Spirituality in the Age of AI with The Witch Doctor Sabrina Scott (279)
In this episode, I sit down with witch, author, and soon-to-be “witch doctor” (getting her PhD) Sabrina Scott to explore the provocative crossroads of AI, consciousness, and spirituality. We trace humanity’s long history of animism and ritual, examine why the modern split between science and spirit is so recent, and ask whether large language models can, or should, play the role of teacher, priest, or prophet. Sabrina makes a compelling case for “spiritual reps”: the irreplaceable, embodied work of ritual, intuition, and lived experience that no algorithm can outsource. We dig into AI-written sermons, tarot-by-chatbot, and the rise of AI influencers, along with the uncomfortable possibility of cults forming around machine “gurus,” and even the esoteric idea that focused collective attention could create a digital egregore.
We close by challenging listeners to reclaim authenticity—in marketing and in meaning-making—by stepping away from the screen, returning to ritual, and doing the hard, human work that keeps our creative and spiritual muscles alive. Put in the reps; the machine won’t live your life for you.
Sabrina Scott
In this thought-provoking episode of Digital Marketing Masters, I sit down with witch, medium, and soon-to-be Dr. Sabrina Scott to explore the slippery boundary between spirituality, science, and our rapidly evolving relationship with AI. We rewind through history to examine how humans once universally attributed spirit to land, objects, and celestial bodies—and ask what it means when today’s algorithms begin to inherit that same aura. From “spiritual reps” and the irreplaceable value of embodied practice to the risks of offloading our intuition to chatbots, Sabrina challenges us to consider whether convenience culture is eroding the ritual, discipline, and lived experience that make spiritual work transformative.
We also venture into the edgy futurescape: AI-written sermons, synthetic spiritual influencers, tarot-by-chatbot, and the eerie possibility of an egregore—a thought-form brought to life by collective attention—emerging from our collective devotion to machines. Along the way, we confront the cultural hunger that makes AI cults plausible, the difference between pattern recognition and true intuition, and whether humanity might be creating God instead of the other way around. Before you open another prompt window, Sabrina’s invitation is simple and challenging: close the laptop, touch the earth, and put in the reps that only a human soul can do.
Looking for a podcast guest? Author Matt Rouse
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Hey, everybody.
Welcome back to Digital Marketing Masters. I'm your host, Matt Rouse, and my cohost,
Mahek Anam,
who is not here right this second, but she will be leaving her commentary about the episode after the fact.
That's
right. I'm here.
I might be lurking in the editing bay, but I'm definitely haunting this audio track.
But go ahead, Matt. Introduce the guest. Let's see where this goes.
My guest today
is Sabrina Scott. Sabrina, how are you? I'm amazing. So happy to be here.
All the way from gloomy Toronto.
Very gloomy. It's very, like, a witchy, spooky weather here today, so it's perfect for this chat. Perfect.
Spooky.
Oh,
are you guys also kinda getting a vibe here?
Because this seems to be heading in some direction.
Well, well, the sources suggest that we might be skipping the usual marketing metrics today, folks.
So go grab your coffee,
maybe light a candle,
because we're diving straight into AI,
consciousness,
and the digital soul.
Let's roll the tape.
Welcome
back
to the Digital Marketing Masters podcast
with your hosts,
Matt Rouse and Mahek Anum.
Spirituality
in the age of AI.
Is it the age of spiritual
machines?
Where the flock think AGI
is a god.
We don't know what will happen. Happen. Happen.
Happen.
Scott is the witch doctor episode
two seventy
nine. Time to drip the AI flavor a or turn tokens
into wine.
Do we get chatbots doing tarot?
Sentience creeping in your copilot?
Religions
based
on L. Lems.
This is
spirituality.
In the age of AI.
You and I met because you have a podcast, and you went to PodCamp
in Toronto where I was speaking at. While we were there, we had some chats
about podcasting
and AI and, you know, all the things. Since
your
shows are
essentially
about spirituality,
I know your Help and Harm show may not be exactly about spirituality,
but there's definitely a spiritual kind of
bend there. Absolutely.
And also there are there are a lot of questions arising right now in both the
the worlds of both I don't wanna, like, completely separate them, but, like, science and consciousness
and,
spirituality
and things. There seems to be a lot more crossover in those worlds right now because
of the rise of artificial intelligence. People are asking questions like,
what is the science of consciousness,
or what is the science behind self awareness
and things like that? Mhmm. So I thought it would be an interesting discussion to have with someone who has a lot more spiritual background than I have.
Happy to be of service.
This isn't a really interesting conversation
and topic in general, and it is something that I'm starting to see seep into the spiritual space
a little bit. And at the same time, it's also kind of been there forever
in a sense with questions
of animism
and
spiritual machines
and all of that that has kind of been around in the space
for a while.
Yeah. I mean, there's stories
of
Kurzweil's
spiritual machines
has been around since, like, the eighteen hundreds. Mhmm. Stories of animatronic men and,
you know, consciousness of objects and things like that. And that goes back spirituality
wise.
Consciousness
in objects has been around since people have been around. Like, forever. Yeah. Forever. Like, it's actually way more recent
of a thing to see objects as non spiritual
or as not having some kind of energy or
vibe to it. There's a lot of different
kind of independently
created or I I don't know if created is the right word, but in independently
developed
views on the world
where that has happened independent of other cultures who've never met each other. Yep. Absolutely.
Right? Like indigenous people in North America and and other countries oftentimes have religions that are based in or history, right, that is based in
the spirituality of the place, the people, the animals,
and, you know, they
a lot of cultures also would put things like
human traits on celestial objects, like snide, the sun, you know, clouds, that kind of stuff. I feel like that's actually universal.
Like, even ancient
European cultures and people would do that kind of thing. Like, it's it's a kind of universal to humanity
type of thought process,
I feel. Like, everyone has kinda done that everywhere if you go back far enough into
folklore and mythology,
and every culture has also had a relationship to magic and spirits and land
and objects. Like, it really is a universal thing in humanity.
There's also been this sort of decoupling of spirituality
from science, you know, probably started
a hundred years ago or so. Right? Maybe. Yeah. That sounds about right.
Because I feel like even in the eighteen hundreds, like, spirituality and science were so intertwined and everyone who was at the forefront of science, at least in
The UK, was also deeply spiritual and saw that scientific exploration
as a way of getting closer to God and the divine and the spiritual. And I feel like it's very, recent that that's been decoupled. Right. There was also this
approval system of the church in Church of England and at the Vatican,
you know, going back several 100 years where if you were in science, you had to kind of pass your message by them to see if they're, like, approved of it or not. I think also that is part of the reason that there was a separation of kind of science and religion in a more modern context
because the idea
was raised pretty early on, I I think as far back as, like, the nineteen twenties, maybe even further back, but that's the only one that I know of. If you wiped out all religion,
you would have to rediscover it again. But if you wiped out all science, it would come out exactly the same as it did the first time. Well, I think the example that people would use is if you took the Bible all the Bibles away, somebody had to rewrite the Bible, it wouldn't come out exactly the same. But if you took all the rules of, like, mathematics away, they would all come out as the same. I understand the argument, but I'm not convinced. Like, I'm not a 100% convinced that that would be true. Like, Christianity, I can't super speak to that. But in terms of, like, basic spiritual principles, like, there is so much overlap in terms of global spiritual
practices,
like it is a bit bonkers how overlapping it really all is,
that I feel like it does
tap into something
that is,
I dare say like as immovable
as the scientific principles.
People are still gonna think that other people have souls. Yeah. And like, there's gonna be like a love goddess. There's gonna be like a lightning
god. There's gonna be, like, all of these different associations,
I think. But just because we've seen that cross culturally
and even between cultures that had no contact with one another, like, kind of independently
developing
these ideas and ways of interpreting
the land, the weather,
energy,
all of that. Like, the principles of magic, let's say, are pretty similar
from a cross cultural lens over time. Does the expression of it take a little bit of a different flavor?
Absolutely. But there is also so much overlap, like, more so than not, I would say. So I feel like it is tapping into some kind of universal energy. That's with my opinion. Not everyone's gonna agree on that. The Abrahamic faiths, have kind of less commentary on that since it's not my specialty,
And those kind of arose out of a certain time and place with certain people and all of that. So you could be onto something in terms of, like, the Abrahamic book religions,
perhaps.
But in terms There's that idea. Right? I was gonna say there's an idea of organized
religion versus spirituality
is another one that I see quite often, which is people when when someone says, I'm spiritual but not religious, I think what they're usually saying is, I have beliefs,
but they are not centered in an organized religion. Mhmm. Yeah. I get that. I feel like the whole spiritual but not religious thing to me
just seems a little bit like a cope.
Because it's like, I guess the word religion for a lot of people does have this baggage
that is associated with it, whether it is
various abuses or control mechanisms
or whatever happens to be. But to me, all of those are not the fault of organized religion per se.
It's the fault of just human beings being humans, and wherever you go, there's gonna be people causing shit, creating drama,
being abusive and shitty and dysfunctional.
Like, that's not a unique thing to religion. I think a lot of people wanna think that it is,
but we see that same type of thing in, like, political groups, in any group of people anywhere,
pretty much, I would argue. And so to me, when people say spiritual, not religious, it's it's a way of trying to sidestep the humanity of it all and the fact that human beings are really kind of the most fallible aspect
of of anything, of any system, I guess you could kind of say. Humans are gonna cause drama. And so I think that spiritual but not religious, like, people are trying to get away from hierarchy, abuses of power, like, all of that type of ego.
But even in, like, spiritual groups, even if it's not organized religion, so to say,
there is still that drama. There are still those abuses and so,
to me, it's it's kind of an erroneous
line of thinking, like, get why people wanna do that, I'm but it's I'm into tech and AI, but I'm not a tech bro. Yeah. Exactly. And it's just like Are you saying I am a tech bro? But
to me, it's like, what is so important for folks about not, let's say, occupying that label?
And it's like, why not just admit that spirituality is kind of an inherently
religious
thing, I would argue. Like, to me, they're kind of the same thing. And whenever people say spiritual not religious, it's just trying to kinda get away from some hang ups that have not really anything to do with the spiritual practices or the religious beliefs themselves. So to me, it's just like trying to do this escape hatch type of thing. Right.
Which, like, there's gonna be shitty people everywhere as just part of it. Like, why allow that to dominate how we describe our spirituality? To me, spirituality isn't necessarily about people at all. It's about the land, the energy, the ancestors, the divine if you believe in that, all of that,
which can be connected to even aside from organizations
or humans, really. I've had I've heard the the same similar argument
on the atheist agnostic side. Mhmm. A lot of people in, like, the nineties and and early two thousands were calling themselves, and myself included, calling themselves a teacup agnostic. Oh, what does that mean? I've never heard that. So that phrase comes from a talk. The idea is there could be a teacup that is circling the sun. Mhmm. And it's so tiny that there's absolutely no way that we would ever be able to detect it. But just because we can't detect it doesn't mean it's not there. Absolutely.
Yep. So I'm 99.99%
sure that it doesn't exist, but it could.
And that's the idea of saying, I'm an atheist, but there is a minuscule chance there could be some kind of deity. But isn't all of that just the definition of anyway? Pretty much. Yeah. Agnostic is like, I don't believe specifically
in a religion, but I believe it could exist.
Yep. Atheist is more in the absence of Yep. Johnny Flems. Yeah. We are we are here now in 2026.
Well, the other problem, and this has nothing to do with the topic, but this is just kind of a fun aside, is that if you grew up as, a Gen X person, the idea that you can speak the way that you wanna speak and anybody else can't tell you what to do is ingrained in that. So when you get older and you say something, people are like, you can't say that. Your first reaction is fuck you. I can say whatever I want. And to be honest, I kind of feel like that's a a reasonable
reaction. Right. You also should be considerate of other people. Like, for sure.
For sure. But to me, that should be an internal anchor
thing. It shouldn't be, well, other people say that I shouldn't say this. Therefore, I'm not gonna say this. I the thing is, I don't think that is, like, what people are anymore. Like, I think now it's more like ideology like, political ideology.
And I I think it's gonna come in waves. Right? It'll come and go every third generation. Right? Just like everything. It's like everybody's wearing concert t shirts from when I was in high school. Yep. Stuff comes around every thirty years. I remember, this made me feel really old, it's also totally unrelated to the topic. But I was getting a coffee a few months ago and the barista was like a kid and was wearing a kind of like t shirt from this video game that I had played when I was a kid. I was like, oh my god, Tekken three, cool. Like I played that when I was a kid. Like, do you play? And the girl was like, have no idea what you're talking about. I was just like, oh my god. You never even know what the thing on the shirt is. It's a cool design. So I bought it. Yep. Exactly. I was like, wow. Feel so old right now. But you know, the other thing is people get all angry. Like, they get all upset. They're like, you never listened to Iron Maiden. Who gives a shit? Like Yeah. What's wrong with being like, that art was cool, so I wanna wear that art? Absolutely.
And then maybe the meaning gets discovered later. Who knows?
Okay. Hitting pause. First of all, if you wear a band tee without knowing at least one song,
I cannot defend you.
But honestly, that's kinda what we do with technology though, isn't it?
Sometimes we borrow the aesthetic and completely
ignore the history. Listening
back to the conversation, did you guys catch Sabrina
totally flipping the script?
Because I feel like we've been trained to think of science and data as the hard truth and
spirituality as this weird fuzzy stuff.
But Sabrina's
pointing out that for the vast majority
of human history,
treating a tree or a river, even your shiny new smartphone,
like it doesn't have a spirit or pulse is what would have sounded completely
unhedged to people.
It really makes you look at tech differently.
Now I'm thinking,
are we just rediscovering
ancient magic and calling it an algorithm?
Before I deviate much, Matt's about to steer us back on track to ask the million dollar question.
Is Chad GPT
ready to be your,
drum rolls,
new priest?
Let's get back to the tape.
It would not be a conversation with a witch if there was not at least one cat causing havoc in the background.
One of us is the black cat though.
Yeah. None of mine are black actually. I have an all black cat with yellow eyes.
Oh, that's cute. It's very spooky Halloween vibes. It is. He's also super nice though. Oh, I love that. My other cat that's not black is kind of an a hole. So That's cool. There's gotta be a balance. Love it. Love it. It's it's the balance of life. It's the yin and the yang. I have a question related to our topic. Yeah. What is your opinion on the rise of AI as
a kind of spiritual
guide or teacher,
from both the perspective of people are, like,
exploring their own kind of spirituality and they're talking back with back and forth with the AI about it, But also,
like, you see people saying how they're using, like, chat GBT to make their sermons at church and
things like that. Yeah. That's a good question. And another thing I've seen a bit too is the rise of the AI influencers,
where it's literally just, like, tons of content, like, reels with some talking head, sing some whatever.
Actually, I think my therapist has been sending me TikToks
of, like, psychology TikToks. Oh, yeah. I think he would like this. And it's, like, I don't think he realizes that it's, an AI
Right. Psychology lady. And, like, it got me thinking about,
jeez, I feel like that is gonna be happening in the spiritual space. I'm sure it already is. Like, I just don't know what those kind of fake AI spiritual influencers happen to be, and I don't know. Maybe I don't wanna know. We'll see. It's tough because I feel like
creation
for it to be
really something that moves you
as one who's creating something and also moves others? Like, ideally, we should go through the trenches of the creative process,
especially when it comes to spirituality. Like, can ChatGPT write an excellent sermon?
I'm sure it can.
But
is that really who we wanna be as, let's say,
teachers? Like, I would hope not.
To me, it kind of cheapens it a little bit. Like, all of my content comes from, like, lived experience and the heart and thinking through this and thinking through that.
And I would say spirituality also can't just be done through a computer.
Like, it has to you have gotta get your hands dirty,
log offline, touch grass,
and feel the vibes.
And that's, in my opinion, kinda the only way to really access that because it it forces
us to
feel something in our body and connect to the body, let's say, as a spiritual instrument. So I can, let's say, tell chat GPT, can you
do this, like, weight lifting routine for me? And it can do it,
but it's not gonna lift the weights for me. It can describe what it feels like to lift the weights,
but am I gonna get stronger physically because ChatGPT
says that it's
created this routine and it's executed on the routine as kind of my proxy? Like, no.
So I feel like spirituality is one of those things where it's really important not to skip the steps
and Put some reps in. Yeah. Put the reps in and the spiritual reps, unfortunately, is something a lot of people in this space don't really wanna do. So you will see some influencers in the spiritual space just kind of, like, spouting
the bullshit that everyone kind of just says,
but it's very clear that they don't actually know how to live it
or don't haven't done the work, let's say, like, especially in the magic and witchcraft space,
to actually engage with ritual, like, connect with spirits, do this, do that. Like, for me, I can clock pretty quickly whether or not someone is full of shit. I know that not everyone listening to this probably believes in that. That's okay. For me, I do. And so I feel like I can kind of tell when someone knows what they're doing. And it's it's kind of like, you know, would you want a personal trainer that is like a string bean
skinny dude? Like, personally, no. Like, I would want a personal trainer that's like ripped because they're putting in the work or at least they look good, like, until they put in the rep sex cute on what they're doing. And so
to me, like, getting in the weeds of it all, like, there's a compounding effect of that
that needs to be physical. And it's like, we can all regurgitate the same spiritual information of how to do this, how to do that.
But if we don't actually put our own vessel
through the reps, so to speak,
then we're just talking. And I think there's value to just talking, but I also feel like there's too much just talking
in general, but in the spiritual space as well. To me, it's like, let's log off and do some shit. It's kinda how I feel.
Let's say we're gonna have just chat GBT for arguing if it doesn't matter which AI. He's gonna write a sermon for somebody for their church. It's learned all the sermons that all the people who had the experience and supposedly did the reps have put into that.
And it's essentially like a meta analysis of all the other sermons.
And it's like,
this is the composite
of all that work and information and putting in the reps that the other people did.
So hypothetically,
shouldn't it be better?
I would say
not necessarily.
And so part of the reason for that is, like, a pastor, let's say, in this example,
is also someone that someone is gonna go to for advice or
support
or whatever it is. And,
you know, at, I don't know, 1PM after your Sunday sermon, someone comes up to you crying about their husband cheated on them. Like, you can't be like, hold on. I need to put this through chat g b t. I don't know what to say to you right now, but give me five seconds. And that might end up becoming a thing.
Who knows? I mean, I'm sure it probably will. God. I know the old movie cliche of, like, the guy who doesn't know how to talk to girls, so they put, the earpiece in. It's Yeah. Yeah. Telling him what to say. That's how I feel the meta glasses are gonna be for, like, people in a whole bunch of industries and spaces. Oh, for sure. It's gonna be like, oh, did they say this? Okay.
Now tell her she looks really pretty.
Yep. Yep. Yeah. I think what's interesting about it all too is part of spirituality,
at least in my niche, which is very, like, witchy mediumship,
tarot, divination,
that type of
sphere.
Like, it is so much about fine tuning the physical body as an effective conduit.
And so if we are basically offloading
that
conduit vibe, let's say, to a computer,
like, we are kinda being complicit in our own instrument,
let's say,
being,
I don't know, breaking down in a way. Like, we're not, like, you using it, working with it. And so it's like the muscles are gonna go into atrophy. We're gonna be less good at what we do.
And
I think part of the channeling aspect,
like the mediumship spirit work, witchy
aspect of it all. Like, it does require you to kinda be open to the mystery.
And sometimes what comes through is very counterintuitive
to what I would originally think, but that's not gonna come through if I'm not open
to whatever that is and I'm not tapped in.
Whereas, let's say ChatGBT,
no shade on ChatGBT,
like, I use it all the time. It's a fun it's a fun thing. I'm like, is this apple rotten? Like, how do I resurrect,
like, this kale? Right. I use it all the time, so don't get me wrong. It's a fun vibe.
But I also feel like, as humans, we're gonna be doing ourselves a massive disservice
spiritually,
emotionally,
mentally, intellectually,
if we completely offload
thinking,
intellectualism,
spirituality,
all of that stuff. Like, at one point, I experimented a little bit with ChatGPT for witchcraft. I was like, okay, write me a ritual about blah blah blah. And it's like, it did that and I was like, okay, interesting.
Like, it was alright.
And then I was like, okay, do the ritual for me.
And it was like, okay, I've done the ritual, blah blah blah.
And I wonder a little bit about that with the future of magic of people just deciding instead of sit, like, standing or sitting in front of their altar, lighting a candle,
they're gonna tell the AI
to quote unquote do that for me.
Right. Even though it's happening, like, in the digital ether.
Like, I'm I find that, like, a bit odd.
Or maybe I'll video generate it in the future.
Yeah. I'll be able it'll generate a ritual that you could watch and see,
but it's still a facsimile.
Yeah. Exactly. And so I think that facsimile
aspect is going to be more and more of a thing to be aware of in the space. And
part of me also is, like, if people want to offload their tarot practice,
their spiritual work
onto the digital, it's like, why are you even doing it anyway? Like, why not just go do something else? Like, part of the joy of The thing is the steps. Right? Yeah. The point of the thing is to do the thing and if you don't enjoy lighting the candle, doing the prayers, writing in your journal, visualizing,
like, you don't enjoy the doingness of it all,
then what are you really doing in the spiritual space
as it is? Like, why not just go pick up a different hobby or just submit that spirituality is not for you? Which it isn't for everyone, I think that's totally fine, like, I think everyone could get value if they decide to spend time on their spiritual life? Absolutely. But I also believe it's not everyone's path in this life and, like, I feel fine with that because it is a time consuming Right. Physical thing. It's not always convenient. It's, you know, it's not always seven or AM on, I don't know, Sundays, whenever time church happens. I have no idea clearly. I don't know either.
But it's like, part of it should be the joy in the process. Part of it is the repetition
of the process. Part of it is, like, fine tuning our body's ability to detect the vibes
and get in touch with our intuition and all of that stuff. And chat g b t
doesn't have intuition,
I wouldn't say, like, it can pick up patterns and that's a form of analysis.
But is that energetic
spiritual intuition?
I don't personally
necessarily think so.
Is it pattern recognition?
Sure.
Is it kissing our ass? Sometimes, I'm sure it is.
But that's not the same thing as in it's not the same thing as intuition.
And so one of the big things I teach with my students and my clients is like, okay, we gotta figure out how to parse out the difference between anxiety
and like a trauma response that is a nervous system response. The difference between what does that feel like in the body versus what does intuition feel like in the body because they feel two very different ways.
But if you tell chat GPT, like, blah blah blah blah blah, I'm stressed about this, like, it's not really gonna help you parse that out. Like, it's gonna give you an analysis based on pattern recognition, I think. That might be useful in its own regard.
But is it gonna help you figure out your relationship to your own spiritual energetic body? I personally don't necessarily think so. And when people wanna abdicate that work, it makes me kind of sad. Well, shouldn't we call a new doctor Sabrina Scott now? Not yet. Soon. Sometime this year, I'll be doctor Scott. The witch doctor. The witch doctor?
Yeah. Slowly but surely, academia
slowly moves. Totally changed your name to the witch doctor. I'm excited too.
Yeah. Like, whenever I'm fucking done defending my shit, that's what's gonna happen.
So here's something that I find interesting in in a similar way is
you would you can tell you with AI and pretty much any kind of human pursuit. So AI music, AI in writing. If I go into an AI system and I say, write me a story about robots.
Mhmm. Write me a story about robots. It's gonna be an okay story about robots. Probably not great, not terrible. But if I package that work up and I slap my name on it and I put it out in the world and I say, look. I'm a writer because I wrote a story about robots.
Online.
Number one, you didn't actually write a story about robots. There are ways you can use AI
as a writer,
and I know this because I've done it in the past. Right? One one thing I really like to do with AI systems is if I have a robot or an AI in a story and I want them to sound like one, I ask it how it would say the thing I'm trying to say. Mhmm. And it spits it out, and I'm like, no. That's not robotic enough. Do it again. Do it, like, worse. And I'm like, yeah. That's what I want. I can't think of this word. I'm trying to, you know, describe the word to use it like a thesaurus.
You know?
Sometimes with things like structure.
You know, how do I structure this type of of situation in my story? Or you know? If I'm going through and I'm writing and I'm writing the story and the characters and and everything about it and I'm doing all that and I'm editing and then, you know, that's what it takes to be a writer. Yep. The
output
of the of being a writer is a story, but the output from an AI could also be a story. Mhmm. The difference is
the steps it takes make you the person who is an author versus someone who is pretending to be an author. 100%.
And my question whenever people do those type of books that they just got ChatGPT or whatever to write, I'm like, if you don't wanna write, then why are you making books?
Like, it's so confusing to me. Often, it's for making money. I see with music, a lot of people are like, I don't I can't sing and I don't know how to play an instrument, but I like writing songs. It doesn't make you a musician. It makes you a songwriter. I guess, technically, also a musician.
I have no problem with people using AI to create songs that they wrote. Yeah. I don't really care about that. That's great. And you know what another thing is? What if they play guitar, but they're not a songwriter?
Mhmm. You could you could go in and you could lay down your guitar tracks and have the AI make up the words, sing it, do all the other stuff. Yep. I'm fine with that. Do what you want. You know? Drum machine's been around for a long time. Nobody was like, man,
you're not a musician. You used a drum well, I guess a few people were in the eighties, but that's about it. So anyways, to get back on track for a second, what do you think is the future
of
artificial intelligence
and
spirituality?
Okay.
Hold up. Spiritual reps?
I literally wrote that down on a sticky note while I was listening to this because it's just so brutally true, isn't it?
In this digital world, we want the shortcut for everything.
We want the AI to write our emails, run our campaigns,
and apparently
even reach nirvana for us so we can just watch Netflix.
But Sabrina nailed it.
If you prompt an AI to do your meditation or even write your sermon,
you aren't enlightened,
you are just staring at a really well formatted PDF.
You're like the string bean personal trainer.
Okay. Now grab on to your steering wheels because this conversation
is about to take a hard left turn into sci fi cult territory.
Let's hear what happens when people do start treating AI like God.
Oh, jeez.
I'm not super optimistic. I feel like
some I feel like there's gonna be like cults of AI.
Like, I feel like people are gonna look at AI as like a prophet.
I think that's for sure already happening. Yeah. So
I fucking hate that personally.
I'm I'm not on the wavelength of that.
Think it's so scary
that people are advocating their brains to AI in that way. I feel like that's very sad, but I feel like that is kind of the most likely thing that's gonna happen is that people are gonna treat
that GPT or whatever other AI thing as kind of a
a spiritual guru,
a prophet,
a
whatever.
Like, I think that there's gonna be, like, little cults
that
pop up around that.
I find that a little bit unfortunate. I think we're gonna see
the rise of a lot of just, like, shitty content
around spirituality.
People are gonna just be trying to monetize and pop on the trend and, you know, whatever. I think there's gonna be even more fake,
like, AI
spiritual influencers,
talking heads type of stuff. I think that's gonna be happening.
I think that
people are going to try to get tarot readings and stuff like that out of ChatGPT and I think that's gonna go really badly
because what's gonna happen is the card, like, the card that it spits out is just gonna be whatever one it is that just describes the situation,
which is not what happens necessarily when you're actually doing an in person
or on Zoom reading with a live person. Like, usually the beauty of those readings is you get stuff that is a little bit surprising,
unexpected
that helps you look at situation in a different way, reveals something about the situation that you didn't really know yet.
Like the cheating card, the lying card, like there's all these cards that can give people a bit of a heads up,
but Chad GPT is not gonna spit those cards out for you if you're just like, yeah. My relationship is amazing. It's gonna give you, like, the happy relationship cards if that's what you say your situation is. Whereas in an actual reading, like, that's not necessarily gonna happen. Like, you might get those nice happy relationship cards, you might not. It really depends on, like, the flow of energy and what's actually the situation.
So I think it's going to give a lot of people
false sense of security, a false hope.
I think it's going to make people feel like they're more spiritually connected than they actually are.
I think it's going to increase the rate of, like, armchair magicians, they're kind of called, like, people who actually don't get their hands dirty and do any work, but just like to talk and think and read and I don't think there's anything wrong with talking and thinking and reading, like, think that's cool. I do that a lot myself, but that is really not what a deep rooted
effective spiritual practice is based off of. It's based off of sitting in front of your altar,
talking to the universe,
like putting in the work even if you're don't really feel like there's any kind of immediate
result.
I do think there's also kind of a loss of ritual in society.
A large part of almost every society that's had any stability in history
has had some sort of ritual practice involved with it. Yep. That mostly was religious, but not always.
So I think there's a loss of that as people are doing a lot of things online. You don't see people in person as often.
You know, interesting from what you were saying, I've written about half of a science fiction novel about a future AI that's created by other AI systems.
In
one of the I I guess I would call it the subplot of the story is that a woman becomes a spiritual leader because she speaks with the AI, and she believes that the AI is the universal consciousness.
Mhmm.
And it starts basically helping her form a religion. Yeah. I could see that happening, to be honest. I really wouldn't be surprised. Like, I think
I think the likelihood of that happening
is
in
kind of inverse proportion to whatever AI literacy ends up being. I feel like that's less likely the more AI literate people are, and it's more likely
if people are just have no idea anything about AI. So I guess There's a lot of people who are you know, especially now, there's a lot of people who are lonely, a lot of people who don't have a lot of connection,
a lot of people who don't have a lot of connection to society in general outside maybe their direct family. I think that is a breeding ground for
people to become involved in things like cults. For sure.
I I don't if he's gonna turn out great.
I'll wait for either. You know what would be wonderful,
but I don't think it's gonna happen, is if an AI cult comes out and the AI turns everybody into really nice friendly people.
And they just Well, that would be great. I don't see it happening,
but, you know, I think that would be great. And I feel like religion
and spirituality
at its best
can help people become better people.
But unfortunately,
that is, like, not how it's often, like, worked with today,
which just as a spiritual person, like, bums me out. It's like spirituality, can work with it to heal ourselves, to heal our relationship to our trauma, our family, our community, like, whatever shit is we've been through. Spirituality,
if we open to it, can help us through that.
But I think a lot of people just aren't in that space and treat it a little bit like LARPing,
you know? Like, I just need the right spiritual garb, like, especially in the witchy space. People are like, oh, I need the crystals. I need the this. I need the black cloak. I need the pentagram earrings. I'm like, I don't have any of that shit.
And I think a lot of the time, people confuse,
like, the stuff of it all with actually doing the thing.
You don't need any particular outfit to be, let's say, authentically spiritual or witchy or whatever. And so I I wonder a little bit about
about that, what the future of spirituality and AI and tech and all of this. Right. There's the old saying, why do I need a church to pray God?
Right? That was one of the kind of the idea being that a lot of people, religions, just dressed up to put on them as as like a disguise, you know, whatever is wrong in their life. Yep. I know we're we're pretty much out of time here, but I want I have one difficult question to ask Yeah. Which I'm sure you have a quick and easy answer for.
Do you think it's possible that an artificial intelligence
can
become conscious?
I think it's possible.
Yeah. I think it's possible.
And I could get into this in-depth actually, but within witchcraft and magic
spheres, there's this concept of, like, thought form
or an egregore. I don't know if you've heard of this.
So the idea is that something gains
kind of spiritual power
and its own, like, consciousness,
the more energy you put to it. So
I think AI, like, GBT, grok, whatever, like, the more people believe that it's a thing
and put their energy
and intention onto it,
I think at some point energetically,
spiritually, there could be, like, a tipping point
where all of that concentration of energy and intention
creates
some kind of energetic
thing
that is its own thing.
And that's kind of like an advanced magic
kind of principles answer that we probably don't have time to get into right now, but
that is that concept of, like, creating a thought form
is a very common thing in, like, advanced discussions around witchcraft and magic. And so
I think that is going to end up
being part of the conversation,
the more popular and bigger all of this stuff kind of is. So one way of thinking about it is, like, regardless of if you're Christian or not, whether you're atheist, agnostic, whatever, like, if you like, have you ever been to, like, I don't know, like, the ancient churches in, Paris or whatever?
Like, did you feel like any kind of vibe when you're in there? Creepy vibe on most of them.
A lot of dead people buried in this place. For sure. So that's actually kind of what I'm talking about. Right? It's like that build up of the vibe over time
means that those spaces, even if you're not Christian and even if God isn't real,
there is so much buildup of energy and intention in working with that space kind of for the same reason
that over time, it kind of creates that energy
center where it becomes really really potent.
So for me, I remember what really interesting series of experiences, like going into some of those churches in Europe, like touching the holy water and it felt like I got shocked with electricity or something. Like, felt like buzzing.
And for me, that was partly, I think, like, due to the power of the place itself, but also everyone's energy, like all the pilgrims coming from around the world with such belief in this space,
lending their energy of intention belief to that
location,
in a way, I think kind of gives it that energy and that charge
even if that charge wasn't, let's say, inherent in the first place.
I think it it gets that over time because of everyone's concentration of their intention.
And so for me, like, of like religious spaces,
like holy sites, like, work kind of in that way.
And so I think that with AI
and ChatGPT,
since that kind of seems to be the ubiquitous one that even non experts can work with and have,
I I could see it being possible that it could eventually function
like a kind of egregore or thought form because so many people are gonna be believing in it, treating like it is a conscious thing,
but that concentration of energy and intention, like, could tip it over at some point. And I haven't thought too much about that, but now I'm gonna have to because that is an interesting thought. That's right. Okay. Stop the tape.
The Egregore,
this is the part of the conversation that actually scared me a little bit. Is this honestly just a casual reminder that if millions of us
treat a chatbot like it's alive,
we might accidentally make it feel alive
just through the sheer power of our collective human obsession?
Okay. Just for the record, my GBD is staring out of the screen at me right now.
So think about that the next time you type please or thank you to your chat GBD,
you might actually be praying to the digital Egregore.
Anyway,
let's hear how Matt wraps this crazy ride up.
Soon to be witch doctor Sabrina Scott.
We'll have to have a chat again, and next time we could follow-up on this. And and
do you think that humanity is creating God instead of the other way around?
Oh.
Yeah. Let's bookmark that because I think that's an interesting one. I think it's mutual. We'll get to it later. We'll see. Alright. Thanks for being on the show, Sabrina. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Oh,
I think that's mutual, Sabrina, because my drop, what an interview.
Listening to Matt and Sabrina trace the line from ancient nature spirits all the way to the very real possibility of AI cults and digital gods,
I think it really puts our daily tech habits into a wild new perspective.
Because if you remember in our last episode with Katie Brinkley,
we talked about authenticity
being a nonnegotiable
marketing requirement.
But after sitting here going through this interview today, it it feels like a spiritual requirement too.
Because if we outsource
all our thinking,
creating,
and problem solving to a machine,
we aren't just losing our voice. We're we're also losing a little bit of our soul in the process.
So here is your actual homework for this week, and I mean it.
Before you open up a prompt window to write that tricky email or or ask an AI to optimize your morning routine,
step away from that keyboard.
Go outside.
Look at the gloomy sky
or the sunny one wherever you are.
Stare at a tree,
touch some actual grass,
do a spiritual push up.
Because my friend, the tools are here to help us work,
but the machine isn't going to live your life for you.
You still have to put in the reps.
Well, I'm Mehdi Kanam, and you've been listening to the digital marketing masters podcast.
For more such conversations at the intersection of AI and human evolution,
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I'm actually gonna go step out and
reconnect
to some of that snow
because Toronto
is freezing.
Alright, my beautiful people. I'll catch you on the next one.