RR Podcast Introduction: What Do I Mean By 'Rejected'?
Summary
TLDRIn this introductory episode of the Rejected Religion Podcast, host Stephanie Shea delves into esoteric and occult topics, discussing their historical roots and modern-day perceptions. The podcast aims to reach a mainstream audience interested in understanding these often misunderstood concepts, covering subjects like witchcraft, alchemy, and secret societies. Shea explores how certain beliefs became taboo under Christianity's dominance and how they've resurfaced in modern culture. Future episodes will feature interviews with scholars, starting with a discussion about the infamous magician Aleister Crowley. Listeners are encouraged to engage through social media and the podcast's website.
Takeaways
- 🎙️ The podcast is hosted by Stephanie Shea and focuses on esotericism, occultism, and related concepts.
- 🌐 The website www.rejectedreligion.com serves as a hub for connecting all online platforms associated with the podcast.
- 📖 The goal of the podcast is to introduce esoteric and occult topics to a mainstream audience, especially those without academic expertise.
- ⛪ 'Rejected religion' refers to ideas and practices considered forbidden or heretical by dominant religions in Western regions, especially Christianity.
- 🔮 Topics like witchcraft, astrology, alchemy, and indigenous beliefs, which were not always considered heretical, are key areas of focus.
- 📚 The terms 'esoteric' and 'occult' are defined, with esoteric knowledge being hidden from the general public and occult meaning 'hidden' or 'concealed.'
- 🧪 Esotericism and occultism are linked to both historical and modern contexts, often blending science, religion, and culture.
- 📺 The host will explore how occult ideas have permeated modern pop culture, including TV, books, and music.
- 🎧 Upcoming episodes will feature interviews with scholars, including a discussion on Aleister Crowley with Thomas Fombreda.
- 🔗 The podcast aims to build a community where listeners can interact, share ideas, and discuss topics through various social media and live chats in the future.
Q & A
What is the main theme of the 'Rejected Religion' podcast?
-The podcast focuses on topics considered forbidden or heretical to the dominant religion in the West, particularly Christianity. It explores the esoteric and occult, including witchcraft, divination, alchemy, and indigenous beliefs.
Who is Stephanie Shea and what is her role in the podcast?
-Stephanie Shea is the host of the 'Rejected Religion' podcast. She is excited to produce content that reaches out to a mainstream audience interested in the esoteric and occult.
What does the term 'rejected' refer to in the context of the podcast?
-In the podcast, 'rejected' refers to everything that is considered forbidden or heretical to the dominant religion in Western regions, such as Christianity.
What is the purpose of the first episode of the podcast?
-The purpose of the first episode is to introduce the podcast to a mainstream audience, providing context and explaining terms like 'esoteric' and 'occult'.
How has the perception of certain beliefs or practices, like magic and astrology, changed over time?
-These beliefs and practices were not always viewed as heretical or forbidden. It was only after the powerful church conquered and ruled particular areas that they became frowned upon or taboo.
What is meant by 'esoteric' in the context of the podcast?
-Esoteric refers to special knowledge that is known only to certain people, an inner circle, as opposed to exoteric knowledge that everyone can know about.
How does the term 'occult' differ from 'esoteric'?
-While 'esoteric' refers to special knowledge known only to certain people, 'occult' simply means hidden or concealed, and can be found in many different places, not just in secret societies.
What is the concept of 'occulture' as mentioned in the podcast?
-Occulture is a term that combines 'occult' and 'culture', referring to the integration of occult and esoteric ideas into mainstream culture.
What role does popular culture play in the podcast's discussions?
-Popular culture is used as a reference point to show how rejected knowledge and occult ideas have transformed and found new expressions in modern society.
What is the plan for future episodes of the 'Rejected Religion' podcast?
-Future episodes will include interviews with scholars and researchers, and discussions on topics related to the upcoming interviews, as well as exploring the connections between the occult and popular culture.
How can listeners engage with the podcast and its community?
-Listeners can engage by joining the member list on the website, following on social media platforms, and participating in live chats and discussions.
Outlines
🎙️ Introduction to the Rejected Religion Podcast
In this opening episode of the Rejected Religion podcast, host Stephanie Shea introduces the podcast and its goal to reach mainstream audiences interested in esoteric and occult topics. She explains that the podcast will focus on subjects often considered forbidden or heretical to dominant Western Christian religions, such as witchcraft, divination, and indigenous practices. The aim is to shed light on how these ideas were historically repressed by powerful institutions but continued to survive underground.
📜 Understanding Esotericism and the Complexities of Definition
Stephanie Shea delves into the terms 'esotericism' and 'occultism,' explaining their historical and academic complexities. She highlights how esotericism is difficult to define, much like religion and spirituality, but notes its presence across various domains like philosophy, science, and art. The term has evolved over centuries, with scholars attempting to categorize diverse practices under the umbrella of esotericism, showing its fluidity across different areas of thought.
🔮 Occultism: From Hidden Wisdom to Cultural Tradition
This section explores the term 'occultism,' its connections to hidden or secret knowledge, and its shift in meaning through history. Stephanie highlights how occultism was once linked to alchemy, magic, and mystical religious ideas, but later became a specific construct during the Enlightenment. At this time, occultism sought to position itself as an empirically provable wisdom tradition, distinct from religion, with examples like spiritualism and mesmerism reflecting its attempt to align with scientific standards.
🌟 The Concept of Rejected Knowledge and Occulture
In this final section, Stephanie introduces the idea of 'rejected knowledge,' as coined by scholar Valter Hanagraph, and how the Enlightenment era marginalized esotericism and occultism. She also touches on how occult topics have been absorbed into modern popular culture, coining the term 'occulture.' This term, derived from 'occult' and 'culture,' represents how occult ideas, once rejected, have now become integrated into everyday media, art, and entertainment. She closes by discussing her future plans for the podcast, including interviews and community engagement.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡rejected religion
💡esoteric
💡occult
💡heretical
💡alchemy
💡secret societies
💡occulture
💡rejected knowledge
💡spiritualism
💡seances
💡enlightenment
Highlights
Introduction to the Rejected Religion podcast and the host, Stephanie Shea.
Focus of the podcast on esotericism, the occult, and their historical context in Western culture.
Explanation of 'rejected religion,' referring to beliefs and practices considered forbidden or heretical by dominant religions in the West.
Discussion on how witchcraft, tarot, astrology, alchemy, and indigenous beliefs were categorized as forbidden by Christianity.
Historical shift: Certain esoteric practices were not always considered heretical but became taboo after the rise of the Church's influence.
Introduction to esoteric knowledge as 'inner knowledge' accessible only to certain groups, contrasting with 'exoteric' knowledge available to everyone.
Examples of secret societies like the Freemasons, which promote hidden knowledge and are often misunderstood or seen as deviant.
Explanation of the term 'occult,' meaning hidden or concealed, and its application in various domains, such as religion, nature, and alchemy.
Occultism in the 19th century: Viewed as a wisdom tradition and counter-cultural movement, seeking credibility during the Enlightenment era.
Popular examples of occultism in history, such as spiritualism, mesmerism, and seances, which aimed to prove the existence of an afterlife.
Relevance of 'rejected knowledge,' coined by scholar Wouter Hanegraaff, to describe the esotericism/occultism that was rejected by Enlightenment thinkers.
Exploration of how occultism, often seen as superstition or charlatanism, became marginalized by both religion and science.
Introduction of the term 'occulture,' coined by Genesis P-Orridge, blending 'occult' and 'culture' to describe the influence of occult ideas in modern society.
Occult and esoteric concepts' transformation in modern-day popular culture, evident in TV series, films, books, and graphic novels.
Announcement of future podcast episodes, starting with an interview about the infamous magician Aleister Crowley.
Transcripts
[Music]
hi
everyone and welcome to this
introductory episode of the rejected
religion podcast
i'm stephanie shea and i'm really
excited to finally be producing this
content
and hope that you will enjoy your time
with me please visit
www.rejectedreligion.com
for more information about this podcast
and about my background
the website serves as a hub to connect
all of my online platforms
so i'd appreciate it if you check it out
and stay connected with me that way
the goal of this first episode is to
reach out to the mainstream audience
those of you who are not scholars or
experts
but who are interested in the esoteric
or the occult
or are interested to know more about it
and the history of it
but may not really have a clear idea of
what those things really are
so what do i mean by rejected
in rejected religion simply put
what i'm referring to is everything that
is considered forbidden
or heretical to the dominant religion
located in the west
in the west meaning the european and
scandinavian regions
great britain and ireland and the
americas
the dominant religion i'm referring to
is christianity
whether it be roman catholic or
protestant
so now we can start to think about
what might be considered forbidden or
heretical
and of course one thing's a witchcraft
forms of divination like tarot and
astrology
alchemy and the indigenous beliefs and
practices
of the conquered peoples in these
various regions
okay so that's the simple answer but
it's a bit more complicated than all of
that
actually but for right now let's just
focus on a few things that will help to
contextualize what it is that i'm trying
to do with this platform
an important thing to remember is that
historically
certain beliefs or practices such as
magic astrology or alchemy
were not always viewed as heretical or
forbidden
it was only when the powerful church
conquered
and ruled particular areas that certain
things became frowned upon
or even taboo and as a result of that
these things or ideas never just went
away
they just went underground so to speak
the beliefs that i'm referring to can be
seen as
part of an elite or chosen group of
people who were deemed worthy of knowing
about it
so in other words the beliefs and
practices became a type of secret
to be kept this leads us to some more
terms
esoteric and occult these words have
been used for centuries
but for many of us today they are vague
and difficult to really understand
so let's start with the term esoteric
the prefix
so means inner this term
is referring to special knowledge that
is known only to certain people
an inner circle as opposed to exoteric
the prefix exo meaning outer referring
to knowledge that everyone can know
about
we see examples of this with groups such
as the freemasons
where you have to be taught special
information and techniques
and be initiated into the group groups
such as these
became known in everyday language as
secret societies and due to the nature
of the group
they were perfect targets for those
outside of the group
to speculate as to what they were really
doing and most often this was being seen
as
deviant in some way we can see a
contemporary example of this with
scientology
their training levels being highly
secretive and
only accessible to a member once they
pay for special courses
plus this information is not to be
shared with non-members
because it's a secret which leads me to
the word occult
which simply means hidden or concealed
or obscured so in this case
the information that scientologists
claim to know would be considered occult
knowledge
but again of course it's not so simple
these terms are heavily laden with bias
nowadays
and it takes some time to sort out what
is actually meant
when one uses them and when they are
used to refer to a category of something
such as esotericism or occultism
things get really complicated especially
in the academic world
to begin with the term esotericism
in english is a modern scholarly
construct
and it is very difficult to define a lot
of people have attempted to do so but
the definitions are diverse
just as an aside the same problem arises
when scholars try to define religion or
spirituality
it's nearly impossible to come to a
consensus in academia as to what it is
we are actually studying
but back to our topic we'll discuss all
these different viewpoints regarding
esotericism in later episodes but
for now it's relevant to point out that
esotericism is not just
one thing uh scholar valter hanagraph
talks about how esotericism doesn't
really belong to the areas
of religion or philosophy it's not a
scientific approach
we can't say it belongs to the domain of
the arts
either yet it is found in all of these
areas
even though it's largely ignored
and while the term esotericism is
relatively new
being used since the 19th century many
streams of
thought that have much older origins are
seen
by scholars as being a part of
esotericism too
it's a term that scholars like to use to
label or categorize world views and
practices
moving on to the term occultism we can
see the same type of thing happening
as with esotericism occult means
secret or hidden as i said and
these occult things could be found in
many different places
such as astronomy for example
when a planet obscures the sun this is
known as
stellar occultation so occultation that
that holds the word occult so it's
hidden
but it's also seen in religion for
example as the term applies to
ancient secret wisdom or the hidden imam
spoken of in the religion of islam
for my purposes here however i'm
referring to various beliefs and
practices
stemming from previous centuries such as
the 16th century viewpoint
of the hidden and mysterious nature of
god
the hidden characteristics or features
of nature
or the obscure quality of alchemy and
magic
this type of knowledge or understanding
was not viewed as being something that
everyone knew about either
yet we see a shift in the perception of
the concept in the late
1800s when the term occultism
was introduced now it was seen
as a particular construct that described
a type of
wisdom tradition a quote unquote
that had a definite beginning as opposed
to
just various ideas or practices that
it's been
evolving over time or appropriated by
other people and it was seen as a
counter-cultural tradition as scholar
christopher partridge puts it
a tradition was needed to establish a
type of
credibility and respectability that was
lacking
in the very new enlightenment way of
thinking about the world
so it needed an ancient source to make
it seem
grounded and something older like the
christian church already had
but it went a step further
there were those who were saying that
occultism
was different from religion as it was
empirically provable
because at the time of course it was all
about the new science
and empiricism and you needed proof of
things
and religion was suffering under this
we can see examples of this new
occultism with mesmerism
and spiritualism with regards to the
latter
people were shown what they saw as proof
of an afterlife and a spirit world in
seances where the spirits of the dead
would show up to give messages to their
loved ones
still living in this plane of existence
the society for psychical research was
founded in this time period
to research this phenomena and to try to
gather
evidence such as ectoplasm
or witness accounts of objects moving
through the air
on their own accord during seances
or witness accounts of apparitions of
spirit beings
or even photographs of spirit beans
things like that currently we still see
this type of
thinking in new age concepts of
channeling
and spirit guides as well as those
who are examining this type of
phenomenon
one can make the claim however that this
was seen by
most as being proof of something real so
even though they were looking for proof
it it just wasn't accepted as as being
proof
which leads me back to the word rejected
but in another form
that of rejected knowledge this is a
concept coined by
valder hanograph there we have them
again
in order to try to explain this modern
version
of esotericism slash occultism
as being all of the stuff that has been
thrown into the
historical waste basket so to speak
by the big thinkers of the enlightenment
era
because it's seen as clashing
with all of the standards set by both
religion and science
so we can see that this area is still
separated from
the rational or from the real physical
world
it's written off as superstition or
hocus-pocus
gibberish or the ravings of a crazy
person
or just a bunch of charlatan rubbish
i think you get the idea
be that as it may most people associate
the occult
and occultism with black magic demons
and the devil and everything associated
with that
which was also certainly rejected by the
dominant religion of christianity
there's more that could be said about
all of that and this will definitely be
covered in future episodes
what i found personally interesting to
study is how
all of the ideas and phenomena i've just
mentioned
have transformed and found new
expressions
in modern day popular culture another
very interesting concept that i'll be
returning to often
is known as occulture this term
was most likely coined by the late
genesis p orig
who was a performance artist musician
and
magician probably most well known for
his work
or their work i should say with the band
throbbing gristle this term is a mix of
the words
occult and culture as you can hear
it's based in the concept of what
sociologist colin campbell called
the cultic milieu in the early 1970s
which he defined as including things
like unconventional forms of science
non-conformist religions alternate
approaches to medicine
plus all things considered occult and
also fringe ideas like alien races
spirit channelers faith healers and
other new age concepts
campbell was referring to modern western
culture
that is fairly secularized meaning that
while religion is still around
it doesn't hold the ultimate power and
influence it once had
in society and due to this an
underground of all this
other stuff i just mentioned is added
so in fact it's all of the stuff that
has been rejected
interestingly though all of this stuff
has become
every day an ordinary as christopher
partridge
so aptly puts it
this is evident in the wide variety of
tv series
films books and graphic novels that are
presented to us
and in art and music as well as the
podcast progresses i will make it
a point to refer back to popular culture
references
so that we can see how a culture plays
out in the wide array of topics i'll be
covering
and while i'm on the topic my plan
is to provide a monthly podcast
interview with various
scholars and researchers and throughout
that month
i'll provide information related to the
upcoming
interview topic on all the social media
outlets i would really like as well for
you
the listener to join my member list on
the website
so that i can see your comments about
things that you'd like to discuss in
more detail
i'm continuously trying to work on
expanding
our communication outlets so i'm hoping
to provide
live chats in the future of course once
i have
enough subscribers and members um on the
youtube channel so please
check that out subscribe there
uh if you if you find it interesting uh
i hope you do
join the uh member list on the blog
on the website and follow me on all my
social media platforms
and that way you'll be connected with
everything that's going on
i'm hoping to build a good community of
people who are interested to
communicate and share ideas with each
other
also if you have any questions about
what's been discussed in an episode
please list them on the podcast page at
the website
or on youtube where i will also upload
the
episode of course
for those of you who are interested to
read more
i'll provide a list of books and
articles that i used as reference
material for this episode
that discuss all of this stuff in
greater detail
i'll put that on the website for you
all right this has been a very brief
introduction that gives a bit of context
as to what this podcast is about as well
as discussing some terms
and concepts that are important to know
about before we get into the
nitty-gritty of things the next podcast
episode will be an interview about the
infamous
magician aleister crowley with my friend
and colleague
thomas fombreda who holds a research
master
in religious studies from the university
of amsterdam
so i hope you return for that very
interesting discussion
thanks for listening
you
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