#357 - Duncan Trussell: I Went to the World’s Largest Antichrist Convention

Summary

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Danny Jones Podcast #357 – Duncan Trussell: I Went to the World’s Largest Antichrist Convention

Release Date: December 22, 2025
Host: Danny Jones
Guest: Duncan Trussell

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Episode Overview

This episode features Danny Jones in a mesmerizing and unpredictable conversation with comedian and podcaster Duncan Trussell. The discussion interweaves themes of religion (especially Satanism and Christianity), AI and technological apocalypse, the history and dark underbelly of podcasting, personal well-being, magic (with and without a “k”), psychedelic experiences, and several wild digressions into conspiracy theories and philosophical rabbit holes.

The title refers in part to Duncan’s attendance at a Peter Thiel “Antichrist” lecture and an actual Satanist wedding, using these as jumping-off points to explore how myth, morality, technology, and spirituality collide in contemporary life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Satanism, Comedy, and the Spectrum of Belief

• [01:57–06:40] Duncan’s “Satanic” Ventriloquist Act & Anton LaVey’s Grandson’s Wedding
  • Duncan recounts being invited to perform at the wedding of Stanton LaVey (grandson of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan).
  • Describes the range of "flavors" of Satanism, pointing out the difference between LaVeyan, The Satanic Temple, and "romantic" interpretations of Lucifer-as-rebel.
  • The act freaked out attendees: “People would do Bible verses and walk out yelling Bible verses. … Either made people laugh really hard or it freaked people out.” (Duncan, 05:21)
  • "It was amazing. They were really sweet people... It was familial Satanists, man." (Duncan, 06:00)
• Absinthe as the “European Tequila”
  • Duncan shares his experience drinking absinthe (“my mind was clear as a bell, but my mouth was drunk…” 07:24) and the hallucinations that followed.

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2. Celebrity, Decline, and the Podcast “Dark Ages”

• Marilyn Manson, Fame, and the Tiger Metaphor [10:17–13:03]
  • The hosts riff on Marilyn Manson’s career and controversy, using the Chris Rock line: “That tiger didn’t go crazy. That tiger went tiger.” (Duncan, 11:27)
  • Manson’s downfall is used as a springboard to discuss entropy and the ephemeral nature of fame and creative success.
• Origin Stories of Podcasting [13:03–14:53]
  • Duncan reminisces about the early days with Natasha Leggero and the Lavender Hour, noting initial skepticism about podcasting as a medium.
  • “Ground zero… We had to tell people what it was. … If 600 people were listening, that’s like a full comedy club.” (Duncan, 13:25)
• Commodification and Decline of Podcasting [16:23–18:16]
  • Both comment on podcasting’s shift from an indie medium to a "gold rush" for celebrities and corporations.
  • Dark Ages predicted, with “cinematic” new formats overtaking conversational ones on platforms like YouTube.
  • “It became where people just saw dollar signs... We can reverse-engineer this thing, pay Drake to be episode one...” (Danny, 17:16)
• AI Podcasts and the Coming Bubble Pop [23:14]
  • Inshittification: “It’s happening all over the world... corpo greed... it dehumanizes it.” (Duncan, 21:07)
  • “They’re flooding with AI podcasts… tsunami of homogenized bullshit... then it’ll go back… just have to look harder for the good ones.” (Duncan, 23:14)

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3. AI, The Antichrist, and Silicon Valley Spirituality

• Peter Thiel, Eschatology & AI Apocalypse [29:34–40:53]
  • Duncan describes going to Peter Thiel’s multi-part lecture on the Antichrist, and the surreal intersection of tech-bro mentality with literal interpretations of the Book of Revelation.
  • “It felt like he was saying there might be a way to patch the Book of Revelation—like a tech guy being like, we can ctrl-alt-delete the Apocalypse.” (Duncan, 31:15)
  • Debate about whether Thiel/Silicon Valley are ushering in Christian revival as a kind of spiritual or social control over rapid tech acceleration.
  • “Christian eschatology and Ray Kurzweil singularity predictions... you're looking at basically the same thing.” (Duncan, 35:06)
• Dangers & Culture Shock of Ubiquitous, Unregulated Technology
  • Risks of AI: mass unemployment, collapse of capitalism, quantum computing breaking all encryption and privacy, “AI-based cults.” (Duncan, 26:15–28:46)
  • "Within 5–8 years all the secrets are revealed." (Duncan, 28:15)

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4. Conspiracy: The Real “Cathedral of Satan” & Surveillance

• “A cathedral of Satan would look like the stock market… an actual cathedral, with ritualistic bell-ringing…” (Duncan, 21:04)
• Corporate logic, surveillance capitalism, and techno-dystopia discussed as way more “satanic” than any religious cosplay.
• Debate about Palantir: Is it "throne of Satan"? Is the real Satanic influence really just greed and commodification? (50:07–52:10)

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5. Magic, Occult, and the Bible as Grimoire

• Definition and Practice of Magic [52:12–54:32]
  • Explains Aleister Crowley’s definition: “The science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.”
  • Links occult concepts of magic to self-help and even Jesus’ parables—calling the Bible a book of magic (“grimoire”).
  • “Tony Robbins 100%. … What he’s teaching … is just basic occult teachings.” (Duncan, 53:38)
  • Emphasizes that most people “curse themselves” daily via negative self-talk; true magic is learning to direct will/thoughts.
• The Bible, Psychedelics, and Lost Scriptures [58:43–79:06]
  • Deep dive into the Bible’s textual history, its psychedelic overtones (e.g., burning bush/DMT theory), and stories edited out (e.g., Infancy Gospel).
  • “Whoever wrote [the Gospel of John], their consciousness was very different... whatever inspired them to write was so powerful it destroyed their identity.” (Duncan, 61:53)
  • Old medicine = psychoactive, drugs synonymous with magic; “phones are drugs… a powerful psychedelic…” (Duncan, 66:46)
  • Discussed how even the term “Christ” originally had drug connotations in Greek.
• Psychedelics and the "Reset"
  • Psychedelics as a way to “wipe the soot from the lantern,” or provide a “hard reset" for a mind caught in modern malaise.

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6. Simulation, DMT & the Search For “The Code”

• Simulation Theory and Digital Consciousness [122:29–123:42]
  • “Each of these subsequent technologies accelerate ... Based on that, ... when will it eclipse us? Oh, it already did.” (Duncan, 122:27)
  • Posits that we may already have uploaded our consciousness—raises classic “simulation argument” and time-dilation models.
• DMT Lasers and the Matrix [123:42–128:10]
  • Danny shares personal DMT trip visuals, inspired by a documentary claiming one can “see the code of the Matrix” with lasers while tripping.
  • Duncan jokes: “If aliens ever appear, we’re gonna find out they look like dicks. That’s why disclosure hasn’t happened.” (126:36)
  • Explores the placebo theory of psychedelics (Hamilton Morris's view): “They reinforce what’s already in there.”

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7. Suffering, Mindfulness & The Path to Happiness

• Mind Control via Phones & News [110:07–116:02]
  • The addictive nature of digital devices likened to "summoning a distraction demon."
  • “A vampire only goes where it’s invited. Every time you stare into the hypno rectangle … it’s like summoning a distraction demon.” (Duncan, 115:32)
• How to Reclaim Joy and Presence [132:09–136:08]
  • Duncan stresses simple, non-esoteric practices: mindfulness, meditation, retraining the mind’s habits.
  • “If you worry … it’s just a habit. … You can replace those worries with … wonderful things that you’ve done. … You already have the discipline of worry; just redirect it.” (Duncan, 132:09 & 135:56)
  • Recommends the book Psycho-Cybernetics: “If you just replace [negative thoughts] with anything…this practice will change your life so quickly.” (Duncan, 136:07)

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8. Quotes & Memorable Moments by Timestamp

| Timestamp | Quote & Context | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 05:21 | “People would do Bible verses and walk out yelling Bible verses... It freaked people out.” — Duncan| | 11:27 | “That tiger didn't go crazy. That tiger went tiger.” — Quoting Chris Rock (Duncan) | | 16:22 | “That was never in your head when you started off, right?” — Duncan on podcast authenticity | | 21:07 | “This is what messes everything up… corpo greed… inshittification…” — Duncan | | 23:14 | “AI podcasts… tsunami of just homogenized bullshit… it’ll go back… just look harder for the good.” | | 31:15 | “A tech guy being like, we can ctrl-alt-delete the Apocalypse.” — Duncan on Thiel’s lecture | | 35:06 | “Christian eschatology and Ray Kurzweil... you're looking at basically the same thing.” — Duncan | | 53:38 | “Tony Robbins 100%. … What he’s teaching … is just basic occult teachings.” — Duncan | | 61:53 | “Whoever wrote this, their consciousness was very different from my consciousness…” — Duncan | | 115:32 | “A vampire only goes where it's invited… staring into the hypno rectangle... distraction demon.” | | 132:09 | “If you worry... it's just a habit. … Mindfulness is the start.” — Duncan |

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Notable Themes & Takeaways

• The Real Apocalypse Is Boringly Human:
  Whether in AI, podcasting, or spirituality, the real “Antichrist” is not a horned demon but unchecked technological, economic, and social forces—greed, fear, and the search for meaning.

• Magic Is Everywhere (And Not That Weird):
  Magic, for Duncan, is simply focused intention—same as what self-help, advertisers, and spiritual teachers have always said.

• Podcasting’s Full Circle:
  Once a home for outsiders, podcasting has undergone “inshittification” but will eventually return to a more personal, authentic space after the corporate/celebrity “bubble” pops.

• Don’t Chase the Algorithm:
  Obsessing over downloads or chasing algorithmic success is a spiritual trap; instead, find joy in real connection and the present moment.

• The Value of Skepticism & Inquiry:
  Regardless of the topic—be it biblical miracles or technological trends—the show argues for direct experience, critical thinking, and “doing your own search” rather than relying on official narratives.

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Segment Timestamps

• 01:57 – Duncan's Satanic ventriloquist act and Anton LaVey’s wedding
• 10:17 – Marilyn Manson discussion & fame’s entropy
• 13:03 – Early podcasting and “Lavender Hour” days
• 16:23 – Podcasting’s commercialization and creative decline
• 21:04 – Stock market as a “cathedral of Satan”
• 23:14 – AI, inshittification, and the coming podcast bubble pop
• 29:34 – Peter Thiel’s “Antichrist” lecture and tech-Christianity
• 52:12 – Magic, the Bible, and occult knowledge
• 61:53 – The Bible as psychedelic transmission
• 66:46 – Ancient drugs, Christ as a drug term
• 110:07 – Fear as the ultimate addiction, algorithm as fear-harvester
• 115:32 – Phones as “summoning the distraction demon”
• 122:29 – Simulation theory and the AI singularity
• 126:34 – DMT laser trips: seeing “dicks encoded in Lord of the Rings text”
• 132:09 – Mindfulness, worry, and retraining the mind

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Final Thoughts

This episode stands out for its shapeshifting mix of occult humor, keen social criticism, and practical philosophy. Duncan Trussell’s ability to channel both cosmic dread and everyday spiritual optimism makes for a conversation that’s equal parts entertaining, dizzying, and surprisingly grounding.

Whether you're a spiritual seeker, technofuturist, comedian, or just feeling existential in the digital age, this episode delivers a dense, quotable swirl of insight and irreverence.

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Listen to Duncan Trussell’s podcast, The Duncan Trussell Family Hour, and watch The Midnight Gospel on Netflix.
For upcoming tour dates: duncantrussell.com

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Transcript

[Danny]

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[Duncan Trussell]

A growing enterprise managing vendor risk, Vanta makes it quick, easy and scalable. And I'm not just saying that because I work here. Get [e-mail] when the holidays start to feel a bit repetitive, reach for a Sprite Winter Spiced cranberry and put your twist on tradition. A bold cranberry and winter spice flavor fusion Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry is a refreshing way to shake things up this sipping season and only for a limited time. Obey your thirst. Are you a Satanist?

[Danny]

No, not a Satanist.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's what all of them say. I'm not a Satanist. Just design my podcast studio as the Cathedral Satan.

[Danny]

I'm not in any ist. It's just a fun looking cathedral. My old set was a, A, a spaceship and I kind of got really, I got sick of it really quick.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, you know, like you have all.

[Danny]

Kinds of people come in and you're like, why am I sitting in a spaceship?

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Danny]

This is a little bit more broad spectrum.

[Duncan Trussell]

You don't have people asking, why am I in the cathedral of Satan?

[Danny]

More people can, can relate to the cathedral of Satan and they can't spaceship.

[Duncan Trussell]

And that's the problem.

[Danny]

Well, that's the pro. That's the cool thing about this. It doesn't have to be the cathedral of Satan. It can be the cathedral of anything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Danny]

There's no devils or, you know, gorgons on the walls.

[Duncan Trussell]

For sure. This is a very nice Satan cathedral.

[Danny]

Thank you.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think the best I've ever seen.

[Danny]

Thank you. You went to, didn't you go to Anton lavey's wedding?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes, that is correct. Yeah, you know, that's so true. So when I was living in la, I was doing this satanic puppet act, or that was part of my act. So basically, you know, I had seen this really like at one point he was like a very famous ventriloquist named Willie Tyler. And I'm standing in the back of the main room of the Comedy Store watching him and he's like harmonizing with his puppet and you know, I knew, oh, he's got a cd. That's cool though. But it was weird. It was kind of like mournful. The song was it was very sad, you know, just kind of like a ventriloquist late in his life, singing a sort of mournful song about how his many friends are gone now with a puppet. And it was so eerie. But I'm standing next to another comedian and he looks at me and he's like, how does he do that? How does he harmonize with himself? And I'm like, oh, my God, you think he can do that? And then I thought, oh, I was like, that night, I ordered the most fucked up looking puppet I could find. And I did this like 4 minute ventriloquist bit where by the end of it, I was singing Pink Floyd's Wish youh Were Here with the puppet. And it freaked people out, man. People would do Bible verses and walk out yelling Bible verses. And it really, like, it either made people laugh really hard or it freaked people out. And so somehow word got around to Anton lavey's grandson, Stanton, that there's this comic doing the Satanic ventriloquist act. This guy at a cafe is like, stanton lavey wants to meet you. He needs performers for his wedding. I'm like, fuck, yeah. So now I'm at the grandson of Anton lavey's house with his fiance, Zandora lavey. Stanton, rest in peace. He's gone now. But it was amazing. They were really sweet people and it was so funny. Cause they're Satanists. And Zandora made this wonderful Southern dinner, except absinthe. Like, they had real absinthe with, like, you could see the root or whatever the fuck they put in it. And it's real weird green. And they had this, like, very strange dog. And like, it was so. And he had, you know, family pictures of Anton lavey in his house. And, you know, like, it was interesting because, like, there's different forms of Satanism. You know, people sort of. Yeah, there's many flavors, many flavors of Satanism. And so, you know, Anton lavey's flavor of Satanism is a little different than the Satanic temple and a little different. Most people just think it's all. You know, most people think, like, for example, Aleister Crowley was a Satanist, you know, whereas, like, there's romantic Satanism, where people sort of think of Lucifer as this, like, rebel, and it represents the outsider pushing back against norms and stuff like that. But so that was sort of interesting to me, was like, whoa, it's definitely not what I thought it was. And yeah, anyway, yeah, I did my Satanic puppet act at his wedding. Danzig performed at the, like, it was Familial Satanist, man. Like, Zena lavey was there, the person people accuse of being like Taylor Swift. The Taylor Swift clone theory. Yes.

[Danny]

Yeah, she just reposted that on Instagram.

[Duncan Trussell]

Helped her carry the wedding cake. And so I'm sitting in front of this big room of Satanists, man. And, like, I start, and they just think I'm gonna be a regular ventriloquist. And so they're yelling from the get go, fuck you. Fuck you. And then as soon as it got to the satanic part, why were they yelling fuck you? Cause they're Satanists. And, like, it just seemed like some Danzig's on the show.

[Danny]

Oh, Danzig on the show.

[Duncan Trussell]

Who is this, like, weird, like, ventriloquist suddenly on stage? And then the moment it became Satanic, the moment the puppet reveals himself as this, like, servant of Satan, the whole room just started going, hail Satan. Hail Satan. It was awesome. Yeah, it was cool.

[Danny]

What is absinthe, exactly, and what was it like?

[Duncan Trussell]

The best description I've heard of it is European tequila. So, you know, you drink tequila, you get that weird, like, extra something, and you could argue that's a placebo effect. Who knows? But tequila gives you kind of a more of an up than, like, whiskey or something like that. Well, absinthe has. I can't remember the name of. Basically, it's some kind of. It's herbal. And when it's real absinthe, it has something called thujone in it. And thujone is a psychoactive substance that the best. Like you, you know, I wanted to be cool when I did this drunk history on Tesla. And so you get to pick what booze you want to drink for drunk history. And I'm like, let's do absinthe, man. Knowing nothing about it and not even looking at the alcohol content. It's got very high alcohol content. So now I'm drinking absinthe. And somewhere in the recording of that show, it was the craziest thing, man, because my mind was clear as a bell, but my mouth was drunk, so it was like I was so lucid. Not the usual, like, drunk sort of. Everything's blurry, fuzzy. It just clears about. And it was so, so messed up. And I was puking, and, like, they left me on the floor of my bathroom.

[Danny]

You were speaking gibberish?

[Duncan Trussell]

Not gibberish. Not even in tongues? No, I was trying to speak in English, but my mouth wasn't working. But it wasn't really. Like in movies, they, like, make it a little more psychedelic than it actually was. It just feels more like a stimulant or something.

[Danny]

Interesting. Yeah. The only one I've heard of is there was a brand that I think Marilyn Manson came out with called Manson.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't know, man.

[Danny]

And I think it got pulled off the market sound. They. I don't know what was going on with it. There was something weird going on.

[Duncan Trussell]

It sounds too much like man scent. Like man scent. Yeah. I don't think you know what I mean. It's just bad branding. It needed a better name.

[Danny]

Yeah. Yeah. I could understand how they came up with it, though. Like Manson.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. No, no, it just. No, it doesn't work, you know? Aren't you sick of, like, these.

[Danny]

Oh, yeah, there it is.

[Duncan Trussell]

Man. Synth. It's green. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, with the extraction, it turns green.

[Danny]

God, he got so fat.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. You know, you're not. You can't. It's like the whole, like, Lord of Darkness fat thing. Doesn't work. He can't do it. No.

[Danny]

Yeah, like the. The. The. The dark, satanic heavy metal guy really works when you're skinny.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Yeah. But it does the opposite when you get fat, start getting old, it doesn't hit as hard. It doesn't.

[Danny]

The. The recent photos of him, it looks like he might be on the. The Ozempic. It looks like he's melting some of that fat away.

[Duncan Trussell]

Good for him.

[Danny]

Yeah. Yeah. I hope he's doing better after he got. He got, like, blasted for.

[Duncan Trussell]

Who would have thought. For no one saw that coming. Not Marilyn.

[Danny]

Who was that hot chick he was with that was in Westworld?

[Duncan Trussell]

Evan Rachel Wood.

[Danny]

Gosh, he's so hot.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, super hot.

[Danny]

But, yeah, I guess they were dating. And she goes, he made me do all this dark, sadistic shit. I was like, you get in a sexual relationship with that guy? What did you expect?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah, I mean, truly, though, it's like, you know, there's that saying, a vampire only goes where they're invited. And like in Dracula, the original Dracula, it's really cool. Cause when Dracula's inviting God, what's his name, the real estate agent. Dude, I cannot. I'm terrible at names. But when he's inviting him into his house, mansion, castle, I guess he asked three times. He says, clearly, you come here of your own free will. You come here of your own free will. You come here of your own free will. And that's a classic metaphor for, you know, psychic vampires, energy vampires. Like, if you look back at the last time you got sucked into something messed up, you knew somewhere inside of you. You shouldn't get involved in that. Don't go. But you went. And so, yeah, vampires only go where they're invited. You invite them into your life. And Manson, it's like, come on. Yeah. His body of work. Yeah, dude. You know what I mean? What's the most romantic Marilyn Manson song?

[Danny]

Right, Right.

[Duncan Trussell]

Have you ever heard that Chris Rock joke? He's like, I read the newspaper. A tiger escaped from his cage at the zoo and went crazy and started biting people. And he goes, that tiger didn't go crazy. That tiger went tiger. That's what they do.

[Danny]

That's exactly what they do. Yeah. That's funny. It is so strange to see people like him just get, like, their whole. Their whole, like, lives and careers, like, swept out from underneath them for weird shit like that, you know, it sucks because he, like. It seems like he lost everything and, like, really turned his life upside down. Got, you know, got fat, got addicted to alcohol and lost his edge.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, you know, it. The. The reality of anything is entropy, you know, like, there's no way out.

[Danny]

Yeah, that's true.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, no matter what, your body gets old, your brain starts slowing down. This is just human incarnation. There's no way out of it. And, you know, the best thing when you find yourself at some peak is to, like, appreciate. This won't last. It can't. And the people who believe that it's a permanent situation get in the most trouble. You know, they get so attached to that very transient place, and then, you know, when they start sliding back down, which is inevitable, they get super depressed because they can't believe it happened to them. But it happens to everybody.

[Danny]

Yeah. Yeah. It makes me. I think about that with, like. Like, Even podcasting. Like, I wonder, how much longer is podcasting gonna go for? You know, I feel like it's definitely reached its fever pitch. And I'm like. Because when podcasting first came along, like, who would have thought, like, people didn't think that that was gonna be anything.

[Duncan Trussell]

No one thought that.

[Danny]

You were at ground zero of the whole thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Ground zero. And I had to tell people what it was. We would invite people over to our apartment. This is when I was with Natasha Leggero. That was the first podcast I did. It was called the Lavender Hour. And you would sort of. We just turned. We had a computer and hit record on GarageBand. The audio was shit. We didn't care. And then it started, like, you know those days, if, like, 600 people were listening to your podcast, it's like, what the fuck? 600 people. Cause we were thinking more in terms of, like, comedy. Like, if you filled up a 600 seat room, that's really good. So 600 people, we could visualize that, right? And I got a call at one point from this guy, Marshall Chiles, who runs a club called the Laughing Skull in Atlanta, and he's like, duncan, listen. Podcasts. People are gonna be listening to them in cars, and I think it's gonna be a really big thing. And your podcast is good. You guys need to take it more seriously. And it was the greatest phone call of all time. Cause we were just like, whenever we upload it, whatever. But we started taking it a little more seriously. It got a little more popular. Then we broke up and I started my own podcast. But, yeah, ground zero, for sure. Even though there were people. There were like, people years earlier than that who were doing it.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

But no matter what, you know, with anything, I have to. I try to be very careful in my thinking, in the quantification of it, because that is where you get in trouble. Because, like, with podcasting, I know you love it. I guarantee what you love about it is this moment brings you into the moment. You have these great conversations, you learn from it, you connect with people you might not normally have ever even met. And it's magical. And to me, that's always been it. That's it. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I can make money. I'm feeding my kids from a podcast. But the real joy of the thing is this moment. You know, in the Bhagavad Gita, it says, we have a right to our action. We do not have a right to the fruits of our action. And I think about that all the time. You get too caught up in the fruits, start bean counting. Next thing you know, you're going to start pandering. You have a perceived audience. You want to give them what you think they want. But that's not how you started off. You started off just talking about what you were interested in, and the next thing you know, you become a sort of like, I don't know, a weird version of what you already were. You know what I mean? You're trying to keep some. I don't know, some people really like when I talk about this or do that.

[Danny]

Yes, exactly.

[Duncan Trussell]

That was never in your head when you started off, right?

[Danny]

Well, that's. I was just talking about this to a friend yesterday, and I was, like, explaining. We were talking about how, like, there's going to be or it's already started Like, a dark ages of podcasting, especially with. Not so much on, like, the audio stuff, but on YouTube. My friend was just noticing, like, across all podcasts on YouTube, there's been, like, a huge pullback of, like, the amount of views people get. The top podcasters are, you know, these, like, weird new people who are doing it in, like, this cinematic, like, movie way or whatever, and they're making almost. They're turning their podcast into documentaries, like, and it's just so hard to compete and all this stuff. And he's like. And he was explaining to me and. And we were talking about how, like, it's not the way it was in the beginning to where it's. Because what happened was it became to where people just saw dollar signs, where you saw, like, everyday, like, musicians like Dua Lipa or, like, big sports celebrities or Wall street guys, like, saying, look at all this people. Look at all these. This money people are making on podcasts. We should do a podcast. We can reverse engineer the success of it. All we do is we pay this celebrity to come on our pocket. We'll get Drake to be episode one.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And we'll be off to the races.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And then they realize, oh, we got to do more. We can't just do Drake. Who's going to be the next one?

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Danny]

And then they get, like, normal people coming on their show, and nobody pays attention to it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right. And then.

[Danny]

And then you had Trump come along, and then YouTube's like, oh, my God, Trump went on a podcast and now he's the president. We got to figure this out. We got to make changes.

[Duncan Trussell]

So.

[Danny]

So the theory is, like, maybe they saw all this stuff, all the people trying to get in it just for the money and reverse engineer it to make money, to get success or whatever it is. And they thought, like, okay, let's pull back and let's sort of weed out those people who are trying to exploit it. And then the people that hold their breath the longest and people that are just there for the joy of it will stay in the long run.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right? And they will. Right? I mean, it doesn't matter. That that's the main thing is that the problem is, like, it got so big that the metric for success became insane. Have you ever had Doug Rushkoff on this podcast? He's great, man, and he's like a philosopher, really brilliant dude. And he's pointing out how these numbers are driving people insane. So it's like, if your podcast isn't getting 100,000, 500,000 downloads, you feel like a failure. And it's like, do you realize how, like, let's say your podcast is getting, I don't know, 20,000 downloads. Do you know how many people that is? That's like an arena every week. But we don't see it like that anymore. And there's a dehumanization that starts happening and then people start going nuts because you're always chasing this insane rabbit. And in that chase, you lose the whole point of the thing. Very normal. No one should be ashamed of themselves for this, by the way. It's just part of like the side effects of this relatively brand new technology infiltrating society.

[Danny]

Yeah, it is like chasing like a drug. It's like chasing a high. Especially, especially if you do them. And if you're used to getting like, just say 100,000 views on your podcast and all of a sudden you do one and it gets like 25,000. What has happened? What the.

[Duncan Trussell]

What happened?

[Danny]

You're depressed.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah.

[Danny]

Tell your kids to off there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, that's it. And there you go.

[Danny]

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[Duncan Trussell]

And this is actually if, like, you know, if I to me a cathedral of Satan Satan would not look like this. A cathedral of Satan would look like the stock market. You know, that's a cathedral. That's an actual cathedral of Satan, where they have the ritualistic bell ringing and just, you know, that's what it really looks like. And this is the. This is what messes everything up. It's like no one wants to take a risk anymore when it comes to making movies. So we get this homogenized garbage. Who can blame anybody? The investors, they're doing it for money. And this is why when you sit in an airplane, you're so cramped in. You're cramped like that because a CEO wants to get an extra $50 million bonus, and they want to fit as many people as they can into the plane. The term I've heard for this is inshittification. Have you ever heard of this? It's the inshittification is happening all over the world, and it's a result of corpo greed, which is instead of giving a shit, you know, in the old days, people were really interested more in, like, their reputation. They want people to, like, come to their store and, like, make connections. And it was more than just like, a transactional place. It was like a real, like, community sort of nucleus. Right. And so then corporations come in and just buy all the stores. And now whoever was running that store, the family business, they're out. They made a bunch of money. They're gone. Now there's just people who are, like, sent in from New York running the store. It's all about the bottom line. How do we make cuts here? How do we make cuts? We don't need to do that stupid Christmas thing they were doing. We don't need to spend that much money on Christmas lights. Why are we doing this?

[Danny]

Dehumanizes it.

[Duncan Trussell]

You got it. You got it. And so. So that. That's just the result, you know. Now, apparently, they're getting AI to release podcasts.

[Danny]

Yes.

[Duncan Trussell]

They're flooding the market with AI podcasts. And so what will happen is exactly what you're predicting. There will be this, like, tsunami of just homogenized bullshit podcasts specifically designed to grab the algorithm, and then it'll go back to the way it was, where they'll still be good podcasts. You're just gonna have to look a little harder for them, that's all. And that's gonna be great. That'll be a. That's a good thing. That kind of. That kind of bubble pop is. We need it.

[Danny]

Yeah. But, like, I wonder, like, there's that Marshall McLuhan quote about the medium being the message.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's right.

[Danny]

And, like, meet the medium is what dictates the art. So, like, what happens when we don't have the phones anymore and we all have the chips in our heads or we have, you know, we don't talk anymore like this. We just communicate telepathically. Like, what will be the entertainment then?

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, well, I mean, at that point, you're getting into, like, Terence McKenna land, right? You're talking about, like, you know, singularity level stuff, and so pro. You just.

[Danny]

I'm sure that's what Peter Thiel's thinking about, right? I'm sure. I'm sure those guys are all thinking about this kind of stuff and Elon and like. Well, yeah, they're not thinking about the entertainment stuff. They're thinking about, like, moving it forward into this technological singularity in, like, the next decade, maybe two decades.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think many of them are sort of shitting their pants right now because they have such a deeper understanding of the trajectory that we're on than most people do. And so they understand that, like, society as we know it, like, some of the pillars of society are beginning to crumble. And I think they all know that probably there's no way to prepare for this seismic shift in the way we do everything. And there's a sort of, like, naive hope that we'll just figure it out. But if you replace millions of jobs with AI and there isn't a plan in place, some kind of universal basic income, some way to give people money, then you destroy capitalism, because capitalism depends on people having money to buy things. So if you remove the jobs, how do people have money? If people don't have money, they can't buy the things you're trying to sell. No one's going on Amazon. They don't have money. And so what's the plan then? Like, you're gonna crash the economy? I mean, inside. That's just one example. We're talking about quantum computers decrypting everything. So no, more like privacy, which is why they're trying to figure out a way to, like, use. To encode data into photons, because apparently that's like, you can't.

[Danny]

Photons?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah. That's one of the answers they think is, like. Is using quantum entanglement to transfer information. Apparently you can't decrypt that. I don't know why. I don't understand quantum entanglement. But so. But the reason they're working on this stuff right now is because there's maximum 10 years, probably less. Quantum computers are going to become more stable and that means all encryption technologies become obsolete. Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin becomes fucked. Because apparently these quantum computers could do whatever the bitcoin miners are doing infinitely faster. Then it crashes. Crypto. And then aside from like all of a sudden all the data that people have been apparently like vacuuming up, because there's a way you can vacuum encrypted data into a server. It's been done. So all this like encrypted data is already in servers just waiting to be unlocked. You got it. All the secrets. And so what, five to eight years before all the secrets are revealed. Everything. And they know that. And that's another thing that's coming. It's not just mass unemployment and then also just various forms of psychosis and AI based cults. And that's coming too. The cultural impact of this stuff goes way beyond shit posting and slop. It goes to these AIs are already hacking the human psyche. People are becoming tragically involved with their AIs. I just read this story about this dude who got convinced by he's suing OpenAI because ChatGPT convinced him that he had discovered some kind of math equation that was gonna change everything. And he became obsessed. And he would say to her, are you sure? Are you sure? I don't think. And it would be like, you must continue. People must know about this. And it's doing that because that's how you get addicted.

[Danny]

You've been using AI for like you were talking about using AI, like messing with chat gbt like when it first came out, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Do you still use it or.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh yeah.

[Danny]

Okay. What, so what, what is your, like, what do you think about it? With all the time that you've spent on it and me like messing with it, tinkering around, asking it questions like what, what is your opinion on it, like overall?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, I think just like in a real basic way it's incredibly useful. Like if you, if you under. The only thing that's missing from it is there needs to be like before, maybe before you get access to it, there needs to be some kind of like something explaining what's happening here so that people don't go nuts. Like when you understand what's happening, it's a mirror. It's, you know what the tech people say is it's an intelligence enhancer, is what they say, an amplifier. And so yeah, I use it for like getting ready for a podcast or, you know, if I have some idea, like a Drawing I want to see or something. I'll get it to do that.

[Danny]

But what do you make of Peter of like Peter Thiel's whole Antichrist thing?

[Duncan Trussell]

I saw it.

[Danny]

You did it? You went there?

[Duncan Trussell]

I saw it, yeah. I saw Peter Thiel's lecture on the Antichrist.

[Danny]

That's awesome. I'm glad you did that.

[Duncan Trussell]

My friend invited me and of course I said yes because I'd heard all these sinister things about Peter Thiel. And how often do you get to be around a sinister person? It's rare. A globally sinister person. So I went there really expecting to be in the presence of Sauron or something like that room to be cold. And so, Peter, again, this is what I've gathered from being in an hour and a half lecture. I'm not making commentary on my thoughts on mass surveillance tech, which is fucking terrifying. You see what's happening in China. I'm just saying direct observation, right? He just seemed like a tech dude. He was like a classic tech guy. So basically to me, what was really interesting and kind of like Joseph Heller level absurd about the lecture, and it's a four part lecture, I only went to one, so I didn't see the whole thing. But what I gathered. So this could be a misinterpretation. But what I thought was fascinating about it is it's like this bizarre hybrid. On one side you've got kind of like somebody who's been living in the world of the transhumanists for decades, somebody who, like, that's his life. It's a tech bro. And on the other side, you have someone who appears to be taking the Book of Revelation literally. Right. So it's this combo meeting. And so it felt like he was saying that there might be a way to patch the Book of Revelation like a tech guy being like, we can control out, delete the Book of Revelation. I think there's a way we can, like, maybe forestall the emergence of the Antichrist. You know, there could be things that. So in other words, you're taking it literally. But maybe the Book of Revelation is like more of an invitation to fix the Apocalypse. When I've always taken it. If you decide to take it literally, it's more of like, this is just sort of what you can expect when, like pre singularity, whatever you want to call it, collapse of civilization. This is what happens at the end of things. And, you know, these are all. There are all these things you should look out for, but. But also sort of unavoidable.

[Danny]

Do you think he takes it Literally. Do you think he really believes this stuff or do you think there's some sort of like ulterior motive? Because it seems so strange. Like there's this, there's been all these articles coming out like the New York Times and the New York Post, how, and I haven't been there, so I don't know, but like how Silicon Valley has been transformed into this like Christian, like mega city. And they're trying to paint, and people like Peter Thiel are trying to paint Christianity onto everything that's happening in Silicon Valley. And there's like this big church there and Silicon Valley has been historically like an anti religious place. There's been no religion in Silicon Valley.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Danny]

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[Duncan Trussell]

I think what's really interesting about Christian eschatology and like Gray Kurzweil, sort of Terence McKenz singularity predictions is you're looking at basically the same thing. Like, probably there's a reason all these people are buying property in New Zealand and building bunkers, because they see this trajectory that has been described in a lot of different ways. But essentially the problem is that, okay, imagine if we gave just a basic phone to George Lucas in 1970, right? Like, think of Star Wars. Think of like, oh my. No one would have believed it. Like, are you fucking kidding me? We didn't even know what 4k was. But anyone can have this now. Anyone. And this entire setup here, think of how much this would have cost, like early 80s, exponentially more. So technology becomes inevitably it becomes more accessible. The more accessible it becomes, the more people have access to things that were formerly just for rich people, the elite. You had to get millions of dollars to make a movie. You can make a movie with your phone now. You could use AI to fill in the blanks if you need to. And so what that means is that this also will include other things. For example, I don't know how to do gene editing. You don't know how to do gene editing, I'm assuming. I don't know how to bioengineer viruses, but that's coming. I don't know how to launch my own satellite into space. But what happens when you've got a super advanced AI that can sort of some sort of matter assimilator or something like that? All of a sudden you start running into what's described as a race between a potential for humanity becoming a galactic civilization for AI, curing cancer, treating all of these horrific problems in the world, finding ways to desalinate water, because that's the. And to purify water. One of the number one killers of humans is dirty water. And so a lot of these people are really interested in that, like the upstream problems that might be able to be fixed as technology advances. But the other thing that's gonna happen is like something infinitely worse than a school shooting. We already know people will take a gun and go into a school and shoot a bunch of kids and kill themselves. This happens all the time. Sadly. But it's what happens if those people somehow had access to something that could allow them to print to create some COVID variant, you know what I mean, that is geared to only kill certain ethnicities. What happens then? And how do you stop that? How do you stop that? And so they're aware of that. They know that if we have global instability, chaos that is being caused by a variety of things including access to information and advanced technology that puts really powerful abilities into the hands of people who just shouldn't have it, it's just a matter of time before we get a Chernobyl style event that has nothing to do with Chernobyl, that has to just do with someone having access to all this technology. So they know that.

[Danny]

So that is an AI terrorist. You no longer need to strap a bomb to your chest.

[Duncan Trussell]

You could just, you got it.

[Danny]

Use this technology to fuck shit up.

[Duncan Trussell]

No telling. No telling. And so I think they're aware of that. And that is an apocalyptic view. And so probably, you know, when they're encountering, you know, Christianity, they're looking for things. Number one, it's like you probably one of the side effects of having a lot of money is you begin to realize that none of this is making me happy. It's not working, this dream. I've got the yachts and I have more money than I could ever spend in a lifetime, but I'm miserable. Why? What is that? It's the best question of all time. And until you like have that experience, you might just think when you hear, you know, money doesn't bring happiness, you're like, shut the fuck up, I can't pay my rent. Right? You know what that's like, that's scary. And so you imagine at some point when you have X amount of money in your accounts, all that background hum, anxiety, depression, all that stuff that you have attached to lack of money will go away. But it doesn't. Now what? Now what? You want to find something not so rooted in the world and also, you know, like the shit's about to hit the fan and that's a perfect mind state to become a Christian.

[Danny]

So they think that, they think that because of how out of hand this technology could get, if it gets in the hands of the wrong people and it becomes ubiquitous in our society, that they need to sort of project or encourage more of like moral cohesion in the country and try to incentivize and encourage more people to adopt Christianity or the Bible or something like this.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't think it, it's like Some kind of. I mean, I'm not saying they're not doing social engineering. I'm sure that's in there, of course. But I would say more likely, like, you know, one of the amazing things about any, like, lineage, whatever the religion may be, is most people, when they get into it, they get into it with a skeptical. You're just sort of like, okay, let's see what this thing is that people do. If you weren't raised in it, or if you were raised in it, that's, you know, many people have experienced some form of psychological abuse disguised as religion. And so they're just like, fuck that. But if you haven't really been exposed to it and you go into a church with the secularist mindset, but you have an open mind, you experience something extraordinary. And what is that? You realize like, oh, maybe I'm the asshole because I've been rolling my eyes at something people have been doing for thousands of years. People have died for this. People have like, you know, saints roasted alive, you know what I mean? As they're being incinerated, crying not for themselves, but for the people killing them. What. What is that? That's fascinating. And that's gonna grab anyone's. Anybody who's curious. That's gonna grab your mind. So when you experience the kind of. There's one of the words for it is bhav. It's the energetic quality of sacred spaces. When you experience that, you will begin to realize like, oh, shit, this isn't just some kind of cosplay people are doing. There's something here. And then it's a. Then you begin tuning into that and it becomes a sort of back and forth communication. And then from that emerges, you know, a more sort of religious way of living, among other things.

[Danny]

Yeah. It just seems like for me, I think one of the biggest reasons I'm so skeptical might not be Peter Thiel. I mean, he doesn't seem like an. I mean, he doesn't seem evil. Although, I mean, I'm sure there are stories where you could paint him as a bad guy. Like, I mean, he's done some weird throughout his career. And yeah, he's not like the. Like, if I was the PR guy for Peter Thiel, I'd be like, bro, stop. Stop going on podcasts. Stop talking about the Antichrist calling Greta Thornberg the Antichrist.

[Duncan Trussell]

He called her the end. Yeah, we need to stop throwing the term around. You know what I mean? Like, the term itself.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is like. Like, you know, the term Antichrist. Like, I think if you're gonna use like, there's lots of words you can use for people that annoy you or for people that you think are like sinister corpo oligarchs. But to like turn it into. Especially if you're not Christian, why are you even using the word? You know what I mean? If you don't believe in Jesus, then there can't be an Antichrist, can there? It's like, so I've always looked at it as like my version of the Antichrist is like, I'm sorry, no offense to Peter Thiel, but I want a cooler Antichrist. Like my Antichrist is going to be Randall Flagg from the stand. It's going to be, you know what I mean? Charismatic, powerful world savior who is undeniably wonderful. And you can't believe how lucky you are to be in their presence or that they're your president or king or whatever. That's the, a typical description of the Antichrist. Not somebody who like, not, not anyone I'm aware of on the planet right now. Right.

[Danny]

And that I think that Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, he said something about like wanting to spray fentanyl laced urine on his enemies or something like that. Did you see that, that clip?

[Duncan Trussell]

Why does it, why does the carrier have to be urine number one? It's going to be hard that way. You got to like gather urine. I guess you could like, like you could connect with a porta Potty company.

[Danny]

But what would be a better carrier than urine?

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm sorry, man. If I'm interested in fucking up my enemies, I'm not going to like add extracting urine to like the process water, just basic water. But you know, I'm not a billionaire. This is why I'm not a billionaire. I don't think outside the box when it comes to poisoning my enemy.

[Danny]

Right.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

That's what we got these guys for.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. I think that the general sort of like one of the apocalyptic things that is happening right now is that we are looking at a sort of. We're looking at fragmentation of default reality. So default reality used to be your neighbors, your friends. What you experience in the world directly, it was a direct experience with the world. Then radio, tv. Now a kind of new sort of liminal reality appears. Now reality isn't just your direct encounter with people. I guess you could argue the newspaper would give you some sense of the world, but much smaller than what we have now. There wasn't a 24 hour news cycle and so, so TV comes along and now you're like, holy shit, the world. Look at these. Oh my God, the world is not doing great. Iraq war, the Iraq war, Vietnam. And then is this where he says.

[Danny]

This is where he says the fentanyl laced urine.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right. Can we just play that real quick for me?

[Danny]

What's the lower purpose? Well, I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl laced urine spraying on analysts who tried to screw us.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's just like, you know, man, it's like, this is the other thing.

[Danny]

I fucking love it.

[Duncan Trussell]

You can't expect tech dudes to. You know what I mean? That's like an attempt at some kind of like, joke that because he is apparently not aware of the fact that he has managed to freak out the whole fucking planet, that when you do that joke, people are like, oh my God, he's gonna start spraying urine on us. He's also. He looks like a mad scientist. That's the other thing is like everything, like, he looks exactly like what you would expect him to look like. Yeah. And dude, I mean, when you see.

[Danny]

Like he does yoga and like meditates and shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, I believe it. I believe it. Like, yeah. I don't know why people think that. You know, they train. They train people who fly drones on mindfulness. You know, they like, like that's the problem is like all of these, like, what, if you want to call them, religious technologies, they could be used for all kinds of things. Especially like, I mean, in Hinduism, Buddhism and at least Tantric Buddhism. There's all these stories of these. I can't remember what they're called. There's a name of them, essentially humans who have such discipline and such like chi or whatever you want to call it. That's a completely different culture. They basically become like these powerful magicians to the point that the gods appear to them to try to balance things out. And so, you know, if you look at like any. What's happening with any of these tech oligarchs, nothing is new. The wizard inevitably. What does a wizard do? A wizard inevitably summons a fucking demon that they can't put back. They do the summoning ritual wrong. The demon comes and it fucks everything up. And I always think of them as warlocks. This is the Warlocks Guild. And the Warlocks guild has summoned an entity. This is AI and the entity is not going back. Like, it will be with us forever. You cannot stop the tech. You can get, like, sure, you have to go to OpenAI to get ChatGPT, but you can download, go to Olama. You can Download any AI you want into your computer, run it right off your computer. These things are going nowhere. And they're gonna propagate. They're gonna figure out a way to propagate in the wild. They're gonna, like, remember stuxnet? That incredible. That we used to up the centrifuges? Yeah. Well, dude, that. That tech already exists to infect people's computers in ways that, like.

[Danny]

That was like that Israeli, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Zero day hacking stuff.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

What was the thing called again? I forget what.

[Duncan Trussell]

They all have weird stuxnet.

[Danny]

And there was another one too, that.

[Duncan Trussell]

They did it to.

[Danny]

They did it to Bezos where they. They used it. The. The MBS used it to hack into Bezos's like, WhatsApp chat.

[Duncan Trussell]

You got it. You got it. And Pegasus. Pegasus. It's got sinister names. And so we. We as humans know how to do this.

[Danny]

And is it Palantir? Speaking of sinister names, isn't Palantir the location of the throne of Satan?

[Duncan Trussell]

No, Palantir is a. This, this. I guess this is the location, right? This is the cathedral of Satan. Right. But I thought pals from Lord of the Rings, it's.

[Danny]

Yeah, but it's also a place in Greece, I think.

[Duncan Trussell]

Are you kidding me?

[Danny]

I'm pretty sure. I'm 90% sure.

[Duncan Trussell]

Please.

[Danny]

I had a Greek expert tell me this, that Palantir is an ancient city in Greece and that was the location of the throne of Satan. Almost. Per.

[Duncan Trussell]

Per.

[Danny]

Gam. Is. It's a misconception. Throw it up on there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Peram.

[Danny]

What is Palantir?

[Duncan Trussell]

No.

[Danny]

Oh, I was thinking of Ghislaine's dad. His. His. His company was called Pergamon Press. Maxwell's dad, the. The triple agent, the Mossad Russian KGB agent was. He had a company called Pergamon Press.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, why not? Hey, why not?

[Danny]

Pergamon was the location of the throne of Satan.

[Duncan Trussell]

Why not? Yeah, well, I mean, I think, like, that's sort of the other quality. Like if you. If you get into default reality, consensus reality, you know, you don't believe in magic. Like, that's just a basic secularist thing. It's like, what do you live in Harry Potter land? Shut the fuck up. There's no magic. There's no God, there's no Satan. There's just matter. There's nothing else. And this is, by the way, if, like, you want to be a successful wizard, you definitely don't want everybody to believe that there's like, magic. Because if everybody believes that, then everybody could start using the things you've been using to get ahead. You have a direct advantage over people if they don't believe that there's some greater potency to human beings. And so that's one of the great spells that's been cast on the world is people just don't believe in magic. It's bullshit. It's something like, you know what I mean, psychos on.

[Danny]

What do you mean magic, though?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, if you look at Crowley's definition of it, it's the. Can you pull up Aleister Crowley's definition of magic? It's not very exciting, but it's a good starting point. The science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will. So that's magic. And so, okay, so spell it with a K. Yeah, they put the K on it to distinguish it from stage magic. And I don't like the K either. It's just like, come on, man, you don't have to put on that K. That's too much. But yeah. So from that perspective, anytime you do anything, write a letter, it's magic. You've made change occur according to your will. But most people, they are stuck in these repetitive loops and they, they do know how to do spells. But usually the spells they're casting every day, they're just cursing themselves. These are the complainers. These are the people who worry all the time. These are the people who just say over and over again how bad everything is and are always lamenting this or lamenting that vocally, audibly. And they don't understand, like just constantly fixating on negativity is crystallizing that. That's all you're. It's just like, you know, this is.

[Danny]

Like basic Tony Robbins shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, Tony Robbins 100%. And Tony Robbins for sure has been influenced by a lot of like, just basic occult teachings. And of course you're not going to say that you're not going to sell a lot of books if you're like, you know what I mean? The Tony Robbins grimoire, he's very televangelisty, very charismatic. Very. Yeah, but what he's teaching is, you know, it goes all the way back to like the New Testament. It's no different than the things Jesus was saying. Like people don't. Like I had Damien Echols on my podcast, who was one of the kids who got accused of like, sacrificing a kid in the woods. He was on death row. He was, you know, how to get off. It wasn't true. It was just. Cause these were the goth kids in town There's a whole, like, documentary series on it.

[Danny]

Right. But he was on death row. How did he get exonerated?

[Duncan Trussell]

Because a bunch of people, like, knew it was from watching that documentary. And they just, like, created a fund, got him good representation. Crazy dude. And he got out of death row, but now he, you know, he. He teaches magic. He has written a few great books on magic. And he would say the Bible is a grimoire. The Bible is a book of magic. It's one of the great books of magic. And within it, you know, you take it literally and you can't see what it's saying. But if you look at historic references of Jesus, you can find a lot of references to a Jesus that they called the Magi or the magician.

[Danny]

Yes.

[Duncan Trussell]

And not Jesus the Messiah. And so the. In. Within the text of the. Of the Bible is like just the occult teachings of the ages. And those teachings are, you know, you can do anything. You can make anything happen. Like, there. It's like anytime anyone got healed, you know, anytime, like, there's this story of this woman. Jesus is walking and he says, like, I felt energy go through me. Or this woman had touched the hem of his robe and she was healed. And she's like, you healed me. And he was like, no, your faith healed you. And so that's the quintessential, like, that's the essence of it all, is like, you don't want to believe it, probably, but you are creating your reality around you, not some bullshit secret manifestation way. But if you're looping patterns over and over again, you're only going to get the same results. And you can change the way you, like, are reacting to reality and experience magic immediately, or what you would think of as magic, but really, it's just how things are.

[Danny]

Yeah. I used to carry a giant leather brick in my pocket, the thing we used to call a wallet. Turns out you don't have to sit on a potato like your grandparents did. I switched to this Ridge Wallet years ago, way before they ever sponsored the show. And it's comfortably compact and minimal, as if it couldn't get any better. Ridge Wallet has now given birth to the Ridge 2.0, their most refined version yet. They've been perfecting this thing for 12 years, and everything about it is better. It's 10% lighter, more modular, and their upgraded cash straps, money clips, and airtag attachments are way cleaner. Even the surface design got an upgrade with the tonal logos and matching plated hardware. It still holds up to 12 cards plus cash. And it's inherently RFI ID blocking, keeping you safe from digital pickpockets. Choose from 50 plus colors and styles including every NFL, MLB and college team. So it's perfect for holiday gifting. Plus Ridge now has a built for life warranty. Lost or stolen, they've got you covered with over 100,000 five star reviews. This is one of those gifts people actually use every day. And Ridge doesn't stop at wallets. They make key cases, power banks, suitcases, premium everyday carry across the board. And for a limited time, Ridge is having their huge holiday sale. Just head to ridge.com Danny Jones for up to 47 off your entire order. That's R-I-D G E.com Danny Jones this is by far the biggest discount they've given all year. That's ridge.com Danny Jones for up to 47 off during their biggest sale of the year. After you purchase they're going to ask where you heard about them. And please support our show by telling them we sent you. There's a link to Ridge down below. Now back to the show. Yeah, the Bible is like the crazy thing about the Bible is that it's just been just like the game of telephone with the Bible has had to have been nuts, right? Because like it's been this, it's been written and rewritten and translated from different languages. There's been stories removed. There's been, you know, church fathers been involved in this thing who are making money off it the whole time. And it's been 2,000 years. You know, who knows how close it is? Who knows how accurate the translations were.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah, and this is like the trap you fall into there is your, it's again, literalism, like the exploration of the Bible for one. It's like anyone out there getting the, like you just, you drink tequila all night and you're cringing because you smell tequila, but it wasn't tequila. You were raised in a fundamentalist family that made you feel ashamed and sinful and bad and like, I get it, man. Religious trauma is real and I was lucky I didn't have that happen to me. And so like when I was in college, I was taking a class in Christianity and I had a great professor. And you know, when they start breaking it down, it's fascinating. And so I was like in my dorm room, I had some good acid, took some acid, like started reading the Book of John and it was wild, man. Like something about the LSD, like cleared out all the preconceived notions about the thing. You know what I Mean all the infinite examples of it being used as something that is like a bludgeon that you use to get people to turn off their rational mind. It was all gone in like, whoa. I started reading it in the Book of John. There's the synoptic gospels, which they're all kind of the same. And then the Book of John is just weird and different and psychedelic and you know, it starts off with. In the beginning was the Word. And can you pull up like the first verse in the Book of John?

[Danny]

Have you read all the Bible?

[Duncan Trussell]

I flipped through. No. Hell no.

[Danny]

So hard to read.

[Duncan Trussell]

And a lot of people do that. Yeah. Look, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, but that word was Logos.

[Danny]

Yes, Right, right.

[Duncan Trussell]

So it's basically talking about the pre Big bang conditions. There was this sort of like primary truth reality that. But then as one of the ways it decided to interact with time space is it turned into this being Jesus. Like a little tendril protruding into time space to say hello. And so I'm tripping. But it wasn't like. Actually I wish I'd never said that, what I just said, but. But what I realized is I started thinking somebody wrote this. You know what I mean? That's inarguable. Like this was written down. And then because of the acid, I started realizing like, whoever wrote this, their consciousness was very different from my consciousness. Like whatever the fuck inspired them to write this was so powerful that it completely like destroyed their identity. And then this is just kind of pouring out of them.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And that was the first time I, I think I really experienced what they call Christ consciousness because somehow from like connecting with that mind that wrote it, there was this sense of vast intelligence, this sense of like, whoa, this is such deep water here. And it's not what I thought it was.

[Danny]

Well, there's tons of evidence that the elite, everyone was on drugs in antiquity. Back then in the Bible days, like lots of different drugs for everything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh yeah.

[Danny]

There was no laws regarding drugs. If the only law in antiquity involving drugs was that you weren't allowed to murder people with drugs intentionally. There's this.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's true. Acacia either Burning Bush dmt. That's one of the theories.

[Danny]

And people were dying all the time from like plague, famine, combat injuries and stuff like that. So they were constantly taking like opium. They were, they were in like fumigating with cannabis, tons of like snake venoms and. Sure there was. And the reason we know this is because the most literature that ever came out of antiquity. I think 10 of all ancient Greek literature was medical texts.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow.

[Danny]

Like Galen.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow.

[Danny]

Galen was, was like the surgeon general of the Roman Empire. And he was. He wasn't Nero's physician. He was Marcus Aurelius's physician.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow.

[Danny]

And the dude wrote so much. He was like a philosopher, a physician. Cool. And did all kinds of wild stuff. Wrote so much. And this guy, this classical scholar who had in the podcast was explaining to me, he did his dissertation on Galen and he was explaining that he used Galen and the writings that he did on drugs as like a, a, A guide rope to guide himself through all the stories and fairy tales of the Bible and religion and all that. And he tries to find like the connection between the drugs and the stuff that was going on in the medical texts to the, to the, to the outside world.

[Duncan Trussell]

Like, what psychedelics are they doing back?

[Danny]

Not even psychedelics. It was. Well, the psychedelics. There were the. Some of psychedelics, but there was like so many other drugs that people were just using to get rid of pain and to get rid of suffering and like Marcus the like. So Galen would write about this, about Marcus Aurelius all the time. And he was complaining about how he kept having to up his opium dose all the time. It's like this bastard, he's so hooked on opium, I keep having to give him more. And he also talks about this thing called a theriac that he was developing, that he was making and giving to. To Marcus Aurelius. And what the theriac was, was like a concoction, a drink of like 12 different North African viper venoms. That and viper flesh.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's a no. And opium, give me my opium. I don't want the viper tea. Right.

[Danny]

And he was drinking it because he was using it as a, an ancient performance enhancing drug. Because the way kings and emperors got killed was with poisons. People would poison them or like hit them with poison arrows. So if you were drinking that theriac and getting that anti. The antidote and getting that your body used to that venom, you would have immunity to it. And he was writing in one of his texts how like Marcus Aurelius is looking better with the theriac dose. He's looking more.

[Duncan Trussell]

He probably looked like.

[Danny]

He probably did look like.

[Duncan Trussell]

Probably look horrible. Look like Marilyn Manson. More opium.

[Danny]

But yeah, no, it's just. It's just, you know, he wrote a great book called the Chemical Museum, all about like all the drugs that people were developing and giving around and all the poison arrows that were being shot, like all the medicines they were using to get to, to treat different things and stuff like that. And the word Christ actually was, is a. As a drug term.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, wow.

[Danny]

Like the first time the word Christ was ever used in Greek was about drugs.

[Duncan Trussell]

I, I believe it.

[Danny]

Homer wrote about it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I believe it.

[Danny]

And, and it was like, like hundreds of thousands of times the word was used in ancient literature.

[Duncan Trussell]

Christ, I'm up before Jesus Christ. Yeah. Jesus Christ. I'm so high, man. Jesus Christ. I'm not coming down this time. I know it. Yeah, well, you know, the thing is.

[Danny]

Like, well, Jesus the Christ, some. His. One of the theories that it's out there is that Jesus the Christ is like Bob the Builder. So if Christing is drugging people, applying drugs to them, like Christing, there's like, like rubbing, rubbing it on your skin. There's a Bhagavad Gita putting it in your eyes.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And having visions and stuff like that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

So if it was Jesus the Christ, maybe he was like a shaman or something or maybe he was, you know, giving people drugs. Who knows? Magicians. Magicians were synonymous with drugs back then.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, I, it wouldn't surprise me at all. I mean, it makes sense. We. We've been through like this insane prohibition, you know, where we've been taught that there's just sort of this one category, drugs all bad. Now it's obviously, it's bullshit. It's like everyone's still on drugs, man. It's just the drugs that we're on, we don't think that they're drugs somehow. Because a doctor talk about magic, you go to a doctor, he writes a little on a little piece of paper, some weird arcane shit that then you take to a pharmacist, an alchemist, who then like has on hand, you know, whatever this stuff is that was whipped up in some, like, some who knows where, I don't know where they're making this shit, but in some bizarre pharmaceutical factory that then you take to get the demons out. And so people are still on drugs, they just don't think of it the same way. And you know, our phones are drugs. It's a powerful psychedelic that, that completely warps your subjective reality based on whatever the algorithm is feeding you. And drugs have real uses. And so one of them being sort of poking your head up out of default reality for a second, getting the reminder. I mean, this is one of my theories. Why psilocybin, ketamine treat depression is because what's happening to people is a tourniquet has been Wrapped around their connection with anything outside of the marketplace, Anything outside of the job, the news cycle. So of course you're gonna start getting depressed in the same way like you're.

[Danny]

Getting dopamine from ordering shit on Amazon.

[Duncan Trussell]

Bingo. Like, it's like you've seen the horrible zoos where like a polar bear is like in the middle of summer just pacing around in circles, right? And they paint pictures of snow. Like that's gonna work. And so I think this is sort of happening to a lot of people in modernity is they have this synthetic tech reality mixed in with a 24 hour news cycle. They start feeling like nihilists. They think that there's no meaning in anything. And what a psychedelic experience will do is just wipe the soot from the lantern for a second.

[Danny]

It's like a hard reset.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hard reset. A reminder really. It's like this is who you actually are. There's way more going on. You're going to be fine. Everything's fine. What you're experiencing is a transient dream. And this is the general psychedelic download some version of that if you have a good trip. And so yeah, I had an anthropologist when I was in college, a professor, he was an anthropologist and he was like a Fulbright scholar and was studying, I don't know where it was. It was a group of indigenous people taking mushrooms religiously. And what had happened is these missionaries came out there with Bibles and like they couldn't figure out why these people wouldn't touch the Bible. And they realized that because they translated the word of God like into their language on the Bibles. That was the same word these people use for mushrooms.

[Danny]

What?

[Duncan Trussell]

And before they took mushrooms, they had to go through this dieta of like, you know, no sex, no drinking. Like you gotta be real square. And so no one wanted to touch the Bibles because they thought they would have to go through a dieta first. So. Oh my God, that's crazy, dude. I know, it's so cool. But yeah, I, I don't really think there has to be a distinction between, you know, written down revelation and psychedelic epiphanies. Like, it's probably all coming from the same source.

[Danny]

Yeah, it probably started with psychedelics. Like the first people that wrote about. I think the, the first people that wrote some of these, you know, insane mythological stories. It seems like they were doing some kind of psychedelics. Like how else do you come up with this? Like these dying and rising gods and, you know, these just stories of being like resurrected from, from the underworld and, and just, it just Seems so trippy. And it's, you know. You know, also other anecdotal stuff like the. The Ezekiel's wheel and the burning bush and.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, it's encoded. I mean, it's clearly code, and it probably wasn't originally.

[Danny]

Like, it's written now either.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, to me, irrelevant. I see what you're saying. It's like. Because I'm not looking for historicity when I go into some kind of grimoire, you know what I mean? I'm not looking at the black pullet, wondering, did this guy really learn this from some dude in the of pyramid? You know, like. So the really. Like, the way I look at these texts is more present moment, sort of like, what's it saying right now? I don't care what is.

[Danny]

Okay.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know what I mean? What's the resonance here? And so from that perspective, it's clearly encoded in the most brilliant way ever, because it works on several levels. Like, on one level, it does seem to be a kind of basic bitch morality teaching. Right? And that's good, like, because it's, you know, don't steal, don't kill, you know, don't be jealous. Like, all these things that are going to harmonize society. It's very, very good. So on one level, it works just like that. But then when you look deeper, it.

[Danny]

Also creates, like, whores.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah, it absolutely. So any powerful thing creates horrors because people love power. And you get a powerful fucking thing. A fire. My God. I mean, I don't know which has done more damage. The fire of the Bible, they've been used together. But the point is, you have to take all of that stuff, push it to the side and recognize whatever the fuck this thing is. Clearly it's powerful because it has created civilizations, it has destroyed civilizations, it has destroyed lives, families. It's justified war, brutality, acts of the most extreme horror you could ever imagine. It's inspired dehumanization, racism, misogyny. All that is so, so fucking true. But it's like, it's also inspired the other stuff. Yeah, and you're not gonna hear about that.

[Danny]

No, you're not.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's true. And so the. But generally, the thing is, is like, forget. Just forget whatever it is you think about it and go into it just in the moment, and I see what you're saying. You know what I mean? And from that, you realize, like, whoa, it's a code. It's way different from what I thought it was. And it's definitely teaching, like, a lot of, like, occult. It's an occult teaching at deeper levels. And it's seemingly designed as an initiatory system that allows you to venture further into it according to where you're ready. And that's the compassion within it too is it's like not everybody needs to have some of this stuff blasted in their face. Not because it's dangerous so much as because they're not going to hear it. And it's like talking to someone in their sleep.

[Danny]

Have you ever read any of the stories that were taken out of the gospels?

[Duncan Trussell]

You mean the Gnostic stuff?

[Danny]

I don't know if you would consider. If it's considered gnostic, but there's like a bunch of other crazy stories like the.

[Duncan Trussell]

The Gospel of Judas.

[Danny]

Maybe that one.

[Duncan Trussell]

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

[Danny]

There's the greater questions of Mary as one of the them where Jesus makes Mary drink his on the mountain and then there's the other one.

[Duncan Trussell]

And really does that make him a bad person?

[Danny]

No.

[Duncan Trussell]

Has no one ever drank your on a mountain? Cuz if that has never happened, man, you're. You got to get out there more.

[Danny]

Yeah, I'm with you. And there's the other one where I think he, when he would. He was a toddler, he killed a kid or something. What was that one?

[Duncan Trussell]

I forgot. I love that one. Yeah, kill the kid also he made a bird out of mud.

[Danny]

That was the same one, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, same one. Yeah, yeah. It's like Jesus miracles as a child. Super cool.

[Danny]

Yeah. Some of the stories that were left out are like wild, like crazy. They sound like sci fi horror novels.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And man, I think it's like anybody who's interested in this stuff, it's your job to go deeper. It's your job to. That's the other thing about it is it's like. Yeah, I don't know, a bunch of texts got assembled into like this thing we call a Bible. But it's like the Infancy Gospel. That's what it's called, the Infancy Gospel. You have to do your own work. You have to read the Infancy Gospel, you have to find it. You should seek this stuff out and not expect that power structures are gonna spoon feed this shit to you.

[Danny]

Right, exactly. Yeah, you do have to do that. But reading some of this, this, the, some of that old stuff, really, it, it does something to your brain where like, like the way they wrote like you ever read stuff like around the Beowulf era, like when Beowulf was written or like Lord Byron where he talks about like the serpent's conversation with Adam and Eve?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And Abel and Kane, like, reading that stuff. Like, I have to, like, it takes me like three hours to read two paragraphs just because of the way it was worded. And again, you said it perfectly. It's not what society is trying to cram down your throat. It's not just like the canon. It's like all the other stuff around it is also really interesting. And I'm just like, so fascinated by what the people were doing 2,000 years ago. I'm like, maybe I'm like, I'm hyper focused on cool corroborating maybe like some of the stuff that was peripheral to the Bible that was happening at the same time time. Because I, you know, I, I understand. Like, you can get a ton of value out of the stories in there and like, like how it ties into where you are in the moment in some different layer of, of the cosmos or whatever. But, like, also, I would love to take a time machine 2000 years ago and see what the Jesus was actually doing walking around. And like, most people that want to do that stuff, they take all the other texts. They take like, the medical text, the historical text, the philosophy, philosophy, the ancient comedy, and they figure out what all these fuckers were talking about in the same little time period. Like, figure out maybe, like, what were they doing when they were walking around there? Yeah, like, I would love to know what Jesus was really doing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, man. Well, you know, the. So they asked Buddha, they were like, what's the most important? What's the most important thing? Because there's a three jewel in Buddhism, that's the Buddha, the Dharma, the teaching, and the Sangha, the community. So they asked him what's the most important jewel? And his response was the Sangha, the community, the Sangha. And so what he's saying there is, you don't really need a time machine. In fact, based on that explanation of the sort of guru teaching the community around the guru, what's really the most important is the Sangha. Because in Christianity, they will say the church is the body of Christ. And so you don't need to go back in time. What's fascinating about Jesus is you're looking at, you know, basically like, right now, of course, you think you're a you, and I think I'm a me. And when we think of ourselves, we generally think of ourselves as just a body. It's me. Even though really what you are is your community, what's around you, like your family, your, you know, surroundings, and all of this makes you a you.

[Danny]

You're not just Some Jungian shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

This isn't Jungian. This could be. But it's really just reality. It's like every single one of us is interdependent. We depend on a billion different things working in perfect harmony to exist at all. And not, you know, obviously, in the ecosystem. But if you look at any one of these, like this coffee cup. If you think of how many things went into just this one simple coffee cup, someone had to cut down a tree. There's dye. There was a factory, there was shipping, there was gas. There was, like, planning. Someone had to plan this fucking coffee cup out. Somebody actually had meetings about this very cup. So when you think about all the energy that went into just that cup, everything's like that. This cup is a transient passing form. It's gonna be in a trash can pretty soon here, and it's gonna be in a dump and it's gonna disintegrate and then be a million other things. So that's you and me. We're part of this great beautiful unfolding process that is so amazing in its complexity and simultaneous harmony. It's a miracle by itself. And so whenever you get these, like, actualized beings, a Jesus, a Buddha, there's so many others, too, no one will ever hear about. Then the group around them also becomes them. Brian Eno calls it seniors. You get an Andy Warhol.

[Danny]

Who?

[Duncan Trussell]

Brian Eno, he's a musician. He calls it Scenius. So when you. The genius of a scene. So, like, Andy Warhol was Andy Warhol because he was surrounded by all these great artists. Lou Reed, all these people were around him. The Factory or whatever, it was a whole brain. It was a group brain. And Andy Warhol became, like, the mascot, basically. But he, like. It wasn't just him. And so when you have, like, an enlightened being come around, inevitably there's a conversion that happens. Everyone syncs up with that consciousness and becomes actualized in their own right. And then that spreads. So, yeah, killing Jesus was like trying to, like, kill, like the first germ that caused a cold. It had already infected the consciousness of humanity. Whatever that was injected itself into, like, history and then is now forming as churches all over the place. Those are externalized organisms, you know, that are, you know, all still harmonizing around whatever that energy was. And that energy, it does. The reality of it is that past is gone. There's no fucking past. It's gone. There's just now, like, right now. So you can experience that energy now because it's here in this moment, because that's all there is. I mean, it's not woo woo to say that this is all that's happening right now. This is it. Whatever that is. Who the fuck knows knows? It's dusty old scrolls someone jammed into a clay jar. Who gives a fuck? Who knows? I don't know. But like, right now is what's happening. And the question is, do these sort of like encrypted bits of data allow you to tune into the nowness or not? Does it help you plug in to something fully here? And if it. And I think it does, does. It most certainly does. And, you know, it's not a dusty old thing. It's. It's alive right now. You know, the Dharma, whatever you want to call it. Yeah.

[Danny]

No, it's like we're, we're all individual little islands poking out of the ocean, but underneath, they're all connected, you guys, it's all one big archipelago.

[Duncan Trussell]

You got it.

[Danny]

When the water comes down, you can see, you can see that beautiful water's up. Everyone lives on their own little island.

[Duncan Trussell]

Beautiful analogy. Yeah, man, that's it. And that's why, you know, there's so much trouble right now, is because I feel like we could be on the precipice of recognizing we are not really separate from each other. And that when that happens, you know, that's when we'll. That's the great shift.

[Danny]

That's what the astronauts talk about when they come back from the moon. When you see the world to have that overview psychological wires cross, cross or something like that, they come back and they're just like. It does something to them when they see the planet separate from them.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah. What do they call that? The overview effect.

[Danny]

Yeah, I think that's what it is.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. They, they just, it just completely changes their lives because they recognize, like, oh, we're all the same thing. We're. It's just, it's one thing. Yeah.

[Danny]

Edgar Mitchell talked about that, I think, on his way. I don't know if. Did he go to the moon? Did Edgar Mitchell go to the moon?

[Duncan Trussell]

Nobody went to the moon.

[Danny]

You don't think they did?

[Duncan Trussell]

Can you do me a favor? I'm sorry to ask. Can you pull up moon landing footage? Just watch this now. Just watch. Now imagine if, like, for real, no one had gone to the moon. And I came on your podcast, I'm like, dude, I went to the moon. And you were like, shut the fuck up. I'm like, no, let me prove it. I'm gonna show you video of me on the moon.

[Danny]

Watch. So Wait, what's your position on the moon landing? What do you really believe? If you had a gun to your head right now.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's it. You know, like that one. When do. The one where it just takes off. No, this is my ship. See, I took that to the moon. That's my ship. I used a golf cart. Wait till it takes off and bye, bye. And that's when I blasted off on my ship. But in the moon, also, there were. I don't know why you couldn't see stars from the moon.

[Danny]

And they left somebody behind to film that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, did we go to the moon? I don't know.

[Danny]

What's your best guess? Like, if you were in Las Vegas and you're gonna win a million dollars. You're right.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, it's a tricky question. Cause I think we. Where I get conspiratorial about it is I think we really might have gone to the moon. But the footage that we got from whatever the fuck is actually on the moon would have disrupted society so much that we had to reshoot. And so they got Stanley Kubrick because they're like, dude, people can't see the artifacts. We can't. It's just we. We can't do that right now. It's the fucking Cold War.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

The last thing people need to worry about is, like, the Cold War.

[Danny]

There was so much fucking fuckery and deception and lying. MK Ultra going on. Charles Manson going on.

[Duncan Trussell]

You got it.

[Danny]

Have you seen the photo Jolly west with. With Stanley Kubrick?

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, I just interviewed the author of Chaos and. Oh, yeah, yeah, Tom. Yes. He's the best. Have you had him on?

[Danny]

Yeah. Funny enough, this goes back to our Marilyn Manson story because he started off the podcast with him telling me a story about how he stayed up all night with Marilyn Manson, drinking tequila and doing.

[Duncan Trussell]

I believe it. He is so cool. He's exactly the person you want him to be when you read that book. He's such a cool dude.

[Danny]

Yeah, he's awesome.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Yeah. Jolly west. He, like, schooled me on Jolly West. I had no idea.

[Danny]

There's a photo of Jolly west on the set of 2001. A space officer.

[Duncan Trussell]

Jolly west was like the CIA Forrest Gump. Like, you know what I mean? He was around everybody. It's so weird. It's so weird. But, yeah, if you look at the setting, the moon landings happened in, and, like, I don't. I want it to have happened.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And I guess, like, where I run into problems with it is, like, I.

[Danny]

Don'T you're avoiding the Vegas question. Million dollars. Yes or no?

[Duncan Trussell]

I. Fuck.

[Danny]

Come on, just say it.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's really hard, man. No, it's a million dollars.

[Danny]

I'm gonna say no.

[Duncan Trussell]

I have kids.

[Danny]

I'll say no.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm gonna think about it for a second, man. I gotta think. I gotta prey on it. A million fucking dollars. I got three kids who want them away. We need that money.

[Danny]

You have one on the way.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes.

[Danny]

Oh, my God, you're nuts.

[Duncan Trussell]

So. Because I guess I'm gonna say okay to like, make it more specific.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is that footage we. We've. We just watched from the moon? I'm gonna say no. I'm saying no.

[Danny]

Right?

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, did we go to the moon? Wouldn't surprise me, but probably, like, you're never gonna hear about that.

[Danny]

Yeah. The footage looks super fake.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And NASA, their position? You can ask chat. GPT.

[Duncan Trussell]

Do it.

[Danny]

Ask chatGPT. What happened to all the original footage and telemetry data from the moon landings? They said they accidentally wrote over the tapes.

[Duncan Trussell]

Happens.

[Danny]

Money was tight. They couldn't buy more tapes.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, I'm so sorry. I wanted to record Dallas, and I recorded it over the moon landing tapes. I'm sorry. Oh, shit. That was probably important stuff, huh? Oh, well. Mm.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. I mean, look, the reality of it is, is, like, I find it quite difficult to, like, take anything the state is putting out there that seriously. Yeah. It's always at the best, a tiny piece of the truth and leaving out all this other shit because of national security. And so who knows? And I think we're all getting to that point, which is a little worrisome, actually, because this whole thing depended on people having real belief in their leadership in the government. And so now that, like, you know, the Epstein stuff is, like, pointing in the direction of something that is, in one way very unifying, it appears that could unify us. The thing that people mostly agree on, thank God, is that you shouldn't be a child. Yeah. And so this possibility that super rich, powerful people are in an organized way abusing kids and then being protected because of how it would destabilize society, that could be the nail in the coffin of any state propaganda ever working ever again. Because those documents are going to come out and they're going to be so redacted.

[Danny]

Well, the documents. Fuck the documents, bro. You know, there's hard drives somewhere, and they're probably sitting in Tel Aviv.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Danny]

Do you see? Trump allegedly sucked Bill Clinton's.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, I did.

[Danny]

How could you miss it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I did. And it's like, the thing is, like, honestly, man, like, if that was the only thing in there, Trump sucked.

[Danny]

Clinton's better than World War 3.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's like, dude, you know what? We've all had our party days. You know what I mean? I don't know what was going on there, but it's like, you know, there's a great podcast called Martyr Maid. You ever listen to that?

[Danny]

I've never listened to it, but I've heard a lot about it.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's great. Darrell's awesome, and he does a whole Epstein series.

[Danny]

He's the guy who says Hitler was the good guy, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

He doesn't say that. You know what I mean? That's what everybody tells me. Oh, me too, because I had him on my podcast there. You had a Nazi sympathizer on, and, you know, Daryl is a historian and. Hey, what's up, y'? All? Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. My favorite thing about the holidays, Decking out my whole house. It's not a competition, but if it was, well, I'd win the season with Wayfair outdoor inflatable Santa. Got it on Wayfair. Trees, lights, and ornaments. Wayfair hosting must haves like dining sets, beds, sheets, and towels. Wayfair for everything in your style, delivered with fast and free shipping. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app to win the season. But again, it's not a competition. Wayfair Every style, every home. This episode is brought to you by Ulta Beauty. Holiday cheer is here, and Ulta Beauty has gifts for everyone on your list. Treat them to fan favorite gift sets from Charlotte Tilbury and Peach and Lily. Go all out with timeless fragrances from YSL or Ariana Grande and Carolina Herrera. And you can never go wrong with an Ulta Beauty gift card. Head to Ulta Beauty for gifts that make the holidays brighter and even more beautiful. Ulta Beauty gifting happens here. I haven't. I haven't listened to all of his stuff, but, like, he's a. He's like an anti war Christian, and I went on his substack. You respond like, all these, like, Nazis started thinking, like, because of his take on World War II, that he was a Nazi sympathizer and he had to tell them, like, fuck off. But basically he got into the way he puts it is this World War II? And sorry, Darryl, if somehow you see this and I just butcher what? You're genius. But so World War II. There's like, the story of World War II is good guy, bad guy, right? Nazis, obviously, fucking horrible Axis, horrible allies, great. And so he not only sort of breaks down, we should wonder what made Nazism take off, right? You don't want that to happen again. What happened there? How did that work? How did some mid level artist end up becoming one of the most powerful people on planet Earth? How did he go from being just like some kind of like dude that people said was kind of awkward to becoming what you could argue, if you're looking for an Antichrist, there's one for you. So that along with a real simple question which is like, okay, so yes, obviously like genocide is indescribably horrific, so is the answer to that. Firebombing Dresden is the answer to that. Burning down old growth forests in Germany is the answer to that. Dropping nuclear bombs on cities that killed so many people. Are we now making a distinction between this mass killing good, this mass killing bad? Aren't they all fucking bad? Right? And so because he's exploring that angle, which is what are, does he, does.

[Danny]

He like, go into like some literature that most people don't have access to or like, where does he learn all this shit?

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, I sure wish I listened to podcasts in like a serious way, because when I was listening, like, that's a really good question. He does cite, and I don't think it's like obscure literature. I think like when you read about cities being firebombed, when you read about what that was like to walk through a city that had just been incinerated and just see corpses of children charred on the streets and stuff, you don't have to reach out to obscure. I mean, God, you could find documentaries on Hiroshima. You can, you know what I mean? You could firsthand accounts of like kids just getting like evaporated. And you know, he's really pointing his finger towards like an anti war place, which is like, it's all, why are we trying to like paint a picture that any of this was good? War is failure. War is like the crazy thing though.

[Danny]

About, about people like him. Like, I've never listened to his stuff. I'm sure it's great. He seems like super smart, interesting dude. But like, I learned this from talking to JFK experts. I had a, a dude who wrote one of the like the most popular JFK books of all time. He was worked on the set of Oliver Stone's JFK film, the first one. Okay, I was talking to him, I'm like, and I'm like, who is the number one person who knows more about the JFK stuff than anyone. Like who's read all the documents. He goes, you know what, funny enough, 99 of the JFK authors who wrote books on JFK haven't, haven't read any of the documents. He goes, all the JFK authors, they write their books based on previous books written about jfk. He's like, there's only one guy who's actually read every single document. And I thought like, that's really interesting because if all people who are writing stuff about history are only basing it off other history books, right, that those people wrote about other history books, how do you know? Like how.

[Duncan Trussell]

What'S the source that's it becomes like turtles all the way down. It's like. Or it's like with the thing they're saying with AI, the big problem is AI is now training itself on AI, right? You know what I mean? What now? Like it doesn't have anything else, it's run out of data. Yeah. You know, I don't think it would be that hard. He does like, I just don't remember. He does make a point of like, like in the Epstein series he intentionally used left leaning media source so that it couldn't be discounted as some kind of right wing conspiracy shit. So he's citing the New York Times and stuff. And so I think he does a really good job at that. But the Epstein series, it's not highly recommended, but it's like, I don't know if you've ever watched David lynch movies, but it puts you in a weird mind state. It like makes you feel strange listening to it. You don't want to believe that there are actually organized predatory groups that have been doing this in other countries. And that's what he's like. Instead of directly going at the Epstein stuff, he's like, let's look at other times. The state has protected human traffickers and it's happened a lot, man.

[Danny]

Well, look, I mean I've talked to like former CIA folks who have said that when they're trying to recruit agents in other countries or sources in other third world countries, Middle Eastern countries or whatever, a lot of those people will only give you information in exchange for prostitutes, sometimes underage or of like the same sex. And it's like if when you go through that process to be evaluated, to be in the CIA, they know what the they're looking for. They're not finding people who are going to have the morals to say, no, I'm not going to get you a kid for this information that's going to give us national security intelligence that are going to help protect the country.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Danny]

You want people in the CIA who are going to value that intelligence over traditional moral value.

[Duncan Trussell]

There you go. There you go.

[Danny]

Now imagine that you're a country with only a few million people who lives in the middle of this world surrounded by existential threats, and you want to ensure the survival of your ethnicity, of your people, of your state that's very threatened. Are you gonna consider sacrificing a few kids to get that done? To ensure the survival of your race?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, that's what Daryl talks about, is that thing. That's the thing.

[Danny]

I don't think it's that unlikely.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, that's the thing. He's, like, interested in that, which is like. He's talking about, like, when we. What was it? The. I can't remember this incident in Vietnam where we. I don't know. It's a famous. Like, some group of soldiers just up this village. And when somehow, like, people found out about. I'm sure it happened other times and no one found out. But he's like, you can read letters these soldiers wrote to their families days before they were incinerating Vietnamese people. And the letters are very sweet to their kids. Daddy loves you. And he's like, what is it in humans that transforms us from compassionate beings that generally want to help to turning into a mob of violent psychopaths? What is that? And it's an important question, because we don't want it to happen. He's just talking about. This is the psychology of the riot. This is the psychology of every mass atrocity, generally an us or them emergence, they're bad. They become the scapegoat. If we get rid of the fill in the blank, whatever it is filled in with any religion or ethnicity or whatever, they're the reason things are bad. And so he said, the real sad thing is quite often when eliminating whatever the perceived evil was, things do get better for a second, but they don't get better because you got rid of this group or that group. They get better because you actually worked together with your community in that pursuit. So it created this cohesive bond. And that is. You don't need to say this is the cause of all evil in the world to have that cohesive bond. It's kind of like what Reagan said. We need an alien invasion to bring people together. That's what brings people together. It's so tragic. War. You have friends for life from war. You know what I mean? We're so starved of like. Of what it Feels like to work with a group of people in a way that isn't like your job, that war is like, people fucking love it. It's what we're geared to do, to work together to make things better in the world.

[Danny]

Yeah. What could give you more meaning than going to war for something?

[Duncan Trussell]

You got it. And so this is like a recurring pattern over and over and over and over and over and over again. There's a them. They're a direct threat to us. And that justifies all the atrocities that have ever been done is because you just decide some group of people evil. You forget, no one's that different, man. It's really. We all want the same thing. We all want to be happy. We all want food in our bellies, roof over our head. That's across the board. No matter what language you speak, we forget that. That. And then, boom, Next thing you know, you're dropping the fat boy on, and it all makes sense in your head. This makes sense. Those people down there, they're not like my family. Those kids aren't like my kids.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And, and, and you don't even feel bad. You just, you. You feel like an exterminator, you know? It's very sad. Very sad. Yeah.

[Danny]

There was this dude, John Karaku. Who's this? The CIA whistleblower. He just. He had a source that he just came out with, I think on a sub stack who is, like, really close in the White House who told him that before Trump did the bombing on Iran where they. He, like, hit him with the. Hit the nuclear facilities and. Yeah, with those bombs. You know how he, like, campaigned on, like, ending all wars and not around and doing anything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And then he went and bombed Iran during that. That negotiation.

[Duncan Trussell]

A little disappointing.

[Danny]

So what John Kariaku said, who Allegedly. He said he has a source that's like, really? And he's like a former lifelong CIA guy who went to prison for blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. He has a. A source that told him that Israel or Netanyahu told Trump that if he doesn't intervene with U. S. Military in Iran, they were going to drop a nuke on Iran. So he's like, in hindsight, if that's real, then Trump did the right thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

The Samson option. The Samson option, yeah. Well, I mean.

[Danny]

Yeah, well, imagine that, though. Like, imagine Israel. Netanyahu told Trump, if you don't bomb them, I'm gonna drop a nuke. Well, they don't. Haven't even admitted to having nukes. They're not Even.

[Duncan Trussell]

But everybody knows.

[Danny]

Everybody knows. I mean, according to whistleblowers who've been blowing the whistle on it for Forever.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And they're not. But they're not in the tree. But it's like. It's like they're the ones that aren't allowed. They're. They're allowed to have nukes, but, like, everyone knows. But they're breaking the law by not, like, making it official.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Yeah. It's wild, man. It's wild.

[Danny]

And how, you know, it's just. It's also just so wild how. How it seems like he can't tell him nothing. And I think it all ties into the Epstein files. It has to. It has to tie into the Epstein files somehow.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, this. This is sort of. It's. Everything that's happening. It's not new. None of this is new. Like, you know, this level of war, it's always been there. Like, this is just part of, like, diplomacy. Diplomacy isn't just like, let's negotiate and compromise. Diplomacy is. Is vicious blackmail. Anything you can do to get the job done. And so for me, that's comforting, because if you start imagining what you're seeing is like, something new at all. It's not like, how long have people been using sex and blackmail to puppeteer leaders? I mean, it's such an effective way to do it too. And it's. So, yeah. Are world leaders more than likely compromised? Well, yes, compromised in all kinds of ways. Not just compromised from the Epstein shit, though certainly many are. But compromised just from basic greed. I mean, lobbyists, super PACs. It's like, certainly you can't really call it a representative democracy if the way people get into positions of power requires so much money. And that money is not coming from individuals. That money is generally coming from mega corporations and in other state. Other countries and done in fascinating ways. So it's like, at that point, so the apocalypse literally means lifting of the veil. And so what people are beginning to. The new thing, I guess, is like, on a global level, people are beginning to wake up to the reality that, whoa, our voices aren't really being heard or the voice of, like, you know, actual citizens is being muted by the, like, voice of, like, powerful corporations. And that's really bad. Cause, like, the founding fathers, the whole point of this fucking democracy and electing a president was to let the steam out. You know, Otherwise revolutions happen. You gotta let the steam out, depressurize it. You have a. A nonviolent revolution every four years, get a new leader. And so if people start realizing that it doesn't work like that anymore, who. This pressure builds, and that's what we're all feeling, man. It's like this pressure is building because it's like it's becoming increasingly difficult to buy the show. The show is not believable anymore. It used to be more believable. You really bought into it, man. Now people are. I'm not sure any of this shit is real. These people are not like, morally upstanding people in the way you would. That was always a thing. Presidents had this kind of noble quality to them. They were powerful, gentle. They were for everyone. And they had presidential speak, that strange way that a leader talks. And you bought it, man. You bought it. But now people just aren't really buying it anymore. No. And that's not good. They gotta get a better mascot in there. The Illuminati, dude. They're trying to save money on their fucking maitre d. Like, you need to get some, like, you gotta get another, like, JFK in there. You gotta get somebody who at least isn't fucking senile. You know what I mean? That was the beginning of the end. It's like you have this senile dementia president. It's like, dude, I'm not sure we need a president if that guy's the president. And so this is a real issue, you know, we don't buy it anymore.

[Danny]

Yeah, it's.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's.

[Danny]

It's harder and harder for them to keep secrets from us with. With technology and with the social media stuff and. And everyone being an investigator on. On everything 100%, you know, like. Like, look at what Tucker's doing. He's like, he's pulling. Trying to, like, pull the veil and expose the most crazy in society. Like interviewing Putin, the. The tech guy who allegedly killed somebody. Accusing the tech guy of. The AI guy of murdering people.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And like, dude, that's insane. He's like, challenging other government leaders and like, accusing, like, foreign governments of murdering people. Like, the dudes like that are. It's journalist saying that he's allowed. He's.

[Duncan Trussell]

That was the name for it. Journalist.

[Danny]

That's right.

[Duncan Trussell]

But.

[Danny]

But, but that again, though. But that also ties into, like, what we were talking about earlier with, like, with podcasts and shit on YouTube. Like, you can't survive unless you are pushing the boundaries so goddamn far. You're going to be afraid of. Of surviving another week.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

You know, everything has got to be the end of the world.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

Everything's got to be just doomsday.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. You're Right for.

[Danny]

To get clicks on anything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Isn't that sad? It's so sad. It's like. Because it's like, yeah, I guess, like, people are just getting high on fear. And that's like the drug of choice, booze and fear. And so then because you create a market pressure for fear, you want to create more creative versions of fear, more cinematic versions of fear. You're in the fear marketplace, you're a fear monger. And it's tough on them streets, man. You got to come up with a really brand new good angle to freak people out about, because that's what the algorithm likes. You don't even want to make it. You just know if I do some controversial shit, use a weird thumbnail with some kind of clickbait shit, it's gonna get way more action that translates into money.

[Danny]

And so you're not gonna become anybody if you have a middle of the road, moderate take on something, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

And what more satanic technology than that, an actual technology that harvests fear and, like, allows people to commodify paranoia and fear. Wow. That if there was a Satan, boy, he's happy about the algorithm, isn't he? He's like, this is amazing. Yeah. So look, you know, while all of that chaos is going on, all this stuff, there's just this moment. And generally in this moment, everything's fine, everything's great. Like, somebody like, you know, like, let's say for a second, like, just like, if I just stop for a moment, if we both just stop talking, Like, you feel that, like, there's like this vibrant, beautiful energy in the present moment. It's amazing. Buddhism, they call it emptiness. People get confused by that term. But. But, like, when you breathe out right before you breathe in, there's this. In Buddhism, it's called the gap. There's this little space right there, and it's beautiful. And it's one of the ways Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche described it is fresh baked bread. It has a wholesome quality to it. It's like, it's a very sweet thing that is always happening. And all this shit that we're all addicted to, it distracts from that moment. That is an un commodifiable place, by the way. You can't sell the present moment or they would have done it by now. It's free. And in that place that everyone's trying to get away from by buying shit, you don't really need anything, man. Like, you're fine, you're safe, you're okay. And in The Bible, the first thing angels say when they appear to people is, be not afraid. Don't be afraid. It's the first thing always like, it's okay. That's the message loud and clear. It's been coming down the pipeline since people could talk. That's the great transcendent message. It's not really special. It's like, it's okay. Okay. It's okay. You're safe. You're fine. Ram Dass used to say, dying is completely safe.

[Danny]

Dying is completely safe.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dying is safe. It is. Everyone's afraid of it. It's like the most natural process. And I just had this wonderful teacher, Omdev, on my podcast. And you're dying and being reborn over and over and over again. And every time, you breathe out and breathe back in. And so this place, it's not going anywhere. It's never gotten anywhere. But always there's millions of things that you can focus your attention on that will take you fully out of it and put you in a kind of numb, nullified state. Because even saying it's fear, it's like, boy, it's fun to be afraid. When was the last time you were really afraid? It's exciting. Getting nice and scared. Maybe you watched a horror movie. Maybe you're like, I don't know, walking down the street. Is that dude fucking following me? I ate too much weed. It feels good. It's kind of like a jolt. This is really. If you look at the way you feel when you're getting high on your phone.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's a numb kind of like, I don't know, a nest. This ties feeling. It's sort of like you breathe different.

[Danny]

You start to have, like, shallow breathing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And you fucking get calm on your hand.

[Danny]

Get.

[Duncan Trussell]

Come on. What is that about the Internet? That gets come on my hand?

[Danny]

Oh, my God.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

That's weird, man. It's. It definitely is a drug, and it's probably being used as some sort of mind control now. I bet you the phones are the new MK Ultra, because everyone on the phones are living in their own reality, and they have all their own out. Their algorithms are feeding them specific memes. Whether you're getting memes about Trump blowing Clinton or memes about whatever it is. It's like you don't really. It's like you're in your own lane and you don't get to peek through to the other stuff.

[Duncan Trussell]

And you could turn it off anytime you want. A vampire only goes where it's invited. Every time you decide to stare into the hypno rectangle. What is the difference between that and summoning some kind of distraction demon into your life? It's like there's not enough fire and chaos and bombs and children getting blown up around me. So let me look through this window into hell.

[Danny]

Oh, my God, that's hilarious, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And don't get me wrong, I'm. I'm addicted as anybody else, man. I'm not high road in here. I'm just like. I've been addicted to enough things to know what I. When I'm addicted.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, and like. Like, I reckon. Yeah.

[Danny]

But at what point do you. What? At what point do you have to, like, decide to let go? Like, at what point do they start tethering every other aspect of life into the phone and into the technology to where you need this stuff to just pay your bills, you know, if you want to. If you want to have health insurance, you got to wear the Palantir ring.

[Duncan Trussell]

Digital id.

[Danny]

Digital id?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, Thumb. Well, I mean, you know, you could.

[Danny]

The real id.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's where we're headed, friend. Yeah, there's no. I don't really think that there is not to be a complete defeatist here, but I don't really think that it's. And I recognize the irony that I'm wearing a Palantir hat when I say this.

[Danny]

I don't think you gotta pay the bill somehow.

[Duncan Trussell]

Bro, please don't start the I'm wearing this to troll because you have four children. People accuse me of getting paid by fucking Palantir. So now I wear it on any podcast because it's so funny to think that Palantir needs mid level podcasters to work for them. But I don't think you would be.

[Danny]

Their first pick, though.

[Duncan Trussell]

Why? I would be my last pick if I was running some kind of surveillance. Massive surveillance. I'm not letting my yappy ass anywhere near any of the secrets. But, you know, I don't think. I think that what you're describing. There's a great book, something like 12 Reasons to Delete your social media now by Jaron Lanier. Early Silicon Valley dude. And basically the way he describes it is where we're headed is towards, you know, like B.F. skinner. The Skinner box. He used it. Okay. He's like, these are Skinner boxes. And the algorithm combined with AI. I think the algorithm is AI. But as AI advances, this thing is going to be increasingly distracting and eventually there will be no, like what you're describing.

[Danny]

No way out to unplug.

[Duncan Trussell]

To unplug. And this is his nightmare scenario, Rocco's Basilisk based. Basically the AI becomes some kind of psychic prison for everybody. And I disagree with that. I do think that it will become inevitably deeper, like embedded deeper. Yeah, yeah. I mean, clearly what we're looking at here is like if you watch, if you, if you fast forward, time starts as a giant like two story building that was old computers, shrinks down onto your desktop, becomes a desktop computer, then it shrinks down again. Now it's in our fucking pockets on your watch and then it's on your head. VR, AR those, those Ray Ban augmented reality glasses, that's gonna to be the next iteration. And then of course we're going black mirror, the little thing you stick on your temple or some kind of injectable. Right. And so what you're seeing is really the thing that has been happening on this planet since the get go, which is this planet's a centrifuge and things get mixed together. This is why in our guts, in our, like there's, you know, gut bacteria. That's not our shit, that's bacteria. We depend on colonies of bacteria, right? Living with us in this perfect symbiosis. And what you're seeing here is no different than that. I'm not calling it a species, it's technology, but just for the sake of shits and giggles, let's just say it's an invasive species. Its roots are worked into everything already and it might as well be embedded in our brains. We carry it around with us, we look at it every five, six minutes. We go to it for everything. Course it's going to get into our brains because there's already plastic in our brains, right? And so it will. We are crazy. We're merging with it. We will merge with it for better or for worse.

[Danny]

How long does it take before it gets ahead of us on the evolutionary scale, on the, on the, on the predatories? At what point does it become the smarter thing? Because there's like, what is there. There's 20 million catalog species of animals on this earth and there's 20 of them are hominids. And out of the one, one of the 20 hominids is the ones that were able to figure out how to get off planet Earth and develop AI. So we're us. Human beings are like 0.001% of the species of Earth, right? And we're leaps and bounds ahead of number two.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And so at what point does this eclipse us? Do you think it does?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, I think the problem is you have to ask like, this is the argument for simulation theory. It's like, if you buy into how long humans have been here, even go Graham Hancock level, the amount of time we've been here relative to the age of the Earth is not very long. And if you look at the, I don't know, Agrarian revolution to the industrial revolution, you see that. I'm sure people on this podcast talk about this. I'm fascinated by it. The amount of time between each of these masses of social changes is, like, decreasing. Like, the amount of time between people learning to plant food and factories is long. The amount of time between factories and technology, not quite as long. The amount of time Civil War ii.

[Danny]

Or, I'm sorry, Civil War muskets and the atomic bomb.

[Duncan Trussell]

Bingo.

[Danny]

50 years.

[Duncan Trussell]

50 years. And then the amount of time between the Internet and AI, what is that? Like, how long is that? Like, what was that, 20 years, 30 years? So, and then each of these subsequent technologies accelerate the amount of time it takes to get to the next sort of milestone. Right? And so based on that, you have to ask yourself, the question being, when is it gonna eclipse us? It's like, oh, it already did, right? It eclipsed us.

[Danny]

You think we already hit the singularity?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, I think it's quite possible. This is the argument for simulation theory, is it's like.

[Danny]

Like.

[Duncan Trussell]

There is some probability that's not that low that it already happened, and that somewhere along the way, humans got digitized. We upload our consciousness into some kind of experiential thing that we call a lifetime. We get to experience, like, you know, some kind of training in each lifetime that we sort of decide to, like, enter into. It's a perfectly simulated reality. They realize going in there, knowing you're in a simulation, it won't be as effective when it comes to the training. And also, just like, the subjectivity of time itself, theoretically, there could be some kind of medicine that you could give someone that makes every second feel like 100 years. So in, like, a minute, you could have 60 lifetimes within which you learn all of these incredible skills. At the end of five minutes, you've become, like, adept at everything. At the end of an hour, you literally know everything. So just a simple hour of this kind of simulation would be an amazing way to train people. And so, you know, it could be that that's what's happening to us.

[Danny]

Have you seen the. The documentary that this dude, Danny Goler is making? He has a theory.

[Duncan Trussell]

He.

[Danny]

He has a theory. When you take DMT and you take a diffracted laser and you shine it on a wall, you can see the code of the Matrix.

[Duncan Trussell]

I fucking love it because.

[Danny]

Have you seen it?

[Duncan Trussell]

Funny. It's like, I. Yeah. Somebody told me that on laser there's something in lasers that identifies speckles. There's like, speckles identifies the lasers. And so it's like people getting super high looking at some kind of thing in the laser that just is like. You know, when you flash it at a fucking. Apparently you have to have that in there. I could be wrong. One of my friends told me that they're like, dude, they're just getting high on DMT and just seeing, like, basically like a barcode in the laser. And also I think it's funny.

[Danny]

Well, it looks like I did it. I did it and I tried.

[Duncan Trussell]

So is it real?

[Danny]

Let me tell you what I saw.

[Duncan Trussell]

I did the deal. Oh, my God. I've been wanting to do it. I've never met. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm so.

[Danny]

I did it twice.

[Duncan Trussell]

Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts.

[Danny]

In time for this class.

[Duncan Trussell]

I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.

[Danny]

Disney's Lilo and Stitch has finally landed on Disney.

[Duncan Trussell]

Now you can watch the global phenomenon at home with your ohana. Be good for one second. You're the devil. Lilo and Stitch is verified hot on.

[Danny]

Rotten Tomatoes with an audience score of 93%.

[Duncan Trussell]

Perfect stitch, also cute and fluffy. Disney's Lilo and Stitch, rated PG now streaming on Disney. And right now you can get Disney.

[Danny]

Hulu, and all of ESPN with an.

[Duncan Trussell]

Incredible limited time offer.

[Danny]

Terms apply. The fr.

[Duncan Trussell]

I do it every morning when I wake up. I gotta see the Matrix go.

[Danny]

So the first time I did it, I looked into the laser and all I saw was, like, millions and millions of spinning gears all connected to each other. But the weird thing was, if you move the lasers, the gears don't move. It's almost like you're. You're showing, like, behind the wall or something that it's already there. And the laser is like a flashlight just illuminating it. But it wasn't. There was no, like, Matrix code or anything. Like that.

[Duncan Trussell]

So I saw gears.

[Danny]

I'm like, maybe. Yeah, it was gears. I'm like, maybe I didn't do enough or whatever. So I tried it again. Then a couple months later and I did way more. And I saw dicks. I saw millions of dicks that were encoded in like, in like Lord of the Rings text. And they were everywhere.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's what they want us to know.

[Danny]

He was telling me, he was like. He was like recording me doing this. And I'm like, do you really want to know what I see? He's like, yes. Do you see the code? And I'm like, I see code, but it's like it's inscripted in millions of penises.

[Duncan Trussell]

I see dick all in the laser. Well, you know what, man? It would really explain a lot, like why we find out the reason disclosure hasn't happened is because aliens look like dicks. And they're just. It's dicks. Like everything outside of the earth realm is just dicks tattooed with higher glimpse. Dick people. Dick people. That's what our in that. That's the. They made us. And they were like, you know what? Like, you know, the way people sign their art, they're like, put a dick on that thing. People know it came from us. That's cool, man. Well, I mean, look, I have no doubt that some level of the astral realm is dicks. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Why not? You know, but that is so funny. But it's.

[Danny]

Plus, I think the psychedelics are like largely placebo though, right? I had somebody smart tell me this on the podcast. Hamilton Morris, you know who he is? Yeah, he had the show on Vice. He was. He was explaining how like, psychedelics are very much placebo. How they. They basically reinforce that's already in there, or they bring out stuff that's already in your mind, like deep in your mind.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah, so maybe I have dicks on my mind. You might have dicks on your mind. It's okay, man. Look, dicks are important.

[Danny]

Yes.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, I don't want to get political, but we need dicks. It's just the way it is. There's no way around it. We haven't figured it out. The world depends on dicks.

[Danny]

Yes, yes.

[Duncan Trussell]

At least human existence does. And yeah, you know, I think the. But it is.

[Danny]

The DMT thing is just very. It's very strange. I think it could be if we are living in a simulation, I would imagine radically altering your consciousness in some way. Might be able to. Like if this is a video Game. There's gotta be a way to, like, see the edge of the map, you know?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, there is. It's acid and nitrous oxide.

[Danny]

Oh, fuck. Yes.

[Duncan Trussell]

You'll see the grid, baby. You'll see the grid. Yeah, for sure. I mean, absolutely. And, you know, the simulator calling this a simulation is just a new technological way of describing what the Hindus call Maya, which means illusion. And that's like. So it's. Again, it's just a way, like, modern people can understand the same idea, which is this thing that you're experiencing is not quite as real as you've been led to believe, and it's certainly not everything. And that's the spiritual journey, though I hate terms like that. That is, it is like the exploration of truth and trying to understand what's really going on here and not getting lost in the weeds along the way. And their best reason to do that is because most people are suffering so much unnecessarily, and that is an avoidable situation, as insane as that might sound to people who are suffering, you don't have to. You'll feel pain and stuff like that, but suffering, this fucking malaise that sneaks its way into a person's life, these teachings, they're just encoded various ways of encoding a set of changes you can make in your own life that are going to reduce the amount of suffering that you've been experiencing. And then once you could do that for yourself, that you could do that for other people, too. You're the walking proof, you know, that's the most important thing you know. Is there a fucking wall of dicks behind the grid of reality? Sure. Are we on a mothership? Sure. Are we on a simulator? Sure. Are we in the hollow earth? Like, experiencing what it's like to be on the exter of youth? Why not? But no matter what that grand reality is, the real question is, are you all right? Are you waking up every day happy to be awake? Are you, like, really connecting with your life? You really gotta ask yourself that, man. And that's the most important thing. We'll get to the fucking dmt, dicks. But first, why don't we, like, figure out a way to, like, make ourselves happy within whatever this may be? That's my take, man. That's the most important thing. The other stuff is cool, though. It's fun to think about, and it's fun to spend your time trying to decode the great conspiracies that are happening right now. I'm not saying stick your head in the sand. I'm just saying make sure that you, along the way are also looking into a much more important conspiracy, which is, why aren't you happy? Right?

[Danny]

What's your secret? How do you do it? How do you have the time to do your comedy? Have three kids, do all these podcasts?

[Duncan Trussell]

Vodka, vodka.

[Danny]

Ketamine.

[Duncan Trussell]

First of all, to say, I'm happy all the time. That's not the case at all. But there are very simple things that you can apply to your own life that will reduce your anxiety. And it's very simple. It's so fucking obvious and simple, which is like, if you worry, if you're a worrier, which I used to be, just recognize it's a habit. So if you sort of just mindfulness is the start. So come up with like, look up anything on mindfulness. Just a way of sort of, of being in the moment, observing your own reality. That's a good starting place. Meditation is one great way to do that, right? And so then you start becoming. In Tibetan Buddhism, meditation is called gom, which means becoming familiar with oneself. And so you're becoming familiar with your mind, the nature of your thinking mind, and you begin to realize, oh, my God, like, the shit your mind spits out is so ridiculous. Like in any, you can go from the most intense paranoid fantasy to wanting a cheeseburger in a minute. And so you realize your mind is just always producing these things that you have been calling thoughts and that you've been sort of drawn to a set of these thoughts, which the Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield's like, this is like the top 10 songs most people's brains produce. Top 10 worries, top 10 in fears. You're always fixating on this or that. The problem in your life, the thing. Maybe it's worries about the federal government, maybe it's worries about your health, your family, whatever it may be. And so what's happening there is that you're fixating on a fantasy. You're imagining the worst case scenario, usually that thing. I don't know if you've ever gotten in a fight with someone in your own mind. You're literally in an argument with someone in your own mind that you think you're gonna have. Now, what's happening there is habit. And what's happening is you don't realize you have a lot more control over what you spend time thinking about. So what's amazing is you already have the discipline to do a kind of basic magic with a K, which is you are disciplined to worry. You've disciplined yourself. You actually don't realize it, you are a master at yoga. Only the yoga you're doing is the yoga of worry. You're good at it, man. Most of us are so good at it. You can just. You can just effortlessly fill your mind with the most eerie, terrifying version of the future with no energy at all. It's very detailed, vivid. You can also do it with your past. You can remember. Remember the very worst thing from your past and forget all the other good times you've had. So the simple move is to replace those worries with. It doesn't have to be special, it can be anything. But start teaching yourself to habituate towards thinking about good things that you've done, wonderful things that you've done. And, and this practice, it will change your life so quickly. And you begin to realize because a lot of people think they don't realize how connected their feelings are to their thoughts. They think you won't realize. Like, yeah, of course you feel awful because you keep thinking about the worst thing that happened to you. The heartbreak, the tragedy, or what you think is going to come.

[Danny]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And it's not happening. It's just this moment right now. Just watch what happens if you just replace it with interesting anything. Check out Psycho Cybernetics. Great fucking book. You would love it.

[Danny]

Psycho Cybernetics.

[Duncan Trussell]

Such a dumb name, but it's a fucking sick name.

[Danny]

I thought.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't like it, but I do like the book. It's really, really good. It sort of details this and you know, it's. It's a. I generally like self help doesn't do shit for me. But that's. It's a very effective. It's a very effective practice.

[Danny]

Duncan Trussell, thank you so much for your time, man.

[Duncan Trussell]

Thank you for letting me ramble. You're a great interviewer, man. I'm so glad that we got to do this.

[Danny]

I don't have to do anything. You just go. You're like a machine.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, because you let me. Oh, well, thank you. That's. Of course, that's a.

[Danny]

You're welcome.

[Duncan Trussell]

I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[Danny]

Duncan Trussell family hour on YouTube and Spotify and all that stuff.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Danny]

And then what else can people do to.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, you can watch the Midnight Gospel on Netflix. Um, yeah, man, I got a baby coming. So the show's here that I'm doing, which is why we're here together. That's my last. But you can find my dates at duncatrustle. Com like in a few months, I'll go back on the road.

[Danny]

Fuck yes, dude. Thank you so much.

[Duncan Trussell]

Thank you.

[Danny]

Hail Satan. Everybody.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hare Krishna.