Live Free Ride Free with Rupert Isaacson

Rupert Isaacson: Thanks for joining us.

Welcome to Live Free, Ride Free.

I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New
York Times bestselling author of

The Horseboy and The Long Ride Home.

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So now let's jump in.

Welcome back to Live Free.

Ride Free Self-Actualization comes
in many forms um, following your

passions, following your interests,
following your obsessions.

Nerding out and being able to eventually
make that one's profession is I think

something that we all regard been

following this man just in Sledge
for quite a while on YouTube.

And I urge you, in fact, I
could make a little pun and

I could say I demy urge you.

Which he will explain what that pun is.

To follow him too.

He, he has a, a YouTube channel
called Esoterica, the esoteric,

the arcane, the mythological, the occult,
but looked at through the lens of a

scholar while being pretty entertaining.

I can't resist that stuff.

Ex adjunct professor of philosophy and
religion at Wayne State University.

Now full-time sharer of the
esoteric muse with the rest of us.

Dr.

Sledge, what an honor to have you on.

Please, can you give us a bit
of an idea about who you are and

what you do and why you do it?

Justin Sledge: Thank you.

Thank you for having me on.

Yeah.

My name is Justin Sledge.

I'm full-time public educator on
topics in the study of Western as Aism.

So I study as Aism, which as you
mentioned, those things like the, the

occult and alchemy and Kabbalah and magic.

But studying those through an academic
lens not that the academic lens is the

only, or even maybe even the best way
of studying them, but it's certainly

one of them and it has its own set
of rigors, which are, are useful.

But yeah, I, I study this material and I
do public education on my YouTube channel.

I also teach in the university here
locally in the philosophy and religion

department, but mostly transitioned
to being a full-time public educator.

You know, I think any educator,
if you could say, look, if you

could reach a, an audience of 30
students, that's pretty impressive.

What if you can reach an
audience of 30,000 students?

And so I think most educators
want to do something like that.

And so I've been very blessed
and very lucky to have a built

up a pretty substantial audience
on my YouTube channel and.

That's basically what I focus
most of my time on though.

I've done some publishing and
recently returned from Egypt where

I did some tours and seminars there.

And so really building out kind of a
educational system one might say, for

really making this information, which
historically is quite difficult to

access and even difficult to access
now, but making that much easier for

people to access for for whatever
reasons they, they choose to study it,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

History and philosophy.

Most people like, oh, I was just
gonna leave the room immediately.

And that I never understood
because I always loved it.

'cause I'm a massive nerd until I
actually had to study it at school.

And then I thought, Jesus, these
guys suck all the life out of it.

I absolutely understand
now why everybody hates it.

Because it's presented not as it should
be, which is a, as a sort of a game of

throne zest, sex, drugs, and rock and roll
of the past, allowing us to understand the

states, which never did anyone any good.

You managed to present history
and philosophy and make it feel.

Like you are sort of in
the room with the guys.

So for the listeners I want you to
imagine things like questions you

might have had about witchcraft,
questions you might have had about

the Salem Witch trials, questions
you might have had about Kabbalah.

These words that you hear, questions
that you might have had about,

about Angels and Demonology and
the seal of Solomon and all.

Justin Sledge gonna
tell you all about 'em.

What,

Justin Sledge: something about them

Rupert Isaacson: a lot
more than a lot of others.

Perhaps, yeah.

What prompted you to do this?

Take us back to when you were a boy,
you, you grew up in Mississippi, which

is not known necessarily as, as the, one
of the great seats of Western ESO Terra.

Well, maybe it is because of
Ole Miss and you know, the Greek

revival thing of the old South.

I dunno.

But, you know, we tend to think of
Miss Zippy as a state sort of defined

by racism and things like that.

So you are down there and somehow
you get interested in all this and

you now make your career in it.

Tell us the story.

How did it, how did it all happen?

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I've gotten
asked this question a lot, and the

more that I think about it, the more
the, the question, the, the more I

think about it, the more the answer
becomes more and more complex.

Because I think more and more about
my own, my own childhood, it, it must

have been several redundant things.

Mississippi as a place is
kind of a pressure cooker.

And which is to say that if
you're not going to conform, you

have to not conform all the way.

'Cause the social pressures are so
severe that you have to really achieve

an enormous escape velocity if you're
going to be unique in any specific way.

And you can see this in the
kind of writers that we produce.

You know, we think people like Udo
Welty are are William Faulkner.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: You know, so it produces
people like that not to compare myself

in any way to, to those great titans.

But I think that I, I grew up watching
a lot of the shows that I think a lot of

people in my generation watch with sort
of author c Clark's Mysterious World

and in search of with Leonard Nemoy.

And these are shows that are,
are unsolved mysteries Robert

Stack walking out of the fog.

And you know, and it would be
these sort of shows that highlight

unusual aspects about history.

You know, things like Atlantis or
Ghosts or Sasquatch or the Bermuda

Triangle or something like that.

Those kinds of shows just fascinated
me because they basically told

me that the world was much
weirder than I thought it was.

And I just, you know, it was the kind
of thing where I couldn't let it go.

It was just interesting whether or
not they really were ghosts or they

really were UFOs or, or what have you.

And I think what what ended up
happening was that I maintained a

deep interest in that material, but
I also became pretty skeptical of it.

I, I began to think to myself, alright,
if there is a lochness monster and

that Lochness monster doesn't have
magical properties and it's just an

animal, then it has to be able to eat.

So how much fish would need to be in
the lochness for a family of lochness

monsters to be able to survive?

And you start doing some math.

They eat haggis, they eat
haggis, they eat haggis.

Yes, of course.

They, you know, they, they come up a
common shore and they drink scotch too.

They do la fig and lulin or the
lochness monster that's on the

Rupert Isaacson: western end
of the lock on the eastern end.

They, they drink the space sides.

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: exactly right.

Yeah.

It all depends on where they are.

And so these kind of questions
is, you know, vampires, right?

Like, if we're interested in vampires,
and I'm like, all right, well if

there is a vampire and they bite one
person and they don't turn them into

a, that person becomes a vampire.

How long until the world
becomes all vampires.

And at these, the questions just like.

Vexed me.

Right.

And it became the case where the
skepticism, how old you at this

Rupert Isaacson: point
getting vexed by vampires?

Justin Sledge: Oh, I must
have been in middle school.

Okay.

In fact, I must maybe
even earlier than that.

'cause I distinctly remember being in
fifth grade and thinking that a girl in

the sixth grade was in fact a vampire
and becoming very terrified of her to

this very bright, vibrant red hair.

And, you know, for whatever
reason I was convinced.

And I remember the moment where I was
like talking to a friend in hushed tones,

and I'm like, I think she's a vampire.

And she looked over at me with like
these glaring eyes and smiled at me.

And of course, fifth grade me didn't
think, oh, that's a girl smiling at you.

That's the beginning of like
flirting fifth grade me was

like, oh god, she's a vampire.

And she can read my thoughts and
she knows that I know it's over.

Like, I'm dead.

But what

Rupert Isaacson: could be
more compellingly attractive?

I hope you immediately
became her loyal slave.

Justin Sledge: I wouldn't one would hope.

But I don't know if you
know what happened with her.

I would, I should look her up and, you
know, see if she's still a vampire.

She looks exactly the same.

She's still 12 years old.

But yeah, so these kinds of
things just fascinated me, Uhhuh.

And I think that typically
people go one of two ways.

They sort of grow up and become a skeptic
in the most boring sense of that word.

They, their world becomes completely
disenchanted and they live a life

of of, slavish adherence to a
fundamentally disenchanted world.

Joylessness

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: Joylessness, but
also kind of like very boring,

incorrect version of like 18th century
mechanical or something like that.

Yeah.

Or they become sort of the other side
of it where you become convinced that

basically every unusual thing is real.

Yeah.

Is sort of what I refer to as
like conspiracy comorbidity.

You don't really meet the person
who believes just in Atlantis.

They typically are part of a nexus
of all kinds of other in my opinion,

unwarranted and unfounded beliefs.

And what happened to me was that
I maintained both positions.

I maintained a deep interest in those
kind of topics, and I developed a kind

of pretty rigorous skepticism about them.

And this led me eventually to
discovering people like Dr.

John D and his conversations with angels.

I was learning Latin at the
time, and that's who John,

Rupert Isaacson: not everyone
knows who John D was.

I know who John D was, but please tell
the listeners quickly who John D was.

Justin Sledge: John D was
a 16th century scientist.

He was a hermetic philosopher.

He was a mathematician.

He was court astrologer to Elizabeth.

I he was a spy.

I mean, he was sort of everything.

He was just a really
strange in interesting guy.

A renaissance

Rupert Isaacson: man with an occult twist.

Justin Sledge: Yes.

I mean, not that there weren't any
Renaissance men without occult twists.

That was kind of what made
Renaissance men renaissance men.

And one of the things we've carefully
excised from, from history we don't

like that occult part of them.

And so we have.

Promptly forgotten that Newton wrote far
more on Bible interpretation and alchemy

than he ever did on physics or chemistry.

Physics or, or optics.

It's an inconvenient fact about Newton.

But but yeah, I sort of
became interested in, in Dr.

John d and folks may know that he
worked through a medium and had these

long conversations with angels, which
eventually revealed the language

of the angels, what is called the
celestial speech or the Ian language.

And I think I was learning Latin at the
time in high school, and it was a moment

where I was looking at this and I could
see the fact that this angelic language

had conjugations that had decension.

It was deriving nouns from
verbs or verbs from nouns.

We're reading

Rupert Isaacson: original 16th
century sources at this point.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I was reading, yeah, reading
the, the, the text at age

Rupert Isaacson: 12.

Justin Sledge: No, no, no.

I was in high school by then.

I must have been 15, 14 at the time.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

But not your average 14-year-old is
not running around reading original

16th century sources in Latin.

Justin Sledge: No, no, no.

Probably not.

I mean, my, my Latin, my Latin teacher,
God bless her, really put up with a lot.

She let me translate a, an
alchemical text from the 16th

century as my Latin two project.

Far more interesting than reading Cicero.

But but yeah, so I got interested
in that stuff and, and there was a

moment where I was looking at this
and I was like, it can't be random.

You, if you're just generating
random gibberish, you don't

get conjugations into clin.

Something's going on here.

Like, this is really weird.

And it became obvious to me as
I ultimately transitioned into,

into college, which was a very
accidental and slow transition.

I never intended to go to college.

My dad was a working class guy from
Mississippi who was a, a pipe fitter,

and I worked with him and I thought
basically that my life would more

or less be some version of that.

And yeah, and it was a moment where these
questions just didn't let go of me and I

had to, you know, settle my earth while
philosophical conscious to quote marks.

And eventually when I got into
college, I just turned my full

attention to these kinds of questions.

Like, what, what is the, the upside down
of the history of philosophy, the history

of science, the history of spirituality.

The history of history what is
the upside down of that world?

And it turns out there's an enormous
upside down and it it's still collectively

forgotten, still collectively repressed.

I could tell you shocking stories
about graduate school when I was

in graduate school for philosophy,
where I was literally told

that things just didn't happen.

Things just didn't go that way.

Not because they gimme a shocking

Rupert Isaacson: example.

Please shock me.

Justin Sledge: So, one of the things
that I'm pretty interested in is the

foundations of what is we now call
rationalism, the philosophical school that

is associated with the en enlightenment.

It comes roaring out of
people like Descartes en Leni

Rupert Isaacson: and Spinoza.

Right.

And a and a reaction to the church.

Repression of the Middle Ages.

To some degree.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: To some degree, yeah.

And, you know, and it's, that's, you
know, it's a complicated story, but at

the heart of the story, at least one
of the important aspects of the story

is that insofar as Descartes is at the
lynchpin of the rise of modernity and

the rise of rationalism, and I think
that he is, is that it's not often talked

about that the fact that he started his
entire philosophical program because

he had a bunch of mystical dreams and
these mystical dreams involved a divine

being, coming to him in his dream and
revealing to him this new philosophy.

Okay.

If you read his philosophical works,
beginning with the regular and going

all the way through the discourse on
method, the meditations and the principles

he's writing and rewriting the exact
same book over and over and over again.

It's like a Beethoven, dun, dun.

It's obsessive.

And it's because he's working out what
was revealed to him in a dream years ago.

And I wanted to really focus in on the
fact that, and one of the things I really

wanted to focus in on was like that the
origins of modernity and rationalism

have their fundamental building
block in a series of mystical dreams.

Why?

And I was told that that didn't happen.

You can't talk that way.

You can't focus on that.

Please repeat that.

Rupert Isaacson: I'm
gonna write that down.

The, the foundation, I'm
paraphrasing, so correct me.

The foundation of western empiricism.

Rationalism.

Rationalism.

Not empiricism, rationalism.

Rationalism.

Right.

I believe it when I see it type stuff.

Sure.

Rationalism has its foundation.

What is roots in a series
of mystical dreams.

Right.

Experienced by a man called Dick Art.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Yeah.

Leman was reading Kabbalah.

Newton was, was reading Kabbalah.

Leitz, the guy invented
calculus co-invented calculus.

As I mentioned, Newton was knee deep
in alchemy and biblical numerology.

And so, and, and again, I'm not
saying that that all of modernity

is downstream of this stuff that I
study called Western as a terrorism.

What I'm saying is, is that it, it's
there, it played a role, it played

an important role, and yet there's
something about it that, that we can't

term, we can't come to grips with.

We don't want to admit.

It's there again, I was, I was
told in graduate school, it

just didn't happen that way.

And if you say that it happened that way,
they're, they're, you're going to, like,

you're gonna scuttle your entire career.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Yeah.

My, my step-grandfather was a professor
of philosophy at Boston University, and

he was the first to say you that, that
you just have to tow a line, and if you

don't tow that line, you won't get a job.

Yep.

Rupert Isaacson: And I, I think that's
true of actually most of academia.

It's true of all of academia.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: But it's, especially
somehow, and again, I came up through

the philosophical ranks, you know, I
was, you know, I, I remember finding

Aristotle when I was in middle
school and really, like, remember

reading an a, you know, an Aristotle.

That philosophy begins in awe.

And I didn't come from
a middle class family.

I came from a working class family.

And

Rupert Isaacson: I, philosophy begins
in, or you can't just say these

things, Justin, and not like pause
for like a power cord, but hold on.

Philosophy begins, it

Justin Sledge: begins in awe.

A bewilderment is even a
better, a better translation.

I,

Rupert Isaacson: all right.

Okay.

Philosophy began

Justin Sledge: and, and
that stuff stuck with me.

And when I got into the academic
side of, of philosophy, I found that

it, it, it in some way, in some ways
had betrayed so much of the things

that led me to it to begin with.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I really gristle with it.

I did.

I never, I, I found that my
philosophical training in graduate

school was very unpleasant.

I often bucked against things.

I, I asked questions that
were apparently inappropriate.

I was told, yeah, tell
the line, tell the story.

You know, modernity begins with
Descartes and it begins with doubt.

And we doubt our way to the truth.

And therefore, what
really matters is doubt.

And the most important things
you doubt is God and religion.

Right.

And, and then I was like, that's
not what de Hart's arguing.

And that's not why ta hart's arguing that
like Descartes structures the meditations

in order to prove God, to get certainty.

And he structured them around a, a
cycle of meditations that are religious

in character and for six days, because
that's how long God made the world.

And you rest on the seventh,

the story you're telling is
just ipso facto like you, like

you, you, you have, you have a
mythology that you want to tell.

Right about modernity.

And I'm not saying that one earth is
better than the other, but I'm saying

you can't pretend to be the purveyors
of truth and philosophical wisdom and

also be part of this semi-conscious myth
building that that you're contributing to

at this at one level, but telling yourself
that it's really true on the other.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

I think what you're putting your
finger on is that one can't say,

given that everything is myth, we
create mythologies about everything.

Right?

So as you said, your, your professors
there we're creating mythologies about

which were dogmas, which, which is
just another word for mythology, right?

Just means a mythology that I, I might
punish you for not believing, but doing

that in reaction to another mythology,
IEA religion or something, and saying,

well, our mythology is the mythology
that mythology is not the mythology.

Right.

You know?

But it's all actually
a mythology, you know?

And at some point it's got to be all
right to say if it's all mythology,

what isn't that kind of interesting.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

And I'm not sure that I would go so
far as to say it's all mythology.

I would say that, that I.

And I'm, I'm, I'm a child
of the Enlightenment.

I'm pretty convinced that there is
a, there is a, a, a better way of

telling the, the history of philosophy.

And that's part of why I'm
committed to doing what I'm doing.

It's not because I believe in
any of the things I talk about.

I'm not a believer in, as a tism,
I'm a believer in OC Cultism.

I don't believe, you know, metaphysically
I'm not committed to any of it.

But what I'm committed to is telling
the history, telling our history better

so that we can live in a better future.

Because the more that we live in this
sort of the semi formed semi-conscious

mythology, I don't think that's
good, a good predictor for building

a good future because we haven't
come to terms with our own past yet.

And so,

Rupert Isaacson: yeah.

Justin Sledge: And so for me, it's
just holding up a, a mirror to say

this is part of the, the past and
it's part of the present and it's

gonna be part of the future, frankly.

And until we come to terms with it and
stop telling ourselves that rationalism

was born out of a hatred of the church
and a hatred of religion, and we

rejected superstition for the clarity
of science, that just didn't happen.

It just simply did not happen that way.

And the more we continued, the more we
continued to tell that story and not

admit to us that it is in fact a story.

We need to have a more
nuanced view of this stuff.

And I, that's my goal is to say, it
doesn't matter whether you believe in.

Whether Descartes doesn't really
matter whether or not you believe that

there a divine being came to Descartes
and really told him the truth about

history, philosophy, science, or
whatever, what matters is that happened.

He believed it happened,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

So, and I've got questions and we need to

Justin Sledge: wrestle with that,
come to terms with it, right?

Rupert Isaacson: So I've got
some questions about that.

But quickly before we go there, one of
the things I love about what you've done

is you've then traced those mythologies.

So in your YouTube series, which I
just can't recommend listeners to you

to listen enough, just while you're
driving around, just listen to them.

They're brilliant.

But you, you more or less start
it, you know, as far early as

you can in Mesopotamia more, I, I
haven't found one earlier than that.

If you have done one about
earlier than that, then I dunno.

And then you, you, you trace through
all of the different Mesopotamian,

historical belief, philosophical systems.

'cause there were many.

And then so Sumaria, Acadia,
Babylonian, I'm missing one, you know,

hit heights, medians, blah, blah.

And then you get to, you, you
take us through Egypt in many,

it's many, many permutations.

You take us through Greece in
its many, many permutations.

You take us through Hellenic Greek,
Egypt in its many permutations.

You take us through Roman into
early Christian stuff, and then

you take us through pretty much
up to, well, the enlightenment.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Basically the, my, the minute
of the channel ends sometime in

the 18th century, 1750, which is

Rupert Isaacson: about
a 6,000 year timeline.

Right.

It's, it's, it's, it's a solid chunk
of, and it's where we all come from.

You were the son of a pipe fitter
in Mississippi, but Mississippi,

as we also know, is actually
quite a deeply spiritual place.

Mm-hmm.

Both from the black point of view,
African American point of view,

and from the white point of view.

Were, was your family a religious family?

Were, were you Southern Baptist, were you
taking up rattlesnakes and things, or were

you, you know, going to ecstatic services?

Or were you actually born into
a pretty secular household?

Justin Sledge: I was born into sort
of a, my, my father is a, a a bit of a

pessimistic man, so I think that his view
of religion was always relatively gloomy.

So I don't think he was
terribly ever religious.

And I think that my family, I wouldn't
describe them as being very religious

Rupert Isaacson: because there's pressure
on you to be religious in, in the south.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: South is strange.

I lived in the south.

There's some pressure.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

The south is a weird place where there's a
pressure to conform and there's a pressure

to be religious, but deep into the south,
there's also a cynicism about things.

Okay.

Southern attitudes, you know, yeah.

There, there's sort of a credulity
to cynicism, you know, circuit that,

that runs around a pendulum almost.

Yeah.

And and you can see this and you know,
again, I mentioned Faulkner, you read the

sound on the Fury and they're religious,
but also they're like, no, there's no God.

Come on.

Yeah.

And so, but it was a strange
journey because my biological

father died when I was quite young.

And my mother was kind of held on to some
aspects of, of him and was like, look,

you know, just so you know, like your,
your dad was Jewish and if that's a thing

you're interested in, you know, I called
the local rabbi and he set up a meeting

and he's happy to talk to you about it.

They allowed you in Mississippi.

Sorry, I didn't have, sorry.

I'm kidding.

Yeah.

There, there, there are 200 families.

And in fact, you know, the Jew
Southern Jews are a strange breed.

All, all their own, you know, they, they,
the, they were one of the largest chunks

of people to fight for the Confederacy.

And interesting.

And happily will, some of them will
happily tell you that the only Jewish

person to ever occur on Amer on,
on money in this hemisphere where

we are was Judah p Benjamin, the
Secretary of State for the Confederacy.

Interesting.

Rupert Isaacson: I
myself am half Ashkenazi.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wrong.

The wrong kind.

That's why I can make
all the Jewish jokes.

So it's my dad which means I get all
the anxiety, neurosis, and guilt.

But no cigar?

No, no.

For the club.

Justin Sledge: I mean, you could,
you could, you could fix that.

You could have both.

But I guess if, if you were inclined, but
but no, it was, you know, I was like 12.

My mom was like, you're gonna
go meet with the synagogue.

I remember it was like a
rainy cold Tuesday night.

Mm-hmm.

And met with the, you know,
Jimmy golfer, rabbi by Jimmy

Golfer was a big imposing guy.

And he was, was sort of stare
at you until you said something.

And he was like, why are you here?

And I'm like, I have no idea why I'm here.

Like, you know, good answer.

And it was and he was like, well,
what do you want from being here?

And I'm like, I don't know.

What is this?

And it, it was a sort of
an interesting journey.

How old are you at that point?

Like 12.

Okay.

And yeah, that resulted in, you
know, learning Hebrew, going,

starting going to synagogue.

And I think much of my parents'
horror I became religious, although

in a, a strange way and remain
religious in a very strange way.

I'm married to a rabbi.

I would consider myself pretty religious.

In, in, in many ways.

But well,

Rupert Isaacson: given that you just
said that you don't necessarily buy

all of the philosophical occult,
mythological and religious things that

you cover in your, episodes, and I think
people could sometimes be misled into

feeling that you do, because I think
you, you, one of your great traits

is that you can empathize with the
people who are presenting these things.

So it can sound sometimes
like, oh, well, Dr.

Sledge must be a, you know, a capitalist,
or he must be a believer in witchcraft,

or he must be because the way you
present it, it's very immediate and real.

So as skeptical then as, or as, as
dispassionate as you are with ghosts

and demons and things how does that
marry up to being religious, not just

spiritual, but actually religious?

How does religiosity come into that?

Justin Sledge: For me, religion is
how we navigate the world through

the, in the way that we produce,
meaning through systems of symbols.

And I think that those systems
of symbols they, they make

the world make sense to us.

They provide meaning, they
provide structures like community.

They provide rituals and, and these
kinds of mechanisms that I think

basically everyone has or everyone needs
whether, whether they know it or not.

And to me, I am

what's the right way of putting it?

I can take my mythology very seriously
without taking any of it literally.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So what you're, am I right in saying
that what you are saying is that

this is a mythology that has a.

Way of making sense of the
world that you find helpful.

Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: But you are not
necessarily saying that every

word of, as you point out, that
library of books, which we've come

to call the Torah or the Bible is
necessarily a sacred text by which

you must live your life or be damned.

Justin Sledge: Or that it even
contains historical facts.

Yeah.

That I don't know that
the exodus happened.

I don't know that Moses
was really a real person.

I don't think Abraham
was really a real person.

You know, I, these are the kind of
questions where someone's like, well,

do you, if you don't believe that
Moses really was a real person and

really went up on mountain and really
got rules, then why follow the rules?

I'm like, because it's the
following of the rules that builds

the meaning, not the not well.

Why

Rupert Isaacson: those rules
and why not other rules,

Justin Sledge: I guess.

'cause I, those other rules don't make
any sense to me and they're foreign to me.

Mm-hmm.

And that doesn't make them bad.

It just makes 'em not the rules that
are compelling to me, but, right.

Rupert Isaacson: For example, Buddhism,
you know, classic common sense.

You know, don't be a dick basically.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Why not that?

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I guess I,
I find that I don't like sitting

around a lot, a lot being quiet.

Like I don't find
enlightenment to be, you know.

Yeah, it just seems like a lot of work
for something I'm not very interested in.

I know that sounds very flippant,
but if, if someone, if I had to, if

I have to sit down for an hour a day
being quiet but the Buddhism doesn't

Rupert Isaacson: tell
you you have to do that.

I mean Yeah.

Or just, or, or the Don't be a dick.

And don't be a dick in the
way that suits you best.

Yeah.

If you want to meditate, then by all
means meditate, but you don't have to.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I mean, in that sense that I'm like,
yeah, I guess I don't speak poly.

I don't live in a culture
that operates in poly.

I don't believe in reincarnation.

Reincarnation strike me as a
terribly inter karma does, strikes

me as a horrifying belief system.

Right.

Yeah.

So it's, it's the system of rules
that makes the most sense to me.

Got it.

And also it's because
they're, they're diaphanous.

I don't even notice them as rules.

They're just the way that I live my life.

Right.

Rupert Isaacson: And I think you also,
you know, pointed out that culturally, you

know, what you are looking at is western.

Right.

Esotericism, we can include Judaism in
that, you know, because even though it's

confusing, because Judaism and Mesopotamia
and all that places, we think of it as

the Middle East, but really it's what
engenders Western are, Western culture

comes outta that because the Greeks and
the Romans borrow it, basically Nick it.

Right.

Basically.

Or our products of it.

So in a funny way, we're all
Middle Eastern without knowing it.

Yeah.

To some degree.

To some degree.

But

Justin Sledge: yeah, it's a
thing where, you know, I, I, I.

Same with, you know, Christianity seems
like a, a often a very, for like, in

many ways I was just in Egypt and Islam
seems like a much closer religion to me,

for instance, I could easily imagine.

And I have like, I could pray in a mosque.

That is, that's the kind of thing
that makes them very easy sense to me.

It's a very like, transparent
how that would work.

Churches seem very foreign places
to me when I go inside of a, a

Coptic Orthodox church or you know,
a know sort of Catholic church.

I'm like, it was funny 'cause I had a
friend of mine who she switched from being

Catholic to being pagan sort of spirit.

Nah, same thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Spirit sort of, you know, so you
kind, and that was my opinion.

I was like, oh, that's, there's,
they're basically the same.

I, I tend to look at Catholicism
and Paganism as being very similar,

like, and with all their saints and
all these rituals and all these like

lighting candles and you know, the,
these like, it's the incense and stuff.

I'm like, those look very similar to me.

And she was horrified, but because
for her, she had abandoned something

as a rebellion against it and
transferred to something else that she

thought was completely the opposite.

And it was something very
shocking to her dear.

Someone say, you know, and for, and it's
funny 'cause I was talking to my, one

of my Muslim tour guides when we were
in Egypt and we also were, we shared

in common the fact that, that we didn't
understand, you know, it was like a very.

It was a very that the, that the, that
the churches were very foreign to us.

And it's funny that we couldn't be more
different in terms of our geographical

history, our language history, but
mythologically we were closer in the way

that we made sense of the world than we
were, you know, to the Catholic cathedral

that's literally in my neighborhood.

Rupert Isaacson: And it's interesting to
me when you say that, because I had this

weird upbringing where I was listening
this morning while I was picking my

horse's poo to your one of your and I was
actually a coer at the temple in London.

So that's the second
oldest building in London.

It's now the seat of law, you know,
the judges and the barristers.

It's their church.

And the school I went to provided
the choir boys either for that church

or the Chapel Royal, which was the,
at that point, the Queen's chapel.

Now the kings.

And you would be drafted
into one or the other.

And interestingly, you
know, you, you are there.

I, I'm not baptized, I'm not circumcised.

I'm neither Jewish nor Christian.

And some of the other boys in the
choir were like Muslims and Hindus.

We were just picked for our voices.

But it was very, very clear that you
were in this kind of seat of power.

And there are the effigies of
all the Marshall family or the

English Knights Temple lying there.

There's a copy of Magna Carta, but they
don't talk to you about any of that.

But the ritual of it, the high Anglican
ritual, which is effectively Catholic,

you know, while being Protestant,
I don't see much difference between

that and a synagogue, honestly.

And perhaps that's because I had
this perspective of being Colonial

African, even though we grew.

So I worked a lot with these people
behind me in their systems of the

hunter gatherer shamanic traditions,
and which is effectively very similar

to mysticism within any religion really.

So I don't see a lot of difference
in any organized religion.

I, I lived in India for a bit too,
and I, I remember going into temples,

but effectively chanting in these
particular tones and big resonant stone

buildings and chaps wondering about
telling you what to do and what not to do.

And with a sort of slight air of you'll
be in trouble if you don't type thing.

And this idea of, you know,
punishment and reward.

And that's not, for example,
in the hunter gatherer sense,

that's just not even there.

And, but there is divinity.

And there are ancestors and there are,

there is the divine, but not in a
sort of an organized way, which not,

and also not in a way that you have
to, you don't have to be reverent.

So let's say for example,
there is a healing going on.

It usually comes out with healing
and the healer is there going into

an alter state of consciousness and
you'll see them bleeding and pulling

stuff out of people and it's like,
whoa, I'm actually seeing that.

But right next to 'em, there's a bloke
smoking a cigarette, like flirting with

a girl and there's kids just running
about, and no one is supposed to be

approaching it with a sense of reverence.

Yet at the same time, there is
awe this much greater thing that,

and presumably given that we all sort
of come from that and then we found

all these ways of expressing it.

But what we're really are or
are we not, I shouldn't say what

we're already doing 'cause that's
a really misled thing to say,

are we not just all talking about love?

Justin Sledge: I don't know.

I mean, I, I I, I guess there's two
things that, that I would think is that I

would be slow to compare hunter gatherer.

Religion today with what we may
have come from, because I don't know

that we know, you know, in lieu of
texts, we don't really know what

they, what they were doing in, you
know, a hundred thousand years ago.

So I'm, I'm, I'm slow to extrapolate from
the present too far back into the past.

And then I think that that religion,

when I look at, I'll give an example.

For instance, ancient Israelite religion.

There's not much love there that
is a god of, that is a tribal God

who's there we're talking about.

Rupert Isaacson: And lil more or less
aren't, we we're talking about a, that's

the first bloke coming along with a
big beard who's gonna slap you on the

bottom for being a naughty boy, right?

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I mean, in Lil Yahweh Indra.

Yeah.

You know, I think that once you
get once you get territorial,

once you get city states, yeah.

The gods start to look a lot like
the people ruling those city states.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, you know, and I think
that underneath it all is

there is no underneath at all.

It, it depends on the material,
historical circumstances upon

which rests these religious

Rupert Isaacson: expressions.

Justin Sledge: And I think,
but, but there is, is

Rupert Isaacson: is there not a
mystical thread that runs through

most religions where people seem
to be able to find common ground?

I don't think so.

Or you don't think so?

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I'm, I'm, I, I am notoriously
a, a, a non perennial.

I'm this is a, a notorious fact about
me in the religious studies world

is that m many people who come to
Western as a tism or as a tism and

mysticism typically come at it from
the point of view of perennialism.

What

Rupert Isaacson: does perennialism

Justin Sledge: mean?

And so it says that at the core of
religion is sort of a mystical center,

and that at, and then, then that at
that mystical center religions grow out

of that mystical center and therefore
Judaism is an expression of it.

You know, shamanism, all the different
religions are somehow grow out of that

core mystical that core mysticism.

And so this is a position held by
people like ETA and Yung and William

James and sort of classic peral list.

I tend to come from the traditionalist
camp which is very unpopular

for both the right and the left.

Don't like traditionalism.

Well, if you're

Rupert Isaacson: pissing off
both sides, it's usually means

you're onto something good.

Justin Sledge: Maybe, maybe.

Or are you just gonna get
yourself in a lot of trouble?

But I'm of the camp traditional typically
that says that there, that there

is no core, that when you study the
religions closely enough, they're much

more different than they are the same.

And that, that if there is a universal,
it can only be known through the

particular and therefore only individual.

Traditions exist.

And those are hyper-local, hyper-specific,
and often are more marked by their

discontinuity than by their continuity.

So, I'll, you know, the, for instance,
a good example of this is we tend to

think that there's a lot of continuity
between Israelite religion and Judaism.

But if you study the two, they
couldn't be more discontinuous.

They're extraordinarily
different from each other.

Now, of course there's connective tissue,
the uniting them, but if you were to drop

a modern orthodox Jew into the temple
2000 years ago, they would be as lost

as anyone else as to what, what would be

Rupert Isaacson: the major
difference that they would see?

Justin Sledge: They would be
in a giant building, killing

animals and burning things.

And that would be the principle
mechanism by which you would

interact with your God is by killing,
killing animals and burning stuff.

Typically and you would not be, most of us
would not be allowed into that building.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay?

There

Justin Sledge: would be a distinct group
of people allowed in, and you would

not be, you would very statistically
be unlikely to be one of them.

Rupert Isaacson: So that would
be the Jewish temple, right?

About the time that the Romans go in there
and destroy it, and the diaspora begins.

Okay, let's go back a thousand years
before that, what would the Jewish temple,

what would the temple look like then?

Lot

Justin Sledge: smaller, but similar.

It's still mostly a, a priesthood run
by very small, basically a family.

And then there would be a, a, a monarch
and that monarch would be in relationship

to that priesthood, somehow often
married into it or part of that family.

And yeah, there would be a series of
pilgrimage festivals in which people

would be expected to come to that temple.

And it would be, again, mostly
slaughtering animals and burning things.

And since

Rupert Isaacson: at that stage, if
we're now 3000 years back mm-hmm.

Would that, would that Jewish temple
be a monotheistic or a polytheistic

or probably polytheistic, right?

Or that seems to make a
big difference, right?

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: henotheistic probably,
if you're thinking about sort of 1000

BCE, it probably would've been the
case that the Israelites would've

worshiped their God as the best God,
sort of like, my dad can beat up

your dad, but your dad still exists.

Okay.

He's just not the dad.

He's just not my dad.

Rupert Isaacson: And in that temple,
would we hedge our bets by sacrificing

to your dad as well, just in case?

'cause you never know type thing.

Justin Sledge: Depends on the mon.

Depends on the monarch.

But yeah, in many cases it seems like
the monarchs typically I'll give one

example is that if you marry, if you
married a woman from a local powerful

nation like the Phoenician, then
she's gonna bring along her gods and

there's gonna be an expectation that.

But would they be allowed

Rupert Isaacson: in your temple or would
they have to have their own temple?

Justin Sledge: They'd probably
be allowed in your temple.

I mean, that's that, you know, we have
evidence for that in the Hebrew Bible.

Okay.

And some of that, some, some
people did not like that.

So the prophets did not like that 'cause
they were really on team, our dad,

and they didn't think anyone else was.

Dad should be in there.

Mm-hmm.

But but no, you, you would go back
in time far enough and you would see

that this God, Yahweh had a wife.

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Right.

Well, that's what, that
was my next question.

So at what point does my
dad become only my dad?

And what about dad and mom and
dad, mom, brother and his mates.

Like, yeah.

What point does Yahweh
become a single thing?

It's a huge debate.

One of several things.

Justin Sledge: A huge debate.

Some scholars would say not
until second and third sec.

Second and third
centuries of a common era.

I tend to think it's a
bit earlier than that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They, the evidence to

Rupert Isaacson: support

Justin Sledge: that.

There's evidence to say that, that
the, the Israelites continue to believe

in deities, mostly sort of like sub
deities in the sense of angels and Okay.

And, and in entities
being converted into sub.

Rupert Isaacson: So do you think
that those original multi gods, got

subverted just became, okay, well we'll
make those guys angels and demons.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

They got demoted into angels and demons.

We certainly know that
happened in, in Christianity.

I tend to think that we see the first
expressions of monotheism in Deutero

Isaiah, so during the Babylonian exile.

But give

Rupert Isaacson: us a, a timeline

Justin Sledge: on that.

That would be what, so 5 86 is
when the Babylonian exile begins.

So I would say it's quite late.

It sixth century, BCEI think we get Right.

So it's

Rupert Isaacson: contemporary with like
Mythe and Greece and Homer and stuff.

More or less, give or take
a little, a little later

Justin Sledge: actually.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I think it's late.

I it's much later than people think it is.

Okay.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Right.

It's not how it's presented right at all.

You know?

So when Moses goes up the
mountain, is he talking to Yahweh?

Yahweh's brother?

Yahweh's wife or Yahweh's mates?

Justin Sledge: I mean, I think by
then the Moses story is pretty late.

And when is the Moses story?

Well, it's set historically around
thir 1500, 1300 BCE, but I think it was

probably written closer to five 600 BCE.

Right.

So I think the story is, is
a bit's really quite late.

I think that there's memories of
something that go back earlier,

but I think the Moses story itself
is, is relatively, relatively late

Rupert Isaacson: because that's not
much before, you know, your Socrates

and Neo Platos start coming along.

I mean, there's only about
a hundred years in it.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, it's,
it's a, you know, this is the

so-called axial age, right?

Where Ezekiel and you know, Socrates
and Parmenides and, you know,

Confucius and all those guys were
around and almost, you know, within

a couple hundred years of each other

Rupert Isaacson: It almost makes
you wonder if they were meeting in

some altered state of consciousness
place elsewhere and saying, why

don't we just come up with a bunch
of stuff that sounds really the same

and just out of everybody later,

Justin Sledge: I think that
they, I mean, I, I can't imagine

they would've liked each other.

I, I imagine that that Socrates and
Confucius would not have seen eye to eye.

I think his Socrates would've bothered
Confucius to the ends of the earth.

Why Ezekiel?

Because I think the Confucius had a very
clear idea about how the world should be

structured after the warring state period.

And I think Socrates had a very clear idea
that no one had a clear idea of anything.

And I think that Ezekiel would've
hated them because he would've he'd

have seen them as idolaters and,
and, and he was really all about like

reinstituting the power of his God.

And quickly bringing back a third
temple and ushering in some kind of

apocalyptic renovation of the world.

I don't think they'd
have gotten along at all.

Rupert Isaacson: Fascinating.

Okay, so, let's go back to your
discovery then of, of John d as your are.

You, you we're in your teenage self.

You are reading an Elizabethan, a cultist,
who's also, as you say, a courtier, a

spy, an ambassador, an advisor to Good
Queen Bess, who is still to this day, one

of our most successful British monarchs.

She lays the foundations for the
British Empire and the Bank of England

and everything that followed our
great greatest act of piracy that,

you know, we still to some degree.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I mean,
it was John d that found, that

coined the phrase British Empire.

That's his phrase.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

So you have a guy who's fairly practical
and savvy and can also navigate the

inter Nissan conflict of a court like
that and have some longevity there

because it was easy to fall out of favor.

Particularly if you're pretending to
talk to the divine, because any, any mo

Monarch worth their salt's gonna say,
all right, well then, you know, gimme

lots of goodies and if you can't come
up with the goodies, then you know,

things might not go so well for you.

So what's he talking to Angels?

And if he wasn't talking to
Angels, why was he spending

so much time saying he was.

Justin Sledge: So he never talked
to the angels directly, right?

He always talked to them
indirectly via his reer.

A dude named Edward Kelly, right,
who was a convicted conman.

In fact, he had his ears cut
off for for previous con jobs.

And he even presented himself to Dee
as a, under a false name, an alias.

He called himself Edward,
but Dee was not, was

Rupert Isaacson: not a gullible man.

Justin Sledge: He, I think
he was a very gullible man.

I think he was very smart.

I've met lots of smart people who are
also extremely gullible because the

people tell them what they want to hear.

And I think that Dee Dee had run up
basically up against a wall and he

admits as much, and he was on this
quest for what he calls radical truths.

And you know, he, he, he, I think
he had grown exhausted with trying

to find them the conventional way,
which is to say, you know, using

equipment and using reason to do it.

And I think that for him, he
wanted to short the circuit.

And the way you shorten the circuit is
go straight to the people that designed

the whole world, and you go right back to
God and you interact via the people that

built the world, and that's the angels.

Rupert Isaacson: And so, but
this was a risky thing to do.

I mean, okay, he wasn't in
Spain or Rome, but previous to

Elizabeth, you have Bloody Mary.

She's burning everyone in sight.

After Elizabeth, you've got King James
comes in, he burns everyone in sight.

It is dangerous to go around saying.

You're doing this sort of thing.

Justin Sledge: Oh, he
didn't go around saying it.

He kept it very quiet.

Yeah.

This was a very quiet thing.

And, you know, he

Rupert Isaacson: was, he was he
telling Queen Bess that he was doing

Justin Sledge: it?

I don't know that he communicated to her.

And also remember just a year after
he starts this business of talking

to Angels, he's on the continent for
the next six years, and he's in the

Holy Roman empire, basically under the
protection of Rudolph ii, who himself

was a very mercurial, strange guy.

And so I think that there
was a lot more latitude.

Rupert Isaacson: He was an occultist.

It's true.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Yeah.

And he was able to move around
and, and the Inquisition did try

to get him, they did invite him.

Oh, they did.

They did.

And they knew that something was going on.

But I mean, Dee was cautious.

Edward Kelly was not cautious.

He got them in a, a good bit of trouble.

But I think that, I think
also that Elizabeth needed Dee

alive because he was useful.

He was a, and I don't think she cared
what he, the weird things he got up

to at night, as long as he didn't
make a big deal about it, because

there was lots of people doing strange
things and don't do it in the street

Rupert Isaacson: and
frighten the horses stuff.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: Right.

And I think even James, James knew
that he was doing this stuff, and

Dee publicly told James, well,
put me on trial for witchcraft.

I'll prove to you that I'm
not doing anything bad.

And James declined it, you know, and
this is the days of the witch finder

General and all that, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Killed 200 women.

James knew that killing
Dee would be a bad look.

And so basically we gave him a
pension and, and let him alone.

So, again, this is the kind of
thing where we, we typically think

of the witch, the period of the
witch trials as being a no-no time

for any kind of occult shenanigans.

But there were lots of occultists
at that time, publishing.

I mean, Cornelius Agrippa published the
three books of occult philosophy in 1533.

You know, the Inquisition tried to
intervene, but ultimately they were

shut down by the local archbishop.

The local archbishop shut them down.

So the local Archbishop where in cologne
in Germany, and, you know, that's the

heart of the trials, which trials were,
you know, horrifying in, in, in Germany.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

Where I'm sitting is in a village
called Eden Hausen, which is next

door to a town called Ich ine.

And Ich INE has a tower
called the Witches Tower.

Mm-hmm.

And outside they have a monument
to all of the witches that were

kept there before execution.

All of the names, 'cause they're all
in the Paris Regi parish Register.

Yeah.

Interestingly, about a
third of them are men.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And the hill, which
we pass on the way to Itchin, which

interestingly you also leave the Roman
Empire and there's, you go through

what's called the Lemus, which was,
you probably know is the line of

embankments that went from the mouth
of the Rhine down to the Danube.

You pass over that and there's
a reconstructed Roman tower.

And then very quickly on
your right there's the hill

where they killed them all.

And then.

Down the road in Bamberg.

Yeah.

They invented a special furnace
where, 'cause they cut down so many,

so much forest to, to, to burn so
many people that they had to come

up with a more efficient furnace
to burn whole families at one time.

That not run outta fire would crazy.

So in that case, why could
some people get away with it?

Justin Sledge: Because they were wealthy,
educated men and not poor people.

And also because

Rupert Isaacson: typically, but they did
put to death wealthy, educated men if

they, if it was politically expedient,

Justin Sledge: often for political
reasons and not for reasons of sorcery.

It did happen.

I mean, we do have people that
were executed like Czech Oli, who

was executed in the 14th century.

But almost always, when you see
an execution for sorcery, it's,

it's, it's a precursor for some
other kind of political move.

It's a game of their own thing.

Rupert Isaacson: Like with
the temps, they're all Yeah.

The temps, the debt.

Right, right.

Justin Sledge: The temps are, are
executed because the, the king, you

know, Philip ViiV is badly in debt.

Yeah.

To them.

And so that's the best way of
dealing with your creditors is.

Killing them all.

So, but in the cases, the witch trials,
is that the, that the crime that you

were accused of in the witch trials
was a very specific crime called Maia.

And this was a, what is now called
by scholars, the elaborated theory

of witchcraft, which meant that
you signed a pact with the devil

to wage a war against Christianity.

And clearly John d is, is a Christian
Agrippa was a Christian Bruno, not so much

that that's what got him ultimately burned
alive, although even then it was the case

that he was a a, an ex priest who had,
who had said things about the Trinity that

were heretical and refused to recant them.

But you'd be surprised how few
educated Occultists were executed.

Paracelsus never persecuted.

I don't wanna say they had good lives,
and they certainly had to be careful

and they had to be on the move.

But you know, Kelly also the guy literally
talking to the angels, he, you know,

he rats them out on several occasions.

He tells the truth about what's going on.

He ultimately dies jumping
out of a prison cell.

He's ultimately arrested for trying to,
or ultimately arrested and put under

house arrest so that he could do alchemy
and tries to escape and ultimately

breaks his leg badly and, and dies.

So.

Being an OC cultist in the 16th century
wasn't the desonance that people thought

that it is, but being a poor woman who
curses a lot and on is on the out with her

neighbors, that was probably a sentence

Rupert Isaacson: if you were Kelly.

And so you, you were reading the language
of the angels there at and as a teenager

and asking this question, well, hold on.

This seems very, very structured.

This seems very, very, this
isn't some random thing.

So was there any truth in it?

What, and what I mean by that, do you
think Kelly actually did think, was, was

Kelly in an altered state of consciousness
where he was somehow downloading

some sort of information or it was
bubbling into his perception somehow?

Or do you think he actually sat down,
said, I need to make up something pretty

complex even though I'm not a linguist?

You know, what, what, what was going on?

I think it was

Justin Sledge: both.

I think that we have these sort of
binary ways of thinking that either

it was fraud or it was revelation.

And I think that it's the mind
can operate in both at once.

Ululation Yeah.

Fraudulent.

I, I, I think it someone like
Joseph Smith, right, who channeled

the, the Book of Mormon people
are like, oh, he's just a fraud.

And I'm like, I don't
think he's just a fraud.

And, and this is the same
way I think of Kelly.

I think there's a way of thinking
about what they're doing that

is neither fraud nor revelation.

I.

And I do, I do think that Kelly was
in an alter state of consciousness.

I, I think there's good reason to
believe that from the diaries, but do

I think that he was talking to angels?

I don't know.

I just the data for that
is inconclusive to me.

What I will say is that while
the language isn't random, it

never betrays non-English syntax.

It seems to derive words from
languages that Kelly knew.

The angels that Kelly speaks to make
mistakes, both in arithmetic and in Latin.

Dee has to correct their arithmetic
and their Latin at times.

The angels to strategically know
things and not know things that

Kelly knows and doesn't know.

The angels seemed to
plagiarize Agrippa at times.

So when you get to reading them, and
again, when I was 14 and 15 reading

them, it was just bewildering because
I had never, how good is my Latin?

How much do I know
about Cornelius Agrippa?

How much do I know,
really know about Alchemy?

Now that I'm a bit older and,
and a and a and I have read this

material and I, you know, I know it.

I'm like, hold on.

The angels are making very
conspicuous kinds of mistakes.

Hmm.

And they're the kind of
mistakes that Kelly makes.

And so again, am I gonna get
into the business of saying

they weren't talking to angels?

Well, I can't say they weren't.

'cause you can't prove a negative that's
just philosophically not possible.

But is it conspicuous that
the Ian language doesn't have.

Any non-English pH names, right?

There are no glottal stops, you know,
looking at the, the hunter gatherer

in the background, there's no like,
sounds like there's no clicks, right?

And if, and if, if, you know, if I,
if they were speaking a language and

all of a sudden there was a sound
that you hear only in Ulsa, that would

be weird For an Englishman who had
never been to, to the land of Bantu

people to do that, or a glottal stop
or a a, a voice pharyngeal fricative.

Rupert Isaacson: W wouldn't, wouldn't
somebody like Dee just say, oh, well,

of course divine revelation comes,
you know, in the form that the brain

of the person, the mind of the person
receiving it can best understand because

God speaks all languages, blah, blah.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, he could.

I mean, then why just
not do it in English?

I mean, you know, when the Angel
Gabriel tells the prophet Muhammad,

I've given to you a ko, an Arabic
Koran, so you can understand it.

Well, that's pretty convenient.

Fair enough.

It been, it'd been, it'd been a thing.

Well, if they'd have given him a Mayan
Koran, that would've been impressive.

You know?

If, if, if, if Mohammed would've
gotten the Quran and Mayan, I

would convert to Islam immediately.

Right.

That would tell me something
really weird had happened.

But the Ian language you know,

Rupert Isaacson: Okay, I, I've,
that's something that confuses me.

Why Enoch?

And it's got nothing to do
with the book of Enoch, right?

Justin Sledge: So it, it does and it
doesn't so to be clear, Dean Kelly

and the Angels never call it Ocion,
that's a modern thing that we call it.

They always refer to it as the celestial
speech or the Adam iCal speech.

So the reason why it's associated with
Enoch is because Enoch wrote it down

and allegedly wrote it down in a series
of tablets, and those tablets were

preserved and ultimately destroyed.

And then the angels reve it.

And so the last time anyone
had access to it was Enoch.

And so that's why it gets called in Noian.

And do the angels

Rupert Isaacson: say
this to Kelly and Dee?

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I see.

Yeah.

And there, and there, there are, there
are at least two Antiochian languages.

In the text, there's the, the se there's
a series of 49 by 49 grids that are

filled with letters and numbers, which
are said to be the kochia language.

And then there's the system of
calls, which are like Psalms.

And those have glosses.

And we, we, we have translations of those.

And so we can know, we can see for
instance, that the word earth in that

text is Kas, C-H-A-O-S-G, which seems
to be derivative of the Greek cows.

But Okay.

Rupert Isaacson: So let's, let's
assume that people like these, these

occultists were somewhere between.

Credulous of their own experiences.

Somewhere between altered state
subconsciousness, somewhere between

true seekers after truth, somewhere
between con men when it suited

them, and various points in between.

And sort of created a, a cannon, if
you like, of AOC cult philosophy that

the Enoch thing talking about Mytho
mythologies and canons of mythologies.

So Enoch, the Book of Enoch.

So again, for listeners that dunno
about it, super interesting thing.

Why?

'cause it's a bloke going up
to heaven and encountering

effectively the celestial throne.

And there's a bunch of, if I get
this right, there's a bunch of

angels or celestial beings arguing
about whether we monkeys down here

should be allowed to continue.

And then there's, 'cause we're disruptive.

And then there's a, a Satan, a Satan,
not the Satan a judge, a prosecutor.

So it seems to be what it means.

And, but it seems that we
get a reprieve somehow.

And then Enoch comes back down and says,
lads, you know, gotta pull our socks up.

And then after he dies, he somehow
he goes back up again and somehow

becomes the angel Metatron later on.

Mythologies.

Now, as you know.

I'm gonna use the Anki word.

So one of, to my mind, one of the great
fun mythologies that's come out of the

more modern age is the whole ancient
astronauts theory because it's enjoyable.

And it also ties in with the ancient
Sumerian old, older stuff that we know

of written downy stuff saying, you
know, we had these kings who lived

for, you know, way, way longer than
anyone possibly could because they

sort of came from somewhere there.

And that these gods actually
were among us because they were

actually from somewhere else.

And they came down and they made us so
that, you know, we could in various ways.

And then you, later on you have someone
like Zacharia Sitin coming along as,

as Ajani or Armenian can't remember
but saying, okay, I have translated

these ancient Kune form things.

And they say that, yes, this happened,
and actually these old Gods Anky

and lil and all of these things from
Mesopotamia, these are actually aliens.

And then they become
mythologized later on.

They bugger off somewhere around a
thousand BC or so because they're, somehow

the work here is done, but they leave
us with a memory and we keep it going

through the deities and blah, blah, blah.

Well, maybe they're still around
or maybe there's lizard people,

or maybe there's, or maybe that.

I'm always interested in this
because people get very, have

big emotional reactions to this.

Like they either seem to
go for full on credulity.

Yes.

It's ancient aliens.

And part of me goes,
well, honestly, why not?

You know, if you've got an Atlantis
and Lumia, but you've got Plato

saying, yeah, there's this thing,
there's this Atlantis thing.

Is it allegory?

I don't know, but
they're talking about it.

Or you know, it's the, the other way.

No, you know, absolutely not.

Blah, blah, blah.

And the timeline is as we know
it, and then they find places like

Gobekli Tepi in Anatolia, which seems
to be earlier than Sumeria, maybe.

I don't know.

People, people argue about it.

People will continue to argue about it.

Right.

But isn't it in those arguments, in
those mythologies that the fund lies

or what do you think of all that?

Justin Sledge: I don't know that, I
don't know that the arguing about the

ancient Illian stuff to me is very fun.

I think it's a very I mean, it
would be, it would be fun if, like

Zacharia Chen's translations of
these texts were at all reliable.

Mm.

And they're just not.

So, I, I'm, I'm all about having academic
fun when we're actually, you know, when

we're all playing by the same rules.

And if the rules are, I get to make up
stuff and, and call it translations,

and then we're not playing by the same
rules anymore in the same way that,

you know you can take the net down,
but you can't call that tennis anymore.

But you're doing something.

And it might be fun, but it's not tennis.

And so when the ancient alien
folks want to take the net down,

then I can just say, well, we're
not playing the same game anymore.

Mm.

Justin Sledge: And therefore, to me
it's not, it's not a fun conversation.

Rupert Isaacson: But if we're, if
we're looking at mythologies, what

makes one mythology okay to look at
and discuss, and another one not,

Justin Sledge: I would say
that they don't think that what

they're doing is a mythology.

They think that what they're
doing is actually telling the

history of, but I would say that,

Rupert Isaacson: but that's not
limited to the ancient alien people.

Right.

I mean, there's lots of people who
believe mythologies that are questionable.

Right,

Justin Sledge: right, right.

In the same way that I would, you know,
if someone, if a Jewish person came to

me and says, you have to believe that
Moses went up on a mountain and got rules,

literally that actually happened, I would
say it's fun to play Dungeons and Dragons.

It's another thing to think you're an elf.

Can't I be an elf?

You can think you are one and you, you
can coplay and you can dress up as an elf.

Exactly.

But the moment you think that you
really are an elf, you've crossed

over into some kind of psychosis.

Rupert Isaacson: Well, sure.

Or state of consciousness.

I mean, it's a fine line
between, right, right.

Justin Sledge: Well, I think
that an state of consciousness

is, is not a belief system.

I think it's when you, when you,
when you concretize, beliefs that are

derivative of bad data and zacharia
is a great example of just bad data.

Then the, that becomes you're believing
in, in, in a state of affairs that's

contrary to what we know about what
those uniform tablets actually say.

And

Rupert Isaacson: what do Thefor
tablets actually say about

Justin Sledge: Donna

Rupert Isaacson: and stuff?

Justin Sledge: Nothing
that's not, but they do,

Rupert Isaacson: do they, do they not
say there was on the king list, for

example, do they not say there were these
chaps who lived impossibly long lives

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: In the
mythological sort of way.

And it was this king, this king,
this king starts with sort of almost

tens of thousands of years and then

Right.

Rupert Isaacson: Whittles down to
thousands of years and whittles

down to hundreds of years.

And then there's us lot, you
know, living normal lifespans.

Mm-hmm.

And is there not, is there not some
stuff in the K form script saying

we got knowledge from the gods or

Justin Sledge: there at all?

Right.

Right.

It's there in the sense that, you
know, in lil and you know, the, that

these other gods EA and stuff, they
communicate with people, but that's

just true of most religion, that the
gods show up and teach people stuff.

But this

Rupert Isaacson: is the earliest
religion that we know of.

Right.

Justin Sledge: I don't know if it's the
early, it's the earliest written text

of a religious religion that we know of.

Right.

It's, but I would say

Rupert Isaacson: it's canon
that we have access to.

Right.

Justin Sledge: You're right.

But I would say that Goble,
Tepi and Chat Holyoke are.

They had religions.

We don't know.

It's hard to interpret
what those sites mean.

'cause they didn't, they
didn't write things down.

Sure.

But mean Africans were having religious
beliefs for 200,000 years prior to that.

Indeed.

You know, the, whatever the, whatever
the strange animals they were

painting in the caves of Las Co.

Fairly confident that
something like religion.

So I would say it would be very slow.

I mean, the Sumerians are the first
people to write down things, but even the

Sumerians don't agree with each other.

Like from city, state to city state.

They have disagreements about, about which
gods are really the best gods and which

ones are why the world got flooded or
so if you even look at the, the Sumerian

literature, we're not getting one story.

Yeah.

We're getting rival city states and their
stories about why, you know, you know, why

this happened as opposed to that happened.

And because there's no, unlike in Egypt,
there's no hegemon binding the city states

of ancient Sumeria together until you get
to Sargon and Sargon iss not Sumerian.

He's Acadian.

And so, what's the difference?

The Sumerians were, because
they're all people living in

Rupert Isaacson: the same area, right?

More or less.

They're

Justin Sledge: living in, they're
living in somewhat the same area.

The Sumerians are primarily
living in Southern Mesopotamia.

We don't know where they came from.

They're very, they mean they're
admittedly mysterious and their

language isn't related to any
other languages that we know of.

The Acadians aliens, sorry.

I mean, I mean that's, if you know that
it could be, I mean, there's, but there's

lots of languages, like their languages.

Oh.

You know, we have Basque and caucuses
languages that are similar structurally

to, to Sumerian and, and their
tivity and, and stuff like that.

Okay.

Being a glu of languages and stuff.

But, but okay.

Rupert Isaacson: You, you've got these
different people living in this area

between these two rivers, not, you
know, Tigris and Euphrates Right.

Over some thousands of years making these
city states and we don't know of anything

before them that was that organized.

Right.

Justin Sledge: Well, we don't
know of anything organized

in terms of living in cities.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

And it, writing stuff down that
we can recover and translate

Justin Sledge: and read.

I mean, yeah.

We can't, we can't read the
industry River valley script.

And we can't, it doesn't seem like
the people at Goble Tepi and Chateau

Holyoke in those sites in Turkey wrote.

And, and also we know why
writing emerged in Sumer and

the places that it did emerge.

It was because they needed
it for bureaucratic reasons.

Rupert Isaacson: They had.

Why did, why did the other people not need
it for bureaucratic reasons, do you think?

Why, why do you think Gobekli Tappi
people didn't need a bureaucracy?

'cause they were doing massively
organized building projects and things.

Justin Sledge: Well, I mean,
that site's not that big.

If you look at, you know, you look
at it, if you're, you go to it and

look at it and measure it, it's, it's
monumental, but it's not very big.

And so, you know, they, that
building project would've taken.

Some degree of central planning
and organization, but nothing

on the register of, or yeah.

Where you have irrigation and, you
know, elaborate agriculture and trade.

You know, so those are orders of
magnitude in terms of, of difference.

In fact, to me the most impressive
thing about go about Goble Tepi is

not the fact that they build it,
but the fact that they buried it.

Why in the world go through all the
trouble to build that thing then to

use it for a while, then to bury it
burying It must have been just as in

many ways, just as Herculean use of
resources and calories and building it.

That to me is the more interesting
thing about Go Lucky Tepy.

But there

Rupert Isaacson: is Did they
bury it or was it buried?

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I don't think it was,
I don't think it was buried on accident.

I think that the, I think the data
indicates that it was intentionally

filled in, built, filled in.

That's why it's so well preserved
is because some, some people

decide to fill in and that's weird.

Can you just,

Rupert Isaacson: for the people
that dunno what Gobekli Tepi

is, just give us a timeline.

What's, what's go Beckley Tepi and
why is it older and how much older

is it than the Sumerian stuff?

Justin Sledge: I think that the data on
Go Tepi now is 10,000 BCE 12,000 BCE,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

I forget exactly on that.

Basically it's as old behind Sumer as
we are in front of it, more or less.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's,

Justin Sledge: it's, it's part of the,
yeah, it seems to be part of the same

culture that Chateau Holyoke and, and
tho Jericho and those neolithic societies

were part of some kind of trade systems.

We don't know what go lucky Tempe was.

It may have been a religious site,
it may have been a site for trade.

It may have been both.

They may have come there for
pilgrimages and then traded stuff like

seeds and stuff, and then moved on.

Agriculture, it seems like emerged in
Anatolio through selective breeding of

grass, and those grasses became grains.

Rupert Isaacson: Did the grass domesticate
us or did we domesticate the grass?

That seems to be the,

Justin Sledge: I mean, it seems
like, I mean, at least in that area

you know, that's where you get some
primitive emmer and stuff like that.

And so I think that it
probably goes both ways.

I think there's an
accident that's involved.

Also probably women did it.

I mean, that's who's doing
the gathering at that time.

So I imagine that that breakthrough
was pioneered by some lady

scientist who's will be, whose
name will be mysterious forever.

She must have noticed, right, that
the, this type of grass produces these

type of seeds, and that if you plant
these two together, they grow big and

you have to manually knock them off.

The, the wind doesn't knock them off.

You have to manually knock them off.

But they do fall off just by shaking them,
and they kept breeding and breeding and

breeding until eventually they get Yeah.

Things like hammer.

Rupert Isaacson: So, okay,
let's, so Gobekli Tepi older

than Sumera gets buried now.

Let's go back to some myths.

Flood myths.

So we know everyone's got one.

And they seem to pop up all in every
corner of the planet, more or less.

What's going on there?

And do you believe in
the younger dryers stuff?

And again, for the listeners, I
just give them a quick background.

Yeah.

Younger dryers being the last ice age,
some people believed that there was some

environmental cataclysm perhaps induced
by stuff going on around our planet in

one form or another that caused a big
flood, big melting of ice caps and so on.

And, but what we do know is there
was some sort of flood and everyone

seems to talk about it and it seems
to affect everybody's worldview.

What's going on with that do you think?

Justin Sledge: I mean, I'm not,
so I have to be, be careful.

I'm not sure that every
culture has a flood story.

I mean, let's just

Rupert Isaacson: say a lot of them do.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, some do.

And I, I can say that, I mean, I
don't know if the ancient Chinese had

a flood story or, you know, I think
there are Chinese flood stories.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

Justin Sledge: That I don't know.

I mean, not being an expert in
those mythologies, so I have to

see, I'd be careful to say that the
like the ancient Egyptians, I'm not

sure had a, an a, a flood story.

But I think the reason why the
Mesopotamians had a flood story

is because they had floods and
they had very cataclysmic floods.

If you compare the flooding of the
Nile to the flooding of the tigers

and the Euphrates, the flooding
of the Nile was very predictable.

And, in fact, some anthropologists
even linked to the relatively positive

outlook of the Egyptians both on
the afterlife and on this life to

the relatively stable society that
you had in ancient Egypt where the

floods came, they were predictable.

It was hard to invade Egypt.

Mm-hmm.

That they had relatively, you know,
not to say it didn't get invaded.

It did get invaded.

The hick invaded it and stuff, but
even when they invaded, it didn't cause

a huge amount of social disruption.

And that's unlike Mesopotamia,
which was the Nile, the Euphrates

and the Tigris flood randomly,
they flood catastrophically.

Their cities are not built out of stone.

They're built out of mud brick.

And when the tigers and your Freddy
flooded, it destroyed whole cities.

I mean, you could wipe an
entire city out in a day.

Mm.

And it, I mean, literally wipe
them off the face of the earth.

I mean, you take mud brick structures
like a zig garrot and you have

a category aro type of pyramid.

Right.

Kind of, kind of pyramid.

Yeah.

Step pyramid that's built a mud brick.

That's nothing compared
to, you know, a flood.

And if you look at the literature
of the Sumerians and the, the

Acadians it's extremely pessimistic,
very pessimistic literature.

They have a very dower point of,
you know, Dow or outlook on life.

And I would say that the, the flood
myth develops because they dealt

with floods and they dealt with
floods that ended their world.

That is to say they had cities that were
just wiped out and the, this became sort

of a an archetypal story that they told.

And when the Hebrew Bible, the writers
of the Hebrew Bible they tended to

look much more toward the mesopotamians
for their cultic information,

mostly because they were under the
imperial thumb of those people.

And they tended to copy them.

And I think that's where we get
the, the Noah story being copied.

Not word for word by no means, but,
you know, there's certainly enough

similarities between the utna num AK
story that we get in the Mesopotamia

mythology to the, to the Noah story.

But even the Noah story
doesn't internally make sense.

For instance, when, when God tells Noah
to go put the animals on the ark one story

has clearly you should take seven of the
clean animals and two of the unclean.

Well, how does Noah even know
which ones are clean and unclean?

That's not been disclosed since, that
won't be disclosed until no Moses' day.

And then a few lines later it
says, oh, take two of every kind.

And that's what we see in all the pictures
of Noah's Ark is two of every kind.

But the text seems to have two different
versions of the story sitting side by

side where there clearly was a, some
version of it where Moses was gonna

take a lot more animals with him.

So, so yeah, I'm, I'm reticent
to say that it is a, a worldwide.

Ubiquitous flood story.

I think there is a, there are
mesopotamian flood stories of which

some variant of that flood story
does end up in the Hebrew Bible.

Rupert Isaacson: Right?

I mean, there are definitely
flood stories, mythologically,

far East, central America, Africa,
that they definitely exist.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: You know, these
are open questions that are

just, I think, fun to discuss.

Right.

Justin Sledge: And without me knowing more
about those flood stories, it's hard for

Rupert Isaacson: me to, to weigh in.

I think your point about the flooding of
the rivers is, is, is a very good one.

Okay, so let's go to
another myth, Atlantis.

So you've got Plato saying, my ancestor
Solon went to Egypt, and some lads

there in a temple said, listen here,
Solon, there was this thing called

Atlantis and it was this and it was that.

And then it disappeared
in a great cataclysm.

And then Plato, of course, you
know, bequeaths the myth to us.

And it goes on and becomes all
the things that it's become.

Justin Sledge: What are your thoughts?

Mostly, mostly because of a, a
confederate ex Confederate soldier.

Oh.

Do tell.

Yeah, it's William Donnelly,
I think was his name.

Okay.

It, it's Don, I think,
I think it was Donnelly.

Donnelly was a ex confederate soldier
who wrote the first book that really

popularized the idea that Atlantis
might be a real place before that,

I don't think anyone believed that.

I don't think that, or I don't know of
any data to indicate that people thought

it was anything other than a myth.

Because Plato often will put
myths at the end of his dialogues.

Sure.

Like the myth of ER and other
myths at the end of the republic.

The myth of Atlantis, I think
occurs at the end of the tus.

I can't remember Crito
one of them, but, but

Rupert Isaacson: it's tricky, isn't it?

Because he talks about an
actual ancestor of his own.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I mean,

Rupert Isaacson: in

Justin Sledge: the way that,

Rupert Isaacson: that's also
the name of a real place.

So what's going on with that, with that?

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I mean it's,
you know, I think that it's creative,

you know, historical fiction, right?

He tells the story of Solon going to
Heliopolis and learning all this stuff.

You know, the, the, the, the question
for me when it comes to, and then

of course we have the new age Atlan
stuff that kicks up with Edward Casey.

So, where he thinks that
it's by the Isle of Bimini.

And then people find the called
BI and Tell, tell, tell us

Rupert Isaacson: this.

They not everyone's gonna
know who Edward ca Edmond.

So,

Justin Sledge: Edward
Casey was a trance medium.

Who went to, he was called
the sleeping Prophet.

He would go into Ultras
of consciousness and

Rupert Isaacson: 1920s or so, right?

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I think so.

Early 20th century.

Yeah.

And he would reveal all kinds
of, everything from medical

treatments to mythological history.

And Atlantis played a big
role in, in his and he was the

Rupert Isaacson: guy who said
he was tapping into something

called the Akashic Record.

I think so.

Justin Sledge: Or, and this is
a relationship to Blavatsky and

Theosophy and, and stuff like this.

Yeah.

I think that the Atlantis story is, so
for me, the question is historically,

when did people begin to believe
that it was a potentially real place?

And I think that that's
Dateable to Connolly.

So after

Rupert Isaacson: the American Civil War?

Justin Sledge: Yep.

Yep.

I don't think that prior to that people
thought that it was a, a real place.

You sometimes have maps that people sort
of guess that it may have been over there.

They'll, they'll be land masses, they
think were atlan or so, whatever.

But I think that part of the
reason why that story, people like

that story is it's, it's about
imperial arrogance being punished.

And I think we like to see
bullies get their comeuppance.

And Atlantis was a bully, which is a
really interesting story because we

now tell it as if, and again, there's
lots of variants of it in the New age

movement and other kinds of things
where they think of it as sort of a

utopia that seeded all the world's
knowledge and, and this kind of stuff.

But it's pretty clearly a bully
country in, in the original telling.

And they were just mean and arrogant, and
the gods destroyed them for good reason.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

Justin Sledge: I just

Rupert Isaacson: basically,

Justin Sledge: yeah, they, they mean, I
mean, I, I, but I like the fact that the,

this story, this mythology has changed
that it goes from, this is a story, this

is a cautionary tale of, you know, again,
Plato's writing to Athenians who are

themselves known at that time for having
just lost, you know, a a, you know, just

the Peloponnesian War in which their
heroic navy did not ultimately save them.

And they were under the rule of
the, the, the tyranny of the 30 and

all of the stuff that, like this
is a moment of, of their own fall.

And they had just murdered Socrates.

And, and, and Playdoh really
wants to rub their nose in it.

Right.

And he tells a myth

Rupert Isaacson: the opinions
are perfectly capable of being

bullies themselves as we know.

Yeah.

They

Justin Sledge: were, I mean, the
deal thing about what they did to

the, the, the Deion League Yeah.

Has massacred those people.

Yeah.

And, and they were bullies.

I mean, they, you know, they,
they were bullies to, to in

the, in the Peloponnesian War.

They, they went to neutral parties
and told them, we're gonna murder

you all if you don't side with us.

And gladly did it when they didn't.

And I think Plato's rubbing
the Athenians nose and the fact

that they, they were bullies.

They just got handed, they just got
a black eye by the, the Spartans.

They'd just been ruled
by the tyranny of the 30.

And when they finally did get
some freedom, the first thing

they do is kill Socrates.

And the, and you know, the Republic
and other kinds of texts are, I

think part of what they're doing is
Plato's rubbing the Athenians nose and

that, and I think Atlantis is meant
to be, this is what you get, right?

It's an all

Rupert Isaacson: right for them gonna
get your US handed to you if you

Justin Sledge: Right.

And what to me is interesting is
how that mythology has changed.

It went from what I think of as social
criticism, thinly veiled, frankly

social criticism of by Plato to this is
where all the white people came from.

And they like made all of
the great civilizations.

And it becomes this sort of like neo-Nazi.

Mythology that you see in, you know, some
ridiculous YouTubers videos and stuff.

So to me that's just, it, it, it's, to me,
what's most interesting about Atlantis is

not whether there really was a historical
Atlantis that, that I think the data for,

that's pretty clear that there wasn't
like islands that size just don't sink.

That's not what islands do.

Like, well, there's the
thing, islands aren't

Rupert Isaacson: something tectonic
happened in with the younger dryas.

I mean, water coming down from the ice
sheets, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And so, yeah, I mean,

Justin Sledge: it would have to be, if ice
Plato's descriptions of it are accurate.

Right?

It was a size of Libya.

I mean, it would've been massive.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Justin Sledge: I mean, it, it
would've been, it would've been

the size of like, Texas, like in
the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Rupert Isaacson: Ooh.

Is that an cautionary tell for Texas?

Justin Sledge: Texas?

Yeah.

You know, nothing's big as Texas.

But again, to just look at the, if, if
Plato is, if we're gonna take Play-Doh as

accurate, we gotta take Plato as accurate.

And he's telling us a story
that it's this size and it's

beyond the pillars of Hercules.

It would need to be massive.

And any tectonic event in the
Atlantic we have really good maps

of the sea floor or the Atlantic.

It would, we would see remnant,
we would see some archeological

evidence of something.

Rupert Isaacson: Why do you think this
guy Donnelly, this ex confederate soldier,

was so enamored of it, and how did he
manage to get it into the public con.

Justin Sledge: There's a great video
if you wanna learn more about this.

A good friend of mine Andy films did
a great documentary on, on Donnelley.

I'd love to.

What's, how did he find out

Rupert Isaacson: about, 'cause this, this
guy Donnelley is not known about Really.

Justin Sledge: I've never,
he's not known about.

No.

This is part of this is, and this
is part of how these mythologies

get a life with our own, is that we
often don't know that the mythologies

that we're telling have a history.

You mentioned, did he publish a

Rupert Isaacson: bestseller?

19th Century bestseller?

Yeah, it was

Justin Sledge: very popular.

It was

Rupert Isaacson: a very popular book.

Justin Sledge: What was the name of the

Rupert Isaacson: book?

Justin Sledge: Atlantis the
something something, let me see.

Okay.

Don Lee Atlantis.

Rupert Isaacson: I'll just google it.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: And do you know
what he did in the Civil War?

Bernie Chance?

He was a soldier.

Yeah, but was he an officer?

Was he a grunt?

Was he a cavalryman?

Was he Ignatius

Justin Sledge: Donnelly?

What was he?

He was a congress ignatious man.

Yeah, you can look him up.

Mean.

He was kind of, I mean, but
he was a sort of a cultist in,

into, into theosophy and stuff.

But but comes up in 1882.

Okay.

But it's called Atlantis,
the anti-dilution world.

And again, as you mentioned
earlier about Zechariah ci, right?

That that people don't also link back
to Eric Von Danigan, who's really

the, the primordial all father of
this sort of ancient alien stuff.

Rupert Isaacson: If you made it
this far into the podcast, then I'm

guessing you're somebody that, like
me, loves to read books about not

just how people have achieved self
actualization, but particularly

about the relationship with nature.

Spirituality, life, the
universe, and everything.

And I'd like to draw your
attention to my books.

If you would like to read the story
of how we even arrived here, perhaps

you'd like to check out the two New
York Times bestsellers, The Horseboy

and The Long Ride Home, and come on an
adventure with us and see what engendered,

what started Live Free Ride Free.

And before we go back to the
podcast, also check out The Healing

Land, which tells the story of.

My years spent in the Kalahari with the
Sun, Bushmen, hunter gatherer people

there, and all that they taught me, and
mentored me in, and all that I learned.

Come on that adventure with me.

Tell us about him, because
again, not, not, not a lot of

people know who's listening.

Maybe he wrote

Justin Sledge: a book, he wrote
a book called The Chariots of

the Gods and the Swiss guy,

Rupert Isaacson: right?

Swiss

Justin Sledge: German.

Makes sense?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

And he makes this argument the same
kind of argument that the, the, all

the old gods are in fact, aliens.

And, you know, again, very selectively
goes and looks at the, I don't

know, the top of the burial shroud
and, and, and Mayan territory

and says, that's the spaceship.

And then sees the spaceship
and this thing, and sees the

spaceship here and there.

And again, you know, it's the kind of
it's the kind of thing that would be fun

if it didn't lead to what I think is like
real damage to the field of archeology.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

I mean, as an ex I did archeology and
history and I actually switched to

just history because unfortunately
the archeology department at York

University where I went to in
the uk, they were after bastards.

They really were.

And I got into terrible trouble and was
actually threatened with being kicked

out for writing up an essay, just one
essay in which I likened the mean river.

Iron Age smelting culture which was
a Celtic pre Roman place where they

were doing a lot of metal working
along a river in England, which was,

they were busy excavating at the time.

And I said, I likened, I made a an
analogy to it being like a, a sort of

ancient world, black country, black
country being the area around Birmingham

where the industrial revolution
sort of got going and that I got

hauled in and hauled over the coals.

And I remember saying, but guys, it
sort of was, I'm not saying it was on

the same scale, but I'm saying that
if you walked along that river, you'd

have seen a lot of industrial activity
that have been guys dumping shit in

the river, that have been piles of
slag there would 'cause you found them.

'cause you are excavating those piles
of say that and or if I say that and

you think it's wrong, okay, that's fine.

But why are you threatening with
kicking me with being kicked out?

It was really odd and I saw this time
and time again among the archeologists.

And the archeologists were also
sort of a bit of an old boys club of

certainly the uk It was very much a
sort of private boys school thing.

And I come out of that culture myself.

I went to one of those schools,
but I also know how protectionist.

They are in the same way that Oxford
Dons are very protectionists and

so on, and, and they're often, you
know, frankly wrong, you know, about

things or at least not open to.

And so the fact that one could say
something as kind of innocent as that

and you know, not be taken to task for
like, well, you know, Rupert, we just

want you to qualify this essay with saying
by no means on the same scale, which I

would've said, yes, of course, absolutely.

I will happily put that clause in
there, silly old, 18-year-old me.

But no, it was aggressive
and it was hostile and it

was strange and it was weird.

And then when I transferred to do history,
it wasn't much different actually.

And then it got to the point, I'm sure
you've had this where I realized I

knew a bit more about certain things
than I, some of my professors did.

And then that became very uncomfortable
and you just had to keep your mouth shut.

For example, I specialized in the
Bo war as well as the medieval stuff

and the, and the French Revolution.

I did two modern things, the Bo
war, what My family fought on

Every, every side of the Bo War.

And what I mean by that
is the, the English and

sort of non-white mercenaries in that.

So we have a whole record within
our family of original texts and

letters and documents and this
and that, and blah, blah, blah.

And.

So anyway, it, it didn't make me by
any means antis history, but it did

make me wary of academics a bit.

That said, I met some very
good ones too and had some

wonderful professors and so on.

But I, I guess that thing of, of when,
I guess what, what I was responding

to there is when you said they do the,
the people that believe in Atlantis or

ancient aliens do damage to archeology.

Do they, I mean, do they
really The people, the

Justin Sledge: people
that believe in it don't.

I think the people that
popularize it on Netflix do,

Rupert Isaacson: but it comes,
that's what I view it as.

Another mythology.

Justin Sledge: If they, if they,
if, if at the very beginning they

said, what I'm presenting to you
is a myth, that's not what they do.

What they say is archeologists are
all involved in a conspiracy of

silence about about a civilization
that existed at 10,000 BCE and seeded

all the civilizations in the world.

Right.

Those are very different kinds of claims.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's the difference between
me getting on TV and saying, you

know, a guy named Moses went up a
mountain and got rules as opposed

to, this is Israelite mythology.

We don't have any archeological evidence
to suggests that the exodus ever happened.

Rupert Isaacson: There is this naughty
part of me that likes to see all the

archeologists hopping about jumping up
and down and getting upset, but that's.

In that interrogation
room at York University.

But I agree.

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: I mean that, that, yeah.

I mean, I, and, and again,
I also like the, the, that I

do think that, that there is,

what's the right way of putting it?

I, I do like the idea of hand
grenades being thrown into dogma.

And I do think that academia
functions with a lot of dogma.

Mm.

Justin Sledge: But I think you
combat dogma not with more dogma.

You, you, you combat it with
problematizing and showing that the, that

the very stories they're telling don't
make sense given their own internal data.

Another way of putting this is the way
that I go about doing the work that I

do is I don't do external criticism.

Mm-hmm.

For instance, I don't debunk anybody.

I've never done a debunking video ever.

That's

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, that's true.

You don't.

And, and interestingly, I think
that causes some people to mistake

that maybe you are bel espousing or
believing it might, even though you

frequently say that you're not yeah.

Or hear what they hear.

And it might,

Justin Sledge: and then that's fine.

I'd rather take that.

I'd rather risk that danger because I
don't want to do, I'd rather just tell

the history in its complicatedness and
leave it at that, as opposed to say, well,

they, we've told this elaborate story
about Descartes and it's false because

that lets the false story lead in the
same way that I'm not going to say, well,

the Anki or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not gonna like.

I'm gonna say, if I'm gonna do
an episode on the Anunnaki, I'm

gonna say, here are the 15 UNIFOR
tablets that describe the Anunnaki.

Here's what the Sumerian says.

This is the best data we have.

Have you done?

I'm not

Rupert Isaacson: gonna

Justin Sledge: episode on the Anki.

No, they're not very interesting.

I, I mean, I hate to tell people, but
they're just like underworld spirits.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Justin Sledge: They're just,
they're the kind, like, they're

like, it's the same reason why some
ask me like, you've, you've done

Rupert Isaacson: episodes
on other underworld spirits.

I haven't though.

I mean,

Justin Sledge: maybe.

And people, like, I always ask people
like, why are you so interested in

the Anki and not the gala demons?

'cause the gala demons actually have
an active role and maybe they haven't

Rupert Isaacson: heard of them.

And that's

Justin Sledge: just, that's the funny
thing is that yeah, they're just

underworld spirits that that Dezi
and other folks have to deal with.

And they're, you know, they're
like sort of cathartic beings

that seem to have existed prior
to the creation, which is weird.

Okay.

Justin Sledge: They're the
standard creation love craft stuff.

Yeah.

Lovecraftian kind of stuff.

Yeah.

And I think that the, the gala demons
are far more weird than Anki, but

but yeah, it's like, it's the, I
don't do the debunking stuff because

I don't want the, what I take to
be a bad history to lead the story.

I'd rather just say, this is the data.

And if someone says, I disagree
with it, I can say, you can

disagree with whatever you like.

I don't get to control the data.

I can all, all I can say is
like, these are the six tablets

where the stuff is described.

Here are here, here's the, here
are the debates among scholars

about how to read those tablets.

'cause that's not even agreed upon.

Mm-hmm.

And that's, to me, the thing that strikes
me as the most shockingly egregious

about, you know, someone like Zacharia
or something, is that the idea that he

knows what they say when Sumerian scholars
are like, we're not clear even how to

read some of this because we don't even
totally understand Sumerian as a language.

Rupert Isaacson: That
actually is a question.

How did people decode Sumerian?

Justin Sledge: So we have, so we
know, and again, to be careful

'cause I'm not a, a ologist, but
we know Sumerian through Acadian.

So Acadian is a language that we do know
a lot about because it's related to,

it's a Semitic language like Hebrew.

Like in Hebrew, if you wanna say
like, I, you could say Nu and in,

in Aca in an Acadians ku Okay.

They're very similar languages.

Okay.

They're not identical,
but they're similar.

But we have text, we have bilingual
texts in Acadian and Sumerian, and

they were able, scholars were able
to decode Sumerian by reading it.

Okay.

You know, it's like Rosetta Stones.

Got it.

Lots of them.

And one of the big texts that the
Acadians produced, because Sumerian was a

language, a bit like Latin, it was a dead
language, but it was a language they, they

preserved as a kind of academic language.

And so we have lots of
basically word lists.

And we have text in both languages.

And so scholars were able to do this,
and so they, they can read Sumerian

with a high degree of, of accuracy.

But the, the problem is, is that
the older you go back, the less

standardized the language is.

The less the more idio, the more
idiosyncratic it becomes, the

more, the more they tend to use
a lot more audiograms as opposed

to syllabic spelling, which the
syllabic spelling's a lot clearer.

There's a lot less guesswork involved.

And so when I hear people say like,
you know, this Sumerian tablet says

this, well, that immediately jumps my
hackles up where I'm like, I doubt it.

I bet it, I bet there's
debate about what it says.

And, and any, and, and it's almost
always when I read text about

Atlantis or the Anunnaki or the
ancient aliens, there's no debate.

This is what happened.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

It's I think your point about
replacing dogma with dogmas is fair.

I, I'm, I'm still on Team Cat among the
pigeons, and at the same time, I'm very

grateful that people like you come along
and say, yeah, but listen, lads, actually,

here's what we really know to date.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

We need one means

Rupert Isaacson: both.

Right,

Justin Sledge: right.

And, and again, I, I feel like
the, any, the more that I see, I'll

give an example in my field, right.

The, you mentioned earlier the key
of Solomon, the Quila Soleimani.

This is the most important book of
magic produced in the Western world.

We know of a hundred and different
150 different manuscripts of it.

We know that they exist.

Those are the ones we know of so far.

There is no standard edition of this text,
and no one has ever looked at all 150.

It's just, we don't even
know what they all look like.

We don't even what they all say.

They're not in private.

Some of them are private hands,
some of them in public hands.

It's a mess.

When I make episodes talking about
Solomonic Magic, one of the things I have

to remind people is this is so provisional
because in 50 years, 30 more manuscripts

will be found, 15 more will be published.

Maybe all of 'em will be published.

And everything I'm saying
now is provisional.

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

And

Justin Sledge: I think that's

Rupert Isaacson: like, like the
finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls,

and then we find a whole bunch
not muddy library and, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Justin Sledge: The more that, the more
that I find, you know, one of the things

that makes myth interesting to me is that
the mythological texts are almost always

disagreeing with each other internally.

Mm-hmm.

The, the Bible Sumerian text and the text.

I know.

You know, if someone goes to
tell you what is North mythology,

which ones the, the have the
stories all contradict each other.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Justin Sledge: They're,
they're not coherent.

And when I, Christianity

Rupert Isaacson: rather than Christianity.

Christianity,

Justin Sledge: yeah.

Right.

The, the myths are, the myths
are internally incoherent.

That doesn't make 'em
any more or less right.

Or any more or less valuable, but
it makes them authentically human.

'cause that's what human beings do.

Mm.

But when you see these, these new
mythologies that emerge, they emerge

from the same point of view and the
same mindset as the enlightenment.

We have gotta figured it all out.

It's just totalitarian impulse.

Rupert Isaacson: Totalitarian good word.

Yes.

Justin Sledge: And in that
totalitarian impulse in science,

that science has figured it all out.

I'm very skeptical of that.

But also I see the exact same kind
of impulse in the mythological

world where like, you know, for
instance, the perennials will tell

me, we figured it all out, every
religion comes from this mystical

core, and they're all, I'm like, huh.

Like that, that impulse.

As a historian, as a, as a scholar of
this material, anyone who beats the drum

of, this is the answer, when I hear that
drum, I know which direction to run.

And

Rupert Isaacson: let's go to the
biggest, the biggest mythology of all.

Then you study everyone in the Western
world's belief in the afterlife.

What conclusions have you drawn?

Justin Sledge: In the afterlife.

Yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: Because every, every,
every mythology, every religion, every

occult group that you are looking
at in the esoterica series, they all

have a position on it, more or less.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I mean, they're not,
I would say they're by no means coherent.

Rupert Isaacson: No.

By for sure.

Yeah.

What's your, what, what have you gleaned?

What, what, what, what do you,
what rings true for you out of

all the stuff that you've studied?

Justin Sledge: Oh, I don't know.

I hope there is no afterlife.

That's what I've gleaned.

If I wake up after my death and to
anything, I'm going to be pissed.

I'm gonna write a letter if I would,
God forbid I wake up and I'm in

heaven and everything is perfect,
and I have to be there forever.

That is the most miserable
imaginable situation possible.

Watering pot

Rupert Isaacson: plants.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Yeah.

Just anything, anything.

If, if there is any afterlife
at all I'm going to be,

yeah.

Rupert Isaacson: I'm gonna be enraged.

Yeah.

So many of these, of these traditions
that you're studying are convinced of it.

Yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: of course.

Where does that come from?

Not the desire for one.

I think we can understand that, but

Justin Sledge: yeah, it just, I think
it's the human beings have the worst

case of Megan Character syndrome.

Maybe that is of main character syndrome.

Ooh.

You know, like we, we built a
universe that was designed for us,

you know, we're the center of it.

God made us, were they
made in the image of God?

But could we not be, be in the image of

Rupert Isaacson: God?

Could there not be?

I mean, could, could not.

Let's say there's life
on a billion planets.

Could not, could they
not all be images of God?

Justin Sledge: Maybe.

Maybe.

But that's not the way that, that medieval
people and other people that formulated

these mythologies thought about it.

They thought they were
the center of everything.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: The earth is right
there at the middle of everything.

And, and I, I think that, you
know, the hu the human being can

imagine almost anything aside
from there not being human beings.

Mm.

Like we can imagine the end of God,
we can imagine the death of God.

We can imagine God being a mythology.

We can imagine all being superstition, but
we can't imagine us not being around it.

It's the, it's the narcissistic impulse
that the human being will endear forever.

That death, is it narcissistic

Rupert Isaacson: or is it just the just
a, a a the feature of our biology that

we are, we are in the consciousness
that we're in, and that's just that.

So we, we look through the lens.

We look through we have no choice.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think the idea that, like, you
know, again, with the, you know, I

always imagine like when I look at
different diversions of the afterlife,

that there are no animals there or
that ev or that there are no like,

you know, dinosaurs there or you
know, what about all the other life?

You know, if you get married
twice and your first wife dies,

what, what's gonna happen when
you get there with your new wife?

She's gonna get pissed.

You know, the.

The no, because we're with

Rupert Isaacson: God and
we're beyond all that.

We're, we've now grown, grown
up and we're nice to each other.

Justin Sledge: Right?

And then what's the point
of there being an afterlife?

Because if it's so unlike what it
is to be a human being that it's

unrecognizable in the next one,
then there's no continuity at all.

You know, Decart even says this,
like, memory has to persist

through death, because otherwise
there's no point in an afterlife,

right?

Because otherwise you're just a
different, you're just, it's, you're

just, there's no connection to this world.

The whole point is there's continuity
between the two that somehow you survive.

Right?

But if there's no memory,
then there is no survival.

If I were to, God forbid, hit someone
on the head hard enough and they're

completely erase their memory,
they're not the same person in any,

in any meaningful sense of the term.

Right.

Rupert Isaacson: And so let, let's play
devil's advocate with that one, just the

other, well, I'm just trying to think
what the devil's advocate would say.

What would they say?

They might say, well, yes, Justin, but
what if because life comes in infinite

forms of expression, there could be
infinite forms of expression of life

in a sort of an of which
our idea of a linear

born live die is one expression.

But perhaps is, could it be that.

In fact, there's a much more complex
picture there that you could transmute

into other things or, you know, the,
the, the end of a physical life.

I mean, you, the, the, the traditions
that you study, you know, talk about

being a soul, being embodied, and then
when the body dies, the soul is, is

still there, the spirit is still there.

But whether it's still there
in terms of the personality of

that person or not, who knows?

Justin Sledge: I think
most of them Do you, I

Rupert Isaacson: mean, you,
you studied this, so you must

have pondered these questions.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, sure.

I mean, I think that most of them
imagine that, at least the Western

traditions, imagine that the soul
becomes disentangled from the body,

but the body will come back later.

That's standard view in Christianity,
Islamic Judaism that the, you get,

you get a better body later somehow,
but you do get put back into a body.

Hopefully you

Rupert Isaacson: get an upgrade.

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: yeah.

It's some glorified body
or something like that.

But far be it for me to know
exactly what all that means.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: But if it were the
case that the afterlife is somehow

sufficiently unrecognizable from this
life, then I simply would have no interest

in it because if it's so different
than what I understand of this life.

Then it will be unpredictable.

So unpredictable about it will
be on the other side that I

don't have any interest in.

I wouldn't have any, I mean, I
wouldn't have any interest in it

because it just, but you, you, you're

Rupert Isaacson: a skeptic.

You, you, you don't necessarily
believe in an afterlife or,

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I don't, I, yeah,
I don't know that there is an afterlife.

Rupert Isaacson: What does Judaism say?

Because you, you're a practicing Jew,
so, I'm a never having practiced Jew.

So what does, given that there have been,
as you say, many Judaisms in the same

way that there are many Christianity,

give us like three points historically
about what Judaism says about

afterlife from sort of pri Moses,
Moses e Jesusy, that millennium

to now, what, what do they say?

Justin Sledge: So the earliest
Israelite literature seems to

have believed in a place called
Sheol, which is just sort of a dark

underground place where dead people go.

Mm-hmm.

You're, yeah, you're there,
but you're not very conscious.

You're not really doing anything.

It's a place of inactivity.

God doesn't know.

Are you,

Rupert Isaacson: are you there as yourself
just kind of bored or are you It's

Justin Sledge: not even, it's not clear.

I mean, the references to
it are so few and so vague.

Everyone goes there.

It doesn't matter whether you're
good or bad, everyone goes there.

Rupert Isaacson: Are you broken down
into a sort of primordial soup and

then reconfigured for later use?

No.

Justin Sledge: You've stared forever.

There's no sense of you
ever come out of there.

It's just that's where everyone goes.

You sit around, it seems to be
similar to Hades, the Greek Hades.

Okay.

You know that it's not
great and not bad either.

But you don't want to go there.

Like no one's looking
forward to going there.

But de

here is better.

Justin Sledge: Here is better.

Yeah.

I mean, I think of that famous
line in the Odyssey where, or

Achilles says to Odysseus better
a living dog than a dead Achilles.

You know, that he'd rather be a
living dog than a dead Achilles.

So I, I think of that, it's like
no one wants to go there, but it's

not You're, but you're have to

Rupert Isaacson: go there.

Justin Sledge: Everyone goes there.

Yeah.

Every, everyone who dies goes
to Shaul and we're not even

sure what the word Shaul means.

It's a very strange word,

Rupert Isaacson: but it's not pleasant.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

You don't want to go there.

It's, it's, yeah,

Rupert Isaacson: you don't want to go
there, but you're gonna have to go there.

It's kind of like the D
dv dv the driving, yeah.

The DMV, yeah.

The DM V.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Fast forward to Jesus' time.

There's definitely Jews have
interacted with Raan and they

picked up heaven and hell.

Rupert Isaacson: Is that
where we get heaven and hell

from the Iranians, it seems,

Justin Sledge: yeah.

It seems to be as, as a, a, seems
to be a raan influence when the

Jews were in the exile in Babylon.

So that seems to be where
that idea comes from.

And there, there's the idea
that you go into the sky.

Where the God lives and you live there
if you're good, and if you're bad, you

go to some place and you get tortured
for some period of time, maybe forever,

but maybe for some period of time.

Rupert Isaacson: Are the Egyptians
are not saying something slightly

similar as well at that time.

Justin Sledge: So they, the Egyptians
in the New Kingdom have the belief

that if you have a good soul, then you
can go into the duo, the afterlife.

But if you have a bad one,
then you get your soul gets

eaten by a monster called Amit.

And then after there's no bad
afterlife, but there's just,

there's a good one and no bad one.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

You just get destroyed.

You go, it's

Justin Sledge: oblivion.

It's like good or oblivion.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Justin Sledge: Which doesn't
seem that bad actually.

No, I just, that's right.

Actually, it's like, yeah.

So that's not, you know.

And then after Heaven and hell, that
becomes so associated with Christianity

that Judaism distances itself
from heaven and hell and basically

quits contemplating much of it.

Rupert Isaacson: At what point?

Justin Sledge: Sometime
third, fourth century.

It seems like Judaism drifts away
from talking about the afterlife.

Fine.

You

Rupert Isaacson: guys
can have heaven and hell.

We didn't want, in the

Justin Sledge: divorce, they got
heaven and hell and exorcism and stuff.

And then in the, in the 16th century you
have reincarnation appears in the kabbah.

Rupert Isaacson: Why, why so suddenly?

Justin Sledge: So it seems

Rupert Isaacson: from.

Justin Sledge: So the, well, the
Kabbala has a very long, complicated

history going back to the, the 13th
century, if not prior, but the, the,

the big idea seems to come from a guy
named Isaac Luria and his student Al.

And they developed this idea of Gil
Goul, which means something like Ole,

and this is the idea that souls roll.

Where are

Rupert Isaacson: they living?

These two guys, these two Rabbi.

So

Justin Sledge: its like
Luria is living in Cairo.

He ultimately immigrates, this is
all inside of the Ottoman Empire.

So he immigrates to what is now the
Galilee, and k Vita is living in

the Galilee, and ultimately he goes
to Damascus and then reincarnation

enters into Judaism as a, as a viable

Rupert Isaacson: and where do you
think they picked that up from?

It's not clear talking to Hindus.

Were they talking to

Justin Sledge: No, because the,
the hin there's no sense of karma

and there's no sense of you can't,
you can't, there's no sense of cat.

You can't go from you, you don't
go from if you, if you commit bad

stuff in this life, you don't get
sent to be a woman in the next life

or made into an animal or something.

You can't be reincarnated down
the food chain, so to speak.

But it seems to be tied up to their
theory of redemption and the idea that

there's a finite number of souls and that
in order for the redemption to occur,

one has to make reparations for all
the sins committed in one's past life.

And how does one kind

Justin Sledge: of.

Yeah.

So you, you undergo a kind of
past life regression and there's

a kind of ritual expert that does
the past life regression for you.

A kind of Jewish shaman.

This happens before

Rupert Isaacson: you die.

You, you, you say, yeah, you

Justin Sledge: figure
this out before you die.

And then they tell you it worked or not.

Who, who, who were your past lives?

What their ma, what the major sins they
committed were and how to fix them.

K vial his, and these called soul roots.

The idea that this is
the root of your soul.

And for instance, K Vial, who was
lu student, his soul route was Cain.

He was the primordial murderer, and
they're responsible for all murders.

Which made him, because he was,
if he could redeem that sin he

could have been he could have
been the Messiah or whatever.

So you get this, and there's still
people out there today in the

kabbalistic world that will do
this past life regression with you.

But that's similar to,

Rupert Isaacson: to Buddhism.

Hinduism.

Then you sort of get off the
karmic wheel, even though you

say there's no karma there.

But isn't that something, a similar idea?

Okay, I've, I've expunged this, these
sins, but you could call that karma.

Well, you do it and now I
could do something else.

Well, you,

Justin Sledge: you, the, you do it in
order to usher in the Messiah, and so

that some point, the, the, the Messianic
age will be ushered in once enough sin

has been expunged and then the Messiah
mess, the Messianic era will start,

but it's not expected for normal.

Like the

Rupert Isaacson: Rastafarian idea
of chant down Babylon sort of thing.

Just we.

Put enough good stuff out there in
all these ways and the bad stuff,

Justin Sledge: the battle stuff.

Yeah.

And Judaism has sort of two minds
about how the Messiah will come.

Either it'll get so bad that only the
Messiah can fix it, or it'll get so good

that the Messiah will be happily welcomed
into the world, that there's no medium.

But in general, you know, if you
go to a local rabbi and ask them,

what happens to me when I die?

The rabbi will tell you, I'll
let you know when I get there.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

That's the, that's the
predominant view now.

Right.

And that's the view.

So when you're going in synagogue,
they're not threatening you

with hell, fire and brimstone?

No.

Okay.

Justin Sledge: No, there's no, yeah.

Historically saying, be a

Rupert Isaacson: inch.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, be a inch.

And, and the idea is that, you
know, the, you know, and if you

look at the Torah, the rewards are
always this worldly, follow the

rules and you'll get children, land,
agriculture, life will be good for you.

Rupert Isaacson: Your, your bonds
will be bursting at the seams

and your cut will runeth over.

Justin Sledge: Eth over.

And so that's the kind of, it's,
it's a very, this worldly religion.

Okay.

And there's even a line in the Talman
that says that people who do the

right thing with the expectation
of reward have that reward.

But that's like a child.

It is like a, it's like a toddler
version of religion that if you do

the right thing to get a reward.

God's like pat you on the head.

Good for you.

But like, it's a, it's a, it's an in,
it's an ins ultimately insufficient

way of getting people to do the good,
because then you only do good, do the good

when you get reward or only do the good
when you get public recognition for it.

And the rabbis are very skeptical
of the idea that you should be

rewarded in the afterlife for
having done the good in this world.

Because it, it's interesting.

It sets up a, a bad idea about
why you should do the good.

You shouldn't do the good 'cause
you get something you should do

the good because it's a good,

Rupert Isaacson: this feels to me almost
like a parallel with Ana Buddhism or

not the sort of, you know, Buddhism
of Tibetan, which is sort of like

high Catholic Buddhism or whatever.

But it seems again, very similar
to the kind of golden rule thing.

Just, you know, don't be a dick because
your life is worse if you are be mentor.

Yeah.

I, because things kind
of go better if you are.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I guess, I
mean, I think that, you know, Spinoza

famously said that religion can be
boiled down to two things, right?

That, that there's a, that something
made all this so there's probably

a God and that whatever is hateful
to you don't do to your neighbor.

And he thought basically religion could
be boiled down to those two things.

And everything else he thought
of was he called superstition.

He said those two things
can be logically proved.

The rest of it is just cultural
fad and, and superstition.

I'm not sure I go that quickly.

Who

Rupert Isaacson: knows?

It was, 'cause again, not everyone knows.

Justin Sledge: Espinoza was a 17th century
rationalist philosopher, famous for being

excommunicated by the Jewish community.

He was living in the Netherlands, right?

The Netherlands, that's right.

Yeah.

I've been to his house on many occasions.

He's kind of a you know, one of
the, I don't know if he's one

of my favorite philosophers, but
he's certainly a philosopher that

I Why, why should we, why should

Rupert Isaacson: we know about him?

Justin Sledge: I think that he
pioneered the idea that one could

believe in a transcendent reality
without being part of a religion.

That you could be secular.

I mean, Spinoza was the
first secular person.

He was kicked out of a religion,
but he never joined another one.

But he didn't give up believing in
something like God was Descartes secular.

Mm-hmm.

Justin Sledge: No, he, he continued
to be a, a pious Catholic.

I mean, he got in trouble with them,
but he, I think if you'd asked him if

he were a Catholic, he would say yes.

He took confession.

But Spinoza was excommunicated.

Rupert Isaacson: And so
if, if, if, okay, so sorry.

He, so he said, he's saying, I interrupted
you for why we should know about him.

Please go on.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I think that he's important because
if you've ever left a religion and

didn't join another one and you still
believe in God, then you, you can

thank him 'cause he did it first.

Rupert Isaacson: That
sort of describes to me,

you might have

Justin Sledge: a, you might
have a grandfather in Spinoza.

Rupert Isaacson: I might, you know,
I mean, hey, I've got Dutch roots as

well as everything else there, you.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

He, you know, he also made the first
protest sign that we know of in history.

Really.

He ever held up a, yeah, after the,
the mob murdered the Det Brothers

he wanted to hang a protest sign
outside of his apartment saying, you

know, this is the worst Barbarity.

And his land Leddy was
like, are you crazy?

They'll tear those guys apart.

They'll tear you apart.

Like,

Rupert Isaacson: don't do that.

Who were the Det brothers
and why were they murdered?

Justin Sledge: The Det brothers
were the head of the of the Dutch

Republic and royalist Mob who wanted
to restore the house of Orange

which was eventually restored.

Lynch them.

And if you wanna see a, a nightmare
fuel painting, there's a painting

made from life of what they look
like after they were lynched.

And it's really horrifying.

They're emasculated faces torn off.

Rupert Isaacson: Where do you,
where does one find this painting?

You can Google it, I'm sure if you just
Google the murder of the DVI Brothers I'm

gonna make And, and how did that play out?

Because they must have had a whole power
structure around them, the Devet brothers.

I mean, how could, how did the
mob get hold of them so easily?

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I wonder this too.

And I can say that.

Why were they so

Rupert Isaacson: enraged?

'cause they, you know, they're sort of
Dutch people, you know, who Yeah, they're

Justin Sledge: Dutch people.

I don't have any emotions.

I think that the, I think that they,
again, the, the politics and inspires,

you know, people to do bizarre,
crazy things, including hateful,

murderous things was Nietzsche said
that insanity in individuals is rare,

but insanity in crowds is the rule.

Mm-hmm.

And so I, I think Nietzche said that
that's the kind of thing Nietzche

would say, but yeah, I think that
they, again, it was political tensions

were pretty high, and the royalists
and the Republican through h Joe's

throats and ultimately the English
were able to reinstall their whatever,

cousins or whatever on the throne

Rupert Isaacson: ah, we were behind it.

That makes sense.

Yes.

The Brits,

Justin Sledge: I mean, they, they were
behind in the sense that, you know,

they definitely did not want to continue
dealing with the Dutch Republic as a

naval enemy, and they wanted to have,
you know, and so they, you know, I

mean that's the reason why the oh, I
found the painting, the ulcer royalists

and and Northern Ireland to this day
still have orange the same way the Yes.

Of orange.

They're all connected.

It's all part of the one big royal family.

Rupert Isaacson: I have found the
painting and trigger alert guys.

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: I don't,
I don't recommend it.

Rupert Isaacson: I wouldn't
recommend looking at it.

Yep.

Yeah.

Fair warning.

Yep.

Yeah.

I, I, yeah.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: It's, you know, but it
is, you know, that's how Democracy dies.

That is a painting about
the death of a republic.

And.

For all of us people who believe in rule
by the people, for the people, you know,

that's a, it's a gruesome painting.

Well worth contemplating.

'cause to me it's

Rupert Isaacson: Right.

And of course, you know, rule by
the people, for the people can

easily turn into oligarchies and

Sure.

Rupert Isaacson: Mafias as we know.

Yep.

So there's arguments for monarchies, IE
the devils, you know, the mafia, you know.

Right.

Stability with that.

It is the office, not the person.

And changing your gangsters up
every four, two, however many years.

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: yeah.

No, no.

Who knows?

We, maybe it could be just be the case.

We're all shuffling the deck,
the deck chairs in the Titanic.

But indeed, indeed.

But no, I I like Hobbes.

Hobbes says, you know, I don't care
if it's a, a king or a republic

or a whatever, it doesn't matter.

What matters is the, the sovereignty of
the people that kings sit on their thrones

as long as the people want them to.

Mm.

And then tell us who Hobbes was.

So another 17th century political
philosopher and translator.

People often sit on, they really
sleep on Hobbes's translation.

So he did street really great
translations of like, acidities and stuff.

Did a translation of Homer.

But he was an important political
philosopher, especially a political

philosopher of sovereignty.

Rupert Isaacson: Was he in Oxford,
Don, like, how, how was he funding

himself to, that's a good question.

I forget exactly where he

Justin Sledge: graduated from.

He was, you know, worked for
one of these wealthy, right.

Wealthy got a patron or whatever.

Yeah.

Patron.

That's, I think so.

So,

Rupert Isaacson: and that sort of brings
us to YouTube because one of the things

I find really fascinating about channels
like yours, it's a big channel now.

I mean, if I look at your views, you
know, it's in the hundreds of thousands

which is brilliant because, you know,
it, it, it's, for me, it's revenge of

the nerds because it vindicates that
people say, oh, history's so boring.

It's like, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Well look at Justin Church's esoterica
thing then, and, and look how many,

you know, because it's brilliant.

Frankly.

Your, your channel is brilliant, Justin.

I mean, it's, I appreciate that.

It's, I'd say it's beyond brilliant
because it's entertaining,

informative, deeply non-partisan and

fair and humorous.

You know, there's so many chuckles
through, through the whole thing, and

you've made a real success of this.

I think there's a lot of people out there
who, just switching gears completely

now you lead a very different life now,
I should imagine, to when you were an

adjunct professor To explore and study
what you want to, to showcase what

you want to, to sort of inform people.

And it's vindicated because people are
voting with their feet, with their views.

So you must be making a living from this.

Now.

How did you manage to evolve that?

And I watched videos of yours from
four years ago to now sort of thing,

and it's, it's, I find it really
interesting that you can present

material that if I was to go to the bank
and say, could you give me a loan, please

so that I can do a, a YouTube channel
on really, really esoteric stuff that

people might or might not be interested.

I dunno, but I'm interested in it.

And they probably say, Rupert bugger off.

You've made such a go of it.

How,

Justin Sledge: what do you mean?

How, just

Rupert Isaacson: in terms of, yeah,
because I mean, like, literally

what, what's, if you were to write
a bio, your autobiography and

say, I started here and I got here
and these were sort of the steps.

I said, 'cause it must have been a
real voyage of discovery for you.

You must have, you didn't come out of your
mother's womb knowing how to do YouTube.

I mean,

Justin Sledge: yeah.

No, I still don't know how to do YouTube.

Still have no idea what I'm doing.

You know, I, so maybe the, the
easy way to answer it was that

before I was an academic, I was
in the entrepreneurial world.

I was in like the tech world.

Okay.

And I knew a good bit about.

How to start a business and like,
and how to run a business and

how to, like what did you do in
the tech world out of interest?

I, I worked in like
security, like tech security.

Okay.

And you know, I, when I, it was my
brother that ultimately convinced me to

do the channel and after he convinced
me, I spent, I spent five months

planning how I wanted the channel, what
I wanted it to look like, what I wanted

to cover, the cadence of the channel,
you know, almost all the major things.

Nothing's fundamentally changed.

Mm-hmm.

I've gotten better at it.

Yeah.

I've found my own voice.

You know, apparently people think that
the bizarre things I say are funny

and so I, I've, you know, I don't
mind, you know, interjecting some

degree of my whatever sense of humor,
assuming, you know, that I have that.

But you know, I think that part of
why the channel has grown is because

of the vacuum of other reliable data.

I think that when I tell people this book
says this, here is the book, here is the

manuscript that the book is based on.

Here is a link to the manuscript.

You can read it yourself.

Here is a thing to help you learn to read
Latin so you can read the manuscript.

Right.

You know, I don't and also I
don't tell people how history was.

I say, look, this is the debates.

You know, it's, these are, this is the
data, these are the debates over the data.

Here's the data for yourself.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

But there's people out there that
do that, and they're not you.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I mean, but I think that maybe they,
I mean they don't do do in this field.

I don't know anyone else really
doing it, doing that in this field.

There's other people doing that in,
I don't know, maybe other fields,

Beowulf or something, I don't know.

Mm-hmm.

But you know what, I think
what people like is that they

don't feel sold something.

They don't feel told that
this is the way that it is.

Okay.

I think people like saying, you
know, people like knowing that these

are my sources, you know, and also
the whole channel is engineered

around the idea that I'm empowering
people to do the work themselves.

Mm-hmm.

Justin Sledge: You know, people get
angry sometimes when I say, well,

I'm not gonna summarize the book.

And they're like, well,
that's what I want.

I want to, and I'm like,
yeah, you think you want that?

'cause that feels like you're
learning, but you're not learning.

Wikipedia feels like learning,
but it's not learning.

You need to read these books.

You need to study the material.

And the only way to do that is by
feeling like you can, and the way

that you prepare people is to say,
look, Sumerian is not magical.

It's a language like any other language.

Latin's not magical.

It's a language.

You can learn it, you can learn
to read medieval handwriting

Rupert Isaacson: and you
can read in translation too.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

And here's a good translation.

Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.

Justin Sledge: And here's why it's
a good translation, because the

translator will tell you why they
make the decisions they're making.

Mm-hmm.

Justin Sledge: And it's about empowerment.

And I think people want to feel, people
often come to education and they come

away from education, feeling disempowered.

And I want people to feel empowered.

And the way you make people feel
empowered is you make them feel like

they can join the conversation too.

And I do believe that eter, that esoterica
allows people the tools to empower

themselves to enter the conversation.

Now, not at a high level and not at, you
know, whatever, but it's certainly more

empowering than, here's some stuff I heard
in a dream, or here's some stuff that,

like I read in a book that's not reliable,
or Here's my personal beliefs about this.

Very rarely will you ever hear
me interject my personal beliefs

into an esoteric episode.

Almost never.

Rupert Isaacson: Did you have any idea,
did you plan that it would get this big?

Did you have any idea that it would,
or was it more just a question of,

look, I'm surprised by how big it

Justin Sledge: got.

Yeah, no, I had no idea
it would get this big.

I'm, I'm, I'm flabbergasted every
time I open up the analytics

that it's, that it's this big.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, that's
great and terrible, right?

Because that means I can
make a living doing it.

But it also means that the amount
of eyes on me are enormous.

And so making mistakes
becomes a much bigger deal.

And also it means that, you know, I was
talking to my former teacher v Holograph

who at the University of Amsterdam where
I was trained, and he was like, it's

great that your channel's gotten this
big, but just know that any mistakes

you make, we have to clean up later.

Rupert Isaacson: And

Justin Sledge: that's a lot
of responsibility, but it keep

Rupert Isaacson: the conversation
going and at least it puts it out

there in the public conscious earth.

Right.

I mean, if one was so afraid of making
mistakes, one would never do anything.

You should hear my German, it's
terrible, but it's functional.

And I don't mind sounding like
a toddler because otherwise

how will I learn, you know?

It, its, but Okay.

Well, you said you were trained
at the University of Amsterdam.

What were you trained in there?

'cause you trained in the study
out of your, the study of,

Justin Sledge: Of Western as a terrorism.

That's where I received sort of like
my how to study Western as a tism.

What Western as a terrorism is.

Did you do that as an ma?

Mm-hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: Or MSC?

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

Or d

Rupert Isaacson: you know, whatever
the, whatever the, the Dutch.

And why did you go to the Netherlands?

Justin Sledge: It was the only place.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Did you have to self-fund that?

Justin Sledge: I got a loan.

Yeah, I got a loan and
I got a scholarship.

So, but because you must have come

Rupert Isaacson: out of that in some debt.

Justin Sledge: Yeah, I think I, I came
out self some debt, but I, I think,

you know, it wasn't, you know, I
paid, I since paid it off, thank God.

So, but yeah, it was
the, it was just a task.

It was, I remember finishing
undergraduate and just being

like, this is what I have to do.

I gotta go.

Rupert Isaacson: Why?

Why is it the only place that teaches
the history of Western Esoterism?

Justin Sledge: Because
everyone's interested

Rupert Isaacson: in it.

Justin Sledge: I don't know that everyone
is, some people are, I mean, I think

it's the only place because there are not
many people skilled enough to teach it.

And there's an endowed chair, a
very wealthy woman decided that

she was, decided she was really
interested in it and decided she

was going to endowed chair and

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Justin Sledge: Threw millions of dollars
at an institution and conjure in, in, into

being the way that rich people can do.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: So I think it has
more to do with the accident.

And, you know, V Va GRA is a, a,
a Titanic scholar was a really

intellectual hero of mine.

And

Rupert Isaacson: why so tell us about him.

Justin Sledge: Voucher Ner Van DeGraff.

RAF Vata.

Raf, yeah.

Raf, yeah.

He's, you know, he, he's, he's just
been able to shepherd the whole field in

many ways by making it respectable, by
publishing really great monographs and

articles by, by making the department
a collegial place where a range of

opinions are appreciated and diverse.

You know, it's a diverse field,
you know, a diverse place with, you

know, lots of different people there.

Yeah, he's just, you know, the
Dutch, you know, the, the Dutch are a

practical people and he's a practical
person with an obscure interest,

and he's been able to make it work.

And yeah, I've always, you know,
the one thing I'll say personally

is that every time I've ever been
around him, he listens as a, you

know, to me as a junior scholar, as a.

First day in his classroom when
I said something, he listened

and he interacted with me.

And there was never a moment
from between then and now when I

interact with him where I never
feel like he's like just biting his

time to correct me or something.

He's a real educator.

He's a real scholar.

He he's done Titanic important things
for the field and yeah, it's a real, like

I said, an intellectual hero of mine.

So

Rupert Isaacson: if you were to put
into a nutshell why we ought to study

Western esotericism, why should we?

Justin Sledge: It's,
it's part of our history.

Rupert Isaacson: Go on.

There's more than that.

Justin Sledge: I think it's a part
of our history that systems of power

have sought to repress, that modernity
has sought to repress that myth, that

modern peddlers and conspiracy theories
distort for their own interests.

And it's had a disproportionate impact
on the development of modernity.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

Justin Sledge: And so why

Rupert Isaacson: think what we think?

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: it's, yeah, it's, it's,
it's right there at the heart of it all.

And I think that those are reasons
why it should be taken seriously.

I don't think that every religious
studies department needs a Western

as Tism scholar, but I do think that
there's no reason why, you know, there

are not more of us out there as a,
you know, as a, as a, as a, you know,

Rupert Isaacson: it's astonishing
really, that there aren't given that.

Western Esotericism is the
belief bedrock of all our stuff.

Justin Sledge: Some of it, you
know, a lot of it, you know.

Yeah.

It just, you know, but again, I can
say in the United States, I, you

have to beg, borrow, and still to get
religious, religious studies classes.

Yeah.

Just reli basic religious studies classes.

The idea that you would have
a specialization in religious

studies classes is beyond the pale.

Rupert Isaacson: And do you think
that just comes from dogmatic

Christianity or dogmatic science?

Science saity or somewhere in between

Justin Sledge: scientism?

Yeah.

I think it's also just uni.

Universities are often skeptical of, they
don't wanna be perceived as pushing an

agenda, especially a religious agenda.

And religious studies
tends to be academic.

I mean, it's, we're not taking a side,
we're just trying to teach religious

studies and somehow that offends people
that you're not taking a position, but

also taking a position isn't allowed.

So it's a complete catch 22.

Rupert Isaacson: It's so interesting.

Okay.

So here's the thing.

Somebody needs to understand
and begin somewhere.

What are like the five things that.

Somebody should start with to take
them from Sumer ish to here to get a

bit of an understanding to get going.

You're talking to a 14-year-old, you
say, dude, look at these five things.

What are they?

Justin Sledge: Wow.

Look at these five things.

Well, I think there's no
better place in the beginning.

Look at the Keshe and
the instructions of ak.

Those are the first two
literary documents ever written.

The Keshe.

Yeah.

KeHE.

And the instructions of she ak

Rupert Isaacson: instructions of she ak.

And that's Sumeria.

Justin Sledge: That's Sumeria.

Those are the first two literary
documents ever written down that we have.

It's the earliest we have,
I dunno if they're the, the

first or the earliest Yeah.

That we've recovered.

Skipping ahead further ahead than that.

Oh God.

This is like an impossible question.

Rupert Isaacson: Are we in Egypt?

Are we in Greece?

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

I, I think that,

I mean, I would from Egypt, I
would say that the text that I

would read from ancient Egypt
would be the pyramid text of Unes.

That's the first appearance of
the soul and the afterlife and the

world that we know of in literature.

Great.

Uns, how do you spell it?

UNAS.

Rupert Isaacson: So that's the first.

What's fun with that name?

Justin Sledge: Hmm.

Rupert Isaacson: You could have
all sorts of fun with that name.

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

It's either wanes.

We don't know how it was really
pronounced in ancient Egyptian.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Justin Sledge: Greece.

I would say that you could spend
a lifetime with Parmenides.

Parmenides.

Rupert Isaacson: Not Plato, not Socrates.

Not everything is a

Justin Sledge: commentary to Parmenides.

Everything is downstream of parities.

Everything's downstream of Plato,
but Plato's downstream of Parities.

Okay.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Didn't know that.

Okay.

Parities.

I'm gonna go have a look at Parities.

Okay.

Then I presume we hit Rome or,

Justin Sledge: yeah.

Or the Middle Ages.

I don't know.

Probably the Confessions by Augustine.

That's the first time we get a
person, like something like a subject.

The confessions.

Okay.

Everything you need to know
about Christianity is Western

Christianity is in the Confessions.

Rupert Isaacson: And that's fifth Century.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Justin Sledge: Twilight
of the Roman Empire.

Rupert Isaacson: And he's
also, he's been a Pagan, right?

August Augustine.

So he's, he, he's, he, he knows
of what he rejected a bit,

Justin Sledge: right?

Yeah, he's a smart guy.

I mean, maybe one of the smartest
philosophers ever we've ever produced.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

Alright.

And then we're at five.

Is it Spinoza?

Justin Sledge: Oh, wow.

Then we have to go over the Middle Ages.

Nah, it's not, he's important,
but I, I can't imagine he's

that, that high on the list.

God, this is like, these
lists are just so impossible.

Rupert Isaacson: Do we need to go to,

Justin Sledge: might be Leonard Bernard

Rupert Isaacson: Pvo or do we need to go?

Yeah.

Maister Eckhart Probably.

Maister Eckhart.

Okay.

Why, why him and not
Hildegard of Bing or someone.

Justin Sledge: I mean, it's all, you know,
Hildegard is doing a very different thing.

I think that Maister Eckhart brings
us the closest we ever got to

a kind of radical philosophical
spiritual mysticism in the West.

And, and he only didn't
get excommunicated.

'cause he died.

Okay.

But he's, you know, Meister Eckhart is,
he's so important that I literally copied

out an entire sermon of his by hand in,
in calligraphy once the Sermon on Hunger.

I think it's such a brilliant, I copied
it out just so I could meditate on it.

Like letter by letter.

I copied the entire thing out in Latin.

Okay.

Took me, took me weeks.

But Okay.

Any, any, anyone who says that
I, you know, I, I don't I don't

take this stuff seriously.

I take it so seriously that I,
I literally will copy it out by

hand in a 14th century style.

So listen,

Rupert Isaacson: I know you have to run.

Tell us how people can find you.

How can they and lads
listeners support this dude?

Go to his Patreon buy his cool
black metal merch, which I'm about

to do and listen to his show.

But how do they find you Justin and stuff?

Justin Sledge: Yeah.

And I apologize for the noise down below.

I'm in the process of, you know,
you notice my shelves are all

empty in the process of about
to renovate this whole study.

I only have YouTube.

You can find me on YouTube.

But esoterica, I have a website where
poking can learn a little bit more

about me, but I don't have any other
social media 'cause it scares me.

Yeah.

But that's it.

But if people

Rupert Isaacson: want to consult
with you, can they, if people have

questions, if people wanted to engage
you as some sort of a mentor or tutor

and pay you to do that, can they
Or do you keep out completely back?

Yeah,

Justin Sledge: it's so, it, it's the
kind of thing where, you know, I've done

a little bit of that, but I've, I've
found that to be not a very rewarding

experience because often people,
you know, time is expensive for me.

Yeah, sure.

And I don't, and charging people, if I
give, if one person could pay me a lot

of money, then that's taking time away
that I could be serving lots more people.

Rupert Isaacson: Absolutely.

Justin Sledge: And so I've done that on,
I've done that on a few occasions and I'm

like, yeah, I don't feel good about it.

'cause I feel like it's sort of like a,
I feel like I'm medieval person where I'm

bought as opposed to being able to give,
and I'd rather give them than, and what,

Rupert Isaacson: what you do is
extremely generous and, you know,

when I'm listening to your stuff,
I feel like I'm kind of wandering

through the library of Alexandria,
you know, somewhere in, you know, I.

The Hellenic Egypt at some
point, and the books are just

popping out and talking to me.

Justin Sledge: No, I'm really glad
that's so any educator wants to

hear is that, that the, the past is
coming to life in a rewarding way.

Because, you know, again,
the William William Faulkner

said the the past isn't dead.

It's not even past.

Mm.

Justin Sledge: And I think that
that's what I wanna make clear to

people is that the past isn't dead.

You're living in it.

Rupert Isaacson: That's
very hunter gatherer of you.

It's the non-linear time thing
that Yeah, it passed, I guess.

Yeah.

Having

Justin Sledge: not many hunter gatherers,
I can't say, but I can say that.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't, I don't tend to
think of the past as being a dead

thing that influenced, influenced us.

Yeah.

It's a living thing
that is influencing us.

I so agree.

We should be self-conscious
of that influence.

Rupert Isaacson: Okay.

I can't recommend it enough lads.

Go listen to esoterica.

Drive around P Poo with your
horses, whatever you're doing,

go to the toilet, listen to it.

It's brilliant.

Justin, it's been
fantastic to have you on.

I I'm, you're a hero.

I'm a fanboy.

It's fantastic.

I, I, I can't thank you
enough for coming on.

Justin Sledge: I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me on.

Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed
today's conversation as much as I did.

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