TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Nice enough, though.

THERAPIST: She’s nice, huh?

CLIENT: Yes, I mean, yes. Not like actively. Not like oh -

THERAPIST: Well she’s -

CLIENT: muffins and potato tots.

THERAPIST: Whatever.

CLIENT: Which is a formal name for tater tots.

THERAPIST: Tater tots?

CLIENT: Potato tots. So a number of things I’ve been saying. So therefore I got in here, I found that [inaudible at 00:00:24] was tweeting. So Zocar (ph) turns the [inaudible], right? Some people are f***king idiots and losing their shit. They can’t handle it. They’re saying oh my God a picture of a terrorist on the cover of a magazine. Oh f***k. [inaudible] it’s victimizing them a bit. We can’t. Again, he’s a victim. He’s a horrible monster who was victimized into being a horrible monster. So, all right? I mean he’s a kid; he was brainwashed as a child. He had no defense. He was affected young. So that’s okay. [inaudible]. That’s really, really sad. [00:01:07]

He’s going to be dead in a couple of years. Either you’ll kill him or everyone in prison will kill him. So he’s a dead man. This is a sad story of a young man with potential who was infected by Islam and is now going to be dead. Oh a lot of people who are dead and maimed all leading back to some a***hole who told that kid about an invisible space monster. Now that’s what you guys are trying to get back to. And even then you can track back to the people before then and back to them, back to the original writer. We need to figure who the original writer was. People say it was this guy; he made it all up. Speaking of which, amazing film, I’ve watched it two times in a row now. Once by myself and the next I watched it with Ginny the next night. So Kumaré, you heard of this?

THERAPIST: Kumaré? No.

CLIENT: It’s a documentary. This guy raised by first generation Indians to be a Hindu. [inaudible at 00:02:06] of his family, a lot of ritual. And [inaudible] says what the f***k is this? Why are we doing any of this? And he says there were moments when my grandmother was doing stuff and we were feeling real peace. So that was interesting.

THERAPIST: He said that though even though but my grandmother [00:02:22]

CLIENT: Yes, he would feel real peace through these rituals she’d use. He said so but he knows people who were falling for these gurus. You don’t forget your gurus and be like I have a great spiritual power and authority. And so he said this is awful. So he did this documentary on the gurus. And he’s filming this documentary and meeting all these awful people, some of them were deluding themselves; [all of them] (ph) were deluding their people. And so he said well anybody can do this. This is all bulls***t; I know I can do this. He says look, I’ll do it. [00:03:09]

THERAPIST: Who’s brainwashing people?

CLIENT: Everyone. The guru. And so he grows his hair out and his beard and he’s imitating his grandmother’s voice, which is broken English with an accent. He ran with a robe and a dress and the whole thing, [inaudible]. He gets two people he knows who’s friends with the film industry. One is also of Indian descent, he can do a really good accent, and then this other one is a yoga teacher. And he gets them as his backup, essentially; people give him legitimacy. And then they go and call on Yoga studios. This is a descendant master Kumaré; he’s the current incarnation of Kumaré and he is around and would like to view the class. And he gets a possible two people in, although one of them is a death-row attorney who really connects with him. And the next week it’s 20 people flock to him.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: The next week it’s 40 people, possible. [00:04:05]

THERAPIST: Wow, really?

CLIENT: Yes. And then these people are, this is a documentary, these people are really connecting with him and they’re finding this deep spiritual truths through interaction with him and he’s just, the entire time he says I’m being very honest with them. This is all an illusion. All of this is fake. And the whole thing is I am not who you think I am, the entire time trying to teach that everyone has within them the ability to be their own guru.

THERAPIST: That’s kind of the message?

CLIENT: That’s what the message becomes. It starts as a prank. It starts as a joke. Look I’ll act like a guru and people will believe me. And that’s when people started believing him. And then he’s having these experiences where people are going to him for real truth and he’s in a situation where he’s thinking I can’t, I don’t know how to advise this person. I’m not going to get anybody to stop and stay with her husband or leave. I’m not. But the important thing is she talked to him and sorted it out for herself and she left her husband, which she had been planning on doing.

THERAPIST: They show that in the documentary? [00:05:09]

CLIENT: Yes. They do. Most people have conversations with him and really direct (ph) conversations. So he starts this thing following this Yoga class and he said now to test it I have to go away and come back. So he goes away; he goes to Tucson and tries to see how far he can push it. So he gets this other Yoga class and really, really pushes as hard as he can against the people who are most believing in him. This guy’s a doctor of philosophy; he takes him back to his house to get the blessing from the teaching from him. And so he draws a symbol on the guy’s forehead, which is a symbol for a penis, little cotton balls. He said this is the symbol of a penis. I’ll draw it on your forehead for the following reasons. And the guy totally with complete sincerity accepts the symbol of a penis on his forehead and is totally into this guy.

So he says okay something is happening here. We can push this pretty far. So he goes back to Phoenix [00:06:08]

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: and people [inaudible 00:06:11] still there, glad to see him. And he comes back and all these people attribute these things to him. This one woman he creates a bunch of made-up Yoga moves and he creates a bunch of ridiculous chants. Not anything, it was just chants of be all you can be or something like that and they say it in Hindi or whatever language it is, so many. And he makes these fake Yoga moves and people do them and he makes up this meditation problem, Blue Light Meditation, where everyone envisions this blue light being sent to other people. He says but then I experienced that. We’re sitting, I’m teaching Blue Light, then I started to feel this peace that they were feeling.

THERAPIST: He said he actually does feel it.

CLIENT: Yes, he starts to feel it. And that’s when things really start to change when he realizes he is also changing, he is becoming this person that they want him to be. At the same time he’s being very conscious of the fact that he is not who they think he is and his message, which is you don’t need again, which is the message he develops. In the beginning I don’t think he has a message at all. He’s just kind of oh [00:07:21]

THERAPIST: Let’s see what happens.

CLIENT: Yes. Like come on, anyone can do this guru thing. I mean he’s doing the guru thing. And Ginny says but he did all the trappings, like he went and did Yoga and meditation. He got really good at those things, so did wearing the clothes and sleeping outside and doing all the things that a guru does. He became a guru so what did he expect? [inaudible 00:07:42] he expected nothing. And these people, [inaudible] people that are meeting him, and there’s this one guy. He invites him over to the house and it’s a nice house. And goes by things I used to do a lot of drugs, he’s actually done a lot of drugs. And one day I’d been up all night smoking crack and my wife she shows up and says I’m leaving. He said it was at that point I realized I had to do something. So I got into Narcotics Anonymous and I cleaned up my life and I’ve been clean for six years and that brought our marriage back together after a few years. And now I know it had its purpose. You always have to you change your lives when you have to change your life. And [inaudible at 00:08:37] says oh yes that is the truth. And I think I found forms of deep attachment with Kumaré. And you can see [inaudible at 00:08:37] talking to him I don’t’ I love him. He says I love him. It’s not paternal, it’s not romantic; it’s just love. And this guy’s not used to this. He’s [inaudible] for a man. And this death row attorney uses this to transform her life; this overweight woman uses his teachings to lose 70 pounds. [00:09:12]

These people have effectively changed in their lives based on their experiences with him which causes him saying this is all you. You are doing all of this. And people are oh yes, I’m doing all of it. Totally, totally. What do we do next? They’re really looking for [inaudible at 00:09:28] and they’re affecting change in their lives through this particular use of intention. And so eventually he gets to the point where he says can I get all disciples to the house and he’s going to reveal who he is. But he can’t do it. When they get there he can’t reveal who he is. He’s in the bathroom crying, how do I tell these people that they’re all idiots? They’re all going to feel idiots like I tried to trick them. But he did try to trick them and he did trick them. And so he couldn’t do it; he can’t reveal. [00:10:03]

And he goes away. He goes back to New York where he lives and spends a couple weeks there and he says [inaudible} enchanted with everything. And his people are still calling him and asking him all these questions. You see him on the phone late at night saying you don’t need me. I am just this crazy man in a dress. You know the answers [inaudible at 00:10:18]. And all this stuff goes on. And finally he says okay this has to stop. So he invites everyone out to a place. These two students that he hired they walk him through some meditations, [inaudible at 00:10:37] and then he shows them the movie of himself. He says oh I’m [inaudible]. I told you I’m not who you think I am. I’m very much like you. I was born in America. I grew up in Long Island. All this with the accent and the costume. And people are saying huh? He says -

THERAPIST: He’s still saying it with the accent? [00:11:02]

CLIENT: Yes. He says I had a plan to teach people, this is the guy who I met with all these gurus and swamis, and not one of them would say the thing I knew was true which is that you don’t need them. So I’m here to tell you, you don’t need me. And that’s the entire plan, to teach people that they don’t need gurus, that they have that within themselves. He said so I’m going to introduce you to my inner guru. Then he comes out, he’s shaved and he’s cut his hair and he’s wearing normal clothing and everything.

THERAPIST: He goes back and changes and takes off the make-up?

CLIENT: He goes yes, because they’re watching the film with him. And after the film is over he walks back out and he looks totally different. And he kind of stands there and he says hello gurus in a totally American accent. And he’s looking at them and they’re all in shock. And he says my name is Vikram Gandhi and my ideal self is Kumaré. And then he can’t look up; he can’t look at them. He’s just -

THERAPIST: He feels ashamed?

CLIENT: Yes. He’s waiting. All the people start clapping for him and one of his young disciples she rushes up from the audience and hugs him, and a bunch of people just hug him. And then four others get up and walk out, furious, one of them being this woman who was the first of the Blue Light meditation with, and she found it so important. [00:12:24]

THERAPIST: Was that the death-row attorney?

CLIENT: No, no. The death row attorney loved it. She says this is it, this is the teaching. She says you’ve done it. This is the entire lesson. You were just this guy the entire time. You were just this guy but with whom we had this connection. And the connections are real and the things I’ve learned about myself are real, and the changes it affected are real, she said and that’s the most important part of the lesson, that I can do all of these things. And the people said right. Yes, I lost 70 pounds; I’ve kept off 70 pounds; I have affected my life.

And what’s most interesting is the two or three people I’d say who believed in him the most accepted him the most at the end. What the youngest one, the pro-20s idolized him. Still idolized him actually. She said oh my God. And the death row lawyer says no this is great; you done it. And Greg, the guy who affected all those changes, he was using Kumaré to affect all sort of positive changes in his life, I really hope got the main point of the lesson which is that he had always been changing. He’d been changing one of his lessons even before he met Kumaré. He had taken charge of things he needed to change and just doing it. But the one with the Blue Light meditation she asked him to teach her and give her his blessing of the Kumaré. He said what if someday you see me and who I am and you say he is not a good person; I do not like him. Would you then throw away the meditation I taught you? She says probably not. He says well good, that’s the most important thing. But she does throw away the meditation. [00:14:11]

THERAPIST: She does?

CLIENT: Yes, she’s the one who walks out and take the two other people with her. And I said yes no surprise she did that and where’s the girl (ph)? But you knew she was going to. Okay, well, I didn’t; how did you know she was going to? And she said oh because when she’s talking about the blessing of the Kumaré, she says how important it is. Well he indicates how important it is to her that now she’s part of a legacy. You have all these Kumarés before her and now she is [inaudible at 00:14:45]

THERAPIST: And what did he say?

CLIENT: He said and all these teachings I made up. And they did a reveal I made these up. I’m the very first Kumaré. [inaudible 00:14:57] back on her jaw [inaudible].

THERAPIST: She thought she was part of a legacy that he was part of a legacy that she was [00:15:06]

CLIENT: Yes, and it was deep betrayal and disappointment. And then the ratings, all that tied up in that one [inaudible 00:15:11]. And she had [inaudible] obsessed. Ten of the fourteen people still talk to him, still around somewhere.

THERAPIST: Is that right? Four of them don’t.

CLIENT: Four of them don’t, but ten of them do. So the youngest one, she became a Yoga instructor, which is where things I want to become a Yoga instructor. And he actually gave her really good advice. He said can you imagine a better version of yourself who is doing those things that you want to do. She said, yes. And he said then you just need to let yourself become that person. And one of the most amazing things he said to them, he said you are all amazing people and it’s time to stop pretending that you’re not. It’s amazing, wonderful stuff. Kind of like the stuff he learns about himself, about the entire thing. [00:16:13]

And he said, and this goes over into what Sam Harris says the fact that these deeply spiritual experiences are shared across all belief systems, whether it be Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, whatever New-Age spiritualism you’re into, the fact this exists across all belief systems should tell you one, that all these belief systems are fake because they have absolutely nothing to do with it, or they’re not the exclusive source of it as they’re seeming to claim, but rather that there’s a way in which we can extend intention to affect real change in our lives. He said there is that, there’s a way to extend intention [inaudible 00:17:06] bliss and that peace that allows us to make real change in our lives. So that’s what we should be studying, as I would say not these invisible space monsters and what they want. What are we actually doing? This is important. He meets this group of Law of Attraction people, and it’s really easy to be a Law of Attraction person in Phoenix, Arizona, as a White person.

THERAPIST: What’s the Law of Attraction?

CLIENT: Oh it’s the f***king most recent version of The Secret or The Celestine Prophecy or whatever the current New Age think, imply, dream it, do it.

THERAPIST: Yes, yes, yes, you’re positive, yes, you attract [00:17:50]

CLIENT: Yes. If you imagine that you’ll get an amazing job, you’ll get an amazing job. And this is a great easy system you can believe in when you’re a middle class American and White and in Phoenix and surrounded by middle class people with things you want and you can actualize because you have the resources to do so. You got thinking I want to go, so I was thinking I wanted to go to Africa and teach the children, and then she said, and then I did. He said great, you saved the money and went to Africa and you [inaudible]. And she said I met my husband there. He said, great, that’s also awesome. These two things do not necessarily correlate or coincide. They do coincide but the significance of that is [00:18:34]

THERAPIST: They attribute the attribution -

CLIENT: The attribution [inaudible at 00:18:38]. And, yes, so -

THERAPIST: Why, yes, why -

CLIENT: So, so, so she has this whole thing. The only thing she says is that we don’t have to know how it works. And her friend says yes, like gravity. We do not know how gravity works, we don’t know how gravity works. But the thought, which is interesting, is that we don’t need to know how it works. And there’s something to that I think, when he would say I do these things and I get this result -

THERAPIST: This counts.

CLIENT: it’s not super important why that’s happening if the result is beneficial and what I’m doing is not detrimental. So as long as those two things really this journey isn’t as important but [00:19:29]

THERAPIST: You’re also what you’re attributed to.

CLIENT: it’s the faith problem again. You have an excuse not to think about this anymore. Done.

THERAPIST: What do you mean by that?

CLIENT: It’s the faith. Faith is a willing ignorance; faith is an excuse not to think about something. You don’t think about it; you just believe it. Why is it true? It just is. But why? What makes you think that it’s true? Oh, because I feel it. No, no, no, I’m asking you what makes you think that it’s true. Feeling is not important here. Feeling’s not how we determine deep mystical truth. Feeling’s not how we determine what we should do and how we should treat each other. We can make rational decisions based off the effects of these feelings. We can say okay when humans pet dogs they both lose oxytocin. That’s good. We all want to lose we should all have oxytocin all the time. That would be great. It would be a wonderful world. See we’re all happy and enjoying everything all the time. So we know that; we know the science behind that. One thing we didn’t; we just knew we liked petting dogs and they seem to like it too. We didn’t know the reason and it wasn’t super important to know the reason.

THERAPIST: And where does faith come into all that? With the [00:20:47]

CLIENT: Faith fills in the gaps. Faith fills in the gaps. And faith allows you to stop at any point when it gets confusing or difficult or anything. You feel like I don’t need to think about this; I just know that it’s true. I don’t have to rationalize or fix the facts or face the data for evidence. I can simply -

THERAPIST: Yes, something about, tied into the whole, the attribution issue that people want to I mean I was thinking about this movie being a way that people not only like you were noting that these people were actually making changes and he was even telling them the mechanism that was making changes didn’t understand why but said it wasn’t because, don’t attribute this to me. There’s something happening but don’t attribute it to me. [00:21:48]

CLIENT: And the greatest masters of all said that. Many great spiritual leaders, Buddha said it’s not me. Jesus Christ, it’s not me. I think Mohammed said it’s totally me but he was an evil son of a bitch who created so much suffering over thousands of years, more so perhaps than even Christianity. No, definitely more than Christianity because it’s still happening. The darkest evils of Mohammed’s time are still happening. People say oh but Islam can be it’s just f***king another Islam template. Islam contains this subset and the problem with that subset is that it isn’t making anything up. It’s just taking what is there. You don’t need very much more of the Koran than a few lines to justify with faith why you need to kill all these people.

And apparently the more educated you become in Islam, the more likely you are to be one of those suicide bombers, which actually makes perfect sense. When you are successful and things have gone well it’s easy to believe that there’s a God pushing you. There’s a God behind you, you best go you lazy thing. When you’re downtrodden and poor, I don’t know. Why does God want? What, really? I don’t know. But yes, God’s great but why should I blow myself up? It seems like, I don’t know. In my heart of hearts maybe I don’t believe. But faith is a disease, it’s a sickness. It’s an infection. [00:23:30]

THERAPIST: It’s a virus that spreads, you’re saying.

CLIENT: Yes, from parent to child, parent to child, parent to child. Yes. So, maybe I cut (ph) crazy, subsequently crazy people, but look at the Sam Harris thing again, Kumaré, great there is something happening. Back when I was in college doing Tarot readings and doing aura things with people, there were people who were saying Fred is amazing; Fred knows so much shit. How should we change our lives? What does Fred think about these things? I was charismatic. I had a lot of thoughts about spirituality and mysticism and I would talk about those things and actually do Ginny said of course they think he’s mystical. He’s giving them attention and listening to what they say and responding to what he heard. And I said yes, I know, and that’s what I did and that’s what people wanted. And that was all throughout all the time. It happens all the time. [00:24:46]

THERAPIST: Because it’s [inaudible at 00:24:46].

CLIENT: Well, yes, his power is giving to people.

THERAPIST: Interesting.

CLIENT: There’s this book, trilogy, I ran into. I cannot remember the title of it for the life of me but it’s a fantasy trilogy where they have two worlds, one is ours and one is kind of fantasy Greco-Roman [inaudible at 00:25:03] worships their pantheon gods. And based upon the book there some portals you can fall through into the other worlds. And so this guy’s looking for his uncle who’s disappeared and falls into this [inaudible] portal essentially in his closet and ends up in this some other world. And he gets there and this little girl finds him and he can’t understand her language, he’s very quickly just picking up her language. Okay, that’s weird but whatever. And she says oh, we’ve got to get to this town but people are going to ask questions about you and you seem weird and your language skills aren’t very good. She says when we meet up with anyone I’ll tell them you are a holy man and they will not expect you to talk. And he says okay. [00:25:54]

So they show up. She says this is Edward, he is a holy man, blah, blah, blah oh I see. The people start asking for his blessing, so he gives them a blessing. Then his blessings start to work. And as he goes, he gets a [inaudible at 00:26:09] of a following and the things that he says he’s going to the blessings he gives, they begin to work and he thinks this is very strange, what’s happening. It turns out the way this world works is if you’re an outsider to this world people give you belief and attention, you can start to do the things they believe you can do. And so it’s interesting everyone’s in a power struggle as the god of what. The guy who was smart enough to claim being the god of death early on has the most power because everyone experiences death and fears it and thinks about it. As people come long he becomes smaller and smaller because oh I’m the guy of scales and balances, and I’m the god of war. Good thinking on my part. I’m the god of love. Oh that’s really great.

But the moral of it, and again it’s Kumaré, and the thing is the [inaudible] of power we gave them. We all agree that they have it. It’s a play that we’re all in and we all agreed that they get the lead.

THERAPIST: It makes me think so much about, it makes me think a lot about, well it even makes me think about your description about who is Toni’s the woman at the it’s nice to have her in the office but she’s a little, she seems phony. But she does give something, there’s something there. [00:27:36]

CLIENT: Oh yes, she obviously cares about being there but it’s all pre-programmed. But it seems out of fear, though, out of awkwardness or anxiety or how to interact spontaneously.

THERAPIST: Yes. Yes, I was thinking and that made me think, that also made me think about the women in the chat rooms and how you know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for something that they offer and that you got from that one woman. And it seemed to me to be around, yes, there’s an erotic element to it, of course it’s a very important element. There’s also the connection, the attention. And it made me think of this Kumaré, a movie about this man’s, even though something about real versus phoniness but then there still being something there. Even though he was being phony, there was still something there. [00:28:59]

CLIENT: And [inaudible] you stumbled upon one of the most important things about it, the trappings of it. And his friends said yes, trappings, because people need something foreign that they can ascribe things to, attribute things to. Oh this information is important because it comes from someone so different. It’s easier to believe the spirituality because it’s so separate from you because you wouldn’t just buy it from anyone like yourself. You don’t like yourself, that’s why you’re looking for a guru. So why would you trust someone like you? You need the guru to show you that you do like yourself. That you’re an amazing person and stop pretending that you’re not. [00:29:43]

THERAPIST: Yes, how much it gives you. It does give you, that interaction it gives you it seems so important. I mean one thing that I think of is that you’re very, very savvy about what’s real and what’s not real. Is this person being genuine? I mean you can tell if Ginny is giving you some sort of like [inaudible].

CLIENT: You mean fine or not fine?

THERAPIST: Yes. Or it’s Brown you said she said I can smell this from a mile away. And then you know everything. What’s interesting is that, and with these women online you’re saying I know this is bulls***t. [00:30:31]

CLIENT: Yes, real fake, no fake, real fake, fake, fake, fake. That’s interesting.

THERAPIST: Even watching the videos, even if you’re not a part of it, you say I know I can see in their eyes.

CLIENT: Yes, real or not real. Well it’s interesting talking about these girls, even though it’s good writing. See you look back in the earliest recording. The earliest recorded history is in stories looking out. And the very first goddess we have written down, earliest records around, goddess around, the goddess of love, the female goddess. She had priestesses who were prostitutes. You would go to the temple, you would offer give your offering to Anama (ph) in some sort of currency, and then the priestesses would give you their blessing, they would take you in back and give you your blessing.

THERAPIST: Which was sex.

CLIENT: Yes, absolutely. They were called love priestesses.

THERAPIST: Love. [00:31:30]

CLIENT: And this is what it was. And we’ve demonized it and we’ve exploited it and we’ve abused it and it’s become this incredibly dangerous thing. It’s sex trafficking and prostitutes are forced into it at a young age and tricked into it, trapped into it. And this can exist because there are no regulations, and there’s no way to create a safe system to which these people can appeal. Right?

THERAPIST: That’s so interesting. That’s right.

CLIENT: Imagine there’s a brothel down the street and you’re a 15-year-old girl who has been forced to turn tricks. Wouldn’t you at some point say there is a better place for me to do this and then go there and also get the help you need. Oh honey you’re a 15-year-old girl and you were tricked into this. Is this really what you want to be doing? None of us can do this forever. Some of us do but we’re not happy by the end. It takes a huge toll on you. And -

THERAPIST: But that search for love and sex is sex, yes there’s something about the physicality of it of course but it’s also there’s love in it, there’s love in it. [00:32:41]

CLIENT: Oh yes, and some version of it.

THERAPIST: Yes, some version of it.

CLIENT: That you can buy. People talk about it when I was in Tarot reading stuff I never took money for it. I should have. I always felt I should take money for this. Well you should. Putting money into the transaction gives it more credence. People will pay you $10 for a Tarot reading. They have assigned importance to what you’re going to tell them and they are more likely to walk away with useful information. For a while I thought the Tarot was something I was especially gifted at. I am, it turns out, but not for the reasons I perhaps thought. It was a mystical spiritual thing and it worked. I didn’t know why it worked. I wanted to know why it worked and that was the thing. I made the incredibly it was a driving force; why does all this shit work? And I assigned all these different reasons to it, all these really beneficial reasons. Me and my friends were really into this stuff, oh yes, we’re special. We can do these things and what are we going to do? Amazing. [00:33:55]

And yes, I could do things everyone didn’t know how to do. Like I could do, in the right mindset, kind of see the colors around people. And it’s yes those colors around them, we know this. We know [inaudible at 00:34:08] field and we know that it gives off color in certain spectrums that you can see with certain cameras. But the problem is when we start attributing meaning to those colors. Oh that’s your aura and it means the phone is ringing. We don’ t know that. We don’t know what that means. The fact that a lot of people have a difficult time seeing that naturally should also be interesting.

THERAPIST: Yes, it’s something about it that it might be a trunage (ph) of supernatural power perhaps. [00:34:35]

CLIENT: Right, right. But the thing I started saying eventually is everything you think is magic is physics. There is some reason, some explanation for it. And then Sam Harris said the reason you get to a point where people feel embarrassed pretending to know things they cannot know. They have to pay associate costs when they come out with, say, oh God says this. You shouldn’t what the f***k are you talking about? You don’t know. [00:35:04]

THERAPIST: Yes, yes, that well one way it’s supernatural is a way of explaining things or going to an answer, finding an answer because we can’t seem stupid.

CLIENT: Oh yes. It’s the same -

THERAPIST: Or ignorant. Ignorant -

CLIENT: It’s the best. Some people are oh it just works, it’s amazing. And some like me are asking why does it work, why does it work? I need to know why it works because if I know why it works I can figure out what else it can do. If I know why I’m good at Tarot readings and everyone thinks that I’m amazing, then I should figure out why. If I can know why and how that works, and it seems incredibly beneficial to figure why that works, and -

THERAPIST: Got a lot of power in -

CLIENT: Right. What is that? What is that thing? People are attributing these powers to me because they would. People would start coming to me. I’ve got a guy with a [inaudible] for a Tarot reading. And but it was exhausting. You give 10 or 15 Tarot readings in a row [00:36:08]

THERAPIST: You did that many?

CLIENT: Yes, for people. If there were people at a party oh I want to do a [inaudible at 00:36:13], they would get in a line and just get a Tarot reading. I could have made some real money.

THERAPIST: And you’d do it?

CLIENT: Yes, I’d just blast through. And sometime Ginny would say your timing’s all out, you need to -

THERAPIST: Sure it’s a great amount.

CLIENT: But it is exhausting because it’s this and finally I said, I get it; I know why I’m good at this. Tarot is not magic; it’s psychology. It is a trick. It is a trick we use through symbols and patterns. Someone tells us what the symbols and patterns mean and then we assign those to the problem we are thinking about. And it gives us the ability to look at the problem as something with a solution. And now the problem has a solution. We know that. We come here to find an answer to your problem. I’m going to help you. Don’t tell me your question; I don’t want to know your question. Think about it keeping in your mind what the issue is. Cut the deck three times. Great. Is that a mystical thing? No. [Showed him his cat] (ph). Doesn’t matter; it worked. Start flipping them over in the pack. And this is the maze, this is the core thing, the core issue. This says The Lover. Oh my God. It is, this is about my boyfriend, he wouldn’t even tell me this thing. And it says here you’re crossed by, and this here, this card is the Devil, it’s an interesting card. It means confinement, inevitability, an extricable force. And she says yes, because I’m feeling so trapped in the relationship. Remember she don’t even tell me this stuff. Here’s the recent past, the current state of affairs and the near future what we’re looking at. [00:38:15]

THERAPIST: That would be the carbon (ph) three.

CLIENT: Yes, so these are the various things. I can use these last four that come here and here’s the outcome. This card is the final outcome. And the best card ever pulled from that is the Tower. The best card. The Tower means something is destroyed and then rebuilt. It’s great. It’s a great thing to be oh yes something’s rebuilding, because that’s a great answer. I’m rebuilding this thing, it’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be better afterwards. And people would walk away saying this is amazing. It really worked. The mystical Tarot worked. And I said no, it’s a trick. I’m good at symbolism. I’m also very good at knowing what you think is important. And then that influences the patterns I pick out. And it’s a story we tell together. It’s a cooperative, it’s an agreement that I’m going to tell you the answers. The agreement is I’m going to tell you the answers. That you’ll have a question and I will answer it. And you’ll be able to use that information to improve things. [00:39:37]

And it’s an agreement, a contract. But I mean that’s why it works because it’s physics, psychology. It’s not actually magic. And that there is an explanation for it and it’s a pretty simple one. It’s that symbols have power and metaphor has power and mythology has power. That’s what we use these for is to interpret meaning of difficult abstract concepts.

THERAPIST: But yes, magic or God or whatever are ways to kind of capture the power that’s there. Put the meaning in it and giving it an explanatory [00:40:19]

CLIENT: Yes. I think it’s a maze that you would not believe. But the guru’s on the same thing, they have made that critical because all these young, searching women assign this power to them and the stuff they can learn from it. And you soon believe it yourself, believe it yourself. And that’s where it goes wrong for most people. This is where I made the right choice. I stopped giving Tarot readings. And people kept coming to me. First it was people saying I just brought a house. Okay, let’s talk about what’s going on. It says right here that money is an issue. And he says yes, yes I just bought a house and my business is going really well. Okay. And he says, he’s this kind of gangsterish guy, yes his business he talked about his business in really vague terms. I said so the last card’s The Devil, confinement, so you should be careful. I guess he’s really paranoid. Yes, okay, thanks. And I said that’s interesting. That’s interesting. How much of my assuming from your signals that you are a drug dealer did that influence that? And how much did this reading affect you? It seems significant. It seems to have impacted significantly. [00:41:56]

Ouija books, I used to love Ouija books. I figured out pretty early that was always bullshit. There was a time where this is amazing. There are these other beings you can talk to. Yes, it’s us. It’s us. It’s an agreement that’s happening. The friendship is influence by our collective thinking. And you know this is the case because the clearer the message is the more likely someone is f***king around. And the more sincere people are the more garbled the message is because they want it to say something. They want it to give them certain answers. You know what you want the answer to be when you ask the Ouija board. But it has no valor. [00:42:54]

THERAPIST: The power is coming from -

CLIENT: It’s just a tool. Just a tool.

THERAPIST: Yes, just like the guy in the robe, Kumaré. [00:43:06]

CLIENT: So, great. We assign power to these people, these symbols or these tools when in fact but, but I went to a medium and he told me what’s going to happen and it f***king happened.

THERAPIST: You’re saying you actually went -

CLIENT: I went to an actual meeting.

THERAPIST: What happened?

CLIENT: [inaudible at 00:43:34] a community of mystics and [inaudible].

THERAPIST: What’s it called? Rose Vale?

CLIENT: Rose Vale. There’s a bunch of houses there and you have to pass the test and then you can buy a house for cheap and you can live there. So we all went out one day and I went to one and he says yes, your grandfather’s here. I said oh great, that’s cool because I’m working on a game right now. He says yes, yes, I see you’re working on a game. I was working on the board of Hackey Sack. He said you ‘re going to make a lot of money off this game. I said sweet. He said it’s something about the game and music, like the way you use music. I said it doesn’t have any music. It’s a board game. He said no, it’s something about the it’s electronic music and how the music is used in the game that makes you a lot of money. I said okay, whatever. Thanks, Man. He said okay. And I go. And then Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and I make a lot of money. He said a musical triumph [inaudible at 00:44:37] -

THERAPIST: Oh how about that?

CLIENT: and I make a lot on Rock Band.

THERAPIST: How about that. That’s so interesting.

CLIENT: My friend Miranda goes and she says you’re going to meet your husband in the next couple of years. She says who is he? She says cute but Amish. Miranda says nope. There’s no way I’m going to meet an Amish guy. Then during the crucible, she meets her husband, who is dressed in old-time crucible stuff. It wasn’t until afterward that she says holy f***k, that was it. She said that was it. [00:45:11]

THERAPIST: Holy cow.

CLIENT: So, okay, so is there, are mediums real? From a sample size of two I can say yes they have an effect, an ability to see forward vague images of potential realities. Okay, interesting. This isn’t your general cold reading, right? These are detail specific things. This is not like there’s real stress that you deal with every day and I feel like sometimes that stress gives you these feelings of self-doubt and you need not to have that self-doubt. And you know that. She said I know. I know it’s totally f***ked up. I mean that’s easy. That’s cold reading.

THERAPIST: Oh yes, yes, interesting. [00:46:08]

CLIENT: But this is really interesting stuff. Now how does it work? I don’t know. I don’t know that at all. What is happening? I don’t know. The lesson’s really valuable to investigate. What is happening. But these people also don’t want science involved because it works for them. They say this thing I do gets these results and I make a living off of them.

THERAPIST: Well in some way too that science too can run the risk of becoming its own rush to explanation. We are always constantly changing our theories.

CLIENT: Right, well you have to change. But we change our theories, right? And theories are pulled from hypotheses. If this is true, the following thing will work.

THERAPIST: Yes, sure but then you change them.

CLIENT: And you can test them. It is not an absolute fix. That’s the thing with science. It’s a religion. It’s not a religion. Yes, it’s a religion. It’s not a religion.

THERAPIST: Well it’s interesting because I don’t know a lot about mediums but my sense about them is that they’re not as closely tied into some having some explanation. Like they’re not as needing they might say that I just had it. [00:47:20]

CLIENT: Well yes, often it’s the spirits I communicate with.

THERAPIST: Yes. And that’s, yes. Oh yes, maybe the spirits communicate.

CLIENT: What is that? It’s interesting. Look at the side of the Golden Dawn. Math as a magic, you have the Kabala, it’s up in the Masons, Aleister Crowley, Society of the Golden Dawn, Enochian Language. A lot of that was there were these angels that give us this mathematical language with which to work magic. These angels come to us and tell us these things. I said okay, that’s interesting. These people are getting effects from things angels tell you. So why do you think they’re angels? So let’s assume that you’re talking to some being who’s disclaiming to you some fundamental mathematical truth to the universe. Why does that make them an angel? Well what else would it be? That’s an interesting question. What else would it be? [00:48:20]

THERAPIST: At least science is if and that you don’t it’s never based on faith.

CLIENT: Right. There are questions and there can be faith that there are answers. The belief that every question there’s an answer and that’s a very good thing because that’s somebody who knows how to work on your part. And that’s where there is value is the work you’re doing. That’s the same thing with these gurus. They’re doing this work and the work is what’s valuable but they always think the true value is this other thing, the outside external thing as opposed to this innate human quality, which is the ability to expand intention in specific ways to affect positive change. And what is that? Why does it work? I don’t know but that’s important. I agree that’s important. We should be studying that. How does this work?

THERAPIST: That reminds me of 2000 have you seen 2001? [00:49:13]

CLIENT: A long time ago. A long, long time ago.

THERAPIST: Well they, the basis of all evolution of thought was this monolith, this thing, this monolith.

CLIENT: Right, this thing. This other that’s essentially from somewhere else. It seemed to [inaudible at 00:49:28] knowledge. Yes. And that’s a very common myth, that someone came from the sky and gave us knowledge, which really I think is a great reason for me to enjoy the ancient astronauts’ theory. And that’s a completely plausible theory. Has it been proven in any way? No. There’s also interesting things people point to but there’s a great two-hour music video that goes over every argument of the ancient alien theories. He said this is why this is debunked. The guy said I love ancient alien theories. I totally buy in to the possibility of it. But none of these things support it. Super important.

THERAPIST: Well, okay so listen.

CLIENT: Not Monday.

THERAPIST: Not yes, right. Not Monday. And tell, I mean drop my name with Jenny Hallan (ph) because I gave her a call, left her a message and she got back to me. So she’s expecting you that you might call.

CLIENT: Okay. Sounds good. All right, thanks, man.

THERAPIST: Yes, okay. See you in a week.

CLIENT: See you in a week. [00:50:45]

END TRANSCRIPT