In relation to a blog I did recently, of the three things I wanted to address. The first was the Ryan Gable video, which I handled yesterday. Today I wanted to talk about the Stefan Molyneux podcast I mentioned:
Free Domain Podcasts, 6451: Do Not Fuck With Mysticism, X/ Twitter Space: July 16th 2026:
https://fdpodcasts.com/6451/do-not-f-with-mysticism-xtwitter-space
Here we are starting to get to the meat of philosophical and mystical concepts. Stefans points here are very good and they are ones I share. While I am a person who does have mystical beliefs. Which I am willing to defend and probably will in this blog. Through trial and error, I have found that I have had to disbelieve and discard a lot of mystical concepts. I also got taken in by David Wilcock.
Recently, this might be only a "me" thing. But I have found that I am simply unable to engage in a lot of visualisation. Which I have tried various times. Law of Attraction, energy work (which I do believe in), and even, I think, 'Internal Family Systems' does not work for me.
Have you ever had an experience where you have tried to tell someone something and they have just ignored you and given you the most basic instruction on how to do that thing. This is what happens when you tell anyone new age that visualisation doesn't work for you. They give you the most basic instructions. Insulting your intelligence as though you had not tried that before. I have tried energy work on myself many times, it has never worked. The other day I was visualising and talked to people within that visualisation and a bit later. I just knew it was wrong. It does not work. It is maddening for me specifically as many of my forays into energy healing have been.
What works for me internally is a kind of reliance on sound. I feel like I process a lot internally by sound more than images.
Anyway, down to this podcast by Stefan. The caller he is talking to, started first off with strange troll questions, this moved onto the caller talking about being in a mental institution and infering that he believed his mother could cast magic spells on him when he ran away, then it became a discussion on God. Which the caller kind of said was an Infinite Mind, I believe. The caller said something like if you don't believe in God, you don't exist. Then Stefan asked the caller to prove his belief in God. He did not say 'via first principles', but that was, in practice, what was required. The caller was unable to do so. He just kept on making statements that God is this or that.
In one way I very much agree with Stefan. In another way I do not. Firstly, he states outrightly that a lot of things that people believe have no proof so they don't exist. Things like ghosts. I think this is reasonable and it is a good standard that I have not applied previously in my life with people like David Wilcock. He had no proof, and none of his sources existed - or they did exist but they were con men. Believing in that kind of thing is indeed very destructive.
Nevertheless, I want to make a point about skepticism, "doubt" in general. It just generally seems to me that if someone decides to. They can poke holes in literally anything. No matter how legitimate it is. If someone really wants to doubt something then they can do it. I might say this is a feature of free will.
For instance, the caller made general statements about collective hallucinations actually being unacknowledged supernatural events. To which Stefan made the point that a lot of our memories are subject to modification. If you return to somewhere that you knew as a child, the proportions are different, as an example.
For proof to stand up to this standard, i.e. the claimed fallibility of memory. Does not seem like something that any situation can stand up to in my view. What did you have for breakfast this morning? Was it porridge? Are you sure it was porridge? You know, a lot of people have faulty memories? You could have had porridge yesterday and not recalled it accurately?
How do we know that we are not having supernatural experiences every day and forgetting them under this standard? These examples are silly. They have escalated the example to prove a point. But I think it makes the point.
A few further things to say.
One is that, there is philosophical subtext that was missing here due to Stefans focus on mysticism. One of the things Stefan says is 'the root of evil is the desire for the unearned'. I would say there is different shades and flavours of mysticism. Meditation is a form of mysticism, or at least it can be - it is strongly linked to pretty much every new age belief system there is. But meditation, is proven as positive and effective in multiple scientific studies.
Meditation is work though. It requires discipline. I would say that one of the issues that characterises the more negative forms of delusional mysticism. Is that it confers onto the "experiencer" a great deal of status. The only benefit from meditation we tend to get is how it actually improves our lives. Say, our intuition is 10% more effective. A largely, outwardly invisible change. (There are some people that try to make it into something supernatural and run classes on it but they are a fringe). An example with witchcraft or ghosts is that the person talking about it gains status through that manner.
I actually had a mystical experience when I was younger. I thought again and again, wondering if psychic abilities existed. Then I got a strong precognitive experience in dreams. I did not follow up with the whole precognitive experiences interest. I did not try and become a psychic. But that experience did mature into what I experience today. Partly from reading the Law of One I now do prayer, meditation and affirmations etc.
For me though, what is my justification for my belief in God? The person phoning into Stefans show had to justify them because it is a philosophy show. I do not have to technically. But I still will explain my perspective.
For me, it is not from an objective, first principles place that I believe that. it is from my everyday experience and trial and error. The Law of One has made a case. It is an intellectually satisfying set of books. I believe what it says on archetypes and various other things. I am willing to take it on faith that a claimed channeled source was in fact telling the truth on such matters including God. I also, have tended to have health complications when I have not kept up with these spiritual practices.
Another point: Stefan says that mystical beliefs isolate us from others. I will have more to say on this at a later date. When I talk about how destructive David Wilcocks narrative was. I am starting to see there are kind of two sides to mysticism. A kind of positive and a negative and I think the positive things. Meditation, prayer etc. Do not effect other people in a negative way. Whereas the negative things. The evangelical beliefs in ghosts or conspiracy types of things which also includes with it an evangelism about a lot of different things. This does isolate people I think. Like I say I have more to say on this. It is kind of like when you practice the negative version you become unrefined and less respecting of free will.
I do have more points on all of this but for the moment I will leave it here.


