The Liminalist: The Podcast Between

Conversation with Brian Hayden on The Power of Ritual in Prehistory and secret societies as the missing link between religion and sociopolitical organization.

Part One: A Prehistorical Protection Racket (0 – 30 mins)

Aggrandizers and the specifics of secret societies, human evolution from hunter-gathers to transegalitarian society, the beginning of private property, aggrandizer self-promotion, feasting rituals, smoke and mirrors, demonstrations of the supernatural, regional networks, the pursuit of wealth, competing factions, blaming the spirits, beginnings of a thesis, the secret function of caves, diving the nature of rituals, European contact, a narrow window of opportunity, transformation rituals, the use of masks, power animals, traces of cannibalism.

Part Two: A Missing Link (30 mins – 52 mins)

The plundering of missionaries and government agents, the work of the devil, ecstatic experiences, the use of entheogens, the question of the supernatural, another dimension of reality, belief in the ancestors, controlled access, what secret society members believe, a transcendental currency, the severity of the cost for initiation, fasting and trauma-induced states, a missing link between religious belief and political organization, the original architecture, early priesthoods, distinguishing between elite culture and popular culture.

Part Three: The Implications of Aggrandizer Strategies (52 mins – 1 hr 23 mins)

Bottom-up mass religion, a religious tax system, Catholic colonization in Guatemalan, eliminating the Mayan elites, academic resistance to Hayden’s thesis, archeology’s exclusion of secret societies, Ruth Whitehouse, fashions in anthropology, different kinds of secret societies, the paranoid mindset, blaming the Patriarchy, Hollywood parallels, Polanski the imposer, a hierarchy of sociopathy, Jimmy Savile, seeing past the benevolent mask of the aggrandizer, the secret of manipulation, intelligence organization & occult societies, modern secret societies & social control.

Part Four: A Parallel Universe (1 hr 23 mins – end)

Deep state politics, elite networks, scarification patterns, paraphernalia, a parallel universe, amorality & initiation, cannibalism & transcending morality, Mexican drug cartels, the dark side of the force, accessing the supernatural through violence, the eight-fold path of the Buddhists, techniques for enlightenment, psychic fragmentation & siddhis, children & initiation, women’s place in secret societies, women secret societies, the subjugation of women, inequalities in the upper-paleolithic, conflicting interpretations of data, pipe dreams of academia, hierarchy and surplus, sharing & survival, the luxury of being an asshole, the crest of a down-turn.

About Brian Hayden

Songs: “Pirates” by Entertainment for the Braindead; “Diamantes and Peanuts” by Rabbit Island; "Never Eject" by Keshco; “Change” by Short Hand.

Speaking to Piers about Prisoner of Infinity & the landscape of occultism, paranoid awareness, psychedelics as voluntary possession, & artificially induced liminality.

Part One: Discovery & Disillusionment (0 – 21 mins)

Peter Levenda’s defense of Michael Aquino, Strieber & Gurdjieff, a spaceship allegory, de-eroticization & spirituality, intimacy without vulnerability, from pornography to cannibalism, effects of crystal meth, a mutant strain of human, working with addicts, intact indigenous culture, Jeffrey Kripal on trauma & spirituality, the Auticulture audience, an arc of discovery & disillusionment, occultism & conspiracy theory, an allergy to the parapolitical, Erik Davis’ position, Kripal on Esalen, the difference between woolly-mindedness & strategic evasion.

Part Two: Chinese Siddhis (21 mins – 48 mins)

Tom O’Neill’s Chaos, Manson & MKULTRA, Diana Pasulka, being ignored, Gordon White, Chris Knowles, occultism & fucked-up-ness, bringing coherence, veterans of psychedelic experience, lessons unlearned, taking Crowley at his word, wanting to believe, internal dissembling, breaking the mirror of expectations, endless spiritual seeking, coming back to the body, spiritual commodification, the imported concept of spirituality, Western spirituality as occultism lite, the surrender path, knowledge & power, conflating psychism with spirituality, the quest for siddhis.

Part Three:  Manufactured Revolutions (48 mins to 1 hr 9 mins)

Warring narratives on organized malevolence on right & left, negative identity, schismogenesis, Annika Lucas, power addiction, taboo violation, Rene Girard & the loss of differentiation, liminality & social identity, imprisoning structures, manufactured revolutions, (57 min edit) heroin addiction, Crowley’s cocaine addiction, cocaine psychosis, psychic possession, the centrality of drugs to social control, Bruce Alexander, the dislocation theory of addiction, naturally-produced dopamine, crack & whores, boosting the reward circuitry, escalating porno addiction, drugs & the sex industry, drug cartel death rituals, artificially induced psychopathy.

Part Four: Dissociation Rituals & Psychedelics (1 hr 9 mins – end)

Marijuana habit, putting the body to sleep, feeding the mind, alcohol consumption by French vs. Italians, solitary vs social use of drugs, the trauma of sustained stress, dissociation rituals, treating drug abuse with drugs, licit & illicit drug control, voluntary possession, spirit beings & plant use, Eduardo Duran, psychedelic back taxes, Maximon, Ayahuasca entities, idealizing shamans, ritual abuse & theater, hacking into the unconscious, back to liminality, plant-inception.

Songs: “Pirates” & “Patience” by Entertainment for the Braindead;  "Energy_Hunters_Unicorn_Hard-on_Mystic_Materials, Refuck" by Foot Village; "The_Man_In_The_Picture" by Niamh_De_Barra; “Change” by Short Hand.

Usually, I just link to the relevant site for other podcast interviews, but in this case the quality of my voice was significantly lost due to a shaky internet connection, so I have uploaded my recording here. You can find James' version here. It is slightly edited for flow and so clocks in a few minutes shorter, and the quality of James' voice is notably better. Take your pick this Christmas.

I took extra-trouble with this as I think it's one of the richest interviews I have done to date, due above all to the quality of James' attention, interest, and questions.

Enjoy.

Part One: Tests of Faith (0 - 14 mins)

Raised as a Southern Baptist, insistence on historical reality, honors society test, a lesson in humility, tricking the mind, the hallmark of evangelical Christianity, a conversion experience, the surrender principle, choosing to believe.

Part Two: Jesus & Santa (14 mins - 41 mins)

Belief and faith, a feedback mechanism, learning prayer through mimesis, faith and action, being saved by a social contract, self-hypnosis of a group, doctrine as means vs. doctrine as end, mistaking map for territory, flight anxiety, the Lord’s prayer, cultural Christians, Santa & Jesus, the benefits of being tricked, tricking ourselves, the law of attraction appliance of religion, getting up on the cross, Job & tuning into the eternal, when God chose to be human.

Part Three: The Trick of Spirit (41 mins - 1 hr 11 mins)

Belief in Jesus, the first but not the only, how God becomes immanent, an amnesiac aspect of God, the shadows of Christianity, you are all gods, belief without understanding, the goodness of God, belief in George Washington, liminality & faith, looking within, embodying truth, running simulations, being a worthless sinner, old age and death, souls with God, beliefs that generate obsession, stuck in humility, original sin, intentional dishonesty, Eve’s screw-up.

Part Four: Easy Jesus (1 hr 11 mins - 1 hr 35 mins)

Adam & Eve, the remedy for shame, the erasure of sin, the imagery of Hell, asking the wrong questions, Rene Girard, a resonant text, exposing the scapegoat mechanism, Christ talking to Satan, the Accuser, Peter’s faux-pas, the temptation of power, the ease of Jesus, the lesson of the life of Christ, willingness to be crucified, letting the Holy Spirit speak, negative coping strategies, the materialist viewpoint, faith that contains nihilism, the prisoner of infinity.

Part Five: Home in Eternity (1 hr 35 mins - end)

Hearing about eternity, Talking Heads’ Heaven, eternal moments, sacred time, two lives, what’s at home in eternity, a one-way bridge, cycles of reincarnation, what the mind can & cannot comprehend, God the body sensation, Santa as Satan-God hybrid, the spirit of Christmas, revelation of the method, Christmas music, a civic religion, solstice & rituals of hope, Elvis the King.

Outtakes (5 mins):

https://boxes.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/wp-content/uploads/outtakes-extrapedestrian.mp3

On Jan Irvin, conspiracy podcasts, acknowledging confirmation bias.

Songs: “Pirates” & “Patience” by Entertainment for the Braindead;  four songs by Extrapedestrian; “Change” by Short Hand.