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PODCAST

Occult Confessions

The Alchemical Actors

Discover the secret history of cults, witches, magicians, conspiracies and the supernatural with occultism scholar Rob C. Thompson. His crew of Alchemical Actors explore life’s mysteries with a blend of research, ritual, and old-fashioned radio drama.

history spirituality

All Episodes

0:04

23.4: Rhiannon, the Welsh Witch

Occult Confessions ·

2024/04/19

The legends of Rhiannon come primarily from the Mabinogion, a cycle of fourth Welsh myths that tell, in part, the story of Pwyll Pen Annwn who married Rhiannon. The stories date to the twelfth century although their origins likely go much further back in Celtic history. Rhiannon is a Welsh witch or druid who uses her power to escape an unwanted courtship and marry the man she chooses. But a lie finds her subject to a terrible penance that has linked her with Epona, goddess of horses, ever since. We

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00:43:44

23.2: The Druids (Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2024/04/05

In the second part of our discussion, we turn from myth to historical documents and consider what the druids may have been like as a caste. What jobs did they perform in Celtic culture? How did their role inform what it meant to be a Celt? We also discuss modern neo-Druids and how their practices relate to the history.

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00:23:11

23.3: The Song of Lurm (April Fool's Day Special)

Occult Confessions ·

2024/04/01

In an episode recovered from the dustbin of our archive, we invite you to explore with us the strange lore of the Infertile Order and the Myth of the Cheese. Did Hiram Miraalaarn encounter planetary nymphs on his way to Venus? Are the birds to blame for our inability to pair music and lyrics in the Song of Lurm? Find out in today's very special episode.

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00:58:37

23.1: The Druids (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2024/03/22

Druids were a part of ancient celtic culture—a series of kingdoms or empires that stretched through Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Britain, and Gaul—the region of modern France as well as parts of Belgium and Italy. The Celts were distinct in each region but also shared important cultural structures and practices as well as language. Part of the challenge of recovering the druids from the fog of history is that much of their knowledge was kept strictly within an oral tradition. The Celts were by no means

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00:56:08

22.8: The Vampa Vampire Museum (Interview Special)

Occult Confessions ·

2024/03/08

We sit down with Ed Crimi, owner of the Vampa Vampire Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and talk about his collection of vampire kits collected from around the world. Crimi also tells us about the room in museum devoted to the Archangel Michael. For more about the museum, visit: https://www.vampamuseum.com.

en-US

00:50:33

22.7: The Aghoris

Occult Confessions ·

2024/02/23

The Aghoris are a sect who worships Shiva by way of Shakti or the goddess, often in the form of Kali or Tara. They spend their time at the crematorium in the sacred city of Banares or bathing in the cold waters of the Ganges in winter. They strive to overcome aversion by confronting what humans are most averse to beginning with death itself.

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00:39:41

22.6: Neo-Gnosticism (Interview Special)

Occult Confessions ·

2024/02/09

How has ancient Gnosticism resurfaced as a new religion in the modern and postmodern world? Rob introduces the path of gnosticism into modern occultism and Rob and Luke interview Paul Joseph Rovelli, founding director of the Gnostic Church of L. V. X., and the church's social media director Joseph DeOliveira.

en-US

00:59:49

22.5: The Cult of Isis

Occult Confessions ·

2024/02/02

In modern occultism, Isis is often regarded as a bearer of mysteries and a symbol of feminine power. When Helena Blavatsky invoked her name in the title of her first major work, Isis Unveiled, she sought to reveal the hidden spirituality of the East through an Egyptian lens; a religion that she claimed sat at the heart of all worship and was more true than the bastardized Judeo-Christian practices passed down in the West. Isis has played the role of purveying the secrets of a culture apart to

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00:55:07

22.4: The Ancient Gnostics

Occult Confessions ·

2024/01/19

The Gnostics believed they had access to the truth; the real truth, not the truth that everyone else thinks is the truth. Everyone who's not a Gnostic that is. While there are certain themes that tend to unite Gnostic groups, they were actually quite distinct and widespread across the Christian world in the time of the Church Fathers. Christian Gnostics—who will be our focus although Hermeticists are also sometimes classified as Pagan Gnostics—tended to believe that the Old Testament God or Yahweh

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00:57:07

22.3: Delusions of Abraham Part One (Special Episode)

Occult Confessions ·

2024/01/05

In 2015, a jury found John Jonchuck guilty of murdering his own daughter by throwing her off of a bridge over Tampa Bay. In this special episode, Bri considers the religious ideation and delusions of Jonchuck, including his obsession with a Swedish Bible, and why they did not justify an insanity plea.

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00:51:39

22.2: Persephone's Mystery

Occult Confessions ·

2023/12/22

Eleusis is a town outside of Athens where the Greeks conducted a secret rite of initiation in honor of the goddess of the earth, Demeter, and her daughter and queen of the underworld, Persephone. The rite may have dated before the Greek Dark Ages, more than a thousand years BCE, and could have had its roots in a still more ancient agrarian cult. Eleusis was known for its special relationship with the spirits of the dead who aided in the prosperity of the grains that grew in the fields outside of the

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00:59:40

22.1: The Cult of Dionysus

Occult Confessions ·

2023/12/08

If you've heard of Dioynsus, you're likely aware of his associations with grapes, wine, and theatre. The famous Theatre Dionysia was the site where some of the ancient world's greatest scripted performances were staged in honor of the god. But what is the connection between wine and theatre? The power of wine to remove inhibitions parallels the power of art to strip away the socialized self to reveal—through the donning of the theatrical mask—the true inner self. Wine and art are a path to

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01:10:20

21.8: Pop Occulture

Occult Confessions ·

2023/11/23

In this special listener panel, we discuss representations of occultism in television and film and on the internet.

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00:47:43

21.7: The Devil's Music

Occult Confessions ·

2023/11/10

We're going back to the archive for an episode that first posted to patreon in our first year podcasting. This is the first part of three on how rock came to be regarded as the devil's music (to listen to the other two, you'll need to sign up as a patron).

en-US

01:48:50

21.6: Lilith and Lilith Again

Occult Confessions ·

2023/10/27

Lilith was the first woman created alongside Adam as his equal before she quarreled with him and flew away, leaving Adam to ask God for a second wife, Eve. Belief in Lilith is based, in part, on midrash or commentary on the gaps and seeming contradictions in the Bible. Genesis says that the first man and woman are created together as equals and then in the story of Eden, it says that God created Eve after Adam by forming her from his rib. Midrash resolves this contradiction by arguing that these are

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0:05

21.5: Super Mutant Barbie Gremlins (A Strange Ride...

Occult Confessions ·

2023/10/13

It is not enough for the 80s child to reflect wistfully on a simpler time. Rather, we often want to revive the mass cultural products of our youth in a way that maintains their appeal despite or perhaps because of the cognitive and hormonal shifts that come with adulthood. 80s children have done a decent job of keeping our favorite popular cultural icons alive through the last forty years—whether as creators or as hungry audience members rewarding corporations for gazing backward. In movies like

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00:59:33

21.4: The Serpent Seed Theory (Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/10/06

This is part two of our discussion of the ancient serpent seed theory, the idea that Eve had sex with the serpent in the Garden of Eden and conceived one or several children. In this episode we consider more modern ways of reading the serpent seed idea that steer clear of racism. We revisit some old friends including P. B. Randolph and the creators of the Urantia Book and discover new ideas about how the serpent seed might connect with the theory of evolution and extraterrestrials.

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00:55:32

21.3: The Serpent Seed Theory (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/09/22

What if the serpent didn’t offer Eve an apple when they met in the Garden of Eden? What if, instead, Eve had sex with the serpent, betraying her partner and engendering a race of half-serpent, half-human people? The suggestion may seem bizarre but as a theological theory it’s had a long life and continues to surface in a variety of interpretations of Genesis up to the modern age. It’s difficult for many readers to just let the serpent be. He’s an unusual character in his own right as the only animal

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01:03:40

21.2: The Banned Book of Adam and Eve

Occult Confessions ·

2023/09/08

Perhaps more than any other text, the apocryphal Life of Adam and Eve, also known as The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan or the First and Second Books of Adam and Eve sought to put Christ in the pre-Christian Garden. But its story was too imaginative or perhaps too surreal to qualify for the Christian canon. Satan plagues the first couple following their expulsion from the Garden and God must send his angels over and over again to revive Adam and Eve who have an odd habit of dying from sorrow,

en-US

01:25:28

21.1: Eden Origins

Occult Confessions ·

2023/08/25

We tend to think that the story of Adam and Eve only became a problem from the standpoint of believability after Darwin in the mid-nineteenth-century, but, in fact, the strangeness of the story has dogged Christians throughout history. God creates two people and puts them in a garden to eat and have sex and name some animals. He puts two trees in the garden and says they can't eat the fruit off of one of the trees. Then a snake comes by and tells the woman to eat from the tree anyway so she does and

en-US

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