Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 675: Mitch Horowitz

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

Mitch Horowitz, author and one of our most-requested guests, re-joins the DTFH! You can learn more about Mitch on his website, MitchHorowitz.com. Mitch's new book is called Practical Magick, and it's available for pre-order now! Definitely do that by clicking here. Duncan is hosting an in-person retreat with David Nichtern, Ethan Nichtern, and many more! April 30-May 4, Phoenicia, NY, and registrations are open right now! You can learn more about the event and register for it here. Use code DTFH at checkout for $500 Off!

Hello, how are you? Here's a little bonus episode for you guys. I, from time to time, do these, I don't know what you call them, they're basically podcasts with David Nicktern, who you know as David for the Midnight Gospel. He runs a wonderful group called Dharma Moon. They give meditation, teacher, trainings, lots of stuff. David and I are actually doing a retreat coming up at MENLA in the spring. That's in upstate New York. You can find the link down there. But I just wanted to share this with you. It's just a commercial-free episode and a conversation that we had during one of our live stream Zoom conversations about artificial

intelligence and Buddhism. And it got really deep and interesting, and I think you'll really enjoy it. So I thought I'd share it here. And if you all want to take to participate with Dharma Moon. And if you feel compelled to do one of David's meditation teacher trainings, you can get $500 off. The coupon is DTFH. And for those of you cynical monsters out there,

I'm just doing this because I love David. I'm not getting kickbacks. And I believe in what he's doing. He's a brilliant person. And I think you'll benefit if you feel called to take his class Mitch Horowitz Welcome back. It's so good to see you my friend Likewise, and I think a lot of people are happy to see you too. You are a very Requested guest. Thank you. So requested. There was some outrage I detected like where is Mitch what happened? so I'm glad I hung myself with my

Wallet chain it's I'm wearing it see I'm wearing it beautiful Illuminati issued so many problems could have been avoided in my life with a wallet chain so right problem think of it Um I need chains for a lot of things though, not just my wallet. Phone chain, key chain. But anyway, Mitch, why are we talking about chains? You somehow have another book coming out. You spit books out.

But this book, this book I think a lot of folks are gonna be interested in, Practical Magic. Thank you. And what I love about you is the way you're able to tie some of these esoteric ideas into the current paradigm in a way that makes them actionable. And I think people really love that. So this is coming out of left field, I recognize that.

But I don't know if you've been reading the current clickbait news out there. I guess a paper has been released interpreting James Webb data. So James Webb has picked up galaxies that shouldn't exist. For the galaxies to exist in the proximity they are to the Big Bang, there's just no way they could have happened. So the galaxies seem to be older than the 13.7 billion years old that most people think the universe is the age of the universe, at least the explanations for there being galaxies older than our current understanding of the age of the universe is that we are in a black hole and that the reason galaxies all rotate clockwise, I guess from the perspective of where we are in the universe makes sense from the perspective that we are in a black hole and there would be a predictable momentum which we are all inside of a black fucking hole. a book on magic the roots of it and tying it to sort of modern

theories is primarily because the for the secularist the First day in the book of Genesis is the Big Bang This is God. This is the creative Outflow and if you think well, at least we know how old the universe is, weirdly it creates a little bit of ground to stand on, right? Like it started somewhere, there's a beginning. This theory is saying, no, no, no, no.

That's just, I guess, when we got sucked into the black hole. There's something outside the black hole. There's black holes inside this black hole. So it's black holes all the way down. Now help me connect that with magic so I don't seem like an idiot. Bro, that is actually the bedrock of some of the things I'm saying in the book. And I can't wait to read that paper. I have not read that paper yet.

But the fact is, we as a human community keep on amassing data upon data upon data that doesn't fit with classical physics that doesn't fit with Newtonian mechanics, nevermind the fact that Isaac Newton himself was an alchemist. So I think he'd be delighted with all this. He wouldn't feel that somehow he was being overturned. He would feel that we're now appropriately standing on his shoulders.

We're seeing things that don't work. We're seeing things that don't fit. Perfect example that's come out in recent weeks. Google announced that its quantum computing prototype called Willow solved an equation so problematic that it would have taken 10 septillion years, which is longer than the entire projected span of humanity. So where did the answer come from?

So Google's engineers wrote, well, this speaks in favor of the interdimensional thesis. In other words, maybe willow was able to pluck this answer from another intersection of time or another dimension. And that might sound very far out, very heady, but the fact is, where did the answer come from if according to the team's calculations, getting this answer, which they procured in I believe it was less than five minutes, would otherwise take 10 septillion years. Right. And that's a timeframe that strictly speaking does not exist.

It does not exist. Right. So dig it. What's so fascinating is that we as a public are not even yet exposed to these programs. They're in beta launch. AI is in beta. Right. AI is in beta. Quantum computing is in proto launch and unless you work somewhere at Google or at a lab or maybe at the upper echelons of high finance, you don't even have access to this stuff. So it seems very far out to us. It's going to become less and less far out as time passes. Just as we don't feel the earth turning,

but we know indelibly that it is. Whether it's a black hole, a simulation, a multiverse, we simply don't live under the umbrella of Newtonian mechanics alone. We might live under that little umbrella, but there's something going on outside that orderly intimacy. And we've known this really since Einstein, who proved through his relativity theory but there's something going on outside that orderly intimacy. And we've known this really since Einstein,

who proved through his relativity theories, which have since been validated through experiments, that time itself is not linear. Time bends in conditions of a black hole, extreme gravity. Time bends in conditions of extreme velocity at or near light speed. And it's so funny because when you talk about time moving backwards, people howl against that. The arrow of time goes one way, you can't break an egg, Einstein's second law of thermodynamics,

all true, all true. But that's classical physics, that's Newtonian mechanics. Quantum mechanics, in fact, that's Newtonian mechanics. Quantum mechanics in fact does show things moving backwards. There's a particle called a positron which has been demonstrated since 1947 by the great Richard Feynman to move backwards in time, literally. How do you measure that? Well, you measure it through interference patterns, such as in the double slit experiment. You measure it through basically taking a atomic microscopic image of a situation of particles, maybe firing a particle or some exotic matter

into the framework that's being measured. And you find that the framework undergoes changes, whereas an electron switches charges, or an electron goes backwards. framework that's being measured and you find that the framework undergoes changes whereas like an Electron switches charges or an electron goes backwards or this is how we understand what Einstein Somewhat derisively called spooky action at a distance. This is what so-called Bell's theorem is about where we're measuring how Objects are affected in time Faster than light speed with no actual linkage. And of course, ever since we've been kids,

we've been taught nothing can move faster than light. That has been considered a natural law. That is true within our immediate neighborhood that we live under, but this macro neighborhood, like apropos of your example of the black hole, is one in which, well, speed does surpass light. Because this so-called spooky action at a distance, which Einstein found very frustrating,

is, well, entanglement is a more common word. There is entanglement. There is moving backwards of objects in time. Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1966 for that discovery. It took almost 20 years, because it was so far fucking out. It's a weird world.

Okay, let me stop you there for a second. It is a weird world, but what I love about this, and anytime I stumble upon it, with what I understand about some magical principles, and you see these parallels, it somewhat God vindicating in a small way and hilarious and like I think like if we look at Newton in more recently the Google quantum computer which is using entanglement it's not just like this is something on a chalkboard.

These are very, you can do things with this. And, you know, specifically like sending data in a way that's like, you can't decrypt it. And God knows what else they're gonna figure out. But, so, take this concept, spooky action at a distance, what they're calling quantum entanglement now and let's go back to I don't know something in folklore which is God help you if some witch gets some of your hair yeah because they could take that hair and they

can make a voodoo doll and using that air, they could actually have some control over you. And then I'd like to add just one more example and I wanna hear your thoughts on this. And I don't know if this is even true or if this is just an urban myth, but you know, somehow when I was a kid, you hear about how there's certain indigenous tribes that didn't want their picture taken

because they were afraid it would steal their soul. Now, what do we see happening if your picture is anywhere on the internet? Someone can take that picture and deep fake you. Then, if there's any kind of semblance of your thumbprint of your personality out there, the way your voice sounds, they can train an AI to become you.

Now, is this stealing your soul? No, it's a digital clone, I guess you could say, but is it that different from what people who had no exposure to this tech, who lived prior to this tech even being here, were expressing in their worries over a simple photograph, it's, there's weird parallels there as though they intuited something that we are just now stumbling upon. I'm glad you used the word parallels because that's a really important word.

Sometimes I might invoke the presence of some wisdom that reminds us of quantum mechanics among ancient people. Everybody will howl, Hartwood says the ancient Egyptians had quantum mechanics. How dare! That's ridiculous. It's like, yo, there's a difference between an uninterrupted family tree of ideas, which is very rare, and between parallel insights, as you've just been saying. And it seems to me that the basic, if the occult has a law, it could be said to be like attracts like, or a variant of it, the hermetic statement, as above so below. So the idea that the image of something contains an aspect of the whole which we're now seeing in terms of technology

could have been understood in some deeper way, some folk way we'll call it, by the ancients. And I think it deserves probing. That's part of what I attempt in the book. Yeah, and it also makes sense that if any of these ideas that are popping up in quantum physics that are so mind-bending are real then we would have stumbled upon them in some way prior to being able to write out an equation to demonstrate what they are why it happens if there's quantum entanglement then yeah there theoretically there could be so we don't understand what this Connection is between entangled particles other than they're connected and you can send data

Through whatever the fuck that is right that means they interact there's interactivity between Particles that are separated between particles that are separated theoretically by infinity. And so, whoa! When you start looking at that from the perspective of channeling, of hearing the voice of God, or of getting some sense that you are receiving messages from the future, or whatever you've heard Madmen and, you know, saints have said, maybe they just stumbled upon some organic analog mechanism, some way of working with this thing that we're only now quantifying. And it's wild because, look, here we are.

We're just in the first three months of 2025, and we've got a computer that can solve a problem that takes longer than the span of human existence and solve it in about five minutes. We've got Microsoft engineers saying their quantum computing prototype has created a new form of matter. You have two binary numbers, a zero and a

one that make up the DNA of computer code. They've created an electrical charge that is neither zero nor one and they're calling it a new form of matter. You've got people seriously looking and they should, Bank of America, this goes back a few years now, but you've got Bank of America Telling what must be a mildly surprised group of investors that there is between a 20 and 50% Chance that we dwell in a simulacrum. This is Bank of America. Okay, not your local new age In a 2016 report to investors, Bank of America said this is happening, that's happening. Oh, and by the way, there's a 20 to 50% chance that we live in a simulacrum. This is the simulacrum theory that Elon Musk

and others subscribe to. You call it simulacrum, not simulation? Oh, either one, either or is just fine. Gotcha. And so it's absolutely mind blowing because the logic behind it is airtight. If you believe that we are gonna have ancestors capable of running absolutely vivid computer simulations, let's put it this way, to deny the possibility that we're living in a simulation,

you'd have to deny the possibility that we will have ancestors who are capable of running such simulations. You're either saying you think there's going to be an extinction event or you think we as a human race are just never going to get there. And it's reasonable to argue for either of those. But if you're not arguing for an extinction event or that we're just never gonna get there, you have to acknowledge that our descendants rather, not ancestors, but our future descendants are gonna have that sophistication.

And crunching the numbers Bank of America and others said, yeah folks, it's probably between 20 and 30%. I mean, if you heard an asteroid might strike the Earth and it was 20 to 50%, it would be shocking. It would be a real problem. You'd be thinking about it every day, looking at your kids, you know? And yet we're being told that we might not be flesh and blood.

We might be, you know, bites. Wow. And yet life goes on. You know, I open my my green tea I heat up my coffee I I don't think about any of it and yet there it is we are gonna start to think of it more because it's gonna start to become more and more common in our daily lives right that's the most important part is like this you know that what this seems to be like the flowers growing off of the tree

of physics and for a long time that just seemed like a fucking boring ass tree with un-understandable equations that you didn't give a shit about and didn't make any sense and now all of a sudden they're finding ways to demonstrate what some of these things that they'd stumbled upon, specifically quantum physics, the application of these things. And so what I think is really curious about what's happening is that number one, when I read that, shit, we're in a black hole. And I was texting with my friend too.

Both of us were like, man, this sucks. And it's like, why do I care if I'm in a fucking black hole? Yet somehow just that reframing of reality gave me a weirdly spooky dismal sense. And, but more to the point, in the reframing of reality, in the challenge to Newtonian physics or in the confirmation that some ideas that many of us have intuited or people like you have actually utilized in non-standard ways, which we call magic, there's some liberation there. And it's almost like this spell has been cast over all of us. This is what's possible.

This is not possible. If you think that this is possible and we've shown that it's not, you're a fool. Don't even go there. you're wasting your time. No magic, no magic, just science. And that science is this narrow avenue that you've learned in high school unless you went to school for science. And so this is an incredibly limiting worldview,

especially in light of all these bizarre discoveries And so this is an incredibly limiting worldview, especially in light of all these bizarre discoveries that are suddenly emerging into the zeitgeist. That is exactly right. And the fact is, now dig this, I've talked about this guy before you and I have talked about this guy before. I have a lot of affection for the work of a Cornell research psychologist named Daryl Bim. Bim spent 10 years on a paper that he released in 2011 on the subject of retrocausality.

And in short, he made the case, backed up with stats up to your eyeballs, that if you study for a test in the so-called future, it can subtly but trackably increase your score in the so-called present. Sounds ridiculous. Everybody wants to argue with it. Everybody wants to argue with it. A decade on, BEM's data was meta-analyzed and proved confirmatory in an analysis of 90 experiments in 33 different labs in 14 different nations. How's that for replication? Replication of ESP is supposed to not exist. But maybe you could elaborate on this,

on what he means by that. Study for a test in the future. By all means. In his most innovative experiments, BEM basically gave subjects a word list to memorize and then asked them to recite back whatever they could remember. So let's say you're given a word list of 10 words

and then you're told, okay Duncan, now what do you remember? You might remember six out of 10, five out of 10, something like that. In any case, then he tried a different wrinkle in the experiment and the subjects were asked to continue their memorization. You know, they gave their recitation, but then in certain cases they were asked to continue their memorization into the future. Those subjects that continued their recitation into the so-called future, which is just a conceptual

term really, spiked a score of 2% higher or so, again and again and again. Okay, wait. Over tens of thousands of trials. So a group of people are given this test. There's a median score, and then there's some people who scored a little bit better on the test. The test has been done. Yeah. But you randomize and you select this group in that group and then of that group some of them are

Told to study into the future and there is a correlation between higher scores and In those that were told to study into the future correct and that's fucking bad shit That's it right that is so hard to wrap your head around. It's crazy I remember I was talking to the religious studies chair at rice and she was asking me to repeat this This is a woman wonderful woman April to Connick dedicated her life to esoteric studies It's like let me get this shit straight because it goes against everything that we understand as as real it undermines our whole sense Of reality that time is this circular spiral.

It's not this hour of time. And people will excruciate me for having said this. Like, what the fuck? There you go, you woo meisters again, blah, blah, blah, blah. We don't make the rules of science. Science is methodological replication. I'm just the messenger. This paper was produced,

this paper was proven confirmatory in a really large scale meta analysis in different nations using different languages over the course of 10 years. Ben was excoriated for all this in the New York Times, in other places, he was held up as the poster child for bad science.

And I've got people come to me all the time saying, that's bullshit, you can't break the hour of time. And they're wrong and they don't know they're wrong because they're not sitting around reading Richard Feynman's paper about positrons and realizing that in quantum mechanics, not Newtonian, time does in fact move backwards under select conditions. BEM's innovation and retro causality is discussed, it's the subject of

conferences within quantum physics circles. BEM's innovation was applying it to cognition, applying it to cognition for which he was excoriated. But a natural law is a natural law. And so it means it's ever operative, which doesn't mean we're always gonna feel it. We don't feel gravity, we don't feel changes in gravity. We live under a constant gravity here on Earth. But we know gravity changes, it's affected by mass.

So I'm not saying this stuff can be turned on and off like a water faucet by no means. But to say it doesn't exist, it's burying your head in the sand. It's absolutely denying reality. But then, you know, what it's making me think of, and who hasn't gone through a Tony Robbins phase, you listen to Tony Robbins, you know, you're probably fucked. When you're listening to Tony Robbins phase you listen to Tony Robbins You know, you're probably fucked when you're listening to Tony Robbins something's going on bottom here like Jesus Christ I need help, but you know Tony Robbins and a lot of like life coach Manifestation people like him really emphasize goals

You know like an action and they talk about how action actually happens prior to the action. It's the decision, it's a true decision. You are going to do this thing. There's no question about it. Once the decision is made, it's done. You know it's done. It produces a kind of confidence

once you like grab the steering wheel to that degree. Because how many of us have said, I'm going to the gym and then cut to two hours later you're playing PlayStation no you're not going to the gym this is a different this kind of thinking is no when I think it I do it now from this perspective of this insane study mm-hmm one could think that via that decision making, that real decision, you have connected to the future you, who has done said activity already, and somehow that is washing backwards

to your present moment. Correct. Via some kind of bizarre temporal quantum entanglement, because if we're not quantum entangled with ourselves, what the fuck are temporal quantum entanglement because if we're not correct tangled with ourselves What the fuck are we quantum entangled with right and I will tell you a funny anecdote This is in the book Months ago, I was contacted by a Thai kickboxer named Spencer Hanley and he said he had a champion bout outside of Austin and

he a champion bout outside of Austin. And he had nine days to go before the fight. And he said he was feeling good about his training, but he wanted something to help keep him on his mental game. So what could I recommend? So I gave him an exercise called the 30 day mental challenge, which is just a self contract that commits you to keeping your thoughts in a productive, positive, constructive direction for 30 days.

And he said, well, I appreciate that and I will do it. But again, the fight is in nine days. I need something more short term. And explaining to him what you and I have just been discussing, I said, bro, this is short term because I can guarantee you, if you continue this after the fight there may be an entanglement effect we'll call it that reaches back in time and gives you

an extra edge and I can guarantee you nobody in your opponent's corner is saying well today's retro causality day here in the gym and you know we're gonna plan out what we do next week after the fight. And so he did it. He looked terrific. He won, may have won anyway. And for his entry music, most fighters for their entry song choose like some ear bleeding metal or drill rap or something. He chose the Belinda Carlile song, Heaven is a Place on Earth.

And one of the announcers said, the fact that he's coming out to Belinda Carlyle makes me so happy before I fucking wrote about it before I said a word to anyone about it days later and I swear to you Duncan I swear to you this is true I can play it for you I get voicemail messages over Instagram from Belinda Carlyle who I've had a fucking crush on since I've been 17 years old telling me she's a fan and she read Modern Occultism and how you doing and I'm like what the fuck and I'm like yo I have been in love with you since age 17 okay can we just get that fucking and I mean it was weird bro that is real weird and you could have all happened anyway

You know, but it was damn weird Did you I'm not gonna get asked for details about what I hope is a brewing romance between you. I know I'm happily partnered with Jacqueline My apologies to Jacqueline, my apologies to Blaine Carlisle. You know, it would just be cool. Maybe in a parallel universe. But you know, man, this stuff is... So when you start thinking of like common understanding of the way the world works as blinders on a horse,

and these experimental methodologies as... Let's see what happens if we take the blinders on a horse and this these experimental methodologies as let's see what happens if we take the blinders off for a second we're not gonna we we're not gonna pretend we see something that isn't there we're just gonna see what happens and the moment that you start doing that things like that happen suddenly Belinda Carlisle is reaching out to you. But it's not just that. It's that a person that you are helping train for a fight picks if we're in Vegas and there are 10 songs that you could choose. What do you think this fighter is going to pick for walking out music? Nobody's picking Belinda Carlisle. I mean, we can assign it so.

And Heaven is a Place on Earth, like that's his song. I love that. I do too, but I wouldn't pick it for a fight song. Of course not. And the announcer was like, what a change. What a refreshing change. This is great. I want to share something else that I

think will be super useful for your listeners and viewers because people say to me, you know, I need something practical. Now, you know I'm very interested in the philosophy of G.I. Gurdjieff, the esoteric philosopher. Okay, so Gurdjieff, he was a man of such gravity and he went through so much in his life and so did his students that when he says something simple, I always say to people, when it gets really simple, that's when you really start listening very carefully because what would be a nothing throwaway statement coming from someone else

is really profound and seismic coming from Gurdjieff. So he said the following, he and some of his followers were based in Russia during the revolution, civil war, and they had to flee. They were in trouble. Some of them were connected to the old government and so forth. And so they fled and they eventually, after making an incredibly dangerous trek across Eurasia

where it was really life-threatening and very unstable. They wound up in Paris, and at a certain point in Paris, they were just busted broke, and they were really, really in trouble. I mean, there was not money for food. This was a grave, grave situation, and Gurdjieff said, I tried everything to earn money. I tried everything, and he said, I was sitting in my room one day

and I was right at the brink of despair. I had made every effort, me and this group of students, we were on the precipice, we were seriously on the brink. And he said, out of nowhere, his mother walks into his room. She had just arrived a couple of days earlier from Constantinople because she was with another group that had been fleeing.

And she hands him a handkerchief and she says, I want you to take this package from me. I've been carrying this across Europe. It's making me sick to be hanging onto this. I can't hold onto it any longer. And he opens it up and there's this very valuable brooch with a very valuable gemstone in it. And he remembered that back in Russia, he had given it to her in case she needed to

use it to buy food or to bribe a border guard or something and he forgot all about it. He just assumed it had been used in the journey. And he said literally, literally, literally, he could have gotten up and just danced around the room for joy. They were saved. They were saved. And he said, the thing that I take from this, the thing that I take from this is that, and I'm really reducing his words into something more ordinary, but it's the best I can do. He said, there is a lawful aspect to, and this was his term, said there is a lawful aspect to, and this was his term, unflinching perseverance, unflinching perseverance.

And of course you hear that from an ordinary person and sure it sounds like an expression to go on my coffee mug or something. You hear it from Gertrude, if you must stop and listen and sit with that. Maybe, maybe if we do live in a simulation or a multiverse or a black hole or some function of life that we don't understand, which in itself is a given based on what we've learned at this point, maybe unflinching perseverance or perspective or outlook in this unstuck multiverse

of infinite events that we live in has a selective feature, has a measurement feature, has a localizing feature. It can work, it can work. I've had it work in my life and the odds, I mean, they go beyond any actuarial table, any actuarial table. any actuarial table. It's not the law of large numbers. It's something much more complicated than that.

So I offer that to people. Well, here's the problem. I mean, I don't mean I think I do agree with you having like heard this stuff like many have and then attempted it and then realized like Jesus Christ it this this works in the but Here's I think the reason people have a difficulty with what you're saying Primarily mm-hmm you stumble upon what you just said and Let's say you're good chief You're in some hotel room, and you're fucked in Paris. You're fucked.

You're just doomed. Like anyone who's experienced being completely broke in a big city, you understand like how fucked you are. It's bad. You're gonna be on the streets. You are fucked beyond compare. And so the feeling that goes along with that, it's a feeling state, obviously like he said despair anxiety

depression fight flight freeze for a lot of us is just paralysis Ignorance you want to ignore the situation so you get addicted to something to try to distract yourself from it But so the feeling you have does not match the place you're trying to get to and there's a sense that my feelings are correct their assessment of reality is right and the fool in my head that Gurjeev is inviting

you to like let drive the car, it's just wishful thinking. And so I think this is what, for me, and maybe a lot of people, that's the primary block. Because I don't feel like I just got a treasure that I forgot that I gave to somebody, because I don't feel like I just got the job, got the deal, got the house, got the whatever the thing is, the body, the thing. Because I feel wrecked.

And why wouldn't you? Especially, I mean imagine if you've been like, have no idea how to, how to control a horse and someone chained you to the goddamn thing. You're gonna be covered in briars, scratches, and this fucking thing's been galloping through the swamps and you can't get off of it. So of course you're gonna feel like shit if you haven't figured out how to navigate in this way that you're talking about. So what do we do about that? We've been trained to believe our sense of reality

is informed by emotional states. And this thing you're talking about, it's not like I can just switch my anxiety off. I can't turn my hunger off. I mean, I guess I can, it was simple, but you know what I'm saying. Right on. No, no, you're making an incredible point. And one of the figures who has most influenced me made the very same point.

That's Neville Goddard, who I have tattooed right here. And Neville said that, you know, basically, your emotional feeling states are determinative of reality. And I have wrestled with that terribly because of exactly what you just said. I can't go to a person in grief, in depression, in fear, and tell them, well, just change your emotions.

I mean, you'd be Buddha if you could do that. You'd be the Buddha. Emotions, as Guruji also taught, emotions run on their own track, intellect runs on its own track, physicality runs on its own track, and intellect is the weakest of all three. And if it weren't, there'd be no addictions.

I would say, well, this is getting bad for me, so I'll stop, but I can't stop. So what's the issue? And the issue is we're in pieces. But I don't think this is my take. I don't think Mother Nature played a cruel trick on us. And we're just prisoners of these emotions. I think there is a selective capacity that can make itself felt through persistence, perseverance, and passion toward our goal. I don't think you have to change your emotions in order to feel passion. And that's why I very frequently say to people,

hone down that wish and keep it private. What is that personal wish you have? Don't go blathering it all over the place because people will steal it. They'll take it from you. They'll tell you that's silly or whatever. Hone it down. Hone it down. We all have a wish we're passionate about. And let me tell you, it could be anything. I want people to feel very unembarrassed about this and keep it private. And one of the questions I ask in this book is the wish enough?

Is the wish enough? Could the passionate, finely defined wish be a localizing factor, a localizing factor? And I want people to at least try it. I can't fathom a life where we just say confirmation bias, survivor bias, law of large numbers, and we dismiss human possibilities. I mean, would you say that to Laozi?

Would you say that to Jesus Christ? Would you say that to Marcel Proust? It's ridiculous. That's not the human situation. We try things. So the wish wish let's talk about the wish and again like I just I Really want to point out how The things that right now we are hearing in Default reality in the zeitgeist in mainstream media

Ten years ago would seem like a fucking fever dream exactly we have high-ranking government officials basically saying that we have UFO wreckage right and that's just we have scientists talking about how they're accessing parallel universes with Computers that have chips frozen to absolute zero. So we have magic now. There is indisputably magic happening. And yet, still in the culture, things like wish, dream, these things, they're poo-pooed. Oh, do you have a little wishy-wishy? You're gonna find a

little jean bottle in the rubbish. Wake up, fucker! I'll get wish tattooed right here. Yeah, why don't you just go and just fucking pull into Carvile, you pussy! Fuck you, I like Jane Weidland! But this is, though I do not believe,

though in times of overdosing on edible marijuana I have have I don't believe there's a conspiracy out there to try to keep people from Stumbling upon this stuff. I do think there's a cultural Form of self censorship that is injected into us probably by World War two like PTSD epigenetic trial I don't know what it fucking is, but I do know that the wish, and especially contextually with what we're talking about, the wish, number one, you can tell a lot about yourself

by what you will let yourself wish for. So something will pop into my head, and I'm not gonna say it based on your advice, and I'll think, you shallow motherfucker. You want that? Really? Really. You want that, you shallow piece of shit.

Don't you want world peace? But then, maybe you have a less specific idea, which I think is a healthy thing to want, which is I'd like some abundance. I got kids. I'd like some abundance. I got kids. I'd like them not to worry about anything. This is a foggy, ambiguous kind of thing. What does that even mean?

But a lot of times, that shallow thing you're wishing for, if you just think about it, that's a GPS coordinate to one particulate of a reality, and surrounding that reality is the abundance that you are wishing for. So you need that little focused thing, right? That's it, right? What you just said is so important because those among your listeners and viewers who are on the spiritual path,

we get our wishes taken away from us because we feel we have to reprocess them or perfume them through service, my least favorite word in the English language. And that's not natural and that's not emotional and that's not really our wish. If it is one's wish, more power to you. I'll vote for you for the next Dalai Lama. But my feeling is, if you'd really

want that, and my feeling is that, well, I'll give you an anecdote. It's very similar to what you were just saying. I used to see a shrink, good guy, and he asked me, you know, what do I want or something? And I answered him honestly. he said yeah but that's superficial and I said to him yo Scott how long have you known me do you really think my wish is superficial I'm being frank with you admittedly but do you really think it's superficial do you really think that there aren't many many many husks around that colonel just as you were just saying, that I believe are going to have benefit for a lot of people in my life perhaps, not that that's where I'm coming from

because it's almost like the wish holds you. The wish holds you. Like if you know somebody who, let's say, I wanna be the mixed martial arts champion of Poland or whatever it is, that wish, and someone's holding that wish, that wish holds him, you know, that wish holds him. And it can't be morphed into, and that way I'll help this or that or the other thing. You'll help a lot of people, I presume, but I simply just believe that one has to be honest, self-honest in a very deeply unembarrassed way. That's

why I really advise keeping it private and it's intimate. I tell you, man, I feel that we are so bedeviled by internalized peer pressure. I think it gets its claws in us when we're young. And it never goes away. And I often tell people, try to think of your wishes from your earliest long-term memories, like age three, four, like really fucking young. Because I don't think that the claws of peer pressure quite get themselves and kids that young.

I think it more really settles in a little older. Like a friend of mine said to me that when children stop talking to themselves in the bathtub, like around age nine or something, that's when you can tell that peer pressure and societal norms are starting to get up. And so I think that youthful wishes can be very valuable because we're not quite so conditioned But whatever the case is I mean think of the freedom this gives you you're you're in that hotel room. You're by yourself, you know

Who the fuck are you bothering just just peel back the layers of psyche and say what you really want Don't you condemn yourself? See what happens? Yeah, it's it's and you know, what's weird even just the discussion I Can feel my endogenous anxiety kind of lifting a little bit. There's something enters into you when you start Liberating yourself cognitively in this way like how much of the dreary, you know Experience that many people call reality, how much of that is related to external phenomena and how much of that is related to gagging yourself,

trying to put a cork in what could be this beautiful fountain of creativity inside of you because of, you gotta get ready for the real world, kid. This shit is not good out there. It's gonna stomp your fucking teeth out and laugh while it does it. It's gonna shit your dreams right back in your face. That's the, you know?

Variants of that, some of them way more sophisticated than that, you should like what you you do that work guy who does shitty jobs I saw some depressing interview with him and this thing where people think they should enjoy their job Wake up you fucking snowflake day So then you have what you're talking about and And what you've written about again and again and again and what you have demonstrated not just in your Function as a kind of teacher in the world, but in the fact that you are fucking progenitive man like you spit, you spit out books, dude.

Like, whatever you're doing, what do they say? Judge a tree by its fruit. So, you know, you can see that you have this combination of things happening, which is a, I hate this term, because I think it's non-nuanced, and no one even knows what it means anymore, but I'm gonna say it.

You have, like, positivity, you know? And there's a lot of smarter ways to say that. term because I think it's non nuanced and no one even knows what it means anymore, but I'm gonna say it you have like Positivity, you know and I there's a lot of smarter ways to say that but then also it's not the kind of positivity you run into That's a bit suspicious Positivity where there's a very positive person, but there's feels like there's a grift going on They're giving life coach. You know what I mean when like you realize like wait You're a life coach But prior to being a life coach What did you do and there's nothing there other than life coaching they have an act

Demonstrate right there teaching in a way that is shown up in their own lives. I believe that's very often true. Absolutely Yeah, it's suspicious. Yeah, so But when we look at what you're talking about contextually, which you have connected the dots in your book, which is now, whether you like it or not, we're being, if you thought magic wasn't real, and you didn't dare believe it because you didn't want your heart broken Just go online now and look up any of these new studies you're in a fucking black hole They have computers that communicate with parallel fucking universes and what you just said apparently You can get temporal backflow from future versions of yourself.

Now this is not things that you think about. I used to think that because I know this sounds nuts. There would be days, and it's so weird, I've said on the podcast, I don't care, I'm not running for, I'm not trying to be a politician, but there would be days in my young LSD days where where with no LSD around it's very hard to obtain in Hendersonville, North Carolina during that fucking Now I had a hard time finding it but in the morning I would be like, oh I'm taking acid today That's so weird because I could feel That high rolling backwards through time and sure enough someone would come back you want acid? I'm like, yeah, I knew that we were doing this. And I never, like, obviously I just thought like, I'm a weirdo! But when you start realizing that this is based on what we are discovering,

a new way of looking at the map of the universe and that traveling through life is actually traveling between multiverses that Navigation is happening via Will and thought and that an unfocused Mind without any clear goals is like a boat with no rudder Just getting pushed around by other people's intent. And yeah, you're going to have a bumpy fucking ride and you're definitely not going to get to Hawaii if that's where you are hoping to go. You need a sail, you need a rudder, you

need to understand how to navigate. And these magic, as I think you understand it, is really a methodology of navigating through the ocean of time and weirdly this work it's weird you can connect somehow to some reality this is the fragment you get it's what you give the hound dog to smell. You know what I mean? When you're hunting down a prisoner or anything. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that thing, no matter how insane, ridiculous, embarrassing it may seem, that, that's the smell. That's the North Star. That's all you need, right? You just need the fragment. And the more you go in that direction, you'll start getting getting other puzzle pieces probably but you don't need to figure out how

you just need to Believe that that's real. Am I interpreting this right? I agree completely I call magic causative ritual. That's my definition and Look a person can be a materialist and engage in causative ritual There are people who don't believe in deity or spirit or any extra physical energies as I described them, but they might be interested in chaos magic where you create a little sigil. You charge it by masturbating over it and something happens. Well, it comports with chaos theory in so far as chaos theory really comes down to you

introduce some exotic, particulate, wrinkle change piece of matter into a situation, and it necessarily changes everything. So personally. Let me tell you, when you jizz on something, it changes it. I'm quoting that. I'm quoting that, bro.

And so, and it does. You know, it's so funny, years ago, 10 years ago, whatever, career skeptics used to say to me You know horrors with this positive thinking shit and new thought you're full of shit It's all woo-woo nonsense and now ten years later. They say aha Trump is using this stuff. Are you happy now? Are you happy and it's like yo? It's my fault, which is it? It's nonsense or Trump is using it? Which is it? You know, because it's pretty fucking convincing. You know?

He's definitely using it. He's definitely using it. And, you know, I don't know, Trump never has specifically said I've read Norman Vincent Peale's Power of Positive Thinking, but he did attend Peale's congregation as an adolescent. Peale performed one of his marriages. Peel's congregation as an adolescent. Peel performed one of his marriages. Peel's successor, who I used to know, a lovely man named Arthur Calliandro, who's now dead, I think performed the marriage between Trump and Maples.

Anyway, he was a fixture there at that church. And that seems to be an idea that he carried with him. Now, some people might be very fucking unhappy about that, but god damn it, that guy has gotten a lot of things done. Well hey, look man, you know, like anybody who's brushed shoulders with his stuff, when you've seen what he's up to, the first time you might think, well,

maybe he's like nuts, you know, a lot of people love to say that, but then you begin to realize like, oh fuck, he's a magician and he is he is a magician he is a magician, you know good at magic and And I think this plays more to the point of like look You don't go ahead don't believe this stuff like turn right turn your back to it. Go ahead. Go I guess bro Totally fine, but just know, a

lot of people have been using this for a long time. They maybe have like, it doesn't have all of the aesthetics that one might want. There's no Hogwarts or robes or Diagon Alley or owls or whatever the thing is. But when you when you begin to realize like oh my god like one thing all these people seem to have in common is at the very least an intuitive understanding of manifestation and because generally the people that are like experiencing rarefied forms of Existence are generally curious people.

They have transmuted that intuitive sense of something into something that is more specific. And that's what I want to ask you about, because I love our conversations, but it's easy for me to derail them because I could talk to you forever. But this is where we get into ritual. And one thing, though I do love a lot of the teachers that you love, I mean, Ernest Holmes, I think, saved my life, I think, when I stumbled upon that. And but what I love about Crowley, and what I love about the more formalized ritualistic

stuff is, I mean, this sounds so shallow. It's fucking cool. It's got drama. Yeah, it's got drama. It's got drama. And we need that. You know, I think that everybody has to find his or her own style. Like Trump, for example.

There are a fraction of people who follow Trump as a chaos magician. And their reasoning is that Trump is able to disrupt norms of speech, politics, behavior, and somehow he does it and he gets away with it and things happen. And I think you're correct, but I wouldn't recommend that to everybody. That's him. I couldn't do that. It's not my thing.

It's just not my thing. I couldn't do that. But there's other things I can do. There's other things you could do. There's other things Ernest Holmes could do. Ernest Holmes, the founder of the Science of Mind Movement, was a beautiful, beautiful man whose outlook naturally leaned in the direction of a radical optimism,

and he kind of codified it into a spiritual philosophy. And he did what he was supposed to do. Alistair Crowley did what he was supposed to do. My wish in this book is to ask ourselves, what's the shortest distance between two lines for every individual? Can we simplify all this magic? I don't want you or me to imitate Aleister Crowley

or even to imitate Ernest Holmes if that's not a person's direction. I started the book with a quote from the great rocket scientist and occultist, Jack Parsons. And near the end of Jack's life, he wrote a letter to his wife, Marjorie Cameron, and he said,

every ideal war that's ever been won in the history of humanity has been won through the principle of simplicity. And at this point, magic does not have it. And in a very short time later, Jack died in an explosion in his garage in Pasadena. And I took that as my inspiration. Where is that simplicity in magic?

I groove to Crowley as an artist, as a performative figure, as an intellect, I don't groove to these long liturgical ceremonies. I grew up with it, I ran away from it. And I'm asking myself, what is, where's the simplicity? Where's the heart of simplicity in all this? And that's why all these heady ideas that we're discussing about quantum this and entanglement

that and causative ritual and so forth. Can they come down to the individual having a very focused wish and that being a source, not a manifestation, a word I almost never use, but selection, selection in the same way. Look, what are our five senses really, but tools of measurement. We measure things.

How far away is that? How loud is that? How loud is that? How does that taste? Can the impassioned wish, under any circumstances perhaps, set in process a localization, a measurement, an actualization, not unaffected by other things. Every natural law is affected by other things.

I don't believe in this exclusivity of there being one mental super law. I don't use the term law of attraction because it always seems to connote the idea that there's only one game in town, which is this mental super law. I absolutely do not believe that. There's all kinds of laws and forces going on. And I'm asking us to experiment with the possibility that a law of psyche, which I see as an amalgam of intellect and emotion, a law of psyche is among them. Okay, let me ask you this. This law of psyche, let's dive into it a little bit and let's dive into it based on what we've been talking about. So, anyone watching or listening,

if you have formulated some place you'd like to be and you've caught a little frame of that place, okay, imagine that frame. Now, if you haven't caught a frame of that place, I don't know, man, you're fucked. Because I don't know what to say and what you're supposed to do. And I think that's a real problem I've had in the past

is like, even like, it reminds me of like my fucked up nose from COVID. Like, yeah, like the talking in the bathtub thing. I've lost it a little bit. So when I do get a frame like that, it's like, okay, this is great. And so, but one thing you do know if you don't have a specific wish is you have a future and

so they're that so and maybe just for Those people out there who are wish blind right now Imagine it's a better future than right now, but for those of you with a specific wish This is what I want to talk to you about You're there, actually. You listen to this podcast, you read some books, you got there. You're not there right now, but you're actually there

based on everything we've just talked about. You're there. And now, your job is to reach into the past, connect with you here in this moment on the other side of the river, and start drawing yourself there. You sent yourself the frames out of some compassion for all versions of yourself scattered throughout the multiverse, like the parable of the Sower. You threw these seeds of possibility out into time. You understood time is not the way we understand it, and these seeds landed in the minds of all the different versions

of you, and that's your wish. So how do we communicate with that us, and also should we be trying to communicate with past versions of us in the same compassionate way? I have a suspicion that we may be doing this all the time unconsciously. In other words, communicating with so-called past versions of ourselves. Often people say, what would I tell myself

if I could go back to age 13 or whatever? What would I like to undo? What regrets do I have? We may be doing that constantly. And it feels natural and nowish to us. If you ask me, where am I from? Who are my parents? What did they do?

Well, I give you a town, I give you names, I give you their jobs, and it feels as real to me as the words I'm speaking it may be changing every microsecond based on selection and perspective we may be living a weird or life that we think that doesn't follow the arrow of time but we need the feeling that it follows the arrow of time because we are limited i think that we'd be out of control we'd be out of control. We'd be out of control. Right. To feel a sense of singleness, linearity, rationality as we've come to define it. That just may be how we're built.

A goldfish certainly doesn't know anything about the fact that there are beings on Mars, you know, microbial fossils. Yeah. But it's as real as the goldfish itself. It's funny. it's been pointed out that when you look at weird shit in physics, like the Schrodinger's cat experiment where you have two cats at once, or the proverbial spaceship that's moving at light speed and aging is slowing down for the person on that ship, which is absolutely real by the way, astronauts in our own era, astronauts in our own era moving nowhere near the velocity of light speed do experience minute but measurable

reductions in the aging process. This is as much a fact as one plus one equal two. But these things, they're so heady and they're so far out to us, we feel that they must be metaphors, they can't be real. We're built in a way to experience one straight line of time. And yet this stuff is true and it's going on and it's going on all around us. And as quantum computing, certainly maybe future aspects of AI, certainly things that we're learning more and more about the sheer logic of possibility involving black holes or simulations, these things are coming more and more down to Earth, more and more down to a level. And denying their applicability towards cognition is I think one of the biggest intellectual

roadblocks our culture faces right now because if a scientist or an academic like Daryl Bem decides hey we're going to study some of this stuff in connection with cognition. The edifice that is our media, the edifice that is our reference media like Wiki, most of academia, they will shut them out, particularly the social sciences. One of the great ironies of our era, one of the great ironies of our era is that the things you and I are talking about, you could talk about this with people in the hard sciences, in medicine, in mathematics, in computers. It's the social sciences and letters where the extreme pushback comes from.

That's what weird Ionies of our time. Well, you know, from that perspective, what you see, or I think of it as a kind of like cultural gravity well, right? Like it's like, again, I do not think that there's a conspiracy to keep people trapped in hell but the collective

opinion of reality as a hellscape has emerged culturally right it has become a way of Indicating to someone generally like where you stand politically. You know, there is a fashionable thing to evoke how bad the world is. And I talked about it on an earlier podcast, but I found it to be so wild. Someone was accepting an award, an Oscar. And as they're accepting this award, they're getting an Oscar Oscar they're in like this beautiful room filled with symmetrical people

They've done something point zero zero zero very I don't know Kids fucking Oscars, otherwise they would give a shit and Right. They're also the fact that they were able to do the magic required to just make any kind of movie, much less one that gets acknowledgement, shows that they do know magic. They do know they're creative, they're talented. And so in the acceptance of the idol, they said the classic thing, which is is even in a world like this. And it's like you're looking at the world like this

that they're talking about. It's for a lot of people, that's their wish. They did it. They're there. And yet, from their perspective, hell. They're in hell. And so I think this needs to be more emphasized for all of those out there who habitually,

in greetings with other people, like to indicate that you also believe the world is hell based on what we're saying. This is a very dangerous way of living because in that articulation, world is hell, you steer your ship towards hell world, right? Just basically you are not following Mitch's advice, who was Trump's number one manifestation tutor and their best friends. We're playing racquetball later today.

Joking, but what you're doing is you're taking the cobbled together points of view of your friends, the media, the subreddits you go to, the books you read, and you're weaving together a hell realm. It might be spring, you might be walking down a nice trail in a beautiful park with birds of tweeting. You can't see any of that. You only think that you're in hell. You may think, well, my life is in danger.

You see, my rights are being taken away. But in this very moment, probably your rights aren't being taken away. You're just okay right now. I'm not to say that's not an impending danger, but I'm just saying the more, based on this idea, the more that the test you're studying for is the apocalypse fucking test, the more you're studying for is the apocalypse fucking

test the more you're gonna steer that way and this is where it gets weird is my question for you I don't know if you have an answer you hear this pop up in new age communities mm-hmm of course you hear this shit all the time which is timeline split and is it fucking possible that we are about to have a timeline split that literally, that history as we understand it, will cleave in half and that there will be one group of people that spiral into World War III darkness, disaster, fascism, and another group of people that actually steer their ship towards the transhumanist AI utopia. Do you think about that?

Because how can, this is, I'm sorry I'm rambling. I was at a agape church, there was a contest to win a goddamn car, and it's a manifestation church. And I just thought, I guess only one of us wins the fucking car, right? Therefore, if we all perfectly manifest we want the car, what does that say in regards to the general sort of instruction regarding manifestation,

that there's better manifestors than other? Or is it we all went into an alternate timeline where we all won the car or So all I'm asking is what are your thoughts on this in other words? How can heaven and hell exist side-by-side? Or are we via this mode of? Connecting with what we call the future and steering our ship. They're actually moving into parallel universes that are less apocalyptic than the one that seems to be fashionable to believe

that we're in. Well it seems to me it's theoretically possible in fact it may even be considered a theoretical necessity that we do, we as individuals, experience multiple outcomes within this infinite, infinitude of events going on within this circular, spherical dimension that is time. In a certain way, that's what some people call string theory, this idea that there's shit going on all around us infinitely, constantly. A ripple effect may occur from one of these so-called multiple dimensions existing upon undulating bands of strings

and something happens. You may experience something singular that's not singular. One of the things I was saying before is that in the framework of quantum mechanics, in the Schrödinger's cat experiment, to the cat, there's one cat. To the observer, there's two cats because that outcome would have to be permissible if you're directing an atom at the box or some sort of a subatomic particle. It's in a state of superposition. It's in both boxes at one time, but it localizes in one box when the observer measures it. The cat, however, experiences one cat.

I experience one Mitch, you experience one Duncan, the figure of the proverbial spaceship moving at light speed. He is undergoing a slowing of the aging process. That is a concrete fact. But he experiences time as normal. He's not moving like that slowly. We may see him that way. He doesn't see himself that way. So psychologically, we are all experiencing ourselves as one thing. People have said to me, the problem with

your philosophy Mitch is that it creates this horrible dystopia of stratified life where one guy Duncan wins the car and the single mom who really needed that car she doesn't win it it's like yo let's step back here for one second we live under this stratification already there's gonna be one winner in a race there's gonna going to be one winner in a match of some kind. There's going to be one dude who gets a job. That's our life. But that's our life without delving into actual reality, which we're talking about now.

If we're talking about actual reality, we don't know. It must be said, we don't know. There could be all these different branches where we are continually experiencing different things at once. And as far as this talk about apocalypse and so forth, one of the things I take very, very seriously is I don't like people to talk about shit

unless they've got sort of skin in the game and they really mean it. I don't talk, people to talk about shit unless they've got skin in the game and they really mean it. I don't talk, for example, with people about Apocalypse or Fascism or World War III or anything else unless we're being deadly fucking serious. I've got two are, you know Digging a well installing solar panels getting fire Getting MREs raising goats like what the fuck because if you really believe that that's what you're doing Otherwise, this is entertainment and I have my forms of entertainment, you know Yeah, and and and I don't need that grim shit for entertainment, right? But if you mean it then let's let's go let's talk about it and I don't need that grim shit for entertainment.

But if you mean it, then let's, yo, let's talk about it. I know there are people who feel that way and I'm very interested in what they're doing. But I'm living here in Brooklyn and you know, I've got the ocean two blocks away. So it's like, you know, if I really mean that, that means I'm moving and that means I'm doing something. You know, so I want, let's just means I'm moving and that means I'm doing something, you know, so I want

Let's just be adults about this shit. Let's be adults if you care about people dying in wars What the fuck are you doing? I know we're all supposed to say that so we sound nice to our friends and nice on social media But yeah, but but but but what are you doing? Let's be serious You know, if you you know, if you hate Trump, are you registering people to vote? Because I'll tell you, the first time he won, I was hanging out in a barbershop talking to somebody and a lady came in and she had voter registration forms

and said, hey, could you hand these out? And I was like, well, fuckin' A, if you're against Trump and you wanna register people to vote, that seems positive. But put some skin in it, be an adult. Yeah, right. No, that's beautiful. I mean, that's beautiful. It's great. And I think that's an important thing to ask yourself. If you've gotten yourself into a psychological prison that is eschatology, it's apocalyptic. And do you really mean it? You know, do you really mean it? People in conditions of comfort always have a good time talking about horrors.

And it's like, yeah. You gotta get out of a city. This is the way I see it. If you really do believe that we are on the precipice of civilizational collapse and you're living in a big city, you gotta get the fuck out. Because otherwise you're suicidal.

You're committing suicide via civilizational collapse. You need to be arming yourself. You need to be getting your go-bag together. And you need to fully live that life if that's what you believe. Because if you're not doing that, no wonder you feel anxious all the time. It's like someone sitting in a house. Smoke is coming from downstairs. And you're like, the house is on fire. Does the house seem like it's on fire to you? Fuck, it is on fire. And you're not getting house is on fire does the house seem like it's on fire to you fuck it is on fire And you're not getting out of the fucking house. We got a move, but

Maybe the fact that you aren't doing those things Would imply you don't quite believe it and that's not bad that you don't quite believe it Maybe there's another way of looking at things that you you know, and as far as like, if you are, you know, what I try to do in my general naive and unsophisticated view of war is failure and the worst thing ever is look at my own life and look at the things I decide to do and ask myself, are these like little miniature sparks that if done if the whole planet did it wouldn't this lead to war if I was like you know if everybody was a vengeance seeker if everybody was letting their anger take

over this would lead to a really bad place one, boots on the ground way you could be against wars more than just shrilly yapping about it on your podcast like I do, but also don't, you know, there was that saying, the weather underground. Bring the war back home. Bring the peace back home. I'm saying what you're teaching and as I understand it is we're all like white holes

through which the future pours into the present. And my God, if you could connect with some paradise right around the corner and begin to emit that into the present right now, that's some quantum activism. That's some real shit there. I like that phrase, quantum activism. I dig that. And one of the things I tell people, and again, this is all very, very simple stuff,

but I believe in simple stuff because if it's not simple, people won't do it. And simplicity reveals its profundity only in application. That should never be forgotten. Like we can all say, don't lie, it's bad to lie. It's like right on. But the difficulty of that and the profundity of that will only reach you through effort, through trying. Otherwise it's just another pretty little thing that goes on the coffee mug. I tell people, if you really give a shit about the state of our world, you can do something about it right now. Desist from trash talking on social media.

Our entire civilization is spending all of its time trash talking one another on social media. It's unremitting. Rhetorical questions, body shaming, sarcasm, all the bullshit, and it flows out of us. You think there aren't people being hurt by that? You think they don't get angry and want to strike back? You think that doesn't matter

You know and you think there's bit much of a leap between that and flash mobs that show up to to to kill Muslims in the nation of India. There is not much of a fucking leap from one to the other right and I implore people if you want to do something for the world, including yourself, because you will stand taller, you will feel better, you will not be dealing with all this sublimated shame and guilt which does exist, just stop fucking trash talking over social media. Stop it. It's disgusting and there's no algorithm that's going to fix it for us and I'm tired of hearing like it's Zuck's fault or it's Elon's fault or no it's my fault yeah my fault it doesn't have to occur and there's conformity around it that's sickening I tell people and I stand by these words you desist from trash

talking on social for one hour see if you don't stand taller is your existence worth one hour to you yeah you feel better and you know what? It's real add something to it Don't forget any interaction you have online is training an AI Look up fucking Rocco's basilisk you are training a super intelligence Via your interactions online and the more you're a shithead online the more you're teaching this thing Online and the more you're a shithead online the more you're teaching this thing It's some level even though its creators will try to control it how to be a fucking shithead online So it's like imagine you got a chance to hang out with baby Jesus That's right actually meet Jesus you those 33 years you're hanging out with Christ

Are you gonna sit down and be like dude you need to call that guy a fucking cuck. He's a cuck. Right. You know what I mean? Say the word. Tell that guy he's a Nazi Jesus. Everyone's a Nazi. Whatever the fucking thing you're doing it's like you we all get to be nannies to whatever the fuck this thing is and there's never been a time where one's activity, especially online but in the world, you know, is going to have a direct impact on whatever the fuck this thing is we're all collectively making. Now Mitch, we've gone over the general hour but I have to ask this and I might regret

saying this. But I'm gonna do it. Not at all. Anything. to ask this and I might regret saying this. But I'm gonna do it. Not at all. Anything. Because when I talk about like the idea of like people who like sort of outflow positivity in the world and create change because of that outflow, you're one of them. And so I trust you.

So and also now you're talking to a collective, the people who listen to the podcast and watch it, why don't you give us an exercise to do as the collective and that that plays into what we're talking about? Manifestation, some way that we can simplify a practical way for us to execute some of the things that we've been talking about so that maybe some of the skeptical people listening right now can get their minds blown. I'm not skeptical, but a lot of the things you've taught me have worked.

And I don't know, you got anything for us? Yeah, of course, man. I'm gonna suggest three things, but they're super super simple things Okay, and they're utterly fucking private. They're utterly fucking private. Okay, one of my contentions in the book is that everything If there's a trigger to the magical operation if there's a trigger to the magical operation If there's a trigger to the magical operation, if there's a trigger to the magical operation, it's sexuality. It's the feeling of sexual desire.

And there's a practice called sex transmutation, which anybody can use anytime. Oh, don't tell us to not jerk off. Oh, no, bro. I would never do that. I would never tell anybody not to jerk off. It doesn't involve avoidance or sublimation of sex, including jerking off. I would never do that to you. Okay, I'm in. Okay, rest assured. But at times of your own choosing, completely private, when you're feeling sexual desire, wherever

you are or whatever's going on, just make the personal election at a given moment, whatever it is, to mentally shift your focus and channel consciously, channel that sexual desire towards some cherished or necessary task, whatever it may be. I would argue that salesmen, great salesmen are doing this all the time without even knowing it. We meet salespeople and we're like, gee, I don't really need this fucking blender, but I kinda like him or her, or maybe if it's, I know I'm being flirted with,

but geez, I'm gonna say yes anyway. They're doing it all the time anyway, and I think it goes deeper than just the seduction of another individual, much, much deeper than that. You feel sexual desire anytime, anywhere. You privately sublimate the satisfaction of that desire through a mental shift in focus and you direct it. You direct it towards something else.

And you will perform with greater acumen, creativity, ability, cognition toward that something else. Okay, let me stop you there. Guys, if you come to see me at the Denver Comedy Works this weekend and I have an erection, now you know why. But you will give a great help. And they'll be like, I've never seen him on fire.

Like, how did he do it? A whole week of shows, he's killer, right? Okay, keep going, I love that one. That's number one. Very actionable, very going. I love that one. That's number one. Very actionable, very actionable. Absolutely. Another one is using retro causality. Not dissimilar to what I was prescribing

for that Thai kickboxer, Spencer Hanley. And by the way, you can see Spencer's fights all over YouTube. I mean, go find the damn fight where, you know, he plays Belinda and so forth. I mean, check me on it, check me on it. Link will be in the, underneath the video or at dougandresl.com. We'll find that link.

Yeah, yeah. And, okay, retro causality. Let's say there's something. I knew a woman here in New York. She was going, this is in the book. She was going on a job interview to a religious organization. She really wanted that fucking job,

and she really needed that fucking job. She was going on a job interview to a religious organization. She really wanted that fucking job and she really needed that fucking job. She did not get it. And she was very disappointed afterwards. And she said, you know, what am I supposed to do with this disappointment? I said, yo, retro causality.

You keep training for that interview. You keep training for that preparation. You keep preparing your materials. I'm not saying you stop applying for other jobs. You go about your life and you do the normative things that we all have to do to get through life. But you keep focusing on that fucking thing. And I tell you Duncan, I swear, and this is in the book,

you can check me on it. I'll show you the original emails. She wrote to me maybe a week, week and a half later, and she said, holy motherfucking shit. The boss man called me and said, another similar opening had emerged at that religious organization with more hours. With more hours.

I can only tell you it happened. I can only tell you it happened. Use this stuff. Just try it, it's just an experiment. You don't have to tell your shrink, tell your spouse, your girlfriend, boyfriend, just use it. So I really want people to experiment with retro causality. And the final and other thing I'll say, and we've touched on it already, but it's so powerful,

it bears repeating, just stop gossiping and trash talk. It doesn't mean that you become Pollyanna-ish. I'm not Pollyanna-ish, But don't derive entertainment from running down other people, from pissing on people on social media. You will feel better. You will stand taller. You will be more attractive. Believe me, there's a fucking cost there.

We think there's not a cost. Everybody running around with their anonymous names and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, being a smart ass, it makes for a shittier world. And if you're not persuaded by that, it makes for a shittier person, individual. You will be more confident, you will be more charismatic, you will be more trusted, you will have greater exuberance.

It doesn't need to be done. There are other forms of entertainment and if there's a political figure you hate You can still talk about that political figure. You're not sacrificing your opinions But just don't derive entertainment from pissing all over people and that includes fucking body shaming sarcasm Trash talking name-calling story spreading. Yeah, 99% of the time. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. And you can do it. I mean it's within your hands to do it. I'm so excited to go in the comments of this conversation.

To see who didn't make it to the fucking end. You didn't do the goddamn thing. What the? Let's put it on that one though Mitch. Just because you are talking like with that when you really are getting to a pressure point in the collective. Give us a timeline. Like, how about so it's not a permanent thing.

How long should we do it Mitch? Like what's your recommended? What about 24 hours? It's like is a person's existence worth 24 hours? Yeah go, god, go a day. I'm going a month. Anyone who wants to join me we're gonna go a month and I barely do that shit anyway, but So until April 17th

If I don't seem like even though I barely post stuff though I do like to post sarcastic stuff and you won't see anything sarcastic You can still I'm not like calling out George Carlin here, you know, it's like I'm calling out mean trash shit, you know Okay. Okay. Yeah, but no, I'm not but I think there's more subtle ver I think the main thing is You know your intent when you're doing it Like if you're posting something, you know the feeling if you have that sticky like you're a poisonous thorn on some Thing, you know the feeling there's a don't do it. Don't do it when you're when you're at when you have that feeling Yeah transmitting the poison.

Mitch! Holy shit, practical magic everybody, it's out now. Is there a preferred place for folks to order? It is out now, right? It's out March 25th. Crap! It'll, no, no, but listen man, those pre-orders fucking help.

Oh, that's right, pre-order it. I'm waiting for copies, yeah. You can pre-order the thing. It's in digital. It's in physical copy and it's in audio, which I narrate. And it goes on sale March 25th. Great. And let me tell you, pre-orders do help me, whether it's Amazon or B&N or an indie,

wherever you buy your stuff, they help. Yeah, so that's just, what is that? Week after next? Is that next week? Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're talking less than two weeks, yeah. Okay, well actually I think when this releases, that'll be next week, so it'll be the following week,

unless you want us to release it closer to the release of your book, no, because then people won't pre-order. I'm sorry, this is something we could talk about after this great podcast, what the fuck am I doing? It was so good, and now I'm just like, diffusing it at the end like a pencil. But it shows the reality. I mean, this is St. Patrick's Day, right?

We're recording on St. Patrick's. Yeah! Yeah, the 17th, right. Happy St. Patrick's Day. And we've got the Duncan Challenge. You do this good shit until April 17th, or something like 30 days, and then you see what happens. Let's see. If you're in, I'm in, Friends, let's do it. Let me know in the comments if

you're joining. That's a month of no shit talking online. You can still jerk off. Absolutely. Mitch, thank you so much. You're brilliant. Pleasure, my man. I just love that you give me your time to do these shows. Thank you so much. Love you. Right on. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you. All right. Bye!