Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of The Best Kept Secret - Eleusis and Ego Death - Episode 101

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast. This podcast covers topics that expand human consciousness and performance. On the Make Sense podcast, we acknowledge that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works, and that perception is a subjective and acquired taste. What we know is that when you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at begin to change. Welcome to the uprising of the sleepwalking masses. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. Dornick podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Make sense. Disclaimer. This one may rattle the cages of those who are voluntarily locked into that cage and have their right protect switch on protect. The Makes Sense substack in no way shares its opinions, only its observations from an open and curious place. We remain open and interested in hearing. how your heart and mind makes sense of things. Are we cool? There's an old story buried in the soil of elusis. It's not the kind of story that fades over time, but the type that lingers and seems to remind you as you remember it, sort of an echo of, hmm, or ancient residue that still inside your

Starting point is 00:01:23 bones. It speaks of mortals, transforming into gods, and of some sort of mysterious ceremony that was so powerful that it's been kept a secret for nearly 2,000 years. At its heart, it exposes a different relationship with the concept of death, not in the physical sense, the symbolic kind. The kind you don't walk away from as the same person. The Elusinian mysteries were sacred rites that drew pilgrims from across the known world. Legend states that participants would fast, walk in silence and drink a mysterious brew called Kukion. What happened next? It is not precisely known. The silence surrounding the experience was strict but consistent, which is why Houston Smith, perhaps the most influential scholar of the 20th century, called it the best kept secret in history.

Starting point is 00:02:23 There were two rules for those of elusis. You don't talk about elusis. The second rule, you don't talk about a lusus. Fight club reference? What we do know is this. Those who emerged from that journey described it as a kind of death and rebirth, a dissolution of self, a glimpse behind the veil, a liberation. Some well-known scholars and leaders were amongst the participants, the likes of Marcus Aurelius, Socrates, Plato, and Cicero. Many of them wrote about their experience. Here are some interesting insights that were most likely from their experiences. Plato, the legendary philosopher, wrote in his Fidris and the Republic about the soul's journey, the importance of transcending the material, and the experience of remembering truth, which closely mirrors what initiates

Starting point is 00:03:19 claim to experience. He once said, he who has been purified and initiated shall dwell with the gods. Socrates spoke passionately of the mysteries. In Fado, he implies that true philosophers practice for death, echoing the transformative death before death, said to happen in Elusis. Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic philosopher emperor in his diary known as Meditations, reflects a deep introspection of how humility comes before nature. And a sense of cosmic order, all themes consistent with, the initiatory teachings. Although there is no definitive record, many scholars believe that Aristotle was likely initiated as well, given his education, location, and reverence for Ellicinian ideals.

Starting point is 00:04:10 He's quoted as saying the initiatory experience wasn't about learning something, but about feeling transformed. The fact that philosophers, poets, playwrights, statesmen, and emperors were drawn to this mystery school tells us, something crucial. This wasn't just about belief. It was an experience, a direct personal death and rebirth that shaped the minds of the very people who helped shape the Western civilization we know today. All this talk of death, rebirth, and secrecy sounds very much like the discussions I have with my brothers and sisters, whom I have met through my several experiences working with plant medicine in the Amazon jungles. The conversations we have about death stay within our circles,

Starting point is 00:04:58 not because they are secrets, more so because people who haven't worked with these powerful medicines and experienced what many call the death plant wouldn't understand. What is it that exactly dies? Likely, the same thing that dies in all of us when we finally drop the mask of the false self. The armor, the identity we've crafted from survival, conditioning, approval seeking, and fear. Universally, we call that armor, ego. And while it's often worshipped in modern life through shiny things and endless efforts

Starting point is 00:05:33 in performing for the crowd, it's like a thick skin that usually stands between us and something more honest, more fluid, more godlike, hmm, can we consider ourselves godlike without ruffling the feathers of those who interpret God as an all-powerful soul entity. Most likely not, but for those that are open and curious and consider God as an omnipotent force that works through us all in partnership? Absolutely. So feel free, as always, to go along your way because I am wide open and haven't made up my mind about anything

Starting point is 00:06:10 yet. Ego death for many sounds terrifying. And it's because it feels like you are dying. But the truth, It's not the real you. It's the small you, the frightened you, the overachieving and overcompensating you, the protector, the performer, the one who's been calling the shots and running the show for far too long. When that captain of the ship is relieved from its duties, whether through heartbreak, depression, loss, or working with plant medicines, you don't disappear. You emerge. You are reborn. I first experienced this in one of the darkest moments of my life, and I stood on the edge of despair, the edge of surrender, where I took serious consideration of ending my life. It wasn't willpower that saved me. It was an insight and awakening that broke down that part of me that no longer applied,

Starting point is 00:07:06 a kind of spiritual molting. The death of who I thought I was, so I could remember who I am. It royally sucked and messed me up. Ah, the sucky paradox of breakthroughs and growth. It's no coincidence that many plant medicine stories or near-death experiences echo the structure of ancient rights, ingestion, dissent, death, rebirth. These voluntary or involuntary experiences are almost blueprints channeling our own inner elusis. Invitations to die before you die so you can finally begin to live. American author, lecturer, and mythologist Joseph Campbell, referred to it as the hero's return, not with a trophy or a title, but with the gift of having shed what no longer serves. A butterfly, it doesn't fly because it's studied

Starting point is 00:07:58 harder than the caterpillar. It flies because it's surrendered. It allowed its old self to dissolve into goo, trusting that something wiser and more capable would reassemble the pieces. The same thing happens to us, and we either embrace the process. or fear it. The caterpillar doesn't fear transformation. It trusts it. Are you frightened of turning into that goo? We tend to white knuckle and resist. We protect the version of ourselves we've built. Even when it keeps us small. Why? Because the ego is persuasive. Just like we've trained it to be, it tells us this is it and all we are. Without it, beyond it, lies nothing but chaos. and death. But what if beyond it is you? Not that curated self, not the fearful self, but the fluid,

Starting point is 00:08:54 whole, unicorn like you, the version that existed before the world taught you who and how to be. The best way I can explain the ego death experience is this. On the other side of your ego lies an unpredictable expansion of your consciousness, beyond the body and beyond space and time. Beyond the very perception you currently carry of being and not being, I describe it as a separation, where you find yourself, looking back in observation of the self, you have temporarily left behind.

Starting point is 00:09:29 Once you experience this separation, you can't unsee it. Even when your old ego makes its attempt to reclaim its throne, Things are different. You no longer take what it says as the end-all truth. It now becomes an opinion, no other than that of a friend or colleague, that you entertain at various levels of curiosity, yet no longer embrace as fact. At this time, I don't resonate with the concept of an afterlife. This is best said in the Gospel of Thomas, the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth, and the people do not see it. For me, at this time, ego death is the blessing of dying before you die. Why? Because it exposes you to the absolute

Starting point is 00:10:19 truth that your life is heaven on earth. Yes, you already made it to heaven. It's just time to open your eyes and begin viewing it right here right now here's the good news you don't have to wait until you are humbled by a near-death experience or travel to the jungles of the Amazon to drink the ancient brew or smoke frog poison however I wouldn't rule that out if you are feeling called like I was there is an easier way it takes work and patience but you already possess the ability to separate yourself from your ego It's called cognitive distancing.

Starting point is 00:10:59 It's the practice of recognizing the voice and intention of the ego, but allowing yourself to dispute or contemplate it, rather than blindly accept it. It can be a very arduous task for many, as the programmed and conditioned mind is very persuasive and skilled at making you think it is you. To assist people with this challenge, I developed a simple four-step process called the IRS, interface response system that arms and equips you with the tools and structure to place your egoic construct on pause. Just long enough to separate yourself from it and observe any given scenario with an open and curious mindset that permits you to see a variety of lenses and consciously

Starting point is 00:11:48 choose the version that best suits your goals, dreams, and desires. To learn and master this process, consider checking out our Make Sense Academy, a private community of like-minded seekers that arm themselves with this awareness and begin applying the steps in their everyday lives. Reach out and request a seven-day free trial to join a few of our live masterminds and see if it's a good fit for you. In closing, I believe this is what the Elyucinian stories were pointing toward, what plant medicines, heartbreaks, and rock-bottom moments sometimes reveal. Will you entertain that our godlike superpowers are not found by what we add, but in what we shed? So yes, in this sense,

Starting point is 00:12:39 death sets you free. Free to feel, free to become, free to be. Perhaps it's our true, authentic selves that are rattling the bars of the prison doors when we find ourselves saying, I need to get out of my own way. Makes sense? Makes sense.

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Making Sense of The Best Kept Secret - Eleusis and Ego Death - Episode 101

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