Hi, this is Against Everyone with Connor Habib, a weekly podcast featuring my conversations with

countercultural figures and presenting complex philosophical, spiritual, and political ideas in an

engaging and accessible way. I'm very excited to share this, I think rather odd episode of the show

with you featuring my friend Diana Young Peak.

Diana and I met through the church, which she is a priestess at,

the Church of the Living Christ Order of Melchizedek.

I was invited back in the late 2000s to the church by a member.

And it was someone whose spiritual judgment and interests I really trusted.

I went expecting there to be, you know, a big church service.

But in fact, it ended up being in a small room in a hotel in the San Francisco Bay area.

And each service, which happened monthly, I discovered new kinds of spiritual depth and communion and unity with the people that went to church with the

order. It all revolved around Diana as the priestess and her spiritual partner, Robert Young,

presenting their meditations, contemplations, and their wisdom, then we would

all speak to each other, and then we would do a small ritual. It was very beautiful, very loving,

and very warm. Now, this episode is called the stripper occult priestess you've never heard of, and I don't say that to diminish Diana's efforts at all.

In fact, what I'm trying to do is say that there are, and something that's very striking to me about her work and the work of the order is that

there are religious traditions that have a long history that are mostly unknown by people

and have just been carrying on and doing this kind of profound work for a long time.

In the case of the Order of Melchizedek, it dates back well to Grace Hooper-Petifer

and her father, W.G. Hooper, back to the 19th century, probably before that actually,

but it's been going on and carrying out for a long time, passed on to Diana, who knows who it will be passed on to next.

And yet it remains relatively unknown.

...