We recently sat down with Vanessa Bartlett on her amazing podcast The Aquarean.

Vanessa invited us on to talk allllll about tarot, our practice, what brought us to this work, the Golden Dawn, shadow work and even our relationship, which is...something we don't discuss often. At least not in this depth!

When one is identified with one’s ego and the mental narrative that has been constructed around one's experience of life – like pretty much all of us are most of the time – it can be a major challenge to approach one’s esoteric studies from an objective standpoint. Why is that? In this mode of operation, our knowledge becomes a defining part of our self-image, which we are compelled to protect when it becomes threatened. When we are in this space, our enquiries are powered by the Thinker and the Prover, as they are termed by Robert Anton Wilson*:

"I identify with this piece of knowledge, so I must prove its validity – or disprove any other piece of information that challenges its validity."

This is the first, of what I hope will be many posts exploring the esoteric elements found within pop culture. There is no shortage, to be sure, but before we dive into anything too specifically, I wanted to first introduce the series and what brought me to it.

We’ve all heard the stories and allegations - Jay-Z and Beyoncé are card-carrying members of the Illuminati… Dungeons & Dragons was designed to initiate impressionable young boys into the horrors of the occult… Disney is the main branch of a government-sponsored mass mind-control program… But are these assertions fact or fiction? Well… it depends on who you ask. There is certainly no shortage of armchair experts on YouTube, Reddit, and other online outlets who swear up and down that all of the above is true, and that all these and more are part of an ongoing plot to poison our youths and destroy the moral foundation of society. But have any of these folks earnestly explored the subjects at hand, or are they speaking from a place of well-meaning ignorance? In my experience, the answer is usually the latter. How do I know? I used to be one of them! Oddly enough, that is how my own esoteric studies began.