's more miraculous than that? That's cool, man. I love the conversation about power

Yeah, I need to learn that lesson too by the way Everything we're saying you know about not doing it doing less and being you know So trusting that the universe is in your service, you know, it's a practice. It's a practice. I mean, it really is It's a practice and that's so strange about it. We associate practice with like a sort of rigorous, sometimes painful, excruciating repetition of this thing or that. Whereas this practice is the practice of almost the opposite of that, because you're essentially giving up that, You're giving it up. You're giving up the project completely and you have to give up the giving up of the project until finally There isn't really a you anymore as you understand it then God if you've caught you I know you have anytime you catch a glimpse of that it's such a relief

And there's an important The Spanish magician called Escáneo. He has, if you're interested in magic in any form, this is a really deep book, kind of hard to read, but to me it speaks almost axiomatically. It's called the magic of Escáneo volume one, the structural conception of magic. Sounds kind of complicated.

But, wait, I think I just forgot the point after that long, long, long title. Man, that's great, I do that all the time. I love that. See, it's called kind of this dawning. Oh, I know, is that what they call it over there? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Look, I'll tell you, the structure,

like to understand magic, the structure, it's like, you know, Rondas said, really like waking up is realizing that you are the miracle, you're living in a miracle, everything becomes synchronicity. You know, there's a reason like in the Bible, you hear all these like there's all these parables about blindness, Jesus healing a blind person or all these parables about blindness, Jesus healing a blind person or Paul or Saul of Tarsus, he became the father of the modern Christian church. Jesus and then goes blind. Which is interesting because maybe in this case the blindness is, he was no longer able to see what it used to be. He was no longer able to see the soul of Tarsus who like through rocks at Christians.

And sort of like when you catch glimpses of this outside the box world, there is maybe a period of blindness where you potentially can't see what you even used to be. Like you can't even get yourself back in the box as hard, you know, to what do they say about Krishna, not Krishna, Merti. Krishna, Merti? Not Krishna, Merti. It's another Krishna, famous Indian saint.

They said, Harry Krishna. No, not Harry Krishna. No, not Harry Krishna. He's actually not even into Bhakti Yoga. Harry Krishna is a fucking asshole man. I don't even, but the, the, the moment that you are able

to let go completely, you're almost more than dead because you still have a body. And they said that whoever the saint was, they said, it was like a corpse the universe spoke through. And I've heard different versions of this again and again, people who have encountered these true saints in India, the best description I got was, they look like a person,

but when you're hanging out with them, you're like, that's not a person. I don't know what that is. That's not, you know, that's not anything I've encountered before. That's the comparison was, it was like, like being around a deer. It was so in the moment, so here, so attuned to just right now, so not thinking about the next thing. They were going to say

or what they had said before, so perfectly attuned to the now that they as a their identity was gone as much as the identity of the world is gone. You know, they were that. So, you know, that to me is what's the potential in a human life. And that's way better than summoning gold or some bullshit. Well, and anyone who reminds us of what is possible is giving us a gift. And you do that. Your YouTube videos are so cool, man. I love it. Because we didn't really even talk about showmanship today, but I love the showmanship aspect of what you do. Because you are not just doing really amazing magic, but you're summoning up this sweet,

beautiful energy that, you know, it makes you forget, you're watching magic at all. Like, it's so good, you're so good, man, that part of it to me must be, at least as difficult as the trick itself, the act, or the, it's not an act for you, I know, but that, whoa, like people at your shows,

in an earlier version of me, if I went to one of your shows, I'd be like, he's probably Jesus. Like that's probably, I would, I would probably be a couple. I did it a lot, I run and clear. I have to make a joke about not being, yeah. I mean, and that must be tough.

I mean, because to me, if I was your agent, somebody thought I was Jesus, there would be a part of me that would want to be like, you got me. I am. Yeah. Yeah. He was standing back and disguised himself as a magician. And no one fucking believed he was true. This was the way he tried to do the maceianic wrote, no one believed it. So he was like, let me just do magic tricks. Yes. Like, you know, so I know we're already like after an hour,

but how often do you, how often do you have to push back against the party yourself that wants people to believe that you are Jesus or that you are, you know, a guru figure or that you are, this or that. How do you ever find yourself struggling with that? I'll reframe that question. I, there's no part of me that wants to be identified as Jesus or a guru.

However, of course, there's a part of me that wants to use this power, whether it's just simple techniques, you know, slide of hand techniques for bad. Someone just offered me 5,000 euros to cheat for him at a card game. And, yeah. And part of me, the biggest part of my magical evolution, which was really essential was the, was really defining my own magical values.

And an example of that is like, I don't believe in the golden rule of treating other people as they wish to be treated. I think that's a silver rule. To me, the golden rule is to treat people as they wish to be treated. And my effort is to try to find out and understand how you like to be treated.

Wow. If I can't do that, then I go to the silver rule. Well, I'm just gonna treat you how I wish to be treated with respect, love. That's cool. So to answer your question because I don't want to just dodge it, it's been a process that thankfully I'm no longer trying to manipulate people into giving me things and it was never really something I did. However, I really am being honest, it's more the outside world that asks me to fit

the fucking cheap people or steel stuff. But the ego is certainly a big challenge that we all deal with. And the magician is very easy to feed the ego of a magician. And part of what I had to do was detach myself from the audience's reactions. Like I don't get my self-worth from other people's reactions to my magic or to the rituals I do. I just try to do my best and then detach from the fruits of my outcome or of my labor. But again, the ego comes in and sometimes you know you want people to react a certain way or anything like that.

Oh, yeah. Hell-Pell was an answer. No, that's the answer. If more the outside world that fucks with me and recommends I do this shit, if that's the truth. Of course. I mean, that's what that job of the outside world is. It's has the magician. I mean, this is classic, isn't it? Classic. It's how you know your, your, on the right path is, you know, look at what I've heard that. Oh, right. Well, you know, the best version of this is, you know, look at what I'm heard though. Oh, right. Well, you know, the best version of this is,

you know, I interviewed Damian Eccles. He is an, he practices magic magic, but, or a high magic, not to say what you're doing is a magic, but, oh, ceremonial magic. But he was saying the Bible is like the most powerful Grimwar around. Like it's a book of magic. And the story powerful grimoire around. Like it's a book of magic. And the story of Jesus in the desert.

I mean, this is the classic challenge, especially based on Resa Azlan's idea that he's described as a magician, is that Satan appears to him in the desert as he's gone out there to calm his mind and commune with the divine. And it's like, well, you know, why don't you turn these stones into bread?

And you know, he's trying to tempt him to use his power to do worldly things. I mean, that's the greatest response. Maybe in the Bible is, man, shall cannot live by bread alone. You don't need the world's bread. is man cannot live by bread alone. You don't need the world's bread. There's something else. So yeah, I mean, I think that's a good sign. When the world starts coming to you

to try to get you to like serve it, you're probably something's going right for you. I like that. The world is essentially teaching the magician by testing him or her. I really like that. That feels right. It's the initiations. You know, isn't it? It's just the initiations of like, yeah, okay, let's put your money where your mouth is. How about 5,000 euros for like an hour of just some cards? What's the big deal? It'll be funny kind of. It's a story you could tell people. It's a funny story you could tell about

in your next interview, how you got $5,000 to cheat at poker. It's always, you know, no big deal. That's the other thing. Like usually the tests are, it's not like I want you to use your powers. It's summon an arch demon to attack Ukraine. It's usually the time, it's a game of cards.

No big deal, but then you do it. And then the next one is a little bit more and a little bit more, and then that's in your sorcerer. Yeah, I like that kind of thing about not treating other people as a means to an end, but as an end in themselves. I think that has a lot of truth to it. Oh, God, it's like, or it has a, you know,

it's a comedian, that's how you know your doom is like, you want those laughs. You're going out there laugh hungry. You're, cause now it's all about you, isn't it? It's not about what you're giving to the audience. It's about you, you don't want to make the audience laugh, actually, you want the feeling of making the audience laugh. And those are two big, different fucking things.

Can we stay on that for a moment? Yes. Please, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Well, you know, because I think as in a performance that there's that gestalt, or the whole is greater than the sum of his parts. And so at a show when you're performing, if you just think it's you,

if you don't understand the audience is equally, if not more important than you, because without them, well, you're talking to a mirror, whereas with them you are talking to a mirror made up of all of them, you're talking to a mirror, whereas with them, you are talking to a mirror made up of all of them and mixed in with all their energy. So you have to appreciate the totality of the audience so that you don't create an accidental

hierarchical pyramid-shaped structure where they end up being lucky that I'm up here. And if you are doing doing saying shit like that You better not mean it like it's you know what I mean like you're you're saying it to be Richard Reveys Yeah, it's calm exactly well lovingly And you know this is to me the Sasha I think the The other big secret is just it's love the reason Ricky Trevets gets away with that shit

is when he's doing it right, there's this love behind it. The greener of the club I perform out here is populated by comedians who are vicious with each other. You would never say this to another person, but the way we talk to each other is so funny and always roasting and always like tampering egos, which we all need. But the reason it works is because we love each other. We all respect each other.

We love each other. So when someone is like saying something to you, if it was someone you didn't know, you might be offended. You feel like almost respected or loved. It's a show. So I think that's the other component is you really have to find some way to love people. If you're going to perform for people. I mean, and that's my own opinion. I'm sure many comedians would disagree with that.

But how are you going to go and like try to entertain people you secretly hate? Like, I can't do that. How's that young boy? You don't even want to be there. You don't like people. Yes. That's got to be a component, right? Like you clearly love people.

The delight that you are experiencing as you do this is so evident. And so like, you know what I mean? You see that and that plugs into the real magic in the midst of like, well, I don't wanna say what you're doing is not, but you know the higher magic. I got you, I got you.

Well, feel that. Thank you. I can't wait to see you perform in person, man. Do you ever come to Austin? Do you ever come to Austin to perform? You ever do, I'd like to. You ever do tours? I was just in Hanate. I guess I do. I'm currently person man. Do you ever come to Austin? Do you ever come to Austin to perform? You ever do? I'd like to. I would just sing Hana Fey.

Yes, I do. I'm currently on tour. I just sit in New York and Santa Fey and I'm in Italy. But I usually do private performances and parties. Yeah, I saw that on your website and let me tell you, at some point when the kids are old enough to appreciate it, oh, I cannot wait. Like it's because my kids love them. They love my magic.

If they were to see your magic, you know what? Maybe I don't want you to show my kids magic because then I won't be able to do it for them anymore. Don't lose that. Don't lose that. You get daddy points. I'll teach you some magic if you want. Oh, I would love it.

Anything for like, like, how does that work? Like if somebody does want you to come Perform for them how far in advances? You need to be does there need to be like how does that even work like if someone is listening and wanted you to come to their Whatever doing well Thanks for the plug My teacher calls me a society entertainer which means I perform in really beautiful and expensive weddings and living rooms.

I really love performing in other people's living rooms. And they can email me at any time and time a day. But wait, does it have to be a beautiful living room or are you saying like, there needs to be a palace component here that you need to be- It needs to be a palace. I wouldn't dare perform first town. No, if you've ever seen me on the road or in a coffee shop and probably sharing magic

with people, but yeah, essentially you're getting touched with me. And from that point on, I ask you a few questions and you have to pay for the flight and the hotel. Of course. I travel, of course. And it's quite expensive, but I love what I do and I'm grateful to share it. And if you would like to see some magic, let me know. Sasha, thank you so much. I, you know.

Thank you, Duncan. I'm grateful for this. Our mutual friend who introduced me to you. I knew. Lanners. Yes, I knew, like what, right away, I'm like, oh, yes. It's a yes. I don't even need to know what the person does or anything,

but yeah, bullseye, you are a wonderful person. And I'm like, well, for a minute, I'm going to be here. Thank you so much, Sasha. Have a wonderful day. Thank you. That was Sasha Cresby. Everybody you can find them at Sasha Cresby.com or links will be at Dr. Trustle.com. A big thanks to our wonderful sponsors today. Squarespace. Freeze by bless you. Better help. Triumal. I only advertise for things I love. And I love you. So if you want, you can buy yourself by going to yourname.com and use offer code, Dunkin', you'll get 10% off yourself. We will be back next week.

Until then, I hope you are doing great and I love you bye.