E203 - Dr. Justin Sledge: The Occult, Witch Trials & the Forbidden Teachings of Gnosticism

Dr. Justin Sledge is a scholar of philosophy and Western esotericism, and the voice behind the YouTube channel Esoterica, which has grown to over a million subscribers. He has spent his career studying the traditions that history tried to erase: Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, witchcraft, and alchemy.What We Dive Into:1. Classical skepticism is not about debunking or disbelief. It is about bracketing your personal investment long enough to let the material speak for itself. 2. Newton wrote more on alchemy and the occult than on calculus. Descartes arrived at his famous method through a mystical dream. Stripping these facts from the story of modernity has cost us access to some of the most important spiritual technologies ever developed.3. Every other starting point, certainty, comfort, doctrine, conclusions, has a gutter waiting at the end of it. Awe keeps the garden of curiosity alive.Know Thyself, but not by yourself. A guided space to return home to yourself.https://www.knowthyselfcollective.com✨THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:https://www.im8health.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for an exclusive offerhttps://www.mudwtr.com/knowthyselfcode KNOWTHYSELF for up to 43% off___________00:00 Intro01:57 What Skepticism Actually Means06:21 How to Enter Mystical Inquiry Without Collapsing Into Belief08:03 Religion, Mysticism, and the Margins11:24 Gnosticism: The World as Prison, Christ as Liberator14:21 The Nag Hammadi Discovery and the Many Christianities17:00 William James and the Four Qualities of Mystical Experience21:50 Perennial Wisdom vs. High-Resolution Differences26:44 The Limits of Propositional Truth31:32 Irrational vs. Non-Rational: Why the Distinction Matters37:10 The Danger of Universalizing Mystical Experience44:34 The World Is Stranger Than We Assume51:01 How the Myth of Rational Modernity Was Curated59:35 Recovering the Suppressed Voices of Western History1:00:45 Mary Magdalene: Not a Prostitute1:14:22 The Suppression of the Feminine and the Road to the Witch Trials1:18:55 The Malleus Maleficarum and the Anatomy of a Moral Panic1:24:01 Poverty, Not Practice: Who Was Actually Accused1:26:27 The Books Justin Brought: Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy1:32:08 Agrippa and the Possibility of Induced Illumination1:41:32 The Kabbalah and the Sefer Yetzirah1:46:04 The Hermetic Tradition and Hermes Trismegistus1:54:22 What Studying These Texts Has Done to Justin1:59:51 Agrippa's Trilemma and the Limits of Reason2:04:22 Hermeticism vs. Gnosticism: The World as Divine, Not Prison2:13:11 Making the Best Case for the Transcendent Realm2:19:54 Whatever Matter Is, It's Indistinguishable from Spirit2:26:34 Justin's Personal Satanic Panic: The School Shooting2:38:03 Generational Trauma and the Suppression of the Feminine2:44:57 Truth as a Verb: Dialogue Across Difference2:47:14 Are We on the Threshold of a New Renaissance?2:58:39 Community Questions: The Most Meaningful Experience of Magic2:59:15 When Justin Realized the Books Were Real3:03:51 Finding the Clerical Necromantic Underground3:04:26 Recreating Alchemy in the Modern Lab3:07:11 Why We Want Magic: The Very Human Desire for Hidden Power3:13:00 Modern Mythology and the Meaning Famine3:20:10 Closing Message: Flourishing Begins in Awe___________✨MORE FROM DR. JUSTIN SLEDGE↳YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/esotericachannel↳Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/esotericachannel↳https://www.justinsledge.com📜MORE FROM KNOW THYSELF↳Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l↳Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/↳TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andreduqum↳Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knowthyselfbyandreduqum/↳https://knowthyselfpodcast.com/👁️MORE FROM ANDRÉ↳Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/@andreduqum↳Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/know-thyself-podcast↳Book recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/book-list