The True Magick Behind Magic Tricks w / Sasha Crespi | AMP # 448

AUBREY: Sasha! 

SASHA: Hey, man. 

AUBREY: So this is really interesting. And I'm here with Caitlyn, but what's really interesting about this is you're a magician that believes in magic. 

SASHA: Absolutely. 

AUBREY: Wow. 

SASHA: Actually, not even believe. I know. 

AUBREY: You know, magic. Yeah. And this is the interesting thing because many of us who've experienced Mentalists or stage magicians. It's like, how do they do this? But we know there's a trick, but then there's some part of us that's like, but is there also real magic? Especially with like, the David Blaine mentalist owes mentalist and categories. You're wondering like, there's starting to get some blurry lines here between the trick and the real magic. And there are tricks and then there's magic and sometimes they coincide. A very few people, I've–I actually don't know anybody that's been willing to talk about both.

SASHA: You know one. 

AUBREY: I know one, yeah.

SASHA: And I'm happy too, man. I sense it's a conversation that magicians need a lot. 

AUBREY: Because do you think that magicians are tapping into magic sometimes, and then not actually even believing what they're actually tapping into? Or do you think they know? Like, does David Blaine know that he's doing some weird, weird stuff? Or like, I mean, I don't even know about him in particular, but what is, what goes through the, in the field of your, you know, contemporaries? What are they thinking when they're doing this kind of stuff? 

SASHA: Well, the role of the magician has evolved. And most recently, it evolved into the skeptic. The debunker

AUBREY: Penn Teller.

SASHA: Penn Teller, Houdini, Randy. And magicians, I suspect, have a strong sense. Let's make a distinction, when I say magicians now, we're sort of talking about magic tricks, tricksters. They have a moral sense of responsibility to make sure that other people aren't being tricked while they are tricking them. And one of the ways that is often rationalized is this funny thought, that magicians are some of the most honest people in society because they tell you they're going to deceive you and then they do. Now, to answer your question, which is a tricky question, my suspicion and experience is that most magicians don't believe in magic, rationalize the impossible. And the few times I've seen my friends experience things that they did not create, they did not expect. They were unable, often, to hold that experience, to integrate it. 

AUBREY: Because it didn't fit within their materialist, reductionist, Newtonian, scientific worldview, rational worldview. This thing that we call magic is something that breaks the rules. It's something that breaks the conventional rules. 

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: And so it's hard for our operating system to behold it. We have to actually evolve our operating system to actually understand, Oh, there's a greater operating system, we just don't know the codes yet. 

SASHA: Yeah. And magicians often have a real sense of control. You've seen it in myself and am trying to orchestrate tomorrow's experience with, trying to control the experience as much as possible. And the reason I'm saying this is because magicians often create the illusion that they have no control, and yet they are orchestrating the experience. When they give you a choice, do you want, you know, an orange or an apple that may feel free? But they chose the options and why not more options? So because magicians are orchestrating an experience and controlling every element of it, as soon as something is outside of their control in a metaphysical or supernatural sense, there's often a closed mindedness. 

AUBREY: Well, I'm gonna light this candle here and we're gonna dive in.

SASHA: Please. 

AUBREY: We're just gonna get weird. 

SASHA: I'm so ready. 

AUBREY: We're gonna see where this goes. We're gonna see where the tricks and the magic coincide. 

SASHA: Yeah, and I'd love to share a piece of magic with you.

AUBREY: The candle is lit. 

SASHA: Let's begin. 

AUBREY: And I don't know what's gonna  happen with that candle, but I imagine it's gonna go out at the end of this podcast. That's what I'm imagining. 

SASHA: Let's make that happen.

AUBREY: Alright.

SASHA: Well, I'm happy to share a simple moment with you, Caitlyn. I believe one of the roles of the magician in the modern world is to remind us that we live in a deep mystery, but we are often too distracted to accept its gift. That the world, the universe, is magical, but we're just fucking distracted. And that sometimes the simplest things, like a piece of paper or a napkin, which, by the way, is my gift to you.

CAITLYN: Thank you so much. 

SASHA: You're welcome. 

CAITLYN: So generous of you. 

SASHA: Can mean so much more when we add the magic of meaning. May I?

CAITLYN: You may. 

SASHA: Let's play a game. 

CAITLYN: You're speaking all my language. 

SASHA: I'll make something and you try to guess what it is. 

CAITLYN: Okay. 

SASHA: If you can guess, you can keep it. Give me a second. And if you can't guess, you can still keep it.

CAITLYN: Should I watch you or? 

SASHA: Please watch. Make sure I'm not doing anything sneaky. 

CAITLYN: I like magic, so I never try to figure it out. 

SASHA: I love, I love magic. 

CAITLYN: Today I'm gonna have to figure some of it out. Oh. It's a rose!

SASHA: It's a rose? Correct. You get to keep it. Let me finish it. Let me see

AUBREY: You got that early. 

SASHA: You got that early.

CAITLYN: I have an eye for roses. 

SASHA: Do you? 

CAITLYN: Yes. 

SASHA: Do you have a nose for roses?

CAITLYN: I'd say so. 

SASHA: Yeah? Do you have a favorite color of rose? 

CAITLYN: I guess I do.

SASHA: Which one? 

CAITLYN: The color of your shirt. 

SASHA: The color of my shirt. 

CAITLYN: Red. 

SASHA: Burgundy red. 

CAITLYN: Lover's red. 

SASHA: Lover's red. Okay, well, I guess this, that's for you. Thank you. Smell that. 

CAITLYN: Wow!

SASHA: Does it smell like a rose? 

CAITLYN: It does.

SASHA: Bring that candle closer for a second. If you wish for a rose, you can have a rose. What's interesting about this one is that unlike a real rose, it’ll last forever. 

CAITLYN: What

SASHA: Well, let's make it real. 

CAITLYN: What?! No way! Oh my god, I'm gonna cry, this is so, it's warm, it's like it just came out of the fire. Oh my god, oh my god! Wow, that was my first personal magic experience. Thank you. 

SASHA: There's so much more. 

CAITLYN: Oh my god. And it's. I, I'll just say you spoke so many words there, um, but meaning was part of the mystery. 

SASHA: Yes. 

CAITLYN: And roses, as Aubrey knows, have great significance and meaning to me, in my soul. So we just met about 20 minutes ago. So it's, there's another layer of the magic in it for me, even beyond the like, unexplainable.

AUBREY: Right, so, so like, so, there was a moment where something, something burned and a rose emerged, and there's some trick in there. 

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: And, the fact that you gave Caitlyn a red rose, and the fact that a red rose is, I know Caitlyn, I've known Caitlyn for, Twenty fucking years. Like, the fact that you gave Caitlyn a red rose, and this was the first trick, that's where the real magic is. Because that is something that's, It's impossible for you to have known how significant that was. You didn't talk to him about roses. 

CAITLYN: I didn’t talk about anything.

AUBREY: I didn't talk to Caitlyn's affinity for roses. And how roses are like a symbol for who she is in many ways, in this world, right? So like, that's where the real magic was. The real magic was there was something whispering to you. And something whispering that this was going to be the right first trick of the day. 

CAITLYN: Yeah.

SASHA: For the magicians listening, they probably say, you know, agree and, uh, you know, lucky guess. But this is again about, you know, it's very hard to rationalize the impossible. We're always trying to do that. Hmm. So to continue with what you just said, like, uh, I had two strong intuitions before I came here. One of them was a song for Caitlyn, which I played for her, and another one was a book for you. And I've been thinking about, I try to, to me, magic needs to be generous. I try to share and I really thought about what book to get you. And I just kept coming back to this one book and I found out you've read it, you've reviewed it. You know it well. It was the Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz. Did I nail it? 

AUBREY: Yeah. 

SASHA: Why?

AUBREY: Well, did I love that book? 

SASHA: Mm-Hmm? 

AUBREY: Like, how did you know that I loved that book. 

SASHA: I didn't know, but, but why do you think I kept wanting that book for you now? I don't know, man. I kept thinking about it.

AUBREY: Fair enough. Enough. Yeah. I mean, the mastery of love, if love is the core structure of the cosmos to be a master of love, it means you're abiding in this Cosmo erotic universe where the insides are all aligned with love. So it's really saying you're a master of the universe, which it bides in the kingdom of a good loving God force, source force. It’s good. And also that we're not blind to the bad and the dark, but the mastery of love, that's the feeling of the whole universe. So it's a master of your emotions, the master of the feeling tones, the master of this quality of the whole cosmos, right? Which is, something that I'm deep in the exploration of and we can go to a very personal, you know relationship. How does love actually Bloom like a rose within a relationship? What are the ways that it blooms? how do you master the currents and the and the different ways that love shows up and it's very absolutely present in my life as it was when I first read Mastery of Love and as it is right now, I mean, that's core, core to like what this moment is about for me, for sure.

SASHA: Man, if you'll allow me, I'd like to share another piece of magic with you because you said something that triggered me beautifully. I'd like to share an illusion with the two of you. I really wasn't expecting to do this so soon, but it's perfect. I'd like to share an illusion with the two of you.

CAITLYN: Share an illusion? You don't hear that very often put together.

SASHA: Let me see. Here it is. This is the illusion I'd like to share with you. The two of hearts. Take a look.

AUBREY: Looks pretty two of heartsy to me. 

CAITLYN: Very two of heartsy. 

SASHA: Now there's sort of something interesting, not about this specific two of hearts, but about the symbolism in the two of hearts in general, and therein I found an illusion. Let me show you. This card sort of tells a story of a relationship, two hearts. And the reason I call it an illusion is because the two hearts are separate. And yet nothing is separate. Everything is connected. So to me, just this simple card, so much meaning when I recognize this card is a metaphor. For the illusion we find in every relationship, the illusion of separation. Take one more look.

CAITLYN: Still very two of heartsy. 

AUBREY: Still very two of heartsy, but that was a beautiful way to explain the metaphor and the meaning of a two of hearts. Because our hearts are one and our hearts are separate where the ocean in a drop and a drop in the ocean. 

SASHA: Beautiful. The ocean in the drop, and the drop in the ocean.

AUBREY: That's Rumi, yeah.

SASHA: Well, if you're willing, allow me to break this illusion. First, I want to add some meaning, so let's put, uh, Caitlyn is spelt with a K? 

CAITLYN: With a C. 

SASHA: With a C? a C, in one of the hearts, and Aubrey. A? 

AUBREY: A. 

SASHA: Okay. 

CAITLYN: No, no.

SASHA: Just checking.

CAITLYN: Aubrey

SASHA: A C.

AUBREY: I do love you, Caty.

CAITLYN: I do love you, too. 

SASHA: Of course 

AUBREY: 20 years. 

CAITLYN: 20 years. 

AUBREY: Of friendship.

SASHA: Yes, and, of course, this, in some way, represents all of us. It's time to break the illusion. Oh, and don't worry about the tear in the middle, because that's how the light gets in. The illusion is now broken, and here's the truth. We are all connected, and we're all connected by love. And the way I say that is that infinite love is the only truth.

CAITLYN: What? 

SASHA: Anything else is an illusion.

CAITLYN: Oh, wow. What? 

SASHA: Take a look. 

CAITLYN: No way. 

SASHA: To represent your friendship.

CAITLYN: What?

AUBREY: There we are.

CAITLYN: Wow. What? Where's the camera at? Check that out. 

AUBREY: So, in doing these, this is like a, this is also showing what, like, what is breaking the boundaries of what a normal, you know, “magician” would do is, you're trying to actually help guide people through this process to a deeper understanding of themselves and a deeper understanding of the cosmos.

SASHA: The way I say that is I'm trying to share the truth through the art of illusion. That's an illusion. It's a trick. But what it points to is true. And that's where I think. Let's call it real magic with a K and magic tricks sort of intersect is they both point to the same truth which well, okay now I don't want to speak with too much authority here, but to me it appears that they point to the truth that more is possible Than you allow yourself to believe that you limit yourself through the boundaries of your beliefs. We live in a deep mystery and we're distracted. So, yeah, I hope it's helpful in some way.

CAITLYN: Wow, even the two heart

AUBREY: I know. 

CAITLYN: It's, wow.

SASHA: Do you want to actually continue or take it a step further? You can try.

AUBREY: Yeah, of course. 

SASHA: I'm fascinated by an art form that they practice in Japan called kintsugi. Have you ever heard of that?

AUBREY: Uh huh. Where they put the gold on the cracks of the vases.

SASHA: Exactly. So if you're willing, let's try to make a kintsugi. And we need, where is it? Do you have the gold? 

CAITLYN: Wow, how did it go over there? It's a magic trick. 

SASHA: I didn't know. I’ll take the pieces, actually, can you rub some of this on these broken edges? Go for it.

AUBREY: Rubbing gold nail polish on the ripped card.

SASHA: I'm like King Su, yeah?

CAITLYN: What? Come on, no way! It's healed! 

SASHA: That's for you to keep. 

CAITLYN: It's for me to keep? That's amazing! What? Wow.

AUBREY: Pretty fucking cool. 

CAITLYN: Wow

AUBREY: Pretty cool. And again, weaving in, you know, this idea of another philosophical concept, Kintsugi, which is basically that there's always going to be cracks, but there's always a way to heal them. And like, that's part of our alchemical process. So like, as alchemists, we have the opportunity to take the broken vessels, liberate the sparks, and apply that gold. You know, that gold grout, so to speak, the glue that glues everything back together and returns to wholeness. You know, the source of all magic itself, which is the source. That's the source of magic, the source. It comes from the universe, comes from the cosmos. 

CAITLYN: I just want to make sure that all our viewers out there really see the legit healing that just happened on this magical card. Wow. 

SASHA: Yeah, it's our brokenness that makes us whole. 

AUBREY: And the way that we break that makes us unique. Right? So like..

SASHA: Tell me more. 

CAITLYN: Tell me more. 

SASHA: That's interesting. 

AUBREY: Not only are we a unique expression of who we are, but we're a unique expression of our brokenness. We're a unique expression, a unique configuration of our desires, a unique configuration of our atomic elements, our physical structure, and then a unique configuration of our psychology, which includes our brokenness and all our broken parts. We have a unique, or  we're uniquely broken. Nobody is broken the same way as somebody else. Everybody is broken uniquely, and that's part of their own unique story. It's their opportunity in the Hebrew lineage that I'm studying in deep Kabbalah. It's The hizaron, which is like the defect or the challenge that you have to overcome, and it's unique to you, you have a unique hizaron, your unique challenge, and you maybe have many of them, but there's one that's particularly unique for you, and in the healing of that in yourself, uniquely, you heal the whole. You know, totally for that unique expression that you get to live. So the divine that wants infinite complexity and all of this uniqueness and combination and intimacies, then we all have our own broken parts. And then we all have the opportunity to bring those broken parts back into wholeness. And as we do that, every one of us contributes to the wholeness of reconnection with. With God. 

CAITLYN: And a beautiful pattern of golden. Like a unique pattern of golden thread. 

SASHA: Yeah. We're a mosaic.

AUBREY: We’re a mosaic. We're a mosaic of all the places where we've applied the gold, to hold, which is something of value. Which is the magic. The magic, something of value, something of will, something of intent, attention, the gold and the gold energy, the energy of the sun, you know, itself that brings life and draws, draws sprouts from the ground and has leaves stretched to the heavens and penetrates our flesh and warms our bodies and that golden energy that heals and mends all of our wounds. And in a way, all of the broken pieces come together and we're, yeah, we're like a giant mosaic held together by that golden energy.

CAITLYN: No two alike 

SASHA: As an image is just incredible. Like I've been having this vision of wanting to create a piece of magic in which I have a globe of planet earth, and then I do, I break it and then can Sugi with it. But what you're proposing in some ways is so much more beautiful because everybody can contribute their own little broken piece.

AUBREY: Yeah, for sure. We're all  evolving the kind of complexity and interesting, because we're unique, we're evolving the everything, the all that is, the God, we're in the evolution of God, because as this unique combination, which is unique to us, is healed and is played with all the light and the dark and the healing of the wounds and the, and all the mendings that we do, this is radically unique, like, nothing will ever be exactly the same as we were in the time that we were in the way that we did it. It's kind of a fundamental characteristic of who we are. So when you're trying to, you know, kind of expand your own capabilities, right? So let's say, how does Sasha become better at what you do? There's two sides. One, you're going to learn more tricks, more ways to use these illusions in a way that it can actually be impactful like it was for Caitlyn, you know, like the impact of that. And there's also got to be some training in like the real magic with Kay, that you do. And, your teacher has a kind of, like an interest that's I think what created you is, I have an interesting teacher as well, and you have an interesting teacher, and interesting teachers create interesting students in future masters because they open up possibilities. So what's that like for you, you know, on both sides, with a teacher who understands both sides?

SASHA: Thank you for asking me that question. To answer it honestly, I need to emotionally open up about a persistent feeling of loneliness, specifically within the world of magicians and frustration. I can go deeper into that, but to answer that beautiful question man, which I could pass right back at you. First off, shout out to Jeff McBride, my teacher, the teacher beyond my wildest dreams, I did. 10 to 12 years of affirmations every day saying, I will have a teacher beyond my wildest dreams. And eventually he came, he is beyond my wildest dreams. So thank you, Jeff. He could hold space for me because as I'm entering this new use with magic, with these illusions, I found less and less literature, less and less, outside sources that could help me with it. So I want to be clear, but it opens an emotional, something emotional in me because I felt misunderstood or alone for a while. Here's how I can answer this. The deeper I go into this form of magic, which I think ultimately is about healing and uses meaning as one of its core pillars, I'm being confronted. You know, who am I to share these pieces? Who am I to ask people to do these rituals, which are powerful. And a big part of my training beyond the technical philosophical side of magic is just like trying to grow as a person, like to be in a space where I can share these powerful things, because as you'll see tomorrow, the piece with the apple is, is particularly powerful. Each piece is a teacher and it tells me where to go. So some pieces are more shamanistic and I have spoken to over 10 or 20 shamans, just about one piece. And they've all given me a different understanding. And ultimately they always say, what you're doing is bigger than you think. Be careful. So I don't have the answers, but I am supported and deeply supported by many people, including my family. And man, it's a beautiful question. I really wish I could be more articulate about it, but I just like one answer is, you know, you hit your toe until you stop hitting your toe. But another one is to deepen my respect for the power of magic, not my power, the power of magic, and that changes the intention with which I share it, hopefully. 

AUBREY: Yeah, because, you know, look, I've been a psychonaut for 24 years and dragged Caitlyn along with me on the journey for at least 20 of those years. 

CAITLYN: Thank you by the way. I'm quite magical now, thanks to that. 

AUBREY: So, ultimately, I've been in a lot of shamanic spaces with some, you know, they call it, they don't even call themselves shamans. I call them shamans, but they're wizards. I've been with wizards, real wizards, like Maestro Alberto, Maestro Orlando Chuandama, Don Howard, like I've been with wizards. I've seen wizards do magic and also, you know, made mages of all different varieties and different shamanic experiences. And I felt real. Like real magic, like knowing what a situation calls for, knowing that there's a force that you can channel through you, through your openness and intention, and then seeing that result come, whether you're channeling it to the greater space or whether you're channeling it to an individual. So, I have firsthand experience with magical practices and some of these practices are like the blowing of tobacco or the blowing of cinnamon or, you know, different ways in which people can move energy with breath, etc. And it's so real in your body that you just can't deny it. You know, it's so real. It's like, like, there is no question and contrast that with, you know, some like lower, I would say like, you know, just talk about like basic level Reiki healing. You know, I think there's a Reiki healing kind of whole system there, but I've had a lot of people try to do some Reiki healing and I'm like, yeah, nothing. I feel no magic there. And so, if I can't feel it, I don't believe it. And so there's no magic there, but once you start to feel it, then your belief adds fuel to it. And then it's like, it's there, but the magic is real. So I have this really kind of my own orientation toward magic, it's real. If I can feel it and it, and I'll know it's real. And I have no doubt that it's real. Cause I felt it in many countless different situations. Like I felt. That magic is real and magic of all different sorts and also wielded magic in my own way, you know, in belief and there's, I often do it in silly situations, you know, like probably the most magical situations I've ever done was getting a boat engine to start and getting a TV to unscramble, you know, like it's like on, on these like minor inconveniences I summoned like the greatest magical power. And I think it's because there's not a lot of downsides. There's no fear of doing it. So I'm able to just kind of step in all the way and like, create this experience. So, so like the boat engine thing, we couldn't get our boat engine to start. We had a bunch of people who wanted to go out on the water. I was like, all right. So we were there for 30 minutes, figuring everything out, trying everything, nothing worked. I was like, all right, everybody stop. Everybody stops what we're doing, it's nothing mechanical. Let's go magical now. What we're going to do is we're gonna envision pushing that start button and the boat's just going to start up and we're going to hear the roar of the engine and then we're going to see ourselves surfing on the wave that boat kicks up and we're going to feel the wetness trickle off our face and we're going to feel the smiles, we're going to hear the music that's coming off the boat, we're going to feel yourself going down with the rumble of that boat's engine that wouldn't start and I was like, when we push this, when I push this button, it's just going to start. And after 30 minutes of failure, then we push the button. Vroooooom. Starts up and we're like, oh wow! And I'm like, why the fuck don't I do that for more important things than starting a boat engine? But that was, we've had little moments like that where it's like, yeah, let's give this a, let's give this a try. Yeah. And, uh, and felt some really powerful things. emerged even in the non shamanic space. So I know that magic is real in the shamanic space and I also have felt some real magic happen in other different situations. Now I also had a podcast that I did here with Jake Paul that told the story of, you know, I had a vision of him, like a vision of him knocking Nate Diaz to the canvas. He's a boxer. So knocking him to the canvas with the left hook, and then a butterfly landed on his left hand and all these magical things happened. And then the fight comes. And then, of course, the knockdown is a left hook. And we had this whole story about it, right? So it's like, I'm in a magical universe. I know magic is real and I'm starting to explore just gently, humbly, all right, what are the bounds? Like, what are the bounds here? How, how do we go and how do we navigate? And also being aware that there's a dark side of magic, you know, like there is also what they would call in the plant medicine psychonautic world, brujería, sorcery.

SASHA: Brujería

AUBREY: Brujería, yeah, which is like the Spanish word for sorcery. So brujas or brujos are ones that don't provide shamanic magic, curanderos provide healing, healing magic and brujos provide just whatever magic it could be to try to make people fall in love or it could be control magic where they try to control somebody's and siphon energy and there's all there's all kinds of magical will but those there's a that the dark side is always predatory it's about service to self versus service to other or all and that's the distinction between magic and sorcery is yes magic, is if you're doing it in on the good side of the force for your Jedi, it's not only about the good for you, it's about the good for the person you're doing it with and the good for the whole and the good for everything. The other way is to use the force to the dark side, which is to control and to manipulate.

SASHA: As a means to an end 

AUBREY: As a means to an end. Exactly. 

SASHA: Yeah, there's this idea in the word magic that actually comes from the Zoroastrian priests. They were referred to as the Magi and, they were referred to as the Magi or the Magoi from the Greeks who used that word sort of to separate them. But there was a sort of respect to some extent. The reason I say this is because I read this idea which you just expressed beautifully about the difference between sorcery and magic. One is to help maintain balance and harmony in all things, which means not just for me, not just for my community, not just for humanity, but for all things and the other as you express as a means to an end. Now, I want to share a quote,  which my friend Diane is, uh, reminding me to be careful in these magical explorations, in these different forms of magic. I started studying hermetic philosophy and, um, some alchemical ideas. And she said, remember, don't manipulate. The purest form of manifestation requires no manipulation. Instead, be so present and trusting that the whole of existence is in your service. Now, that's beautiful, but it's also true. And, and I learned that through experience and let me briefly share a story. Um, one night we were in a group and we were about to, uh, do a ceremony because we opened a temple in Ibiza. And she said, uh, Sasha, what are you going to do for the magic? I said, Oh, you know, I think I'm going to make the stars move because I was practicing a low version of a trick in which I could make the stars move. She said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Well, the next day we had the ceremony and I completely forgot. And two or three hours into it, I saw two people shout, Oh my God, look at the stars. And the stars were moving because of Starlink. Now the rational skeptical magician may say, well, it's because of Starlink. But no, the stars did move. And there's another brief story that this welcomes, which is from a beautiful book called The Spell of the Sensuous from David Abram. He went to Indonesia. He was a street magician sharing secrets with an Indonesian shaman and, I'll keep it brief. It's a beautiful story. It's my favorite story about the boundaries of magic. He was staying in a hut. There were eight huts on the compound and he was the last one and a lady every morning would bring him rice and mango. Bring each person rice and mango and he was the last one, but there was always an extra bowl of rice and mango and he was confused and he would ask, where is this, who's this for? And the last one said, Oh, for the spirits. So the next day he followed this lady out of the compound, she put the bowl of rice and mango in front of the door for the spirits, and left. And he just observed, and within a few minutes, as he tells the story, he could see the rice doing this sort of motion, moving and then moving away from the ball and falling off the ball. And he said, holy, this is magic. And he got closer and he could see this rice moving. And he was so confused. They were ants at that point. He said, Oh, these, you know, primitive people don't understand, you know, they think this is for the spirits, but it's really the ants, but those are the spirits.

AUBREY: We're, you know, we're recording now and it's before Christmas, but when this releases, it'll probably be after Christmas. And it reminds me of the leaving the cookies for Santa Claus as your kid, you know, and there is a, there is Christmas magic. There's a Christmas spirit. That you can actually call upon that actually creates if you actually go into it with intention and like actually cultivate the magic, Christmas will be magical. There will be a magic Christmas and part of it is the illusion. The illusion is the kids are in bed. And then the parents eat a little bite of the cookies, the parents eat the milk, but actually by participating in the spirit of Christmas and in this illusion, which is eating the cookies and drinking the milk, it actually creates more real magic of Christmas, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like, so the magic comes and the same with your example. 

CAITLYN: You give life to the spirit of Christmas. 

AUBREY: Yeah, exactly. Like by, by actually participating in this way, you actually give it, you know, give it more. And I think it's a beautiful way to not say, because then what happens is the problem with this is you kids grow up and they go, Oh, my parents made the cookies and stomp their boots on the ash and did the whole, it was my dad that did it. God, Christmas isn't real. And then they go through this whole, so the pre-tragic, Santa is real, Christmas is real, Christmas spirit is real. And then tragic, Santa is not real. My parents did the whole thing. It's all bullshit. And then there's the post tragic, which is, Oh, actually the Christmas spirit is real. Actually, I was right all along. And it includes all of the illusions. And transcends all of the illusions to get to the real magic..

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: .. of what Christmas is. 

SASHA: Yes. There's some rites of initiation I've heard about in which there is a phase of disillusioning the children. Maybe, you know, they may say the spirits are about to come into the room and the children may be covered. And then the men would come and chisel away one of their teeth. And they would reveal that it was just the men, it wasn't the spirits, but then there was a bond or an agreement made saying, now that you know that it wasn't the spirits, it is your responsibility to perpetuate the illusion. Now that you are disillusioned, you must perpetuate the illusion. And there's something interesting about that. I don't fully understand it. I mean, I understand the role of illusion. Illusions are helpful, so long as we don't believe them. 

AUBREY: Right.

CAITLYN: It's interesting though, I'll just say, I do find that, um, certain kinds of illusion, like the willingness to be in the wonder of a trick or an illusion, like you called it earlier with the card. It's like if I sat here and I just was like, what happened with that card and like tried to figure it out, there's something really uplifting and hopeful in the wonder of just being like, that was magic and taking carrying that illusion, with me as something real. So it's like a layer of it, you know, that I think is one of the gifts of the kind of service that you do is that you break those constructs of disbelief enough for the illusion to do its good work. And it's a matter of some kind of degree of investment in those illusions that can get really dark and muddy for us. But there's little gifts.

AUBREY: Yeah and I think the, uh, it's interesting because I think people have become wary of the bad actors. The bad actors, they use an illusion to get money, usually, in some form, or get some kind of service, or get some, it's, uh, It's a seduction of sorts. And I've seen that happen in lots of different spiritual, in lots of different spiritual contexts. And I'll give two examples. So the worst, in the worst case, there's somebody who has no actual magic, but it's just an illusionist. And is providing tricks and granted there may be a little placebo effect with especially with like healing magic They're like there's one person who can manifest a fucking gold pill or a gold Gold ball that you take it and it's supposed to heal all your things. Well It doesn't heal all your things, but if you believe that it heals all your things, maybe it does. And she manifests it out of her hands. Well, it's just an illusionist trick, but certain people who've believed it have paid her. And I'm speaking of a specific person. I'm not going to name names, but people paid her a lot of money because she can manifest out of thin air powders and pills and things like that. And they're like, well, it must be, but I know, I know that, and maybe I did not know, but I'm like with almost absolute certainty. Because I do believe that there is the pos–, the slightest little possibility that things could actually materialize. It's at the most extreme. So I'm like, this is bullshit. This is an illusion. And what is she trying to do to get that? Well, there's a lot of money that's being asked for, right? So, that's where I would say, like the worst actors are. These are like the psychics and the, you know, all of the things that I think people, we're like, no, we gotta stop this because people were getting tricked and conned and manipulated. And then there's another class, which is shamans who are using real magic, who have real magic, and then use illusions to actually heighten the impact of that real magic that they're doing. So a real curandera, you know, who's worked with one of my real friends, you know, she did a whole healing and then she did this healing and then she coughs up and she pulls out of her mouth this like fishbone, right? And it's like the idea is like, I pulled this out of you or they'll use their hands and they pulled the fishbone out of my stomach. And I'm like, no, they didn't. But if that helped you, like, I don't want to break your–, I don't want to break that because I think there was also actual magic and the intent to heal. And so it's like fair play, you know, fair play. For me, it's distasteful. I'm like, if you got the real magic, you don't need the illusion. And if you want to let me in on it and let me in on the joy of weaving the illusion with the magic with you. And that'll actually get me even farther because my skeptical mind's like, No, that's bullshit. You didn't need to do that. You got real magic. Why are you doing tricks? You got real magic. But if they let me in and said like, like you're doing, you're letting us in on the inside saying like, No, there's real magic. And here's a trick that's gonna heighten the magic. And then so you're on the inside of that. And that I think is like, The highest form that I can see of how you blend magic with a trick is just let people in on the inside of it and be like, Oh yeah, there's magic and there's, here's an illusion and this is going to make it even better. 

SASHA: It's like the negative way, you know, you point to what it is not, you know, I'm presenting something that it is not, but you're being reminded that there is more to the, we had a big moment just with a piece of paper, you know, that in itself is magical. It may not be magic, but I actually want to bring something to the conversation, ask you for your opinion, help. Um, I'm aware being young and supported by great teachers that, uh, the role I play, the mask I wear in this magical, when I share magic, is almost a messianic role. And that's dangerous. Magic is about power. Of that, I feel strongly. All forms of magic are about power, hopefully power with nature and not power over nature. All of this to say, my question is, you know, my parents have been wary and trying to help me protect myself from some of the dynamics. Inner and outer dynamics that come from a role of power, especially of one that does the impossible. So how does one not fall into the pitfalls of the Messiah? 'cause the Messiah gets eaten. 

AUBREY: Well, the Messiah. The Mashiach has to ask if being eaten serves the good of all. And so you can't be a Messiah, unless you're willing to be eaten. You can't be a messiah unless you're willing to be eaten, because like, if you believe that if you, because willing to be eaten means that you will be the Mashiach. You will be that even if they come with their spears and their torches and their pitchforks and whatever has happened. You know, Yeshua is obviously the classic example of the Mashiach who was crucified. And obviously there's a whole, you know, religion that's a billion people strong that birthed out of Mashiach, out of Yeshua. But there's, you know, there's a willingness that one has to step into that I serve the all with such radical commitment that even if it means the ending of my own life in an excruciating and horrible way, I'm still willing to do it if it serves, if it serves the all. So to follow that path. You have to be willing to be slayed and be okay with it and to be at peace with it. Or you hide your gifts and you, you kind of wear different masks and you place an illusion on who you really are to the rest of the world and say, I'm just a magician. 

SASHA: That's exactly what I wish. That's my approach. 

AUBREY: I'm just a magician. 

SASHA: It's just a magician. 

AUBREY: Don't worry about it. And that's safer, that’s safer. And maybe what's actually called for, right? But also this idea of like the Messiah, I think is wrong mes–, like the messianic archetype is someone who's willing to actually push the boundaries of what is known. And to me, like the classic symbol of Yeshua as a Messiah, he turned the tables over in the temple. And when we think of that, we think, Oh, the tables were neatly laid out and he flipped them over just making a mess, you know, and like turning over. No, no. The tables were already upside down. And he saw that. So when, when Yeshua flips the tables over. He's actually turning them right side up, and that's what the Messiah is doing. He's turning all of the confusion and myths of separation and all of the untruths. He's turning them right side up, but it feels like you're turning it upside down so the world attacks you because it has a defense system, like an immune system to the story that it believes. And so the Messiah says, no, there's a different story. There's a story that's more true. And he goes to start flipping the tables and people say, I just like things the way they were, spears, you know, like that's the, that's the way of history. But you know, all of us in our own ways, when we step out. and we actually share our own voice, our own, our own magic with the world, there will be–, it is a messianic act. And we will be slayed. Now, in today's times, it's going to be with pixels more than crosses and bonfires and all the other horrible things that used to happen in the other days, but nowadays it's always just, you know, you'll get attacked online. You'll get your identity slandered. You'll get all these different types of things. So it's a safer world for all people who are in the messianic energy, because really the attacks are most likely going to come digitally with comments on your posts and on your YouTube page. You know. 

CAITLYN: Yeah, I feel something that comes up for me when you describe that, um, you know, you said magic is about power and I work with ritual and shamanic altar work practices. I don't know any, like, I haven't had a lot of experiences of Instantaneous Miraculous, physics, defying experiences, but I've had slow, profound magic that comes with the dedication of sitting in a ritual of listening to what, you know, spirit or, whatever my guiding, forces might hint at me or lead me to trust. And it's usually creative and playful. Like I really believe in the power of ritual being, creative and fun. And that's what a lot of this experience is like, tremendously fun, tremendously alluring. And one of the tenets that I've come to recognize, that's very simple, like the two realities that I've found that are actually very practical is love makes things sacred and attention gives them power. And when you're working with people, you talk about how distraction keeps people from recognizing what's beyond possibility as we know it. And so it feels like what happens in the Messiah complex that you're describing that's potential for you is or for anybody who's garnering all of this attention. So you're actually getting all of the power of people's attention. You know, they're arresting them out of distraction and into this radical presence. And they're giving you the power of like, wow, you just captured my attention in a way that I haven't felt in so long. And so I think, you know, everything that Aubrey said, and just like that, that clean honing of when somebody gets out of right relationship with receiving all of that power, sometimes people get fixated on like their attention goes on to the attention that they're getting and so instead of like redirecting their own attention to how does this, you know, serve the world, how does this go back into them to help them recognize that it's actually their attention that's got the power, there's something in the magic of that that's not me, I shine back to them that they have the power to create magic with their attention. And I feel like that's what you do because you reveal so much about your process and in your heart.

SASHA: Dante goes. 

AUBREY: I have a question for you. 

SASHA: Go for it. 

AUBREY: Let's say that you are clear in your mind that if you perform, this is not, this is outside of the magic, it includes and transcends the magic, the illusionist realm. I'm just talking about deception, because illusion, there's a part of illusion that is a deception, right? Like you're, there's a trick that you're playing at some point. We're talking about the trick part, so the deception part, the sleight of hand, the trick part. You can do that with the truth as well. You can play the truth in a way that's not exactly true, but creates an outcome that is positive, right? Now, some people morally would say if you bend the truth at all, they're like pure absolutists and purists. If you bend the truth at all, you know, you're not serving the greater good. But if you actually know that if you bend the truth, if you use deception, you can actually get a result that is undoubtedly, unequivocally positive for that person, but you will have to deceive them to do it. That's  an interesting question for everybody to ponder as we work with the truth. Now, of course, we would love a world where everybody is just honest and all that. That's all that works. But we have a very complex and challenging world. And there are times, you know, that hypothetically this could rise, where actually speaking the truth in this moment doesn't serve. So actually a lie actually serves the greater story in a clear way. But it's a tricky spot to be in for all of us who have to look at the field of value and say, is it okay? Is it okay to deceive for the greater good and how sure am I? And I think to me, it comes down to like, how, well, how fucking sure are you? This is the greater good and not just serving yourself. 

CAITLYN: That's the real tricky part. 

AUBREY: That’s the real tricky part.

CAITLYN: So you can tell yourself, this is for the greater good. 

AUBREY: Yeah, exactly. 

CAITLYN: Actually self serving. 

SASHA: Well, I can't, I don't have an answer, but we can explore it. Here's what I'd start by saying. All deception is a story. All truths we tell are stories. And I don't think humans can really reach the truth we can point at it. And the best, one way to point people towards a truth is through beauty. And Khodorovsky says that, you know, we can't reach for truth. We can only reach for beauty, which is the reflection of truth. So all of this to say. There, it's a very nuanced conversation because a deception, a truth, it's all a story. Those are stories. Some may be more factual and we can even go beyond facts. Some may be more truthful and real, but yeah, the morality of magic is very complex and the morality of deception is very complex. Ultimately, when I hear people say, you know, it wasn't time for the truth. You know, they need to protect people from the truth that I truly dislike. 

AUBREY: Of course, and we've seen that in global culture, right? There is all of this censorship of dissident opinions, quote, to protect the people from, quote, disinformation, right? Like, we, that was obviously clearly used for personal benefit of certain parties, factors, corporations, whatever. I'm not going to go into the whole thing, but we feel how gross that is because we know the intentions were not pure, but in their mind, they might've thought, well, we can't tell them the truth. We can't let them know about Ivermectin or whatever else, because then they won't take that shot. And then if they don't take the shot, then they're going to, you know, then they're going to get sick and blah, blah. Like, so they might've had that story but 

SASHA: Unsafe and unaffected. 

AUBREY: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, this is there. You have to be really, if you're going to play in these waters, it takes an impeccability of self awareness and goodness. You have to really fucking know. And I don't know, you know, like, that's what's really hard. It's like how, how aware are you and how honest are you with yourself about how, because there's all, there's all kinds of mental biases, like the self serving biases and all of these ways in which these heuristics, which all the mentalists play upon, which are these patterns that the mind will reach for and use naturally.

CAITLYN: I’m so curious about that aspect too, not to divert things, but just, um, yeah, in your, I imagine you're incredibly perceptive. It's got to be part of your skill set to read people and to notice subtle body language and notice, you know, I don't even know, actually, I'm not going to pretend that I get it, on the level that you, that you do, but those aspects of almost penetrating somebody's consciousness a little bit more than they're aware or, you know, in a way that might leave them feeling naked. Like, how do you navigate what you can read in people with, you know, permission and all of those things? 

SASHA: These questions are actually really connected and they bring me back to an experience. As I mentioned, I started magic and we'll call it tricks, magic tricks, illusions around the age of 11 and around 20 I got slapped in the face by a bunch of beautiful, real magic experiences and focus on other forms of magic. Around 14 to 17, I got really into mentalism. Let me be specific. I only did three feats. I would bend coins. I would tell strangers their pin number, and I would do something with an alarm clutch, which we won't get into. It was all about power. It was all about doing the most powerful trick, the most powerful thing. If it doesn't, if it's not as powerful, it's not in my repertoire. Bending metal, telling people their pin number. Well, needless to say, my mom had some interesting conversations with dinner guests, and often they would leave a bit shocked. Very shocked. Really shocked. And I'm thankful for that because I really started playing with power very early, strong forms of power. I mean, you meet someone, you tell them their PIN number so we can get into real specifics if you want to, which I think is fascinating of the mentalism aspect of it but let me get to one lesson that I got humbled by mentalism to learn. Here's a great lesson I learned through mentalism as someone who could do these feats and people really thought I could see through them and all of that. What I learned is that overall, even as a professional mentalist, my assumptions are 75 percent of the time wrong. So even as someone who, one of my personal superpowers is being sensible and attuning to people. As someone who could create these illusions of incredible power, nonetheless, our personal assumptions of who we have in front of us, from my experience, are almost always wrong. So that in itself was humbling. However, Mentalism, which is an off branch of magic, and let's say there's real mentalism, which we can also talk about, which we've all experienced, especially in connection with friends, and the sort of theatrical trick mentalism, involves a lot of real psychology. Now, I would love to give you an example. How's this? Let me see if I can. Caitlyn. 

CAITLYN: Yes. 

SASHA: I'd like you to think of a personal piece of information. This is not a magic trick. It's an actual example of mentalism. Uh, think of a personal piece of information, something that is relevant to you, something that even Aubrey and I couldn't know. And I just want you to write it. If you can, try to keep it simple, and then write it here. 

CAITLYN: A personal piece of information. 

SASHA: How about this? 

CAITLYN: Is there any category? It doesn't matter. 

SASHA: Do we want to, do we want to try the pin number? Write your pin number on there, go for it. We won't look, and then fold it in half. Your real pin number. 

CAITLYN: Now the whole internet's gonna know, that's okay.

SASHA: No, don't show it to anyone. Fold it in half, place it on the table. This is a form of mentalism, specifically the psychology of what I'm doing. Great. So it's folded in a way that we couldn't see what it says, right? 

CAITLYN: Now it is. 

SASHA: Okay, great. So, the way I got the pin number of all those people between the ages of 14 and 17 is exactly this. The easiest way to guess someone's pin number is to hand them a piece of paper, tell them to write it on it, and give it back to you. Thank you. Uh, now, that can be one form of explanation, but let's go deeper. What I really did is I created a context. A context which you neither understand nor understand the rules of. So you think you know what a magic trick is. So the purpose of my opener, my first trick, is to destroy those assumptions. Right? As soon as I do that, I get to fix the rules because I’m the guide. So in this case, you just did something that in any other context would be wild, but because I created a context, let's try something of mentalism and either understand or understand the rules of any form of behavior becomes acceptable. There's many examples in history, but this is, if we really want to talk about my, about the, the tools I use outside of just the tricks, they are emotion, attention, perception, memory, and context. And in my opinion, context is the most powerful and the one that is used against us the most often. So that's just an example. I don't know what the pin number is, but there's real psychology and mentalism, even though most mentalism is a trick. And I want to share one more thing, which is like how to bend spoons. Magicians don't be angry at me for revealing this, but it's true. There's sort of two main ways. to bend metal. One is in real time, and one is perceived. So let me be specific. 

AUBREY: Take already bent metal and switch it out in your hands. 

SASHA: Yeah, so the way I bend metal and most magicians bend metal, including Uri Geller, is that they'll get a fork, they'll secretly bend it, and then they'll use your belief against you. What they need to do, after the metal is bent but you don't know, I need to make you believe that it's not bent. And in that way, if you believe it, you will hallucinate a straight spoon. Now that can be aided through angles and optical illusions, but it's the belief that bends the metal. The spoon was always bent, but you believed it wasn't. And then I just break that assumption, right? So 

AUBREY: It's almost like a subtle form of hypnotism.

SASHA: Hypnosis is interesting too. Yeah, that’s ..

AUBREY: Right. Cause you're like, it's hypnosis is like, believe this belief trust field. That's so strong that you can start to adjust what people see. And that's just what occurs to me when you're saying that it's like 

SASHA: Hypnosis is humbling. 

AUBREY: Yeah. 

SASHA: I started hypnotizing people at the age of 13. There's a video on YouTube. If you look for hypnotizing Charlotte, Sasha Crespi. I made her believe that I'm Morgan Freeman, I made her forget her name, I became invisible. I'm not saying this to impress you. I'm not saying this to impress you, but to impress upon you the fact that I dealt with, and I keep dealing with these moral questions early because I was fascinated with the potential power of magic. And instead of trying to traumatize people through these really powerful experiences, I'd rather take a gentler approach and have a more beautiful outcome. 

CAITLYN: You know, before I came here, I was in the parking lot, the grocery store, and I had one of these, it feels almost synchronistic because I was thinking about the power of the mind when it expects something. And so you're talking about how you get people to believe that the spoon isn't bent because they expect it not to be. Something to that effect. And I had one of those experiences where I, it was like I felt the car beside me move and it felt like I was moving, you know, the mind perceives a subtle movement and you physically feel. You're self moving, and I was just marveling at that, I was like, wow, there's really so much we perceive that we can't measure against reality, really, unless we have somebody else there to contest with that. It's really fascinating. 

SASHA: Allow me to share one more thought. This is fascinating to me, which is, Don Miguel Ruiz talks about the mind as a mirror, right? Mirror to reality to some extent. And one of the things I mean, magic is my teacher about life. As you can tell, one of the things I learned through magic is that perception is a mirror to reality. So all of the senses are tools for perception and all perception is a broken mirror to reality. And the most humbling example is if someone drops one drop of the correct molecule in your drink. Your perception is fucked for hours. One drop. It's humbling how easily manipulated our perception is. And as we were talking about, these are all like, and I'm doing that, but what is the moral, you know, what's the moral landscape of this?

AUBREY: Right, yeah, I mean, I think that's the question. You have to know yourself. You have to know yourself is good and almost commit to the goodness and it's interesting, like one piece of real magic that was woven by the universe is that one week ago, I get this really strong message, Aub, you know, because I have a very strong connection with spirit and spirit whispers to me often and I listen, that's when spirit whispers, I listen, it's just the way it goes. Spirit whispers, you need to take a good look at Zoroastrianism. You need to find a pod, some podcast guests that will come on, and a podcast about Zoroastrianism. So next week, next Friday, I have a podcast guest coming on to talk about Zoroastrianism.

SASHA: That's awesome. 

AUBREY: And then at the start of this podcast, that's why I looked over at Christian and we laughed. We were like, well, magic comes from the Magi who were Zoroastrian.

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: And it's like. Come on, really, you know, like this is the type of synchronic magic that when we're paying attention, we'll start to see like, that there's a weaver that's weaving things and that this meeting was like woven in a way and somehow. And of course, yes, it was Duncan Trussell that introduced us and yes, there were things that happened, but also the synchronicity of, I was on a recent television show with children's health, health defense. And you were staying at the house of the opposite guest that was with me on that show. The only time I ever did the show and the only other guest was there. And you're randomly staying at the house. It's like, what the fuck? It's the intimate, it's what we call in the lineage from, you know, Mark Gaffney is my teacher, it's the intimate universe, like the universe is intimate, it knows our stories and weaves, if we're open to it, weaves our stories together, allows us to meet people and learn from people and contest with those challenges to make us greater and, you know, you start to behold that and that's really what makes the universe even more magical is when you're realizing that magic is being woven all the time and you're just in this place of like, Wow.

CAITLYN: Yeah, I think, it's like you start responding to the universe and participating in it with your wonder, almost as if the universe is the magi holding the card deck, you know, and you finally are paying attention and it's like, Oh, now I'm listening. And with my attention and my participation, magic starts to happen more and more and more.

SASHA: Yes. 

CAITLYN: Yeah.

SASHA: Circa Trova, the more open we are, the more magic we'll find. Zoroastrianism is fascinating in part because when I first discovered or heard that the word magic came from the Magi, that was a huge moment for me because my mom and half of my side is Iranian and there was ..

AUBREY: The birthplace of Zarathustra.

AUBREY: Exactly. And there was sort of, I was wondering how these two things connected Iran and magic. And now I understand. And one of the uh ..

AUBREY: And for those people who don't know, Zarathustra is the Persian name of Zoroaster, which is the Greek translation of the name. So Zoroastrianism is just how the Greeks said it, but really the prophet was Zarathustra.

SASHA: Yes. And he, Zoroastrianism is a fascinating religion. One of the first ones, if not the first to conceive of this idea of a dual battle in the universe, two opposing forces, good and evil, Ahura Mazda. Um, there's an interest. And the Yemesha Spentas and the seven different, you know, qualities of both of them. It's fascinating. And I'm learning about it and the sacred fire, of course, which is another key. Uh, that I'm learning because my teacher, Jeff McBride, is all about fire circles. And he doesn't know that much about Zarathustra, so I'm trying to introduce him to it. But just to say one more thing, something I'm, something that is happening is that next year at the latest, the year after, hopefully, I will go to Iran and film a series, my series called ‘In Pursuit of Magic’, and learn from the Magi. This is something I've wanted to do for four years and it's happening. 

AUBREY: So there's only like a hundred thousand practicing Zoroastrians in the whole world. 

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: And so you're going to find some of them that still live in the birthplace of Zoroastrian in Iran and you're going to work with them. 

SASHA: Many are in India.

AUBREY: Yeah. 

SASHA: And there's an interest. One of the people I'm learning about Zoroaster from is Jason Reza Georgiani, a highly controversial character. Highly controversial, but deeply informed in Zoroastrianism. And when I told them about this, they said, no, no, no, no, no. Beware of the Zoroastrians. Go to the heavy metal scene in Iran and learn from the evolution of the Zoroastrians.

CAITLYN: The heavy metal scene? 

SASHA: Yes. Jason, I hope I didn't butcher that idea, but yeah, Zoroastrianism is fascinating. And another thought that comes to mind is like a paradise. The idea of paradise is such a beauty. The etymology of it is so beautiful, ‘Paraisa’, an enclosed, walled garden, like that was the original idea of paradise, a walled garden, which means there are boundaries around an enclosure. And it is our responsibility to pull out the weeds and to keep the bad things out. And to nourish and let, I flourish like, Oh, can't wait, can't wait for Iran.

AUBREY: You know, and of course the interesting part about Zoroastrianism is the, it really, in all of our stories, in so many of our stories, like we think, Oh yeah, that's a religion though. It's an old religion. And what are its influences? Well, look at Star Wars. There's the dark and the light. Look at all of these shows, right? There's like a clear battle between the dark and the light. Some part of us knows that this is at least a subsection of reality. That there is a battle between good and evil. There is a battle between dark and light. And it is an actual contest. And as I've explored this over this last week in particular, what I've seen is like, yes, there is a contest. So let me go through my kind of model of this. And it might be also repeated on my podcast with Alexander Barth about Zoroastrianism because I'm still working with this concept. But there's, again, pre tragic, tragic, post tragic. You can look at that model for a variety of different things. The pre-tragic view of God is, God is good. God is good. Of course, God is good. Like simple. God is good. And then you see evil in the world. Something bad happens, and this is Harvey Keitel in ‘Dusk Till Dawn’, the faithless, the faithless preacher. I believed God was good, and then I, so many bad things happened, and now I can't believe that God is good anymore because I've seen too much evil in the world, I've seen too much darkness. And then so, in the tragic, you start to explore evil, and you start to explore the darkness, and you say, I can't, I can no longer say God is good, because there's evil, clearly, I've seen it. I've felt it. I've looked at the bright light of evil, which is something that Mark Gaffney says, evil is not a dark place. It's a bright light because we want to turn away from it because it's so, it's so strident and so shocking when we actually see it. It's like, Oh my God. And we want to turn away. We want to sit rock or turn our face from evil, but all of us will encounter, you know, and we're seeing it play out in the world. You know, tragically, in front of our eyes now, where there's pictures of babies and kids and all kinds of horrible things that we're seeing, we're like, Oh wow, there is, how does this work in a world where God is good? So you move from pre tragic, of course God is good, to tragic. Oh no, no, no, there's good and there's evil, and there's a battle. And then there's, one final step, which is, and I think that if in a mystical reading of Zoroastrianism, I think you might be able to get there, but I'm not familiar enough, but, so I'm not saying this is a novel idea or anything, and I'm not also, you know, this is also an idea that I think my teacher, Mark Gaffney, we're going to actually spend a whole day talking about this. But in the post tragic, you go, okay, it's not the pre tragic, God is good, that doesn't include the knowledge of good and evil. There's a post tragic, so after, you know, think of Eden, there's paradise and then you eat the knowledge of good and evil, the apple of good and evil, and then you're in the tragic where you're aware that there's good and evil and it's a contest. But what's the post tragic? Well, the post tragic, you get back to God is good because you realize that God split it into two opposing forces that would create infinite complexity, opportunity, you know, the uniqueness of all of our, of all of ourselves and all of creation, you know, all of the good and all of the bad and that the bad actually serves the good to help evolve and refine it and grow it so that the darkness actually serves the light. And then actually God that includes everything is still good and is still weaving through the good and evil for a greater good. 

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: All the time. So it's back to this post tragic, God is good again. And I think that's a journey that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about with the relationship with the divine, which is like, God is good, God is good versus evil. And then, oh no, God is good, actually, all along, that includes that model. 

CAITLYN: I've never recognized the double meaning in a greater good. You know, I relate to it as The collective, like the, what is good for all, but the greater good is also another level of goodness that we've not yet known because. We're evolutionary beings having this evolutionary spiritual experience. So we're also seeking a greater good than we've ever known through our encounters with the darkness and our ever deepening connection with our consciousness and our hearts.

AUBREY: What's also interesting about this is to think that, it's, you have to reckon with the fact as you kind of open yourself up to the full tragic, which is the recognition of good And evil, and that there's magic, as we talked about earlier, there's good magic and there's bad magic, there's white magic and black magic, it's in all of our stories, we, we get this, and I've, you know, I've actually seen it play out, you know, I've seen good magic and bad magic and the healing of bad, I've seen a whole thing in my psychonautic realms, I've seen it, so I know it's real, but then the question then is, Oh, fuck, like, it's not just the good that has access to magic, it's also the bad that has access to magic. So magic is also just part of the current power in the whole universe. And there's a greater balance that's ultimately leading, leading to good. That's the post tragic understanding. But we still have to grapple with the fact that, listen, if you're here standing all in for all life for the good, which is Ahura Mazda, which is what the Zoroastrians are saying, like, this is what you stand for. You stand for the good, you know, and yes, there's this powerful dark being, but don't play in those waters. You stand for the good. And I think all of us are trying to stand for the good. There's very little intentional malice, I think, in the world. There is intentional malice. You know, like this death impulse and you know that you're doing something that's bad and the whole they're both psychological and also real cosmological roots of that ultimately like reckoning with the fact that there's likely players and bad actors who are playing out bad magic on this planet and on an interdimensional level. And so we gotta get our good magic. Also up to par to rival it. It's like, it's in all the fantasy stories where the good magic meets the bad magic and contests, you know, and then, so it's just understanding like, all right, we're in a magical world, but. Guess what? It's not all good. So let's get our game tight because there is a contest and we're going to win. The good's going to win because God is ultimately good in the post tragic. So it's already done. We're going to win. How we win. 

CAITLYN: We have to participate. 

AUBREY: But we have to participate and we have to get our game tight. 

SASHA: For hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by love. This is an eternal law. 

CAITLYN: Yeah. 

SASHA: I think there's a great solace in the perspective of, like, Mr. Bean teaches us that, you know, life in closeup is a tragedy and zoomed out is a comedy. And this battle in closeup looks like an absolute war, which it is to some extent. Looking really further back, it's a beautiful love affair between good and evil. It's a cosmic dance. Like, and I don't want to get too philosophical, but they need each other. 

AUBREY: Yeah. 

CAITLYN: Wow. 

AUBREY: I saw that play out for me in the vision space where I was in one of my hardest and most difficult encounters with the darkness. I was dealing with, I call it, I call this being that came to me the world crusher, but it had very devil vibes, right? I'm not Christian, you know, and I'm a psychonaut. Everything I've experienced, I've experienced because I've, what I encountered, a very dark being. And this being then was opposed by yet what a being that appeared to me as Yeshua, so Yeshua representing the good, this dark devilish being. And of course, these are imprints and patterns that I have symbols that I have in my mind. If I was Zoroaster, if that was the dominant, it would have been Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. And, but either way, whether it's Christ or the devil or Ahura Mazda or Angra Mainyu, when I saw them, they looked at each other. And then they rushed at each other in this rapturous homoerotic embrace, and they just started just fucking like kissing each other and like making Jesus, like Yeshua was like, you give it to me. Or Hoda Mazda was like, give it to me all your darkness, I'm going to love it all. And the darkness was like, you know, like, I'm going to tear you apart. And you know, and all of this, and it was this beautiful, irresistible attraction of the poles, which is like a magnet, the poles attract each other. So of course the darkness is not only in competition, but irresistible attraction to the light, you know, like irresistible attraction to each other from the poles. And that's either contest or sexing or whatever the thing is, there's an irresistible attraction of the poles. David Data would say that what makes passion and chemistry in a relationship is polarity. And it's because polarity creates energy. There's energy there. What sticks the magnet together? Well, it's the opposite poles that want to stick together, you know, because those poles are attracted to each other. And so of course you know, Ahura Mazda, the god of light, and wisdom, and love, and truth, and beauty. And Angar Menuh, the god of deception, and deceit, and selfishness, and ego, and all of those other things. Of course they're going to be irresistibly attracted to each other. And so the vision in the ayahuasca space was like, oh yeah, full homoerotic embrace.

SASHA: Yeah. And pain creates healing. The purpose of pain is to stimulate healing. Like all these things are so inter, so, they're married. 

CAITLYN: And healing only exists because of pain. 

SASHA: Yeah. 

CAITLYN: There would be nothing to heal. 

AUBREY: And then the hard part is when in, as you said, as you get closer, the pain is real. The pain is real. And this is, you could use that to just bypass, and I think this is a part of spiritual bypass to go, oh yeah, it's all the balance of the cosmos, the good loves the dark, all, yeah, and the pain is real. And so that's why there is a place to fight. You know, so even though those forces, Yeshua and the devil, Oremaz, the Angarmenu, may, were shown to me in this passionate, loving embrace, they also have their own emanations that are in constant competition and contest to keep the tension of the polarity alive, you know, like battling. And then also, union that keeps the whole of the cosmos moving that keeps it's like the tesseract that keeps creation advancing.

CAITLYN: I'm learning a lot right now. A lot of framework for essential, essential truths. Yeah. New to Zoroastrianism. So 

SASHA: I can't wait to learn more about it. I want to stay with that point for a second of like, there is real suffering in the world. People may be listening and. You know, maybe thinking, you know, what a perspective. What does one even say, I was going to say, what does one say to that? But I don't think one says anything. You kind of listen.

AUBREY: I think, there's a place where you feel it, you allow yourself to be penetrated by, and you just feel it and just, and feel the tragedy of it, you know, and I think that's an important thing to connect you to the whole and connect you to what's real about it. And then, there's a place where you have to let go of that compassion, which is the etymology being with someone in their suffering, you have to let go of the compassion in order to actually move on with your own mission in your own life and find joy in your own existence. Like, no matter, no matter what, like, it's both. It's like, feel it, and also, be able to let it go. But I think most people stick in this kind of middle zone where they've never really felt it, never really felt the compassion and the pain of the suffering of others, and never really let it go because they've never really felt it. I think there's a part of like, you can only let it go truly and be fully in your goodness, if you've allowed yourself to feel it, if you allow yourself to be penetrated by the horror of the moment, and then from that place of just, the devastation of being penetrated by the horror of the moment. Then you can offer, you know, offer whatever love and blessings you have to that and then let it go. And then carry on to still dance and hug and, you know.

SASHA: Laugh. 

AUBREY: Make love to your sweetheart and eat good food and sing the songs and walk in nature and live your life. 

CAITLYN: Yeah, I think something that I've been sitting with in my apprehension of the darkness, like recently in this world, I think, collectively we're encountering, that sense of darkness on a scale that our generation hasn't quite experienced before. And what I find curious about that process is not only feeling it fully, and letting it go, but in a different way, in the sense that. If we recognize that there is good and evil and that this evil is so tremendous that it could cause us to question God and to question everything that we trusted in life. The impetus for a battle, and I think a lot of people get distracted in the way that it seems like we can battle for the good, and that's a lot of like, aggressive discourse or certain kinds of activism, which all have their merit to different degrees, but it's like, how can we not get so lost in the feeling that we forget about the many different, more interesting, perhaps, or more effective, more importantly, ways that we would battle that darkness and, you know, pleasure and wonder and creativity and these kind of encounters that expand the field of our consciousness versus narrowing it in like a, you know, to the opponent in this way that's very like meeting violence with violence, or just deflecting violence onto other people as a reaction to what, to the pain that we're feeling and I think that's actually how the darkness wins sometimes as it gets us so trapped in fighting. They're actually perpetuating that darkness when we think we're fighting it. So that's the step back that I've been trying to take, and you know, feel into. Okay, what are the ways that we can respond that are actually going to do something and, you know, confront this darkness in a way that's surprising and actually doesn't feed it. 

SASHA: My friend Diane would say now, darkness is nothing but a void waiting to be filled with your light. And when things get darkest, it's our responsibility to shine even brighter. I take that literally, there is light in everything. That's how the light gets there. These are just simple metaphors to reveal the truth. You want to see another piece of magic? This may be the trickiest one. 

CAITLYN: The trickiest trick. 

SASHA: I recently had a dream that really inspired this piece, so, my respects to Eugene Berger, the teacher of my teacher. I had a dream recently that was so vivid, so interesting, that I remembered it fully when I woke up. In the dream, I reached under my armpit of all places and I pulled out a dollar, which is strange because I don't normally have a dollar under my armpit. I was happy about that in the dream, I thought it was a good gift. But then I had a thought. If I can have one dollar, why not more money? I really liked that thought. So I took the dollar, and I folded it, and then basically, I guess the only way to explain it is I prayed. I focused and I prayed, and when I opened my eyes, one dollar had transformed into ten dollars. I was happy about that. But then I had another thought. If I can have Ten dollars, why not more money? I really like that thought. So I took the ten, I folded it, and I folded it again. And when I focused, I prayed, I prayed, I opened my eyes and I only had a dollar. I was confused. And it took me a minute to realize that this was all about my greed, wasn't it? I had been given a gift, and then that gift multiplied tenfold, and I still wasn't happy. Wiser, I put the dollar back into my pocket, and I woke up.

CAITLYN: Wow! 

SASHA: Thank you. 

AUBREY: Such a beautiful, such a beautiful. I love just how you're weaving these illusions with like, with lessons. 

SASHA: My respects to Eugene Berger.

AUBREY: Yeah. That's epic. So when you're, this is something that I'm really interested in. We started to open this up a little bit about mentalism. So, and one of the mentalists who's having a moment right now is Ose Perlman. Having a moment. 

SASHA: Yeah. 

AUBREY: And, it's really interesting to see the things that he's doing. Now, I don't know him, and maybe you do know him, I don't know much about him, but 

SASHA: I do a bit. 

AUBREY: I would like, what is his, is this all like planting, is he in the mechanics of it or is he actually embracing, is this, is it all mechanics that he's doing? Is this like, is he just a, such a skilled mechanic of, you know, adjusting people's perceptions by like seeding and planting? And then guessing, or is, is there some actual real magic that's going on there? Like what's going on with the mentalist? 

CAITLYN: Can you really read minds? 

AUBREY: Like that. Yeah, exactly. 

CAITLYN: The people want to know.

SASHA: Well, let me start by saying that Oz is a wonderful magician and mentalist. Wonderful. He's great. I use some of his material. So he's great. I don't think it's my place to answer that question. I want to, I have an answer, but let me just say that he is highly skilled in psychology. He has so much experience entertaining people that he has really seen patterns in people's behavior. I think given the performances of his I've seen and the teaching that I've also received from him, he'll understand what I mean, indirectly. I don't think he tries to convince people that what he's doing is 100 percent real. There are many layers to it, but O's is wonderful and all respects, but mentalism in general, I mean, get away from O's, mentalism in general. Let me say, I'll try to be as honest as I can be 95 percent of mentalism is a magic trick disguised as something more, with this in mind, I myself, and I'm sure you have had real experiences of mentalism, you know, maybe you were thinking of something and I'll name it. So mentalism is real, but to the best of my understanding, having danced with it for some years, it's very hard to control. Like I can't. And more importantly, if one is an entertainer, if one is being paid to create these experiences, you can't only rely on real things because they're unreliable and usually when you try to make things happen, they don't. So, most mentalism is a magic trick disguised as something more.

AUBREY: Right. And for somebody who's, I mean, it's just, it's remarkable, to me, it just shows how highly susceptible we are to, you know, psychological manipulation. And of course, you know, this is something, the CIA has done copious work around is like, how do you manipulate people psychologically? And this is again, like part of the dark arts of seduction and manipulation. Now, maybe they believe it's for the greater good and. You know, hopefully they do. And I still believe that there's goodness in all the governments and in all the ways I think there's good at the core. I don't think the whole system's corrupt and everybody's evil. And I'm not on that. I'm not on that train. So I think there's, but there's a lot of attention paid to that. But when you see somebody who's a really good mentalist, be able to get people to say, and respond with a certain type of answer and already have the thing already laid out and all of the things that you do it has to make you it has to make you go, oh shit, like we are really vulnerable, we are really vulnerable to the dark magicians.

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: And, and if nothing else, to just go, damn, like we're a really vulnerable species.

SASHA: Yes. Like, the magic may not be real, but the lessons they point to are real. 

AUBREY: Right. And this lesson of this is like, fuck, like a lot of, we can get a lot of behavior. You can get a lot of behavior by prompting it, and like guiding it or interpreting we know what somebody is going to do. And I think that's also the danger that I think a lot of people see as big data starts to come about. Our own patterns start to be bought and sold by different tech companies to serve advertisements or whatever. We're gonna have a technological, like, fingerprint. It's going to be with us everywhere we go and then AI is going to go even deeper and all of the ways that things are going to surveil us like the ability for the magic, the dark magic, dark magicians, and also if there were good magicians in these places, the ability to use magic to actually heal or divide. You know, bring into wholeness, which is, I think healing, healing is wholeness to bring people together or break people apart is so strong in this time. And it's just getting actually fueled by like, imagine AI coupled with this kind of mentalist psychology coupled with the diabolical, you know, diabolical agenda that's maybe even justified and disguised as we need to do this for some altruistic reason, but you couple all that together with this rise of technology and surveillance and big data, and it's a scary world we're approaching, knowing how vulnerable we already are. 

SASHA: Yeah. 

AUBREY: And then now with all of this data and input, we're like really, really vulnerable at this point.

SASHA: Yeah. Mike Tyson says, we are not here to be humbled. We are here. We're not here to be humble. We are here to be humbled. And I love that. And mentalism is a powerful tool to remind people to be more humble about their own nature. Specifically how easily influenced we are, how easily manipulative, manipulatable we are. And, you know, I really respect people like Tristan Harris, who started off as a magician. Yeah, that's a wonderful person, but I do hope that the role, this is something I'm thinking and pondering a lot, is what is the role of the magician or the mentalist in this new world? And I hope in part is to make us more humble about our own nature and our own nature dictates that we are the easiest person to fool. No one fools us as much as we fool ourselves. The greatest illusionist is the human mind and the mind is a minefield of illusion. You are your own deceiver, your mind is deceiving itself often, and it's humbling. 

AUBREY: Yeah, and then you add this, you add the Zoroastrian framework, and there is, that deceiver that the Hasatan, which is who I would put in this dark, you know, the four horsemen of the dark of the dark side, I have four that I've kind of outlined at this point I'm working with in this exploration, you know, that's kind of coming to me as president. So the, you know, in this, in this kind of analysis, there's the mind that is just naturally deceived by the patterns and by our biases. And again, these heuristics, these shortcuts that we make that are based in evolutionary biology, which are not immoral, but amoral, right? There's just like, these are just patterns.

SASHA: Sorry, immoral and amoral. 

AUBREY: So immoral would be the intentional breaking of morals. So, like, this is something that is, that you actually know that you're doing. That's an immoral thing that you're doing. You know, you cheated and you lied about it, and it's for your own good, and it's only for your own good. Like, that's immoral. I think there's an amoral illusion that we put on ourselves. Amoral is just the patterns. We don't. We see what we want to see. We actually, you know, that's the self-serving bias. It's all the biases. It's all the patterns. It's what, it's what a mentalist is picking up on. There's no 

CAITLYN: There’s no intent.

AUBREY: There's no intent. 

CAITLYN: It’s just like. 

AUBREY: It's just conditioning. 

CAITLYN: Available to whatever. 

AUBREY: Exactly. It's just conditioning. 

CAITLYN: And it can be harmful. 

AUBREY: And then inside, like when I look deep inside myself, I see my own, and I call it the anti me. And the anti me is actually working to sabotage me. And so I also have to have, again, another level of humility and humbleness, and interestingly, they explored this in this concept in the latest Mission Impossible, which is like number 11, and I thought it was going to be horrible, but it was actually really good, where there's this AI entity in you. That just learns how to deceive and manipulate everything and so you can't trust everything so it brings you to a place of simplicity and humility to understand like, Oh, not only do I have all of these patterns, which I'm not aware of that are leading me to these certain actions and responses, but also. There's woven in this force that's looking to sabotage and deter me from my path. Steven Pressfield would call this force capital R resistance in his book, War of Art. And there's this dark force. And guess what? There's not just the dark force. There's a light force. There's a whisper. In my lineage, they call it the lahisha, the whisper of the divine, the neshamah, the spirit that is guiding us as well. You get this kind of complex issue where it's like, wow, is this, you know, the good spirits helping me? Is this the bad spirit that’s helping me? Is this just a pattern and an illusion I'm playing on myself that has no grounds of morality? It's just conditioning. It's a trauma. It's repetition, you know, it's repetition compulsion. I'm doing the same thing that happened to me, you know, and, and I'm playing this out. My dad yelled at me and now I'm yelling at my kids, you know, like this kind of thing that can happen just in compulsion. Or is, and is there, you know, some dark energy in there? And if I listen, is there light energy? So it really, to me, I think opens up the whole field to start to understand ourselves. But ultimately the lesson that comes with it is just real humility. And also, so,  definitely like always being humble when you think you know something, there should be a little part of you that goes, maybe, you know, like when I have like a deep download from spirit or something, you know, it's like, wow, that came, it seems so true. And there's always a part of me that's like. Maybe, you know, like you have to hold that humility and then also have the audacity to believe it and act upon it and do it. And that's in my lineage, Tekufot, which is sacred audacity, like the Tekufot to actually go out and act upon, you know, these whispers and bring them into the manifest at the same time. So it's a combination of both radical humility and radical audacity and somewhere holding that paradox in everything that you do being radically humble and radically audacious. 

CAITLYN: That feels kind of, that feels like it's capturing what I'm feeling in magic, because both of the things that you've shared with us that felt like, big teaching pieces of the experience of magic is one, you are more powerful than you think.

We are more powerful than we think. More is possible than what we think and believe. And also, you’re way more susceptible, way more vulnerable than you think. So it's actually showing you both at the same time. And there's this kind of, um, continuum of, you know, how aware am I at any given point of either, you know, and what does it take to hold both in our, in my consciousness at the same time? And you know, maybe that's one of the secret codes. 

SASHA: There's this image that I like to work with, in magic, which is of, uh, in childhood, we're given clay and throughout our childhood, we mold this claim to a little box. 

AUBREY: Big Play Doh person over here. 

SASHA: Are you? Oh, there you go. Let's keep going. Amazing. I just happen to have a big box of Play Doh.

CAITLYN: I don't not like it. That's for sure. 

AUBREY: Being play Doh girl over here. 

CAITLYN: I like it. Especially the white plate. 

SASHA: So we're giving clay and we create a little box made out of clay with everything we believe we know. Most of it is inherited. Some of it is learned through experience, et cetera. What happens to clay when you let it dry? It becomes really brittle. And I think one of the potential roles of these magical experiences, whether they're real or tricks or whatever, is to just break our box once we haven't touched it and remind ourselves that the truth was inside and outside. But we can't stay that way. Like we need an ego, we need a filtering mechanism. So I guess it's just like, remember, like, keep your box, keep expanding your box, but remember, it's not really, you know, it's not real. 

AUBREY: Yeah.

SASHA: I hope I expressed that well. 

AUBREY: Yeah. It's a. We have to be able to embrace paradox in order to navigate through our life, you know, and paradox is not a contradiction. It's a paradox. And it's the paradox of, I think one of my favorite paradoxes is from Charles Eisenstein, who says like, we're going, basically we're going to win, we're going to build the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, we're going to make it through the other side of these existential threats that are facing us now, this meta crisis that we're facing, we're going to make it. But the paradox is, and, it requires you, whoever is hearing this, to give your absolute best. And, it's going to happen. And that's a paradox because you're like, well, I'm just fucking John or George or Aubrey or Caitlyn or Sasha. Like, how am I going to affect the future of the whole, of the whole humanity, right? But it's a paradox. And it's, and I feel the truth of that paradox. It's like, yeah, we're going to make it. And we have to give it everything. 

CAITLYN: And you have to act like you might not. 

AUBREY: And, yeah, and we have to give it everything, everything we got. And that's like a beautiful example of a paradox, which doesn't make rational sense, because obviously you could just Evaporate one of us and like the idea that it's so close and so razor thin that your actions would have cosmic significance like come on. But actually I think there's truth in this paradox in this interesting way that it's like and that's holding that paradox is what actually allows us to step in and if we can all hold that paradox it’ll allow us to step in and actually create this world that belief is actually productive in our life. Like if we have that belief, that belief will actually build it. So it's not only true and it's in the paradox, but actually the function of believing it creates a positive result. It's an adaptive, it's an adaptive belief to have. And I think there's a truth to this paradox, which is part of the mystery, you know, like Carl Jung, I think called it the Mysterium Tremendum, like the mystery that can't be penetrated, the things we just don't understand. And I think this paradox is partly held with that and then partly explained by, well, it's necessary for us to have that belief so that we can actually guide our own life. 

SASHA: Yes. Beliefs don't have to be true. They need to be useful. 

CAITLYN: Ah.

AUBREY:  Yeah. 

SASHA: Right? And belief, and like I want to give another example in magic, like magicians exploit belief. And I'll give you a really simple example, which I shared before. So I may show, I may show the 10 of diamonds, my favorite card. Place it on a table and then say, Caitlyn, actually turn over the 10 of diamonds if you don't mind now, the very fact that you're going towards it is confirmed. You're confirming to yourself. That must be the 10 of diamonds. Turn over the 10 of diamonds. Show us. It changed. It changed. Right? 

CAITLYN: Dang it. 

SASHA: So no, no, you didn't ruin it. Just show. Yeah. So all of this to say that the best lie is the one you tell yourself and I sort of put all the things together. But belief is something magicians use against you in some ways. Because in this case, you were the one who convinced yourself that there were a ton of diamonds, and that's why the deception is so powerful. And one of the keys, like one of the other keys to deception is to make it multisensory. You may not have noticed every object I've shared with you magically, like the rose or the car. They all have a smell. And one of the really important things about layering deception is to involve as many of the senses as possible. Not that one. 

CAITLYN: I smell that I create somewhere. 

AUBREY: She likes to smell kinks, smelling. She loves to good, she loves to sniff a good kink. 

CAITLYN: That's a king. She sniffs 'em out. That's one of Caitlin's magical abilities actually, she can sniff a king from across the room

CAITLYN: So yeah, so full sensory, how does that, support the piece that you're doing when you say you bring in all the senses? How does that, why is that? I'm curious. 

SASHA: My teacher would say, if you want your magic to be sensational, involve more of the senses. And one of the lessons he keeps teaching me is like, you know, turn your audience audio to spectators, to spectate, and then participants, because participants love to party. Uh, that's his joke. But all of this to say that. 

CAITLYN: That's cute.

SASHA: There's this really old saying in magic, the best magic happens in the participant's hands. The best magic happens with, you know, mentalism is so powerful because usually it's with information that's emotionally relevant to you. So in one way, You know, we're all sort of guarded and we try to involve more of the senses to have more ways to get in, to touch you and emotions are probably the most powerful tool, but the senses are powerful also because I use scent a lot because scent is the first, sense we evolved evolutionarily and it's the one most connected to memory. So when you remember something, you're actually remembering how it smells. So I like to have a consistent smell in my magic so that you remember what it smelled like, like a small secret is one hand smells one way and another hand has another perfume. So you can sort of, but yeah, I mean this conversation about deception and magic goes so deep and the morals haven't been discussed enough in my opinion

AUBREY: Right. The lessons for one, what is this teaching us? Humility, audacity, the power, and also the vulnerability, like big meta principles, and then also the morality, you know, so like how is this didactic, how is this instructional, and then how is this also, you know, how do we navigate knowing that this is real, and knowing that these powers are available, because with great power comes great responsibility. It's Uncle Ben's line to Spider Man, right? And it's true. The more power we get, the more impeccable we have to be serving the good and the good of ourselves that includes the whole and I think it's also sometimes people can get so lost in, if it's good for me at all then it's not serving the good. Well, that doesn't make any sense. You're part of the good. It should serve you and the good. It doesn't need a separation. There's a win-win scenario where it benefits you and the world at the same time. But people want this hard split, like you suffer for somebody else's good. That's what means good. What a terrible contract, what a terrible spell to have in your own mind that the only way to be good is to suffer. And I think this is also part of this, you know, Christian theology is like the good to be good is to suffer for somebody. And yes, you can, you can suffer for, you know, for the greater good. And that is one way to actually prove your willingness to serve all. But there's also like, just You know, let's say there's a party that's kind of at like a six out of 10, you know, and you just bring such radical positive energy and you just start dancing and laughing and like really enjoying it, you'll create a magical field around that party and the party will go from six. If you're at 10 and you just keep going, the whole party will raise the 10 and you're having the best time and you're enjoying the party raising to a 10 as well. So. There's a lot of like win-win magic that's really available. And that's the stuff that I think really to focus on is like, what is the win win magic?

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: Where it's like, we're all in the party together. 

SASHA: Yes. 

AUBREY: You know. 

SASHA: You said that. A moral solution is to make sure that it's a win-win for everyone. I love that. Kant had this idea of the human equation of, you know, never use other people as a means to an end, but as a man, as an end in themselves. I don't think it's a complete idea, but it has a seed of truth.

AUBREY: Yeah. I mean, the other way is. You know, so one of the ways you can split from the whole to polarity, one of the ways you can split is from, and this is in the channeled work of the Law of One, which supposedly comes from Raw. It's a kind of channeled teaching. And in the channeled teachings, the split between light Ahura Mazda and Anger Menyo, however you want to call it, the split is service of the all, in service of the all or in service of the self. Right, the self at, and which means if you're just serving the self, you can serve it at the expense of all other people, like every other person or every other being or every other entity or every other thing doesn't matter. And we're somewhere in between because we're in manifestation. We do have an ego, we do have a body and we are separate, but we're also connected. So we're a living, we're a living blend of these polarities. And so there's both the service of all, which is the purest, you know, the purest form of the good, which includes yourself, again, win win. And then there's the most diabolical, which is service of the self at the greatest expense of the other. So like the old rituals of the blackest of the black magic, child sacrifice, like, you know, the rituals of Moloch where they would burn children in vats of oil and things, right? Like this, they would boil them in vats of oil and presumably harvest real magic from that. But at such great expense and suffering of another of another being of the innocence of another being right so, it's service of self themselves, they were getting some whatever magical power or feeling or pleasure from this thing but at cost it wasn't a win win. It was certainly not a win. It was a great suffering so that's the most diabolical and then we're somewhere in between but always I think reaching, if we're committed to the good, you know, if we serve all in for all life, then we're committed to these win-win scenarios. And we're aware that there's all going to be all kinds of temptations to serve ourselves at the cost of others, you know, and there's temptations to cheat someone in business or to deceive someone romantically to get the pleasure that you're looking for to create a system. But the more you break that. And what I call, I need the law of reciprocity, the more you go into those darker magical realms where you're actually, there's some part of you that knows you're doing it and will, because the good of the one, the all that is, the God the ultimate source. Is ultimately good and lives within you, you'll seek your own damnation and retribution and suffering if you've caused suffering to others at some point, maybe not in this life, but in another life, at some point, you'll have to reckon with the belief

CAITLYN: You are calling it because of the belief that you deserve it,

AUBREY:  Exactly. You'll believe that you deserve it. Now, the scary thing is if people are fully devoted to the dark. And I think there is, you know, there is power there in the full intentional devotion. But I think people imagine that that's what's happening. And I just have a hard time imagining that there's a bunch of people in black hoods somewhere, you know, worshiping a dark being and trying to hurt everybody. Rarely it happens, but I think for the most part, it's just people being a bit more on the ego side is a service of self, and a bit too little on the service of both sides. Largely also because we have a whole mythos around death where we don't look at our life as part of the continuity of life. And to bring back what you said about the Mashiac, the messiah archetype, if you know that you're going to continue your soul, and your life force is going to be eternal, then this life is not your only playat the game, you know, and you're going to have to reckon, you know, my new book that's coming out this year Psychonaut the very first psychonautic journey I had was this record this understanding that when you actually expand beyond your identity self you'll have what people in the NDE, near death experience,  phenomenon would call a life review. And the life review is you look back at what you've done and heaven is to look back and smile and say, yeah, I did my best. I made my mistakes, but I loved hard. I laughed hard and I served and hell is looking back with that clarity that comes from that position and be like, man, I fucked people up. Like I really hurt people and I didn't, and I also didn't live my best life. I didn't do all this. And so, these ideas of judgment that show up in these early religions, people externalize them to some other being, but it really lives within us because all of the truth and goodness lives within us as well. So we're our own judge, ultimately, at the end of the day. And we have to be right with, right with God, right with the divine. And so my lineage, like right with the right with the divine is face to face with God. So whatever you do, you're looking at the good and you're seeing it, panima, panim, face to face. And then evil comes from citra akra, which literally means the turning of the face. And when you turn the face from the good. And you know, you're turning the face 

SASHA: Creates a shadow. 

AUBREY: Creates a shadow and it allows everything to bloom in the shadow. But eventually, you still know that there's God looking right at you with those loving eyes being like, well, you know, welcome back when you're ready. And the deeper you go into shadow, the harder it is to look because as you look at God, you have to look at everything that you've done. But the stare of God is like, is always, is always going to be there, you know? So there's no, there's no escaping it. And that's why good always wins ultimately in the end. That's why, that's why all the stories end this way. Cause we know it. We know that ultimately there's no other place that we get to other than face to face with the Divine, lives in us as it grows.

SASHA: Uh, Oh. 

AUBREY: So how, what would you like to leave people with as some kind of takeaway from your path that they could maybe, apply in some way. Hopefully they've gained some lessons and I've been very philosophical in this podcast. So hopefully people have enjoyed some aspects of that. But what about like, what would you like to leave people with is kind of like a felt understanding or some tools that they can use to kind of open them up to this field of magic and possibility.

SASHA: You are more powerful. Then you can possibly comprehend. You will likely step into that power as you deal proactively with the challenges and the consequences that come from having and using that power. Not anything is possible. That's just a message I would like to change in the world of magic. It's not true. Some things are impossible, like contradictions. More is possible than you allow yourself to believe. And, I really hope people see that this is a more profound art than they may have suspected. And, you are the magician of your own life. Be kind.

AUBREY: Aho. 

SASHA: Aho. 

AUBREY: Caitlyn, any final words you'd like to leave people with?

CAITLYN: Yeah, I think my, I have so many takeaways from this beautiful conversation and experience. And for me, the wonder behind the trick is kind of like the God behind the Messiah. And I think that there's an opportunity for us to bring in this awareness with more humility and more discernment with our power, but also to look even deeper and let ourselves believe more I want that for myself and for others is really allowing the trust to believe, and to the degree where we can access that power. And so there's something beautiful, winking at us in the mystery and I'm really grateful to you for bringing it to life because it's so easy to get distracted, and to stay distracted right now. So that's one of my biggest takeaways today that I just want to underline for everybody listening is, you know, being mindful of what we might miss, the sleight of hands and the magic that surrounds us, if we're too distracted to notice. So thank you so much for this incredible experience.

SASHA: Thank you. Deeply. Thank you both. 

AUBREY: Yeah, absolutely. And thanks, everybody, for tuning in and checking out this exploration. May your lives be filled with magic and wonder and beauty and awe and challenge, and may you know it all in your heart, in your deepest, deepest heart of hearts. Knowing it all is good, as you know that wherever you are right now, you're drawing breath. There's somebody there who loves you. Even if it seems like they don't, it's there. It's underneath there. Love is the fabric and the current of the whole universe. And wherever you fall, you fall into the arms of love. And you fall into her arms. And the insides of the whole cosmos are lined with love. And that doesn't negate your pain and your suffering. We know that's real. And our hearts and our compassion are with you in your suffering. And also, you know, inviting you to be with us in our joy. And to invite you into a greater state of joy and beauty. And no matter how hard the world gets, may we all find that joy and wonder and awe and beauty within ourselves. And Let's go. We got a big task ahead of us, and it will require our very best. So, calling on the magicians, and the warriors, and the kings, and the lovers, and the mystics. to come show up and give it your best because we need it. 

CAITLYN: And remember the medicine of the illusion of the two of hearts. 

SASHA: Infinite love is the only truth. Anything else is an illusion. 

AUBREY: That’s right. 

CAITLYN: There's little Kozols. 

AUBREY: That's right. Much love everybody. We'll see you next week. Thank you Sasha. 

Thanks for tuning into this video. Make sure you hit subscribe. Follow me at Aubrey Marcus. Check out the Aubrey Marcus podcast available everywhere and leave a comment. Let me know if this video resonated or what else you would like to hear from me in the future. Thank you so much.

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