Becoming a Wizard by @cahlen on 3Speak
A wizard is someone who commits to the Truth no matter what it turns out to be and uses it to enhance the freedom and wellbeing of all people. Here I share the story of how I came to embrace that p...
Tags: #truth #freedom #wellbeing #health #religion #spirituality #life #lifestyle
Hey everyone, Cowan here, and as you can see, I finally got my Wizards hat back, and in celebration, I thought I would make a video talking about what I mean when I referred to myself as a wizard. Okay, so in the past, many years ago, I made a video basically talking about all of this, but I recognize that most people will not go back and watch that because they like to watch... videos that are recent and that's something that I do often complain about because I have, you know, like 1,100 videos, which I think are, most of them are still highly valuable and worth watching. But at the same time, I recognize that I also prefer to watch videos, which are recent, and so I really shouldn't complain. So, anyways, a lot of people have suspicions about people who call themselves wizards. and in a way I would say that is warranted in certain circumstances, but I wouldn't call those people wizards, at least not in the way that I use the word, I would refer to those people as sorcerers, okay? So I'll talk about what I think a wizard is and what a sorcerer is, and then I'll talk about, I'll just share with you basically a story about how I became a wizard, okay? So in my definition, A wizard is someone who chooses to seek the truth and to accept it no matter what that truth turns out to be. So now a sorcerer, which is distinct from a wizard in my definitions, does the same thing. So both a wizard and a sorcerer seeks the truth. But the difference is that a wizard, and the word wizard comes from the word wise, and ard is like referring to, like, a drunkgird is someone who gets drunk. A wizard is someone who embraces wisdom. Okay, and wisdom is recognizing the truth, the fact, that while we all, it's basically impossible for any of us to act outside of what we believe our self-interest to be. that our self-interest is actually dependent on the interest of other people, okay? So when we harm, when we bring harm into the world, ultimately that harm comes back to us, okay? So really, it's just recognizing the truth that harming others makes things worse for ourselves. Okay, so to put it succinctly, a wizard embraces truth and uses it to increase the well-being and freedom of other people. So truth, freedom, and well-being are the core principles of a wizard. And that includes the well-being and freedom of all other people who are not seeking to harm or harming other people. So a sorcerer is different because they will embrace truth. But in my opinion, they are making a mistake by not recognizing the truth that harming others ultimately harms themselves. And so they will use truth and keep it to themselves and use it to benefit themselves only. And they are perfectly willing to harm other people in order to reach their goals. So I'll just leave it at that for now if you want to... see more of an expansion on that, then you can watch my video, What is a wizard? And now I want to share with you kind of my personal story of how I became a wizard. I didn't recognize it as becoming a wizard at the time. But now, many years later, I think, like 25 years later, 26, 27 years later, that's how I see it, okay? So a long time ago, after I graduated high school, I went to a... Christian University, I was raised Christian, was Christian for 15 years, and while I was in that university, I became disillusioned by basically the Christians around me, okay? It all seemed very fake, like no one really knew what was going on, and everyone was, they personally wouldn't recognize this about themselves, but it seemed to me that everyone was just putting on a show. and just repeating what they were told to believe rather than actually being interested in figuring out what was true, okay? So I came to a crisis, and in the midst of that crisis, I was in a situation where I was alone, and I basically prayed to the Creator, and I said, if you will show me what is true, then I will agree to share that with as many people as I can. Okay, so that was the agreement that I made, okay? And basically within a few days, if not a few weeks, I actually stopped being a Christian because it became clear to me. It was made clear to me that that was not the right path, okay? So, then I was taken on a... journey of exploration, okay, so I basically became a Buddhist at that point, and I ended up going to a Buddhist monastery for almost a year and trained intensely to become a Zen monk, and that was my intention was to become a monk. Okay, and so that ended up following through for various reasons, and I came back and I rejoined the world, I started living in, you know, in the Seattle area and became a video game tester and eventually a QA lead, and then I eventually became a producer making video games. And during most of that time, I was an atheist, okay, so I was really into what people call the Four Horsemen, which Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, I think I'm getting these names right, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, okay? So I was really into those guys, I watched all their videos, I listened to all their debates, And, you know, I really towed that line for a long time. But then there came a point where I realized that that wasn't true either. In fact, that was less true than Christianity. Christianity, actually, at this point in my life, I recognize that a lot of the principles and methods of organizing society of Christianity are really in the best interest of humanity. So while I wouldn't call myself a Christian currently, I do recognize that there is a creator and that there are proper ways to live. And that a lot of those are the things that Christianity talk us about. Now, I still wouldn't call myself a Christian. I mean, I am, I would say, culturally Christian, but I do embrace a lot of the things that they teach. And I'm still remain, because if you commit to... seeking the truth, then you always have to be open to the possibility of it. I was wrong, right? A journey of the ex-relation, like what I just explained to you, I went through being a Buddhist, through an atheist, and exploring all kinds of different things, and I had to actually go through that to learn that I had been wrong previously. Okay, so part of embracing truth is recognizing that there's really nothing that you can be sure about, except that this is happening. Not even any specifics about it, just that the phenomenon of the current moment is occurring. And that is the only thing that you can have 100% certainty about. Okay, so you always have to be open to the possibility that you're wrong, okay? So even with Christianity, even though I was a Christian for 50 years, 15 years, and I'm extremely familiar with all the different, well, many of the different perspectives. on who Jesus was, what he did, all kinds of conflicting stories. My current stance on it, I also have to consider the possibility that I could be wrong, right? So while we're on the topic, a lot of people don't like wizards. They are skeptical, suspicious, and even some people want to just kill wizards, anyone that they think is a wizard. And that has a lot to do with what the Bible says about wizards, but I think it's worth mentioning to you that the Bible is originally in Greek, okay? It's not originally in Hebrew. And I've talked about in other videos. And the Greek word that the Bible uses to refer to what I would say are sorcerers is pharmacos, okay? And this comes from the root word, pharmacaya, which basically... You probably recognize it, pharma, right? It's about essentially using drugs, okay? So when the Bible is talking about those people, and Poisoner is one of the translation of this word, okay? So basically these are people who are intentionally harming other people. And that is what the Bible is talking about when it's talking badly about them. And it's not referring to a wizard. In fact, In the Bible, who are the people who came and visited Jesus when he was born? They were the Magi, okay? So the Magi are basically just priests of the Zoroastrian religion. And the Zoroastrian religion basically commit to the creator of the universe, the Lord of wisdom. And the principles... of that being, if you want to call it that, are truth, freedom, and well-being, okay? And the opposite of that, what people would call Satan, is lies, slavery, and the harm of people who you do not have concern for. So anyways, if you feel that wizards... are people who you should be concerned about, then I would say you're not using the definition that I'm using. So if I'm calling myself a wizard, I have a different definition than you, and so you have to recognize that we're not saying the same thing, okay? And I would agree with you that what I would call sorcerers are a big problem in this world. Probably, I mean, basically the people who are in control and who are doing what is being done to humanity are sorcerers. we should be concerned about them. So I would agree with you there. Okay, so let's talk a little about a bit about occult and magic, which are associated with wizards. Occult just means hidden, so anything that's occult is something which has been hidden from humanity with the intention of hiding the truth from them so that they are more easily controlled. So that's what the occult is. And magic is basically the use of truth in combination. with creativity and skill to bring about changes in the world, okay? So those changes can be good or for bad. So magic is not bad, according to that definition, is not bad either. And I'm sure many of you have heard that several people, in our past history, very smart people, have pointed out that sufficiently advanced technology is not distinguishable from magic. you know, to a person who is not familiar with that technology. They don't understand how it works and this type of stuff, okay? So if I was to take a cell phone back a thousand years, they would probably think that I was, you know, using magic. But really, it's just technology. So in a sense, technology and magic are not different from each other. But we'll talk about the more traditional, like, what do people think about magic, like firing lightning bolts or... like lightning bolts out of your hands, you know, like a dark Sith lord or something like that, you know, from the Star Wars universe. And people are think, well, Callan, are you into magic, okay? So, I don't have any magical abilities, you know, I can't, like, telekinesis, or, I don't, I can't even read, I can't read people's minds. I do feel like I am an empathic person, okay, so I can sense. the emotions and mental states of people around me. But I think that's just kind of a basic human trait that is repressed in most people. So I don't have anything. It's kind of like Gandalf, you know, in the movies, Gandalf didn't really do a whole lot in terms of what you would call magical abilities. There's a few cases in the movies where he did some things. But in the books, it's even less pronounced, okay? It's basically he's just a wise person. who has some abilities, and a lot of those abilities, for example, come from the ring which he wore, which the elves gave him. Okay, so it wasn't really anything innately magical about Gandalf, you know, well, not, I'd say more than most of the people in that show, but it wasn't, Gandalf being a wizard, it wasn't about that kind of thing, okay? So if you're going to associate me with, like, types of wizards, I would say Gandalf is really what I mostly... feel I am in alignment with. So that's basically my thoughts on being a wizard and my story of how I feel like I became a wizard. But I also want to just mention one more thing. People are also suspicious of me because of the color that I wear, black. Black is generally associated with evil. But I just think that black is a cool color. Okay, so, and also black has all kinds of different... benefits for survival purposes. For example, if you're not washing your clothes very frequently, it doesn't look dirty even though it has a lot of dirt in it. It absorbs more warmth. There's all kinds of different benefits to black clothing, which I talk about in a different video, which I made a long time ago. I think it's called wearing black, but I'll put a URL at the bottom here if you want to check out that video. And also, I want to just share one more thing about myself personally. During the period of time where I was, you know, living in the normal world, and I had a very standard lifestyle and perspective on things, and I was transitioning into kind of waking up to what's going on, it was a very difficult thing to become aware of, okay? And a lot of the truths about this world are extremely disturbing. And, you know, that was difficult to deal with, especially... you know, combine with the fact that when you try and make people aware of these things, they will both ignore you and attack you, okay? So those two things together made for a very difficult period of time in my life, and so that's when I started to actually think of myself and call myself a wizard, and I met with a girlfriend, an ex -girlfriend a few years ago, who we'd been broken up for several years, and she was asking me about, why I called myself a wizard. And she had been thinking about it, you know, of course, you know, if you've got a friend that you grew up with or you knew for a long time, and suddenly they start calling themselves a wizard, then it's going to seem odd to you. So, anyway, she had an insight. She basically said, well, I think that you did that because you were having a difficult time. And... you know, finding out these truths about the world, and to embrace something which seemed almost playful, you know, it's like, it's fantasy, it's taking the seriousness out of it, in a way, and she basically recognized that that was a coping mechanism for me, and I think that that's true. I think what she was saying was actually part of what was going on there, so that was actually a very... special moment for me when she shared that thought with me. And I remember we actually, when she said, when she brought up the topic, like this whole, you're calling yourself a wizard thing, we both, you know, broke out into laughter for like 30 seconds, like, you know, the type of uncontrollable laughter. So that was really a carthetic, car, catharsis, I can't think of the word. for some reason. But anyways, cathartic. It was a very cathartic moment for me. So, and I would say that's probably one of the most treasured memories that I have in my life, among many others, but I would say it's very special to me. So anyways, I just wanted to share that with you as well. So anyways, I hope that's useful or at least interesting to you. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you guys later.