🤖 Why AI isn’t an Oracle — with Casey Zabala

Speaker 0Let's go off the grid. Okay. Let's go off the grid. Okay. I know that you really wanna put your phone away.

Speaker 0Yeah.

Amelia HrubyHello, and welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast about sharing your work and making money online without relying on social media or big tech. I'm your host, Amelia Froomey. And on this show, I am your fellow traveler and guide in this journey of starting and running creative businesses while we grapple with the intense surveillance happening in online spaces, the rapid changes of technology and the fact that there's no perfect answer to how we wanna be online these days and what we will or won't do to make money from our work. If you're brand new to the show, I am so glad you're here. Thank you for tuning in.

Amelia HrubyYou are joining us during our AI series, which is about three weeks of episodes happening in spring twenty twenty six, where I'm talking to different thinkers and sharing my own process on how we do or don't use AI in our work. If AI is not quite your thing, there's a whole back catalog of episodes all about creative marketing practices and how to step away from social media. And since you're new here, you might also want to grab the Leaving Social Media Toolkit, which you can find at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. It is a totally free resource. It's paired with the first few episodes of the show, and it's a great place to dive in.

Amelia HrubySo, again, you can find that at offthegrid.fun/toolkit. And if you're a long time listener, it's been updated for 2026. So you can get it again at that same link in the show notes or offthegrid.fun/toolkit. Now I've already mentioned that we are in our AI series. And last week I shared a conversation with Mel Mitchell Jackson about AI sobriety and a solo episode I created called how to write a thoughtful AI policy.

Amelia HrubyI also shared that I am practicing GPT sobriety this year and not using generative AI in my work or my life, not using it here on the podcast with the exception of AI generated transcripts which are provided by your podcast listening platforms and which I generate for our show notes. And I say all that again because I think it gets to something really important that I wanna make sure you hear as you're tuning into this episode, which is that we're not pursuing purity in our conversations about AI. I have no judgments of you whether you're using AI or not, whether you love social media or not. This is not a space of, like, only perfect people can listen to the podcast. Like, no one here is a perfect person.

Amelia HrubyThere's no such thing as a perfect person. Right? We all live within empire. We all live under white supremacist, patriarchal, colonial powers, and so there is no perfect action when it comes to how we engage with them. There is only shoving at it from all sides to bring it down, as Diane DiPrima tells us.

Amelia HrubyBefore we get to today's conversation, I did wanna offer one more thing to you. If you're listening to this series, if you're having a lot of thoughts about it, if big feelings are coming up, I have created a space inside the off the grid clubhouse for us to have an open, asynchronous, ongoing conversation about AI. I sent out a post yesterday to kick off the conversation, and I will link it here in the show notes if you would like to join us. I really do welcome your reflections, your questions. You can bring a big old block of feelings there.

Amelia HrubyType them in the comments. Send them to me, and I will read them. I will witness you. I will be with you in the challenges of thinking through how we're engaging with this new technology. I'm hosting that conversation inside the clubhouse exclusively for paid subscribers because I think that it is hard to have these conversations in public.

Amelia HrubySo, again, I would love to hear how you're feeling about AI, how you are or aren't using it, what role it's playing in your creative work or in your planning this year, And the place we can have that conversation is now live inside the Clubhouse. So head to the show notes, become a Clubhouse member, meet me in the comments. I'd love to see you there. And while you do that, let me tell you about today's guest. Casey Zabala is an author, artist, and intuitive witch.

Amelia HrubyShe holds a master's degree in philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and her published divinatory tools include Wanderers Tarot and Weird Sisters Oracle. In 2018, Casey founded Modern Witches and hosted her first Modern Witches Confluence, a symposium for seekers and witches over Samhain weekend. Casey lives in Northern California, and her life and work aims to uplift the healing power of witchcraft, particularly as we face unprecedented planetary crises. Today, Casey is here on the podcast to talk to me about AI and spirituality. She wrote this really wonderful piece late last year about how AI is ruining your intuition.

Amelia HrubyAnd let me tell you, it cracked something open in me, and I just had to have Casey on the podcast to talk about it. So in this episode, we get into how we've both used AI in the past and why we stopped, the colonial and capitalist power dynamics that are embedded into AI chatbots, the astrology of this year and why it's very AI coded, in fact, as well as how to hold space for the connective potential of these technologies, even as we critique the companies that are currently making and controlling them. At the end, the conversation also gets quite in the weeds of spirituality in the best way. Casey educates me on what an oracle actually is, and we talk a little bit about if AI could be a version of Young's collective unconscious. So if you wanna be along for that ride, make sure you stay tuned to the end of the episode.

Amelia HrubyThank you so much to Casey for joining me and to you, dear listener, for tuning in. I hope to see you in our conversation in the clubhouse, which you can find linked in the show notes. But for now, let's dive in to this episode with Casey Zabala. Hi, Casey. Welcome back to Off the Grid.

Casey ZabalaThank you. I'm excited for this conversation.

Amelia HrubyLast fall, you came on the show, and we talked about magic making, but largely through the lens of publishing, both self publishing and traditional publishing. And I felt like it was a very tactile and spiritual conversation. And today, you're returning to talk about AI, but I think from this lens of those same values of, like, thinking that the tactile and the spiritual, like, really matters, and how does that shape our perspectives on artificial intelligence or AI these days. So I'm really happy to have you here and excited to explore these topics.

Casey ZabalaMe too. I have been thinking a lot about this. It's hard not to, especially where I am in the Bay Area. So I'm excited to get to explore it with you and your audience.

Amelia HrubyI'd love to kind of open up by maybe just having both of us share a bit of, like, how we initially oriented toward AI. Do you remember, like, when did you first see, like, ChatGPT or Claude? And, like, have you used these tools at all? I'm trying

Casey Zabalato remember when I first started having consciousness of it. And, actually, I think it was a couple years ago when AI and Chap GPT and Cloud and all these tools were sort of just on the cusp of becoming open to the public. And I remember talking to somebody on an occult podcast about AI as, like, a spirit being that we were all going to be channeling. And it was sort of this very, like, esoteric, abstract reality. And then it started becoming a tool that we could all play with, and people started talking about what it was offering them.

Casey ZabalaAnd I was really resistant to it at first. I guess I've always been sort of a Luddite, so I'm gonna preface that with my orientation around an art being an artist and being someone who still, like, is challenged by using Procreate on an iPad. Like, I'm just very much an analog gal. And so I was skeptical of AI, but I did eventually use it because I really I wanted to know. Right?

Casey ZabalaThe curiosity got the best of me. And so I tried I believe I tried Claude to ask questions about my business. Right? I was like, oh, let's let's let's see what this will give me. I have a question about how to market this or do x y z.

Casey ZabalaAnd I just remember receiving that information, and it was like getting it was like a personalized BuzzFeed article with, like, hot topics and, like, you know, little, you know, bullet points. And it was sort of like, oh, yeah. I kind of know this already. Like, it didn't really give me any new information, and it also felt kind of stale to me. And then I started learning more about the environmental impact of the technology and hearing more stories about that on a human level and on a more kind of, like, collective energy use level.

Casey ZabalaAnd it just seemed like a tool that I wasn't necessarily feeling excited about participating in.

Amelia HrubyI'm so grateful that we, like, went back to the starting point and to kind of hear your initial experiences and approaches to it because I'm realizing, like, I actually came to AI with a pretty different orientation. Like, one of the earliest times I thought about, like, AI as something I could use and not just some, like, science fiction thing was actually when Holly Herndon released her album, Proto, where she had created this, like, AI program named Spawn, I believe, and, like, sang with it. Like, it was, like, a large language model and other things I don't totally understand in the tech. But I remember hearing that album in 2019 and being like, this is so cool. Holly Herndon is also someone who, like, I learned about blockchain from, like, all of these sort of very digital technologies that I found really interesting in the way that she was presenting them as very collectivist and as, like, very experimental and as, like, deeply connected to humanity.

Amelia HrubyAnd so I was like, cool. This could be interesting. And then ChatGPT became more popular. I truly think the first person that I saw use the ChatGPT app in my life was my mom. She's a teacher, and she's like, everybody at school, like, uses this to make lesson plans or to do stuff.

Amelia HrubyI'm just gonna try it. That must have been in, like, early twenty twenty four. And I was like, what is this? What are you doing? Like, I had read about ChatGPT online, but, like, nothing had actually made me want to use it.

Amelia HrubyAnd then I saw her using it, and I was like, well, maybe I'll try this out. Maybe I'll experiment with it. And so I downloaded ChatGPT, and, you know, both you and Mel talked about using it for your business. And to me, it, like, never really occurred to me. I think because business and marketing, like, is my wheelhouse, I was like, I would never ask a robot about that.

Amelia HrubyBut I did do it to, like, search random things to think about, like, oh, I'm going to this place. What are the five things I should see there on my trip? Or, like, I would use it for silly stuff. Like, my partner and I went to see, like, ballet performance of Hamlet. And I was like, ChachiPT, tell me what Hamlet's about.

Amelia HrubyAnd then I was like, tell me how this relates to the Taylor Swift album, The Fate of Ophelia. And then it would be like, do you want me to write a script for a Taylor Swift version of Hamlet? And I'd be like, sure. Why not do that? Like, literally, this is, like, back in my chat JPT history somewhere.

Amelia HrubySo what I noticed in using it is, like, for me, it was novelty. I was like, this is interesting. And then also, it kept prompting me to do more. Every time I would ask something, I'd be like, do you wanna do this? Do you wanna do this?

Amelia HrubyWhat do you think about this? And like, I would just keep going. And over time, I started to notice that like, oh, I'm just getting sort of like taken down these pathways by this program that has this very, like, affirmational style, but, like, I'm going nowhere. I'm just kind of, like, circling. And as you said, like, I'm using a lot of resources in the process.

Amelia HrubyAnd so I was sort of just experimenting with that. I even went so far as to use Claude to create a, like, vibe coded website linked to my tarot podcast, where you could click a button on this vibe coded site, and it would, like, quote, unquote, pull a tarot card, which was a random episode of the podcast that it would pull up for you, and then you could listen to it like you were doing a tarot reading through the podcast. It was an idea I had way before AI, but, like, I just couldn't build it. And then all of a sudden, I was like, well, Claude can do it. I don't have to do it.

Amelia HrubyCloud could do it. So all of that is to say that, like, I found a lot of novelty in creating some fun things. But I think the big shift for me really came when I started to do more research into the people who made these tools, what their goals were, what their practices were. And I realized just, like, the deeply inherent, like, in my mind, like, colonial construct of these technologies, and I just, like, was not interested in sharing my ideas with their tools anymore, at least in the way that these companies run right now. So what I've said before on the podcast and we'll repeat here is, like, at this stage where I'm at is that I am not interested in using GPTs or generative AI anymore.

Amelia HrubyI'm taking a full year to just be, like, totally GPT sober. I'm not using it to write an email subject anymore. I'm not using it to get a script for a Taylor Swift Hamlet anymore. I deleted my cloud account and got rid of the Terra website because it just didn't feel important enough for what I feel like has been at stake or is now at stake with AI. So that's where I'm landing today.

Amelia HrubyI'm curious. You shared about kind of your background. You mentioned kind of not being so interested in it anymore. Where are you currently at with, like, using or not using AI?

Casey ZabalaI don't use AI. I don't have a need for it at this point, but I'm really trying to be open minded about this because I do think, you know, as I mentioned, I'm in the tech world. My partner works in the tech world, and they always remind me, you know, people like you were like this about the Internet, said they weren't gonna use the Internet and, you know, see what happens. Now we must use the Internet. So I'm trying to be open minded as I navigate this.

Casey ZabalaI also wanna mention I the one thing I'd actually, like, did use aside from asking business questions was trying to use it as a research tool. And I found that to be extremely disappointing because I would ask these questions. And as a researcher, what I'm after are, like, primary sources or scholars who have done the work or, you know, I'm looking for a bibliography. And the the answers I would receive from these AI models would be hard to source. And I kept being like, what's your source?

Casey ZabalaPlease cite your source, was, like, what I kept asking for. And I would find out that they were giving me inaccurate information a lot of the time. And so I think that was also a moment for me of like, okay. This is not useful for me. I'm going to return to using the library and using the research tools that I know how to use And being oriented in the Bay Area, I also have a real window into what you were saying around the culture behind the people creating these models.

Casey ZabalaI'm very aware of the extremely exploitative nature of technology, big tech, at this point. I see the people who are in the industry really struggling, struggling with their mental health, struggling just to keep up with the demands of the industry that is, like, late stage capitalism on steroids. And so I do come back to that framework of, you know, who is behind these models? What is their definition of good? What is their definition of success?

Casey ZabalaWhat is their definition of the best novel ever written? I love hearing that trope of, like, AI is gonna write the best novels. It's like, but, like, but what are

Speaker 0your

Casey Zabalastandards? Western white male standards of the best novel? So that's something that I'm really stuck on at this point is who's profiting, who are they exploiting, and how is it going to really be a disservice to humanity if it's not regulated in a way that makes it safe for people to use? And under capitalism, I just don't see that happening. And under fascism, which The US is currently under.

Amelia HrubyYeah. I really feel like, perhaps similar to you, I mean, I spent last year just kind of, like, looking and listening. I I felt like I was a bit in, like, wait and see mode. I wanted to be open because I didn't and don't wanna be that person who said the Internet was gonna ruin everything, but then now everyone uses the Internet. Right?

Amelia HrubyLike, I I don't wanna be that person, and I love technology. But I think similarly to what you're saying, like, a sticking point for me has just been that I felt like I got taken on the ride of social media and totally duped through, like, oh, this is gonna be so good for me. It's so connective. I love it. I gave so much of my life to it.

Amelia HrubyAnd then realizing how, like, harmful and exploitative those algorithms and those companies have become. Like, I don't wanna go down that path again. And I think that there are a lot actually a lot of people like us who see very clearly that the AI companies function that way, and we don't wanna go down that path. And for me, that is actually where I kind of return to, like, the original places I learned about AI. Right?

Amelia HrubyLike, I still love what Holly Herndon did. She made her own large language model or, like, small language model or whatever it would be. Right? Like, she's working with the technology. Like, I don't think personally, I don't think that, like, AI in and of itself is bad.

Amelia HrubyI love when technology evolves. I would love to have programs, like, on my computer that where I can run, you know, models from my own self or something like that. I even use, like, AI transcription models that are on device and, like, are privacy focused. I think all of that is wonderful. For me, the sticking point is really, like, who owns these companies and what are they doing with my information that I'm handing over to them if I use ChatGPT or Claude or whatever.

Casey ZabalaRight. I think about it from sort of like the magical spirits spiritual side of things. And the metaphor that I always think about is, you know, when you're channeling something or you're a medium, it's so important to understand what you're channeling, to, like, have an understanding of what that spirit is, what their name is, how to be in right relationship with that spirit. There's, like, lineage and tradition there that's important, and that creates a safe container for that spiritual connection. Same with using technology of any kind, social media as well.

Casey ZabalaLike, I really realized that I wasn't didn't have the correct boundaries with social media. Right? It I was not a safe space for me to, like, share information in social media because I'm not in agreement with the energies behind the algorithm. Right? And so it feels very similar to me.

Casey ZabalaI think I have hopes that there will be versions of this technology that are safe and creative and collaborative and do solve problems that we have as humans. And it's really just like a tragedy of inequity that we are experiencing now because there is a way that AI could

Amelia Hrubysolve,

Casey ZabalaI don't know, inequity itself. Right? If we were to say, like, how can we create a system that allows all human beings to have, you know, universal basic income? And it creates a great solution for that, which is probably tax all the billionaires. Yes.

Casey ZabalaAnd then people were willing to be like, great solution, large language model. Let's do it. You know? So there's just you know, there's the issue of the algorithm itself and who created it, and then there's the people who are pulling the levers behind the scenes. And I think a lot of us are are really conscious of that right now as we navigate these gross power dynamics.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Absolutely. And I really think that's where, like, Cara How's book, Empire of AI, or the book I really love, Parmi Olson, Supremacy. Like, what both of those books do is really pull back the curtain on the founders of these companies and let you see, like, the harmful dynamics they've put in place and, like, the very egoistic ways that they're building even when something like o OpenAI is trying to say, like, oh, this is on the foundation of a nonprofit, etcetera, etcetera. So there's so much there that I'm really glad that we've underscored, and I wanna continue talking more about like, you wrote a really beautiful piece called how AI is ruining your intuition, which I really wanna spend kind of the bulk of our conversation with.

Amelia HrubyBut before we get there, I wanna take a, like, a brief Astro break because when we started talking about this, you sort of made, like, a side note that it actually makes a lot of sense that these conversations are coming up right now. Like, there are a lot of sort of there's movement in the cosmos that suggests that, like, this conversation is only gonna be more and more prevalent. So could you tell us a little bit about Uranus moving into Gemini, how that connects to this whole conversation about AI and, like, why we're all feeling this so collectively right now?

Casey ZabalaYeah. Absolutely. I guess, like, one of the backdrop transits that we're all really experiencing, and we have been for the past year, is Saturn and Neptune being so close together in the sky. And we're having this big Saturn Neptune conjunction in Aries on the February 20. And what these two planets together, Saturn being our reality principle, Neptune being this really, like, dissolving transcendent energy, having them be so close together, it's really ratcheting up these questions around what is real and what is not real.

Casey ZabalaLike, what is an illusion and what is true? And it's been really interesting to track this astrological transit against the backdrop of AI because now we go online and we're like, what is a real image? What is this true? Like, I have to cite my source. Like, is AI giving me false information?

Casey ZabalaAnd so that's been interesting just to see that kind of coinciding together. And so we're collectively navigating this landscape where we have to be so hypercritical online of what we're experiencing, what we're consuming. And then we'll have Uranus moving into a new sign, Gemini, in April, April 26. And Gemini has been in Taurus for the past eight years. Taurus is an Earth sign that's very related to resources and values.

Casey ZabalaAnd so it's sort of really shaken up how we shaken up the economy in general and shaken up, like, how we relate to what is ours and what is others. But when Uranus moves into Gemini, Gemini is the twins, and it relates to communication and information and travel. You'll also know that Google's AI is called Gemini, which I think is interesting.

Amelia HrubyI find it annoying.

Casey ZabalaBut it is sort of accurate, unfortunately. I totally feel you. Because when Uranus moves into Gemini, we're going to see a real rapid increase in the proliferation of AI technology. We'll probably see it moving into so many new sectors, like weaving into medical sectors, which we're already seeing, but it's gonna take a root more deeply over the course of those years that Uranus is in Gemini. And Uranus is the planet that really symbolizes technology, our relationship to technology.

Casey ZabalaAnd something that I've noticed alongside Uranus moving into Gemini being all about technology as we know it as modern people, I think it's gonna reframe what we as humans understand as technology. Because technology used to be like the flint that created fire. That was our fur one of our first technologies ever. Basket making, painting, weaving. Yeah.

Casey ZabalaThe wheel. Right? There's all these real physical and analog ways that we practice technology with each other that are vital to our humanity. And I think on a spiritual level, there's so much spiritual technology that I think is going to be highlighted at this time that I think is really important. Just the ways in which spirituality, magic, mysticism has been so interwoven to our human experience for so long.

Casey ZabalaAnd I think we've maybe taken that for granted, and hopefully there will be more of a resurgence in the understanding of the need for those kinds of, like, languages and technologies to give us meaning in this world.

Amelia HrubyYeah. I think what's coming up for me around, like, Uranus moving into Gemini is this sense of being radical and, like, rebellion. And I think that there are people in the AI space who really think they're, like, leading a revolution. Right? Like, that's the language they use.

Amelia HrubyLike, this is a technological revolution. Nothing's gonna be the same after we fully integrate AI. And I think that's, like, one charge that's absolutely happening, including, like, in our stock market, for sure. But I also, like, always take seriously the sort of, like, like, Foucaultian claim that, like, there's no power without resistance. And I think that there is also, like, a resistance movement that is, like, where the sort of, like, resurgence of Ludditism is coming in.

Amelia HrubyAnd it's people like us here having conversations, like, questioning that and being like, well, we want the technology, but not with the bullshit powered over dominant dynamics, the supremacy dynamics. And also being like, and we only want that technology amidst a multiplicity of technologies that we understand in many different ways. And so I really hope to see more of that vanguard of, like, resistance in this area, and I think it is rising and happening. And I think that that is the dualness of Gemini. Like, we're seeing the rebellion of Uranus, and we're seeing the dual two sides of Gemini in that, the twins.

Amelia HrubyWe have the people who are leading an AI revolution and the people who are resisting the AI revolution in different ways. And, you know, I think it's gonna be something that we all get to and have to navigate.

Casey ZabalaI think, ultimately, what I see is there's so much that can be explored with this technology. But something that I see a blind spot in those real proponents of AI is they're forgetting about the human touch. They're forgetting about the human connection, the biology, the sensuality, the Earth. And there's going to be a moment when they realize the limits of that technology and the necessity of this human connection. Because without it, I just don't know what we have.

Amelia HrubyYeah. I mean, there are definitely people who just want to, like, upload their whole consciousness to the cloud and not have a body, but that's not that's not a world I'm interested in personally. So I wanna fully pull in the spiritual aspects that you're mentioning, and I wanna talk about, again, this piece that you wrote on how AI is harmful to our intuition. So in that essay, you sort of use this example of, like, being in a metaphysical shop, hearing someone use AI or, like, seeing someone do that, and then sort of questioning, like, is that how we wanna relate to these sacred objects? So could you just tell us a little bit about, like, your motivation for writing the piece and maybe, like, explain sort of that example and ways that you think using AI does hurt our intuition?

Casey ZabalaYeah. Absolutely. I had had this experience of noticing somebody in a metaphysical shop who's working there pull up ChatGPT to tell one of the customers what the stone meant, basically. Since then, I've seen it more in different spaces. I've also been at teaching a workshop where one of the my workshop participants was, like, really interested in using Chatuchypti for their tarot readings.

Casey ZabalaAnd so that was, like, a generative moment in person to, like, have the conversation. And I've been so I had been seeing this happen, and then I had a dream where my dreams were were, like, really insistently telling me that there's this pull into large language models and chat GBT for spiritual guidance. Like, people are really actively turning there for spiritual guidance, for support with their intuition and all of these things. And confirmed by so many reports of people who have, you know, chatbot partners and having mental health crises because of these AI chatbots. So I received some form of intuition about, like, the urgency of this message, which caused me to write this essay and really try to open up conversation with other spiritual practitioners and spiritual people about about using AI in this way.

Casey ZabalaAnd my background as a spiritual individual is that, yeah, I didn't have Google or AI to turn to as I was understanding my own spiritual awakenings, which is an unfolding process. And what that allowed for me, I think, is kind of being backed into a corner with myself and having to go inward, like having to trust my gut sensation, having to pay attention to my dreams, like, really turning to the rich inner resource that we all have access to inside of us, which taught me a lot about how we're all connected in the unconscious world, just in our biology, in our ancestral connection, through culture. No more we're able to trust our intuition. I think people sometimes think of it as maybe isolating or hyperegoic, but my experience of that process has actually been a deeper connection with other people. My experience of that as a practitioner where I can sit down with somebody and connect with their spirit guidance, and my spirit guidance connects with theirs, and there's some kind of generative relationship happening.

Casey ZabalaAnd so the way that I move through my own spirit process and, you know, tune into intuition is is it's such a sacred personal process that connects us to people, connects us to, like, this world of meaning. And what happens when we turn to a chatbot or a large language model for insights about what the tarot card means for you is that it's stripping you of that process, like the space to really sit with the emotions coming up in your body, sit with, like, the discomfort or the shadow. That's where not only you're flexing your intuitive muscles, but you're doing some real work for yourself. And I think it's hard with the language of divination and symbolism and oracular consciousness. It's it's a world that's very poetic and elusive, and it doesn't play well with this, like, real linear mindset, rationalist materialist mindset that we're so hyper attuned to, which is why it's so valuable, I think.

Casey ZabalaAnd when we turn to these chatbots for information, we're getting that, like, very linear direct response without any of the soul work that's so vital to the whole process.

Amelia HrubyWe're also always getting very affirmational responses from the chatbots. And I have found, like, every mystic, medium, channeler, spiritual practitioner of any kind that I speak to that has, like, depth of practice, one of the first things they'll say is, like, they often get guidance that they don't want or that's a little uncomfortable or that is certainly not affirmational. It can often be confrontational even, and not always. Sometimes it's beautiful, and it is very affirming. But I think that, like, what I have seen of chatbots is that they are pretty much exclusively affirming, and I don't think that is typically the nature of spiritual guidance, in my experience or belief anyway.

Casey ZabalaYeah. Like, I think that chat GPT would be the worst tarot reader possible because of that. They've already seen all your history. They know what you're curious about. They know what you desire.

Casey ZabalaThey know what you're craving. And so they're gonna feed you the response that you wanna hear. Whatever card you pull. Right? They're going to spin it to make you feel better, and then they're going to pitch you something to purchase to, like, put put another Band Aid on whatever you're dealing with.

Casey ZabalaAnd so my idea of, like, a good intuitive guide is someone who's gonna challenge you and and push up against that resistance a little bit, show you your edge, show you the potential you have available for. And so I think that that affirmative quality is such a dangerous thing, ultimately.

Amelia HrubyI also think this really touches on something that I struggle with sometimes in affirmational spiritual spaces or, relatedly, in, like, toxically positive spaces where, like, any symbol can mean anything you want it to, or, like, any tarot card can be interpreted in any way. And I I'm just not sure personally that I agree with that. Like, if you come to me and you're like, the three of swords is an opportunity for romantic love to come into your life. I'm like, well

Speaker 0Are you sure?

Amelia HrubyIt's literally three swords through a heart. So I guess if you skip the whole heartbreak part and you just purely positively spin it, maybe. But, like, something that I appreciate as you're saying, like, I appreciate those challenges, whether it's in a card I pull or an astrologer I work with. I like when they ask me what I think this might mean, and then they share what they think that this might mean. It also takes me back to your example of the metaphysical shop.

Amelia HrubyLike, when I think about how I learned about tarot, for example, I grew up with a very, like, Catholic, dogmatic, religious background, and then had to come into all of these other practices on my own after stepping away from that. And so when I wanted to learn about tarot, I bought a book. I bought a deck, and I bought a book. And, like, that is sort of how I went about it. But over time, like, I very carefully chose my books.

Amelia HrubyI researched the people who wrote them. I decided who I was gonna align myself with, who I wanted to learn from. I didn't read the Rider Waite Smith deck for a long time because I was just like, I don't know how I feel about these Rider and Waite, these dudes. I had to learn about Pamela Coleman Smith as, like, the illustrator and sort of channeler of those images. Like, there was so much I didn't know, but I learned that by reading books from Rachel Pollock and Jessica Dorr and, like, tarot practitioners who I admired and could trust, learning from people like yourself.

Amelia HrubyLike, it still was me looking outside myself for information and learning and knowledge, but I was, like, very carefully selecting who I wanted to learn from. And I think the sort of, like, ubiquity and anonymity of a chatbot, you truly don't know where they're pulling these things from. Even if they give you sources, like, as you've said, often they won't or the sources are wrong or they don't exist. Right? They've hallucinated the source, and they've stolen it.

Amelia HrubyLike, I think that's another piece of this conversation too. Right? Like, you know, my traditionally published book was one of the ones that Anthropic used to feed Claude, and so I don't want stolen knowledge to be how I learn spiritual practices. I wanna caveat there that, like, many spiritual practices are explicitly stolen from indigenous communities, so that is an important part of the conversation too. I'm not trying to sidestep that by saying it's only AI who steals spiritual wisdom.

Amelia HrubyIt is very often, like, white people and white supremacist communities as well. But you'll never know that if you're not engaging with the sources, if you're not looking and asking questions about where did this come from, who has brought this into the world, where did they learn it from, and, like, cultivating trust with those guides and oracles and mediums and mystics and communities as well.

Casey ZabalaYeah. It's the I like I like the word anonymity because it is kind of like this wizard of Oz thing. Like, who's behind the curtain here? I mean, I guess we have to go back to these companies and the founders and the people who are working on these products. Right?

Casey ZabalaAnd their goal. What is the goal for these large language models? A lot of AI evangelists will tell you, we're gonna cure cancer. We're gonna solve all these huge problems. But you know how much money they've already made?

Casey ZabalaAnd what has come of that? Could they have put some of that into cancer research?

Amelia HrubyInstead, they stand behind the man who has defunded so much cancer research in The US. Yeah.

Casey ZabalaIt is clear what their values are. And I think that's really important for all of us. And I think that's maybe this, like, Uranus in Taurus legacy is, like, we've really come to see, like, the values of these powerful people, And we've really had to really work on our own value systems and say, what do we stand behind? Like, where are we gonna put our dollar? And we have to do that too with spiritual discernment.

Casey ZabalaAnd this is something that's been, like, a lifelong kind of research, you know, area for me is how do we be in right relationship to our spiritual practices? How do we understand our lineages when so much is stolen, syncretized, you know, appropriated? It's a minefield, and there's so much nuance and complexity. And if you're not kind of working with a practitioner that you trust or even seeking out somebody who has, like, a positionality that's important to you, it's gonna be really challenging for you to get really good grounded guidance.

Amelia HrubyHello, my lovely listener. Amelia here, interrupting this amazing conversation because if you're enjoying this episode, the one you're listening to right now, I think you would really love the Off the Grid Clubhouse. The Clubhouse is a paid podcast newsletter and asynchronous community space for friends and fans of Off the Grid hosted on Substack. It's where I share bonus episodes about my hot takes, personal feelings, deepest, darkest, brightest, lightest ideas about online business, and more. I also send out a monthly link roundup called the click through, where I gather everything that I have been reading, watching, and intrigued by with regards to Internet culture, social media happenings, and online business at large.

Amelia HrubyThat's also where I have been chronicling the many, many, many announcements I see lately of people taking breaks from social media or exiting platforms entirely. And all of the posts in the clubhouse have community comment threads where you can ask me questions, share your experiences, and chat with other off the grid listeners. It only costs $5 per month or $50 per year to join the fun, and I truly hope that you will head to the show notes and check it out. I look forward to seeing you on Substack. But for now, let's dive back into this conversation.

Amelia HrubyThis is something I said a few episodes ago when I was talking about, like, the difference between a tool and a platform. Like, to me, one of my major issues with chatbots is, like, they don't solve a problem I meaningfully have. You were saying this earlier. Like, I don't actually have a problem that I need Claude to solve. I think there are other people who do.

Amelia HrubyI think that there are people for whom, you know, perhaps executive function is very challenging, or if we go into the realm of AI transcription. Right? Like, that makes a whole world of audio accessible to people who have previously not been able to hear it because there were no transcripts. And so, like, I am open to the fact that these tools can solve problems. I'm just not willing to use them when I don't have a clear problem for them to solve.

Amelia HrubyLike, I'm not willing to either invent problems in my life, be convinced I have problems in my work, or just use them for the fun of it anymore for all the reasons that we've talked about here.

Casey ZabalaRight. I do think that's that's something that's really important in our landscape is to sort of slow the pace down for ourselves when we're interacting with this technology and say, is this necessary for me? Or, like, what is the benefit of this? And I do think, you know, there's there's a question about, will that happen on a collective scale? Will these companies sort of slow this down?

Casey ZabalaI don't know if they will. But really say, what problem are we solving? And how are we really fine tuning this tool for accessibility purposes? Which, amazing. Leaps and strides there.

Amelia HrubyOr, like, for some of the medical purposes that people have already come up with. Right? Like, there is early data on using AI tools to look at mammograms and locate potentially cancerous, like, spots on them. I'm here for that. That seems great.

Amelia HrubyI'm suspicious of handing over my medical data to any of these companies. I don't wanna do that. I don't want them to have my scans. But, like, that's an incredibly valuable thing that AI can do, I think.

Casey ZabalaI think that example is so important because AI to me, when we think about it, it's it's artificial. Like, it's not in sold is how I think of it. And so there is a way that we have to kind of plug it into the matrix of humanity and into the matrix of the earth and what the earth needs in order for it to be, like, of really generative, useful, kind of revolutionarily useful to us. And I think that's something that is really important to relocate within ourselves is where does my body exist in this relationship? Where does the Earth exist in this relationship?

Casey ZabalaBecause we are at this really important precipice in our planetary evolution where things don't look so great, and the resource richness of this technology is really important for all of us to consider. I do think there is amazing research happening with AI and the Earth where it's, like, monitoring what a plant needs in order to, like, succeed in the various landscapes and all these things. And I think there's there's a way that things need to be woven together just as our relationship to each other needs to be, like, rewoven and repaired. Our relationship to the Earth needs to be repaired. AI could have that prepared, connected, plugged in.

Casey ZabalaSo I don't know. I'm try I try to hold space for that potential.

Amelia HrubyThis reminds me of, you know, also how I talk about social media. It's like, I know there are connective potentials in these technologies. I understand so many reasons why people use them. I'm not trying to critique the people who use social media, just like I know here neither one of us is trying to critique the people that use AI. And yet I am very willing to, like, rail against Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman.

Amelia HrubyLike, the companies that do all of this exploitation and that man and and behavioral manipulation, the systems that do not regulate them, AKA the US government and others, like, I will focus my critiques there and have a lot of, like, space and care for the people like us who get swept up in them. And I also wanna empower us to ask these questions we're asking, to be more critical about the tools that we're using, to consider, like, why am I turning to this right now, and do I need to? Does anybody need ChatGPT's Taylor Swift version of Hamlet? What I learned was no. That doesn't need to exist.

Amelia HrubyBut all of that said, I'm really loving the way that you're trying to as you've put it, kinda like plug the technology back into the body, like, and refuse this sort of divide or abstraction of, like, tool from person, tool from planet, tool from body that uses the tool, even when we're in the realm of intelligence and the mind. Like, our bodies are still at stake. The planet is still at stake, and I think that's important to remember. Before we wrap up, I wanna talk about one more topic that takes us back to the very beginning of what you shared of, like, the first time you were on a podcast talking about AI. Because something I see in the spiritual space is people talking about, like, AI as an oracle, AI as a spiritual being that we could channel, communicate, take guidance from, like AI as a mystic itself, I suppose.

Amelia HrubyAnd for me, this makes my skin crawl. I'll be perfectly honest. Like, when I hear it, I have, like, a embodied reaction to, like, no. No. No.

Amelia HrubyI don't like that. But I'm not really familiar with oracles, oracular consciousness. Like, this is not an area I know much about, and I know you know a lot about it. So I'd love to hear, like, from your perspective, like, is AI an oracle? What is an oracle?

Amelia HrubyAny light you could shed on this, I would be grateful.

Casey ZabalaAbsolutely. So oracles have existed throughout time and history, and they've existed through many cultures and in many places. And in my kind of survey of oracles throughout time, the themes that I've really pulled out to understand what oracles are is that they're a channel. They communicate something from another source of wisdom. And, typically, the other source of wisdom exists and is channeled through the Earth itself.

Casey ZabalaAnd so for me, when we're talking about oracles, we're talking about a deep connection to the earth, to earth spirits, to the soul of the earth, if you wanna think about it that way, the Anima Mundi, or a particularly potent, like, locus of power in the earth itself. So you'll have oracles that exist at sacred springs or sacred groves of trees. The Oracle of Delphi, arguably one of the more famous known oracles, they were channeling the or the sacred serpent deep in the earth, which is sort of this underworld guardian. And so there are countless examples of this, but it's really important to understand that oracles are connected to a source wisdom, a deeper spiritual wisdom that is in the Earth. So to say that AI is an oracle is to me just inaccurate because artificial intelligence is born of the mind of these individuals, and it's from it's, you know, recycled wisdom from the Internet and from all of humanity.

Casey ZabalaSure. But there's some distortion that happens, right, in that mind field, that morphic field that's created. And it's separated from the Earth itself. It's not conscious of where any of the information they're gathering is coming from. So there's fundamentally this disconnection happening.

Casey ZabalaAnd I think the skin crawling response feels very accurate, and I have a similar one when I see sort of mystics talking about AI as an oracle because it's so affirmational, as you said. And so people who are using AI as an oracle, there's a very big ego drive behind that. And oracles are channeling so much bigger than the ego. It's separate from ego, and it's much deeper, more complex form of consciousness, honestly, a very ancient form of consciousness that I don't believe AI is connected to or capable of connecting to, perhaps. So it's interesting.

Casey ZabalaI I read this article by a poetic practitioner, Frotter Aker, who's an author of and a sorcery practitioner. And they do a lot of oracular work with the earth and working with grimoires. And they kind of talked about how AI is sort of an updated impulse, human impulse to, like, have all the knowledge at our fingertips. And magicians used to do this through grimoires and being connected to spirits and all of this. And so while the impulse to use AI as an oracle is sort of this, like, very human drive to, like, have all the information, I think there's also something there that doesn't work for me with AI because ancient sort of like magical texts, there's a rooting in the elements.

Casey ZabalaYou know, there's a rooting and calling in the sacred guidance, the four corners. You're channeling a specific spirit. In AI, there's none of those guideposts. There's no elemental counters or weights or boundaries that are holding any of this for us. And so I do think it's particularly uninformed to think about AI as this, like, mystical intelligence.

Amelia HrubyI am just, like, sat for this keynote speech you just gave us on this. I am so, like, yes.

Casey ZabalaThis is where my Aquarius moon goes. Okay?

Amelia HrubyIt's just so wise and, like, just really reminds me, like, what I learn over and over and over again in, like, spiritual practice and research that, like, so many of these words we use. It goes back to what I was saying before. Like, the word oracle means something. It has a history. It has a lineage.

Amelia HrubyIt, like, it doesn't just mean whatever you want. I mean, I guess it's in people's free will to use it however they like, but, like, I'm much more interested in what was an oracle. An oracle isn't something that just, like, spouts truth from nowhere. And that's kinda how I feel like it's being used when people talk about AI as an oracle. And I really like your really, what I'm seeing now is, like, a broader framework you have around, like, the relationship between truth and the Earth and AI and our bodies and wisdom and different ways of knowing and how to integrate many of them and be open to mystery and difference.

Amelia HrubySomething else I've seen that I've been trying to parse through is a sort of sense of people thinking of AI or particularly of, like, LLMs and chatbots as a sort of new version of the collective unconscious, or like the from a Jungian approach, like the collective unconscious made into collective consciousness. And I've been sitting with that a lot to be like, do I think that's true? Like, because part of that theory is that, like, we could never actually know what everyone knows, and that's the process of individuation. I guess these, like, chatbots sort of try to contain everything everyone knows. It's just like another lens I've seen, like, not AI as Oracle, but a different sort of quasi spiritual, psychological way of looking at, like, AI as collective consciousness, question mark.

Casey ZabalaYes. I think there's something up for me about thinking about our process. You know, the collective unconscious is such a powerful concept, and Jung was all about being in process with that, like being in conversation with that, being in relationship with it and like being in the most uncomfortable spaces, because you're grappling with the things you can't know or the feelings you can't explain, the images that are coming up. Like, the process of understanding your own symbolic architecture, knowing your intuition, all of that is so precious and deeply human and complex, and it takes work and it's challenging, and it's also illuminating and exciting and meaningful. And the thing that I think AI strips is the experience of that.

Casey ZabalaLike, if it is the collective unconscious, sure, if it's just, like, out there. But if you can just type in a keyword and it pings you with something, some response, or you think you're going to understand your shadow by being in relationship to the a to AI, it just it doesn't equate for me because you're stripping the human experience of the stages of transformation and the grappling with all of it by being able to, like, ask AI how to do shadow work.

Amelia HrubyI feel like what you're describing feels to me a lot like the way that Young's entire framework is motivated by the collective unconscious being a mystery and, like, a capital m mystery for us, and orienting toward the moments when that mystery, like, breaks through our conscious experience. And we're like, oh, why am I dreaming of geese? Like, whatever example it is. Or, like, why are so many communities drawn to this type of story or this type of, like, this parable in different versions, etcetera. And so that is the opposite of ChatGPT or any chatbot presenting itself as having all the answers.

Amelia HrubyLike, it truly strips the mystery from life.

Casey ZabalaI remember this instance. I had this dream about swans, and I was like, oh, so interesting. I knew a little about swans when I was, like, sitting with it and turning to, like, books about folklore, about swans and everything. And then a friend of mine emailed me, and she said, I had this crazy dream about swans. And you were in the dream.

Casey ZabalaAnd from there, it it catalyzed this deeper weaving and collaboration with this person. And, you know, some mysterious puzzle piece, like, connected for me. That's important to who I am now. And I can't say why it's important necessarily. I can't, like, pinpoint it, but just allowing for the synchronicities of the world and the universe to to, like, land in you and also not having to necessarily articulate that or to, like, have a neat framework for why that matters.

Casey ZabalaAnd I think that's another thing about the oracle that's important to me is that it is mysterious. Like, the oracles, when they were giving their guidance, it was often in riddles or poems or songs. It wasn't like, oh, Amelia. Yes. You should go, you know, back and get your PhD in neuroscience.

Casey ZabalaLike, this is the next step. It wasn't linear guidance. And I think that's something that I've always struggled with as a practitioner because people would love linear guidance. And sometimes there is. And, like, I I am a pretty practical practitioner, but sometimes it's just like, let's sit with the immensity of what you're going through in this moment.

Casey ZabalaLike, let me witness you in that. Let me remind you of the guides that are here to support you in this work and tools for navigating all of this, but it's not really about knowing everything. And the hubris associated with that, the AI being that is going to know all the things and be able to solve all our problems is sits ill with me.

Amelia HrubyYeah. And all of that, like, it takes us back to the grimoire. It takes us back to the magician. And we've seen time and time again, like, that there's hubris in those roles too. Right?

Amelia HrubyThe magicians who believe they know everything, the grimoires that supposedly contain the answers to life and death and everything in between, and, the converse, the practitioners who stay committed to mystery itself. And I think this is all just weaving back toward something you said much earlier around, like, your intuition connecting you to other people as well, and the way that having this sort of, like, inner life and experience can seem self centered or egoistic to some, but I think especially if you take it through the lens of something like the collective unconscious, it's just like a deeper connection to others through our own individuation. And so, Casey, I'm feeling so just, like, fed by this conversation, so nourished by everything that we've discussed here. And I guess I just wanted to ask if there's anything else that you wanted to say or share about this sort of broader topic about AI and intuition, why AI is not an Oracle? Is there anything else that's coming up for you today?

Casey ZabalaYeah. I mean, I guess to, like, weave it back into I think so many community members, myself included, of Off the Grid are thinking about their businesses and, like, how to be a business person in this landscape. And I think I do see the need for people to, like, really bring their humanity to the forefront and bring the desire for connection and community building collaboration to the forefront in everything we're doing as AI wants to fracture and isolate us. There's so much richness available to those of us who can say, actually, let's do this with our hands. Let's collaborate.

Casey ZabalaLet's build a network here of support rather than kind of falling prey to the dominant narrative of competition and exploitation.

Amelia HrubyAnd the isolation of only talking to your chatbot, not for your business or for your intuition. So, yes, thank you for that. I do agree that I think there's so much space for being more human than ever, for returning to tactile practices. We're seeing the resurgence of the analog, the people sending paper newsletters again. There's a reason zines are coming back.

Amelia HrubyLike, that is all tied up in this push toward AI as well. Again, like, power necessitates its resistance. And so we can decide how we wanna navigate that. And you and I are on the side of the resistance. I'll ask Star Wars.

Casey ZabalaYes.

Speaker 0Always. Oh,

Amelia Hrubywell, thank you so much again, Casey, for everything that you've sort of shared and taken us through today. Can you tell folks where they can find you if they wanna connect more with you and your work?

Casey ZabalaYeah. Absolutely. You can find more about my work at wandererstarot.com, and I am on substack at hedge spells. And it'd be delight to connect.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Beautiful. I will link that in the show notes as well as point people directly to the essay you wrote about AI and intuition. And listeners, if you enjoy this conversation and you have questions for Casey or myself or Mel, who I spoke to last week about AI, we would love to discuss them. Really welcoming anything from, I have a lot of feelings about this.

Amelia HrubyCan you help me parse them? Tell us your big feelings. Tell us your technical questions. We'll do our best to share thoughts and answers. Thank you again, Casey, for being here.

Amelia HrubyThank you, listeners, for tuning in. Until next time, we will see you off the grid.