Hearted Youtube comments on ESOTERICA (@TheEsotericaChannel) channel.

  1. I found your channel a few days ago and have been bingeing it since! This is definitely a video I’ll return to. I grew up a Pentecostal Christian fundamentalist, so everything surrounding Acts and Paul was extremely important. I can’t think of a single sermon I’d listen to that didn’t ever mention him or what he did. Paul being an apocalyptic mystic makes SO much more sense than just all of a sudden Jesus showing himself and he decided to not imprison Christians because of it. I’m no longer Christian, but learning more about religious history and context is always fun and this video was a huge nerd moment for me!
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  2. Very interesting topic, and a little disappointing to the deist that still lives somewhere in me. Growing up with the Bible it always seemed that God was just more active back in the day while Judaism was being established, then everyone passed down those stories/myths and did with them what they would. I was not expecting this type of origin story for Yahweh himself.
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  3. Such a great and fascinating deep dive! Honored to have shared this Abulafia project with you!
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  4. Wonderful video, as always! Thank you for your work (fellow prisoner 😉). It's great to encounter someone who knows what he's talking about! I've been interested in Gnosticism for the past 15 years and I've heard so much BS over the years... It's also nice to see some cool art (Zdzisław Beksiński, Nicholas Roerich, etc.).
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  5. Whenever I see all the illustrations of women in tubs connected by pipes, it looks to me like some sort of symbolic representation of a process. But then, I've been a computer programmer for years and have looked at lots of flow charts, process charts, state machines, and data flow diagrams, so that is definitely influencing how I process images like these.
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  6. On another topic, I'd just like to wish Jake Stratton-Kent well has had an unfortunate turn of health this week. I'm sure that many Esoterica subscribers will be familiar with his work
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  7. "Abyssated - Oh Unknown Nothingness" Man this channel is amazing for death metal song titles
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  8. something i'd recommend is setting the titles to each section as headers to populate the outline and make it easier to go through. if you switch it to pageless mode (under Format) it'll also be cleaner to read on a computer. i'm excited to have a list like this
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  9. I’m extremely happy you made a video on these two silver amulets! Ever since you talked about them briefly in your Kabbalah series, they’ve lived in my mind rent free as objects of wonder and gladness at their survival through the years and subsequent discovery. I wish their existence was more widely known because they’re such absolutely fascinating objects. Thanks for the video!
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  10. Haha, the trident of boners. That was a funny story. Robert Fludd was a proponent of the weapon salve, swore by it although many people were suspicious of its diabolicalness. One thing that blows my mind about the Renaissance is that these guys could, at just about any time, be condemned for sorcery. People nowadays are afraid of being cancelled on social media, I cannot even fathom being burned alive for my beliefs. These guys were total bad asses, especially revolutionary thinkers like Paracelsus. Fearless confidence.
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  11. So: watch this space for the classic of the late first-quarter of the twenty-first century grimoire tradition, the Malleus Justini Sledgii. ;) (Sorry...couldn't resist!)
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  12. chappel roan being mentioned in this video was NOT expected
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  13. "...and eventually become a fully Akhtivated Akh." Don't you dare think that went unnoticed.
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  14. To me the pistis Sophia is very important. Important to merit its length. Pistis sophia is the Jewish? Gnostic? Iamblikus. Here’s where we learn about the travels of the heavens. As those people traveled in the planet, they were grateful to know of the dangers they could encounter. In a similar manner the pistis Sophia is a sort of travel guide of the underworld in my opinion. Thank you for the great episode Sir. ❤
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  15. Great appreciation for the 'this is fine' joke.
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  16. This video is so much more than a great companion of the Let's talk religion counterpart video. Keep up the good work Dr Sledge and I hope you do a video on Orthodox Christianity soon.
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  17. Aka J-Ditty.... The subtle jokes on this channel are seriously the best. Thank you DJ Sledge
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  18. You had me from “deep introverted meditation.”
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  19. The AI bots have been terrible, Thankyou Dr Sledge for making free videos on collage level courses on philosophy and religion for all of us on YouTube, hope the bots calm down.
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  20. sneakily checks calendar
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  21. I'm practically furious I'd never heard of this woman before. This so throughly vibes with the representation of suffering i was taught as a child that pushed me away from the church. Just hiding her fullness to further whitewash what they taught...
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  22. This was a sublime and fascinating lecture. The hours of research you distilled here down to one video are remarkable. You've definitely earned another subscriber!
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  23. I literally didn’t believe your channel was real, that’s how cool your topics of interest are in these videos. I thought you were a nutjob. Instead, I get that good good deeply sourced academic history.
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  24. The scroll demonstration was fascinating. I know scrolls were and are a thing, but seeing one actually rolled and unrolled like that gives me an appreciation for the difficulty of using and storing scrolls. Thanks.
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  25. The scholarly and personable approach to this material is inspiring. Thanks
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  26. Great work. I enjoyed the extra humor in the episode. I'm looking forward to the catalog of books. Maybe a series on Bernard of Clairvaux in the future.
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  27. I do appreciate your subtle, dry sense of humor.
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  28. It's really interesting how the Kabbalist view evil as a sort of ontological literal thing and not just a privation of the Good like most Monotheistic theologians at the time. It almost reminds me of late Zoroastrian beliefs in a way. Thank you for the episode, Dr!
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  29. I have my popcorn at the ready. Been waiting for this the ENTIRE week.
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  30. Such a delight! (in a somber sense) thank you for posting the link to the woodcuts. Back in the good old days at University, studying art history, I tried (unsuccessfully) to delve deeper into medieval woodcuts depicting the inquisition. My professors did not consider them art. It would have been fascinating to really look into them, outside the usual religious art and do a quasi (very speculative) study on social constructs of the period and region. I love this kind of stuff and your presentation as always is top notch! Thank you 😊
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  31. It's refreshing to see these subjects treated upon in a sober, scholastic, yet sympathetic fashion, without the juvenile and frankly embarrassing claims of magical powers or dubious first-hand experiences which always seem to attend any such discussions. Thank you.
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  32. It’s amazing how much light emanates from ‘the dark ages.’
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  33. Hey Justin i really appreciate your effort in putting out weekly content that must be grueling turn-around time for such consistency and it makes my friday. I fell asleeo to a kot of your videos on paternity leave. Do you have any more William Blake in the oven? You implied you were working on more at the end of your Blake video and I'm fascinated by his mythopoeia, plus I feel like his particular brand of anarchism is some sort of starting point for spiritual reconstruction. As a rec, you should check out the band La Armada. They're a dominican punk band now living in chicago, but their sound leans more toward metal I think you'd appreciate. Thank you for always putting these up for free, helps me keep my academic aspirations alive despite the evidence for the fact that I'll never finish my degree lol
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  34. This idea of encoding (or "discovering") powerful sigils and then tapping into their potency by storing them deep within the mind reminds me a lot of the Caryll Runes found in Bloodborne, a game heavily steeped in Gothic and Lovecraftian occultism. The idea of "vacuity" of mind being a purer form of consciousness which leaves one more open to communion with greater cosmic powers is also explicitly present in the game. Very interesting―I knew little about Spare, so this was quite enlightening. Thank you, as always!
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  35. Hi Justin Sledge! Welcome to the audience!
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  36. "If you want aeons, they got aeons. They got aeons for days around here" 😂 That cracked me up!
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  37. This is among my favorite episodes on this stellar channel. Interesting and delightful thru and thru. I suppose it’s because Dr Justin is bringing his usual childlike wonder and academic rigor to a topic with which i thought i was familiar, thanks to my Protestant upbringing. I also found the inclusive closing message downright moving. That’s probably due in part to my growing affection for Dr Justin, along with (perhaps!) the Irish whiskey i’ve been enjoying while i listened. 😋
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  38. i think it would be really cool to see you go over the silent scandinavian movie "Haxan" from the 1920s (it has been translated) it claims itself to be what amounts to a documentary on witchcraft of that time and older. it would super interesting to see someone so knowledgable on these subjects weighing in on it. i also think it is in the domain for fair use now, as it is over 100 years old.
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  39. Dear Dr Sledge, You are among the only acedemics that do not treat the book of Mormon as a punchline and I am grateful for it.
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  40. "support your local occult oil maker" , ha ! I love this channel.
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  41. Dr. Sledge. Thank you for your unfailing scholarship and presentation. You never fail to impress.
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  42. Brilliant work. What an incredible finding, a stunning fragment. Might the strapped “Re’evok” refer to the androgynous tefillin worn by the Shechina, as she descends back into the masculine, into the eighth sefirah (low, low, low, low, low, low, low + low) keter, which follows the ‘seven lower ones’ the ‘zayin tachtonim,’ and which is symbolized by the ‘tefillin of the head’ called ‘the crown.’ Assisting its return and re-ascent to the ‘heights of the crown.’? Edit: This would fit with the words from the verse in Esther the fragment is commenting on (5:1): “and Esther donned [the garments of] kingship/majesty” and the rabbinic reading of the “levush malchut” “garments of kingship,” from later in the text, associated with “the large crown” and “yakar.” Both references to the tefillin of the head. See Crowns, Tefillin, and Magic Seals, In Keter: The Crown of God in Early Jewish Mysticism (pp. 49-57). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.
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  43. It would have been really interesting if you brought on board a chemical engineer to try and figure out what kind of chemical compound(s) you actually ended up making at the end.
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  44. 'bird hitting a window is always a bad sign in movies' (very paraphrased) - reminds me of the practice of augurs in ancient Rome.
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  45. Great episode. I'm reminded of a long running question I've had about the prehistory of the goetia: how are the seals constructed? Like how do we get from the characters of the PGM era to the seals in Dr Rudd. Was way cool to see the earlier seal of Solomon design from the Harley MS.
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  46. Honestly you are one of the most brilliant thinkers and teachers of our time. Thank you 🙏🏼 so much ! Shalom
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  47. Please don't ever change, Sir. You have a very soothing effect on me... I'm sorry if my comments are out of place. But sometimes even simply watching and listening to a beautiful person such as yourself speak can have a very healing and comforting effect. I appreciate your erudition and sometimes I even find myself interested in the topics you're talking about, even though that's not the main reason I subscribed to you. Sending love and positive thoughts from here, from Romania. Signed respectfully, an ex-christian lonely man who tries to navigate his way through life. Cheers and all the best to you, Mr. Sledge!
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  48. If I have to be honest, coming from an East Asian background (Taiwanese specifically), I've never actually been exposed to spiritual alchemy before, and I've always understood alchemy as purely just "Medieval science", so this was actually a really interesting exploration into an entirely different interpretation of alchemy that I had simply never known before.
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  49. Can I say that I am loving this series for the historical context as a gentile. It's super interesting to see how thing progress along other world events.
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  50. Thank you Dr Sledge. I have been studying the Book of Jeu since your first mentioned it. In my opinion, the book is the foundation of Masonic, Rosicrucian and Golden Dawn traditions. The use of tokens, knowledge and treasuries is very similar to tokens, grips, knowledge lectures and grades. I think that the Book of Jeu can be used a complete magical system like the golden dawn but more beautiful and complete.
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