THIRD EYE EDIFY Ep.21 "The Technology of Language" with Chance Garton
Big thanks to Jorge for having me on Third Eye Edify! We talked about the occult, philology, comic book reboots, and language as a technology.
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In this episode
Core themes
The occult as hidden knowledge, not evil
Chance explained that the word occult comes from the Latin occultus, meaning hidden, after Jorge Mesa asked why the word is so easily misread and used against people in media. Chance said hidden things are not necessarily evil, though deceptive things like to hide, and he described the occult as a kind of universal psychology of the soul. He said his most deeply held conspiracy theory is that nobody is in charge, and he used the novel The Neverending Story to illustrate that people get what they wish for, even at the cost of forgetting who they are.
Philology, roots, and wordplay across languages
Chance described philology as lockpicking, a phrase he credited to his co-host Gabe, and argued it allows more cross-cultural comparison than strict etymology. He traced radical to the Latin radix, meaning root, and linked it to a radish and to the Sanskrit mula. He also connected Agni, Igni, and Agnus Dei through fire and the lamb, and claimed any vowel can change into any other vowel. The two also noted that coven is a newer word with an older legal sense meaning a collusive agreement, and Chance recommended the Webster's 1828 dictionary online as a tool for seeing what words originally meant.
Comic book reboots and religious stories
Chance told how reading Ultimate Spider-Man in college led him to suspect that religions work like story reboots. He said Hollywood keeps retelling Batman and Spider-Man because the old story grows too big to enter, and he argued Christianity did something similar with an older Messiah story. He compared the different nativity accounts in Luke and Matthew to different Batman origin tales. Chance also said a Lord of the Rings religion would appeal because Tolkien packaged allegorical truth compactly, and he and Jorge Mesa traded Peter Parker comparisons to older myths.
Language and technology as externalized ability
Chance proposed that technology is always an externalization of an ability people already have, and he said written language is one example. He wondered aloud how the Great Pyramid could stand with no writing on its stones. He noted that rising literacy and light pollution track with fading star visibility, and he described the sky as an original internet that ancient astronomer priests may have read as constellation writing. Chance called parts of this hypothetical and said he could not prove it, and he floated the idea that the biblical fall might have been the first handing of knowledge to a storyteller.
Technology as mirror, savior story, and creativity
Chance said technology is a mirror of people and not their master, called the process cosmic mitosis, and urged listeners to use it without confusing it for their own power. He described the savior figure as a kind of technology, comparing it to mercury as a solvent in alchemy that must eventually be set aside. Jorge Mesa raised the dependency that technology can create. Chance later encouraged listeners to balance consumption with creation, take notes on what they read, and make decisions in their creative work, and he said all slavery begins in one's own consciousness.
Quotes
“When you hear a word, it can take you somewhere that it's not supposed to very easily, just by the nature of how it sounds.”
“What does occult really mean? And why is it so easily misinterpreted? And how is it used in news and media against us to help us think a certain way about certain things?”
“But one thing that has come with the technology that we should all be very aware of is that they manufacture this need for it. And that is something that we have to be very careful about as well.”
“Philology is lockpicking. Philology literally means philo logos, the love of logos, the love of language, of logic, of words.”
“The most deeply occulted truth of the reality is that nobody is in charge. You have full 100 percent capacity to exercise your free will. And really, whatever you wish for, you will get.”
“Technology is always a plagiarization or externalization of an innate ability that we have in our consciousness or in our physical form.”
“As we have become more and more literate with the written language, we've become more and more disconnected from the visibility of the stars.”
“I just want you all to understand that the technology is not your God. It's not your master. And it's not separate from you.”
