x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

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

00:52:20

20.5: Grigori Rasputin (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/05/05

The biography of Grigori Rasputin is hotly contested and frequently disputed. Did he perform supernatural feats? How much influence did he have over the tsar? Was he responsible for the downfall of the Russian monarchy? Drawing on scholars and first hand witnesses to Rasputin’s life, we attempt to cobble together a picture that is as true to the man as possible.

en-US

00:59:46

20.4: The Brotherhood of Saturn

Occult Confessions ·

2023/04/21

In the first half of the twentieth century, a Luciferian order of German occultists formed to cross the threshold, practice sex magic, and achieve a form of self-deification. Like many occult groups of the same time period, they claimed to have an ancient origin stretching back to ancient Rome by way of a secret quasi-Rosicrucian group who worshiped Wotan during the period of the Renaissance. This was the Brotherhood of Saturn, created by the occult bookshop owner and writer Gregor Gregorius.

en-US

00:50:10

20.3: Jack Parsons (Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/04/07

Parsons’ occult experimentation became an enormous financial and emotional liability when L. Ron Hubbard ran off with Parsons’ paramour, Betty, and all of Parsons’ savings. In this episode, Parsons attempts to recover his losses, writes a series of sometimes good and sometimes bad magical treatises, and meets his untimely end while mixing chemicals for a Hollywood movie.

en-US

00:28:43

20.2: The Eleventh Seal or the Rabbit and the Rooster...

Occult Confessions ·

2023/04/01

Are the Alchemical Actors a “cult that couldn’t cut it” or was Rob’s May 2023 retreat merely a creative exercise in occult hijinks? Judge for yourself on this special episode.

en-US

01:04:32

20.1: Jack Parsons (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/03/24

Jack Parsons was one of the world’s first rocket scientists, inventing an early version of the same fuel that was used to carry humans to the moon without ever having earned a formal degree. Parsons was almost entirely self-taught. Obsessive about rockets, he often took great risks in his experimentation with the explosives that would eventually take his life. Parsons was similarly voracious and impetuous in his study of occultism. He fancied himself a black magician, earned Aleister Crowley’s

en-US

00:50:04

19.14: Gay and/or Christian (Interview Special Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/03/17

Luke is joined by a panel of occult confessions listeners to discuss their experiences at the intersection of sexuality and Christianity. Together, they address whether it's possible to be gay and Christian today.

en-US

00:50:00

19.13: Gay and/or Christian (Interview Special Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/03/03

In this special episode, Rob sits down with Jacob Wheatley, one of our founding alchemical actors, to discuss their experience with conversion therapy as a gay teenager growing up in a Christian household. Jacob's story reveals the pain caused by these methods and Jacob tells us how they convinced their conversion therapist that conversion therapy doesn't work.

en-US

00:49:50

19.12: Charles Leadbetter

Occult Confessions ·

2023/02/17

Charles Leadbetter was one of the Blavatsky-trained second generation of theosophists and a frequent collaborator with Annie Besant. Leadbetter believed in reincarnation and his ability to recall past lives including an experience meeting Pythagoras in 504 BCE. Leadbetter claimed to have spent the next two-thousand-three-hundred years since meeting Pythagoras in the “heaven world” before being incarnated back on earth. While born without any memory of the heaven world, the lessons he learned there

en-US

01:16:40

19.11: The Urantia Book

Occult Confessions ·

2023/02/03

Heaven or Havona exists at the center of a collection of super universes within one of which our universe and our planet are found. So says the Urantia Book, channeled by an anonymous source and compiled by a committee calling itself the Forum. At its heart, the book is a reinterpretation of Christianity through a space age lens with creator gods incarnating on various planets throughout the universes they construct. According to Urantian doctrine, Jesus of Nazareth was the seventh bestowal or

en-US

00:58:06

19.10: The Many Christs of Anna Kingsford (Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/01/20

In 1876, Anna Kingsford began to have visions and psychic impressions of her past lives which became the basis for the spiritual and theosophical books that were to follow. Edward Maitland, who would be her confederate in these endeavors, was practicing a form of meditation that involved tracing his ideas back to their origin at the core of his consciousness.In summer 1881, Kingsford gave a series of lectures in London on religion and occultism which came to be called her “Perfect Way” lectures

en-US

00:45:26

19.9: The Many Christs of Anna Kingsford (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2023/01/13

Anna Bonus Kingsford was at the center of one of the biggest controversies in the Theosophical Society during Helena Blavatsky's lifetime. Arguing that Christian occultism was more accessible to a Western audience than the Hindu and Buddhist version Blavatsky had come to prefer, she threatened to split the London Lodge in half. To hold things together literally and figuratively, Blavatsky and Olcott had to make an emergency visit back from Adyar, India to London to quell the conflict brewing among

en-US

01:28:42

19.8: Christian Sex Education (Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2022/12/30

John Paul II was the second-longest reigning Pope in Catholic history and spent a lot of time writing and thinking about sex and marriage for a Pope. We consider the prohibition of contraceptives, the meaning of masturbation, and the Catholic Church's preoccupation with adult entertainment.

en-US

01:07:59

19.7: Christian Sex Education (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2022/12/16

Christian Sex Writers are an eclectic bunch from conservatives to liberals to doctors who fill you in on the birds and the bees while you wait for your blood test results. What are the Biblical sources for Christian sexual ethics, and are they consistent? Are Christian attitudes toward sex necessarily in opposition to the dominant views of Western culture? How can Christians reconcile God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” while trying to do what the celibate Jesus would do?

en-US

01:09:06

19.6: Vampire Forensics (Interview Special)

Occult Confessions ·

2022/12/02

Brett Warren brings a forensic approach to the bodies of historical vampires. Brett brings a historian’s curiosity to the project–translating eighteenth-century texts and tracing the origins of the word “vampire.” How can modern medical science help us to better understand the cadavers excavated and eviscerated after their previous owners were accused of being vampires? To support Brett’s work visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcanearchive/the-historic-vampire-debate

en-US

01:10:35

19.5: The Prosperity Gospel

Occult Confessions ·

2022/11/25

From the New Thought Movement of the 1880s to Charles Fillmore’s Depression-Era preaching to Joel Osteen’s megachurch, the notion that spiritual effort can yield material rewards has been a popular one for both New Age and Christian believers. The Prosperity Gospel asks that believers trust God and credit God for their own successes, but remind believers to work at the things they want. It preaches that money and material wealth aren’t evil and conveniently overlooks Jesus’s own poverty and

en-US

01:02:25

19.4: Live Action Religious Roleplaying (Interview...

Occult Confessions ·

2022/11/18

Anna Milon joins us to discuss her ethnographic research into the way religions are imported, created, and developed within Live Action Roleplaying. Do players bring their own religious convictions into the characters they play? What are the places where belief and fantasy overlap? Are there taboos players observe even though they’re acting our a fictional scenario? As both a player and a researcher, Milon gives us insight into the strange and fascinating intricacies of religious LARPing.

en-US

01:06:28

19.3: A Christian Theocracy (Part Two)

Occult Confessions ·

2022/11/11

Theonomy, Dominionism, and Calvinist Reconstructionism are all different names for the same idea: that the world would be better off it it operated according to a Christian Theocracy. In this episode Rob tackles the ideas of one of the more sober and influential theorists of this perspective, Gregory Bahnsen. Are ethics based on reason rather than belief in God’s law necessarily arbitrary? Did Jesus call on Christians to follow the whole of the Law or only some of the laws? And should Christians

en-US

01:01:00

19.2: Haunting a Harvest Horror (A Mystery Magic...

Occult Confessions ·

2022/10/28

A mad scientist plots, fanatics roam and rant, monsters loom. This Halloween, the Alchemical Actors joined Rob’s college students to create a unique storytelling experience in a couple of acres of corn. In this special episode, Rob gives you a glimpse behind the scenes and Savannah takes you into the field to explore our harvest horror.

en-US

00:56:22

19.1: A Christian Theocracy (Part One)

Occult Confessions ·

2022/10/21

Recent United States Supreme Court decisions on the questions of abortion rights and prayer in public school have suggested to many observers that the Court is following a theocratic Christian paradigm in passing its verdicts. The Christian Right’s involvement in politics has been a staple of twentieth-century American society and has been championed by Billy Graham in his magazine Christianity Today, Jerry Falwell with his Moral Majority, and Pat Robertson in his presidential campaigns. At its

en-US

01:00:14

18.7: Klan Christianity

Occult Confessions ·

2022/10/07

America’s white supremacist Christian Identity churches preach the abhorrent doctrine that non-white races are the descendants of Cain, birthed through a satanic tryst between Eve and the devil. Christian Identity unites the strange principles of British Israelism in the United Kingdom–which held that the British people were a lost tribe of Isreal–with American Klan and Neo-Nazi ideology. We trace the pernicious origins and results of these ideas and consider why these ideas have been so destructive

en-US

236 results

Similar Podcasts

The Old Front Line

Paul Reed

Today In History with The Retrospectors

The Retrospectors

جنود خلدهم التاريخ

ALSUMOOD PODCAST

Film History - Daily

Inception Point Ai

Madonna - Biography Flash

Inception Point Ai