Episode Transcript
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Welcome to the mushrooms, apprentice.
My guest today is an absolutely beautiful soul. You're in for such a treat. Bernhard Reiche is an occultist, animist, storyteller, co host of the YouTube channel Reika and Stark, and founder of Magic School, founded in 2018, where he teaches magic in online courses and live seminars. He grew up in a magical family tradition. His grandfather in particular mentored him from an early age and taught him a down to earth approach to magic and the paranormal. As a child, he frequently had out of body experiences, and in high school, his interest in spiritual literature led to some transformative mystical episodes that inspired his first book.
He writes ever since, fairy tales and short stories. Mostly he worked as editor in chief and translator for the weird fiction magazine Visionarium. Apart from that, he taught screenwriting and worked as a medium for several years. Along his way, he met and compared notes with many spiritual teachers, authors, members of religious orders, researchers, scholars, healers, psychics, witnesses of paranormal events, and indigenous shamans. Bernhardt is a trained remote viewer and a psychonaut. He furthers education around polyamory as a speaker, but his main focus is the power of the imaginal and how to interact with stories to create a fulfilling life. He loves blues music, Pink Floyd's scotch whiskey, sophisticated tv series and comics. He's deeply anglophile and a hopeless cat lover. He lives in Graz, Austria.
Well, that is quite a bio. So welcome, Bernhard.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Thank you, Shona. I'm very pleased to be here. I couldn't wait to have our talk.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Me too. And so I'll just let people know who are listening that I discovered you through Venice. McNeil, who is the producer of the magical Egypt series, and she interviewed you. Oh my God, I listened to that interview. I was like, oh, this guy's the real deal. Oh my goodness. And then you were teaching through Venice a little course on the magic castle, which we can talk about later. And I took that course, and it was absolutely amazing. And I'll tell you what I so love also is your understanding and appreciation of the imagination, because most of us have been raised with that phrase, it's just your imagination, and it's just been dismissed. So I want to hear, first of all about your backstory. How did you get to this place you are in today?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yes.
I'm so grateful for my family. They furthered my imagination. I grew up with stories and in a magical family tradition.
As you read in my bio, you could say it was a cunning tradition, very folk magic.
As far as I can prove it, I'm fourth generation, but I think it goes further beyond that. So my great grandmother was what we call quite a bible in Austria, so herbalist. And it was always combined this magical inclination with arts and music. So my great grandmother was a musician, and her son, my grandfather, who was so important to me, he was.
I don't know the english expression both handed, so he could use both his hands. Ambidextrous. Yes.
So he could play two instruments at the same time. And he drew and carved wood. And he took me on long walks in the woods. And he showed me where the gnomes live. And he had three near death experiences, and he told me all about it. So it was totally normal for me growing up with all these stories.
And his daughter, my mother, was a schoolteacher, and so I grew up with literature. And I could read very early on, and I would read everything. I got into my hands, and I think at the age of nine, I got into greek mythology, and I just devoured it.
It opened up a whole new world. So it was totally normal for us in our family to talk about these stories, about paranormal events, about magic.
They didn't call it magic this much. It was just like what you could do to have an easier life.
And I never got the idea that it could be different for other kids because it was so normal for me.
And of course, I watched a lot of tv, read all the children's books and everything. So I was immersed, immersed in stories, and it was always combined with magic. So I think that ignited my imagination and my search for how we can use imagination not only to tell stories, but I very early got the impression that stories have a certain capability, because I always had this urge to tell stories in order to wrap my head around things I've had encountered. So in order to come to terms with it myself, I had to tell other people. And then I saw what stories did to a person that I saw their eyes lighten up, and somehow it changed the atmosphere.
And from childhood on, I was on the stage.
I did acting and then storytelling, of course. So I had this experience that these stories we tell each other or perform, they do something to our consciousness, and I wanted to know what they do. What is it that changes us in such profound ways? And I think that led me to my understanding of the imaginal and the use of this perception organ, the imagination.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Okay. And so then how did you develop? Sort of. Okay, first of all, how would you define magic? I want to hear your definition.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
I always say it's a culture specific way of being in relationship with the world.
With an animated universe, and to use the abilities of our consciousness to have a dialogue of how the story should go next. So there are some views on magic that you have to enforce your will, or to be very strict and hard about it. And my approach is like.
Like meeting each other on the same level, if it's humans or spirits, gods, whatever, because I had these experiences of Unja Mystika, the consciousness merging with all that is when I was in school. And that is the foundation of my magic, this experiences of oneness. And from this point on, I can communicate with other beings and say, hey, what would you think of this idea? Would it be agreeable to you? Could we do it this way? And that's far more.
It's more easy and more, in thinking in long terms, successful, in my experience.
So make good relations with this living cosmos we are a part of.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yes, yes, I talk about this also. You've cultivated relationship.
Yeah. With the inhabitants of the invisible world, if you will.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Yes, totally, totally.
And stories helped me, rituals, of course, enthusiasms.
And my.
My experience is living in polyamorous relationships, where you always have to manage relationships and what everybody wants and respect boundaries and so on. So this is also my approach to building relationships with other spirits.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Interesting. Did you ever join an order? Were you schooled outside? I love.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: No, no. I had several invitations to participate in orders or cabins or something, and I was always flattered, but something in me always said, no, thank you.
I want to be independent.
And now that I teach magic myself, that's one of my.
My signature is that I don't have an ideology or a worldview that I try to impose, even subconsciously. I just try to convey this sort of being in the world.
Like, we are all participating in this spiritual ecosystem, and we can use magical techniques to have good relationships, but it's not from a certain ideological viewpoint.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Yes, yes. I think this is really fascinating, because essentially, really, it was these influences, these childhood influences that you had. And I remember Rudolf Steiner writing about fairy tales and saying that those who are not raised on the fairy tales have a tendency to become rather sterile, because the imagination isn't utilized, isn't developed as a result. And you speak so much of story, and story sparks the imagination.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
Steiner was austrian as well?
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Yes, he was.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: I didn't read much of him, but some things. And, yeah, I have this love for stories that in some ways has to be put to use.
As I told you, I have to tell stories in order to go through something. I never could just consume stories. I also always had the impression that I'm sort of vessel for them, that they have to.
They use to come out in the world again.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Yes, yes. And I think especially now, Bernhardt, because with the Internet and I just see these children, it's so tragic. Glued to their device where not only is the story being delivered to them by Disney and other multinational corporations, but so is the imagery. So imagination is essentially stunted in a sense, because they don't have to come up with the vision in their mind.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
And I've taught fairy tales to children as well.
I was a storyteller for adults and for children. And some of them, I said, I've never heard a story told to me before. My parents didn't tell me stories or they didn't read them to me. That was the first experience. And of course, that was touching. But also, I couldn't believe it.
Children are not being told stories. I mean, how.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: No, no. And this is, I think, such a. It's very human. It's really who we are. Traditionally, every culture had their storytellers. I had an irish grandmother. Oh, my God. She was an amazing storyteller. And all of the fairy tales and her voice, as you well know, it's the delivery. And she would speak quietly. So we had to keep ourselves calm so we could get every word.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Perfect training. Yeah, yeah. I once met a tahonga, I think she's called. It's Mori Shaman for less of a proper word. And she told me that, of course, the mori, they were forbidden to use their language.
Several decades ago, her mother said if she was caught speaking Mori, they would shoot her without a warning. And they were forbidden to use. To go into ceremony and so on and so on. So if you do this for two or three generations, culture is dead.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: And I asked her, how did you preserve your culture? Because there is so much still there. She said, yeah, from most colonized people, the Maori could keep quite a lot. Not all, of course, but they did it with children's nursery rhymes. I think it's called nursery songs there. The authorities turned a blind eye because, okay, if you sing to the babies, that's okay. You can sing in Mori to your babies. And they translated all their cosmology, their genealogy, mythology into their nursery rhymes because everybody remembers them.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's ingenious.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Everybody can sing, it's a bitsy spider or whatever. Because we have heard them when we were so young. And this was the way they preserved their culture by putting all of the knowledge in nursery rhymes and conveyed them to their youngs.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. And really, nursery rhymes? That's poetry?
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And in some cases, also, I think there are some magic formula woven into it, no doubt.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Oh, of course they would do that.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. There are some examples in german language I'm aware of, I'm not sure in the english world, but some knowledge about herbs or plant devils or something. They are woven into nursery rhymes.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. Now, you mentioned in your bio that you had out of body experiences, so that's pretty unusual. When did that start for you?
[00:18:17] Speaker B: I can't really say. I think when I was in school with six, seven years, something like that, I went to sleep, and in this hypnagogic state between waking and sleeping, I experienced floating over my bed and then going up into the night sky and watching our village from above. And I also thought, okay, that's how it is.
If you would have told me that's special, I wouldn't have believed it, because I think everybody experiences this, and I can't do it today. I'm very sad about it. It sometimes happens that I have an out of body experience, but I cannot do it willingly anymore.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. My goodness. Did you encounter spirits in those states?
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah, sometimes, but they were not in this shape that you would recognize from any grimoire or something.
I think my filter perceived them as something like, for example, woodworkers.
I encountered them because I grew up in not even a village. It were just six houses surrounded by woods.
We had to drive for 20 minutes to the next, not even city, but small. So I had this inner mythology, you could say, of woods, mountains, rivers, very much countryside in the Austrian Alps.
And there were these woodworkers I encountered.
I thought of them as, oh, okay, there they are again.
I never saw them cut down a tree, but they were just working on the trees or with the trees. So from today's knowledge, I would assume there was something like forest beings.
And they were always happy to see me. They said, oh, the young one is back again. Tell me what has happened in your world?
And they would gather around, and I told them what I had experienced since I last visited them, and they would tell me something. I can't remember now what it was.
And then they took me up on a branch of a big tree. And this was a way they slept on the tree by sitting on the branch, their legs hanging down beside the branch.
I was between them. It was very safe and snug and sound. And so it was being one, not one, but amongst them. And this reverence for the trees, so that was quite common.
Or earth beings.
I haven't encountered them as such, as individual beings, but I remember there was a certain way I could cross.
Mind you, that's always in the synagogue state.
It was not in the physical world, but I knew parts of it from the physical world. And then it weird off. And I. I followed this road, and then I came to a hill that was sort of my place where I could lie down and put my ear on the ground and listen to the earth.
And that was.
I can't describe this feeling of being at home and just. It was like being back in my mother's womb again. It was so, so safe and.
Yeah.
These two encounters come to mind.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Yes. I'm struck also by. It doesn't sound like anyone ever shut this down in you growing up.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: You know, you were allowed to develop that fully. And I think so many children, if they do begin at some point, it's shut down.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's a shame.
I mean, that's. I was.
I was always helped from my mother's side. My father is a technician, and he is very logically, very rational. He acknowledges that these things exist, but he doesn't have his own way to deal with them. And we had lots of fights.
But I learned from these discussions how to articulate myself, how to hone my skills in having discussions and know when to shut up, because it's useless to go any further.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: That's so important. You need the balance.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: I call it the mystical and the practical.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. All right, so then kind of where did you go, like, in your twenties? I just want to understand this path because it's just. It's just magic, pure magic, really. Like, when did you find your way to. And theogens, especially from that little tiny town, or. No, it wasn't even a town that little.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: That took quite some while.
I had a phase where I was very strict, straight edge, nearly ascetic, and then I grew out of that. And I first had. My first entheogenic encounter was with mushrooms. I think I was 28 or 29, something like that, at the end of my twenties. And that changed everything.
It wasn't anything I didn't encounter before. I had also this sense of oneness, being. Not only being one with the woods, but I was the woods.
There was no distinction anymore. And this sort of oceanic, formless.
I don't have the words in English for it, this merging with everything and so on.
I said, oh, yeah, I know that because I had these experiences with 16 1718 and now, okay, that's another way to get there. And how beautiful. And it's so benevolent and that changed everything for me. But I went slowly into these practices. I just. I don't want it to rush things. And over the years I've encountered several entheogens and ways to work with them, or rather let me guide or be guided through them and then to some experiences that I haven't encountered before, especially things like with LSD or ebolga.
Yeah, that was something else.
[00:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I'll bet, I'll bet. I just trying to imagine someone like yourself, you know, with that first mushroom journey because you were already open to this thing. So it would be like sort of easing right into something almost maybe familiar in a sense.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Yes, yes, it was very familiar.
I mean, there have been other journeys where the mushrooms showed me some unfamiliar things, but yeah, it was always benevolent.
I mean, you can relate to that, I bet.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. My goodness. Yeah, that mushroom has changed my life now. Do you have guardians, guides, sort of spirit teachers that you work with?
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Yes, quite a few. There is especially a female spirit that has accompanied me since my childhood.
I didn't have a concept for that when I grew up. I just had this impression that there is somebody who is exactly like me, who has the same experiences, who just watch the same tv show I did right now. That was my childhood version of this that later turned out to be my spirit guide.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: It reminds me of the andescella, which is the Gaelic for the people of the second sight in Ireland. And they call that the co walker, the spirit that walks with you your whole life. Yes, yeah, it's like a double of you.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yes, that. I got goosebumps. Yeah, that resonates perfectly.
Yeah, yeah, totally. Yes, yes. So that's my closest ally or friend or whatever, or part of me, maybe. And there have been others that were part of a way and then said goodbye to make a place for others.
And there's also one special personal God, if you got it, if you would call it this way, that I'm always hesitant to say his name because it evokes some very close images.
But it's Pan.
But I don't mean the greek God with the pan. He's just one emanation of Pan.
It's also the horned one. It's Karnonos. It's in Ireland and Queen Abnith and Freyr. And he has so many ways in so many cultures where he is also always perceived as this life giving force and everything that permeates everything.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Okay. I saw Pan car nun on my very first mushroom journey.
After that, I went home and I had a number of women come over and we did a fire ceremony. And one of the women asked if she could take some photos. And I said, of course. And later that night she sent me a bunch of photos and I sent them to my friend who inducted me into my mushroom journey. And I just chose one randomly of the fire, which shows you the power of the deep psyche. The conscious mind has no clue. And he wrote back and he said, hey, I dig that face in the fire. And I was like, what face in the fire? Totally missed it. Oh, my goodness. Bernhardt, I'm going to send this to you. It's Pan's face and it's in profile. There's an eye where an eye should be, a nose, lips, a goatee, and.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: A little horn, of course.
Wonderful.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And especially in some antheogenic journeys I encountered him. And it was always numinous. I mean, it's so beautiful and fascinating and terrible and awe inspiring at the same time. It's the mysterium tremendum et facinum.
Our mind can't conceive it.
It's, for me, the closest thing I can imagine to holiness.
And in the last years especially, I had these experiences where he looked through my eyes and other persons who were with me, they looked at me and said, what's going on? That's not you.
And they nearly fled in fear.
And he can also be very kind, but he has so much authority and he won't budge.
If he wants something, that's it. So I don't have any say in the matter.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Yes, yes. I think this is an important point you make, though, because there is a humility.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: That we need to have when we are working in this way, because these beings are very real. This is, you know, this is not made up stuff. I mean, they're. And you know that. You know the difference. Like you said, it comes in and it just, you know, this is not of me.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: No, no. And there, you know, where all the magic basic training is good for, because you have to ground yourself afterwards, otherwise you are in danger to go psychotic.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Yes, yes. There's a fine line between sanity and madness on this path.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yes, yes. I think it was Kalyung who said that mystics swim in the ocean where the psychotics drown.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:34:25] Speaker B: Something like that.
[00:34:25] Speaker A: The seer poets of old Ireland, they were seeking imbas, which is that state of inspiration where they said you would end up either mad dead or a poet.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: A poet? Yeah, yeah. There's this mountain in Wales, Cade. If you stay there a night, you are either dead, mad or a poet. That's the same thing.
I visited Wales several years ago, and I wanted to go up that mountain.
I couldn't manage because a friend who was with me said, no, no, you're not going, Bert. I know you.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: I know you.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: You mean this, and I don't let you go up there.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Well, that's. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: And there are so many stories in the. In the celtic world about. I mean, even Merlin went into the woods, I don't know if I pronounce it correctly. Myrthen wild. This state of the madman in the.
Just living with the wild animals and getting his inspiration from them.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is.
There aren't too many people nowadays who would want to take that risk. No, but it is really.
It's true, that sort of shamanic piece, like, it's true shamanism, really, that you just know you're going in at all costs almost, because you can't not.
It's a calling.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Absolutely. That was why I went through my iboga initiation. I was called by it. I wouldn't recommend it. Absolutely not.
But especially if you want to prove something or how.
How big your spiritual ego is or something, that's absolutely not a good idea.
And it was such a harrowing experience for me, but I had to do it because this spirit called me.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: That's interesting because you obviously weren't dealing with any kind of addiction because it's really being this tremendous help for addicts. And it lasts like, 36 hours, right?
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Maybe up to 48.
It's gruesome, and I'm very glad that I'm not.
I don't have this addiction thing going in my personality, so it was for spiritual development or whatever, and.
Yeah, I wouldn't have believed it if you told me beforehand what I would encounter there.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: When did this happen for you?
[00:37:36] Speaker B: This was in 2019.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Oh. So fairly recently, yeah, yeah.
Can you talk about it a bit about your experience?
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I tried to summarize it because it's very.
I had a guide who is quite experienced with several substances, and he gave me these capsules because iboga. It really tastes awful. Even ayahuasca tastes better.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: That's saying something.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Yes.
At least that's my experience.
And I immediately vomited.
It was like my whole body system revolted against it.
And it's important that you keep a certain amount in your body for it to go to the full flood, as it's called in iboga. And that wasn't possible because I vomited so much out of it. And we tried to get something new in my body and immediately came back out. And I think I vomited for six, 7 hours straight without any interruption, maybe just for two minutes or something like that.
I never felt so much pain.
I fasted before, so there was nothing I could vomit. It was just dry retching. And it was, as I said, absolutely harrowing. And then nothing happened. So I had also this frustration that I endured all of this for nothing.
This was the first night and the second day. I was for all of what matters. I was dead. I could just lie there.
I didn't think. I didn't feel.
I couldn't move my body. I couldn't even move to the side. I was just laying there breathing.
My body was breathing automatically, very shallow, and I didn't even blink. I registered that my eyes didn't even blink for several hours, I think, the whole day.
And I was so, so frustrated that all of this had been for nothing. And I think it was on the third day when my guide said, maybe we could do a microdose again. And then I wasn't sure.
I didn't sleep for nearly 36 hours because it keeps you quite awake. And then I went to sleep, and I heard him offering me this microdose again. I said, well, okay, yeah. I felt the capsule he put in my fingers, and I swallowed it.
And then in this night, as was the night from the third of the fourth day, it totally changed.
I went through experience that I hardly can put into words. But, for example, I woke up and I wrote in a diary, a school book. And I remembered, oh, yeah, the school books I used as a child for my diary. And I saw very, very clearly. It was so much clearer. It was more real than reality.
Since then, everything here seems like just a rough sketch.
And I.
I remembered writing these things down that I experienced when I was seven or eight years old, what happened in school, what I did with my friends.
I wrote it down in my diary. And at the same time, I lived what I did in school, what happened with my friends.
And at the same time, I saw it from a different perspective and understood the meaning of what had happened.
And it was in perfect detail, like the most high definition movie you can imagine.
And I could also switch perspectives.
I lived what I did on this day or not on this day, just in this small thing I was writing down.
And then I could switch and experience it from the perspective of the people who were with me. So I saw myself from their eyes and what my words and actions did to them.
And there are some things that were not good, that I'm not proud of, but there was no judgment. It was just, yeah, that happened.
That's been it. So there were this writing down, the living of it, and the third part was the just witnessing everything and understanding the meaning.
And this was, as I said, in the fullest definition, very real.
And it lasted for, like, forever. And when it was over, it was just. It had been 1 second, and then the next memory came up, and the next, just everything was for, like, I could have lived 100 years in this memory. And as soon it was over, just a second had gone by, and another and another and another. And so I relived my whole childhood in this way.
And this was one thread, and another thread was a story that was going on.
I think it was some sort of mirroring my experiences I had as a child as a metaphor, as a metaphoric story.
And these two threads, they came closer together as I grew up in my remembrances that this was going on for hours in our world, where I just lay there on my mattress. It was dark, and I've had the most beautiful sensations I've ever encountered. So, you know, when this body load you have on MDMA or LSD, and it's so beautiful, that's nothing compared to what I felt there.
It was pure bliss.
I didn't want it to stop.
And at some point, I think the memories went up until I was 1213, maybe. And then the two threads, the memories and the story that developed at the same time, they merged and they came together in a sort of big finale.
Now it's completed, and everything makes perfect sense.
The story that was developing had also different threads, like a good story should, and everything came together and made sense, and it canceled each other out in a moment of pure bliss, devoid, like, complete, non dual state.
And then I just lay there, totally mind bogged. I couldn't believe what had happened. Then it started again. Then I had this, like, a second time, and I just could say, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
And, yeah, then the next day, I could slowly walk again and came back home.
And then I slept for, I think, 12 hours straight just to get up and to sleep 10 hours straight again. And it took all in all, ten days that I was totally back to my normal self again, just physically. It took months to get to terms with it.
And one of the most interesting things was I told this on our YouTube channel, Reich Einsta, and my guide heard the podcast episode, and he said, very great telling. But there's just one mistake. I didn't offer you a microdose.
We just talked about it, and I said, no, I don't think that's a good idea.
Nearly died. I wouldn't have given you just another milligram of it.
That would be so irresponsible. I didn't do it, but I remember clearly his voice and the feeling of the capsule in my fingers and swallowing it.
So that must have been Mister Iboga himself who offered it. And it was my decision. Did I take it or not? And I said, yes, please. And then I knew, okay. That was, for all my frustration and everything. It opened up everything.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: Wow. I have chills. And this is the mark of these spirits, I think, the gracious ones, in that you always have a choice.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: They offer. You get to choose. They are simply offering.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: What? An initiation.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It cracked me up. I was so fragile for months after that. I was so easily moved to tears. I was very.
One of the most important things for me was to acknowledge that I'm.
What's the english word?
I can very easily be wounded.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: Sensitive, deeply sensitive.
[00:50:01] Speaker B: Yes, yes. But not emotionally, of course, also emotionally. But in my total being, it took away all my defenses, all my gods, and I was just me, naked in the universe without anything else.
And that opened up further experiences because I could let in some more of these things.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: That's incredible.
I mean, I just. I can't even imagine. Because it's like you say, like, words can't do justice.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: No, no.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: And, gosh. And that's not something you do on a regular basis either. I mean, you'll probably never, ever do that again.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: No, no, I suppose not. I've also read that even the witty people in Africa who live this spirit, they do this initiation once in their lifetime. In their lifetime. And then maybe they take a small amount to guide others through it or to be in contact with the spirit again. But the initiation, the full flood experience, most people do it only once.
[00:51:27] Speaker A: Well, it can be very dangerous. Right.
[00:51:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Russian roulette. Really?
[00:51:36] Speaker A: Wow. In a sense, though, it's almost like a very pure initiation. Right? Because initiation, it's not supposed to be easy, and it's life threatening.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: No. And this word gets used to easily nowadays.
I was initiated there. And this initiation really means dying, born, annuity.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Yes. When you were telling the story, I was like, he's telling his death, this is like a death.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: Totally.
And I was offered a new life by this spirit, and I'm so happy I took him up on the offer.
So really, I'm not the same person I was before that.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: You couldn't be.
So how is life now on the other side of that?
So you're far more open.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Vulnerable. That's the word I was searching for.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: What was it?
[00:52:48] Speaker B: Vulnerable.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: Vulnerable. Oh, yes. Yes.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: In really every aspect of my being.
That's it.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: That's beautiful.
[00:52:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. That's what Leonard Cohen says.
That's where the light comes in, like, the cracks and everything. You have to be vulnerable or open to let these things delight, these experiences, transformative elements, come into your life.
And I had to undergo several journeys before that to be ready for it.
So I'm quite stubborn as well.
If I set my mind to something, I see it through, no matter what, even if it hurts, if I'm hurting myself or everything, because that's my goal and I'm going for it.
And, yeah, that was the only way that I could encounter my vulnerability.
[00:54:05] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. I saw a dear friend go through, not that, but an initiation that when he came out of it, I said, you've been gentled.
[00:54:18] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. What a beautiful expression.
[00:54:21] Speaker A: Yes.
So this was.
When did you say this was? 20 15.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: 20 17 19.
[00:54:30] Speaker A: 20 19. And you started your magic school when, 2018?
[00:54:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: So one year before. So. My goodness. So how has this.
How has this influenced the magic, the teachings?
[00:54:52] Speaker B: That's a good question.
I'm more humble. I think I've been quite humble before, because, as I said, I don't want to impose a certain worldview or ideology, but I'm more ready to say, I don't know either.
I'm supposed to teach. I'm supposed to know the things, but I don't beat around the bush anymore. If I don't know something, I say, okay, let's find out together.
And I'm giving myself more time to develop new things.
I had to develop two courses after that for my whole program. And these two courses, they really have been a step up. They're far more concise, and they.
I think they are the real deal where my pupils really have the possibility to get transformed.
These are the last two in my curriculum.
And a part of this is the magic castle.
[00:56:25] Speaker A: The magic castle came after.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: No, the magic castle came in the year 2000.
Should I. Should I retell it?
[00:56:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I would love to hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: That was.
I was on a train from Vienna to Graz. I was reading, not thinking of anything special, just reading. And then I had to put down my book. I really was like, something shook me.
And I put out my notebook and really jotted down the whole magic castle, the whole system. It was just there.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: And transmission, it's like you receive transmission.
[00:57:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Complete inspiration or download or whatever you call it. And I was shaking.
What happened now? Okay, that sounds interesting.
It is concise. I'll try it out. And I tried it sort of like a party trick with people just to say, yeah, and that means that. And if you see that, this symbolizes that, and everyone was flabbergasted. How do you know that? It's not me, it's you. I'm just translating your metaphors. And after a while, I knew, okay, you can also use it not only to sort of diagnose things, but to change things, to work with it magically, to change things in the imaginal, that change in the physical world accordingly.
And I really studied it. I explored it over several years, up until 2020 or 21, I think that was after iboga.
And then I had a ritual where a sort of portal opened up into my past, and I saw my former version or my younger self riding on the train reading a book. And I knew, now I can send my younger self this transmission, and I put everything that I learned in this 20 years, like, in a zip file and blasted it through this portal. And like, hey, younger self, just write it down.
And I saw myself looking up from the book, getting out my notebook and beginning to write it down, and then the portal closed and was back. So it was myself from the future where I got this from.
[00:59:41] Speaker A: Amazing. Amazing. And so just to explain before we finish this first hour, just so people can understand, because I want people to find way to you. So this involves you guiding people through this castle.
[00:59:55] Speaker B: That's a sort of interface to the imaginal. The imaginal is its own world, between our physical and the pure conceptual divine one.
It's where we encounter visions, stories, metaphors, archetypes, where shamans go, visionaries, prophets, and so on. And all lucid dreaming may happen there. And the sensory organ we can perceive the things in the imaginal is our imagination. And that's not fantasy. It's real.
As real as the imaginal is, it's not imaginary. It's real, but it's not physical. And our personal interface to that, as far as I can teach it, is this magic castle, sort of safe surrounding where you have this castle with a floor plan, different rooms, and what you encounter there means something. Every room symbolizes a part of your life. And then if you venture further out of the castle, you go further out into the collective unconscious, and that's not necessarily safe anymore. But, yeah, as every shamanic journey or whatever, you have to know what to do.
And, yeah, I think that's the short summary, the part I did with Phanese. There's a first part where I tell the whole story and the theory, and then the second part is the practice where we met each other.
[01:01:47] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. It was absolutely amazing. So we're going to finish the first hour. So where can people find you?
[01:01:54] Speaker B: So that's my website. It's only in German so far. I'm sorry, that's Magieschule at. That's the german word for magicschool at Austria.
And I think if you're okay with it, we can put a link to Phanese's thing, because what we did, they can buy it in the shop of magical Egypt.
[01:02:20] Speaker A: Perfect. Okay. Magicalegypt.com. okay. Yes, I will absolutely put a link for that. And you're on Facebook as well, so people can connect with you on Facebook.
[01:02:28] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes. I'm happy.
[01:02:31] Speaker A: All right, we'll finish the first hour and I will invite listeners to join us to subscribe. And the second hour is just going to be amazing.
