Bob's Red Pill #2 - Aaron Rodgers' Dark Retreat

by Crypto Psi

the Hat man!

Everyone’s talking about Aaron Rodgers’ “darkness retreat”. The NFL season is over and sports media needs a story to latch onto. Rodgers is a lightning rod for controversy, especially since he refused the COVID vax and “lied” about it. In truth, all his teammates knew about his decision, no one cared, and it was only the salty media who complained. But I digress. The topic at hand: does Aaron’s darkness retreat hold any real value?

Aaron’s coming off perhaps his worst season as a starter. Everyone in Green Bay is sick of him (supposedly) and he wants a trade. As a Rodgers fan myself, I was certainly disappointed in his season-ending loss to the Lions, killing their playoff chances. He seemed unmotivated, even before the game began.

Look, as a guy who has both played football and taken a healthy amount of psychedelics in my life, I’m not sure that “tripping” is compatible with “winning football games”. Rodgers has an off-season history with ayahuasca, the South American DMT brew, that correlates pretty strongly with his decline as an elite player. Of course, he is getting older, so I could be drawing erroneous conclusions here. No one wants Rodgers to succeed more than me. Just saying bro, maybe save the psychonautics until after retirement like Jake Plummer!

lol!

On the other hand, I’m glad psychedelics and other weird shit are leaking into the NFL. It’s hilarious seeing legacy NFL media guys struggle with Aaron’s personal life choices. All sorts of cringe jokes and “bits” have been flying the last few years, and I must say, Aaron’s handled all this in stride, with a smile on his face.

However, all this attention has reached new heights with his choice to voluntarily spend 4 days at a retreat center in absolute darkness and silence. It’s poetic — Aaron going into darkness at the moment when his NFL future is most uncertain — but is his decision just a new rich hippy fad, like a $2.50 activated charcoal boost to an already over-priced smoothie?

Let’s dig into the history of darkness retreats, it would make a fantastic second installment of the Bob’s Red Pill Substack series.

The two civilizations with the oldest recorded history of spiritual tradition appear to be India and China. The Chinese lineage of spiritual seekers are generally called “Taoists” while Indian seekers are “Yogis”. Both Taoism and Yoga traditions call for different forms of extended darkness therapy, usually for more advanced, adept seekers.

Spiritual practice is often associated with isolation and recluse all throughout the world. What is meditation other than a respite from all external stimulation? There’s also a deep affinity with caves in Chinese and Indian spiritual traditions. Indeed, in Taoism and Yoga, it seems like the end goal for many is being in a cave, alone, for extended periods of time.

One of my favorite books of all time, The Chronicles of Tao by Deng Ming-Dao, details the life of Kwan Saihung, one of the last surviving Taoist masters living on Huashan Mountain. Huashan was a key Taoist community for centuries, before the 20th century Chinese government put all monks into exile. Apparently, many ancient texts, manuscripts, artifacts and more were senselessly destroyed all throughout China.

Saihung was raised on Huashan by Taoist monks from a very young age. He was rigorously instructed in martial arts, herbalism, meditation, and a slew of other intense practices. I recall two detailed references to darkness meditations in the book. One is a punishment. Apparently Saihung was quite the practical joker when he was younger, and deeply embarrassed his Master by forging his signature, which forced a duel with some hot-headed martial artists. Apparently, Saihung just wanted to see his Master, a very old man, completely annihilate some younger opponents with vastly superior martial skill. The Master succeeded, but after realizing he was set up by Saihung, sentenced him to several weeks on a stone pillar in a cave with the only entrance (a wooden plank) removed.

The second dark retreat was more of a right-of-passage. Saihung is prescribed several more weeks in the mountain caves as a test of sorts. In his cave journey, he encounters all sorts of creatures and entities, including a demon disguised as a beautiful woman. He also finds another Taoist Master “sentenced” to a thousand years in these caves. Apparently he was halfway through, on year five hundred. Other older Taoists appeared to go on self-induced cave retreats as the next logical step in their spiritual evolution. Everyone gets a cave retreat!

After completing his trials in the cave, Saihung is resurrected through time-honored practices, and explains what he witnessed. Now, a skeptic might chalk all these “visions” up to lack of stimulation, and Taoists indeed have a propensity to exaggerate, but here at Rare Candy, we believe this wild type of sh*t. Of course there are sexy lady demons testing monks in caves throughout ancient China, etc. etc.

Saihung later goes on several missions throughout China (the “real world”) and eventually finds his way to America. I cannot recommend this book more highly, especially to any fan of martial arts history. The brief portions I describe above barely scratch the surface of the insane stuff these guys got into.

For a more modern perspective, much has been said about dark retreats by Master Mantak Chia, perhaps the most known conduit of Taoist knowledge in today’s world. He personally hosts darkness retreats all over the world. He speaks of how extended darkness works on the glandular systems of the human body, particularly the pituitary gland. This perhaps explains the visions that can arise from total darkness.

I know less about the Yoga tradition of darkness, but I am aware of one fascinating practice called Kaya Kalpa. I am once again asking you to suspend your disbelief. In Kaya Kalpa, a Yogi, only after reaching advanced age, goes through a series of rituals, including being underground in darkness for up to three months, in order to completely rejuvenate body tissues. Anecdotes from ancient Yogis include hair and teeth completely falling out, only to be replaced with completely new, younger versions. Gray hair is exchanged for completely colored hair, and the biological clock is reset backwards half a century or so.

Apparently there was a notable Yogi who did this practice several times, starting at age 90, becoming younger and younger every time. Eventually he stopped doing the practice at a very advanced, unbelievable age, because he “had learned everything he needed to in this lifetime”.

Of course, in modern times, these stories seem to be not entirely credible. However, just imagine for a second — while you’re probably going to spend the next 40 days compulsively checking a social media app on your phone, someone else on this planet is preparing to spend the next 40 days in silence and perhaps darkness. Which practice do you think leads to more self awareness, introspection, and growth? What would happen if you had only yourself to live with for the next several weeks? After a period of pain, perhaps it would produce some personal breakthroughs?

Perhaps that is what Aaron Rodgers is seeking during his four-day retreat. The practice has an ancient, fascinating history, which even if read as complete fiction, is perhaps valuable to our human lives on Planet Earth. Good luck, #12, in your 2023 season, if you decide to return to the NFL for at least one more year. I’ll be following your season closely.

To your health!

-Psi