Ep 65 - Ali Norman - "I Was a Backyard Wrestler!"

Episode of Seekers of the Eternal · May 30, 2025 · 1 h 44 min

Printmaker Ali Norman discusses etching, a studio fire, chaos magic, kayfabe and egregores, and Vajrayana practice with the host of Seekers of the Eternal.

Summary

Printmaker and University of Tampa adjunct professor Ali Norman joined the host of Seekers of the Eternal for a wide-ranging conversation about art-making and esoteric practice. Norman described her attraction to intaglio etching, which she framed as a chemical and quasi-alchemical process involving polished copper, resists and ferric chloride acid, and said she liked that the medium forces a surrender of control. She also discussed copper electroforming, laser-cut copper plates, and a planned series based on Rudolf Steiner's planetary spheres that would accompany a book she is writing. Both speakers said they use AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney as creative collaborators and mirrors of their own consciousness, while acknowledging common objections.

Norman recounted building Labyrinth, a community print studio in Tampa, after receiving the keys on March 1, 2020, days before pandemic lockdowns, and described burning out before the building was destroyed by a fire in August 2022 that she attributed to a neighboring coffee shop's illegally installed roaster. She compared the loss to a hermetic initiation, said she spent a following year regulating her nervous system and meditating, and explained that an adjunct teaching job appeared within hours of her asking what to do next. She said she is now planning a new, more collaborative studio space.

The second half turned to performance and metaphysics. Norman said she wrestled in a women's performance-art backyard wrestling league while in graduate school in Georgia under the heel name "Dragon Your Ass," and the host described his own lucha libre–inspired art projects and a visit to DDT wrestling at Korakuen Hall in Japan. They linked kayfabe to the occult concept of the egregore, arguing that belief and attention make ideas real, and extended this to identity: Norman argued that traumas are simply beliefs and that embodying a deity archetype is no less real than a traumatized self-image. They discussed Padmasambhava, wrathful deities, Chöd practice, Dzogchen views of karma, and Yogananda's movie metaphor for reality.

The episode closed with accounts of the Seekers of the Eternal forest retreats. Norman described performing Chöd drumming practice alone by a lake when a dying, one-eyed water moccasin approached and died beside her, followed the next day by finding a snake egg and receiving the snake as her animal in a Gene Keys reading. The host read a passage from Paramahansa Yogananda's How to Live Without Fear to end the show and promoted an upcoming Mount Shasta retreat.

Chapters

0:26
Introducing Ali Norman
The host introduces Ali Norman as a printmaker, professor, alchemist, chaos magician and Vajrayana practitioner and warns listeners the conversation will go far out.
1:41
Etching, chemistry and the intaglio process
Norman explains how she came to etching as a teenager and walks through polishing copper, resists, ferric chloride and what intaglio means.
8:35
New projects, AI and authorship
Norman describes laser-cut copper plates, a Steiner-inspired planetary sphere series and using ChatGPT and Midjourney, prompting a discussion of what makes someone an artist.
15:02
Copper electroforming and art as an outlet
Norman describes building a copper sulfate electroforming bath after her studio burned, and both speakers discuss using hardship as creative raw material.
21:26
Labyrinth studio, the pandemic and the fire
Norman recounts signing her studio lease on March 1, 2020, running a community print studio, burning out, and losing the space to a fire in August 2022.
29:53
Surrender, alignment and creative faith
Norman describes how a teaching job appeared immediately after the fire and argues that art is tainted by fear or scarcity, while the host connects this to aligning human and divine will.
45:31
Backyard wrestling and lucha libre
Norman describes wrestling as a heel called Dragon Your Ass in a women's performance-art league, and the host recounts his lucha libre-inspired art and visits to wrestling arenas.
51:20
Kayfabe and egregores
The pair define kayfabe and the egregore and argue that identity, trauma and social media personas work the same way through collective belief.
1:04:15
Wrathful deities, non-duality and karma
They discuss Padmasambhava, Mahakala, Chöd and Dzogchen views that karma only binds those who believe in it, alongside the movie and video-game metaphors for reality.
1:15:38
The Oracle deck and archetypes as character stats
The host describes a deity Oracle deck project and the arrival of Thoth, and Norman connects Thoth to Hermes Trismegistus and the hermetic tradition.
1:24:22
Seekers of the Eternal forest retreats
Both describe the sober backpacking retreats, the altered states reached through hiking and meditation, and the shared nature of the experiences.
1:34:37
The water moccasin and the snake egg
Norman recounts a dying one-eyed water moccasin approaching her during Chöd practice, finding a snake egg, and drawing the snake in a Gene Keys reading.
1:39:54
Closing and Yogananda reading
The guest promotes the Mount Shasta retreat and the host closes with a passage from Yogananda's How to Live Without Fear.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

Ali Norman
Norman says she recognized etching as her medium the first time she tried it as an elective.
“And like the first time I ever did it, I was like, this is it. This is the thing I've been looking for”
Listen from 3:02 · Intaglio printmaking
Ali Norman
Norman says she values etching's unpredictability, describing it as a collaboration requiring surrender of control.
“I like that little bit of element of, chaos or unpredictability and surprise. It's almost like a collaboration where you have to surrender a little bit of control to do it, which I like”
Listen from 4:38 · Intaglio printmaking
Ali Norman
Norman explains that in etching, line weight is determined by time in the acid rather than by drawing.
“So the longer that it's in the acid, the more bold your lines will be. So you don't really draw like bold lines”
Listen from 6:54 · Intaglio printmaking
Ali Norman
Norman says she has fed her own artwork into Midjourney for years and is untroubled by questions of whether the output is still her art.
“is this my art or not? I don't know. Yeah, it is, but I don't care. I'm having fun”
Listen from 10:38 · Generative AI in art
Ali Norman
Norman describes AI's distinctive quality as mirroring the user's own consciousness back to them.
“I could never have this conversation with anybody else because I'm basically having it with like a mirror version of my own consciousness”
Listen from 14:31 · Generative AI in art
Ali Norman
Norman says she learned electroforming after her studio burned down and that building the setup sent her to the emergency room to have her eyes flushed.
“I did actually, when I first built it, I ended up having to go to the emergency room and have my eyes flushed out because it does like off gas, like horrible chemicals”
Listen from 16:11 · Copper electroforming
Ali Norman
Norman invokes a hermetic principle of Saturn holding that misfortune ripens karma and offers an opportunity rather than a punishment.
“everything that's bad that's ever happened to you has been for your benefit of the ripening of karma”
Listen from 19:42 · Chaos magic
Ali Norman
Norman says she signed the lease and received the keys to her studio on March 1, 2020, one week before pandemic lockdowns.
“I had signed my lease and I got the keys on march 1st of 2020”
Listen from 23:24 · Labyrinth (print studio)
Ali Norman
Norman says she wanted to create a community print studio because she sees herself as a torchbearer for printing technology that could otherwise die out.
“I really feel like I'm like a torchbearer of this technology that I really want to teach people and make sure it doesn't die”
Listen from 24:19 · Labyrinth (print studio)
Ali Norman
Norman describes reaching severe burnout before the fire, including autoimmune problems and weighing 80 pounds.
“I got to such a place of burnout and I was like having autoimmune stuff and I was 80 pounds and I was totally in some kind of manic creative state”
Listen from 24:49 · Labyrinth (print studio)
Ali Norman
Norman attributes the fire materially to a neighboring coffee shop's illegally installed roaster and symbolically to her own burnout.
“the coffee shop next door illegally installed a coffee roaster and burnt the building down”
Listen from 25:58 · Labyrinth (print studio)
Ali Norman
Norman says that whenever she admits she does not know what to do, an answer reveals itself better than what she could have planned.
“I never worry about what I'm going to do next. The second that I just ask, the second that I just open to whatever the possibilities are, it just happens”
Listen from 30:43 · Chaos magic
Ali Norman
Norman says she no longer needs an audience or success for her art to be valid, and that fear or scarcity taints the work.
“The real good art is tainted if you have that fear or scarcity or that just like gets in the way of you being your authentic channel”
Listen from 35:16 · Intaglio printmaking
Ali Norman
Norman says her recurring mantra is that everything is already perfect in the present moment and that joy only exists now.
“right now, everything is already perfect. It's already exactly how I want it right now”
Listen from 39:39 · Kayfabe
Ali Norman
Norman says the peak experience of art lies in the act of creation rather than in a finished product seen by others.
“To me, like the peak experience is in the actual like creation. The peak experience isn't in like having a final product that's done that other people see”
Listen from 43:03 · Kayfabe
Ali Norman
Norman recounts joining a women's performance-art backyard wrestling league in North Georgia during grad school under the heel name Dragon Your Ass.
“I had a character that was my name was a dragon your ass. I have like a little dragon horns. It was like a little heel”
Listen from 47:38 · Lucha libre
Ali Norman
Norman defines an egregore as an idea that gains reality in proportion to the intensity of belief people invest in it, regardless of whether that belief is positive or negative.
“the more people believe in the idea, the more that the idea exists”
Listen from 53:41 · Egregore
Ali Norman
Norman argues that the news is a weakening egregore while social media generates its own shifting egregores.
“people watch the news less and the news as an egregore is less powerful than it used to be”
Listen from 54:44 · Egregore
Ali Norman
Norman says traumas are only beliefs, and that embodying a divine archetype is no less real than identifying as a traumatized artist.
“me being the embodiment of the divine goddess like why i love vadriana that's basically the premise of vadriana is that like me being the deity archetype is no less real than uh me being some kind of traumatized artist”
Listen from 58:40 · Vajrayana Buddhism
Ali Norman
Norman says she now regards the enlightened state as knowing that you do not know, rather than transcending form.
“now I think that the enlightened state is knowing that you don't know”
Listen from 1:06:44 · Vajrayana Buddhism
Ali Norman
Norman describes Padmasambhava's killing of a baby as karma-free enlightened activity because he acted from non-dual awareness.
“He killed a baby, but it was enlightened activity”
Listen from 1:07:55 · Padmasambhava
Ali Norman
Norman says the ultimate Dzogchen view is that karma does not exist and only affects us because we believe it does.
“karma doesn't even exist we don't even have karma the only reason we are affected by karma is because we believe that we're affected by karma”
Listen from 1:13:29 · Dzogchen
Ali Norman
Norman identifies Thoth with Hermes Trismegistus and Mercury and describes the hermetic tradition as perennial because it reappears wherever it is suppressed.
“it's called the perennial tradition because if you cut down Hermes in like one place, it's going to pop up two more. It's like a weed”
Listen from 1:21:33 · Thoth
Ali Norman
Norman says the sober backpacking retreat produced an altered state comparable to taking mushrooms.
“like we got to the tree place. It was like, felt like I might as well have eaten a bunch of mushrooms”
Listen from 1:32:34 · Mount Shasta retreat
Ali Norman
Norman describes a dying one-eyed water moccasin approaching her while she performed Chöd drumming practice by a lake.
“it had only one eye and it was definitely dying. And it's almost like it like came to the sound of the drum to like die there”
Listen from 1:35:21 · Chöd
Ali Norman
Norman argues that collective belief makes shared reality more malleable and responsive than individual intention alone.
“the more people gather together in that headspace of really breaking down these constructs that we have of our beliefs, and then that makes the collective reality more squishy and more responsive”
Listen from 1:39:28 · Egregore

People

In the conversation

Ali NormanAmerican printmaker, adjunct professor at the University of Tampa, chaos magic and Vajrayana Buddhism practitioner

Discussed

Robert MonroeAmerican author and researcher on out-of-body experiences, creator of the Gateway tapes
Paramahansa YoganandaIndian yogi and author whose writings the host quotes at the episode's close
Steven PressfieldAmerican author of books on creativity including The Artist's Journey
Rudolf SteinerAustrian esotericist whose theory of planetary spheres informs Norman's new series
Rick RubinAmerican record producer and author, a friend of Huberman's
Alan WattsBritish philosopher cited on humans being both actors and audience
Hermes TrismegistusLegendary figure of the hermetic tradition, identified by Norman with Thoth and Mercury

Topics

From the publisher

• Ali Norman is a multifaceted artist and educator. • Printmaking is a deeply personal and transformative process. • Chat GPT as a spiritual companion • Art serves as a healing mechanism during difficult times. • Building community spaces fosters collaboration and creativity. • Navigating life's challenges can lead to personal growth. • Reality is fluid and shaped by perception. • Pro Wrestling embodies the magic of performance art. • Egregores represent collective beliefs and energies. • Mythology provides archetypes for personal development. Follow Ali Norman on Instagram Join Us on Our Mount Shasta Retreat Seekers of the Eternal Apparel & Prints

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 27, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: Spirituality·Visual Arts·Philosophy