The Craft (1996) directed by Andrew Fleming and written by Peter Filardi, was pivotal in the representation and perhaps the construction of a new kind of witch; of a young, teenage girl with dark makeup, dark clothes and black nail polish, surrounded by red candles, pentagrams and tarot decks. It really was the season of the witch in the late 90s, with Sabrina the Teenage Witch hitting global television screens later in 1996, followed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997 and Charmed in 1998.

Fleming hired Wicca consultant Pat Devin, high priestess of Covenant of the Goddess in developing the film, and the attention to detail in the rituals and ceremonies are a feature of the film.

In this episode we do our best to cover the plot and themes of the film but as usual, we go on a few tangents; considering, for example, feminism, Satan & Christianity, power, community, and the relationship between witchcraft and psychedelics.

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

Altered Mates Substack

Altered Mates Patreon

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In this episode we examine the phenomena of synchronicity, a term coined by Carl Jung to designate the meaningful coincidence of a psychic and a physical state or event, which have no causal relationship to one another. According to Jung, such synchronistic phenomena occur, for instance, when an inwardly perceived event (dream, vision, premonition, etc.) is seen to have a correspondence in external reality: the inner image of premonition has "come true." Neither the one nor the other coincidence can be explained by causality, but seem to be connected primarily with activated archetypal processes in the unconscious.

Jung: "I chose this term because the simultaneous occurrence of two meaningful but not causally connected events seemed to me an essential criterion. I am therefore using the general concept of synchronicity in the special sense of a coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events which have the same or a similar meaning, in contrast to 'synchronism', which simply means the simultaneous occurrence of two events."

We base our discussion around Jung’s lecture On Synchronicity, which can be found as an appendix in a larger work: Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle.

Throughout the discussion we scatter in a few of our own personal experiences of bizarre synchronicities. Alejandro refers Tobias to a number of photographs as evidence of synchronicity—a collection of which will be made available next week, in Alejandro’s upcoming written post.

When considering ‘mystical’ experiences, in Varieties of Religious Experience, William James wrote that ‘no account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.’ In this episode we reach a shared thesis, wonderfully articulated by Tobias: that synchronicity seems to be a roadmap towards these ‘other forms of consciousness’, and an expression of them at the same time. We could very well echo James and argue that any account of the universe that fails to account for or at least consider the ‘meaningful coincidences’ of a synchronicity, is incomplete.

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

This episode is a continuation of our discussion on Borderline Personality Disorder, which is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts. Whereas in Episode 26 — On the Borderline, we concern ourselves with the defining BPD, and getting our heads around the diagnostic criteria in the DSM V, in this episode we discuss treatment and causes of the disorder, as well as considerations around its social construction. It should be remembered that a diagnosis of a personality disorder like “borderline” says a lot about the society in which the diagnosis was developed. Keep in mind, these disorders are “decided upon” rather than “discovered”. And though they are certainly pointing towards something, they must be understood as constructions, born of particular social, historical, economic, and political factors.

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In this episode we discuss Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), also referred to as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD). Somewhat unintentionally Alejandro gives an overview of the TV show Bojack Horseman but this leads to a discussion of the characteristics of BPD using the character of Bojack as an example. We also bring in Anakin Skywalker as another example of a fictional character who may potentially fit the characteristics of someone diagnosed with BPD.

We centre our discussion around a 2006 paper written by Pamela Bjorklund titled, “No man's land: Gender bias and social constructivism in the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder”.

In the process, we break down the diagnostic criteria used in the DSM V for BPD but if you’re interested, see below:

Borderline Personality Disorder:

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) or the following:

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In this episode we go on a savage journey to the heart of the American Dream through an immersion into Hunter S. Thompson and Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish Las Vegas. We discuss Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 masterwork of “Gonzo” journalism, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and along side it, Terry Gilliam’s wonderful 1998 film adaptation. In our usual way we get fully derailed for a while and just as we seem to be driving our huge Chevy convertible away from Las Vegas, we finally answer that call from our attorney to head straight back in to the belly of the beast to consider the demise of the American Counterculture of the 1960s and finish off this savage, sweat inducing, blood and rum soaked trip of an episode.

References

Hunter S. Thompson (1971) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Terry Gilliam (1998) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Jack Kerouac (1957) On the Road

Diane di Prima

James Truslow Adams (1931) The Epic of America

Black Sabbath — Master of Reality (1971) — Sweet Leaf

Rage Against the Machine (1992) Know Your Enemy. (recent live version here).

BBC — Planet Earth II — Iguana vs Snakes

Altered Mates — Episode 6 — F-ing the ineffable: William James, Mysticism, and the Psychedelic Experience

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In this episode of the podcast we continue our discussion of the first thirty pages of Ramsey Dukes’ essay on magical thinking; “Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians Exposed”, commonly abbreviated to S.S.O.T.B.M.E.

Dukes’ model of compass directions differentiates between Art, Magic, Religion and Science, and the modes of thinking associated with each direction. In Dukes’ model of the four compass directions Dukes suggests that, “Magic, Art, Religion and Science represent movement towards Wholeness, Beauty, Goodness and Truth respectively.” These compass points, according to Dukes, don't have to conflict with each other; they can exist alongside each other. One doesn’t have to be correct and the rest wrong. An intelligent person can allow them to co-exist and use or adopt one or more as each situation calls for them.

We take our time to discuss functional specialisation in the brain, and in particular, hemispheric specialisation. Research into the human brain has consistently found areas of functional specialisation. For example, verbal cognition is processed largely in the left hemisphere of the brain of most people, and imagery or spatial cognition is largely processed in the right hemisphere of most brains, and the frontal lobes in each hemisphere are responsible for executive functioning, or higher cognitive functions like organisation, planning and decision making. Prominent researchers Miller and Cummings used PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic imaging) scans to support functional specialization of the frontal cortex—finding the left frontal cortex active in verbal working memory processes and and visuospatial working memory in the right frontal cortex.

In our discussion we agree that there seems to be some more occluded areas of the brain or nervous system responsible for some of the functions Ramsey Dukes is evoking when he writes about the kind of processing going on in magical thinking. Dukes writes, “I want to suggest that our brains have evolved a non-logical data processing facility which is, in its own way, every bit as useful and sophisticated as reason but which we tend to play down or analyse away because its causal connections seem so tenuous. This facility which I call ‘feeling’ acts much faster than reason and seems to process vast amounts of data in parallel rather than sequentially like logical thought. As such it is hard to put into words, the words chosen tend to be feeling words, and the process is more akin to Art than Science.”

As an exercise in understanding we attempt to take Tarot Divination and map it against Dukes’ model of the four compass directions of Magic, Art, Religion and Science.

It’s also worth mentioning, especially now that we have reached the second of our two-part series on this text, that Dukes never actually reveals the sex secrets of the black magicians, and neither do we…

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

According to Ramsey Dukes, “Magic is a technique by which the human mind attempts to operate upon its world. As such it is similar to Art, Religion and Science, but note that the term ‘its world’ is meant to embrace not only the physical universe but also all phenomena, objective and subjective, which do not respond to direct control.”

In this episode we consider Ramsey Dukes’ essay on magical thinking; “Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians Exposed”, commonly abbreviated to S.S.O.T.B.M.E. Well, that was our intention anyway… it takes us a while to meander around the concept of magic, our exposure to the concept of magic and even early aversions to it. Eventually, we discuss Dukes’ model of compass directions differentiating between Art, Magic, Religion and Science, and the modes of thinking associated with each ‘direction’. In this essay, Dukes comes to a similar conclusion to Carl Jung: human thought is comprised of four distinct elements: intuition, observation, logic and feeling. Dukes argues that, “any practical method of thinking demands at least two of these four elements, one to serve as an input of impressions and the other to process them.”

Our primary concern in tackling this obscure text is to determine what magic or magical thinking actually is, and whether or not this a relevant term for us to use.

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In the second episode of season 2 the altered mates continue our discussion of our personal experiences with ayahuasca.

In this episode, Alejandro relates his rather disturbing experience in one particular ceremony from his ayahuasca retreat in Iquitos, Peru in August 2024. Alejandro recounts his evening of existential dread—which he describes at one point as, "the worst feeling I’ve ever felt,” and Tobias offers insight and interpretation in response.

In the later stages of the episode, Tobias considers his intentions going into an upcoming ayahuasca ceremony.

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In the first episode of season 2 we begin a discussion of some of our most profound and significant personal experiences with ayahuasca over the past ten years. We consider the prospect that ayahuasca might be a “highly evolved conscious entity”, or at the very least, an entity possessing an intelligence and possibly having a message to communicate with humanity.

References

Altered Mates

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

In this, the final episode of Season 1 of the Altered Mates Podcast, we (Alejandro Tuama and Tobias Penno) discuss what is on the immediate horizon for us both. Tobias gives us a little taste of his PhD—in terms of both the subject matter of his research and the origin story as well—which is in the final stages of submission and approval! And Alejandro talks about his upcoming trip to South America.

Along the way we discuss the concept of “character loops” which Alejandro brings in from the HBO TV Series “Westworld”.

We reflect on how we can “de-armour” the ego and what it truly means to “surrender” to the medicine.

We find time to reflect on a recent mushroom ceremony, and in particular, the implications of this recent ceremony for Alejandro and his upcoming meeting with “the medicine” in the Peruvian Amazon.

And we toss around the concept of the “Daimon”, which Alejandro brings in from James Hillman’s book “The Soul’s Code”, and in particular consider the implications of what we call “daimonic derailment.”

As we mention in the episode, this will be the final episode for Season 1 of the Altered Mates Podcast. We are both keen as mustard to get cracking on Season 2, which will happen just as soon as I (Alejandro) return from South America.

Adios Amigos!

References

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama