Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
This is not a conscious personality. This is like a semi conscious, very disordered personality. And what has come to my attention from reading Jung about this and from my own experiences with the mystery school is that there's a deep way in which the story of the incarnation, death, resurrection, Pentecost of Jesus is a story of an unconscious God becoming conscious by incarnating as a human and experiencing the pain of his own creation.
Kate Northrup:Wow. The episode you are about to experience is one of my all time favorites I have done so far on Plenty. It is with Carolyn Lovewell, formerly Carolyn Elliott, the author of Existential Kink which is one of the top books that has changed my life. I read it in like 30 seconds and I've told everyone about it ever since. Her work around alchemizing shadow is absolutely groundbreaking.
Kate Northrup:She's a PhD in psychology. She is an expert in Jungian, philosophy and she is so freaking smart and revolutionary. So today, we talk about how to alchemize the things that we are unconsciously attracting, including scarcity and rejection. And if you are offended by me saying that
Speaker 3:you are unconsciously attracting things that you don't want, just listen into
Kate Northrup:the episode and see what you attracting things that you don't want, just listen into the episode and see what you think. I think she is one of the most interesting people I have ever talked to, and I'm so excited for you to hear this episode. Enjoy. Welcome to Plenti. I'm your host, Kate Northrup, and together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level.
Kate Northrup:Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups.
[voiceover]:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrop brand.
Kate Northrup:Carolyn, thank you so much for being here.
Carolyn Elliott:Thank you, Kate.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So I heard about Existential Kink from, now a dear friend who was at the time a client, in my mastermind, and she just, like, mentioned it offhand, and and I had sort of flagged it, and I ordered your book. And then literally, I think 3 years later, I finally pulled it off the shelf. I'm I'm like this. Like, I order books, and then just at the right time, they just kind of talk to me from the shelf.
Kate Northrup:So I pulled it out. I read it in, like, a week, and I have, I think, brought it into nearly every conversation that I've had, at least, like, the deep ones ever since. And so just to begin with, I would love for you to describe what existential kink is, and then I would like to share an example of how I've been using it in my life.
Carolyn Elliott:Absolutely. Thank you. Yes. So existential kink is basically this idea that we as humans universally have, unconscious attractions to things that are not good. So we have attraction to dark painful scary things because our souls are whole.
Carolyn Elliott:Our souls and we can get into the metaphysics of this but our souls are reflections, are microcosms of the macrocosm and they're interested in
Speaker 3:the whole range of human experience, not just the good part that our ego is interested in. So existential kink is
Carolyn Elliott:the idea that we can make these unconscious desires conscious by giving them lots of love, lots of approval, actually deep somatic, even erotic embrace in our bodies with practice. And that when we do this, we sort of take away the pow the actual creative power that those desires have when they are unconscious. So, people have all sorts of I had all sorts well, I'll just start by talking to the first person. Great. All sorts of unconscious desires for things like scarcity, rejection.
Carolyn Elliott:Those were the 2 big ones. And gradually, as I made them conscious and really just enjoyed them deliberately and consciously, they stopped having the magnetizing attracting power that they did as long as they were unconscious. So, you know, there's this famous quote from Carl Jung, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate. And boy, oh, boy, is that true in my experience. So, existential kink is sort of a very rapid cutting edge method of shadow integration, of integrating the unconscious mind into the conscious mind, and it can create very dramatic deep shifts in people very, very fast.
Carolyn Elliott:So, yeah, that's that's the quick definition of it. I could go on and on.
Kate Northrup:So good. Yeah. So the way that I've been explaining it to people is what you said, which is having is evidence of wanting. Yes. So if something's coming up in our life, it's not random.
Speaker 3:No.
Kate Northrup:Right? Because we all have different issues. Right? They're as varied as there are humans. Of course, there are themes.
Kate Northrup:But, like, so if it's showing up, it means it's for you in some way. And you have I do wanna know, though, what is the difference between your concept of existential kink and having as evidence of wanting and the law of attraction? Like, what are the similarities and differences?
Carolyn Elliott:Oh, this is one I love that you asked this question because they are precisely the same. So the thing is is that the law of attraction, as it's usually taught, just doesn't put enough emphasis on the unconscious mind and the shadow. So, actually, when I when I came up with the idea for existential kink, I was in graduate school, or I'd just come out of graduate school. I was really broke. I was living on couches and dumpster diving to survive, basically.
Carolyn Elliott:And, but I was really familiar. I had read all sorts of psychoanalytic theory. I knew that there was an unconscious mind. I knew that some desires were unconscious, and I was trying to make my life better. So I was reading a lot of law of attraction stuff, and they were talking about how, you know, you attract what you desire.
Carolyn Elliott:And I remember I was standing in line one freezing December morning at the food bank, and I was like, does some part of me desire this? And I was like, well, maybe an unconscious part of me does. And so I began to just be really gently curious about that. So it's interesting because a lot how do I say this? You know, a lot of law of attraction teachings will tell you just ignore stuff you don't want.
Carolyn Elliott:Just always focus on the positive. For me, that just never worked. I've just always been a sort of goth deep I walk in cemeteries a lot. I'm always, like, really focused on the darker side of life, and I think a lot of people
Kate Northrup:are Scorpio?
Carolyn Elliott:I have Pluto in Scorpio. I have Mars in Scorpio conjunct in the 7th house. I'm What's
Kate Northrup:your rising?
Carolyn Elliott:My rising is Taurus. I could talk astrology all day.
Kate Northrup:I know. We could go anyway. I'm just curious. Yeah. And what do you have in the 8th house?
Carolyn Elliott:You know, in the 8th house, I have a I have a Sagittarius stellium. Uh-huh. So I have Venus co joined with Uranus on the south node with Jupiter in there too.
Kate Northrup:So Jupiter in the 8th house. Yes. Okay. There you go.
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So this big expansive happy view on deep dark subjects
Kate Northrup:is basically fertilize the shadow.
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. Look at you
Kate Northrup:living here at DARPA. It's true. It's very true. Thank you.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. So existential kink is basically a way of working with the deep dark side of the law of attraction because the the idea so law of attraction is completely correct in that, you know, our vibration are the mode that that we're vibing on will bring to us our experiences. And the thing is is most of us, especially repeating patterns, repeating negative patterns. So I don't usually talk with, you know, freak accidents. I'm not so much factoring in.
Carolyn Elliott:But, you know, oftentimes, people will have repeating patterns of getting into
Kate Northrup:Repeating myself.
Carolyn Elliott:Relationships that somehow it's different people, but they have the exact same tyrannical personality, or, you know, I can't seem to make above a certain amount of money a month, all of these things, creative blocks, illnesses, things that keep repeating. So I just yeah. So I found out that the law of attraction is true in this way that there's these this unconscious almost, you know, the name of the book is existential king because these desires can be kind of sadomasochistic.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:And, that's, you know, an interesting facet of human nature is we have the ability to take pleasure in things that are not, you know, not on the sunny side of life, not so good. Yeah. And, and the interesting thing is is as long as we're ashamed about this, as long as we have any sense of guilt or blame or shame, those desires will remain in the unconscious because it, it takes love. It takes approval to consciously associate something with my ego. So, and that can be very humbling.
Carolyn Elliott:It can be it's an it's it usually is a form it's a little form of ego death. It can be very psychedelic because the who I am, who I thought I was, for example, in this situation with, that I was talking about after I was graduated grad school and was living on couches and dumpster diving and I was actually in a, I was living in a community house connected to an orgasmic meditation practice. So I was, I was living with, like, 10 roommates, and my I was, like, 30 years old. I was like, wow. I really I don't know what I'm doing.
Carolyn Elliott:And, yeah, I was like, what is even happening? And and I had gotten curious. I was like, perhaps some part of me desires this situation. And, you know, we were talking about Interesting question. Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:Like, it's
Kate Northrup:just so brilliant of you to think, perhaps some part of me may want this given that it's happening. I mean, that's a bold, courageous statement to make.
Carolyn Elliott:Thank you. Thank you, Kate. Well, yeah. So in a way, I'm I'm sort of like the biggest believer in law of attraction. Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:That's a big part of it. I completely believe in it, and I'm really willing to look at the part of myself that's attracted to the dark things that I'm creating in my life. And so I found I and it takes a lot of relaxation, a lot of gentleness, a lot of humor, but I I was one day I was inquiring. I was actually I was doing the work of Byron Katie and, you know, you write down your judgments and then you turn them around. I was coaching and doing creativity coaching to make a living at the time, and I knew other coaches who were making, like, $1,000 an hour, which to me was like a mind blowing amount of money.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. And, like, I had grown up. Yeah, Pittsburgh, that doesn't happen. But anyways Yeah.
Kate Northrup:It it
Speaker 3:does work. Totally.
Carolyn Elliott:So I was doing little, you know, Byron Katie sheet on, like, people should want to pay me $1,000 an hour for coaching. And I you know, with the Byron Katie process, you ask, is that true? Can I absolutely know that that's true? How do I react when I believe that thought? Who would I be without that thought?
Carolyn Elliott:And then you turn it around to the opposite. So I turned it around to nobody should ever want to pay me anything for coaching, and I felt this whole zing through my body. I was like, oh my gosh, that's so hot. Wow. And then I was like, Carolyn, obviously that's why nobody wants to pay you for coaching, because you're super turned on by them not wanting to pay you for coaching.
Carolyn Elliott:And I was like I was just Woah. So it's a it was a very deep somatic bodily undeniable realization, and I knew, you know, that truth has a sensational quality to it. Right?
Kate Northrup:Yes. It does.
Carolyn Elliott:When we tell somebody we love them for the first time and we say, I love you, you know, our cheeks flush, our hearts beat, I knew it was the truth that I really thought it was so hot for nobody to want to pay me. And, so I just I spent time just I was like, okay. Well, this is how I'm wired, apparently. I don't know how to change this, so I'm just gonna approve of it. I'm just gonna set time aside each day to tell the part of myself that's really attracted to this.
Carolyn Elliott:I love you. Your desire for this situation is just as worthy as my desire for tasty food and flowers and sunshine. You're you're worthy too, and I'm and I'm gonna celebrate. You've gotten your desire is being fulfilled.
Speaker 3:What do you mean?
Carolyn Elliott:I'm gonna get on your side, and I'm gonna cheerlead for you. I'm gonna be happy that you're getting what you want. So I gradually was able to do that. And, Kate, it was so deep, I started having these, like, full body, like, electrical orgasmic experiences, and sometimes it would just be laughter and sometimes it would be crying, but it was I came like I said, it was sort of like a psychedelic ego death, almost like a little Ayahuasca without Ayahuasca. Like, I came to see that who I thought I was was not who I was.
Carolyn Elliott:I was actually a deeply fulfilled person. I was not a pathetic lacking person. And that's and so so so dramatic so I so it shifted my whole identity, and I I think that that's one of the most potent things that EK does is it shifts at the identity level. And, I've learned a lot about identity level shifts from my mentor, doctor Robert, which is once we shifted the identity level, you know, the thoughts, the feelings, the actions, the behaviors, everything sort of beneath that level of identity automatically changes. Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:And so the shift was very dramatic for me once I started experiencing myself as a fulfilled person who was getting exactly what she wanted, which was a negative bank account, which was, like, a huge amount of student loan debt, which was, like, embarrassment about not being able to pay my, like, $100 of rent a month. And, and as my identity shifted and I began to experience myself as fulfilled, all of it was like these blinders I had on opened up, and I saw all sorts of opportunities and, you know, I was like, oh, I could create an email list and make offers to my email list. And, nope, I could have always done that before. Yes. That there was no hard brick walls.
Carolyn Elliott:That there were you see, you know, it was walls in my own mind of seeing myself as unworthy and uncool and pathetic and everything. But anyways, I was like, I'm awesome and I'm gonna make offers. And I went from making, like, $1,000 a month to $10,000 a month just like that. And I I was like, well, sayonara, everybody. I'm going to Bali.
Carolyn Elliott:So I just Naturally. Yeah. And, and I started teaching. I was teaching courses on writing and courses on magic and I just because I was like, well, this is the most potent form of magic I know. So I taught my clients to do it and and I was quite surprised because I thought it was such a, you know, a weird, esoteric, freaky, sadomasochistic thing.
Carolyn Elliott:But everybody loved it when I taught it to them, and everybody had great massive shifts like I had also had. And I became I was like, woah. This is something that the world must know. And I was actually anyways, I could go on and on about the ways that existential kink opened up my life and opened on up other people's lives, but maybe I'll just hand it back to you.
Kate Northrup:I could just listen to you talk about this forever. Okay. So I wanna share a particular so I read your book, and I just knew so deeply it was true, at least for me. And I really love to play in the sunshine. Like, I'm, I don't know, like, opposite you, but I one of my life lessons is to learn to be able to face shadow.
Kate Northrup:Like, I'm not gonna go for a walk in the cemetery. I'm way more likely to spiritually bypass and pretend everything is completely fine and never wanna talk about the darkness the darkness. Although that's obviously not true because I invited
Speaker 3:you to give up my life. But,
Kate Northrup:like, that's, like, you know, past version. But I'm reading this book, and I was like, oh my god. Because the ability to take anything we're experiencing in our life that we say we, quote, unquote, do not want and immediately put ourselves in our point of power, which is approval, to be able to shift something. Like, the power and agency in that is basically intoxicating because then there's nothing we can't change. Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:There's nothing we can't work with. There's nothing that's not material, and I am pretty obsessed with regenerative agriculture. And so one of the things I was thinking about as I was reading your book is, compost Mhmm. And the way in which the, quote, unquote, waste is the fertilizer for all the new growth, and so, therefore, there is no such thing as something we don't want. There is no such thing.
Kate Northrup:Right? The shadow is the new birth. The shadow is the fertilizer. Like, all the light comes from the shadow. It cannot exist without the other one.
Kate Northrup:So, anyway, I was having this situation when I was reading your book, and it was, a repeat thing. Right? So you said this works really well when you find yourself in the same freaking situation, and you're like, really? And it was a situation with my husband, Mike, and he's also my business partner. And he I won't get into the details to spare the people involved, but he would talk about this.
Kate Northrup:So so he had said something to someone I love that had put them off. And this has been going on for 13 years of our relationship where, like, he says something or does something because he's very direct and it can be abrupt, and it's very medicinal for me. But as, like, I come from a very WASPy family, we don't, like, you know, say real things in real time, but we're working on it. So he that happened, and then that person came to me about it, which is, again, the repeat situation. And then I went to him about it, and he was once again, like, why will you not have people just address me directly?
Kate Northrup:Like, you gotta get out of the middle. And I was feeling like, why am I here again? Like, how is it that 13 years later, I'm still in the middle, like, trying to protect people from my husband in this unconscious way? Like, this is really not healthy. I've done therapy sessions about this.
Kate Northrup:Like, what the fuck? So I have been sitting in the sauna a lot lately. I just, like, really feel like I need to, like, just, like, cook my body. Mhmm. And I was sick a lot last year, and, like, the sauna has just helped so much.
Kate Northrup:So my new thing is I do my existential kink meditation in the sauna because I'm, like, we're in here burning stuff anyway. So all this
Carolyn Elliott:is like chemicals.
Kate Northrup:Put it Yeah. Right? I'm like, well, put it all in the cauldron. So I go in there, and I'm like, okay. Body, what is it, like, I just brought to mind this situation with my husband?
Kate Northrup:Like, being married to someone who puts off other people with the way he can be, and then they come to me. And then I feel annoyed about it, and I feel victimized about it, And I feel at odds with him, and then I need to save these people and be the go between. I'm like, okay. Hi. Hello.
Kate Northrup:Like, clearly, I'm creating this because I'm here. And so I I just, like, sort of brought it to mind, and then I felt into the sensation of where I felt it in my body. And per your suggestion, I allowed myself to let that sensation kind of grow, and I just was present to the aliveness in it. And it was wild. It turned into, first of all, like, the inquiry was sort of, like, around secondary gain, like right?
Kate Northrup:Like, okay, what am I getting out of this, and what do I not get to be, or what do I get to be? But combined with the somatic experience of, like, allowing myself to even feel all the way down, you know, into my pelvis, like, the aliveness and the zing of it, I actually got really turned on and realized that I actually there's a part of me that loves being married to the bad guy because, a, it's kinda hot, and, b, I get to be the good girl. And I actually, like, really freaking love being the good girl because then he gets to be bad, and I get to be good, and I also get to get off on my, superiority complex. It really is. And it was just like, woah.
Kate Northrup:And if I mean, it was I was like, you know, I go to this this random LA fitness to go to the sauna because it's the only one in my neighborhood, but if I had not been in a public place, like, it would have been like this really I mean, it already was, but I was like, woah, the turn on is wild here at the LA Fitness Sauna. And so I just wanted to say thank you, number 1, and that's only one example. I've used it on so many different things that come up, and even like just feeling of, there was this feeling of limitation around a financial thing. And so what I wanted to dive into next, because my show is called Plenty, because I play in the field of money. Tell me about your experience with you already did, but I wanna know more for people who are experiencing a repetition of scarcity, how that connects with existential kink, and then also how we consider that in the realm also of systemic issues and inequity.
Kate Northrup:Oh, yes. Right? Which we're not individually creating, but we are collectively creating.
Speaker 3:So what's that?
Carolyn Elliott:Oh, amazing. Amazing. Amazing set of questions, Kate. So the one thing that I always like to think about so so, yeah, working with money and money scarcity has been, like, central to my own existential kink evolution, and it is for many people. So the ego in some ways is is built on scarcity.
Carolyn Elliott:So if we think in a Jungian sense, if we think of this the whole self or the whole soul, self with capital s, as a circle, the ego is like little teeny island within this larger circle. And the ego has to define itself by what I am not, by what I don't have. Because, you know, think about egolessness is ident you know, like little babies are identified with everything. They think I am everything. I am mama, I am the sky, I am the blanket.
Carolyn Elliott:You They don't make distinctions between like this is what I'm not. So that's that sort of oceanic complete identification with everything is is, yeah, the self with a capital s in a way. So our task as human beings, as I've come to understand it through my journey with Jungian psychology stuff is to we do have to define ourselves as egos that's sort of you know the journey of like childhood into adolescence and adulthood And then, and in that process we separate from the larger self with a capital s, but then, we need spiritual connection and we need, you know, a deep relationship with what is larger than us. So then we need to start opening up our ego actually to reconnect with the self. So this it's this question of this kind of ego self access.
Carolyn Elliott:And for many people, how do I say it, like challenging adverse circumstances can, you know, painful things, there's, you know, there's a lot of talk about trauma these days, can have their ego at a young age attach to seemingly negative things and actually, like we've we've been talking about, get a sense of pleasure from them. And there's you know, Freud had theories about it. He called it psychic masochism. He said that the libido, the sense of pleasure, the sense of life force, that basically that the psyche, the little ego to protect itself will find a way to get pleasure from adverse circumstances. So growing up, my parents didn't have a lot of money.
Carolyn Elliott:They were always fighting about it, and I found a way to get pleasure from the drama, pleasure from the anxiety, pleasure from the sense of lack.
Kate Northrup:And do you think that so my field of study for the last several years has been about the nervous system, which is obviously, like, underlying all of this. Do you think and I wanna hear the
Speaker 3:rest of your thought, but
Kate Northrup:I also wanna ask this question to, like, weave in. Do you think that
Speaker 3:that's
Kate Northrup:because in our development, our nervous system basically gets the message energetically from the soup we're swimming in, this is what it means to be alive?
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. This is what it means to be who I am. This is what it means to be part of this family. Right. So it's not
Kate Northrup:a conscious choice of, like, oh, we find a way to find it pleasurable. It's that literally, like, our development as a body Yes. Is like, oh, this is the information available, so this must be what it means to be alive, and therefore, this will be interconnected with my life force. Yes. Absolutely.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Carolyn Elliott:Absolutely. Yes. Exactly. So pleasure on an unconscious level,
Kate Northrup:that the
Carolyn Elliott:system takes pleasure because it's part of being who I am.
Kate Northrup:System takes pleasure. Okay. Great. So so there you are. You're in your childhood home, and your ego learns to take pleasure from scarcity because it's what the soup you were growing
Speaker 3:up in.
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. So this, so in Jungian terms, existential king can be very individuating because it's basically saying, I'm going to become conscious of the soup that I grew up with and I'm going to love it. And in order to love it you actually have to get bigger than it. You actually have to expand, transcend it really. So, and in existential kink, there's another individuating piece is you're giving yourself permission to approve of things that the environment itself didn't approve of.
Carolyn Elliott:So, you know, my mother was never in approval of her bank account being empty of, you know, not knowing how she was gonna pay bills. That was there was 0 she didn't have any approval for that. So deciding to give that approval, was a deep individuation away from the collective upbringing. So, yes, so the ego often attaches itself to some sense of scarcity. So scarcity of love, scarcity of money, scarcity of time, scarcity of creative expression, scarcity of health.
Carolyn Elliott:And it gets gets can be in this very kind of tight knot, and that's, like, sort of what's classically known as being neurotic. You know, being anxious, being depressed is the sort of, like, knotted sense of self. You know? So the orgasmic meditation practice that I was doing at the time, and really helped open up the flow of erotic life force energy in my body. So I'd I'm you know, sadly, there's not that practice isn't as available right now as it used to be due to a number of factors,
Speaker 3:but Yeah. But
Kate Northrup:we can all Nicole D'Addon's book, Slow Sex, and then also Tim Ferris wrote about it in his book, The 4 Hour Body, The 15 Minute Orgasm. So the steps are out there.
Carolyn Elliott:The steps are out there. So you can have somebody stroke you, or you can stroke yourself slowly and gently and build up that capacity and sensitivity
Kate Northrup:to feeling. Which rewires your nervous
Carolyn Elliott:system. Absolutely.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. To be able to increase your capacity for pleasure
Carolyn Elliott:of all kinds. Absolutely, yeah. So that's this idea of the having this level.
Kate Northrup:So does that, like, melt the edges of that ego self?
Carolyn Elliott:It does start to because if you think about it as, you know, one of the things that the ego is is this habitual it has a certain homeostasis. So it rejects things that are outside of its usual range of sensation, and those can be bad things, and those can be very, very good things. So, you know, at when I was in that sort of deep contracted state that I was in in the olden days, You know, if I had if I was invited onto a beautiful podcast talk show like this, if I was, if I had received somebody wanted to hire me for, you know, $10,000 worth of coaching, it would have it would have, like, freaked me out. I would not have been able to deal. There was no way that I would have just been able to, like, meet that and receive that.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:So it's Existential kink offers, you know, a deep way of gently practicing how much sensation can I be conscious with, can I be present with, can I associate with my ego identity, and receive as, okay, this is safe, this is good, I can respond to this, I can handle this, as opposed to, like, oh, scary?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Scary threat
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:Beyond what I've ever experienced, beyond what anyone in my lineage has ever experienced or my community, like, therefore, threat to my survival. Exactly. Okay. So then tell me about the systemic part. How is it that we collectively create collective scarcity for particular groups of people, and how can we work with that on an individual and collective level to possibly lift the limitations of scarcity for whole groups.
Kate Northrup:Beautiful. Beautiful. So the way that I see
Carolyn Elliott:it so I hear what you're saying. It's like, obviously, some groups of people have much less material resources, and it seems like some people have much more.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:But we are there's a way in which our collective, our society as it's currently structured, the people with tons of material resources, are also deeply afflicted by scarcity consciousness. Scarcity of, you know, I have to use violence and manipulation and all sorts of, you know, propaganda and media control to hold on to what I have. I have to it's a so it's a spiritual scarcity. So, I don't think so the way that I see it is the current structures that we have are the current product of the having a collective unconscious rather than having a collective consciousness. So for me I'm very optimistic about humanity and, that optimism comes from this belief that as I have personally experienced that the unconscious can be made conscious.
Carolyn Elliott:And when that happens, there is a a huge reorganization and new possibilities for effortless resource, effortless plenty for abundance are just are just realized. And I think, you know, as many spiritually awake, aware, loving people are sensitive to, it's like we we don't have to organize our society in this current, you know, rather restrictive way that's organized, there's there is enough for everyone. We could if we put our minds to it, we absolutely could find energy and food and, you know, resources for absolutely everybody, but we just don't because of these old patterns. So I'm, you know, a deep part of my passion, what I'm really into is I call it spreading alchemical literacy, which is literacy about how to make the unconscious conscious. So if you think about it for 1000 of years the art of reading and writing was considered something that only very special people could do, kings and priests.
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. Not one
Kate Northrup:of my I forget that, and I think we all forget that.
Carolyn Elliott:We forget that because it
Kate Northrup:was When did it come about that I mean, I am aware that not everyone can read it in current times, but do you know ish when it came about that, it like, we moved the needle where it was more common to read and write than
Carolyn Elliott:not common? Absolutely. Well, so the most giant shift, I think, came with the invention of the printing press. For sure.
Kate Northrup:Good old Gutenberg.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. And and industrialization, and we it was discovered, that so at at one point though, it was thought that only the most special, the most intelligent people could learn to read and write, and that would be pointless to try to teach just anybody. And then we gradually realized that, yeah, pretty much everybody can learn to read and write, and it became very widespread. And, you know, there was a massive change when when, literacy became widespread. So, likewise, up until this point, the idea has been that only very special people, only the most enlightened, most wonderful people can make the unconscious conscious and achieve, you know, what we would call enlightenment or the great work or the alchemical marriage.
Carolyn Elliott:The alchemical marriage is the union of the conscious and the conscious minds, the sun and the moon, the gold and the silver. The feminine and the masculine. Absolutely. And our culture, especially, the western culture has had this, like, absolutely schizophrenic divide between the masculine and the feminine and this deep devaluation of feminine embodied wisdom and this, like, you know, oh, everything has to be this very left brain sciency stuff. Right?
Carolyn Elliott:So I think we've we've gotten to the point where we've pushed that division so far that the only place to go now so so that's, you know, in alchemy, that's a separation, that's a solvay. There's been this very intense solvay, very intense devaluation of the feminine, very intense exaltation of the masculine mind. The only place for them to come now is back together. And, that back together, I believe, will be an enormous I feel like it's very close on the horizon. I could talk about the astrological reasons for that and other things, but yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. Let's do it. Well, I feel so there's a famous configuration that's going to happen in 2026.
Carolyn Elliott:I think it's called the barbeau basket, which is a specific configuration of outer planets that's supposed to be very benevolent, very, you know, evolutionary. And likewise, are you familiar with human design stuff? Yeah. So the human design folks, have a prophecy about 2027 being a time when, the energies are going to shift such that, that basically a new kind of humanity starts to come into being and that the the solar plexus, the central internal authority that people have is going to be much more emphasized as opposed to, like, the top down external hierarchical authority. And it's true in my experience and it's true in my I think, you know, for everybody that I see who puts a lot of attention into doing inner work and healing work, they come to have that transition.
Carolyn Elliott:They come to rely more on their own internal intuition rather than, you know, giving it up to authorities all the time. And I think that is the arc of evolution that humanity is going to make into a collective consciousness. And sometimes when I say collective consciousness, I think people imagine that I'm talking about something like the Borg or something like a a sort of mechanical hive mind that devours people, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about where, everybody it had so if you if we think about the oh, slow myself down. Where everybody has made significant inroads into making the unconscious conscious.
Carolyn Elliott:Now, you can't make the unconscious totally conscious because it's the mystery. It's, you know, it's God. It's like Right. Yeah. It there's always going to be mystery, but there's so much stuff that can be made conscious that hasn't been.
Carolyn Elliott:So once we start making that conscious, when we arrive into the collective consciousness mode, what that means is that everybody is so actually attuned to their individuality, so actually attuned to their unique purpose, their unique guiding star. There's this, quote I love, every man and woman is a star from Alastair Crowley. Mhmm. Every man and woman is a star. So everybody's attuned to their own star, and, you know, each star is perfectly in its orbit.
Carolyn Elliott:So we'll be moving in our perfect orbit according to really the deep laws of our own being rather than some sort of externalized conditioning that we've received from school or family. And it will be will be sort of attuned to the cosmic dance in a really deep creative beautiful way. So that's what I see as on the horizon for us.
Kate Northrup:When you're talking, I'm getting this visual of right. I think one of the paths of our time that you and I are walking in our own way is that deep dive into, like you said, our own unconscious, our own shadow, our own intuition, what is uniquely ours to bring. And in so doing, when we focus less on the external powers, the victimization of, like, that out there is making it so that this in here, you know, like, looking outside ourselves for power, for approval, for love, for abundance, right, all those things. Like, the deeper we dive inside, it's almost as though then going all the way in then brings us all the way out to that place in which we are all unity consciousness to God. Absolutely.
Kate Northrup:Yes. And I love that you mentioned that about victimization because if there's any
Carolyn Elliott:I would say that is the general shadow that everybody suffers with, that we as a collective suffer with. And it's interesting because it's like people with tons of material resources still manage to feel victimized by, you know, whatever the political situation or their their taxes
Kate Northrup:or whatever.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. Exactly. People with very little resources can also feel victimized, obviously. And this so that attachment, you know, maybe maybe even more so than talking about scarcity, that attachment to feeling victimized by an external fate, by some unfathomable thing that's attacking us from the outside, I think, is the human shadow, which is something that I've been thinking a lot about lately because you asked you said it was cool if I talked about far out, cutting edge things. So,
Kate Northrup:Bring it off.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. So so I I wrote this book about 5 years ago, and since then, what grew out of it is well, we have a whole existential kink coach training program, which is really awesome, and we also have a mystery school. So the, the mystery school is connected. It's in the tradition of the mystery schools of antiquity so the temple at Eleusis, the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn extending into the 19th century. And anyways it's a deep esoteric lineage that has to do with this idea of the, the dead and reborn God.
Carolyn Elliott:So we see that in, you know, the stories about Dionysus, the stories about Osiris. There's stories
Kate Northrup:Also Jesus.
Carolyn Elliott:Also Jesus, very much. Yeah. And specifically, I've been thinking a lot about esoteric Christianity lately and this this making sense of the Old Testament, and I've been reading Answer to Job by Carl Jung, which I highly recommend to anybody, but it's Jung is pointing out and how do I say it? The so talking about victimization. This all ties together.
Carolyn Elliott:I promise.
Kate Northrup:You're doing this is awesome. I'm, like, I'm hanging on everywhere.
Carolyn Elliott:Okay. So if you if you look at the old testament and in the old testament, the god of the old testament, you know, in some sense, he's giving laws and he's giving commands, but he's also doing things like commanding genocide. Go kill all of those women and children. You better praise me all the time. I'm a jealous god.
Carolyn Elliott:If I catch you worshiping another god, I'm gonna kill you. You know? It's scary. It's like a scary kind of psychopath, schizophrenic. We would say this is not a conscious personality.
Carolyn Elliott:This is like a semiconscious, very disordered personality. And what has come to my attention from reading Jung about this and from my own experiences with the mystery school is that there's a deep way in which the story of the incarnation, death, resurrection, Pentecost of Jesus is a story of an unconscious god becoming conscious, by incarnating as a human and experiencing the pain of his own creation. So if you think about creation, unconscious creation, and and that's actually Kabbalistically, Yod Hey Val Hey represents this process of natural creations happening all the time. This, nature red in tooth and claw. You know, there's animals that eat their own babies.
Carolyn Elliott:There's the scary stuff out there. Like, the natural world is very
Kate Northrup:mantis who eats her lover after being inseminated. Precisely.
Carolyn Elliott:And so what I've started to understand is that there's this deep mystery, I think, that God needs humans or human like consciousness to become conscious rather than there being a deliberate conscious creator god starting out. For me, it's starting to feel like, oh, you know, there there's just unconscious nature creating and happening and beginning to interact with humans. You know, we all there's this deep interaction we've had with the divine, but that it doesn't become clear. The love of the divine becomes clear through incarnation and sacrifice. So I've been getting this my my existential kink practice has evolved to really meditating a lot on the crucifixion and really meditating a lot on, you know, the creator experiencing the consequences of his own creation.
Carolyn Elliott:Like, I've created these beings and they're torturing me and they're killing me. And Wow. And I love them and I forgive them. And
Kate Northrup:I don't know. I mean, I I don't mean to be piffy, but there's something about what you're describing that just really reminds me of motherhood.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Carolyn Elliott:Oh, yes. Absolutely. 1000%. I've created these beings, and now they're torturing me.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say my children are trying to kill me, but
Kate Northrup:there have been moments where it's like, what is that? Like,
Speaker 3:what
Kate Northrup:this is torture.
Carolyn Elliott:This is torture.
Kate Northrup:You know, it's a lot of, like, absolute bliss, but sometimes it's torture. Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I'm like, ah, you freaking came out of me. You came out
Carolyn Elliott:of me, and they're reflecting back to us things that were, for me at least, that were unconscious in myself, my little 5 year old daughter. And they so they become conscious. So now I have this this theory of, like, well, that's what the story of the Bible is a lot about. It's like this creator God created us and was totally surprised that we turned out to be naughty and to have all of these qualities that he himself, just to speak in the Yeah. Sure.
Carolyn Elliott:That he himself has that he didn't know that he had. Mhmm. And so he starts by I'm gonna punish you. I'm gonna threaten you. And then, oh, I actually I have to become you to understand you.
Carolyn Elliott:I have to experience this. I have to experience the whole thing. And, yeah. So I think of I think these days, I think a lot about Jesus as the ultimate existential kink symbol because he let himself be totally, you know, crucified by life, by creation. Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:And then he went descended into the deepest parts of hell, and then he bounced right back. The resurrection. The resurrection power, the deep magic.
Kate Northrup:That is fascinating. What do you think about Mary Magdalene's role in his resurrection around that time just because you obviously are someone who's, like, reading and researching? I just wanna
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. I love this question. So I think that Mary Magdalene had a deep part to play. I mean, my own little, my own pet theory from my research is that she was a tantric partner Yes. Of Jesus.
Carolyn Elliott:And actually I agree. Yes. You know? Yes.
Speaker 3:As
Kate Northrup:a as a non religious scholar myself.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. That's I think I think there's plenty that would substantiate that. I think Jesus was doing sort of standard tantric miracles in a way. You know? Things that
Kate Northrup:Standard tantric miracle. It's a great
Speaker 3:title for a book.
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. Right? Those things that any knows how to do is turn water into wine, walk on water. Then, another when I think about Mary Magdalene, actually, there's this an amazing So if we look at the the archetype of the whore in the Bible as a whole, we see that Jesus' lineage is actually all of these fallen women, all of these women who were, you know, not behaving the way that they were supposed to right down to his mom who, okay, she's pregnant by God, but that just means she's mysteriously pregnant and she's unmarried and she's young. She's not supposed to be pregnant.
Kate Northrup:Right.
Carolyn Elliott:And that that he probably grew up with the stigma of, you know, being a bastard, son of a whore. So this idea of Mary Magdalene as a fallen woman is, you know, one of his closest disciples is a woman who she was the she was actually the the whole of Christianity for a little minute because she was the one who first experienced the visitation of the resurrected Christ. So she was the whole carrier of the gospel in deep way. And then, what I've been really focused on a lot lately and what Jung focuses on interestingly both in his book Aon and Answer to Job is the book of Revelation. And in the book of Revelation, there's 3 feminine figures, and conventional Christianity usually is not willing to connect these figures.
Carolyn Elliott:There's a figure called the queen of heaven who's clothed with the sun, and she's wearing the moon under her feet. And she's pregnant, and she's running into the wilderness, in labor trying to give birth to a male child, and the child is eaten by the great beast and taken up into heaven. So that seems analogous to the Virgin Mary story. Then there's the Whore of Babylon who is also in the wilderness, but now she's riding the great beast. And she's in this beautiful scarlet and purple outfit, and she's drinking, blood that is full of she's drinking from a cup that's full of the wine of her fornication with the kings of the earth, and it's full of the blood of Jesus.
Carolyn Elliott:It's full of the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. It's full of the saints. It's the holy grail. So she's drinking from the holy grail, riding the great beast, implying that she's mastered the beast in a way. And then the final feminine figure is, the new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ who descends from the sky and is marrying Christ, marrying Jesus.
Carolyn Elliott:So this so mother, whore, and bride. And I think it's pretty plain that they're all versions of the same figure, the same being who is in a very profound way sort of exercised from conventional Christianity. You know, the only image of con that conventional Christianity gives us is this virgin Mary, and she's usually quite sad. So she's a sad virgin. But also, which, you know, just sort of just cuts out this image of, happy, feminine, fulfilled, delighted sexuality.
Carolyn Elliott:Right. And the only image of that is Babylon. Well and there's other these, you know, previous echoes in the old testament too. So anyways, I'm very interested in the way in which usually also when folks, conventional Christians, talk about the Whore of Babylon, it's as, you know, she's some metaphor for empire or for, you know, Rome or the the evil Catholic church. Protestants like to say it's the evil Catholic church.
Carolyn Elliott:But they always sort of undercut this fact that she is drinking the Eucharistic blood which means she's included in the communion. She's redeemed. She's full of grace. So I'm really interested in this image of the Whore of Babylon drunk on the blood of her son, essentially Jesus, as, as a potent scandalous activating symbol that I think is ready to take has certainly taken me and a lot of folks that I've worked with in the mystery school into a much deeper experience of and revelation of the mysteries connected to Jesus, which have been, I think, really obscured by, you know, so much shaming and so much distortion, just human distortion of the mystery of grace. So that's something that I think about a lot with existential kink, but I also think about Babylon as an amazing sort of patron saint of existential kink, and that she's, you know, she's taking in everything.
Kate Northrup:Exist all reject now. Except yes. Yes. Wait. I'm not I don't like, I'm not a theologian in any respect.
Kate Northrup:Is the book of Revelations one of the lost pieces, or is it, like, just in the Bible that
Carolyn Elliott:you get? It's part of the canonical Bible. It's the final book in the new testament, and it's a series of visions that Saint John had when he was exiled on the Isle of Padmas. So it's usually thought to be written by the same guy who wrote the gospel of John and the letters of John.
Kate Northrup:Okay. But it's like if you go by the Bible
Carolyn Elliott:at the store,
Kate Northrup:it's in there.
Carolyn Elliott:It's right there.
Kate Northrup:Got it.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. Just checking. And and folks usually interpret it as, you know, this is some sort of historical prediction, like the antichrist is Donald Trump or the antichrist is Barack Obama or, you know,
Kate Northrup:this is Depending on who
Speaker 3:you are.
Carolyn Elliott:Big of Yeah. But I think it's I think it's what it says it is, which is it says, you know, the vision of Saint John, the revelation of Jesus Christ. And I think what that means is that Jesus Christ Christ is more than just Jesus of Nazareth. It's this whole mandala of characters surrounding. So including, you know, King Herod and Pilate, including Judas, including mother Mary and Mary Magdalene and the Whore of Babylon and the great beast.
Carolyn Elliott:It's like, baby, it's all Christ.
Kate Northrup:All, like, coming back to wholeness. Mhmm. Exactly. Yeah. This is so fascinating.
Kate Northrup:So you work with women entrepreneurs. Mhmm. I work with a lot of women entrepreneurs. What do you think is our invitation during this time as women out here creating prosperity?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Kate Northrup:Or our families in our lives turning nothing into something?
Carolyn Elliott:Beautiful. Beautiful. I love this question. So for me, I think that women entrepreneurs are on the cutting edge of this shadow integration revolution that is going to transform is transforming humanity. And I think one of the most potent things about that, and when I work with women on their, you know, blocks, connected to blocks that I had often, it's you know, there's a lot of social training about especially if you're offering something, you know, spiritual or emotional, like coaching or whatever which many women are, there's this idea that, it's wrong to make lots of money.
Carolyn Elliott:Right? It's greedy. How dare you? There's all these other people suffering. If you were compassionate, you'd be poor too.
Carolyn Elliott:You'd be like mother Teresa. Anyways. Yeah. And, so for me, I've what I often focus on with women entrepreneurs and women, you know, just seeking to grow and expand their creative expression on their financial lives is, the way that I'm teaching it these days has to do with integrating the archetype of the vampire and the bodhisattva. So, you know, bodhisattvas endlessly, altruistically give of themselves, and I think that's, in some ways, that's our default setting as women.
Carolyn Elliott:That's how we're positioned. That's and that's certainly how
Speaker 3:we're telling it. Hearts. Mhmm.
Carolyn Elliott:Endlessly giving. And then the image of a vampire, right, is somebody who's, you know, an evil predator who's just taking and deceiving and enslaving
Kate Northrup:And living off the life force of others.
Carolyn Elliott:Exactly. And so these are very very opposite polar things, and it's like, well, how do we integrate those? How do we give permission to both the parts of ourselves that are, you know, evil vampires and glorious bodhisattvas? And for me, what's been really alive lately is the way in which the eucharistic blood and living on that blood and living on that mystery
Kate Northrup:Woah. Yeah. The sacrament is vampirical. Yes. I mean, it blows my mind.
Kate Northrup:Like, the blood of Christ, like, woah. It's a deep And, of course, this is as someone who didn't I didn't grow up in the church. I was I was baptized Episcopalian, but more just, like, as a social thing.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Carolyn Elliott:But, yeah, it's a it's a deep vampiric shadow integration ritual. And God. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like and I found that when I especially when I practice it in light of all of this beautiful stuff we've been talking about with Mary Magdalene and Babylon, it's, you know, I am I'm drinking.
Carolyn Elliott:I'm accepting the sort of deep poetry, the deep way in which we are all predator, we are all prey. God is sacrificing to God's self constantly, and to take that in consciously and with honor and with reverence and with gratitude and to participate in the way that I'm always being, like I said, I'm always being preyed upon. I'm always predating. There's no escape from it. Trying to escape from it always leads to some sort of, like, neuroticism or delusion.
Carolyn Elliott:But really just being deeply embodied present with this tremendous sacrifice that God is always doing innocence is always sacrificing itself into suffering the pain of creation. And to just consciously partake of that, it seems to, well, it's it's an expansive integrative vibration, I guess I'll say that.
Kate Northrup:Can you tell me a recent experience that you had in your business or your life where you were able to use that metaphor to guide your decision making?
Carolyn Elliott:Oh, wow. Let's see. To guide my decision making.
Kate Northrup:Or to guide anything.
Carolyn Elliott:Yeah. To guide anything. Let me think. I mean, it pretty much inhabits absolutely everything because what I'm always doing, I'm I'm whoring the mysteries constantly. Yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:That's what I'm doing. Right. Absolutely. So for me, it's my whole you know, so like for example, so mystery schools, they were big in antiquity after they were wiped out. Every mystery school was very private, very, you know, like the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, you had to be, you know, referred, invited by somebody.
Carolyn Elliott:It wasn't a publicly advertised thing. And if somebody went around and publicly advertised some sort of esoteric teaching, they were, you know, they were pursued. They were kicked out. They were considered, you know, charlatans, and there were all of this, you know, shame associated with that. And I guess I've just received a deep message from, I'm Vampire Babylon, just tells me all the time, you know, Carolyn, turn on the red light.
Carolyn Elliott:Like, bring all the standout on the street corner and hook out, you know, on Instagram, on x, on YouTube. Turn bring the people in to the mysteries. The time is now. There's no time for coyness. It's it has to be prostituted like everything else.
Carolyn Elliott:And, you know, and to me, that's so I'm I'm I'm perpetually being nurtured by that gnosis. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.
Kate Northrup:Thank you for that. Yes. So beautiful. This has just been such a great conversation. We went so many places I did not expect.
Kate Northrup:I'm so excited to read your next book.
Carolyn Elliott:Oh, thank you.
Kate Northrup:Whenever that may come to pass.
Carolyn Elliott:Working on
Kate Northrup:it. I'm sure you are. I just really wanna honor your depth of study and the, honestly, like, the intellectual prowess that you bring to this work because, there is just so much bullshit on the Internet. And and that's great Mhmm. Because it's part of the wholeness, and I really like your flavor.
Kate Northrup:So thank you for coming today. Thank you for sharing, so unabashedly all these these turns and and and twists and, inviting us into this mystery with you. It's really been so beautiful. Where can people come to find you, connect with you, learn about your certification, your mystery school?
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. It was such a joy today. So the primary website is the immortal college dot com.
Carolyn Elliott:So that's the overarching name of our business. It's the Oh, great.
Kate Northrup:Thank you. The immortal college dot com. Of course, we'll put all the links in the show notes.
Carolyn Elliott:Yes. And, I'm on x as, well, if you search Carolyn Love Will on x, you'll find me. I have an Instagram account with plenty of posts that I'm not active right now. Oh, on the immortal college, if they join the email list, that's the main thing. That's the way to get tuned in to all of our offers.
Carolyn Elliott:I have a fun little podcast that I do with my friend, Leila, called Sleepover with Carolyn and Leila. The mystery school is called Sleepover Mystery School. Oh, the yep. The existential kink training program is called penetrate. So if you go to the Immortal College website, you should be able to join the waiting lists for Sleepover Mystery School, penetrate, and yeah.
Carolyn Elliott:So there's there's just there's so much that the Immortal College offers, and I just join the email list as the main thing.
Speaker 3:Love
Kate Northrup:it. Amazing. And and I would say for everyone listening, get yourself a copy of Existential Kink and read it immediately, if not sooner. Thank you for being here. This has been such a pleasure.
Kate Northrup:If you're seriously committed to healing your relationship with money, the place to start is my book, Money, A Love Story. It's available in print. It's available digitally, but it is also available on audio in a completely updated and revised edition. So no matter what your book consumption preference is, this is the place with exercises, healing strategies, and repatterning strategies to get started healing your relationship with money. Money, a Love Story is available wherever books are sold.
Kate Northrup:Go get yourself a copy.