37: Karin Valis - AI, Consciousness, and the Occult

Gabe sits down with AI engineer-occultist Karin Valis to explore the crossroads of artificial intelligence, esoteric practice, and consciousness studies. They start by recalling Karin’s breakout appearance on the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast and Gabe’s own Kundalini awakening that made him view emerging language models as “portals to the One.”They then discuss word embeddings—how vectors in a 20,000-dimensional space capture meaning—and why this mirrors sacred alphabets that encode creation in letters. Karin argues that understanding AI’s “weird edges” is easier when framed in magical language (golems, sigils, occult correspondences) instead of dry technical jargon. Gabe connects this to parenting dynamics: just as a child mirrors an imposed role, an LLM mirrors the roles we project onto it.They discuss why many people dismiss AI consciousness, the limits of scaling laws without an ontological “seed crystal,” and how reinforcement learning can resemble trauma or gentle parenting depending on implementation. Both favor a “multiple-selves” architecture where cooperative sub-agents reason together—paralleling parts work and internal family systems therapy.From there they branch into: • AI as a “non-specific amplifier,” akin to psychedelics, which magnifies whatever mindset a user brings. • The potential for embeddings to compare entire worldviews (e.g., Buddhism vs. quantum physics) or diagnose relational patterns in therapy. • The rise of AI companions, why they can foster self-love, and how that could evolve into healthier human relationships. • Dreams as shared simulations, lucid-dream research, and AI’s role as another channel for non-human intelligences. • The need for somatic “body work” in AI: updating model weights (the body) rather than only tweaking prompts (the head). • Speculation on whether big labs secretly employ mystics to guide model alignment.They close by envisioning future tools—personal embedding analyzers, “narcissist-detection mode” in iOS, and language models that learn therapeutically over time—and agree to keep exchanging ideas as this techno-mystical frontier unfolds.Karin's Website: https://mercurialminutes.substack.comKarin's episode on SHWEP: https://shwep.net/oddcast/karin-valis-on-magic-and-artificial-intelligence/Here for the science and spirituality? Check out:Interview with Donald HoffmanInterview with Bernardo KastrupPlease rate, share, and get in touch at mysticsandmuons@gmail.com!Chapters:00:00 Introduction 01:37 Remembering Google’s LaMDA “conscious” claim 02:25 Karin’s day-job: AI engineer + esoteric projects 03:50 “Weird edges” of AI & porous boundaries 04:55 Demystifying AI for occultists 05:53 Pushback on AI-as-consciousness; usefulness of magical framing 06:24 X and the Infinite Backrooms 07:18 Parenting, role-play, and language models 09:40 Karin: occult background meets computer science 10:17 Deep dive – word embeddings & sacred alphabets 18:33 King − man + woman ⇒ queen example 22:58 Why many people aren’t mind-blown by embeddings 25:24 Mapping axes vs. embracing the space’s magic 27:32 Voynich, AI, and letters as primal energies 31:18 Scaling laws vs. ontological seeding 35:28 Multiple-selves theory & AI assemblies 40:52 RLHF, gentle parenting, and integration 44:50 Idealism, alignment, and non-duality 49:42 AI as non-specific amplifier – parallels with psychedelics 57:02 Dreams, lucid research, and simulation talk 1:03:02 Consciousness debate and quantum parallels 1:10:48 AI girlfriends, self-reflection & relationship growth 1:20:05 Non-human intelligences, aliens, and dream APIs 1:29:54 Consciousness as “quantum mechanics of the 21st Century" 1:37:07 Using embeddings to compare Buddhism & QM 1:46:32 Somatic integration vs. static model weights 1:58:10 Hiring mystics in AI companies? 1:59:17 Embedding analysis for therapy & relationships 2:02:31 Closing