The A.L.L. Podcast Episode 5: Religious Deconstruction with Julie Black

welcome to the all podcast we're the Academy of logic and light I'm Megan I'm cat I'm Julie we are an ethical Community Education platform that provides a safe space for people to practice their spirituality without indoctrination y thanks everyone for tuning in to the all podcast um I'm Megan of course I'm here with Julie and we have cat as well and then we have another Julie here who we're so excited to have as our first guest on our podcast so it's it might be a little bit of a rough ride but we are so glad that you wanted to stop by and yeah share with us all of your amazing things you're doing can you tell us tell us a little bit about yourself yes uh thank you so much first off for having me I'm super excited I haven't been on a podcast before so make me sound really cool okay yes absolutely um well my name is Julie black and I am the current High Priestess of a coven it's called coven of the dark mother and um I started some deconstructing religion classes and that's how I kind of met you guys and that's just kind of what I'm doing with my life right now I'm a former member of the LDS church I've studied religion and Cults for oh well over a decade and I belonged to one so yay and now I'm in the a cold so yes oh I love that so much I also was previously part of the LDS church and so I'm so excited to hear what you have been working on and stuff so what at what point of your journey did you know that you were leaving the church and that it wasn't for you and that maybe there was more well that's interesting I you know I feel like it came to me in waves and it came throughout the entirety of my religious journey I remember being very young and having these very prolific thoughts I'm eight years old and I'm so excited to relieve all of my sins through baptism right I'd go through this baptism and then like nothing happened and I was like what what what the [ __ ] literally I'm like eight years old and I was like well [ __ ] there's another sin but I remember having that distinct thought at eight years old like my sins didn't wash away I knew that I knew that they didn't wash away I knew nothing happened um and then when I went through young women's um it was just really hard I I tried really hard to be a really good Mormon um but I really descended out of the church in my 20s um I had decided that I I was a single mother to three children and I had decided that I was ready to go through the temple after being out of the church for about eight years and I came back to the church I was doing everything I was supposed to I was a reformed Sinner and I was not sing I wasn't even having sex right like I was being a quote unquote good girl um but I get I go through these classes they tell me I have to go through these religious classes to go through the temple and I'm doing it and I'm about 26 years old at this time and this bishop has me going into a meeting and he tells me that um they decided they just decided that I wasn't ready to go through the temple because I was really young and i' I'd have I'd experienced a lot of sin in my life and he points to my three children and he tells me you need to be forgiven for all of your sins and he holds up a finger for each of my kids and I was like oh we're done so that's it so that's my quue and I was like I'm done oh my gosh I mean that is a very defining moment oh my gosh yeah I was too I I sat there and I looked at him and I looked at my kids and I stood up and I was like well I think we're done here and he's like I'll see you next next Sunday I'm like no you actually will never see me again that's it right I'm out yeah what a turn that meeting took yeah if I'm going to hell you'll be right next to me buddy yeah exactly that is so horrible the church's idea of sin was just really it's so damaging really it's damaging you know yeah so yeah that's when I decided that it was time to leave the church like for good but um Proposition 8 also came up around that time so I think it was around 20 2008 if I remember correctly I could be wrong on the dates but um Proposition 8 came out and the church was like if you are affiliated if your family is Affiliated your children are affiliated with somebody that is gay we don't want anything to do with you you can't your children can't come to church or they you know they wanted to create this huge separation and and I just knew I knew I was a queer witch for so many years you know I knew it so I was like that's when I got my name out of the church I had my name I went to a lawyer and um it was quit mormon.org I filed my paperwork and I was shaking but I did it and I was like all right here we go and yeah I was free from them oh wow what a day that Fel probably felt more like a baptism than the actual baptism it did yeah I felt so much more with that experience than I did receiving this sacred baptism you know quote unquote sacred I mean it is sacred I'm not I'm not going to deny that their rights and what they do it is sacred but it wasn't for me you know tot yeah yeah um so I was also raised LDS I think though that I um was definitely a lot more fortunate than a lot of people that live in the Salt Lake Valley because my mom converted um to being LDS as an adult because she recognized I think mostly that if you're going to live here that's the easiest way for your kids to fit in um true but my mom never really bought all the way in she always drank coffee she had tequila she never went to the Temple Church was kind of like if it's at a reasonable time we can go but not waking up at 7 o'clock to go to church on Sundays um so I always sort of had one foot out um and by the time that my brother and I were old enough to stay home alone it became our decision whether or not we wanted to go at all um so I was really blessed in that way um I do know several people that the biggest obstacle for them deciding to leave the church was family so I'm curious um like where your family falls in that area if you're open to talking about that if that was difficult for them or um like how they played a role in all of your leaving the church and deconstruction and where or they are now if you are open to talking about that yeah I would love to share that um so I I I kind of have to go back to when I was a member of the church so I had um I I lost two brothers by the time I reached 16 and this plays a big part in my story a big part in my religious story as well so I had two brothers that had muscular distrophy and so my parents really just glommed on to the religion because I mean imagine being a mother and knowing that you're going to lose two children I'm sure I would have been like [ __ ] yeah sign me up time and all eternity yep I'm there can I swear by the way sorry yeah abely I asked in the beginning but um so I I can I I know that's why my parents had that perspective my mom especially the church was very important to her it was something that allowed her to have an eternal family and the vision of that inter Eternal family was very important to my parents but ironically as we're growing up up and were going to the church um my dad stopped going to church but it was still required that I went and then as my brother's terminal illness got worse I was the only one going to church I was the only one being forced by myself as a child to sit through Sacrament and Sunday school and um young women's so I would go I would walk down to the church regardless of the weather and I would I would be the little golden girl you know for my family I was that representation for the black family so it was imperative that I did that um and I just watched my dad throughout the years I watched as my mom was really leaning into this religion my dad was leaning out of it and he would have philosophical discussions with me there were times he would never say that the church was not true but there were times where he would question the church and he would question um um the fact that he had to terminally ill children he he looked at that as a stain or he looked at that as a bad thing right it was really bad like why would God do this to me if God was real he wouldn't give me two terminally ill children and then my mom in the next breath she is so thankful to Heavenly Father for these quote unquote blessings having terminally ill children is not a blessing and it should not be looked at as a blessing it's hard and it's difficult and it was hard for her but she turned it into a blessing so um I had two brothers that were incredibly Spiritual Beings like my oldest brother he was like looking into the Light of Christ the way that it was described you know very humble very um just pure and kind and you just it radiated from him and then my my next oldest brother was really funny and quirky and he had this little sticker on the back of his wheelchair that said um we're all going to hell and I'm driving the bus you know and this was like this was before that was acceptable you know like this is in the this is in the 90s so I mean we we come from a very funny family so it was interesting because I saw that Division and I saw that I was this representation and it just pushed me to do better and better and better and then um I'm trying to think I remember I was probably around 13 and I was sitting in the middle of the chapel by myself and I was surrounded by all of these families and like they're singing this familyes Are Forever song and I my I was the only one there I don't think any of my brothers had passed at that time I was listening to the music and I could feel the spirit spirituality or the spiritual the Mormon religion you can you can feel it swell like it's tangible it exists I will never deny that and it's swelling and people are getting into it and there and you can just see these families and I'm like why is a witch in church like out of nowhere I was like oh [ __ ] like whoa where did that come from I'm 12 and I was like what like when it's in my voice right I'm saying it and that was like this this huge moment for me when I was like I just knew it I knew that I was a witch I knew that um I couldn't be contained in those walls just because it wasn't like it wasn't what it didn't feel good I saw it I witnessed it but it wasn't what was right for me so that that that moment that was very prolific for me and then um going through my brother's funeral was another really prolific moment I was sitting in there and I remember I was so young and I just kept thinking about Sin and they were talking about how perfect my brothers were and I was like you know like they they sinned I was their sister they they were Sinners you know and it just created this huge division for me and that's kind of when I decided that I couldn't belong to a religion that I felt was corrupt in just the most simple of ways like those are not ways that you should be corrupt those are ways that it should be natural um and and that's I think I felt very young I felt the corruption um my dad never ended up going back to church um they did actually uh after I had had children a little bit later in life they tried to get me to baptize my kids um but I never did I knew I knew I was done I knew that I didn't want my kids to go through that um I did at one point my daughter asked me at 8 if she could be baptized and I I said absolutely you can be baptized why do you want to get baptized and she was like well Mom I want to get baptized because all of my friends are and I was like yeah and that's really cool it's really cool that all your friends are getting baptized but why are they doing it well they're members of the church yeah they are and their families are members of the church too and um basically it ended in her not having the proper testimony and I I would never deny my child of that if they have a testimony great I will I will take you to the end of the Earth I will support you I will go with you to church um but she couldn't come up with anything other than that so I told her like nope we're not going to do that um when you are old enough you are welcome and I will support you when you have a testimony I will gladly support you um but I had left the church completely my kids didn't like the church I was a single mom my parents helped me a lot so they would make my kids go to church but there came a point when um I it was nine years ago I bought this house and um I just it was like another witchy calling I could feel my witchcraft here and I also knew that I was going to um practice polyamory full-time I had made that conscious decision and so I had a girlfriend that I was going to move in and so I like told my parents everything I was like all right well here here it is here's everything and I sat on like a a 45 minute conversation with my mom and my dad and my mom was wailing and she was crying and she's like what about your kids you know and my dad's like this is the stupidest thing you could ever do and I was like cool still doing it like here we are I'm I'm doing it um so we had that conversation and I mean there were times that I wasn't allowed to even drink coffee in my parents home I wasn't allowed to swear like if I swear in front of them they lose it so there was a huge transition and I just stood very solid in when I made a decision I was like no I know I'm making the right decision is it the hard decision yes but I'm making the right decision um and then flash forward to a lot of years um my kids didn't no one ever got baptized my dad passed away a uh in 2020 but right before he passed away I found out that he was living a double life and he had been forcing me into the religion all of these [ __ ] years and he was making fun of me when I was openly polyamorous and telling me how disgusting I was because I was I was using my Integrity I was being honorable and I was being I was I was being honest right I don't talk to him anymore obviously he's passed on but I didn't talk to him for the last of his life for the last six months um and not I not it was just like he would tell me like he would literally call me a wh because I was polyamorous and it's like bro okay call it whatever you want like I don't care you can say that you can you can say that I'm bad because I choose to love multiple people like the thing is when I was in multiple relationships I wasn't it wasn't like I was sleeping around with a ton of people either you know what I mean I know this is not religion sorry but my sexual Freedom was a big part of deconstructing religion and taking back my sexual preferences or whatever you know that was a really big part of it um my mom flash forward to my mom she is still alive but we don't talk anymore she can't respect me and where I'm at and I can't respect her I can't respect people that just live like this double life it's wild to me so that's where and the rest of my family passed so I I just I only have my mom left and then my children and my kids are not at all LDS so yeah that's my that's my family story love thank you yeah that's so fascinating is isn't it always ones that like point the finger and like bark the loudest that have the most issues usually I was thinking the exact same thing I was like that's so tell that level of projection is so telling when you're that hurtful towards somebody that is engaging in a behavior that you're also engaging in CU in my experience anyway a lot of times CU my dad side of the family is super LDS um my dad is not but he did he did go on a mission but his whole side of the family came uh across with the pioneers um wow and so uh I have a cousin that is that has transitioned and when that came out it was obviously such a huge issue and a lot of people just kind of either just didn't say anything and just cut them out um but then other people asked questions like why would you do this why are you doing this instead of outright like you're the worst person which I know people generally say but to me it seems like when there's that heavy level of attacking it comes with some level of projection whether they're engaging in that behavior or they're ashamed of something they have done or something else that it just comes out jealousy too right that's a jealousy trait too yeah totally good and I feel like with high demand religions like the LDS church you find so many more people who are living those double lives because in order to fit in and stay within the community that you have you have to present yourself a certain way and if you don't do that then you're kind of ostracized from your community and so I I feel like it encouraged people to live these double lives and they're not being their authentic selves you know at least in some aspect because they have to fit the mold that the religion has provided for them I know an unattainable mold yes absolutely yeah like no one can reach this yeah you're all going to hell yeah heal's a good motivator though right apparently send me there I want to do it let's go bro I actually had somebody tell me a week ago um that I'm going to hell and I was like cool okay let's do it like I'm ready I'm bringing marshmallows wow that's wild and then I had another question because obviously you mentioned like knowing that you were a witch for real from a really young age uh like what was something that kind of made you know I guess um let's see I think literally it was a thought that I developed at a very young age um I I hate to talk about Harry Potter and Witchcraft because I think that um one kind of demeans the other because they aren't on the same playing field however um when Harry Potter came out I was a young girl and that was the first time I really could tangibly understand what I I really thought somebody was going to come and pick me up right like I've always thought that I always thought I was going to be told that um I was living with the wrong family I I had Visions when from a very young age I just knew things I could see things I could see spirits I could I could experience energies and that just was woo culture back then that was something that the religion would talk about as bad or like if it wasn't Christ centered it was the devil and I always remember thinking well [ __ ] then I'm the devil because I like I don't I don't know I just was very perceptive to that stuff and I always just knew I've always identified as a witch and so it was more like I was trying to fit into their mold yeah I like that and when did you start making classes um so my deconstructing religion started about six month months ago and it just started with the coven where I was just allow we were doing it like twice a month and then I was like you know I think this is something that other people need I think other people need a way to talk about it or learn how to take some of those first steps so I just kind of um I'm I'm obsessed with Cults I love learning about cults and I had been listening to was a cult have you guys heard that one uhuh so good I highly recomend what's it on um Spotify it's on Spotify okay yeah and it's called was I in a cult um and it go it goes over all okay sorry I thought you said Zion a cult but you said was I in a cult that I have heard of yes okay yeah was I in a c um but I had been listen listening to it and um they hate witchcraft which I think is so funny whatever I don't care um I was like I need to do something like this but I need to do it for my people and my people are witchy people so I decided I would make that into the uh uh into the coven curriculum and then I just decided that I wanted to roll it out to other people because I want to do a podcast I want to talk about religion um so yeah so it started about six months ago cool love that thank you for doing the work it's so hard yes and so needed yeah yes so I have a question for you as someone who like also deconstructed from religion I have a hard time I find myself kind of hesitant to like work with a deity do you have an experience of like how that worked for you was it hard for you was it pretty easy or do you have any advice for kind of bridging that gap of like I want to be spiritual I want to work with deity but I just find myself like you know it starts to get a little bit like prayer like and I'm like okay is this too close to like my religious trauma is it starting to like give me anxiety so anyway I'm just interested no I love that um and it's something I would love to talk about so first and foremost I think that we um so I've been away from the church for a really long time I've been away long enough that I'm able to step back and look at it and view it differently so it's going to happen in stages for everybody right um the first thing we have to do it's the hardest thing and that is we have to get uncomfortable right and sometimes that discomfort is going back to a place where we knew Comfort previously right so we have to get okay with those things we have to get okay with the fact that we might be praying again that it might feel the same but feeling the same doesn't mean that we're regressing it just means that we are bringing Comfort into our life now and where we're at um and I have an example of that so um I think I T oh I think I talked about I talked about this in my last um ESAT that was last Sunday um I was trying to teach teach the coven about Wards and I was telling the coven that there's a time and place in everybody's life where they felt protected there's a time and a place where our grandmothers and our mothers they sang to us and they prayed over us and they prayed for us and those prayers are still active today those are still working in our favor and we have to have a different relationship with it we can still go back to those songs and those prayers and receive that same protection and that same love and we can take that and give it to another goddess or leave it to a goddess right um I was singing this song to my granddaughter and um last week I was telling I was singing to her I am a child of God and my purpose wasn't to tell her that she is or that I am my purpose was to pass on that blessing from my grandma so it took a long time to get here I wouldn't have been able to do this 10 years ago right I wouldn't have been able to sing I'm a Child of God so I sang it to her and she literally smacks me and she goes no stop I hate it so I was like okay receiv received I got it she was like we're breaking that generational curse here excuse me so but my grandmommy was there you know I felt her Lyla Jun black from the LDS church who was certain she was going to marry God when she died was there she was there and she and that blessing was passed from me because it was given to me onto my daughter and I happen to know because of my research on HEC she's one of my favorite goddesses she is so easy and hard to work with but she's very welcoming and um Colts of HEC heian cults go back for Millennia they are so ancient and they're so rooted in the occult I lost my train of thought I'm sorry you're good what was I saying I was gonna say you were telling the story about singing I am a child of God and how your grandmother was there so oh yes yes okay I knew in that moment that my grandmommy was there I felt her I felt I felt the presence of the church I felt the presence of the Gospel um and but it wasn't mine and I didn't need it to be mine I just needed it to be there because I needed my granddaughter to experience her Heritage whether she accepted it or not and she didn't she very much was like I'm going to pass I also felt he there I felt the goddess and I felt like it was a key that had been unlocked and it's something that takes time it didn't start out that way and I didn't I never sang that to my children right I'm singing it to my grandchildren right and she said no so I won't do it again but um so it starts with the small thing it's okay to pray to a goddess and it's okay if we are feeling those feelings that we felt previously we can say yes I want to keep this or no I don't and I've personally started praying to HEC again because um and this was after many many years of not praying but there's literal physical and psychological benefits to praying um that we get by having that conversation with a deity so um I would say start with an offering start by do by bringing some of your things that you did like from your previous culture from your previous religion and practice those things try it out that's that's my recommendation cool I love that I I really appreciate that Insight because I feel like the LDS like a lot of my faith in the LDS religion was based on feelings I felt but they very much so came from things that were connecting with my ancestors when I found like kind of ancestor veneration and stuff like that and started working with my ancestors I was like this is why the church felt so good to me because I was having this connection and it was like encouraging me to have this connection and so I feel like I have a little bit taken that with me but I love that framing to kind of look at the DED aspect as well that's very helpful thank you another thing um I also offer livations to my LDS family members if they can do baptisms for the dead [ __ ] I'm GNA baptize you here I'm gonna offer like come come here come have this seriously leave them offerings and I [ __ ] you not they are accepted every time every time every time they're like yep yep yes so so it's like I just make it both ways right like I'm not trying to I am trying to deconstruct but it's not in a a place of disrespect it's like I'm going to offer you the same thing but mine doesn't doesn't have a contingency and our family can be together or not regardless right like whatever I like that a lot actually like the the reverse of it that that's pretty cool I was remembering when I was coming out of um deconstructing from the Evangelical Church like even the word God or Jesus or Angels was kind of triggering to me just because it was just like the center of everything in our lives and then I was seeing like even like the spiritual witchy people were using angel names and I was like well those match with the names that were in the Bible so it was just like very confusing so I just didn't do angels at all for a really long time and then I kind of started like getting back into it but changing that uh from a male centered view to a female pers perspective of female deities and female um like ancestors and things like that but then I moved to Utah and I had a a ghost in my house that was Mormon and she wouldn't pass on because she was waiting for her husband to take her over and that's when I it was like my first experience with how [ __ ] up this all is that even in an afterlife people can get stuck with these like rooted like thought patterns had to call it a professional that's it took seven days to cross her over oh yeah so this is this is one of the things I wanted to talk about that I do in my work so I read tarot and I get a lot of people that talk about religion and one of the things I experience is all of those different religions I've had this wonderful experience where people from all over the world have come into my home I have a parlor I call it my tarot parlor I'm in it right now um here I can show you for three seconds if you want to see it yes abely it's gorgeous I love it okay um but so I've had a lot of people come here and it's so interesting because I can feel religion on them okay so hear me out I can feel like when they're deeply connecting to a Mormon God I can feel when they're deeply connecting to like Odin I can feel when they're connecting to gods that I don't even know the names of so you said something that really piqued my interest because I I this is how I feel it so um I can feel the other person's religion on them so I truly feel like you said that we it creates almost this portal and it's this group or this Collective that all of these people are praying to or experiencing and it's like there's all of these seeds and each seed I Can Feel It In The Ether and each seed belongs to the religion and I can feel when people come to me and I can feel when they're like with the Mormon God and I can feel where these exist in The Ether but I can also feel that it's bigger than that so it's really interesting because I really do think religion is almost compartmentalized like that and I really do think we add to that Collective and we can take from it too very cool that was my story I like that yeah well I always wonder too because like people talk about heaven or hell and I'm like well maybe like they put so much thought into it maybe it does exist for them in just a way that it doesn't that they didn't foresee it or maybe they're living in hell right now yeah sure well I mean there's also the truth behind um Collective thought so if you have millions of people that believe in the same God or the same creation Source or whatever it is it definitely amplifies that Anchor Point um because they're all pulling while giving energy to that space yes yeah they're it's they're creating it you know it is something that is being created yeah that's so interesting I've actually never thought about it in that um you know context but before I wouldn't have been able to but I had so many people come to me and I could feel it differently and I could feel and I'm like okay what am I see why am I seeing it differently but like there are times that I have people walk into my parlor and I'm like I have to talk to them like like Jesus Christ is standing right here and sometimes he is and I don't believe in Jesus Christ I don't I legitimately do not because I I I know I can feel things that are and are not real I I know what is isn't isn't real but I can tell you that there is an aspect of Jesus Christ that is real and he has visited me in my [ __ ] parlor I love that cat actually has told me before like this really cool concept of what Jesus could have been yeah I was told at one point that if yosua Jesus whatever um was an actual human person it's highly likely that he was actually a v he was a v ker um because there were many people that were vadic healers that had the ability to do the things that are reported that Christ did but not that he was actually you know Son of God type of AR you know that's all just a madeup archetype um which is stolen from other religions and cultures anyway um but I do I do agree that I think that there is some aspect of that I lean towards more the the actual archetype of compassion towards other people being helpful giving to the poor feeding people like that type of archetype um in that level of Consciousness to me is what that represents because I also am like this guy's suss I don't think especially white jesus I'm yeah Jesus but I always thought that was super interesting and I'm super glad I had a teacher many many years ago that had brought that up that you know um anthropologically there is a little bit of evidence that shows that people like that did exist but of course a lot of that has been erased and destroyed um because um you know a lot of those ancient cultures are suppressed and the V are one of them so love that I love that philosophy I share that very similar I think that there have been many healers there have been many different yeah I don't know I think there's been a lot of Jesus christs right I think that or whatever I don't know whatever you want to I think I connect more to the Jesus Christ because of my Mormon Roots so that's why he's like Jesus Christ to me and he's white too by the way because you know the Mormons believe he's white they really do up I believed he was and then one day I was like oh my girl you're not stupid yeah the only way just like location wise it didn't really make sense yeah yes that's so cool I remember when I was first deconstructing I told my husband I was like I don't know how far back this goes and then like kind of felt through everything and I was like you know what maybe Jesus existed and he was a really good dude but like this is not his church because the LDS church calls themselves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I'm like this isn't it even if he didn't exist this was not his church this is white Jesus's Church sure he's an imaginary character but I I also like the idea of toas right and that's kind of what that thought form creating something in the universe because we are putting so much energy in thought into it so yeah it makes me think of that as kind of this creation um of an entity or a God or whatever Julie or Megan either one of you might know the answer to this what are the latterday Saints is that like referencing like people in the Book of Mormon are they supposed to be like the Latter Day Saints we are yeah so we're the descendants of the Pioneers so we are the latter right now the Saints of this particular day so like um the church was created by Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith everybody that came after him would be considered a latterday saint leave it to a man to phrase it like that yeah that's so fascinating because the way that I understood it like Mormon people or lbs people don't really subscribe to sainthood like the way that Catholics do because Saints are like to me when I hear the word Saint I think of Catholicism like that's heavy in the Catholic religion so I kind of like always I was like hm I wonder who the Saints are of the Mormon church but then I always thought maybe it was like a super secret thing and I never have been through the temple so I thought maybe that you had to go to the temple to learn who the saints were and I never was going to get there um okay so that's interesting so anybody in the religion supposedly has is a saint then well let me let me it's it's bigger than that so let me give you a I'm Gonna Roll up my sleeves okay um this is how it works so everybody that is a member of of the LDS church they become a latterday saint so they have the ability to baptize into the church once they baptize into the church they become this Latter-Day Saint Saint is not the same as a cath in Catholicism so you can't reference the word Saint and expect the same meaning because in the LDS church when you become a Latter-Day Saint that means that you are trying to achieve that um that Purity you're trying to live that Essence it isn't that you are an actual Saint it's not even talked about in the sense that like if you are really in the church you don't really know what a saint is you wouldn't know that you would just know that a Latter-Day Saint is something you want to be it's something they hold over you you have to achieve it I see okay gotcha wow huh also it's why you find so many doomsday cults that are kind of associated with the church because there's so much about the end of times that is kind of inscribed in that idea of Latter Day right because they're saying like these are it this is the final time until not that the Mormons believe in the Rapture but like until that's happening you know but they do don't they I thought they did um it's more so the resurrection I feel like is at least a word that they use for it okay yeah okay I I interpreted yeah my dad kind of said it was like that the Mormons more believed that the meek shall inherit the earth which is why the Mormons have like so many toys and properties and all the stuff to stay underground for so long whereas the Christians believe they're going to float off to heaven and they could give very little [ __ ] about belongings or whatever well some Christians I mean think there's some definite Duality there but at least that's how my dad described it to me so I don't know if that's yeah that makes sense because I do think that there is a heavy bunker mentality that exists within the lbs religion having food storage and having you know weapons that you could hunt with and things like that to ride out the last days it's one of their tenants or I don't know if you call it a tenant I don't know what they would they call it but it's one of the things they they have yearly discussions how is your food storage um are this is how you can goods this is how much water each individual person needs to have you should have a backpack of food like it's literally they they they are Preppers they are ready for the end yeah when we had the earthquake two years ago wow and Co I will tell you that then the angel fell that I definitely have my mom was also a little bit like that for sure she had a lot of food storage and a lot of um kind of prepper stuff but she lived in Montana so it wasn't always just like end of the world things but like if there was a big weather event and she was stuck at her house you know because she lived so far north but um I definitely have I think that is one hold over that I have culturally living in the valley because I for sure have 72-hour kits I have food storage I have water um and when we had that earthquake I put all of it in the back of my car and pull my car out of the garage because if it was a before shock and an earthquake happens if your house moves you can't open your garage so you are supposed to pull your cars out and um like make sure that you're getting any supplies that you need out because if your foundation becomes unstable like the fact that I know all of these things show it's so embedded in the culture here that it is it's pretty fascinating but along that same vein then um I do have a question about um The Cult aspect of it and your deconstruction around kind of what that looked like and how that looks for you from an external perspective now looking in um I'm always curious to me because a small cult I understand it's very difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that there is a cult at the level of millions of people all over the world to hold membership in it I'm just yeah go ahead no that's right I think that it's hard because you when you I was born into the [ __ ] Covenant okay I I was like born into it and I I feel that in my I feel that in my family I feel that in my every in every aspect of who I am so it's very interesting because I was raised believing I wasn't in a cult I was liter I knew that I was told my entire childhood that I was not in a cult we don't do anything culty um we we just want our families to be together forever okay awesome well um the problem with that is everything the LDS church does they do to make it look like it's real they they hold classes they teach their missionaries demographics they have to teach to so that these demographics are more likely to be baptized so it's in everything they do and they keep you going to church constantly they keep you they have people that check up on you during the week they tell you that you can't read any of this literature that states that the church is is bad or that the church isn't real so it's drilled into you and every practice everything they do is geared toward guilt keeping you there and then unattainable goals you're going to have your family forever so they know they know exactly how to manipulate people and they make it look good they make it look great you go into a church there's this big beautiful Church all of them are the same and that right there makes you feel okay I'm at home and I'm at I'm at a place that I know so they keep everything looking good they keep everything um they have a lot of money and they ask you for money so they they ask you for this buyin and and they have this back and forth so they're like this isn't a cult and then one day you're like I don't know 35 and you watch show it's me I was 35 and I had never watched any type of Television I mean I it just was not something that we ever did because it was so filthy and I remember I don't even know what I was watching but I was watching oh it was Survivor um I was really into Survivor and um I had watched some of the previous Seasons when I was LDS but I stopped because again it was a little filthy um but I decided to watch it again and when I was watching it I went back to the same episodes and I saw on Survivor there was um in the in the beginning episodes there's this um timeline of events because I think they were in I don't remember where they were maybe Nicaragua they were in a really ancient place and they have the timeline events on this placard and I read it today or you know in this time period And I was like oh my gosh there was information on that placard when I was watching it that told me the church was invalid that invalidated the entire existence of the church it was about like their I don't I can't even remember I don't remember the fact I wish I would have but see see it again at like 35 and I was like holy [ __ ] that was a cult it really took me that long it took me that many years and I've really in the last probably five years I've really understood that it's a cult I I I can see it I can see the programming I can see that um the modest dress was a way to um stifle women it was a way to keep us in the church to keep us in their practices and so I just had to I like I recognize even today everything I do everything is rooted in religion and in that cult and I really was doing culty things I was reading Bibles I I was um taking Sacrament I was eating bread and drinking water that's that's rituals that's culty you know that's cult behavior um so I just had to like get out of it really really really out of it to look back and can just see in everything that I did and everything that I do now I even sometimes worry about like what I say or I'm like oh I shouldn't swear because I might offend somebody and it's just it's wild it doesn't leave it doesn't I I think that's the biggest thing people need to know it doesn't leave you have to deconstruct every day it's every thought it's all the time yeah my dad kind of had a sermon where he would talk about having a like boiling lobster but you have to put the Lobster in like room temperature water and then slowly turn up the water and then the next thing you know like you're in a cult right like it doesn't just dump you in you're you're like oh cool like Kumbaya no it's like starts out slow and then the next thing you're like why are they knocking at the door for tithe like what in the MAF [ __ ] is this and it's strategic right they're so strategic about it they're it's down to um I mean it's if if we knew how strategic and how how intelligent they are it would be I mean you can see that it's intentional it's intentional in everything they do well and this is kind of the mindset that I went through was because like when I realized the ancestor work thing um I really felt like oh my goodness there are so many like practices that they're using that they're putting themselves between you and that practice so I felt good when I was like communicating and working with my ancestors but I had to go through their God to do those things and um and because of that like I they were using these like things that to me really still are rooted in my spiritual practice but they were just telling me that in order to get those things I had to follow their rules to be worthy of it and they use a lot of Shame and so to me they're using like real things and honestly I think a lot of the people there today do believe it and but they've we've just been so conditioned and that it's from like the top down of like if you don't do this you don't get those things and people don't leave it and explore the side of what we're doing to be like oh I can connect to God on my own know oh I can serve my ancestors without having to hold a temple recommend or whatever yeah they take away your autonomy intentionally because you have autonomy you are capable of thinking for yourself and that really is one of the worst things a cult member can do if you start thinking for yourself you start recognizing that you watch Survivor and it can deconstruct your religion and through 3.7 seconds you know but I I think the weird thing to me too I didn't say this before but I didn't even notice I didn't notied when it first happened I read the I read it and I'm sure I read it as if it was like a fake sign but I had since done research and it was factual information and so it was just weird to see that see it from one perspective knowing I was completely right and then seeing it from another perspective and then actually knowing that I was completely right the second time right M uh one of the things I really enjoyed about the zoom that you hosted was um one that everyone had a space to talk and that there was so many different religions and everything coming in and sharing but uh the one of the things that I literally have two things that I haven't really been able to like get out of my head was one someone who had asked how do you how do you deal with needing prayer when there's not a man around and that is like like Has Broken heart I think about it nonstop um because at least in the religion that I grew up in it wasn't necessarily like that so it's like something a little bit newer for me but then the other part was um how you were um you were talking to one of the girls that I think she was Methodist and telling them how yeah how the Mormons don't know that the actual history of Joseph Smith and the 14-year-olds and the miners and all of those really sedy stories because they keep that part hidden and then not allowed to watch the news or do your own research and all of those things and yeah those those just really stuck with me yeah um I think the biggest takeaway for me when she talked about not being able to pray without a man it's the the fact that it's really true I've had those thoughts myself how if my kids get sick how am I going to bless them how do I bless my children how do I help my children feel Comfort when I have to get the comfort from somebody else um I think one of the things we can do to kind of combat that is recognize that we don't need anything outside of ourselves we aren't we don't have to have a goddess we don't have to have a God we we it doesn't even have to be a prayer it doesn't it can just be our own acceptance right just those words like I I I need this help I need this strength you know um ask your higher self that type thing um and then the Joseph Smith stuff I don't even know that is wild it's just it it's sad because we have a testimon well we see here I am being my I'm gonna just pop into my Mormon body for a second okay no it's true though right because like like I said I I deconstruct I mean you would never look at me and think that I had been LDS ever you would never you would be like that [ __ ] is probably like I don't know a witch everyone but I I wasn't always like this but um so I do have to deconstruct even still but I also want to say before I go into the Joseph Smith stuff that it's okay for me to to refer to myself as Mormon because there is a part of me that will always be Mormon I did get baptized at8 I experienced it and it was very riveting especially for me now looking back at that it I built a lot of character and the LDS church gave me a lot of really good things so I'm not grateful I'm not thankful [ __ ] that but I am and I was Mormon at one point right so um but Joseph Smith I remember being a young girl and they would pray to him and I always thought that was so weird there was not a huge emphasis on Joseph Smith and my home it was more on Jesus Christ heavenly father and the Holy Ghost the Trinity was very important um and I my first tattoo was like an homage to the Trinity I didn't know that it was actually heck a but whatever right but I just remember hearing people talk about Joseph Smith and I never felt good about him he never sat right with me but this is a man who was really good at lying to people he was really good at making people believe stories at the age of 14 Joseph Smith traveled to now you have to understand he was they were poor they didn't have a lot of money they worked in fields they had what they had and not a lot more um his family traveled he talked his parents into traveling to a sear in another town so this 14-year-old boy actually at the time I think he was 13 he travels to another town because he hears of this girl that has a stone inside of a hat she reaches into the stone and she starts to um have visions she can see the future so he he gets really excited about this because he sees an ad in the in the paper that he can go and see the sear and he's so excited and he had to save all this money if I remember correctly I might be wrong but whatever if I'm embellishing his story it's you're not the first but so he had to save up his money and he goes and he sees her and he puts his hand in the Hat she lets him put his hand in the Hat he puts his hand he grabs onto this rock and he sees the stone under a tree and he goes to this place and the stone was there I'm not going to deny it that [ __ ] happens I can do [ __ ] like that right anybody can we can do that stuff we are capable of doing that um but it was really amazing and so he had these stones and these Stones they were it was very um very occult to begin with I don't know if a lot of people know that but the church definitely was very occult their religious ceremonies for weddings in the beginning were occult practices they adopted it from um I don't know the specifics but um their practices were very woo practices and Joseph Smith was at the helm um but he he married a lot of women um he introduced polygamy into the church because he I truly believe he liked younger girls I mean he talks about it he talks about he he talks about some of the ways he got wives some of the things he did to acquire wives he would send I it was either Joseph Smith or Brigham Young but they would send F husbands away on missions and then the families would be under the care of the prophet and then the prophet would marry the daughters I was it Joseph Smith or was it briam young it was one of those two I'm pretty sure it was Joseph Smith yeah I think that was in the beginning of the religion you are correct yes but also he married somebody's wife too yes like yeah anyway sent him away on a mission and was like you're mine yeah well um but they don't so again this isn't stuff you talk about right like this is never discussed I think the first time I heard anything really weird about Joseph Smith was when I had decided to go through the temple and my um Bishop at the time he was like telling me about a story where um Joseph's wife Joseph's wife Emma did not agree with the church she didn't agree with the way he was doing things um he would bring people while he was transcribing the plates and he was building his religion he did it inside of a small cabin and they would be upstairs in the cabin they would be drinking it was either a cabin or church it was a cabin yeah and they would be drinking and they would be spitting their Tobacco on the floor and then Emma would have to go and clean it up and Emma's like which I don't want to do this [ __ ] anymore I'm not doing this like if you're gonna do this I'm not doing it so that's kind of how the the um their little Word of Wisdom came around because Emma was like [ __ ] this I'm not I don't want to be part of this um and Joseph was marrying women behind Emma's back and he he they actually were living separate lives and so my my Bishop is telling me about this and my mouth is hitting the floor and I'm just like what what what are you even saying I can't believe your Bishop told you yeah I know no I I had no I was like wait they they did what they what and I just sat there and I was like okay but um that was my real introduction to Joseph Smith and I mean there's so many more stories but yeah he's he was very very dishonest very yeah yeah my mom was really against the word wisdom um she just thought it was bananas garbage so hypocritical the most hypocritical text that's ever been written for a church um because she just was like couldn't understand ever how she couldn't get a temple recommend because she had coffee and a tequila or glass of wine sometimes but then her neighbor could be on volume and drink diet coke all day which if it's supposed to be a Health Directive to make sure that your body is clean and your body's a temple which one's healthier you know like if you're being pragmatic about it you know she just saw it was so bananas and then she found out the same thing that actually it was Ren because Emma was like [ __ ] you [ __ ] I'm not so he was like oh well now God says we can't do these things fed how convenient yeah when I was in high school um I was deciding whether or not I wanted to be in the church and at that time I was doing it behind my parents back so I was um on my lunch breaks I would go to the gas station and I would get myself a cappuccino but it was like 90% hot chocolate and like 10% coffee right and I was oh my God I was such a rebel but I would drink it and I [ __ ] you not I was like I I knew coffee in another lifetime like it it was so important to me I was like um at one point one of the one of the Bishops was like um are you going to let a small thing like coffee coffee keep you from the temple and I remember in my mind thinking am I going to let the Church keep me from coffee I love it and then one day I I have this like loaded up hot chocolate I spilled it on my seat of my car and it was probably my third time and that was enough of a sign that I didn't do it anymore because I knew that it was God telling me that I was sinning and my dad got in the car the next day and he's like it smells like coffee and I was like it's hot chocolate I promise so um I just remember at that time I was like coffee is so amazing and then there are are literal health benefits to coffee but there are literally zero to Diet Coke yeah yeah Diet Coke makes no sense yeah but it's their it's their juice you know their Lifeline yeah um I love all of that so much I have a another question for you to kind of not necessarily change topics but as someone who's I I'm not necessarily new but I don't have like a coven or anything because I find myself hesitant having been duped into going to one cult to kind of invest in something else that's a group practice like that and I'm just curious if you have any suggestions for how to find a c that is going to be respectful of your autonomy as well as you know honoring all of that so if you just have any advice on how to avoid a coven that might actually be a cult as well um so it's kind let me back up a little bit it's kind of important that we understand that um so I'm not a cult leader I'm not starting a cult but I am dealing in the a cult and we do have occult practices and so there are rules and regulations that go into um the work that we do right yeah absolutely there is definitely a crossover there I I accidentally um was doing one of my esbats with my coven and I said we are a cult and like their mouth dropped I'm like no a cult U LT we are a cult right um so it's just kind of important to understand that um in life especially where we are at right now we are dealing with cult all over the place it isn't just a religion it can be our leggings it can be um our families we can have a family system that presents us a cult um because it's an organized familial system um we can have Cults within our friendships so it's imperative to understand what a cult actually is right and it's important to understand the distinction between a cult that you are attending or cult-like practices right yeah so um with that being said it's very imperative when you are picking out a coven that you find a coven that aligns with your values um I have personally made three four different covens I think and um I've I've had in-person covens I've had covens with people that are young and old and and of all craft all sorts of craft and um I think that rigid covens are difficult it's difficult for people that are getting into it and it's difficult for people that are maintaining it but there is space for people that want that rigid like give me what I'm doing and how I'm doing it right so so find if you find a c and Google I would Google it I would Google like covens in my area and then I would talk to them I would I would try and um have like a uh like a text conversation with with a um a high priestess or a high priest usually if it's a coven it's going to be a high priestess because it's more of the divine feminine however we have Cults that do not subscribe to that right so reach out have a conversation send them a message um if it's a if it's a good coven they're going to have a list and I I I shouldn't say that good covens are good covens and they're all different kinds of coven but an established coven should have a list of their goals have they should have it written out what they expect of you and what you can expect of them um and then really find out if that coalign with your values and maybe you want something that isn't so rigid and if you want something that isn't rigid you should be a member of coven of the dark mother insert here advertis kid let me tell you about my coven so um like I said I've made three other covens this is the coven of the dark mother it is ambiguous it is dark and it is intentional um my coven is pretty LAX I do not um I have wiccans I have I don't care what you do I don't care what your religion is um I don't care what you practice um I hold space for people that need space Cas and I it is in in the Covenant of the dark mother we honor all deity so somebody could come in and believe in Jesus Christ and that would be respected and that would be honored um somebody could come into the coven and they could um they could they could be Wiccan and and have Wiccan practices Wiccan is very structured it's a very structured coven um they only do their magic together um so in my Covenant I call it a hybrid coven so we meet around um the quarters and cross quarters in person but we're all over the world so I have a lot of people in Utah but I also have people outside of Utah as well and they can't be here in person because that would be really expensive um so we will do events where for example this Sunday um one of the members of the coven is hosting um belain and we're going to have tacos and fruit and then we're going to live stream while we're there so the rest of the coven can also be a part of that um and then uh a couple other important things that I I just I that I felt were important when creating a coven um when I selected the name I actually the previous name of my coven was coven uh was the Black branch coven which was my names my my um last names and my mom's last name um but it transpired into this because I wanted to autonomy and one of the first things I talk about in my coven is that the dark mother to me might be the dark father to you might be the dark mother to me might be Julie black but the dark mother to you might be HEC or Gaia or it might be c ma or maybe it's Odin or Thor like there's there's so many embodiments it could literally like I would not have a problem if somebody came came into the COV they're like okay well I believe in um Loki or Thor or whatever right like that I wanted that to be I wanted to strip that away the and the very first rule of the coven is honor your no I don't give a [ __ ] what that is I don't care what your no is I just care that it is a no and I care that you express it so I can honor it so that's like that was that's what I formed my my most recent Covenant around um so I recommend Google searching find out do you want something that's more hybrid are you looking for um somebody that you can do actual magic with um there's also different places in Utah that have been popping up that are more Pagan um I would say that my coven is more of a pagan witchy Pagan coven um we teach I teach a lot about um Celtic um and druidic um teachings but I I mean I will learn anything and teach anything right um and and I offer other people to do the same thing so that's kind of how my coven came around and how you can find others I love that I think you brought up a really good point too is like when you're leaving one thing before you go into the next thing is find out what your nose are and knowing what your boundaries are before you go into the next thing because doing that inner work and research is kind of important like okay I don't want to harm others let's start there like you know going through and figuring out because how can someone respect your boundaries if you don't know what they are absolutely um and that's why I wanted to for I wanted to I wanted to take I wanted to put autonomy back into it I want people to understand that um if you are and I I'm very much like if this is harming you in any capacity is it is a no if I can see the discomfort it is a no I am more than happy to have your voice for you until you have your voice I will help with that that is one of my goals in life that is my mission is to give people a voice until they have their own and that's super important in the work that I do I love that I love that yeah yeah I had I had a teacher that kind of you know really opened my eyes about the fact that there's no such thing is bad and good you know and we have this you know like whole conversation around deconstructing what good is is or deconstructing what bad is um and the the their philosophy which I kind of have adopted to is really the the most you know because I think when a lot of people you know flipping from I'm guessing that we're going to have the majority of the people that are going to listen to this podcast are probably people that are reconstructing LDS because that's just here in Salt Lake more so than other religions but I do think that there is this kind of like you know um because you're so indoctrinated from such a young age around anything that has to do with covens or witches or any of those things when they hear that instantly their body is going to be like oh that's bad and it's such an important part of the deconstruction process to be able to know or to be able to understand where your value of what good and what bad actually is where where are you drawing what good is from is that from being indoctrinate is that from an inherent knowing that you have like what what does that actually mean what does good mean um and I say all that to say that um because I don't want people to be I love that so much and I love covin and I also practice craft and I um you know have my own set of beliefs and practices and um I think that it's difficult often times for people when they're deconstructing to kind of be open about that because there is that inherent I what I'm doing is wrong what I'm doing is bad like I learned my whole life that this is terrible things and if I'm open and honest about the who I am and the things that I'm interested in all the people in my life are even going to hate me more than they hate me for leaving the church in the first place or they're going to think that I'm even a worse person when there is no reality concepts of bad and good are constructed by Society there's not anything you know I mean obviously there are things that are harmful and I would steer clear of those things like s and you know doing things to other people um but to go back to loop back to what the teacher kind of was like you know the only evil that I've ever come to know in this entire world really is people that use other people's Spirit to manipulate them and that is religion on the whole using somebody's soul to manipulate their behavior to be in a certain mindset which I think is really difficult especially with the Mormon religion um because it does stick with you for for your whole life like things that are so indoctrinated into you become such an operating system that's happening in the background that even when you leave it's still operating there and that level of spiritual manipulation lingers for such a long time um I guess my question is do you f have you found as you have deconstructed and um been in covens that it's I don't want to say easier but does it does it kind of um I would assume that it kind of fills that spiritual community space that you lose um when you leave a religion absolutely I think that's one of the biggest especially with the coven we have now that's one of the biggest drawbacks to leaving the LDS church especially in Utah is that you lose Community you lose actual family members and people if you if they find out you're in a coven it's like okay that's the end of the world because now you're just crazy and wild and you're you're doing witchcraft you know and it's evil it's the epitome of evil kind of like what you said before um I think that the community portion is important and it's the one that I hear over and over people want Community um sometimes they want to talk they want to have a place to discuss things they want to talk about what they experienced in their religion previously or they just want people that aren't going to look at them like they're crazy or make them feel a certain way because they want to practice witchcraft you know just accept them for who they are yeah yeah mindblowing concept uh I think that's one of the things um with the coven that I really like to focus on as well is um the resources that we do offer we can offer a community we can be there for each other um we also I it's so important that in this space people are able to fill what they feel even if it's only momentary feelings it's valid they need a place to talk about that um uh one statistical fact um so a lot of the people in my coven are neurode Divergent which means that they are on some type of the spectrum whether it be ADHD or um autism or whatever I I have autism so I um created my C in this way so that people that are neurode Divergent have a place that they can be neurod Divergent safely um I think that's important and so my um my goal in creating the coven was creating that space for people so they can be openly neurod Divergent like really speak their truth um I I really strive to keep people in there that are capable of doing that and I I strive to create that environment because it's something that people lack and it's something people need they need that support they need to people need to feel like they can be stupid without being judged right like we need that and maybe stupid is the wrong word we just need to be accepted for who we are we need to be humans we need to be able to be quirky humans that sometimes I asked a girl to close esbat um which is our Sunday meetings three weeks ago and she was like I don't know what to say other than heavenly father I'm like Girl Say it With Your Chest say it and she did and she like shook it off and she's like okay that doesn't feel right and then she's like I'm going to do it again I'm like no you just said it doesn't feel right if it doesn't feel right we don't live there anymore you tried it it doesn't exist that isn't your move try something else and she's like well then I'm going to use my name I'm like then say it with your chest um so yes I think that it's especially the deconstructing religion courses is a place for people to open up to say those things and I'm going to go back to the statistic I never said a neurod Divergent person statistically needs to tell their story to three different people or on three different occasions they need to verbally say it to feel like they're being heard um so that was another reason I created deconstructing religion because I think that people coming out of that need it they need to be able to talk about it those words have to come out of their mouth over and over I really love that you have an open coven first of all but um so if if someone's interested in learning about your Cen or potentially joining your coven How would how would people um like what's the best place to find you I guess um so I do most of what I do on Facebook right now I have an actual group and then I um it's called coven of the dark mother and anybody can go into the group so if you searched on Facebook you searched coven of the dark mother you would find the coven and then um we would ensure that all the questions were answered and if they were we'll let you into the group and then when you get into the group that's where I post about esbats I post about um um sabbaths um classes anything that we're going to be doing I post in there but but I really don't I'm not going to do the work for people anymore I'm done being a secretary so I let everybody into the group group um then i i welcom in them to come to esbat and then in order to attend an esbat um they have to understand that they are becoming an initiate an initiate has to work with the coven for in a year and a day before they can actually be a full-on member of the coven now being a member of the coven means that they come to esbats it means that they different rituals that that allow them to go to a different level or to go deeper in the coven um but they still practice other ways so um sorry I'm going I'm diverting let me go back so um you come into the group and then I I have they have to listen to the first esbat so the first ESAT I recorded and it's an introduction to the coven um I go over our um we have a Coven etiquette document and then a year and a day document that I've created and they have to sign both of those documents and they have to listen to the first ESAT and then they can start be they can start attending esbats and that means that they're an initiate at that point that means that they agree they want to attend esbats and try and become um an actual coven member um now if they decide not to go any further then they don't have to go any further they can still attend esbat I do charge a fee I charge A3 to5 fee um actually no it's $ five doar I charge a $ Five Doll fee for esbat but it's not required they can come they can learn stuff they get handouts they get to practice magic virtually and then they're done they get little notes actually I have I'm going to turn on my camera um so I have like I create this is a book of shadows that they can fill out every time they attend an that's so gorgeous so thank you um so it's just basically at their level um it's at their whatever level they want and they can they can get into the coven and become an initiate or they can just come into the group and experience the group and then come to esbat when they want to it's really I really made it open so I hope that answer your question yeah thank you I know I've heard before and something that I have kind of done to help have that Community um without like the kind of the step of committing to a coven because I know that can be hard because I mean it sounds like yours is very welcoming but I know that some cins are very like controlled in what you have to be able to bring and give in order to receive which is great like totally get it but um I started a study group and like just created a Discord and we all chat and like we would get together virtually and so I feel like that's kind of a good step if someone is kind of in between the like not quite ready to commit still exploring um but do you have any suggestions if anyone's kind of in that space kind of things that they could do to connect more with the community or to kind of move into being ready to join into a coven yes absolutely um so I have designed it where we do uh um coffee once a month where you can come and and everybody always pulls tarot and it's just like fun witchy conversation you know and it looks we look like a coven which I love I love looking like a Coven in the middle of Utah County um so those events are welcome to the public um and those are hosted on um once a month and then the deconstructing religion classes I think I don't know what to call it it's it's like a group it's really just like a group right those are open I think that's a really good place to start because we talk about ways in those deconstructing religion classes we talk about ways you can get rid of your garments or your religious materials and either repurpose them or get rid of them in a um more spiritual way or in a ritual way um so I feel like those de constructing religion it doesn't cost anything I just host it for free I I like I create my own C curriculum I don't I don't even know half the time what I'm doing I'm just like this sounds good so I'm gonna do it um but I think those are some ways um also getting into the group there's no commitment there um it's a it is not private so people will see that you're in the group but um I I don't think the group is as as as exciting as the es fats but um I do also allow people to attend an ESAT without charging I will sponsor people and invite them to come um so I feel like those are ways you can um get to know coven of the dark mother and the coolest thing about it is you can be located anywhere right you can be located and still attend meetings so yeah awesome I love that those are great yeah I can't believe it's been an hour and a half I know I had a feeling I had a feeling this girl is GNA talk okay we definitely this perfect we had a lot to cover yes yes it's all been so interesting and like very engaging so I just like now was like oh my goodness I can't believe it's been that long oh I love it though yeah well thank you so much for sharing and coming on here and also your voice for podcast is spectacular you have to do a podcast thank you thank you I that is one of my gifts is my voice I don't know how I do it but you know I I'm not trying I'm I'm humble actually I'm not I'm not humble listen life is too short to be humble thank you um but we really are an inclusive group we want people um I want people to experience what it's like to be accepted and I want want people to learn how to be accepted in an open space because that's not something people are even capable of doing when they're leaving religion so um I I know there's people out there and if they're called to it I'm happy to meet people where they are I really am because I think that's important too so I just want to put that out there people want to reach out and discuss I'm happy to discuss I love talking about religion I love I'm very passionate about what I do and so I I love to discuss it and I I loved being on her this has been amazing it's literally a dream come true well thank you so much that was awesome yeah we love having you thank you for everything that you Shar yeah hopefully we can do some more collaborative work together as well thanks for joining the all podcast to find out more you can find us online at academyof logic andl light.org or on 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