Descriptions:
Video Description
The word ‘occult’ sounds like robes and candles, but this episode from Modern Intuitionist shows it may also describe an ordinary Sunday mass. From Bohemian Grove to Skull and Bones to the symbols on a dollar bill, it maps how power has always been staged through ritual. The real twist is freeing: magic was never locked away in a secret lodge — it lives in Your Will, Your intent, and the symbols You choose.
Full Video Transcript
So he says, what you need to do is you need to start studying the occult.
And this is a priest telling me this.
When you hear the word occult, what does that make you think of?
You might imagine people in dark robes and masks doing strange rituals and chanting in a circle.
Like this scene from the movie Eyes Wide Shut.
I mean, this paints a picture which is, I mean, it’s Eyes Wide Shut, literally.
Eyes Wide Shut is a documentary, like, this is real life.
I have this sense that there are very powerful secret societies operating today,
and we don’t really know or understand them.
And for a lot of people, just hearing the word occult makes them instantly think of Satan.
So it probably doesn’t make you think of going to church.
And yet, think of what happens at a Catholic mass.
There’s a priest standing at an altar with wine and some small pieces of bread.
And then he starts to reenact what Jesus did at the Last Supper, the night before he was crucified.
do this in memory of me. He takes the bread and says, this is my body. He takes the wine and says,
this is the blood of my covenant. And from here he says a prayer, a kind of incantation that calls
on the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s an invisible force of the divine. And by the time he’s done,
the bread and the wine have now become the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ. Now here’s where things
get a little strange. In the Catholic and Orthodox Church, they’re not just saying that the change is
symbolic. They’re saying that the change is real. Literally. It’s called the doctrine of
transubstantiation. And what it means is that even though the bread and the wine look exactly the
same as they did before, the substance of it is now totally different. It is now the real body
and blood of Christ. Now to anybody outside the church, this seems very occult, doesn’t it? Because
let’s look at what the word occult means. It comes from the Latin word occultus, which means hidden
or concealed. And specifically, it has to do with the things that are hidden from sight,
the things we can’t see. And so because the church says that this transformation is invisible,
you can’t see it or touch it or feel it happening, it is by definition an occult ritual. And yet most
people don’t think of it that way. Why? We like to imagine that there’s a clear separation between
religion on one hand and the occult on the other. But does that distinction really hold up? Dr.
Richard Spence is a professor emeritus and historian of the occult and secret societies.
And he points out that religions are really just approved forms of the occult. Because the basic
idea in occultism is that the things we see and experience in the world are just one very small
part of a much bigger reality. There’s a whole world beyond us that’s totally hidden. And so
when you look at what most religious rituals are, they’re really techniques that people have come
up with to try to tap into this hidden world. And whether it’s through prayer or meditation or
trance states, what they’re trying to do is access this higher plane so that they can then use it to
influence what’s happening here in our world. Now if all of this sounds crazy to you, consider the
fact that it’s not just religious groups that are doing this. It’s also some of the most powerful
and influential people in the world. Take for example Bohemian Grove. It’s a private campground
in monte rio california that belongs to a gentleman’s club known as the bohemian club
it’s very exclusive and its members have included wealthy and powerful people like
henry kissinger ronald reagan and george bush well they’ve all been members of the exclusive
all-male bohemian club in california now what you’re looking at is real footage of bohemian
grove this is a ritual that happens there once a year it’s called the cremation of care here
the members put on robes and meet at the bottom of a huge 40-foot owl made of stone they stand
by an altar and then they take an effigy that’s been shaped to look like a human being and then
they light it on fire and as it burns the night is filled with chanting and music now to anybody
watching this it looks like a mock human sacrifice the question is why are they doing it what’s the
purpose of the ritual because whatever you think about what’s going on here what they’re doing is
very clearly a ritual well the official explanation is that they’re just being silly and having fun
they say that this is how they kick off their two-week camping retreat the burning effigy is
supposed to symbolize dull care so when they burn it it symbolizes this idea that they’re now
leaving all their worries behind and that ties in with their motto weaving spiders come not here
which means that they’re not supposed to talk about business or politics or anything else that
could spoil their fun yet we know that at least some serious talks do happen there like in
september of 1942 when there was a planning meeting at the grove to talk about what became
the manhattan project reportedly it included scientists like jay robert oppenheimer military
officials and other important leaders we also know that this is what led to the development
of the atomic bomb and so the questions have really only intensified over time because
why do they wear robes why is the burning effigy shaped like a human being and why does it look
like they’re sacrificing it to a giant owl now it’s not just bohemian grove dr spence’s work
suggests that there’s a pattern where we find many secret societies all throughout history
and a lot of them seem to be involved in the occult like this group this is skull and bones
also known as order 322 or the brotherhood of death it’s a real student society at one of the
of the most elite institutions in the world, Yale University.
To Yale University’s Skull and Bones.
His name in the Yale University secret society,
Skull and Bones.
Club that’s been shrouded in mystery for 177 years.
Every year, Skull and Bones invites
only 15 people to join.
Their members have gone on to become CEOs, judges,
and world leaders like US President William Howard Taft
and Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.
The first thing you do when you join is swear an oath of secrecy to everybody there.
And all their meetings happen in secret, in a building they call the tomb.
So what exactly goes on inside?
Well, only the members of the club know for sure,
but Spence proposes that the key initiation ritual goes something like this.
The brand new initiate gets naked and lies inside a coffin.
The other members then start chanting.
They carry him into a special room deep inside the tomb,
and once inside, he has to confess all of his most secret desires, all the sexual acts he’s
ever done. It’s the sort of thing that might ruin your reputation if it ever came out. The idea is
that this is a ritualized death that happens inside that coffin, and when he comes out, he
will be reborn as a fully initiated member. Now that’s the symbolic meaning, but of course it
also means that the club has lots of embarrassing information on everyone who joins. So if you ever
decide to break the oath of secrecy, they can use that against you. All of this became a big
question in 2004 when George W. Bush was running against John Kerry for the presidency. At the time
they were framed as two very different people. Bush was a Republican and Kerry was a Democrat.
Bush was folksy and relatable and Kerry was presented as the more intellectual one. And yet
both of them were members of Skull and Bones and they were both asked about it. You were both in
skull and bones the secret society. It’s so secret we can’t talk about it. What does that tell us?
Uh not much because it’s a secret. The conspiracy theorists are going to go watch.
I don’t know I haven’t seen the number 322. The fact is they swore an oath of secrecy and so the
big question was who are they really loyal to and what does it mean for democracy that the only two
choices for president came down to two secret society members in the same club. It’s a big club
and you ain’t in it. Of course, Bush would go on to win that election. And after he became
president, he promoted at least 10 former Skull and Bones members to key positions in government,
including Bill Donaldson to head of the SEC and Edward McNally as general counsel to the
Office of Homeland Security. And that’s just what we know about. All of this has continued
to fuel speculation even today because for most of us, it seems undeniable that the very word
secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society, and we as a people are inherently and historically
opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. And Spence’s work
suggests that this is all just the tip of the iceberg, because there are many, many secret
societies. They still exist today. And so for me, this raises even more questions. Are we being
ruled by an occult elite is that maybe why we find so many mysterious symbols on everything
and if it is what do these symbols mean that is what i want to explore with you today because
once you know what to look for you’ll find that our world is filled with occult symbols
they’re all around us the question isn’t whether they’re there they are the question is why are
they there let me show you what i mean the first key piece in occultism is the idea of magic which
probably makes you think of someone standing on stage and doing tricks in sleight of hand.
He’ll usually start off by showing you something ordinary, mundane, but then he’ll do something
with it that seems impossible or it seems to defy the laws of physics. And yet we know that it’s
just a trick. In The Prestige, Michael Caine’s character says that you’re looking for the secret,
but you won’t find it. Because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know.
you want to be fooled. But Spence points out that the stage magician is actually doing something
deeper than just trying to fool you. He’s trying to mimic something. He’s doing an imitation of
real magic. So what is that exactly? Magic is the art and science of causing change to occur
in conformity with will. It’s the idea that by focusing your will and intention, you can shift
the way things turn out. It’s a way of bending reality just a little bit to push things to
happen in a certain way. How does that work? Well, Spence gives an analogy. Imagine that our reality
is like a flat surface and there’s a marble sitting in the middle of it. From here, it wouldn’t take
much pressure to tilt it just a tiny bit to one side. And if you could do that, then even the
smallest and slightest tilt could get the ball rolling. And from there, gravity and momentum do
all the rest. And it falls off the other side. He calls this tilting the luck plane. And in theory,
this is what occult magic is trying to do and it’s the secret that these elite societies claim to
know. It’s one of the tools they use to influence world events. Now this assumes at least a couple
of things like is there such a thing as a luck plane and if there is is it possible for us to
act on it? Well Spence makes it clear that he doesn’t know and he’s not sure if he believes it
one way or the other. It’s pretty hard to prove in any definitive way and so a lot of people dismiss
us all this because the very idea of a hidden occult reality just doesn’t seem real. But then
again, what is real? How do you define real? If we’re talking about the things you can feel, what
you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by
the brain. And we know that there are lots of examples where our ordinary senses break down.
For example, if you zoom into any object and go all the way down to the level of atoms and
electrons, the universe starts to get really strange. Scientists like Werner Heisenberg have
tried to describe just how strange quantum mechanics is. The atoms or elementary particles
themselves are not real, at least not in the way we usually think of it. They form a world of
potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts. And so it starts to look like
at certain levels of reality, the ideas we have about what’s physical or solid or real dissolves.
And what we’re left with are just possibilities,
which to me sounds a lot like a luck plane.
Now, I’m not saying that you have to believe
any of this is true.
The point is that there are lots of people
who do believe it.
And some of those people have a lot of influence.
Some have even advised world leaders and politicians.
So let’s just imagine for a moment that you can do this,
that it’s possible to tap into this hidden world
and tilt the luck plane just a tiny bit in your favor.
How would you do that?
Well, from an occult point of view,
you do it through ritual. A ritual is a series of actions that are done in a specific way,
in a specific order, to accomplish a certain result. And so there are lots of examples of
rituals, like when you pray for someone to get better, or when you touch your heart and point
to Jesus every time you make a three-pointer in a basketball game. And even when people talk
about manifesting or using vision boards to attract something they want, these are all rituals.
But there’s two important things to note here.
The first is that a ritual is a way of focusing your intent.
That’s how you’re causing change to occur in conformity with will.
And second, the most powerful rituals express meaning through symbols, often in a way that
transforms the objects themselves.
So now we’re ready to look at what might be the most powerful symbolic ritual in the world,
the creation of money.
The dollar is king, we’re going to keep it that way.
What we’re seeing is a slow erosion of confidence in dollar-based assets.
We’ll now be part of what’s called the great wealth transfer.
Money is in a lot of ways fundamental to the way our society works, and that’s especially
true of the U.S. dollar because it’s the world reserve currency, at least it still is at
the time of this video.
And we don’t usually think of it as a ritual, and yet when you look at the dollar bill,
it has all these mysterious symbols on it,
Latin words and phrases that look like incantations.
And as you can imagine, this has fueled lots of speculation
and all kinds of wild theories about what they might mean,
especially this symbol.
It’s known as the Eye of Providence or the All-Seeing Eye.
It’s a symbol we find in a lot of Christian art.
We see it on buildings and universities,
and it’s also an important symbol in Freemasonry,
a not-so-secret society that’s included people
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. It’s one of the oldest fraternal groups
we know about. And of the 45 men who’ve served as President of the United States, at least 14 of
them were known to be Freemasons. Now, there’s a lot of debate about how involved the Freemasons
were in creating the U.S. dollar bill, but most at least agree on what the Eye of Providence means.
It symbolizes the idea that there’s a divine power that’s always watching, who oversees
everything we do. And so it’s meant to be a sign of God’s watchful protection over humanity. Just
above the eye, we find the words annuit coeptis, which means God has favored our undertakings.
And in the center of the bill are the words, in God we trust. So when you take them together,
all of these elements symbolically tie the dollar to God and the divine. But why? Why take something
like money, which most people think of as material and transactional, and then put all these divine
symbols about god on it what does money have to do with god well if we look at what the dollar
really is it starts to become clear why these two things were brought together think about what
gives the dollar its value it’s not gold or silver or any commodity the dollar is backed by nothing
more than the full faith and credit of the united states which means it’s not backed by anything
physical when nixon took america off the gold standard in the early 1970s i am determined
that the American dollar must never again be a hostage in the hands of international speculators.
The dollar was no longer a claim on gold. Instead, it became what we now call a fiat currency. Fiat
is Latin, meaning, let it be done. What this means is that the dollar today has no intrinsic value.
The value it does have comes only from the fact that we all agree and believe that it does.
Now, here’s where the pyramid and the eye and the references to God start to make sense. Because by
By putting these symbols on the bill, what they’re doing is shifting the source of
power and authority away from people and away from human institutions and moving it towards
this idea of a higher moral order that’s watching everything we do.
God holds everyone accountable.
And so, In God We Trust becomes a promise that the bill you’re holding isn’t just
a piece of paper.
And when you bring it to a store or a bank or a merchant, you can trust that they’ll
accept these dollars to trade for real things that do have value. And in a way, it’s the ultimate
magic trick, because what it does is it transforms these worthless pieces of paper and ink into
something every bit as valuable as gold or silver. In much the same way that priests use ritual to
change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, so too do central banks turn paper into
wealth just by printing them into existence, by imbuing them with divine symbols and incantations.
Because the power of the ritual depends on faith and belief. And the more people who act it out,
the more real it seems to be and the more powerful it becomes. If you think about it,
it’s really a kind of sleight of hand. It’s an illusion to distract us from the fact that
money isn’t some divine creation that God gives to us. Money is something we make. It’s a human
construction and like anything that people do it can be mismanaged and misused and we know this
because there are times when the illusion falls apart like in 1923 when weimar germany was hit
with hyperinflation the price of everything suddenly shot way up and the value of the german
mark dropped so quickly that you needed a wheelbarrow full of bills just to buy a loaf of
bread as soon as people stop believing that their dollars have value it collapses it’s like a spell
has been broken and the effects can be disastrous now just to be clear i’m not saying that money is
evil or it has to be the sinister thing it’s not it’s a tool that you can use to do good or bad
the point is that the symbols we use have tremendous power and money is just one example
of the way symbols organize society and when enough people believe in them they become real
these are the tools through which the social world is built and maintained and the reason this works
is that symbols aren’t just the language of the occult they’re the language of the subconscious
mind we see them in dreams in art in films and myths all around the world so whether it’s
corporate logos or national flags or religious and political symbols we are flooded with symbolism
every day and if we don’t realize this is happening then it will shape the decisions we make
the things we buy where we work and what we think and believe about the world so what can you do
well i’m going to suggest that it all starts when you decide to focus your will and intent
because when you do this what it does is it relocates the source of your power
where it belongs in you your real power lies in your consciousness and that is why learning to
develop your consciousness is more important now than it’s ever been of course to do that
we have to learn to use symbols in a more intentional way so how do you do that well the
way you do it will be completely unique and individual to you maybe you pick and choose
the symbols that resonate with you maybe you design your own symbols and maybe you come up
with your own rituals that empower you to live in a way that brings out your best but since it can
feel overwhelming if you don’t know where to start i’ll share with you three symbols that i found to
be really powerful in my own life i’ll share what they mean to me why i think they’re important and
and you can feel free to use them or change them to suit you in your own practice.
So, let’s get into it.
This is the pentagram, the five-pointed star.
Now, a lot of Christians are going to look at this and say,
that is satanic, but it’s not.
And we know that because it’s been used as a Christian symbol
to represent things like the five holy wounds of Christ on the cross.
And there are even Christian churches that have pentagrams in their window.
And we also know that the pentagram predates Christianity by thousands of years.
We see them in ancient Sumeria as far back as 3500 BCE, and in ancient Egypt in Greece.
And so it’s one of the oldest symbols we know about.
But it’s also thought to be very magical for a few reasons.
Traditionally, the five points of the star are often related to the classical elements.
So we have the material elements of earth, water, air, and fire.
and at the top we have the fifth element spirit it’s where we find our consciousness the mind and
the soul what it shows is the idea of spirit being lifted up over matter and so all of the
material elements are being used to serve and promote the spirit but when you flip everything
upside down now we find spirit at the very bottom and in this situation the soul is being used to
serve the material elements and so it’s an inversion of the natural order why might that be
bad? Well, because ideally we use money and time and resources to help empower people to live
better and healthier lives. But if you’re using people to extract more and more things, then now
we’re elevating the material over the spirit. And if we build a world where this inversion becomes
the focus of how we live and how we organize society, then what happens is the spirit becomes
more and more enslaved by matter. We become less conscious and we submit to this lower compulsive
side. So this is where a lot of the satanic associations come from. And we can see this
in a key scene in the movie Metropolis. There’s the inverted pentagram and this is a man named
Rotwang. He’s building a robot and he’s doing it to try to replace a real woman that he once loved
and lost. But when he fails, he uses it as a tool for destruction. In doing that, he’s trying to
replace the soul with technology, life with control, and freedom with enslavement. And so
But what the symbol is hinting at is the idea that what we’re watching is a complete loss
of humanity.
Now, that’s not to say that technology is evil or bad.
It’s not.
The point is that it all depends on the way we use it.
Again, it comes back to intent.
Is it being used to empower people or is it being used to control and limit their freedom?
The second symbolic meaning of the pentagram has to do with its shape and proportions.
The lines in it follow the golden ratio, so you can derive golden triangles and golden
rectangles in it many times over, and you can even use them to make fractals.
Why is that important?
Well, fractals are a pattern that repeat themselves over and over again in a way that’s self-similar,
which means that if you zoom in or out at any point, you’ll find that same shape over
and over again, infinitely.
Fractals are one of the most fundamental patterns in nature.
You see them everywhere, all over the place.
You can find pentagrams in starfish and in fruit and seeds.
And this is why the pentagram stands for another occult idea.
As above, so below.
As within, so without.
As the universe, so the soul.
It’s also known as the principle of correspondence, and it’s the idea that different levels of
reality mirror each other.
And so the large reflects the small, and the small reflects the large, just as a tiny drop
of water has the same basic essence as the ocean it came from and so if you know something about
one level of reality then it also gives you insight about the other levels what this implies
is that the universe as a whole is in some sense also mirrored in you in the words of mahatma gandhi
we but mirror the world all the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found
in the world of our body if we could change ourselves the tendencies in the world would
also change as a man changes his own nature so does the attitude of the world change towards him
this is the divine mystery supreme a wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness we
need not wait to see what others do gandhi changed the world in ways that seemed impossible in his
time without violence or weapons or any sort of army he didn’t use force he used peaceful
disobedience to inspire a movement and in doing that he showed us how one person can tip the
balance towards freedom that is the power of focused will and intent so what does this mean
for you i found that many times when we feel stuck it’s often because we’re trying to force
something else to change but see if you can let that go and just shift your intent don’t try to
bend the spoon that’s impossible instead only try to realize the truth that there is no spoon
then you’ll see that it’s not the spoon that bends it is only yourself so it can be useful to ask
yourself do you have a clear intention for your life right now what do you want to move towards
and how can you bend yourself to make that happen once you have a good idea of what that is
you’re ready to take the next step and start your journey and that’s where our next symbol comes in
this is the spiral it’s another very old and sacred symbol we see them carved into stone
temples as far back as 4400 bce and at neolithic sites like new grange dating back to 3200 bce
so what does it mean in many traditions it’s a symbol for the initiatory journey that we all
have to take in order to grow and evolve it’s the path to spiritual awakening but why a spiral well
if we think about how most people imagine that life’s supposed to go they tend to think that
we’re all meant to move towards our goals in a straight line in a kind of upward progress that
only ever goes up but it almost never works that way the psychologist carl jung pointed out that
there is no linear evolution there is only a circumambulation of the self what does that mean
well for me it means that growth is a lot like moving around a circle in a spiral you start the
journey at some point on the outside and then you move inward toward the center and this often means
facing the deepest and most unconscious parts of who you are every hero must first descend into
darkness before being reborn it’s a pattern we find in a lot of myths around the world
the greek goddess persephone goes down into the underworld every winter and when she comes back
in the spring she restores the fertility of the earth and in the christian story god descends
from heaven and comes down into the material world to die for the sins of humanity what this implies
is that every journey involves some pain and sacrifice it has to because there is no coming
to consciousness without pain but there’s also a second part to what this means because the spiral
also symbolizes the ascent out of darkness. In The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne finds himself
inside a prison, a dark pit that opens up to the sky. And as he tries to make his way out of it,
he climbs up in a spiral. And as he does that, he has to battle his own self-doubt, inner demons
that he thought he’d already beaten and left behind a long time ago. But now he sees them again
from a higher point of view. Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again.
This is how you move towards your future self when you look back at your life
You see patterns and themes that seem to keep coming up again and again
This is you circling yourself as you move through time
You come back to the things you thought you knew and each time you do that you find deeper truths in it
You become more conscious
You integrate your lessons and you expand the boundaries of who you thought you were supposed to be Jung called this individuation
It’s a lifelong process of bringing together all the different parts of who you are.
It’s a return to wholeness and in a way, it’s like finding your way back home.
Because the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the
place for the first time.
So for me the spiral is a symbol for this winding path that we all go on.
And like any path, there will be times when you feel stuck or seem to lose your way.
How do you find your way back again?
That is where the next symbol comes in.
This is the Ouroboros, the symbol of the snake eating its own tail.
We see it in ancient Egypt from the 14th century BCE, and in Rome, ancient Greece, and we also find it in alchemical pictures like this one.
So what does it mean?
Carl Jung wrote that the Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness,
but it’s also a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. the shadow.
This feedback process is at the same time a symbol of immortality since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself, and gives birth to himself.
He symbolizes the one who proceeds from the clash of opposites.
And so traditionally, it represents the endless cycles of life and death and rebirth, each one flowing into the next.
And because we’re all subject to these cycles, it hints at the idea that there’s an underlying
unity that connects everything in nature.
Even the things that might seem very different on the surface are really just different aspects
of the same thing.
For me, this is exactly what I feel when I have a synchronicity, when a meaningful coincidence
shows up in my life and somehow it happens to connect with exactly what I’m going through
in that moment.
And you can experience this too.
you have a dream about someone from your past, someone you’ve long forgotten about, and the next
day you find them in a crowd. Maybe you pick up a random book and it falls open to show you exactly
the piece of information you need in that moment. These things aren’t connected by cause and effect,
they’re connected through meaning, through symbols. And what makes them so powerful is that
they inspire in us a sense of awe and wonder. They give us a glimpse of the divine and the
hidden unity in everything around us. And when you see it, it feels like an unmistakable sign,
a reminder that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Because when you’re on the
right path, the universe winks and nods at you from time to time, just to let you know.
And once you start noticing these little cosmic cairns, once you begin to understand that you’re
on a path at all, you begin to see them everywhere. For me, this is a kind of real magic that we can
all share and tap into, just by taking the time to slow down and notice them. Because real magic
resides inside of you. It’s not in the smoke and mirrors of a stage, or the images on the news or
social media. It’s not even in the elite rituals of any shadowy group. It’s in your will and intent.
And this is the fundamental insight found in almost every esoteric tradition. This is the
big secret. You can access it anytime you want. The truth is that change happens the moment you
decide. There are infinite versions of you, each living a life shaped by a different choice.
The question is, which one will you tune into? One decision, one gentle pivot, and the entire path
unfolds differently. Don’t underestimate how powerful one moment of clarity can be.
The universe responds the second you align. So if you’re wondering what to do, just listen.
The version of you who already chose is calling you home. These are just some of the symbols that
I’ve found to be really powerful in my life, but there’s also another set of symbols that you can
find in some of the most popular movies ever made, like the Shawshank Redemption, the Truman Show,
and The Matrix. There is a hidden pattern that connects all of them. It goes back to a very old
philosophy that serves as a kind of symbolic map to begin to live in a much more powerful way.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it now by clicking on the video on the right side of the
screen. As always, thanks so much for watching, take care, and I’ll see you in the next one.
Thank you.
Source: Modern Intuitionist