The Occult w/ Dr. Richard B. Spence

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Open:
Counted among the outlaws. He said, Come, follow me. People from all walks of life since have been becoming outlaws.

Ken McMullen:
If you've talked to me in person at any length of time, if you know me, if you've listened to any podcasts, well, not every podcast, but if you've listened to a number of them or have read my blogs at one point or another, you've heard me say or have written that I don't believe a person can. I've told my own son this, who's very smart and is in college, that you can't consider yourself an educated person if you take religion or spirituality out of history. Because most from ancient times to our earliest records, it seems that mankind, for some reason, has believed in another dimension. Uh, has reached out to another dimension and is seems pretty confident that they've communicated and have built cultures with divine beings and so on, whether to appease or to cooperate. It depends on the culture in the time. That's my layman's opinion. But I'm pretty pumped today to have a non layman, actually a professor in history. So we're going to have Dr. Richard Spence, who I know is a very familiar voice as I'm a documentary nerd kind of person from the History Channel, and he's a retired professor recently from the University of Idaho. His specialty was in is in modern Russia military espionage and of course, the occult. He's produced biographies of Sidney Reilly and Aleister Crowley. He's featured in numerous History Channel documentaries and a consultant for the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. And Dr. Spence, it's like the coolest bio I think anybody could ever have.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, I've never, ever heard a girl called Cool before, so that's good. Uh, you know, not as exciting as it may sound, but. Yeah, I'll take it. Sure. Yeah.

Ken McMullen:
It's up my alley. I mean, that sounds so. So the focus today, which doesn't really narrow down a topic, is the occult. And what is the occult?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Okay, so I'm going to give you my definition, okay? And you can get other ones, but you just start with the word itself. Okay? This is one of the things that sometimes people just oddly overlook. What's the what's the origin of the word? What is the word itself mean if you separate it from. The the implications that come out of that meeting. And it's you know, it comes from the Latin and it means hidden. And more to the point, it means hidden from sight, obscured, veiled. But there are all kinds of terms that we can we can use for that and what that's referring. So the question that becomes, all right, it's about something which is hidden. Well, what's hidden? So again, my definition would be. That what's hidden is essentially either another world or the real world. So it comes out. The very basic concept would be that the world of our senses.

Ken McMullen:
For the material world.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, what we think is the real world. I mean, he's the only one we know, right? Yep. For certain. You know, the solid walls, you know, the mosquitoes, everything else that goes with it. The changing of the seasons, the Milky Way, all. And it's big. Remember this? This is not really a tiny reality. That that is the one which our our senses perceive our mind sort of tells us there. But the the absolute basic element in what could be termed occult ism, the kind of idea or a doctrine of the hidden, is that what we perceive is only part of a much bigger world. So in that sense, it doesn't mean, you know, sometimes people use the term well, it's another dimension. I don't know whether it's it's it's and it's not even another world. It's simply the larger part of our world that we don't perceive. So what?

Ken McMullen:
Where are you coming from? Think I have a pretty good idea because I've listened to you and have read so much. But where are you coming from? As you're a historian, but you're sounding like there's something out there, but you can't define it. Well, that's more than historical. Sounds like you have a little buy in to this.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, I'll just cut to the chase. I mean, how much of what passes for occultism do I believe? All right. Okay. Here. I got to get into this. I'm this big. I'm big about definitions. One of the things I always clearly separate is between what I know and what I believe. I don't believe what I know. I don't have to believe it because I know it. So you really don't know a lot, you know, sort of get ideas. The only thing we're really sure of is that it's now and we're here. So beyond that. But belief really comes down to things that you you accept on the basis of evidence that, you know, most often because somebody told you that was so there's a tremendous amount of that. And the things that we believe we can't, in most cases actually prove we can't really know them. We accept them. In other words, on a kind of faith. I mean, their belief seems to be, you know, and sometimes that's pretty solid. So, you know, I've, I've never been to, uh, you know, Ulan Bator or Outer Mongolia, but I'm pretty sure it's there. Okay. There's all kinds of evidence. Okay. Maps. People I've talked to, there's abundant evidence, but I can't say that I personally have ever seen it. So, you know, I believe that it exists almost to the point of knowing that it exists. But, you know, if you really want to be a stickler, you'd only know that if you had been there and itself. So we we all believe a lot more than we know. And we have to in order to to function. There weren't real world. I mean, if you only tried to make your decisions based upon what you were absolutely rock solid, incontrovertibly certain of, you wouldn't do anything. You'd never leave the house.

Ken McMullen:
So is it fair to say, as a historian on these matters, you know a lot that's historical and what other people have said or has been documented, which we'll go over some of it. But I think, you know, enough I think anyone that studies this enough can't walk away and say it's all shenanigans. I think they walk away and say a lot of it's shenanigans. Something's going on.

Dr. Richard Spence:
I would say that I have. Seen enough or experienced enough to make me. Well, well, for instance, I'll come right out and say that that much of what passes in the realm of what people tend to think of occultism is fakery. All right? It's trickery. It's make believe it isn't real. But some of it, from my experience, you have to take it more seriously that you see. It's this thing that can be a joke. It can be fun. You can do it for a kicks. You can do it for, you know, for any number of reasons. But it's, um, it's it's not totally a joke.

Ken McMullen:
What drives you or has driven you to go down that road?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, I don't know. See, I get asked that question all the time. And the simple answer is not a simple answer is that one thing leads to another. So, for instance, if you take an interest in modern Russian history, you begin, you know, you inevitably run into things like the Russian Revolution. Well, you run into Russian revolution. What do you run into? Conspiracies. Oh, and then you run into secret societies. Really? Remember, you can't have a revolution without a conspiracy. It just doesn't work any other way. Yeah. And then you begin to delve into the connections between people. And that's where things like either secret societies, you know, the idea of being bound by organizations and then very often bound by oaths. And when you start being bound by oaths, you start swearing on something. And that that is in based upon a set of set of beliefs in some way that then leads to that's kind of the slippery road to looking at the role of a cultism in history and in human affairs. And one of the things that, if nothing else, hopefully I try to make clear in the Wonder Immigrate courses course on occultism is that it's everywhere. It permeates everything we do and you confront it, whether you know it or not, every single day.

Ken McMullen:
Along those lines, I'd like to discuss Santa Clause. However, could you define a few things for me? Because it seems like you've broken up. Or at least explain the occult in three major categories, if I'm not mistaken, like alchemy, astrology and divination. Does that kind of summarize does it all get tucked under there?

Dr. Richard Spence:
You're going to combine these in different ways. You know, alchemy is the magic of things. It's the the combining of elements to form other elements. Yeah, it's just chemistry with intention. Think of it that way. All right. Um, and astrology is the kind of magic of the heavens. Um, then you've also got the other category would be ritual magic or theurgy. This. This is where you use or you try to appeal or deal with some sort of. Sentience, some sort of intelligence. All right. This goes back to this thing about this this other or larger world. Maybe this is the other point. I need to sort of, you know, make The point is that not only do we live in a larger world that we can't see, that world is inhabited. There are things there that perceive us much more clearly than we perceive them. This is the you know, these this this is the realm of the spirits, right? Know we don't have any better term for them than that, although some of them, you know, become gods, some of them become devils, some of them become forces of nature. But this is the the the concept is there is a greater world and that world is inhabited. And the entities or whatever you want to call them that inhabit that world can teach us things. They also can hide things from us.

Ken McMullen:
So based on your studies, I'll end up asking an opinion based on your studies. Is. Why do you think humans from the earliest times reach out to that or believe? Where do you think that comes from? I mean, I have my own personal beliefs just for those listening. They know this is a Christian podcast. And if you don't mind me saying, you've termed yourself agnostic. Is that where you're still at?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Good. A term as I could come up with.

Ken McMullen:
Which basically means just so people are clear, is that it's just what you've been describing in a kind of a roundabout way is you're open and curious. Yeah. But you haven't ruled a lot. Ruled a lot out. But you haven't ruled everything.

Dr. Richard Spence:
No, I haven't. I haven't seen everything yet. Okay. This this is the other thing about this is that you can never assume that you know more than a little bit. Really? Okay. Yeah. Never go. And that's true for any. But if you're talking about something as a topic as broad and in many ways sort of. Oh, my computer just went off and is ill defined as as a as it can be. You never know. All of it mean, you know, I have no concept of how much or how little I actually know about something. Well, let's.

Ken McMullen:
Find out, because I can guarantee you, you know, more than most of us. So give us a little. So I thought I knew quite a bit about Santa Claus, meaning that my history went back to Saint Nicholas and his life and this and that. But yours went a lot creepier.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Yes, it does. Well, you know, and I've got to give. This isn't like an original discovery. This is an idea that's been advanced by a particularly a fellow by the name of Tony Van Renta. Him? He's Dutch. And so I'm sure I just completely butchered his name. But I ran across for this idea really comes across if you're looking for it. There's a little book you can find called When Santa Was a Shaman, right? And this lays forward if again, this whole idea of the connection really between Santa Claus and sort of ancient fertility deities and. Now what he does is, you know, he makes a good pitch for that. And this is this, you know, comes into another kind of. Basic idea in history. You know, history is really just a set of stories, okay? There's there's no there's no, like official book written down anywhere. Honestly, folks, people make it up. Really? Mean they may make it up from a point of scholarly knowledge or they may make it up from a position of, I don't know, total ignorance, but it's always made up. It's always based upon what things? Things that people have said. So everything is a narrative. Everything all right. It's a story. It's a narrative that explains how things work or how something works in some way. And, you know, the to me, the interesting, frustrating and in some ways almost kind of spooky aspect in history or elsewhere is that you can take what few facts you actually have. Remember, facts are things that we know. All right. So I think we could all pretty much agree that World War Two happened. Sure. And we could pretty much define when it happened. Now. Explain to me why did it happen? Why did it happen in that way? Why did it take this particular course? Ask every other question you can about World War Two. Beyond the simple fact that it happened in all of that as a narrative, it's opinion. It's an interpretation. Sure of those facts and you can come up with different narratives to explain the same thing, and they all make sense.

Ken McMullen:
Having said that, Santa, I'm on the edge of my seat.

Dr. Richard Spence:
So, you know, we tend to think of, well, you know, first of all, you look at it, you can link it to Saint Nicholas and the rest of it, but you're eventually looking at this image that, you know, what does that have to do with any particular saint or Christianity, Right. That there's there's not necessarily any kind of link there. And. One of the things that you get, one of the things you find in a cult imagery, religious imagery, which is pretty much the same thing, is this constantly. It's always being rewritten. And that's one of the ways I think you you have to imagine something like the occult or anything else. It's constantly in a process of reforming itself. It's like a virus mutating. Constantly changing. And and things become combined with each other. So the type of thing that Vandrezzer game will look if you if you go and he's and he's basing this in many ways he grew up in the Netherlands and there was a very particular Dutch Santa Claus she's find pretty much the same thing in Germany. You get some echoes of that in England. But the the Santa, um, even the Sinterklaas. They sort of of Saint Nicholas is not a knight. This is not a happy guy. All right. This is you know, he's he's kind of the spirit of winter vengeance. Right. And in the original the story, you know, he doesn't come he doesn't leave coal in the stockings of bad children. No. He kidnaps bad children and carries them away in a sack and sells them to the Turks if they're lucky. No. And and you find this if you go a little bit east in Germany and you go up in the Alps, there's this whole tradition of the Christmas the Christmas devil. And which comes across as Krampus. And there actually was a kind of a, I don't know, sort of a crap. It depends on you thought it was sort of a crappy movie about Krampus.

Ken McMullen:
I saw it, yeah.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Maybe some of you. But that's, that's a real thing. It's a real set of legends, especially in the areas like Switzerland and the Tyrol. And, you know, in the wintertime there is, you know, this this kind of avenging spirit which comes and punishes children, even in some cases killing them. Wow. And but at the same time, it can also bring. Know he can help you under certain circumstances. And if you look at those two, you can see that what is Krampus up in the Tyrol and what Santa Claus in the Netherlands at the root of that is the same thing. It represents the same sort of of power. It represents the same sort of. Almost sort of natural force in some way. I mean, you know, this is the thing that, you know, this is our basic reality that we don't pay a lot of attention to is that, you know, everybody talks about nature can be your friend. It can be. It's also what will kill you inevitably. Natural forces, natural laws will be all of our demise, at least physically. Right? That's there's the whole sort of natural process. They will see what will happen in this case. And it's. It's fundamentally indifferent.

Ken McMullen:
Nature talking about nature. You're talking about nature. But are you explaining in a cultism that thought. But but in spiritual terms, like there's almost like a yin and a yang from your view or from history's view to these entities or the stories of the entities. Or you have to appease.

Dr. Richard Spence:
If you look at, you know, let's take sort of a broad look through history and all the sort of entities, all the all the gods, devils beings, essentially the sort of deities that human beings have. You know, you're going to ask this question, where does this come from? There is an. What I would see would argue is an innate. Spirituality to human beings. I think people can try to deny that or sublimate it or direct the energy somewhere else. But, you know, one way or the other, you always end up worshiping something. And and it can be just just a thing in this way. Um, but the the kind of. Basic reality. If you reduce everything you remember back to what we know as opposed to what we believe. We live in this what we call nature. Okay. That's which which is just really a description of the physical processes that are going on around us and are happening both visibly and invisibly. There's even a part of that that we that we can't see. And the thing about nature is that you can't define any morality in it. There's there's nothing there. There is. There's no good or bad in nature. The only thing that exists in nature so far as we can see is a built in, a kind of a built in system of survival. And survival with one aim, which is to perpetuate the life forms that survive. Right From a natural standpoint, that appears to be our only purpose. Okay, okay. That's that's not particularly flattering. Anything else. But that's clearly, you know what it is that we do that if we look at every other living thing, this is what they all do.

Dr. Richard Spence:
They struggle as hard as they can to stay alive in a hostile environment in order to reproduce and create others of their kind, which then struggle to do the same thing. You know, that's that's the cake. Everything else is just icing. So, you know, what we have to do is we have to figure out what our ancestors have to do with every living thing has to do is how do you negotiate that? So. The the idea here is that there's. Yeah. There's got to be someone we can reason with. There has to be. In other words, is this simply a kind of blind mechanical system? Okay, You think of this so that nature is nothing more than a kind of vast machine. Without. Any other purpose other than just running it. No longer in some ways even remembers what it is that it's operating for and that it is inexorable and there is no reasoning or appeal. We don't like that idea. So there has to be some sort of some sort of purpose, we think, to this. There's an interesting argument to be made that. If you just shut up and listen. Any good shaman would tell you this. Remember these particular humans who in every society and every form become the intermediaries between this hidden world and the rest of us, The ones who see things and hear things and tell all the rest of us about them. Right. And they've either actually seen something or they're making it up, but we don't know for sure. But what they would say is that the first thing you have to do is to shut up and listen.

Dr. Richard Spence:
And if you do and listen not with your ears, but if you just sort of open yourself to it, the world, nature, everything is talking to you. But it is constantly communicating you with you in some way. And that sort of brings us to what I'd argue is another. Fundamental concept to kind of basic building block of of of of a cult ism or of an of an occult worldview, which is that everything that happens matters. Okay, That there's no such thing as meaningless coincidence. There are coincidences, but those coincidences have meaning. And everything that happens to you, everything you see and observe on any given day, every one of those things has some kind of meaning. It's communicating to you in some way. Or one way to put it is that everything that happens is an omen for something else. Now that really is a kind of. That's actually a pretty trippy idea. If you if you begin to try to look at things that way. And this is a little experiment that people can do if you want to as you sort of stick around. Okay. Everything that happens, I don't know. I was taking change out of my pocket and, you know, a quarter and a penny fell out. Okay. What does that mean? Well, you know, a a mystical interpretation might be. Well, you noticed it, didn't you? Yeah. And there's a quarter and it was a penny. So what does that mean to you? Or just note that. Just be aware that it happened and it's connected to other things.

Ken McMullen:
So if there are no coincidences, which. There is, but there isn't. Mean. My mean. Some things are just a coincidence. However, some things just seem beyond the scope of being a coincidence. But then what is it? So I would have, of course, a hard time thinking. Well, it's just. The nature. We can't see it play and don't know if you define nature. We can't see or even like the wind and stuff that's still elemental. But for you or occult, I'm not trying to put you into cultism. I'm trying to define like kind of your opinion versus explaining occult to me is. Is really anything that we centrally can't see or even like a. Does that become in the view a part of like this spirit phenomena world, or do you see a direct divide between the natural elements and then a supernatural element? Of a spirit world.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, if you ask my. My opinion is that. There couldn't be any distinction between supernatural and natural. I mean, there's the part of nature you can see, there's the kind we can't perceive. Okay? But there's no there's no reason for there to be two things. Yeah, I mean, we the point. So, uh, you know, supernatural is a good term for anything you can't explain. It scares you a little bit. So that's, you know, it's kind of spooky in some ways. So it's supernatural, Um, you know, because we tend, we like to think of the natural world as being, you know, we would really like to think of it as being, uh, peaceful and benign and and controllable. Really like that idea. We really want to control nature. See this? This is why we assign ourselves the rule that we must save it. Everything about it in a way that in some way we could argue. I would argue, for instance, that's one of the most arrogant things I've ever heard come from the mouth of a human being. That nature requires them to save it. I mean, you know, nature has ways of taking care of unwanted species. But if you simply look at the thing we can find, there have been this whole series of mass extinctions. All right. So that's how much fundamentally one matters in the greater scheme of nature, apparently. It's. I think we argue that the the. The occult view of nature, If that's it, The sort of hidden world is that there's simply a larger. Component to nature. And and that there is something that can be accessed. And reasoned with. There is something that communicates with us and that we can communicate with and think that's what sort of gets you.

Ken McMullen:
Well, that would be that would be beyond nature and something of intelligence.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, how. How do we know what nature is?

Ken McMullen:
If you think nature has intelligence or it just is doing its function. Because if some things if we're able to reach something and kind of get counsel or direction from and reason with reason takes intelligence.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, but we reason. I'm not a planner. Humans believe that we have intelligence and we're part of nature. We're not separate from it. I mean. I mean, it's. Let's put it this way, beyond any kind of spiritual dimension. If you again, if you look at just what you have. All right. If you just go through I don't know, let's pretend we're aliens and we're coming in and we're going to, you know, probe these things and dissect them and see what we've got. Well, to them, we're we're quite evidently just another animal. May they can even figure out what genus we're in. We're just flesh and blood and they're a system of organs. There's this kind of flesh and blood machine, and it operates that way. There's there's nothing terribly magical about that. So physically, we're not special in some way, but. We believe we are. Might be. We could be. Or there's always the idea that we are an animal that suffers from the delusion that it is not an animal.

Ken McMullen:
Yeah.

Dr. Richard Spence:
The question is why? Where do we get this old idea to begin with?

Ken McMullen:
So from your viewpoint, do you think religion because you've you've tapped religion and don't disagree with all of it? Some of it I do religion under a cult as a reason or just another way to tap into a meaning or a search for meaning or a search for hidden. What are we searching for? Mean in the occult. Hidden knowledge. In the purposes. What to answer philosophical questions, why we're here, what we do, or in ancient times was it mainly so we have good crops and we appease a spirit God and this and that.

Dr. Richard Spence:
And you survive, enhance your ability. You know, you try to, uh, try to make a deal. So. And the.

Ken McMullen:
Why is the occult so popular in today's culture? When. We can go to the grocery store and not really have to worry about. Season so much. You're not a farmer.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, you don't have to worry about that today. That could all change. Um, I mean, we have. We haven't created a system that guarantees us full bellies and a warm place to sleep and go to the bathroom forever. That's a very temporary kind of situation. All right. Ask somebody whose talent has just been wiped out by a tornado. All right. All that stuff you took for granted. See, that's nature at work.

Ken McMullen:
At the end of the day, if we're in nature, even if we tap into some benign, natural, higher level force of reason and it gets us through another day, ultimately our days are going to end, and it just seems all fruitless.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Ah, but see, that brings up another thing. You're talking about alchemy. And one of the key elements, the what does an alchemist search for? What what is the end result of the magic of things?

Ken McMullen:
Everlasting life.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Immortality. Or as the alchemist would put it, to recover that which was stolen from Adam and Eden. Because that would be that view of it, that this was something that was within their grasp. Remember, they were just like one tree away from it. And here again, you know, there's one thing. You've now attained knowledge, right? We're supposed to do that. You've got to know something. And this is, you know, it's you know, right there in Genesis, we have to stop, man, from reaching out and eating the tree of life, or he will become like us. I don't even know who the US is in that regard, but that cannot be permitted. And therefore. So from the Alchemist viewpoint, let's let's say from the sort of, you know. Mechanical occultist viewpoint. That was something that it's it's the origin. I think of this idea that somehow immortality or which then means godlike power or godhood itself. Is a kind of human birthright.

Ken McMullen:
So Christianity, you're mentioning scripture, the fall of man, the fall of mankind. Um. Alchemy. Picking up and trying to regain immortality. But is that the divide? Because you see them as kind of under the same tent. I see them as a divide and faith, or at least Christian. Judeo faith is leading to immortality and a salvation. Of that fall in the consequence where to me a cultism is going in a different. Uh, mystic manmade solution to me, where the divide is to me is I can understand religions being considered a cult. It's secret information, its rituals, its chants, its do this. There's a lot of mystical things going on. But if you get rid of the church element and the traditions and all that, here's my my take. What I believe is true. If you get right down to the scripture and let's say that's true. For argument's sake here. Then it's the least hidden thing there is. So the. The path to Christian belief in salvation was hidden until the Messiah was revealed. And then it all made sense and he explained it. So once you get to the New Testament or the time of Christ, nothing's hidden. The gospel is out there, it's inclusive. Everybody. It's for everyone. Everyone can understand it. Jesus taught his disciples that you're not servants anymore because everything the father's told me I've now shared with you. So your friends, I've shared with you everything that was once hidden. Um. Or if another scripture in New Testament says if the gospel is hidden. Then it's hidden to those who've been blinded and haven't seen the light of the true gospel and the glory of Christ. In the freedom and you know that that can bring um, and that's if it's hidden but it also saying it's not hidden. So to me, Christianity takes a divide at least it claims of itself. This is not hidden. It's open for all where the occult is secret. Hidden knowledge or religion is rituals. And I agree with that. And some man made and sometimes mystical things that don't come out of the simple gospel as presented in the scripture.

Dr. Richard Spence:
We were talking about immortality. You were talking about, say, an alchemist approach to immortality and a, you know, a Christian's approach to immortality. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there are really two very different things. Because what? The alchemical approach to immortality is. And if you look at the day in the sense of transhumanism or the idea of the singularity of somehow the joining, you know, there are a lot of people out there who eventually want to download themselves into a computer and then become an eternal programmer. So. But yeah, but what do you mean by immortality? Do you mean to live forever as a human being in this reality? To remain in this world of our senses, in human form or in something like human form, with your name and identity as it is now, forever. But which is another way of saying that you would be trapped in that you could never transform and do anything else. You would be limited by this reality. And that goes back the one thing, the fundamental thing I'd argue that every form of religion, the cult, everything you want to throw in it is the belief that there is a greater reality. There is a greater reality.

Dr. Richard Spence:
And there is a reality and and there is a somehow there is a greater us within that greater reality. There is a thing that that almost in some sense that that what we are in the physical world. This is really, you know getting out there but is is something that we are in any way born or in some way hoping to transcend. Now, one of the things you would do, I would think, in terms of Christian immortality is not living here forever. Is John Smith. It is transcending. Into a greater reality and a greater sense. It is it is growing close. It's really becoming part of this kind of larger reality. And it's simply that fundamental belief that there is there is there is a world which is. It's not necessarily hidden from us. I'm not sure Nicole would argue that. It's not there that you can't see it. It's just that your attention has to be drawn to it. You know, it's again, like this idea that if you just shut up and listen, yeah, the world is talking to you, but you have to listen. It's it's always there in some way.

Ken McMullen:
Even in the Christian perspective where I was saying it's open, it still adds caveats to seek and you'll find knock in the door will be opened. There's still a pursuit.

Dr. Richard Spence:
I've got a water. Okay. That's that's the. And that's true in well, again come into another basic idea in concept. Everything comes down to intention. That's something again in the series I keep mentioning over and over and over again every you know, whether it's, you know, black magic or white magic is merely a matter of intention. What do you want? There's, uh, there's a movie that came out a few years ago called The Witch. Don't know if you ever saw that. It's about it's, you know, it's about this, you know, witch rather unlucky Puritan family in colonial New England. I did see it but it's but that has there is a particular scene towards the end of that and it's when the you know our protagonist Hampson the the girl the only surviving member of her family. Uh, finally decides that she's just going to try to talk to this satanic goat. This, this goat called Black Phillip, which she now realizes is apparently the representation of the evil one. You know, and she just, you know, she's trying to talk to it. And and at first she thinks she's unsuccessful. And then it speaks to her and it says, what dost thou want? Okay. Now that is a very fundamental and important question for anyone who is either seeking, don't know anything from salvation to searching for the Philosopher's Stone. Okay. That's the first thing that anything in this greater world, anything you contact with, will ask you. What do you want? Why are you here? And her response then to Black Phillips The devil is. What can you give? And he begins to list off these things. He goes like the taste of butter. Pretty dresses to see the world. Notice that what he's offering are purely worldly delights. I wouldn't ask for butter. Yes. Yeah. Well, you know, time and place butter was a big deal. Shows you how little she had. But I thought that that scene sort of brought this down, that, you know, the you know, that that would be the fundamental question you'll get in some way. What do you want?

Ken McMullen:
So let me ask you this. I'm not going to ask you to share anything personal that you don't want to. So it's not even that question. But if I understood you right at the beginning when you're talking about. Well, I think I asked you, why are you into this? Or what's your perspective and. I think you alluded to that. You can what you believe and what you know can be two different things. And I think you were saying that possibly some of what you believe is what you personally have encountered or experienced. I'm not asking you to share that. But did I get that right? Yeah. If you're willing to share, that would be awesome.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, let's put it this way. The question is, is how much am I actually into all of this stuff? And I'd say I'm a lot more interested in the idea in terms of practice. I mean. Uh, you know, I've kind of gone to the ball. I'm not sure I've danced, let's put it that way. But I've watched other people do it. Don't sign in blood. Yes. No, I have not. I have not subscribed my name in any large black book in blood. No, I have not made any pacts. Any man.

Ken McMullen:
Any man in black on the crossroads somewhere.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Um, you know, but that was one of those think it was something once teased and sort of one episode as to whether or not think it was the introductory episode said, well are we going to we're going to learn how to summit and make a pact with the devil. And I said, no. But, you know, at the end of it, it's very simple as to how you would do that. All you got to do is want it, right? Right. You don't have to sign anything in a book, right? All you remember it all comes down to the intention that you would have. Uh, well, you know, I don't know. I could say that that was kind of offered, and I turned it down, so it did not appeal to me. But be careful.

Ken McMullen:
Curiosity killed the cat. Heard he's got nine, nine lives.

Dr. Richard Spence:
But it was, um. You know, I suppose part of that comes back to. I don't know what kind of a religious background do I have because everybody has one. So the fairly simple answer to that would be I grew up in a fairly conventional, I would say working class, lower middle class home. Um, you know, my dad worked in a grocery store. My mom was a housewife. Right. And that was. And, um. So my mom was fairly religious and what I'd describe as, um, very sort of a conservative Calvinist Christian. They're very Calvinist, so predestination thing is very big there. Tulip And she remember.

Ken McMullen:
I'm sorry, I just mentioned Tulip. Do you remember the doctrine, the five doctrines spell Tulip in Calvinism? Oh.

Dr. Richard Spence:
So, um, and she would, you know, use the term she would drag me to church. Um. But I was never terribly interested in going. But I was I was exposed to, I think, Good. Calvinist doctrine for some time and kind of learned it. But it, you know, for one reason or another, it never took. Right. Just never, never grabbed me.

Ken McMullen:
Well, in reformed theology, it does or it doesn't mean that's the whole thing. It was either.

Dr. Richard Spence:
But and on my dad's side, you know, I think they were Catholics. I'm not entirely sure. I don't think he ever I'm not he may, on a couple of occasions have actually set foot in some sort of church, but that would would not be the case. So he and my mom were completely separate. That was the whole sort of her element of it. But her family, there was there was a, you know, a good deal of. I mean, they all came from Texas and Oklahoma, which will give you a pretty good idea of what sort of standard. Southern Protestant Christianity they came from. And. So it was one of those things that, you know, was certainly willing to, you know, look at other things that came along. I would say that in terms of the first sort of practical exposure to anything that could be called, you know, spooky kind of occultism was when I was a teenager and some of my friends got together and we started playing with a Ouija board. So. That's one of those things that will simply suffice to say is on the one hand, a game, a joke, a child's play thing, it is meaningless. But it all depends on what your intention is. And remember, it all comes back to what do you want? Why are you here? Now. Uh, you know, there was a lot of, you know, we had a lot of fun and there were also things that were proved to be disturbing and frightening. Yeah.

Ken McMullen:
You're doing what I talked about knocking on a door, and sometimes somebody answers.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Oh, yes. Yeah. And then, you know, they won't go away. Yeah. That's the type of thing. Yeah, but. But there were. There were some experiences related to that. Um. Well, in fact, I talk about one of them in the series. I think there was actually more of that that I put in there than I actually actually planned to. But the one that sort of soured the whole thing for us, this group of people who would get around and and play with this, you know, we were probably talking about something we were talking about. We were teenage boys and we were talking about girls. Right. And there was a particular name that came up. I didn't really know her very well, but I knew who she was. And you know what we called the Weegee, which was our term for whatever it was we thought sort of operated this thing. And that was one of the things that we were all, you know, felt. You know, I would say that that I firmly came out of that believing without knowing was that there's there was something else there besides us that was not I don't know, maybe, you know, I'm perfectly willing to listen to the narrative that it was all some sort of, you know, creation of our collective psyche. I don't I don't know what it was, but it was okay. And, um, you know, it would, it would give these kind of flippant answers to things. And anyway, her name was mentioned and, and it said that, well, she very soon she's going to lose her head. And we didn't pay much attention to that at the time. And not long afterwards, there was a horrific car wreck in which he was involved in and she was decapitated. Oh, my God.

Ken McMullen:
And that sticks with you.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, you know, it's one of those things that sort of brought home because, you know, as we would play around with this, there was always this kind of, you know, we would always constantly accuse somebody else half, jokingly, only half jokingly of pushing it, because you never really know that. I mean, you know, I would never come up with that, but I don't know whether Melvin over here might actually, you know, was that some sort of strange thing that he was thinking of? And so is somebody influencing this in some way? And that was one of those things. It was in some ways, if you want to put it, the sort of nail in the coffin of a realization that, you know, this this isn't just. Okay. That wasn't an accident. That's. I felt it wasn't. It wasn't just an accident or coincidence. Meaningless coincidence that that was mentioned about a person. And then that's exactly what happened.

Ken McMullen:
Something that horrific that rarely happens.

Dr. Richard Spence:
And and, you know, I think that put a kind of put a collective chill down our spines. And thereafter we sort of. Fell away from it. It became something less and less. Less and less pleasant. Well, but there was much of it, you know. There were many, many joyful hours that were spent playing around. Yeah. Yeah.

Ken McMullen:
It's a Parker brother game. How bad could it be?

Dr. Richard Spence:
It is, Yeah.

Ken McMullen:
So if you don't mind sharing my view and you're into supernatural things, I'll tell you my story. Or why do a Christian based podcast? It's not to point fingers at people. It's to talk to interesting people about things that I think people should talk about. They call it in history that spirit things. They're charlatans and there's something real going on. And so I do come from a Christian perspective on it, meaning. My faith doesn't. I think it is logical and academically sound. The stories through Scripture and it divides things into Dark Kingdom and a light kingdom, and it kind of simplifies things. But I'll tell you my supernatural experience that I don't even know if I've shared with most of my family. So if you don't mind, I'll just kind of do a little public because I'm talking to a guy who's into this stuff. So when I was a child, I have a specific memory, specific of hearing a voice. Just my first name. Clear as day. However, my mother was standing next to me and didn't hear it, so it was not audible. But it wasn't my imagination. It stuck with me. To this day, I'm 53 years old. I never forgot that moment. And from that moment. So that was pre studying the Bible or whatnot. So I had from the beginning a belief that God was real.

Ken McMullen:
And I just thought everybody believed that. And I thought that happened to everybody. And I don't know why it happened, but it was not a dream. It was not my imagination. Of course, this is my my story. And I let it go. I become a student of a young student of theology and everything having to do with the Bible and whatnot. Out of curiosity, just assuming it's all real. But I just live my normal teenage life. Fast forward to 15. I met a youth camp and I'm kind of like a obnoxious. And this is all for. Church is dumb and boring and it's just kind of boring. You know, a lot of nerds are here doing weird, nerdy things. And long story short is they have a traveling evangelist guy in and he basically calls me out and whispers in my ear that and told me exactly what happened when I was like a kid that I never told anybody except my mother who never met this guy that had such a profound oh, and that the end of the message was it was exactly what happened to me. And that this is a reminder. Uh, that. There's a call on your life now. As I grew older, I realized I think every human being has a call from God on their life.

Ken McMullen:
It's whether how they hear it or choose not to. Like you talked about intention. Fast forward, I'm almost done with my story. I then never slowed down. I actively pursued, like with a passion. This stuff's real. Not everybody realizes it. I want people to know what's written in Scripture is true. And around the 20s ish I had. Um, what you would call right out of the Book of Acts Pentecostal experience, where from that moment on, I mean. Faith isn't about feeling stuff but was 45 minutes of. Encountering a spiritual dimension. I won't go into detail because I don't know if I could explain it. But amazing from that point on. Uh, I've really never lost that fervor. Like, um. It's the truth of scriptures seem to open up to me a lot of like the what you'd call gifts of the Spirit kind of opened up. So I feel like I've lived sort of a supernatural life in that realm. So I'm 100%. Believe believer and a lot of the occult stuff is open pathways. The two darker entity entities and stuff, but also believe it is as simple as a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light. And and that's that's my story. So we're like 95% on the same page.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Yeah. Well, you, you know, you've just described one of the the archetypal human experiences that people have thought you had a spiritual experience. Yeah. And. You know, and I would hazard to say that you can sit there and you could explain to me and a much longer explanation as to what it was like. But you know that you would never be able to describe what it was really like. Oh.

Ken McMullen:
In some of these people in the past. I read their stories, occult type people. I'm like, That's charlatan, charlatan. But some of them, I read them. I'm like, No, they've had a real experience. And but it was more of a darker entity, whether it kind of appeared that way or not, I don't know.

Dr. Richard Spence:
I like them at it, but well, you could you know, if we go back, we haven't mentioned him yet. Aleister Crowley Okay, So we can't talk about the occult without mentioning Aleister Crowley, Sergeant Pepper's.

Ken McMullen:
Lonely Hearts Club.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Band. He comes up in every single episode. Yeah, because that's that's sort of the way he is, you know? But Crowley's a guy who, you know, was one of the things I think is important about him of understanding Crowley, is that he grew up in the 19th century upper class British home in what would be today described as a strictly Christian fundamentalist household. And his father was a lay minister who spent his life, you know, going out, spending the family's money, you know, leaving business and preaching the gospel. And so there's an interesting, you know, that that. Crowley, the fellow who becomes supposedly the arch Satanist of the 20th century, grew up in a Christian fundamentalist. That's what he was exposed to every day of his childhood. Right. And again, apparently it didn't take but or it turned him in the opposite.

Ken McMullen:
I was going to say, don't you find out a lot of that is true, though? They grow up with kind of a religion based. So they're comfortable in spirituality. It never really took. And they just branch off somewhere else.

Dr. Richard Spence:
That's it. He became he followed in his he greatly admired his father. He had big issues with his mother, which probably explains a lot. But his father died, I think, when he was 11. And so he he never said anything bad about his father. He his his father was this almost was this beloved figure to him that he'd only known, you know, that, again, probably had something psychologically to do with it. But he he did literally follow in his father's footsteps by becoming the proponent of a religion. It was just another it was his it was his replacement for Christianity, which in some ways he models to be kind of the opposite of the Plymouth brethren that that he was raised in. And yet the interesting thing to notice is that he doesn't sort of escape his fate. He simply takes it in a different direction. But. Crowley To the whole point of his career, to me, people would probably argue this, but the thing that I get out of it, this was a guy that at some point early on in his exposure to what would be called the occult or to spirituality or whatever name you would want to give to it. Is that something sort of reached out and communicated with him? You know, the saying goes, something reached out from the great beyond and it touched him and he became aware of its fundamental reality.

Dr. Richard Spence:
And he had this this transcendent experience that you don't come back from. You never look at the world the same way again because you realize that there's more to it than you thought there was there before. But the great frustration is that that that happened and then it was never repeated. And most of Crowley's career, all of this stuff he's doing is to try to. Renew or re-establish contact. With these. You know, he talked about the secret chiefs who he thought were these, you know, sort of spiritual beings, these mahatmas and that. Were they the ones who. But but but but they seem to have abandoned him. And that think you can find this. If you look in other stories of people who've sought you know, sought enlightenment is that, you know, sometimes you get it, sometimes you get just a little part of it. And then nothing more. I mean, you have to think about what in some ways could be more maddening than to suddenly become aware that there is this greater wondrous world full of all kinds of knowledge and reality that you can't. And then. You never, never answers again. There's no there's no knock on the door. What's his influence?

Ken McMullen:
What's his influence on culture?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Crowley's influence on culture?

Ken McMullen:
Yeah. Even today. Do you see Do you see it still like a foundational I mean, he's.

Dr. Richard Spence:
I think a lot of people approach him as they turn him into a kind of symbol of something they don't understand. Okay. All right. And, you know, it's the idea There's there are people who seriously practice occultism in the same way that there are people who seriously practice Christianity. And then there are a lot of people who just, you know, for lack of a better term, half ass it. Right. Make no serious effort at it. Never really think about what they're doing. Yeah. And, you know, there are people who play around with things. And and Crowley has become. You know, a symbol for a lot of things that he probably wouldn't want anything to do with. But he was he was very you know, he had this he was well, he was a man who throughout his life claimed to rejected all the moral strictures of decent society. And he took pride in that. Okay. He he took pride in apparently thumbing his nose at at the morality of the era.

Ken McMullen:
Didn't he have a house on Loch Ness?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Uh, for a period of time. Boleskine house? Yeah. Which was supposedly haunted. And there was more haunted. I mean, it has to be haunted, right? Um. But he was in most other ways, he was he was this very sort of conventional upper middle class Englishman and. Was. It's it's this question Now, there are corallites out there and I'm not a Crowley ite. All right. Don't I find him interesting? You know, it's the same sort of thing it didn't really take. But but I find his find his interesting. I find his sort of narrative interesting in that case. But, you know, I wouldn't want to necessarily do the the same thing. Did he try to become.

Ken McMullen:
Like an icon? Um, meaning he looked so posed in a lot of his photographs.

Dr. Richard Spence:
The question is how much of what he's doing is an act.

Ken McMullen:
Yeah. Like Anton LaVey and he seems.

Dr. Richard Spence:
In Anton Lavey's case like an actor. It's an act. Yeah, it's he's, he's playing a character. I mean, look at, look at the way he's dressed. He looks like he's.

Ken McMullen:
Yeah. What should a Satanist look like? Dracula I'm going to look like Dracula.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Yeah. And then put that together with the fact that he used to work in a carnival and then think. That explains the whole thing. He was. He was very canny in approaching this. And does that mean that maybe on some level they didn't take himself? Well, he went on record as basically saying that he didn't believe in Satan as any kind of actual bullying. You know, he didn't believe in any of this. But it was just a it was a symbol for what he argued was just enlightened self-interest.

Ken McMullen:
I made a comment on an episode that got reamed on YouTube. I think about that I should be reported. Wouldn't be the first time, but said something about Anton LaVey No, not specifically him, but Satanism in that in his book The Satanic Bible, basically, yeah. He doesn't believe in a real Satan, but it's a philosophy. And basically the philosophy is the same as Aleister Crowley's. It's probably where he got it from is Do what thou Wilt. That's the whole of the law. Basically a freedom or just a rebellion against laws and society or morality in general. And and I just added to that. That that seems to be the culture of the day is just kind of do what you want, just don't hurt other people. Well.

Dr. Richard Spence:
If you look at Crowley became very popular in the 60s maintains it you know he's much more popular today than he ever was when he was alive. He was not widely known. He dies in 47.

Ken McMullen:
Did the Beatles help that or were they jumping on a bandwagon or did they start a bandwagon?

Dr. Richard Spence:
You know, I mean, The Doors, you know, name a 60s prominent rock group and could, you know, nine times out of ten, there's somebody in it who was a follower of Aleister Crowley or thought they were. Yeah. Yeah. But what he represented was, you know, do what thou wilt seem to be a pretty good, you know, slightly dated version of Do Your Own Thing, which became a very popular mantra at the time. And he became he was embraced as a symbol of the counterculture. So remember when you were you're talking about whatever that was, you know, um, you know, and and I lived through it, but I can't tell you exactly what it was. But the whole concept of the counterculture was it was a kind of rejection, you know, it was a rejection of your parents way of doing things and their kind of reality. And, you know, whatever they had done was uncool. And therefore, in some way that meant that whatever the opposite of that was, was cool. And so Aleister Crowley became cool, even though I will guarantee you that the vast majority of people who thought into his name was, you know, had no concept of anything that had ever stood or what it was that he stood for. Yeah. Which is surprisingly complicated because he says different things at different times. And part of what he's doing is an act. There was a character he was playing, and that character was this kind of, you know, wickedest man in the world. I mean, newspapers gave him these wickedest man in the world, the man we'd like to hang. Yeah. And initially, you know, he kind of thought that was cool. I mean, you know, if you get newspapers so pissed off, they'll call you the wickedest man in the world. You've achieved something, haven't you? Well, the problem is, is that. That sticks with you. Okay. The stink doesn't blow away. And then you find that ultimately you are defined. By the role that you have played or in other words, the role begins to play you?

Ken McMullen:
I think you sound sympathetic to Aleister Crowley.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Uh, in some ways, yeah. I mean, I think he gets it. I mean, he's not really your guy. You couldn't really describe him as a Satanist. Now, you could describe him as a lot of things, but. But in terms of live type here, he's. Well, you know, there are lots of things. The two things that I would certainly agree, I think, is what the writer who knew him, Dennis Wheatley, once said, is that he would never loan Alistair Crowley money nor leave him alone with his children. So, Right. But part of the reason for the latter thing is something that I've been accused of is that telling them scary stories. Okay, so I've done that. Parents generally don't appreciate it, even though it is fun at the time, and I believe ultimately good for the children. But, um, but Crowley is he's a, you know, he's like everybody else. You know, it's like any kind of human being. You begin to look at him and they suddenly turn complicated on you. They're contrary and inconsistent. And they seem to be one thing one day and something else. Um, but if you're really somewhere looking for the wickedest man of the 20th century, which would be quite a contest, and, you know, the best representative of the prince of darkness, it probably really wouldn't be. Crowley. Yeah. He's simply become the kind of poster boy. For that. It is, however, my kind of litmus test. If I run across someone who goes, um, you know, like, Oh, I'm a Wiccan. Like, I've met all kinds of Wiccans. Yeah. And, um, so one of the first things I'll there is to figure out one, do they know who Aleister Crowley is? Because if you don't. All right, just, you know, you're not serious when you know.

Ken McMullen:
You probably know this, but in Salem, Massachusetts, um, I've been there a couple of times, somewhat recently, but over 60% they claim of the residents there claim to be Wiccans.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, that would be the place to be. You know, that would.

Ken McMullen:
Be the place to be it. But yeah, that's that's pretty high. Yeah.

Dr. Richard Spence:
And, you know, that would be even more ironic in a way if it was all based upon the witchcraft that never happened in Salem, which, who knows, might have been the whole basis. So that's an interesting thing that people turn things into. You know, we've got these 17th century witchcraft trials in Salem about which the jury is still out as to whether there was ever anything, you know, was there anything mean witchcraft exists and people did practice it. This is one of the things you have to keep in mind. There were people who were witches. All right. Yeah. Um. But how much of that was actually going on in Salem in the 1690s is debatable. But nevertheless, that has now become this kind of myth that modern Wiccans or people who see see some sort of kinship, they think with these people may never have existed. It was.

Ken McMullen:
Mainly a money grab for people's property and stuff, and it couldn't have been coming back.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Mostly. And, you know, hysterical, baseless accusations.

Ken McMullen:
Bored teenagers or what? Some kind of wheat. Bad wheat. Barley or something in there. Yeah.

Dr. Richard Spence:
See, you can. We know these things happened and now we can come up with six different stories as to. Yeah, all that make kind of a certain amount of sense as to why they happened. But at the end of the day, we still don't know whether anybody was ever, you know, were they real witches or was this just all a horrible mistake? But, you know, now you can believe whatever you want and you can believe that you can call yourself a Wiccan and live in Salem, Massachusetts, and you continuing on the tradition that may be all BS, but, you know, they.

Ken McMullen:
Live like it's Halloween year round. Um.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Uh.

Ken McMullen:
Since I have you before I let you go, one more, one more topic. And I can't let you go and not ask about even just an overview of the relationship between the occult and the UFO phenomenon.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, that's one of those things. All right. So clearly, you know, in my professional career, I've been into some weird stuff. You know, spies, secret societies, cultism.

Ken McMullen:
Oh, wait. Hey, I'm sorry. Before you move on and don't think your mind because you like, probably just briefly, what's the deal with him and British spy or espionage or. I'm only halfway through that episode.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Oh, okay. Well, there's a book that I wrote about that. I'll read it called Secret Agent 686. Yeah, which could add more. Crowley was, um, at different points in his lifetime, he claimed to have worked for British intelligence, and that was generally Pooh poohed as him just sort of, you know. Making things up or exaggerating something. And what I did was I was actually doing some research on another spy. And while I was doing it, I sent off for some old US military intelligence files. These were sort of the internal security. They were like the FBI in World War One. And they had dossiers on everybody. And I just thought, well, you know, I'll get a hold Crowley's and see what that says. And sure enough, there was one that showed up. And the key element in that is that within this there is a statement from the British consulate in New York saying that Aleister Crowley, the Americans are thinking about arresting him. And the British consulate has said that he is on he is on the business of the British government in this country with the consulate's knowledge, and we know what he's doing. So he's working for us. That was it. See, that's one of the things from an historian that you want to look for, because what was there was a statement that Crowley wasn't making. Now, it didn't say exactly what he was doing, but it did say that when he said he was in the US during World War One working for His Majesty's Government, He was. Would you.

Ken McMullen:
Suspect? Would you suspect that it's something along the lines of spiritism or can you see into the enemy lines and hear radar beeps and the other dimension and where the subs are or something like that?

Dr. Richard Spence:
No, it had more to do with his his connect the people that he knew through his association with other occult groups, especially German ones. Okay. So one of the things that had happened a few years before World War One is that he was initiated by a German occultist and spy by the name of Theodore Royce into a German secret society. Um, you know, a mechanism for greater spiritual awareness. That's what they offer called the Ordo templi orientis. The o.t.o. still around today. And and through that, Crowley had connections to this whole European wide nexus. See, this is one of the things that when you join clubs, you know, people that you wouldn't meet otherwise. Right. So Crowley had this connection forged before the war to German occultism, and there were people who were part of the o.t.o. and kindred occult groups who held positions of importance in German intelligence and military affairs, including those in the US. This gave him an entree to those people. This was the way in the United States that Crowley gained the confidence which he did, of German agents in the United States and pretended to work for them. And that's why they trusted him. That's that's what his role was. His role was to to get as much information he could from these German occult circles and the official circles they were connected to, and then also to sow disinformation among them. To gain their trust and deceive them. And that then goes on. That's a sort of pattern. You know, he's not necessarily the most successful agent. He screws up on more than one occasion. But there's this kind of on and off relationship between he and British intelligence, um, and specifically with the British Admiralty, with the British Naval Intelligence is what he's connected to. And that goes all the way up through World War Two. They bring him back into the fold and, you know, completely random.

Ken McMullen:
But you're an expert. I'm putting you on the spot. What about the Gong Show guy? Did he really work for the CIA?

Dr. Richard Spence:
I have no idea. Chuck Barris. Chuck. I kind of hope so. See, I like that story. So, see, this is the other part. And remember, everything's a story. And it comes down to do I like that story better than this story? It is a good which which would I rather have? Which would which would be more cool if it was true, Jack? You know that Chuck Barris wasn't a spy and an assassin for the CIA or that he was. I think it would be cooler that he was It would be much cooler. So prove me wrong.

Ken McMullen:
Ufos.

Dr. Richard Spence:
All right. So let's put it this way. For all the weird stuff I've been interested in, in my career, UFOs were not one of them, believe it or not. Okay. And that was because I just. It just seemed to be. There was nothing to it. All right. I mean, there you know, I very much want to see something. So it's like Bigfoot. I feel exactly the same way. Show me, you know? Okay. Show me it. Okay. I don't care whether it's dead or alive, but I want to see it. Then it's real. Otherwise. Yeah, you know? Yeah. What's up with Bigfoot? A lot of people talking, um, and making things up, and people are really good at making things up. So there's a.

Ken McMullen:
Bigfoot thing fall under just myth legend. Or does that kind of fall into like, is any time there's groups of people that believe in something that is literally hidden, right? I mean, that's the whole idea. Like this thing. Same with Loch Ness. He's obviously not there. They've scanned the bottom of this place. But these kind of they almost become like they're not cults. It's not a religion. But people are such believers in something with no proof.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, it gets close to being a religion in some cases. You know, it's no there there are people who can give you great details. Apparently, about how, you know, Sasquatch, pick your name. But for that one, how they live, what their sex habits are, what they eat, everything that's fat. Really. Okay. Um, so you know that that is one of the I, I will admit and this and, you know, this is my approach in the cult is you got to show me. All right. So on a couple of occasions, as we've alluded to. Well, you showed me. All right. But other than that. So UFOs, quite frankly, I tended not to. I thought it was just sort of a waste of time and that there didn't seem. But but again, I didn't I'm I'm not I didn't approach from the standpoint of a debunker because there are other people who seem to be fixated. Yeah, it's a bit like here we can pick on somebody else. Atheists. Okay. People who make a big deal out of being atheists and constantly look. If you don't believe in any sort of God, then why are you wasting your time.

Ken McMullen:
Trying to be done with it?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Why are you wasting your time trying to argue for the non-existence of something that you know you would just otherwise ignore? Right. So, um, to me, a true atheist is an interested someone who is a militant atheist, is someone who's actually deeply religious and fighting it.

Ken McMullen:
But they're fighting it for sure.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Um, there's. You're trying too hard. But so the UFO stuff doesn't mean that I didn't think that maybe there was. I mean, this is one of the things that clearly there's some sort of phenomenon which takes place. Okay? There are people see strange things flying around in the sky that can't be readily explained. Okay? That that, that that's real.

Ken McMullen:
And long before. Long before Roswell and.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Long before Roswell. This is this is nothing new. I mean, people have been freaked out by things in the sky from time immemorial. There's always something going on up there. Yeah. So that there is this there is a phenomenon of unidentified flying objects. Then to make the leap that the only possible source for them is extraterrestrial. That this is evidence of. And I have nothing against that idea. No, let's put it this way. Um. You know, given the small amount of the universe, we can even kind of look at the chances of there being some sort of what we would call intelligent life seems to be a virtual certainty. Now, whether they've ever come to Earth, well, that's a that's a possibility. So there's something out there? No. Yeah. Yeah. Have they ever come here and messed around with this? Maybe. All right. So that could be what some of the UFOs are about. But when I tend to look at that, the first thing that jumps out to me is that this is all sort of human related. First of all, all of these aliens look suspiciously like humans for the most part. Um, you know, just the whole idea that you come from Venus and you look like Thor and a jumpsuit. I don't know why. Why would that. Why would that necessarily be the case? But the other thing, this is the thing that. So but but some a few years back, I got drawn into this.

Dr. Richard Spence:
I got sucked into it because I became interested in a particular figure. Who was an important figure in the sort of early UFO contactee movement in the 1950s. And his name is George Hunt Williamson. If you go poking around, you look at all the George's George Adamski Van Tassel. You're going to run into George Hunt Williamson, George Jetson. And when I began to look at that Williamson's career, what I began to see through my habit of spy hunting, of trying to figure out why people you know, what people might be connected to intelligence agencies, which, you know. Find a lot of those, but there are certain tales you begin to look for. Yeah. Um, and those include all sorts of things and kind of odd, incongruous things in military records are a part of it. Also, people changing their identities. It can also mean they're crazy, but it can also mean that you've been ordered to do that. But was looking at Williamson and I'm going, Yeah, there's this there's something going on here. And that's where I then begin to you begin to run into the saucer cults and and they're all there are a whole variety of saucer groups or saucer, these kind of quasi religions. Some of them did become that, you know, the Aquarian movement became part of it. And the Ethereum Society, there are these whole sort of spirit, but they're all based on the idea that the Space Brothers, the beings, are spiritual emissaries that are they're angels.

Dr. Richard Spence:
All right, Just strip away the term. And 500 years ago, these would be angels. And now they're coming. They're going to. I've picked you. They do what angels always do. They come to somebody, I don't know, out in the desert somewhere and they go they you know, you've been chosen for a special mission, little man. And we're and that's notice that that never ends well for the human. Okay? It's just, you know. Martyrdom awaits those cases. But they said they were an angel. Um, and see, that's an interesting question. Okay. Being shows up, shining light and all the rest of this and tells you they're an angel and they have something they want you to do. So why do you believe them? But people do. So, you know, people have this have these experience. So to me, they're having these, you know, occult experiences with angels, and then they're forming these whole kind of belief systems about them. And this this was the key to me. How is it that George Hunt Williamson begins his communication? What is the first way he communicates and continues to communicate with extraterrestrials? Ouija board, Right. They start talking to spacemen on a Ouija board. And, you know, if really you been able to get all the way here with your technology, then you would use a Ouija board to communicate.

Ken McMullen:
To talk through a cardboard Parker Brothers game. Yes.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Um, so, you know, it was, it was all it's continual the use the of, of of occult concepts of the ascended master. It's theosophy. Yeah. And that's one of those things I'd say that for anybody who's uninitiated in theosophy, it is the kind of if you look at anything which is today described as new Age. You're going to find theosophy at the root of it. And it was the 19th century creation of a spiritual society for enlightenment of the masses, based on a fusion of Western and basically Indian occultism, sort of a combination of mystical Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism into one big new agey soup brought to us.

Ken McMullen:
Courtesy of Helen Bolinsky. Did I say that right?

Dr. Richard Spence:
Yeah. Blavatsky. Blavatsky. Who was also, by the way, a spy. We find this a lot. Um. And and in many ways also kind of a fraud. So, you know, she was accused pretty clearly of. But, you know, fraud.

Ken McMullen:
Or not fraud or not, I think you say over and over again in your episodes, it's like, does it matter? Because what's the outcome? The outcome is the Nazis caught on to it took an interpretation and it goes through history. And whether there's 100% truth or not, it seems like these occult ideas just get repurposed. And for new generations and just remarketed in.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Different, you know, human beings are if there's one thing that we're good at, it's really sort of glomming onto an idea and just, you know. Carrying it to his logical or illogical conclusion no matter what. So it's it is the. And it's this this kind of constant struggle. Again, there's there is a an argument made within that within that within a cultism or within spirituality as a whole. There's always this battle between what, a French esotericist we won't call him a by the name of René Guénon would talk about the genuine tradition and the counter tradition. So that there are forces beings. What are you going to think of that are trying to enlighten people? There are those who are trying to draw them into into the light in order to get them true enlightenment. But that is constantly in this kind of battle with the false enlightenment, which seems to offer the same sort of thing, but which is always meant to lead the hounds away from the fox. That is, to to offer a an apparent enlightenment which is really not an enlightenment at all, which was designed to keep you, keep you in the dark while promising this. So it's you know, it comes down, I think, to this idea of what's genuine and what's fake.

Ken McMullen:
You just gave a Christian perspective. You just gave a perfect Christian perspective. You might have did it by accident, but probably.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Did it by accident. But there you go.

Ken McMullen:
Of course.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Those years of taking the church from my mom.

Ken McMullen:
Dr. Spence, don't care what they say. I really like you so.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, I've enjoyed talking to you as well.

Ken McMullen:
I appreciate it so much. And this is one of my longer podcasts, but I seriously could. Talk about this stuff a long time. So appreciate your time and coming on.

Dr. Richard Spence:
Well, thank you for having me on. And hopefully I came. I've tried to give some kind of coherent response. So but again, is a very, very complicated issue. Yet, on the other hand, it's kind of really simple, isn't it?

Ken McMullen:
Yeah, right.

Dr. Richard Spence:
What do you want?

Open:
Counted among the outlaws? He said, Come, follow me. People from all walks of life since have.

Been becoming outlaws.

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