I will not lie to you, good people. The conversation you’re about to hear is one of the most enlightening and one of the most personal that you’ll ever hear on this show. And I have to thank our guest Niles Heckman for that. He brought a really cool idea to me for the chat, and I had no idea what to expect before we hit the record button, but what transpired, I think, is pretty inspiring. Niles is a multimedia savant. He’s a writer, photographer, podcaster and the man behind the films Shamans of the Global Village and the forthcoming Transmutation. He’s also a frequent guest on my friend Ed Liu’s Psychedelic Milk podcast. And what we did here was, we talk a lot about our own growth and maturation, how it applies to our creations and our art, and then looked at how a man named Lyman Frank Baum followed a similar path to create maybe the most recognizable fairy tale in the history of art, The Wizard of Oz. Some of you may have heard of that. The Wizard of Oz part of this, though, is actually the second hour of the chat, and if you’re not supporting the show on Patreon, you’re only getting the first half of this. So, if you want to hear this in its entirety, head over to Patreon.com/occulture to support the show for as little as $2 a month. That’ll get you access to extensions like this one as I continue to enhance and expand my Patreon content. And this is the first time I’ve really tried the whole first hour free, second hour for patrons thing. It’s worth it too, because what we talk about in the first hour is really a blueprint for Baum’s creation of The Wizard of Oz and all the esoteric and occult symbolism found within it. And there’s quite a bit of it, actually. RESOURCES Niles’ website   PATREON Please do take a moment to check out our Patreon campaign. We call it Coda. Four levels of support. Bonus content. Free shit. Click here to check it out.   DONATE If recurring monthly support via Patreon isn’t your thing, we do accept one time-donations via PayPal, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. Every little bit helps. Click here if you’re interested.   MERCH We recently released our first t-shirt. Check it out on our website or at our Etsy shop.   SOCIAL Twitter Instagram Facebook Tumblr   MUSIC Vestron Vulture - “I Want to be a Robot (Tribute to Giorgio Moroder)”   PRODUCTION & LICENSING This podcast is produced in the Kingdom of Ohio and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. Executive Producers: Mike K., Erick, Carter Y., Mauricio G., Alyssa S., Daniel R., Tess, Joe T., Kelly C. REMINDER Love yourself. Think for yourself. Question authority.