Secret Societies & Spirit With Cody Edner

Join us as David takes his time to interview Cody about the reasons that got him into spirituality, secret societies, teaching meditation and more. Come and have a laugh with these two meditation teachers.

Transcript

Tools about how to learn to not only connect with your energy,

But then manage and direct your energy.

Welcome to Energy Matters.

I'm David and I'm here with the amazing Cody Eddner,

Who actually has been my teacher many times over.

Cody has been teaching clairvoyance and meditation for over 30 years.

I won't date him.

Thank you.

I was actually when I started so years too.

And that would make us the exact same age actually.

And you teach some amazing work.

You teach hands on healing.

You teach channeling,

Transmediumship.

You teach beginning levels of meditation,

Clairvoyance.

You've been the director of one of the Berkeley Psychic Institutes.

You taught at schools like a sclepeion.

And you have more experience than most people on this planet when it comes to meditation and clairvoyance.

And so it's awesome that I get the chance to interview you today.

And why don't we just start with where when was the first moment you noticed in your life?

You're like,

Wow,

I have a certain ability or a certain kind of spiritual awareness.

When did that hit you?

Obviously,

It must have started early since you've been doing this for 30 years.

Yeah,

That's thanks for the introduction,

David.

My gosh.

Let me just sit here and kind of ask in that book.

Love for a moment before I put it down on your head before I blow up by talking.

Cody's one of those senior teachers,

You know,

Where you're one of those people where the teachers go to the teacher teacher,

Teacher,

Teacher.

Yeah,

That means you're really old and wise.

You're kind of like Dumbledore.

Oh God,

You're making this harder and harder.

No,

But really,

Where did you how did you start with with your path and with being interested in meditation and all of the energy worth?

Yeah,

And that's a really great question.

I,

You know,

I cannot necessarily point to any one like moment or one day where I thought,

Oh,

Wow,

I'm,

You know,

Psychic.

But when I look back,

There's a number of things that that happened that kind of led me in that direction.

Certainly there was there's an interest,

Right?

So there's always been an interest in something a little bit mystical or mysterious.

But even when you were a kid,

Even when I was a kid.

Do you mean like ghosts or?

Yeah,

Ghosts or just anything spiritual,

Actually.

And so there's a couple of different points that really led me ultimately to pursue meditation,

Energy awareness and intuition development.

And one of the first ones is that actually the first time I got a reading and that I was about 14.

I think it was on my 14th birthday,

In fact,

Because I was out with my aunt.

She was taking me out to lunch and out for a day of shopping.

My crazy aunt.

You know,

We all have one of those who takes you for a psychic reading on your 14th birthday.

We were out shopping and we were in Boise,

Idaho,

Of all places.

And this would be back in,

Oh,

Gosh,

80,

81,

Something like that.

And she says,

Hey,

We were in a bookstore and there was a psychic up in the second floor.

And she says,

Oh,

Do you want to get a psychic reading for your birthday?

And I said,

Sure,

That's great.

And so she wanted to get a reading,

Too.

So she got one first.

And I sat in and watched her reading.

And it was kind of interesting.

I was watching the reader do a reading.

My first experience with that.

And at one point I realized I was reading right along with her.

I was kind of thinking in my head and seeing everything that she was seeing right as she said it or before she said it.

And that was one of the first times that I really clicked that maybe I was psychic.

And then I got a reading.

And essentially the reading was was really great.

But my question and I didn't realize that this was my question until years later when I found the tape.

About 10 years later,

I found the tape and I re-listened to it.

And this was after I had trained and been reading for a number of years.

And so I'm listening to this tape and I'm going,

Wow,

This lady was a really pretty good reader.

She was a palm reader and had some great information.

And then she asked me if I had any questions.

And I heard this little voice chirp in and I only had one question.

And it was how do I develop my psychic ability?

So out of all the questions you could have asked,

Am I going to be rich?

What am I going to grow up to be or do?

You asked how can I develop my psychic abilities?

Or girls.

I mean,

You know,

As a 14 I got asked about girls.

The only thing I asked was how do I develop my psychic ability?

And did she say that'll be another $10?

Yeah,

Right.

No,

She had a really kind of an interesting answer in retrospect because she didn't know.

That was the thing that she couldn't answer because she had the gift.

She grew up as a psychic and she had the gift and she just started to read people.

And she had no idea how it worked or how to grow or develop in your abilities with awareness and intuition.

And that's a little different than what you teach now,

Right?

Because she had no tools in a certain sense.

Right.

She simply just had the gift to see.

Right.

And so she may have had some type of meditation practice or some kind of an awareness practice that she used to heal herself or clean out.

But in terms of giving someone direction about how to just start from scratch and and learn to develop in their psychic awareness or their intuitive awareness,

She didn't really have an answer.

And that was her answer to me was that,

You know,

Basically she just kind of skirted around my question.

She just talked about it being more important right now to develop your intellectual and analytical side.

And but she really didn't know.

You know,

But that unfortunately that never developed.

Right.

Right.

But that question really didn't get answered until I found what what you mentioned earlier,

What we call BPI or the Berkeley Psychic Institute.

So back in the 70s and into the 80s,

There was a training center in the area where I grew up in Northern California that was a place to learn about how to tap into,

Connect with your intuitive awareness and start to open up to your clairvoyance.

And it was rooted in,

You know,

Energy awareness and meditation.

So there were tools to meditate with that would move you into a space to start to become aware of this,

You know,

Other aspect of what's going on in the world,

This unseen world that we all know influences the world and influences our relationships to some extent.

I mean,

Most of us can walk into a room and kind of feel the temperature of that room.

We can kind of feel the energy of the room,

We might say.

Now,

We may not couch that in clairvoyant terms.

We may not see it.

We might not say,

Oh,

I see the energy looks like this and it means this.

That's that's a reading.

But we walk in and we can feel if it feels up or if it feels low or if it feels fun or if it feels serious.

And we know that right away.

And that changes or affects our space and our mood very often.

And we all can feel energy like most people have had the experience of standing online somewhere and you feel something on your back and you turn around.

Someone's staring at you.

You know,

What are you feeling?

You're feeling that energy.

Yeah,

That's why I don't leave the house.

That's why I don't want anybody psychically creeping on me when I'm online at the store.

And just to go back a moment,

Cody.

So it's kind of interesting that this whole kind of clairvoyant movement started in Berkeley in the 70s.

And it's Berkeley's also where those protests happened in the 60s.

And there was this whole kind of revolution and opening up of love and peace and the entire hippie movement.

And that kind of all kind of birthed in Berkeley,

Didn't it?

In California.

And it's interesting that that happened.

And then this psychic thing happened there with the Berkeley School,

Because that led to many schools opening.

And I think I read once on their website,

Over 300000 people had learned just from their schools.

So it's kind of interesting,

Isn't it?

There's some kind of connection with that whole kind of peace and love,

Spiritual opening and unfoldment that happened in the 60s and then in the 70s.

This school came out of that and then many schools came out of that.

And that's where you got your training and ended up being your career.

Right.

And then and now it seems to be morphing into something else.

But maybe I don't know what was your perspective of when it was all happening or how all that's connected and where is it leading now?

How is it different than it was in the 70s?

Yeah,

That's a really good question.

Now,

I kind of missed the free love part of the whole game.

You know,

The 60s and the one that's part of that old.

I came in.

Tell us.

Tell us what World War One was like,

Cody.

Which side were you under in the Civil War?

I really want to know.

What color was Moses's beard?

So you are dating me.

But that is a very good question.

But,

You know,

If you look at the Bay Area and the San Francisco Bay Area and Berkeley and that area,

There was a lot of awakening,

New thought,

New ways of looking at things happening there.

And it was really a place for the birth of a lot of different types of new consciousness,

I guess we could call it.

And I think that came out of a lot of what you're saying,

A lot of the whatever you want to call it,

Hippie movement,

The protests,

The kind of awareness that people had that things needed to change,

That we needed to change the society and change our views in a way that maybe was less controlling and less oppressive and a little bit more open and free.

And of course,

The first expression of that was that,

I don't know if it's the first,

But there was a big component of that was the sexual revolution,

Obviously,

Because that was probably one of the aspects of the individual that was really oppressed.

And we're still creating changes on that level in our society,

Right?

Well,

I think it wasn't until the 1960s that we found out women were able to have orgasms,

Right?

Right.

Yeah,

That was when the news broke.

And then that's why everything just.

.

.

What the hell?

Everyone's like,

What the hell?

Oh my God,

We might as well open a psychic school in Berkeley.

But that psychic school came out of an individual's.

.

.

And there were probably many people in this arena because there's always been spiritualist groups and psychic groups.

And the difference was coming out of the 60s was all of those things that used to be somewhat secret societies and they used to be structured in a way that you had to hang around them for a while,

You kind of had to be invited in,

You had to pay your dues,

And then way later down the road,

You got the secret,

Right?

You got the answers.

So there were always more of a closed society or a closed group.

So it's not like awareness of energy or the exploration of mysticism or the occult is new,

But what I think changed and what seemed to really change in the 60s going into the 70s was this energy of secrecy,

This energy that only a certain few could know things and everybody else just went along.

And so this school that came out in Berkeley,

It kind of flipped the script a little bit because suddenly everything that you needed to know was on the front end.

So the minute you walked in the door,

The assumption was that everybody is psychic to some extent,

Right?

Everybody has that within them because it's just part of our human nature to be able to sense energy and to feel it.

And to take that to the next level is simply to learn a skill about how to interpret what you're picking up,

Right?

How to articulate what it is you're noticing.

Whether you're noticing it through a sense of feeling it or having an intuition or seeing it as a clairvoyant does,

The trick is how do you put that into words?

How do you articulate that unseen world and begin to communicate it?

So this school that started,

Started as what the originator called,

Kind of coined his phrase was a psychic kindergarten,

Which meant it was a safe place to come in and play with this aspect of the human nature.

The ability to work with energy to heal or to read and give insight,

To connect with spirit and get information from the other side,

So to speak.

So that was kind of the impetus of that school was to have a place where it was safe and fun to play with this aspect of self.

And let's go back for a moment to a couple things.

One,

Secret societies,

Because this is pretty interesting for most people.

And I'm taking a group retreat to France in two weeks where we're going to be exploring the secrets of the Knights Templar,

Which started over a thousand years ago and morphed into all these different groups.

And I think there's some kind of correlation maybe to some of those groups and to where Berkeley came from.

I'm sure a lot of people are interested when you started talking about secret societies and how that turned into a clairvoyant school.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that connection and where that all comes from.

Are you are you a Knights Templar and do you have a right.

I'm a member order of the Illuminati.

Actually,

Cody,

For you guys probably don't know,

Cody is an amazing karate.

I don't know what the term is.

Master.

No,

Just a black belt.

Not a master.

OK.

So not only could he give you a healing,

But he could choke you out with his black belt.

So tell us a little bit about what you mean when you say secret schools or society and what that whole structure was about and how that changed.

Yeah.

And I have not been in the secret society personally.

Well,

That's what everyone who says is in the secret society says.

OK,

I guess we'll take your word for it.

Wink,

Wink.

Well,

I think part of the in terms of the school that we're referencing and talking about the person who originated that was,

You know,

A Rhodes Accretion,

A Freemason.

He'd been part of different spiritualist groups all of his life.

He didn't actually create his structured center until he was in his 50s.

And yet he had always.

And that was Lewis Boswick.

And he had always been psychic.

So he'd always seen energy and auras as a young child.

As did I.

But it took him into his 50s to find,

You know,

His his kind of way to open that door for other people and to create it.

And the point of my story of my first reading was she didn't really have that answer for me.

And I found that answer when I found BPI.

Four years later,

I walked in the door and someone gave,

You know,

Connected with my energy and gave me a read of my energy and talked about how to turn that on in oneself.

And I just knew that was,

You know,

I found that answer.

Basically,

Sometimes our answers aren't something that can be told to us,

Per se.

They lead us to a place where we,

You know,

Step into a practice or have an epiphany about ourself.

And that's it.

I mean,

Clairvoyant readings is a huge topic in and of itself where a lot of people are probably like,

Whoa,

What does he mean by all that?

But let's go back to the secret society first again.

So,

So the original teacher,

Your teacher,

Lewis,

Was in some of these groups and he learned from them.

And then what happened there?

Because that's always seems to be shrouded in mystery.

The mystery schools are shrouded in mystery.

It's funny how that works,

Isn't it?

So what's the secret handshake,

Cody?

Yeah.

Well,

From what his stories and what he shared is,

He was a Rosicrucian.

So he studied in that order for many years.

And the Rosicrucians in some form came from the Knights Templar.

So the story goes,

Or some variation,

Not quite sure.

I should know because we're about to go.

Yeah,

You should have read up on that.

And he was a Freemason and,

You know,

I think a 33rd order or whatever.

He'd been in it for years and years and years.

And his 33rd order is at the highest.

I think that's the highest,

But I'm not entirely sure.

He dabbled here and there in different spiritualist type groups.

You know,

He was in spiritualist groups that were into channeling and mediumship.

And he was into different spiritualist groups that were a little bit into,

You know,

Aliens and just kind of the mysteries in the world that are out there.

So he kind of gathered information.

And at one point it all came together to where he decided that one of the things in all of these different groups that wasn't conducive to bringing it to the mainstream was that they were all secret societies.

They were all had some kind of barrier to entry where you had to be perfect before you could do it versus coming in in that idea of kindergarten where it's the place to explore and learn and make mistakes and make those mistakes safely.

Because one of the difficulties with opening up one's intuitive awareness and opening up to that aspect of themselves is that it isn't always comfortable and safe,

You know,

To open up.

If you don't have some kind of support group or you don't know what you're doing,

You can kind of get a little bit in trouble,

Psychically speaking.

And what usually happens is you just then turn it right back off,

Right?

You start to open up.

Something happens that's a little bit scary or you don't have explanation for and then you just tend to try to turn it back off.

Do you think that these,

A lot of these societies and groups,

They kept it secret for that reason or for a reason of safety or was it just an elitist thing?

And I don't even know,

I didn't even know that some of these groups like the Freemasons were teaching spirituality or clairvoyance or any of this stuff.

So is that what happens in the 33rd level of Freemasonry?

Like the first few levels you make business acquaintances and then all of a sudden you're doing psychic work when you get up into the higher levels of those organizations?

I don't think that they have.

Are you saying Ben Franklin was secretly a psychic ninja?

Because he helped start the Freemasons in America,

Right?

And then your teacher Lewis is part of that group and he takes some of these tools and he may be the first one to bring it out into the public.

And so two questions.

One is that first question asked,

Did they keep a secret to,

Because a safety concern of some kind or you have to be at a certain level of maturity to learn these tools?

Well,

Why don't we start with that one?

And I don't think that like the Freemasons,

They don't practice psychic energy work as far as I know.

They have information,

It seems,

That is somewhat spiritual and somewhat about how to live your life and they have information,

I think,

That they transmit through certain different ceremonies and rituals and types,

Things like that.

I think they have a little bit more free thinking type of a perspective than maybe other aspects of religion and different things like that.

But I don't think they teach what we're talking about,

Like formal tools.

The Rosicrucians now have quite a doctrine that I haven't really explored deeply that's pretty spiritual.

I mean,

It's fairly well known as a spiritual kind of a doctrine,

Same with the Gnostics.

A lot of these different societies,

One of the things we might consider is that there is such a thing as mysticism,

Christian mysticism,

Right?

There's Christian religion out there that studies the Bible specifically,

And then there's different sects of kind of Christian ideal that borders more on the mysticism side of that religion of Christianity.

So some of these different teachings like the Gnostics or Rosicrucians,

They're Christian but in the mysticism realm of Christianity,

Exploring the mystery.

So there is energy awareness in that.

I don't think there's sit down and read your energy practice necessarily in that.

And do you think that,

Or do you know if any of these groups were angry or upset with Lewis when he started teaching it to the masses because I wasn't alive yet when it started but apparently when the Berkeley Psychic Center was going in the beginning there was thousands of students there and huge lecture halls of people.

And here he is teaching all these apparently kind of secret tools and ancient spiritual teachings from some of the groups that he had been a part of.

Was there any backlash from that?

Was there like some secret organization that wanted to get him for it?

Not that I know of.

He gave away the handshake.

We must find him and tickle him.

Not that I know of.

There was never anyone tailing you guys.

Okay,

So these secret organizations didn't really have any teeth,

I guess.

They just kind of,

He,

After 1000 years he took their secrets and shared them and they were like,

Well,

It's Berkeley,

I guess.

Nothing happened.

I always thought there would have been a bigger kind of reverberation of ultimately when someone let out all the secrets of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons.

Yeah,

I don't know that he took their secrets per se.

I think in learning that in studying mysticism and the occult all of his life and being someone who saw energy and auras himself,

He simply came to a place to be able to articulate how he saw energy working and to teach people tools to be able to manipulate and work with their own energy to open up to their clairvoyance.

He brought something new to the scene.

I don't think he necessarily took the secrets per se,

But one of the stories he used to tell why he decided to open a psychic kindergarten was he was in,

I think it was a Rosicrucian order one day and he,

There was some doctrine he was reading or some information about the astral planes.

And he asked one of the higher level people how many astral planes there are,

How many levels to the astral plane are there.

And the astral is like the dream time and the astral is like the dream time so so in the mysticism in the occult,

There is a kind of a stratification of that dream time space into different levels of energy and experience and so he simply asked someone,

Well how many levels are there?

And the answer he got back,

Their attitude was kind of like,

You know,

Like you don't know how stupid are you,

Right?

And then the answer is there's 144.

So how was he supposed to know that?

He didn't know.

So he's like,

Well,

How can a person learn and grow and explore in this realm of awareness and energy if the attitude in most of these groups is that you know you're stupid and you don't know anything.

And that was his story about why he in part decided to create it as a psychic kindergarten rather than a school of mastery,

Right,

Calling it that on the get go.

Because we all have to have a place to go where it's safe to not know anything and to explore something new and to have fun and make mistakes.

And then you master it later,

Right?

And part of the block that can happen in spirituality is trying to rise to that picture of perfection and trying to be perfect as you start to open up.

That doesn't allow anything to happen and so if I'm trying to get into a school of mastery,

You know,

What's the bar for that?

What's the expectation?

Do I have to become something I'm not?

Do I have to be better than who I am?

Do you need to have a mustache?

How do I dress to be a master?

So,

And,

You know,

There's so much attraction to these kind of mystical schools and secret societies I mean the like the Dan Brown books and the amount of literature around the Illuminati and the Knights Templar and all these schools and everyone wants to know kind of their deep spiritual secrets.

And I think what Lewis did was he brought it out into the world but also when you get deeper into it you recognize on some level that those secrets are inside of you.

They're not in some inside of some organization,

Maybe there's an organization of people and teachers who can help you and have tools to teach you to help you find those answers inside yourself.

So it's almost like the mystery schools there's a little bit of a bust there because when you,

Even if you were to go into one and really find out all their secrets,

Ultimately they would teach you any of the real ones I think anyway are good ones.

Ultimately they would teach you have to go in words and find those answers for yourself,

And maybe they'd have some great teachings on how to do that.

And I think we live in a world where you don't have to be in a secret society to get those teachings anymore right.

I mean,

500 years ago,

Almost nobody knew how to read.

And nobody only the priest knew nobody knew how to read.

And now you can go on the internet and you could download every great you didn't need to download it you just go and read every great spiritual text in the history of the world,

All in one place for free,

And you can just walk through them all.

And so the world is radically shifted from then to now.

And so these secret societies Yeah,

It seems like maybe in the 60s and 70s there was that shift and Lewis in Berkeley was part of creating that shift and bringing it more out into the open.

It's pretty interesting topic I think it's Yeah,

Well,

And I think,

You know,

You're,

You're really right and back to a point you made earlier about the secret societies and why they are secret and why they exist and was that trying to protect people.

And I think it's more about what you just mentioned is more about the control of the information.

And back hundreds of years ago when,

You know,

Only a few people could read and maybe only the priest or the spiritual leader could read.

They had all the information and so they would create a society around that information and keep it secret.

And,

And maybe to keep it from being,

You know,

Persecuted by the church.

Sure,

There's some protectionism in that.

And you're right,

It nowadays it's very very different.

And there isn't.

I'm sure there's,

I mean there still are secret societies out there.

But in this free or total access to information.

Today,

It creates an entirely different dynamic,

Where,

Like you say you or I or any of us could go and find and read all of the ancient texts and information.

And that idea that in some school or in some order of a society,

Spiritualist type group,

That somehow the answer is,

You know,

Way at the end.

And you have to work really hard,

You have to kind of jump through all these hoops to get there.

That's a really old idea.

One of the things that Lewis changed and we used to kind of say this,

Which is a horrible sales pitch,

But we used to say 80% of what you need to know will teach you in Med I in the first meditation class.

Now,

To master that and understand what that really means takes years,

Right?

I can tell you the spiritual answer.

Right now it's 42,

The answer to life.

And to understand the meaning of that takes a little bit of exploration.

So what the secret societies really had,

I think you're right,

Or any group that has information is they have a way to open that up or open up to what's inside of you,

The answer that's locked inside of you.

And so through the practice,

You start to gain insight about your answers and information.

At least a school that really works to promote growth,

A school that just tells you here's the answer may or may not align with you.

In other words,

You may or may not be able to use that answer,

But a school or a person that shares with you how to turn inward and look inward in a way that allows you to go deeply inward through meditation being our primary way to access those inner answers.

And then lead you to the place of awareness to connect with and begin to open up to and understand those answers as they arise from within.

That's the idea behind it.

And as always,

You can find me Cody at intuitive vision.

Net or David Gandelman at grounded mind.

Com.

Thank you and have a great day.

Enjoy yourself and enjoy the mystery.

See you soon.

You've been listening to the energy matters podcast with Cody Edner and David Gandelman brought to you by intuitive vision.

Net and grounded mind.

Com.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes stitcher or soundcloud.

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