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Duncan Trussell
Greetings to you, my friends. We have a premiere episode with one of our most requested guests. But before we jump into that, I would like to invite you to come see me overseas. I'm gonna be in Australia. A lot of the shows are selling.
Mitch Horowitz
Out, so get your tickets.
Duncan Trussell
You can find them@duncantrustle.com I'm really excited to head down under and see my dear Australian friends. Today's guest is the author of some of my favorite books on magic, the paranormal and ESP out there. Also Manifestation. He writes so many books, I don't understand it. Every week he seems to have a new book out. He's prolific, brilliant, and a very sweet dude. So get ready. Strap on. For today's episode of the dtfh with the author of Occult America, Modern Occultism, Practical Magic, the Miracle Club, and many, many others. Please welcome to the dtfh, Mitch Horowitz. Mitch, it's great to see you, man.
Mitch Horowitz
I'm so, so happy when I texted you you had time to do this. It's always wonderful to catch up. And I would love to hear a, you know, a Jack London poem. I don't know if you know any, but you think you do them for me?
Guest Speaker
Oh, I'm so glad that you asked. And by the way, very good to see you. Here we go. Old longings nomadic leap Chafing at custom's chain again from its brumal sleep wakens the farrine strain. Epigraph 2, Call of the wild.
Mitch Horowitz
Ooh, what's brumal mean?
Guest Speaker
Oh, like wintry. The seed asleep beneath the snow, ready to burst forth in spring.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah, brumal sleep.
Guest Speaker
Yeah. So we're all about Jack London today.
Mitch Horowitz
Oh, yeah, we gotta be. I mean, the only poet anyone should be paying attention to right now is Jack London. Why? Because we have an object from interstellar space en route. Have you heard about this? I'm curious your thoughts.
Guest Speaker
No. Should I know about this? Should I be canceling things?
Mitch Horowitz
Well, it's fascinating. It really is. Because Avi Loeb, who is this Harvard astrophysicist, thinks that, like, Ooma Muma. Remember that giant, for lack of a better word, turd that flew through our galaxy? He thinks that could have been, like, some kind of probe. And that just mainly because of the way that it did the slingshot thing off the sun. It used exactly the technique we use to zoom up satellites or whatever, we're trying to get out there. And now I think for the second time in recorded history, maybe the third, another interstellar object is en route which would follow the pattern, first you would get the probe, then you would get the, you know, payload or whatever. And so in the UFO community, people are really losing their shit over this.
Guest Speaker
That is fascinating. You know, let me share this. This is a historical note as to why we should all take a deep breath before we go. That's ridiculous. I was researching this just yesterday in connection with an article I've been writing about the great paranormalist writer Charles Ford. And one of the. Ford was very neutral about the phenomena that he documented, but he was resolutely unwilling to close the door on weird shit. You know, apropos of what you've just been describing. Because Ford cited in his work and I researched this to confirm it, and he's absolutely right that throughout the 1700s, the age of enlightenment, including, well up through the end of the 1700s, scientific authorities would mock villagers and workers and just everyday people who reported shooting stars and who reported what we call today meteorites, they said, that's bullshit. Fiery rocks from space are not hitting Earth. And they attributed it to plebeian imagination. And then I guess they would say, people like you and me just get high off of anomalies and fuck them, right? Fuck the plebs, the weirdos, they never know what they're talking about. And of course the plebes and the weirdos were correct. Fiery rocks from space were hitting Earth. And authorities, post enlightenment authorities only grudgingly came to acknowledge this in, in the early 1800s, not very long ago, because the evidence just became overwhelming. So these popularized reports for damn near a century were dismissed in scientific literature until such time as they turned out to be correct. And there are other such incidences around that time too. Like mesmerism was dismissed until we discovered something called hypnotism, until we discovered something called the subconscious mind, none of which was part of the lexicon of daily life. It wasn't until the 1890s that Frederick Myers and William James, and then a little bit later, Jung and Freud began to discuss what was called the subliminal mind, which eventually we came to call the sub or unconscious mind. Today I don't think we get through a day without using some reference point to that. And it was, it was not only not part of daily life, but it was all but ridiculed until the 1890s not very long ago, because authorities thought the mind is cognition. It's what you use to make lists and solve math problems. The idea that there was this sub glacial mind was bullshit to all the smart people.
Mitch Horowitz
Well, so I think let's hear what.
Guest Speaker
Avi has to say.
Mitch Horowitz
Well, that's where I think it, it does create for a lot of people a real chin scratching moment. Because Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist at Harvard. This isn't some plebe, this is someone at one of the top universities on the planet saying we do have to consider that this thing, there's all these aspects to it that are anomalous. It doesn't seem like an interstellar object. And you know, and he's a scientist, so he's saying, you know, obviously this could be lack of data, this could be a million things, but I can't remember all the things. It appears that its propulsion is changing, that shouldn't happen. It's slowing down, speeding up, things like that. And so this brings us to a point that a word or I guess a concept I just read about in a book about AI written by one of the founders of DeepMind. And it's a really like parent. It's an apocalyptic book. This is one of the creators of DeepMind. But he's saying that there's a cognitive bias towards optimism in humanity. That with AI in particular, people are like, look, we'll figure it out, it'll be fine. And he's saying, no, you don't understand. This is different than the other stuff that we figured out. This is similarly some object shooting towards space. You could see how there's just no way for most of us to wrap our minds around what that could mean and whether or not it's a Harvard. Even though it might be a Harvard astrophysicist trumpeting that we should be really paying attention to this. You're like, ah, whatever. Nah, it's probably nothing. Eventually it's going to be something.
Guest Speaker
Eventually it's going to be something. I'm going to write an article with that headline.
Mitch Horowitz
It would be honored.
Guest Speaker
I think that we as a human community are in a very strange place nowadays because something is shifting in our reality. It's shifting. I mean, look, I think terms like inner and outer, up and down, these are all just generalizations that we use to communicate with one another. So when I use them, I'm just speaking colloquially. It's coming from an outer perspective. You know, apropos of what Avi is discussing in terms of that truly unsolved extraordinary fraction of, of UFO cases in terms of all the, the weird verities that we're learning about our reality. Last time I was on and, and the humanity has just completely passed this by. Another similarly credentialed scientist Liora Shamir, who's the head of the Deep Space Hubble Telescope program, wrote a paper hypothesizing that our planet sits in a gigantic black hole for the simple reason that Hubble has permitted us to photograph hundreds of galaxies never before seen. And it turns out that 50% of them are moving, are rotating in a direction opposite from ours. And that shouldn't be. That's anomalous. One would expect that it would be a fairly even divide. But 50% of the other guys, the other galaxies billions of light years away, are rotating in an opposite direction from ours. And he said one possible explanation for that could be that we're an anomaly. We're sitting inside of a black hole, viewing the world as if our experience is normal. And it's not. And it's just. It's just among these things that, oh, well. And in today's news, we live in a black hole. And. And in today's news, we live in a computer simulation. And in today's news, an alien craft is. Rick. Using the. The sun's gravitational field as a ricochet to come and visit us. Let's see if we'll be happy. And. And that's just what's going on in terms of the. The macro world, in terms of the micro world. We're continuing to experience things that we, as a human community, have not yet been able to swallow. Like Microsoft engineers are saying that their quantum computing model, which none of us have been exposed to yet, so we just have to take their word for it, but that their quantum computing model recently solved a math problem so complex that it would take an estimated 10, septillion years of 10. 10.
Mitch Horowitz
Older than the universe.
Guest Speaker
Than the universe.
Mitch Horowitz
You'd have to, like, start at the beginning and then do it 50 times to solve the problem.
Guest Speaker
Right. Right. So it's impossible. And yet the answer came. And the answer came not only in less than 10 septillion years, a figure which, for all intents and purposes, does not exist, because, as you were just saying, we have to multiply the universe 50 times.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah.
Guest Speaker
And yet the answer arrived in less than five minutes, which the sc. The Google engineers said, this is possibly evidence for the existence of a multiverse, because the answer's there. Willow plucked the answer, so to speak, from somewhere. And the answer was reached without time existing. And part of our culture is in denial about this. They literally can't absorb the news. Gurdjieff spoke of a buffer where I'm unable to permit in impressions that are contrary to my self. Perception. So my self perception is I live in a linear universe. I have to be on this. This, this. This discussion with Duncan at a certain time and place. And everything feels very, very normal. You know, water is always a liquid, but for the fact when it's a gas or a solid. So everything's fine. And there are members of our culture unable to let in these things. So I don't think it's that we don't give a shit. I think it's that we're almost unable to. We can't let it in. We just can't let it in.
Mitch Horowitz
It's a kind of.
Duncan Trussell
This episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by my friends at bluechew. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that we have an object coming into our solar system from deep space that doesn't seem to be having characteristics that a comet is supposed to have. Meaning, could it be a spaceship maybe? And that's the kind of information that doesn't give me boners. In fact, that's a boner killer. I don't want to be thinking about whether or not some alien mothership is coming to planet Earth when I'm trying to pleasure my darling wife. No. Also, I'm 50, I have scoliosis, I've got a growing bald spot, asymmetrical love handles, and sometimes I stink when I eat too much cheese. Okay, I need help. And that's why I love bluechew, baby. I want to feel like I'm in college again. Not because I want to study, but because I want to feel like a God. A thrusting God of sex. That's what you're gonna get from bluechew. Guys, this isn't just about performance. It's about legacy. It's about making your ancestors proud. You know, when you lay it down, they're talking about how it gets up. Nothing makes you more of a legend than a little bluechew. Discover your options@bluechew.com and we have got a special deal for our listeners. As always, get your first month of BlueChew Free. Just use promo, promo code Duncan at checkout and pay five bucks for shipping. That's it. Join BlueChew's mission to upgrade humanity one.
Mitch Horowitz
Thrust at a time.
Duncan Trussell
Head to BlueChew.com for details and safety info. And big thanks to BlueChew for sponsoring our podcast.
Mitch Horowitz
Thank you, Bluechew blindness. That. I've always thought this has to be bullshit, but. And maybe you could verify or debunk for me, but I've Heard that what certain indigenous people, when they saw European ships for the first time, couldn't see them because it was so outside of anything they'd ever thought of. And there's a thing floating out there. They've never seen it before. None of it makes sense. And so it just sort of. It's the Westworld moment. I don't see anything at all. And that is terrifying.
Guest Speaker
That's terrifying.
Mitch Horowitz
The implication being, what aren't we seeing right now? I mean, that rabbit hole, you know, that leads you to, like, some pretty dark places that leads you to the reptilians, you know, these hyperdimensional beings that love to experiment on us. The whole thing is just a lab. They're everywhere, watching, studying. But not just that, the paranormal. I mean, you know, the expectation of privacy goes out the window if there's hyperdimensional beings that just can see us and we can't see them because of some lack of cognitive ability to process whatever that data set is. And, yeah, and maybe that's the resistance to all of this stuff, because to me, when I look at. Though thrilling, it may be aliens, mothership coming, some kind of AI God. An emergent AI God. A complete shift in the way we do everything. Free energy, no more teleportation, whatever it is. There's a part of me that strangely wants to resist that future, that wants things to stay the way they are.
Guest Speaker
Right, right, right. I'm laughing because I'm reminded of a Steely Dan lyric. I know you're not my enemy, but I like things like they used to be. And I sort of feel that sometimes. Yes. And you know, it's funny, man. The ancient Gnostic sects, as you and many of your audience know, they were this amalgam of proto Jewish, Christian and pagan circles who. They couldn't be described quite as Jewish, quite as Christian, or quite as pagan. They were sort of an amalgam of all three at a time of great transition in the world, maybe not vastly different from our own time of transition and circumstances differing. And they believed that man lives in Erisat's existence, that we are trapped under a dome of illusion, and that. That. That only Gnosis, seeing, knowing in some greater sense could. Could penetrate that dome of illusion and get down to business of. Of who we really are. And I feel almost embarrassed saying this because I find myself using the Gnostic example over and over and over again because it keeps showing up in our media in the most unexpected ways. But if nothing else, media must be a common language where we all experience things. Like last night we were watching the John Carpenter movie. It lives, okay? And. Or they live.
Mitch Horowitz
They live.
Guest Speaker
They live. And it's a mandala moment. I'm quite sure it was. It lives growing up. They live. And anyway, you know the story. A guy puts on a pair of glasses and suddenly sees life for what it really is, which is that humanity is being imprisoned and replaced by a race of bad guys. And it's very jarring. And now this movie must go back a generation. But there's the Gnostic theme that keeps rotating through our media. And what's significant about that theme today is that it is capturing the attention of people worldwide. I personally think the first 20, 25 minutes of the Barbie movie is the best popularization of Gnosticism I've ever seen. And that movie was viewed in Saudi Arabia, it was viewed in China, and it was popular. And I can't imagine two societies more radically different from our own and in some ways from one another. Saudi is a theocracy. China is an official atheistic nation. Neither pays a great deal of attention to the rights of the individual. But we in America, China, Saudi, we're all grooving to this movie. No one's confused. No one's saying, fuck is going on here? What do you mean? She starts thinking about death and she sees her world as fake. What does that mean? Right, so the fact that that can communicate across such vast cultural differences. It says something, Duncan. It says something. You know, I remember I wrote a book called One Simple Idea. It was a history of the positive mind movement. And that book was. Was. Was translated and published in China in Mandarin. And Chinese government censors were kind enough to cut 38% out of the book.
Mitch Horowitz
Oh, my God. What 38%? I gotta know.
Duncan Trussell
I want to see what I know.
Guest Speaker
I've tried really hard to learn precisely what. And. And best I can tell from talking to the translator, anything. Anything metaphysical. Anything that suggested that you lead a life that goes beyond flesh, bone, motor skill, cognition, that is verboten to the government censors. And this was at a more liberal time in China. And I was speaking to the translator in Shanghai. And she's a great person, and she would ask me certain questions and I would describe something and she would laugh, she would crack up. She had no fucking idea what I was referencing. Like, she would say, you reference the word soul. What is a soul?
Mitch Horowitz
Whoa.
Guest Speaker
And, you know, next thing you know, I'm trying to describe, like, Casper the Friendly Ghost. And she's laughing.
Mitch Horowitz
Wow.
Guest Speaker
Because she grew up without that concept. And the notion that there's some you that can't be touched or felt in the conventional way to her was funny. She wasn't scandalized. She just was like cracking up.
Mitch Horowitz
Wow.
Guest Speaker
And she was like, what the fuck are you guys learning there? And yet that same cultural divide that I could not bridge one on one with a very nice person who was doing her very best to translate this book, that that divide was bridged by a movie that says, we're all living in plastic dollhouses and we better wake the fuck up. They got that in China, they got that in Saudi, they got that in America. It's gotta. It's resonating with all of us universally. It's not just a chimera.
Mitch Horowitz
So Zizek did a whole breakdown of they Live and specifically the fight scene, because that is one of the longest fight scenes in a movie. And his point is, the reason he chose to make this an extended fight scene is because that's what it's like trying to get somebody to see the truth if they don't want to see it. That's brilliant, isn't it brilliant?
Guest Speaker
So that's fucking brilliant.
Mitch Horowitz
So he has to.
Guest Speaker
Because I didn't understand it. I thought Carpenter was being indulgent because, like, well, you know, he's got two physical actors and he's just going too far.
Mitch Horowitz
No, that's what I thought too. That's what we all thought. But at least according to Zizek, that is just not some, some. Some flamboyant fight scene. But that's the. That is the experience anyone has had historically. If they, God help them, if they stumble upon some truth that's right in front of everybody that nobody wants to see, is that, you know, being nice about it doesn't do anything. No one wants to fucking hear it. Eventually you have to bludgeon people until, like, they see it and they have no choice but to see it. And it's this, you know, it's pointing towards. I guess like one of the great double edged, like sword aspects of being human is that we are very good at getting used to stuff as opposed to other animals. We can get used to anything, but once we're used to it, we don't want to get used to something else.
Duncan Trussell
We're used to this.
Mitch Horowitz
It's a lot of. Maybe evolutionarily the risk in accepting some new thing inevitably leads to a higher probability of dying or something. Maybe that's the resistance. Maybe. I don't know.
Guest Speaker
It's fascinating. Gurdjieff Used to call it the terror of the situation. What you described is. Is exactly what he was referencing. The terror of the situation. That as he saw it. And I know it's true, we are asleep. Not in some metaphorical way, but actually, yeah, you know, we go through life and prepare lunches for the kids and do the things that are necessary to. To get through life. Pay the electric bill. But. But we are in a state of somnambulence in as much as the most hypnotized patient is in that state. And we are asleep to our nature, and we do not receive impressions of who we are. And it's unthinkable and it's unfathomable. And when people hear that, of course, they immediately want to argue with it or they say, oh, I get it. It's like this, or it's like that, or something of that nature. Jacob Needleman used to say, it's not like anything. Discovering I'm asleep is not like anything. It's not a metaphor and it's not a word from a translation that I read somewhere. It's sleep. It's actual. And I suppose I mean Gurdjieff's massive epic parable, Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson. A friend of mine said the whole thing could really be understood as a parable against war. Everybody knows that war is wrong. It doesn't mean shit, you know. I was asked to write an introduction. I'm not sure why they asked me, but I asked to write an introduction for the book All Quiet on the Western Front.
Mitch Horowitz
Wow.
Guest Speaker
And that's the classic of World War I. And I'm reading this, and it's short and it's compelling and it's horrible. And I'm like, It never made a particle of difference in the human situation. If anything, in the 20th century, we all fucking went wild. And the 21st century is off to a great start. We all know it's this horror and it doesn't matter. And I've got to believe there's some sleep in that.
Mitch Horowitz
Oh, my God.
Guest Speaker
In me.
Mitch Horowitz
Well, you kind of have to. I guess when I was a kid, I think a lot of kids are maybe because my mom's a psychologist and I somehow found out about schizophrenia. It shows up in your 20s, and boy, I had some serious schizophrenia hypochondria. And simultaneously, I started listening to the Robert Monroe astral projection tapes, which work. They fucking work. And so I started having, like, out of body experiences related to this. I didn't know what it was by the way I didn't know it was hemisync. My mom just had all these tapes and put it in. And so if you report to a psychologist I've been having out of body experiences, you see, I'm listening to these tapes and now I'm coming out of my body that out of body experience that is one of the symptoms of schizophrenia. Not a good sign, man. And so you're not going to get from a psychologist, like, yeah, that shit works, man. The CIA was using it, brother. But what you will get is this feeling of like, oh my God, am I going crazy? And I think what we're talking about, the problem is that if everyone is asleep, if everyone is addicted to some default reality system that is no longer really reflecting reality, reality, then in a way to wake up to some alternate way of life or other things out there, or one of your focuses is the possibility of some extraordinary ability that is yet to be quantified in any way that people accept it, then you're going to have to go crazy a little bit that you. At least according to the people in default reality, you're going to seem out of your fucking mind. What the billboards are alien messages with shut up, psycho. No, it's true, man. You know, whatever, whatever. But it's, it's. And so somewhere along the way you're just gonna get exhausted, right? Like isn't there? You know, you might just decide, you know what? Fuck it, I'm just going back to sleep. This is a waste of time. It might be real, might not be real, but I think it's easier to just march with the other fucking drones and not acknowledge the fact that we seem to only be tuning into a sliver of reality as it is. The Mayavati. That's what the Hare Krishnas called them, the followers of Maya of illusion. You know what I mean? You must feel that all the time, Mitch.
Guest Speaker
Well, well, here's a fucking glitch in the matrix. I mean, you know, you had an opening today. You texted me last night while we were watching they Live. And I don't know if you're aware of this, I posted very little on social, but I did post one or two things. I just got back from a week plus retreat at the Monroe Institute.
Mitch Horowitz
I didn't see that. That's.
Guest Speaker
This is fucking sick. This is sick, Duncan. Because I thought to myself, I, I want to come on and I want to talk about my experience at Monroe and, and I don't wanna. I don't wanna rant and rave so that Anybody feels that I'm trying to sell them on something, because I sure as shit am not.
Mitch Horowitz
You went to the fucking Monroe Institute, man.
Guest Speaker
I went to the Monroe Institute for about eight days and I, I took what is called their gateway program, which is the entry program. The experiences I had at Monroe were so extraordinary that I've said this to the group and I'll say it to, to you and to, to your listeners, I can say, and this just one fraction of the experience, Just a fraction. When I was in my late 20s, I did psychoanalysis for five years. Oh my God, very intense, four days a week. Cost me $150,000. I like and I respect my analyst. I believe she was a good person. I got nothing out of it. I received, you know, an answer to a question. I guess it was a whole body experience, which I think includes the extra physical. It must include the extra physical that had eluded me for five years in fucking psychoanalysis. And that was one fraction, one fraction of what I received during that time. The technology that Robert Monroe, who was a radio broadcast executive at one time, he was the president of CBS News, successful guy out in the world. He determined that binaural beats, which he basically invented as a therapeutic method. Binaural beats frequency, sounds, color, etc. Could introduce that samadhi state into the mind that is sometimes spoken of in Tibetan Buddhism and more so could open up the individual to experiences of non locality, including out of body experiences. Monroe remarked that about 15% of participants have out of body experiences. I did not have one. But what I did have has filled a notebook with insights that are greater than anything I have experienced on the path. And I'm 59 years old.
Mitch Horowitz
Wow.
Guest Speaker
And I have, I have made my effort. I have made my effort. And it may be that the efforts that I have made helped prime me for that experience. But the.
Duncan Trussell
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Mitch Horowitz
Which is why a lot of people.
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Mitch Horowitz
Wow.
Duncan Trussell
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Mitch Horowitz
Nice.
Guest Speaker
We in, in 2025 cannot engage life in a mature way without acknowledging the extra physical.
Mitch Horowitz
Right.
Guest Speaker
Just in the same way that the Google engineers said this answer should be impossible because it outstrips all the time we've got, so to speak. And yet it's real. Yeah, and it's exactly the same with cognitive retro causality, backwards causation, telepathy, precognition, esp. Select, what I call selection, what some people call a manifestation or law of attraction. I use different terms for different reasons. But this concept that the world is as you are and that humanity does possess this extra physical quality of life, this could be. This could be that bridge that gets us a little bit awake to start seeing one another because we realize we participate in a common life. Right before the French Revolution, everything in France was politicized. Everything was seen as political, which is not much different from our circumstances right now. In this country, everybody thinks everything is political. And there were people who were advocates in France of a more just society, an alternative to the aristocracy, not necessarily revolutionaries, but desperate to find reform and opening in that society. Many of them were interested in mesmerism for the simple reason that once you discover that extra physical capacity, you do see this common basis to life. So like a lot of people who were against slavery, for example, in France, vast slave holding plantations in the West Indies, they were interested in mesmerism because they realized they had that extraordinary realization that a nobleman and a slave on a sugar plantation somewhere could both be Put into this so called mesmeric trance, not language that we use anymore. And these universalistic, non local, and in some cases very plainly out of body experiences spoke to the commonness of humanity.
Mitch Horowitz
Right.
Guest Speaker
I think this is so important for the individual and I think it's important for us as a human being community. I'm shocked when you brought up Monroe. I thought, well, maybe he saw my post.
Mitch Horowitz
I didn't see it.
Guest Speaker
You didn't see it. And I met at Monroe one of my heroes, America's, I suppose, most accomplished remote viewer, part of the nation's psychic spying program. Still with us, Joe McMonagle. And Joe McMonagle is 78. And I'll tell you, it was so extraordinary because he spoke to the group and we got to hang with him and ask questions for a while. And I want to say this very carefully. What came out of Joe's mouth, it was the simplest things. The simplest things, but they bore weight and gravity because of who was saying them.
Mitch Horowitz
Right.
Guest Speaker
Joe has been in combat. Joe has killed people. So when Joe says violence does not solve anything, Life is relationships. Relationships are all we take with us. There's nothing we as humans can build that can be fully protected. The only choice is to cultivate relationships. And you hear that violence doesn't solve anything. Anger doesn't solve anything. And it's like, yeah, yeah, thanks for the refrigerator magnet. But when you hear it from somebody who has earned the statement, who has lived life in both places, you know it's true.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah.
Guest Speaker
And that too was a beautiful experience. There were things that were so intimate that I learned about myself during that. That time that I cannot yet share them because they're just too intimate. But I did have this weird experience apropos of what just transpired between us. This was in like an invited week. You know, I guess they wanted some media people to come and, you know, if you had a good time, you know, spread the word.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah.
Guest Speaker
And there were people present at this thing who I had no idea were going to be there. Some of whom I needed to come to a better place with personally.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah.
Guest Speaker
And if I had heard they were going to be there in advance, I would have been like, oh, that's going to fucking stress me out. Not knowing was Putin was there. What?
Mitch Horowitz
Putin. Was Vladimir Putin.
Guest Speaker
Putin was there. And, you know, we broke bread and he's going to try some new things. And. And I needed. I needed, you know, this. And the other person for whom I can't speak, you know, that other person needed it too. And there was A lot of things like that that went on that are off the charts of any actuarial table. There's no law of large numbers that can account for this weirdness. And so when I say the world is as you are, I want to argue with that statement. People want to argue with that statement, and they should argue with it. They should argue with it. But standing in the paradox of that statement, I don't know, man. I feel like paradox, that crisscross, you know? Crisscross. Maybe that's what the Zen Buddhists mean when they refer to the Middle path. Maybe that's what's really meant by it standing in that crisscross of paradox and truth is the search. And I know that statement that the world is as you are. I know it to be true. I also know it to be confounding because I don't blame, and I never will blame people or populations for tragedies that befall them. It's not their fault.
Mitch Horowitz
Right?
Guest Speaker
And yet that statement is true.
Mitch Horowitz
I mean, technically, it's your fault if the world is you. You know, all problems, all horrors, all disasters. It's your fucking fault. The world, it's Horowitz.
Guest Speaker
There's some people who feel that way. And I've got the expulsions from organizations to prove it. It's like, fuck this guy. Everything will be better without him in this world. And I trust it to be true.
Mitch Horowitz
Did you?
Duncan Trussell
Did you.
Mitch Horowitz
And I want to go back to what you were saying about the world is you. But before I forget, did you get to use any of their technologies? Did they hemi sync you and stuff? And they.
Guest Speaker
Oh, yeah, it's all day. Yeah. You might have a group meeting where you talk about, listen, this is what we're going to attempt. You go back to your room, each room. And I love this because I love small spaces. It's like a train car where you sleeping, car. You go into your bed. It's very comfortable. You draw blackout shade. You put on your headphones and you might have a session where there's a maybe binaural beats. You do certain exercises to prep for the session. And then the voice of Bob Monroe or another teacher will guide you through an exercise. And there's a frank effort to get somewhere. I mean, I have to say, and I say this with esteem, it's results based. It's results based.
Mitch Horowitz
No, it works.
Guest Speaker
You know, they don't use the term manifesting. They use the term patterning.
Mitch Horowitz
Patterning, Right.
Guest Speaker
And it's very helpful and it's very useful. And they might ask you, for example, this is one exercise I did that was very powerful to me. And the results were so intimate, I can't yet share them. But you will, for example, go to some greater state of awareness, consciousness, which is non local in nature, and you will ask for five pieces of guidance that you need in life, starting from the most important. So five will be the most important. And then you'll work your way down. And the guidance that I received, it was so simple. And the truth is always simple. It's just that we can't do it because of the terror of the situation, right? You know, and people say, oh, my God, you know, look, if what you're saying, Duncan, about man's incapacity to let in messages wasn't true, and it is true. It is true. But if it wasn't true, we have the tools to fix the world. The Dao Te Ching would fix the world, right? The Beatitudes would fix the world, right? For people of my tastes, Nietzsche would fix them.
Mitch Horowitz
Right?
Guest Speaker
We have all the messages. Take your pick. What would you like? You know, you like ethics? Read Marcus Aurelius, right? You know, you like marching music? Read Nietzsche. You like, you know, I mean, you want to treat somebody like a human being, Read the Beatitude, right? You know, and we'd be fixed. It'd be fine. But we're not fixed. And there's a reason for that, right?
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah. Well, what do they say? A broken machine cannot fix itself? The There is. You need something outside of the black hole. I mean, really, I love the black.
Duncan Trussell
Hole.
Mitch Horowitz
Theory, that we're in a black hole, not just because I found it interesting how much it bummed me out. I don't even know why. Like, why do I care what hole I'm in?
Guest Speaker
We're not normal.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah. But also, it really is, you know, as they say, as above, so below. It really is a perfect way of describing how a lot of people are in their own subjective black holes. I mean, what you're talking about is everyone walking around in this singularity one way only, and completely lost in their own personal bubble, filled up with all of the things that they consider to be very, very real, very, very important, but ultimately are just like the qualities of the cosmic subjective prison they're trapped in. And so if that. So probably if you're in a black hole, you're gonna need something very advanced to pull your ass out of a black hole. We don't even think that's possible. Right, but you know what I mean, to follow this stupid metaphor it's like you. What you're talking about is if you keep trying to just rearrange the posters on your wall, thinking that that's going to create some substantial change in your reality, it's not going to happen. You got to clear some space for new posters. You've got to open the window. Maybe you might be amazed. It's better than a poster. It's something out there. But those. You know, one thing that seems like all of the wisdom traditions have in common is the necessity to ask that. You know, in the Bhagavad Gita, it says, don't disturb the minds of people who are asleep. Let them sleep. What are you doing? They don't want it. Wait until they want to wake up. That's the real annoying thing about it, right, Is that it's like not only do you need to ask, which in whatever way that may be for you, prayer, but you can come up with another term for it, but you also have to ask interpersonally too, because anyone worth their weight and salt is not going to bludgeon you with some kind of metaphysical shit, right, man? Because they've tried a million times with people who aren't interested to waste the time. You gotta ask. Want to be amazing? Ask amazing. Like it's over and over and over again, different versions of you have to ask first. So what's your way of asking?
Guest Speaker
Well, I do pray, and I believe prayer should be a radical thing. I think anybody can form a relationship with a deity that our ancient ancestors might have known or something that maybe is, by a different word, unknown. I mean, one of the things I write about in Practical Magic, and I fall to my knees at this. I fall to my knees. Our Neanderthal ancestors, pre sapien ancestors, a lot like us, but not us, they had a spirituality. And we know this because they had talismans like bear claws or eagle talons. Wearing a talisman around my neck. Right now, this is the Mexican folk Saint Jesus Malverde, said to be angel of the poor. Some people see him as the narco saint because narco gangs adopted him. But that came much later. Anyway, these Neanderthal ancestors, which are pre human ancestors, they carved statues which later came to be called Venus figurines in the 19th century.
Mitch Horowitz
Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah.
Guest Speaker
And these were bulbous female forms that were thought to be fertility statues. These bulbous female forms were their representation of a deity or an astrophysical intelligence, presumably with whom they sought a petitionary relationship. And I believe. I believe that that petitionary relationship with the extra physical is something that not only is it not conditioned, but it even predates human biology. I mean, can you dig that? Can you dig that it predates human biology? I mean, they were a lot like us, don't get me wrong. They weren't us, and yet they had a spirituality. So it seems to me that there is a door there. There's a door there. It's very difficult because while we're searching, while we're trying, we also must cooperate with the world, you know, and like you were just saying, Gurdjieff was often asked about this, and he was teaching before the Russian Civil War in St. Petersburg, and that's where his circle of students was. And then When World War I broke out, one of the young men came to him and said, listen, I'm against this war. I've been drafted. I don't want to go to war. You know, what should I do? And Gurdjieff said, look, unfortunately, you have to go, because think about it. You don't go. The czar's police are coming tomorrow. They're going to take you away, they're going to put you in prison. Does that make your mother any better off? Does that make your sister any better off? You know, go and, you know, try. I mean, you know, try. You know, be intelligent, do everything you can, but you're sure as shit not going to be helping your family if you get arrested. And so the young man went. Whether he lived or died, I have no idea. Of course, neither did Gurdjieff, because in a short time ahead, he and his group had to flee St. Petersburg because some of them were White Russians and they would have been killed. And he did say this, and I want to share this. And again, God damn, it's so simple. People are going to hear it, and it's going to go in one ear and out the other. But he said that there is a metaphysical law behind it. These were his words. Unflinching perseverance, Unflinching perseverance. You keep trying and trying and trying, and something will come to your assistance. It's almost like you've earned. You've paid your debts, you've paid your debts, and it may be very, very hard, but you just have to keep going. And. And that appears in a story that he tells in his book, Meetings with Remarkable Men. Yeah, and it's a very complicated story, and there's a lot of people who are going to be like, oh, God, get to the point. But the Point must be earned. And maybe it doesn't help anything that, you know, the Mitch Horowitzes of the world go and say, well, this is the point, you know, because it's not heard, it's not earned. But read the chapter, the material question in meetings with remarkable men. And don't read it before you go to sleep at night. And don't read it when you're drinking because you ain't going to get it right. Sit down when you're alert and you're ready and read it. And these simple things that we throw away, they matter. They matter. We just can't. They don't penetrate because of our condition. Yeah, we live in a black hole.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah, it's a black hole, man.
Duncan Trussell
You're not getting out a black hole.
Mitch Horowitz
If you don't have some tenacity you got. I mean, it's a black fucking hole. You gotta keep trying. And this, to me, what you're saying, this is where I align with the new age idea of this being some kind of university. It's teaching you something, and it's teaching you something incredibly basic. And it's perfectly set up as a teaching module, which is what you're describing there.
Guest Speaker
Foreign.
Duncan Trussell
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Mitch Horowitz
I devour wallets.
Duncan Trussell
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It's got this wonderful little strap here.
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You can put whatever your receipts, your cash in. Most importantly, this sweet little area, you push it up and boom, your cards are out. And it's compact and it's got a nice weight to it, which I don't know why that's important, but I really like it. Not too heavy, but not too light. Ser. Real and powerful. I love my Ridge wallet. These things are incredible. If you're like me and you're somebody who has some kind of bizarre wallet karma and you just eat your wallets alive, then you are going to love Ridge. Also, they're doing their legendary sweepstakes for the fifth time, and this time, it's insane. Two lucky winners will get to choose between a $300,000 Lamborghini Hurac Storato 150,000 Hennessy Velociraptor or $100,000 in CA. So not only will you be zipping around in some incredible sports car, you'll be zipping around with a Ridge wallet, which I hope they throw into the sweepstakes.
Mitch Horowitz
It doesn't say they do, but I.
Duncan Trussell
Guess if you're getting some kind of.
Mitch Horowitz
Super fast sports car, you could probably spring for the wallet too.
Duncan Trussell
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Mitch Horowitz
I like black.
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Mitch Horowitz
After you purchase, they will ask you.
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Mitch Horowitz
How many people have stories of they were just about to give up, but they tried one more time. If you think in terms of this place as some kind of gem, there is built in resistance to discovering one's divinity or godhood. Because these sorts of things that we're talking about, they're godlike abilities. If you have but the faith of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Nobody wants to take that literally. People want to take a lot of what Jesus says literally, but for some reason that one, they don't want to take it literally. And yet what he was saying aligns with what you're talking about, which is you can do anything, anything. But you've got to believe. And also you got to keep trying. And it is so simple. And also I think the part where you lose people the most is believing. I can do that you don't burn a lot of calories on belief. But tenacity, they'll never know.
Guest Speaker
They'll never know. The I can do it people, they'll never know.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah, it's the other part of it, which is. And then action, belief is because if you have faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. The move part is in there. You still gotta move a fucking mountain, you know? And that part is what doesn't sell. It's that, you know, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like, you could do anything, but. And everyone's gonna say you're insane because you're not supposed to be able to do whatever the fucking thing is you want to do. But if you keep trying, it's like you graduate from some class or something, and this thing shows up in your life. I've experienced it. You've experienced it without question.
Guest Speaker
And I want to say, because there's undoubtedly people listening or viewing who are gonna say to themselves, gonna say, you know, in response to this, yo, you know, in Buddhism, in Daoism, in Vedism, they speak of effortless effort, you know, the pathless path. You know, it's not about trying, et cetera. And again, I would say, let's think of that crossroads, you know, let's think of that middle path, which I've come to understand as accepting paradox. I register the effortless effort. I register that I do, and I honor it. But the trying, the unflinching perseverance, is also part of that equation. We as human beings have to live within that paradox. There's no recipe that's ever going to make it entirely clear. It comes as an experience. It came to me at Monroe as an experience people speak of. You need to work energetically with it. I don't use the term energetically because I'm not always fully sure what it means, but I accept it. I accept it as a metaphor. I accept it as generalization. I accept it as possibly literally true. But people say, you know, the healing, the relationship healing and so forth. It takes place energetically. And I. Whatever language a person wants to use, I know that to be true because I have been in and out of therapy for all my life. You know, couples therapy, psychoanalysis, this, that, bellyaching to somebody, therapy. And yeah, and I. I listen. The culture has changed for the better in that regard, and. And probably therapy has changed for the better in that regard. But it was not helpful to me. It was not helpful to me.
Mitch Horowitz
This episode of the DTFH is brought to you by BetterHelp, right? Better.
Guest Speaker
Yeah. Sorry. Blew that fucking sponsorship. I guess Ben Shapiro ain't having me on.
Mitch Horowitz
And I've benefited from it, but not because the talk therapy. I've benefited from the. Where they wave that wand in front of your face to deal with trauma that works.
Duncan Trussell
Oh, my God, the bubble wad.
Guest Speaker
It's just a bubble wand. It's just, you know.
Mitch Horowitz
Yeah, but no play with the Monroe Institute. Stuff is profound, man.
Duncan Trussell
Like, and when I was listening to.
Mitch Horowitz
That, those tapes, I didn't even know what it was. My mom just had it. She had Journeys out of the body. I was reading that. She happened.
Guest Speaker
Just got that book.
Mitch Horowitz
Oh, it's good. And that. That the, the, the. The. The way to do it illustrated in that book. Watch the fuck out, dude, because that works. And talk about not knowing what you're asking for. When I wanted to do astral projection, I'm reading this book. He makes it sound like, you know, you're voyaging through space time, which sounds like, awesome, but my experience with it was unadulterated terror. It is so scary. And the precursor that he describes in there happened to me. Your body shakes. You have this weird, like, vibration that starts going through your body, and then you're out. And you want to get back in. That's all you want. You don't want to be out of your fucking body once it finally happens, you know? It's ominous, man. You. There's a real. You understand the Buddhist attachment to the body thing that they talk about. The way when you die, you try to just jump into a new body quick because it feels dangerous out there, like a mollusk crawling out of its shell. You feel like you suddenly are susceptible to harm that normally you're not susceptible to in your body. At least that's what I felt like.
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Guest Speaker
Yeah, well, it's. It's probably also a trauma, like exiting the womb. You know, I was in the delivery room for the birth of both my sons and I could see. And in the case of one in particular, you know, exiting the womb is no fucking picnic. You know, you don't. You don't want to be there. You want to return to the familiar. You want to return to what you knew. And I think that experience follows some.
Mitch Horowitz
There you go.
Guest Speaker
Has been me throughout.
Mitch Horowitz
There you go.
Guest Speaker
I was joking before. I like, you know, these little train car sleeper compartments. I do. I like small spaces. I have no doubt.
Mitch Horowitz
Me too.
Guest Speaker
But that's some residual wish to return to the womb. And I remember when I was a little kid being in the car with my grandmother. We were passing through a toll booth and she said, I'd like to work in a toll booth. And I was like, why would you want to work in a toll booth? And she said, I don't know, I just would. And I suspect it was that very thing, that being in that small space, you know, it's. It follows us. And I think that's one of the many attractions to staying in this. This black hole that we know. I mean, it's funny because Shamir's discovery, Lewis Shamir's discovery, his hypothesis, it is the metaphor for our time because it tells us at the very outset we are not necessarily normal according to the cosmos. And that's what Gurdjieff said. He said, man sees reality upside down. And of course, we want to hear that as a metaphor, and it's not insofar as we think that the counterclockwise motion of our galaxy is normal and it turns out to be the anomaly, the aberration. We're the weirdos. We're the 40 Ana.
Mitch Horowitz
Yes, we are. But not you and me. We're the most normal. Mitch, you are the best man.
Duncan Trussell
Thank you.
Mitch Horowitz
Our conversations I think about, I just chew on them for months after I talk to you. And thank you. You're so generous with your time. Can you tell people where they can find you? You got any new books out? You seem to write a book every couple of months.
Guest Speaker
I do. There's a lot practical magic is out right now. I got a new one called the Sixth Sense, which is about ESP research and its practical application. That's coming out late in the fall. I'm starting a new one called Multiverse and it's going to be on the theme that you and I were talking about. Yeah. And I got to be careful with that one because it can be, it can be a real seduction to get attached to concept, you know, Multiverse. Oh yeah, it's a helpful concept, but it's just a concept. I did start. I got a newsletter called Mystery Achievement on Substack and I'm grooving to that. I'm enjoying the independence of that. The Charles Ford article I just mentioned is up there. And so I'm doing this, that and the other thing. And you know, people can find me. You know, the website is Mitch Horowitz.com Social on Instagram is @mitcharowitz23.
Mitch Horowitz
Great. All the links you need to find Mr. Horowitz will be@dunkertrustle.com Mitch, God bless you. Thank you so much. Thanks man.
Guest Speaker
Great to see you.
Duncan Trussell
All right, that was Mitchell Horowitz, everybody. Thank you, Mitch. Thank you to our sponsors. Come see me in Australia. Check out my other dates@douglattrustle.com subscribe and like on YouTube, leave a review for the podcast on itunes and God bless you all. I'll see you next week.
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Duncan Trussell Family Hour – Episode 704: Mitch Horowitz
Release Date: August 10, 2025
In Episode 704 of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour, host Duncan Trussell welcomes renowned author and expert on magic, the paranormal, and ESP, Mitch Horowitz. Their deep and engaging conversation traverses a multitude of fascinating topics, blending historical insights with contemporary theories about the nature of reality and human consciousness.
Duncan opens the episode by expressing his excitement to host Mitch Horowitz, lauding Horowitz's prolific contributions to literature on magic and the paranormal. Mitch reciprocates the enthusiasm, sharing a poetic rendition inspired by Jack London, highlighting their mutual appreciation for literary exploration.
Notable Quote:
Mitch Horowitz [01:07]: "I'm so, so happy when I texted you you had time to do this. It's always wonderful to catch up."
The conversation delves into recent astronomical discoveries, specifically interstellar objects entering our solar system. Mitch discusses Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb's provocative theory that such objects might be extraterrestrial probes due to their unusual propulsion methods. This sparks a broader discussion on the UFO community's heightened interest and the implications of such findings.
Notable Quote:
Mitch Horowitz [02:06]: "Avi Loeb, who is this Harvard astrophysicist, thinks that Ooma Muma... could have been some kind of probe."
Mitch draws parallels between historical scientific skepticism and current attitudes towards paranormal phenomena. He references Charles Ford, a 19th-century paranormalist, who documented phenomena like meteorites and mesmerism—both initially dismissed by scientific authorities but later validated. This segment underscores the recurring theme of authority dismissing common observations until overwhelming evidence forces reconsideration.
Notable Quote:
Mitch Horowitz [04:55]: "Authorities would mock villagers... they thought fiery rocks from space were bullshit."
The discussion transitions to metaphysical concepts, touching upon Gurdjieff's assertion that "the world is as you are." Mitch and Duncan explore the idea that humanity exists within a subjective "black hole," perceiving reality through limited cognitive frameworks. They discuss the difficulty of integrating profound truths into daily consciousness, often leading to resistance or denial.
Notable Quote:
Guest Speaker [12:33]: "We in 2025 cannot engage life in a mature way without acknowledging the extra physical."
Mitch shares his transformative experience at the Monroe Institute, a center dedicated to exploring consciousness through technologies like binaural beats. He recounts the profound insights gained, which surpassed his extensive background in psychoanalysis. This segment highlights the potential of such institutions to unlock deeper layers of human consciousness and facilitate extraordinary experiences.
Notable Quote:
Guest Speaker [29:38]: "The experiences I had at Monroe were so extraordinary... the technology that Robert Monroe... could introduce the samadhi state into the mind."
Mitch and Duncan examine the resurgence of Gnostic themes in contemporary media, notably through films like They Live and Barbie. They discuss how these narratives mirror ancient Gnostic beliefs about reality being an illusion and the necessity of awakening to true consciousness. This universality of themes across vastly different cultures underscores their profound relevance today.
Notable Quote:
Guest Speaker [18:32]: "The fact that that can communicate across such vast cultural differences... It's resonating with all of us universally."
The episode delves into the balance between effort and belief in achieving personal and collective transformation. Mitch emphasizes the importance of unflinching perseverance and the need to continually seek deeper understanding despite societal resistance. They discuss how ancient wisdom traditions advocate for a balance between striving and accepting paradoxes inherent in human experience.
Notable Quote:
Mitch Horowitz [55:52]: "And I want to say, because there's undoubtedly people listening... you have to keep trying."
Drawing from his experiences at the Monroe Institute, Mitch highlights the paramount importance of relationships over violence. He recounts insights from Joe McMonagle, a remote viewer and psychic operative, who affirmed that "violence does not solve anything" and that "relationships are all we take with us."
Notable Quote:
Guest Speaker [37:31]: "Joe has been in combat... he said violence does not solve anything. Life is relationships."
As the conversation winds down, Mitch shares his upcoming projects, including new books like The Sixth Sense and Multiverse, along with his Substack newsletter Mystery Achievement. Duncan encourages listeners to connect with Mitch through his website and social media platforms, emphasizing the continued relevance of their discussions in understanding the complexities of reality.
Notable Quote:
Guest Speaker [63:21]: "People can find me... the website is MitchHorowitz.com. Social on Instagram is @mitcharowitz23."
Challenging Perceptions: The episode encourages listeners to question established perceptions of reality and remain open to extraordinary possibilities.
Historical Context: Understanding historical skepticism towards phenomena like meteorites and mesmerism provides perspective on current scientific debates.
Consciousness Exploration: Institutions like the Monroe Institute play a crucial role in expanding human consciousness and facilitating profound personal experiences.
Universal Themes: Gnostic ideas of reality being an illusion and the quest for true consciousness are increasingly mirrored in modern media, reflecting a global resonance.
Personal Transformation: Balancing effort and belief is essential for personal growth and unlocking deeper layers of existence.
Final Thoughts
Episode 704 of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour offers a rich tapestry of discussions that blend history, science, metaphysics, and personal transformation. Mitch Horowitz's insights challenge listeners to explore beyond conventional boundaries and embrace a more profound understanding of reality and consciousness.