Latest / Laura and Lauren Podcast / Mystic Spiral Podcast Episode 7: The Beast, Aleister Crowley *Adult themes

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Mystic Spiral Podcast Episode 7: The Beast, Aleister Crowley *Adult themes · Laura and Lauren Podcast

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[music]
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SPEAKER_00: welcome to the mystic spiral the podcast where earth-rooted magic animal wisdom
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SPEAKER_00: and ancient enchantment twist together like a serpent and a snail in
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SPEAKER_00: the moss join us as we explore the unseen the intuitive and
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SPEAKER_01: the beautifully strange each episode invites you deeper into the spiral into
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SPEAKER_01: the myth and into the wild magic that lives within and around all of us
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SPEAKER_00: hi i'm lauren crystal healer earth-rooted mystic and friend of snails
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SPEAKER_01: and mossy feyfolk magic and i'm laura animal communicator serpent kinfana witch
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SPEAKER_01: and solitary social practitioner
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SPEAKER_00: hey mythlings welcome back to the mystic spiral
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SPEAKER_00: today we're doing a deep mystical dive and learning all
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SPEAKER_00: about alistair crowley we mentioned him last week as the creator of the toff deck as
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SPEAKER_01: the queen bailey sarion says buckle up kitty cats it's going to be a wild ride
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SPEAKER_01: a quick disclaimer this is going to be
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SPEAKER_01: a strictly adult only episode our core audience is adults but just
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SPEAKER_01: in case you have little ears around we wanted to warn you that there are a lot
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SPEAKER_01: of mature themes and even the bravest among you may get some mental whiplash
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SPEAKER_00: as a friendly reminder if questions should arise
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SPEAKER_00: during this episode you can send them to us at mysticspiralpodcasts at gmail.com
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SPEAKER_00: and we will address them in the next q a episode
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SPEAKER_00: well this is going to be
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SPEAKER_00: a very juicy episode and we're just going to dive right in with the birth of
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SPEAKER_00: the beast
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SPEAKER_01: so alistair crowley was born edward alexander crowley on october 12th 1875 so he's
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SPEAKER_01: a libra same and he was born in england um he was born to wealthy parents
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SPEAKER_01: who converted to evangelical christianity
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SPEAKER_01: before he was born dick sorry
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SPEAKER_01: understandable he felt that way too kind of um
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SPEAKER_01: his father was noted to be devout and like to preach to others and at the time
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SPEAKER_01: when he was when alistair was a child he really looked up to his father it wasn't
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SPEAKER_01: until after his father died that he started to question his faith
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SPEAKER_01: it's also said
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SPEAKER_01: that his mother called alistair the beast and they didn't have a great relationship
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SPEAKER_01: but i found some um reports that said that she wasn't
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SPEAKER_01: nice to him and it was kind of
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SPEAKER_01: a mutually strained relationship i also found another report that said
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SPEAKER_01: that alistair treated her like a servant rude right and he was
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SPEAKER_01: a wealthy white guy right white child in that age so i i can see either
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SPEAKER_01: of them being true yeah um but both
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SPEAKER_01: of his parents also called him alec interesting okay um his father was wealthy not
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SPEAKER_01: because of what he was doing really but because um he was the son of
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SPEAKER_01: or in a family brewing business crowley's alton ales so
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SPEAKER_01: when alistair was eight just like all of the other wealthy white people in
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SPEAKER_01: that time he was sent to a christian boarding school and he seemed to do okay there
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SPEAKER_01: for a while but when he was 11 his father died and that's when things started
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SPEAKER_01: to change for him okay he inherited one third of his of his father's wealth and
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SPEAKER_01: then he started acting out a little and questioning his faith
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SPEAKER_01: a little it would get worse in a few years but
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SPEAKER_01: he was also removed from his boarding school because he developed a condition
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SPEAKER_01: that is usually caused from damaged
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SPEAKER_01: or diseased kidneys well that's no fun it sounds awful actually but he did go on
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SPEAKER_01: to go to multiple colleges
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SPEAKER_01: and they sounded like they were pretty heavily Christian colleges okay
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SPEAKER_01: and he was this is where he really started to question his faith and kind of rebel
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SPEAKER_01: against what his teachers were teaching him about the religion this is funny
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SPEAKER_01: because it said that he rebelled by masturbating oh
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SPEAKER_01: oh my but also he spent a lot of time this is where he started spending time
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SPEAKER_01: with sex workers where he got gonorrhea and also he rebelled by smoking i'm sure
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SPEAKER_01: that also helped the kidney disease i'm sure yeah he went
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SPEAKER_01: to another college called eastbourne college and that's where he started
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SPEAKER_01: to develop interests outside of rebelling against religion like chess and poetry
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SPEAKER_01: and mountain climbing and he started to make friends
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SPEAKER_00: with similar interests oh awesome all right so you know
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SPEAKER_00: masturbation now friends yeah chess yeah chess is great new hobbies fantastic he
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SPEAKER_01: used those hobbies for the rest of his life actually he was a really prolific poet
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SPEAKER_01: and mountain climber and he actually for a while he considered being professional
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SPEAKER_01: in chess that's awesome um in 1985 at the age of 20 he adopted the name alistair
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SPEAKER_01: and his quote
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SPEAKER_01: about that is to adopt it would satisfy my romantic ideals
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SPEAKER_01: which is very poetry poetic and then he started at another college trinity college
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SPEAKER_01: at cambridge university in england where he studied philosophy
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SPEAKER_01: but eventually switched over
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SPEAKER_01: to english literature okay um he some sources say he was bisexual some say he was
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SPEAKER_01: pansexual
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SPEAKER_01: i'm not sure what he would call himself sure but he did not seem to discriminate
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SPEAKER_01: against the genders right he was pretty sexually active
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SPEAKER_00: with anybody he enjoyed he enjoyed it all he enjoyed it all good for him um at
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SPEAKER_01: that time though homosexual activities were illegal in england
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SPEAKER_01: and he did them anyway yeah rebel the first relationship that he had
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SPEAKER_01: on um record was with a man named herbert charles pullet
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SPEAKER_01: they called him in the record it's called
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SPEAKER_01: a female impersonator basically he did drag but there it also says
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SPEAKER_01: that female impersonators are a different thing because they're not queer
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SPEAKER_01: but also he was in a relationship with alistair so he kind of was a little queer
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SPEAKER_00: at least i mean yeah i feel like back then too like people who
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SPEAKER_00: like i'm thinking about like shakespearean plays and things like
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SPEAKER_00: that like men always portrayed as women yeah exactly so maybe
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SPEAKER_00: in their minds eyes it wasn't necessarily um queer culture at
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SPEAKER_01: that time right you know um so that was his first recorded relationship with a man
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SPEAKER_01: and also i think it was his first recorded relationship in general i think before
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SPEAKER_01: that it was just purely sexual yeah um and then shortly after
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SPEAKER_01: that relationship started began his intense interest in the occult
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SPEAKER_01: which pollett was not really interested in
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SPEAKER_01: so they broke up over it and it is also said that Crowley regretted that
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SPEAKER_01: for many years oh that's too bad yeah yeah it sounded like they really connected
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SPEAKER_01: yeah and also that same year Alistair went to St. Petersburg Russia to learn Russian
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SPEAKER_01: and also he wanted to become a diplomat for a career you know he's just
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SPEAKER_00: an overachiever that now he just went everywhere
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SPEAKER_00: and tried everything you know instead
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SPEAKER_00: of just like you know learning russian i'm gonna like go there and do this
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SPEAKER_01: and become a diplomat there all in all in um but while he was there he got
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SPEAKER_01: an illness that really caused him to consider his own mortality and so he abandoned
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SPEAKER_01: that to pursue the occult which was his real passion do you know what
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SPEAKER_01: the illness was it did not say in the um
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SPEAKER_01: sources that i found okay it's hard to know from
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SPEAKER_01: the 1800s what sources are super accurate and like exactly that was also
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SPEAKER_01: before he started to write everything down he did a really good job of um sort
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SPEAKER_01: of scientifically writing down writing out all of the details of his um rituals
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SPEAKER_01: and things like that when he was summoning you know the demon corns on right he did
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SPEAKER_00: a really detailed thing that was published actually i think
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SPEAKER_00: book of shadows of his own yeah basically but also he was he wanted
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SPEAKER_00: to be really scientific about it he wanted people that were practicing
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SPEAKER_01: to write down what worked and what didn't work and have all of
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SPEAKER_01: that information ready that's really cool yeah but this was before he started
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SPEAKER_01: to write everything down like that i think um
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SPEAKER_01: in his biography autobiography much later he described his life purpose as quote
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SPEAKER_01: to bring oriental wisdom to europe and to restore paganism in
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SPEAKER_01: a purer form unquote okay
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SPEAKER_01: and in 1898 he obtained a e wait's book the book of black magic and of pax
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SPEAKER_01: and he was so intrigued by this that he wrote to wait
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SPEAKER_01: and requesting more information and wait wrote back
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SPEAKER_01: to him recommending carl bond eckertshausen's the cloud upon
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SPEAKER_01: the sanctuary book they both helped inspire and propel alistair into further into
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SPEAKER_01: the occult he was already interested but he really found those light of fire
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SPEAKER_01: under his butt hmm
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SPEAKER_01: um in that same year he left cambridge without a degree he left all of the colleges
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SPEAKER_01: without a degree rebellious okay he just he just went to a whole bunch of colleges
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SPEAKER_01: and just left yeah it's all right why not try all of the things exactly in august
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SPEAKER_01: of 1898 he met a chemist in switzerland named julian l baker who was also interested
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SPEAKER_01: in alchemy and julian um introduced him to george cecil jones
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SPEAKER_01: who then introduced him to the hermetic order of the Golan Dawn which is
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SPEAKER_01: an occult society that he was initiated into pretty quickly he moved pretty quickly
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SPEAKER_01: into this yeah it sounds it she's Louise all right he was initiated into it by
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SPEAKER_01: the leader Samuel Liddell McGregor Mathers that guy has so many names that's yeah
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SPEAKER_01: and then he quickly moved into a luxury flat and asked a senior member of
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SPEAKER_01: the Golan Dawn Alan Bennett to live with him and teach him magic I bet he did
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SPEAKER_01: so he learned a lot about ceremonial magic ritualistic drug use um i think this is
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SPEAKER_01: when he started to write things down about the rituals that he was doing and
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SPEAKER_01: then bennett moved to south asia to study buddhism that's
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SPEAKER_00: a hard left it sure is okay well so i mean
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SPEAKER_00: in three years four years i didn't mean i don't even know how many years just
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SPEAKER_00: a very short period of time he went to trinity college he went
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SPEAKER_00: to all these other places he did so many things
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SPEAKER_00: he tried to go to russia and become
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SPEAKER_01: a diplomat yeah yeah like what okay it gets better okay all right this is nothing
10:52
SPEAKER_01: elster elster was a guy oh my gosh um in november 1899 he purchased
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SPEAKER_01: the bullskin house in scotland this house is huge and it's on the lochness like
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SPEAKER_01: the monster um and the house was also later owned by the led zeppelin guitarists but
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SPEAKER_01: a fire destroyed a lot of it in 2019
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SPEAKER_01: so what's there now is rebuilt oh that's too bad um
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SPEAKER_01: and it's sad that that place is really haunted I bet I bet too they think
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SPEAKER_01: that people who say it's haunted think that he did not put the demons back
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SPEAKER_00: after he summoned them I bet not yeah I'm sure that he did not do that
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SPEAKER_01: but he absorbed a lot of Scottish culture and later he would sort of leave his wife
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SPEAKER_01: and child there while he went all around the world and learned a whole bunch
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SPEAKER_01: of different things met a whole bunch of different people
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SPEAKER_01: he also started to publish a lot of poetry at this time which he he published
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SPEAKER_01: so much poetry all throughout his life um the homoerotic porn poetry had
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SPEAKER_01: to be published overseas though
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SPEAKER_01: because english authorities would have been really upset about
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SPEAKER_00: that yeah big mad i can't believe he left his wife and kid like here here stay
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SPEAKER_00: at this uh nicely haunted mansion i don't know if he thought it was haunted
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SPEAKER_01: then no well maybe it wasn't haunted quite yet
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SPEAKER_01: i don't know if he had summoned all of the demons at
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SPEAKER_00: that point right you just stay here i'm gonna go have fun boning all these people
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SPEAKER_00: in different countries that was alistair yeah so he progressed through
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SPEAKER_01: the golden dawn order pretty quickly and he was ready to enter
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SPEAKER_01: the inner second order but the other people in the order refused to initiate him
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SPEAKER_01: because of his bisexuality
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SPEAKER_01: in what they called his libertine lifestyle which i i don't disagree with that title
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SPEAKER_01: but they didn't approve of it so this caused some feuds and he went all the way
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SPEAKER_01: to paris to see the leader himself and that guy admitted him into
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SPEAKER_01: the second order hell yeah all right yeah this alistair just had all of the money
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SPEAKER_01: and he was just i'll just go
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SPEAKER_01: to paris you know what you don't like me screw you i'm gonna go talk to the head guy
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SPEAKER_01: in charge i'll just go to paris myself then in 1900 he moved to mexico
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SPEAKER_01: started checking up with a local woman and continued experimenting
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SPEAKER_01: with ceremonial magic he at that time he was learning about john d
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SPEAKER_01: and edward kelly's enochian evocations enochian magic is from
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SPEAKER_01: the 1500s also called renaissance magic it produced the enochian language
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SPEAKER_01: and writing it's said to be delivered to d and kelly via angels and the practice is
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SPEAKER_01: to invoke and command barrier his spiritual beings
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SPEAKER_00: very cool so like almost almost kind of like calling upon angels and yeah yes
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SPEAKER_01: and later on we will probably see that alistair was using it
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SPEAKER_01: to summon his guardian angels as well as the demons right right he was not picky
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SPEAKER_01: about anybody he was also initiated into freemasonry he published
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SPEAKER_01: a play he climbed mountains there but one of the trips had to be abandoned because
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SPEAKER_01: of a volcanic eruption of course after that he went to san francisco and hawaii
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SPEAKER_01: on the trip he had an affair with a married woman on the boat and he wrote a bunch
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SPEAKER_01: of poetry about her okay he then went to Japan Hong Kong and then to Ceylon
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SPEAKER_01: which is now called Sri Lanka to visit the Bennett guy who taught him magic and
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SPEAKER_01: then became a Buddhist monk okay then he went to India and devoted himself to
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SPEAKER_01: the Hindu practice of Raja Yoga I hope I'm not butchering
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SPEAKER_00: that oh my gosh this man did literally everything he went to every country
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SPEAKER_01: and learned all about all of their religions and mythologies
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SPEAKER_00: i can't even imagine that my brain would explode with the information he was just
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SPEAKER_01: so even with a third of his father's wealth he was so rich
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SPEAKER_01: that he could literally just go wherever he wanted whenever he wanted he believed it
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SPEAKER_01: helped him achieve the spiritual state dhyana which is basically meditation
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SPEAKER_01: and contemplation he also wrote poetry he contracted malaria and
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SPEAKER_01: he and some friends attempted k2 but they got influenza malaria and snow blindness
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SPEAKER_01: which is jesus yeah it's snow blindness is a really painful eye condition
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SPEAKER_01: which is basically like a sunburn of the cornea oh so it sounds awful they made it
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SPEAKER_01: to 20 000 feet before they had to turn back i mean i i can't even like
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SPEAKER_00: to i don't know if i could walk back i just can't even imagine
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SPEAKER_00: especially during that time like there's no oxygen tanks there's not you know what i mean right
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SPEAKER_01: you can't call somebody if you get stuck yeah there's there's a helicopter flying you down
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SPEAKER_01: nope and he did it oh my gosh while you know dying basically yep so in november of 1902
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SPEAKER_01: he became a part of the parisian art scene through a friend and painter called gerald kelly
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SPEAKER_01: and then in august 1903 he married kelly's sister rose edith kelly but
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SPEAKER_01: he didn't check in with gerald before marrying his sister oh
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SPEAKER_01: so it caused some tension it caused some tension between the pair of friends
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SPEAKER_01: and also her family was appalled i mean this guy kind
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SPEAKER_01: of has reputation i don't blame them i don't either it says that the marriage was
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SPEAKER_01: to prevent her from having to enter an arranged marriage um she had been married
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SPEAKER_01: before and her husband died so i think they wanted her to get married again
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SPEAKER_01: and he was trying to save her from that but also they were experimenting
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SPEAKER_01: in esoteric sex rituals and tantra so it seems like they had more interest
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SPEAKER_01: than just him saving her from so they were on the same page they were on
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SPEAKER_01: the same page like you know this is this is yes i'll take your money
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SPEAKER_01: and your schlong yep and i get
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SPEAKER_01: to practice magic magic yeah perfect why not why not good for her yeah um
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SPEAKER_01: so they went on their honeymoon and in 1904 they arrived in cairo
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SPEAKER_01: and they pretended to be a prince and princess to get things fun that sounds fun
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SPEAKER_01: so they set up a temple room and began invoking
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SPEAKER_01: the ancient egyptian gods they studied islamic mysticism and arabic and she started
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SPEAKER_01: to hear voices that identified themselves as the god horus fascinating okay so
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SPEAKER_01: through the voices she led crowley to a museum in the area and the exhibit
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SPEAKER_01: that she took him to was called the stele of ankh ef and konsu
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SPEAKER_01: he felt this was important but also that the exhibit number being 666 was important
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SPEAKER_01: so he referred to it as the stelia
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SPEAKER_01: of revealing interesting okay he also began hearing
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SPEAKER_01: a disembodied voice identifying itself as a messenger of horus called iwas okay
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SPEAKER_01: and iwas will come up a bunch of times later for alistair crowley
17:42
SPEAKER_01: during this time he wrote down everything that voice said to him over
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SPEAKER_01: the next three days and that became the book of the law
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SPEAKER_01: which was the first book in his religion thelema oh interesting okay the book said
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SPEAKER_01: that humanity was entering a new eon and crowley was
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SPEAKER_01: a prophet it also like i said it eventually became the core stone of thelema
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SPEAKER_01: but he also put it away and ignored it for a while okay he rejected the instructions
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SPEAKER_01: which told him to steal the steely of revealing from the museum it also wanted him
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SPEAKER_01: to translate the book into all of the world's languages
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SPEAKER_01: he did send some copies to other occultists before he hid it from himself at
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SPEAKER_01: the house in scotland why would he hide it from himself he was in denial about being
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SPEAKER_01: a prophet oh alistair don't worry he'll get into it later he'll recoup
18:35
SPEAKER_01: in 1905 he returned to the house in bullskin and he believed for some reason
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SPEAKER_01: that mathers the leader with many names was using magic against him
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SPEAKER_01: rude um so the the relationship between those two broke down later
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SPEAKER_01: that year rose gave birth to their first child who they called lilith
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SPEAKER_01: but her full given name is nuit ma ahathor hakate sappho jezebel lilith
19:00
SPEAKER_01: but we'll just call her little lil right while she was recovering
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SPEAKER_01: from giving birth crowley wrote her porn stories and poems
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SPEAKER_01: to entertain her oh how sweet very creative guy yeah very yeah
19:12
SPEAKER_01: he also founded a publishing company and named it the society for propagation
19:17
SPEAKER_01: of religious truth in order to mock the society for promoting christian knowledge
19:21
SPEAKER_01: and also so he could publish his own works instead of relying on other people
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SPEAKER_00: to do it right right i love that like jezebel is
19:28
SPEAKER_00: in her name i'm sorry we're going backwards but she's got everything
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SPEAKER_00: in her name i'm just gonna write porn for you
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SPEAKER_01: but also let's name my child jezebel also around this time he climbed kankanjunga
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SPEAKER_01: in nepal which some people call one of
19:44
SPEAKER_01: the world's most treacherous mountains he did this with other mountaineers
19:48
SPEAKER_01: and they eventually mutinied against crowley as the leader and even
19:53
SPEAKER_01: though he told them it was dangerous and dumb to do they left him and climbed down
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SPEAKER_00: the mountain as night was falling yeah that does not sound like a smart thing to do
20:02
SPEAKER_01: at all no i don't care how experienced you are that's that's dumb he was right
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SPEAKER_01: so some of them died and the entire mountaineering community blamed crowley
20:14
SPEAKER_01: because he was the leader of the group they should just be blaming the stupidity
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SPEAKER_00: of these people i agree he even told them not to do it but what can you do
20:22
SPEAKER_00: when now this is what 1905 ish 19 yeah early 1900s
20:28
SPEAKER_00: so we're not we're talking there's no flashlights right no flashlights nobody
20:31
SPEAKER_00: to come and save you yeah what do you what do you have a kerosene lantern
20:34
SPEAKER_00: that you're
20:36
SPEAKER_01: climbing down a mountain with that night no thanks the one of
20:39
SPEAKER_01: the most treacherous mountains yes yeah no no no that it was well known at
20:42
SPEAKER_01: the time correct um but then he went big game hunting in india
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SPEAKER_01: and he wrote some more homoerotic poetry oh his wife and daughter met him
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SPEAKER_01: in calcutta and they had to leave they all had to leave when he shot two guys
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SPEAKER_01: that were trying to rob him oh okay he didn't kill him
20:57
SPEAKER_01: though well that's i mean you know what can you do what can you do what what can you
21:02
SPEAKER_01: do
21:03
SPEAKER_01: so then they all went to visit the bennett guy again in burma they went
21:07
SPEAKER_01: to china they smoked opium and they worked on more magical stuff oh wow they did
21:12
SPEAKER_01: a ritual invocation to his guardian angel do you think
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SPEAKER_01: the children are also smoking opium with the parents based on the information
21:20
SPEAKER_01: that i have of alistair crowley in 2026 i don't believe he would have put the child
21:27
SPEAKER_01: in a different room
21:28
SPEAKER_00: while they were smoking opium necessarily yeah um i could be wrong
21:33
SPEAKER_00: yeah for
21:33
SPEAKER_00: the way it sounds it sounds like uh hey little lilith like uh let's uh this is what
21:37
SPEAKER_00: we're doing we're gonna smoke some opium yeah
21:40
SPEAKER_01: and actually we're gonna find out later that he subjected some children
21:45
SPEAKER_01: to other things so oh okay yeah so i i so i don't know if he protected lilith
21:49
SPEAKER_01: from this yeah um but rose and lilith went back to europe
21:53
SPEAKER_01: and later crowley would learn that his daughter died of typhoid on
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SPEAKER_00: the trip back oh that's too bad and at least she got some opium in her
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SPEAKER_01: maybe it eased her suffering i don't know perhaps perhaps
22:06
SPEAKER_01: but he eventually blamed rose's alcoholism for this of course um blame the woman
22:10
SPEAKER_01: of course yeah when they left him he went to shanghai to meet his old friend
22:16
SPEAKER_01: and sex friend from the golden dawn and she was also fascinated by the book of law
22:21
SPEAKER_01: that he had written um so together they performed some of the rituals
22:24
SPEAKER_01: to summon ayahuas before he then left and went to japan and then canada
22:29
SPEAKER_01: in new york city before going home to learn
22:31
SPEAKER_00: about his daughter dying can you imagine you're gone for like months and
22:35
SPEAKER_00: the wife's sitting there mourning the death of the daughter and like you get back
22:38
SPEAKER_00: and you're like oh she's been dead for like three months or something
22:41
SPEAKER_00: and it's your fault
22:42
SPEAKER_01: because you were drinking right wild absolutely wild he became really ill because of
22:49
SPEAKER_01: the stress of learning
22:50
SPEAKER_01: that his daughter had died oh well that's something i guess it required surgeries
22:57
SPEAKER_01: and he also then cheated on his wife with two women probably more if we're honest
23:02
SPEAKER_01: but these are the ones that we know about while his wife was pregnant
23:06
SPEAKER_01: and giving birth to his second child
23:08
SPEAKER_01: a daughter named lola zaza well nice porn star name one of
23:12
SPEAKER_01: the women he was having sex with at the time was named vera but went
23:16
SPEAKER_00: by lola interesting interesting i don't think that's a coincidence that is not
23:22
SPEAKER_01: a coincidence in 1907 crowley felt that he had attained samadhi
23:28
SPEAKER_01: a state of meditative consciousness through performing rituals with his old friend
23:31
SPEAKER_01: and mentor george cecil jones and they used hashish while they were doing this
23:37
SPEAKER_01: and published an essay on it in 1909 crowley and a lot of
23:40
SPEAKER_01: the people like i said earlier doing the rituals with him
23:43
SPEAKER_01: in ceremonies felt it was important to write down their magical experiments like
23:47
SPEAKER_01: a scientist would i'm glad that i did so now we can read about it later
23:50
SPEAKER_01: and he published everything that he wrote for
23:53
SPEAKER_01: the most part right it's all worth finding um
23:57
SPEAKER_01: like thousands of things he wrote and published we're gonna have
24:00
SPEAKER_00: to find all this stuff out maybe what little bits at a time little bits at
24:04
SPEAKER_01: a time i don't know if the world is ready that's true too so he also said
24:10
SPEAKER_01: that he was contacted by ayahuas again in 1907 to dictate two more books
24:14
SPEAKER_01: to him they were libra seven and libra cordis cincti serpente
24:19
SPEAKER_01: and both were later added to the holy books of thelema there were 15 works total
24:23
SPEAKER_00: that is insane
24:25
SPEAKER_01: and that's just for thelema i mean there we've got a whole bunch
24:28
SPEAKER_01: of homoerotic poetry and regular poetry right and we're talking like
24:31
SPEAKER_00: a very short period
24:32
SPEAKER_01: of time yes like i don't understand it's amazing you know there was nothing stopping
24:38
SPEAKER_01: this man he just did whatever he wanted all the time yeah also in 1907 he
24:43
SPEAKER_01: and his friend jones decided to found
24:46
SPEAKER_01: the separate occult order to be a successor to the order of the golden dawn
24:49
SPEAKER_01: which they both were initiated into and they called it aa they borrowed their rights
24:54
SPEAKER_01: from the golden dawn but they added a thalemic spin on them okay in july
24:59
SPEAKER_01: of 1909 he found the original book of law that he had put away and decided that
25:04
SPEAKER_01: then thalema represented the objective truth
25:07
SPEAKER_01: but his inheritance was also running out so he had to start taking on clients
25:11
SPEAKER_01: for his magic hmm
25:14
SPEAKER_01: the earl of tankerville george montague bennett hired him to protect him
25:19
SPEAKER_01: from witchcraft crowley realized that his paranoia was from the cocaine
25:23
SPEAKER_01: that he was doing of course it was and i appreciate this
25:27
SPEAKER_01: about crowley he didn't protect it from magic he took him on vacation to france
25:32
SPEAKER_01: and morocco instead so that he could chill his brain out
25:35
SPEAKER_00: oh that's nice okay so he didn't like he wasn't like he wasn't taking advantage
25:38
SPEAKER_01: of him okay that's nice um i can't say that for any of his other students
25:42
SPEAKER_01: but this guy he didn't right right um he take he started taking
25:46
SPEAKER_01: on paying students around this time who wanted to learn about
25:49
SPEAKER_01: the occult um his student victor newberg became his sexual partner as well of course
25:54
SPEAKER_01: while he was still married to his wife um and they vacationed together in spain
25:59
SPEAKER_01: and morocco and engaged in sadomasochism in the following year at his scotland house
26:03
SPEAKER_01: where his wife and
26:04
SPEAKER_01: children were i think oh fun okay so i think that this was more of
26:09
SPEAKER_00: a relationship right really now they have an open marriage and
26:13
SPEAKER_00: and what's this guy's name i don't know if rose knew that she was in
26:17
SPEAKER_00: an open marriage i don't know
26:18
SPEAKER_00: if she also practiced i see she was probably just like that's just al for you
26:23
SPEAKER_01: that might be why she drank so much yeah um and speaking of that
26:27
SPEAKER_01: in november 1909 crowley divorced rose because of her alcoholism
26:31
SPEAKER_01: and his adultery what a nice guy
26:34
SPEAKER_01: but he let her and their daughter stay at
26:36
SPEAKER_01: the scotland house oh wow that's nice you know and in
26:41
SPEAKER_01: in 1911 he had her institutionalized for alcoholism which is a really nice way
26:47
SPEAKER_01: to say he put her in an asylum yeah yeah she remarried after crowley in 1912
26:54
SPEAKER_00: and i believe that man was a doctor well that's good so she she glow she had
26:58
SPEAKER_01: a glow up i think so it sounded like she had a much better time with
27:01
SPEAKER_01: that guy i think she took lola with her
27:05
SPEAKER_00: i'm yeah i hope so i hope so too i think crowley even probably hoped so well yeah
27:10
SPEAKER_00: then he you know he has more uh free reign to do the fun things
27:14
SPEAKER_01: and he did yeah yeah um also in november 1909 crowley
27:19
SPEAKER_01: in newberg his new um boyfriend went to algeria to tour the desert
27:24
SPEAKER_01: and crowley recited the quran to protect himself from his growing growing feelings
27:28
SPEAKER_01: of awe and dread um they also invoked the 30 ethers of enopian magic
27:33
SPEAKER_01: and recorded their results at this point
27:35
SPEAKER_01: which were also later published okay they did a mountaintop sex ritual and
27:40
SPEAKER_01: of course they did and of course crowley used a blood sacrifice ritual to summon
27:45
SPEAKER_01: the demon corinzon you know we had to invite him which apparently worked
27:49
SPEAKER_01: and he showed himself to them in the body of a very sexy parisian woman
27:53
SPEAKER_01: that he had known and slept with oh and also then a holy man and then a serpent wow
28:00
SPEAKER_00: the sex ritual worked i feel like that's
28:03
SPEAKER_00: an overachiever right there i agree he really wanted he wanted a part of
28:06
SPEAKER_01: that yeah yeah hmm so in january 1910 they came back to london and mathers who is
28:16
SPEAKER_01: the leader with many names who also crowley believed was using magic
28:21
SPEAKER_01: against him was suing crowley for publishing golden dawn secrets in his book
28:25
SPEAKER_01: the equinox
28:27
SPEAKER_01: the court ruled in favor of crowley but the case caused him to get
28:30
SPEAKER_01: a lot more attention which he was very into oh yeah he played up
28:35
SPEAKER_01: the sensationalism factor in the stereotypes of being called a satanist
28:38
SPEAKER_01: who performed human sacrifice he wanted the attention even though he it's hard
28:44
SPEAKER_01: to say he didn't participate
28:45
SPEAKER_01: in either some sources say he did some sources say he didn't
28:49
SPEAKER_01: but he didn't participate in satanism yes but i think regardless whether he did
28:53
SPEAKER_01: or not he would have done this for the attention that's true
28:56
SPEAKER_00: but he did have a satanistic uh tryst on top of that mountain
29:00
SPEAKER_00: though he sure did i i just don't think he was very discriminatory why not try
29:05
SPEAKER_01: at all yeah so this sensationalism and all of the attention caused more people
29:11
SPEAKER_01: to join the aa and he found a new lover in an australian violinist oh now now male
29:20
SPEAKER_01: or female not that it matters that was a woman okay
29:23
SPEAKER_01: he wanted to expand his audience even further so he developed a public performance
29:27
SPEAKER_01: where the aa members personified various deities and called it the rites
29:31
SPEAKER_01: of artemis attendees were given fruit punch laced with peyote you know you had
29:36
SPEAKER_01: to lace it with something i don't know if they were aware of this
29:40
SPEAKER_01: or not he traveled some more with his new violinist lady he wrote
29:45
SPEAKER_01: a lot more poetry short stories plays magic works including the final two holy books
29:50
SPEAKER_01: of the lima
29:51
SPEAKER_01: around this time crowley popularized the spelling of magic with a k while
29:56
SPEAKER_01: that spelling of magic appeared in texas early 1704 he wanted to use it
30:01
SPEAKER_01: and popularize it again to make it clear that he what he was doing was not the same
30:05
SPEAKER_01: as the illusions that stage magicians were doing well at least that's a that's
30:09
SPEAKER_00: a positive thing on his behalf you know if we still use
30:12
SPEAKER_00: that today yeah i mean there's a lot of positive things that he's done even though
30:15
SPEAKER_00: a lot of the other things are pretty horrific but you know
30:19
SPEAKER_01: balance i guess he made a splash in 1912 he published a book called the book of lies
30:28
SPEAKER_01: and he was shortly after that accused by a man named theodore bruce
30:32
SPEAKER_01: of publishing secrets from the order templi orentis occult order
30:36
SPEAKER_01: but crowley convinced him that the common things were coincidence
30:40
SPEAKER_01: and they became friends oh so that guy appointed crowley the head of
30:44
SPEAKER_01: the british branch of branch of the oto
30:47
SPEAKER_01: and crowley really liked the emphasis on their sex magic oh shocker he developed
30:52
SPEAKER_01: a ritual based on anal sex for the members who were being initiated to
30:55
SPEAKER_01: the 11th degree of the order fun times okay in january 1914 he was still
31:01
SPEAKER_00: with newberg they were still having a relationship no wait no wait no
31:05
SPEAKER_01: which one's newberg the guy that he was seeing while he was also seeing
31:09
SPEAKER_01: the violinist i see okay this is the guy that um summoned corns on
31:13
SPEAKER_01: with him oh right right
31:15
SPEAKER_01: the tryst on the the demon hill yes got it yes and they settled into an apartment
31:20
SPEAKER_01: in paris where they had a six-week-long sex magic ritual wow
31:24
SPEAKER_01: which sometimes included the journalist called walter duranti just just come on by
31:29
SPEAKER_01: on tuesday we'll still be at it it said sometimes included i think the guy just came
31:34
SPEAKER_01: and went whenever he felt like yeah um that means two things yes yes
31:40
SPEAKER_01: so crowley wrote a treatise on sex magic and this is around the time
31:44
SPEAKER_01: when newberg began to distance himself from crowley there was a little bit of
31:48
SPEAKER_01: a falling out and this caused crowley to curse him oh too bad
31:52
SPEAKER_01: so his inheritance was also gone and he was relying on aa members donations
31:56
SPEAKER_01: and dues payments to survive and he had to transfer the ownership of the house
32:01
SPEAKER_01: in scotland to the british chapter of the oto that he was running
32:04
SPEAKER_01: for financial reasons probably so it didn't get taken away mm-hmm
32:08
SPEAKER_01: but he still went mountaineering in the swiss alps though oh
32:10
SPEAKER_01: that i mean you gotta do that got it and that's where he was when
32:14
SPEAKER_00: the first world war began oh spicy um it's also said that he may have been
32:20
SPEAKER_01: a spy around this time oh for british intelligence
32:23
SPEAKER_01: of course you know i'm not sure i believe that we'll get into that later okay um
32:27
SPEAKER_01: at some point he got someone's wife pregnant around this time while they were doing
32:32
SPEAKER_01: the sex magic and she miscarried
32:35
SPEAKER_01: and then he moved to the U.S.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: a bunch of cities including New Orleans and New York City and he eventually returned
32:42
SPEAKER_01: to London with no money at all okay but his asthma was bothering him a lot
32:46
SPEAKER_01: so his doctors prescribed him heroin of course they do because why not
32:50
SPEAKER_01: and obviously he became addicted you know as one does
32:55
SPEAKER_01: as one heroin you know prescription heroin so then he moved to Paris
33:00
SPEAKER_01: and started having a three-way relationship with two women at least one
33:03
SPEAKER_01: of them already had children
33:05
SPEAKER_01: and then he moved them all to italy to basically form a commune oh and he decided
33:10
SPEAKER_01: that he wanted to raise the children who were not his in the way of playing all day
33:15
SPEAKER_01: and allowing them to witness the sex rituals oh okay didn't give a damn about
33:20
SPEAKER_00: the first two children he birthed himself but these two children can now watch
33:24
SPEAKER_01: the sex rituals that's why i'm not sure that he moved lilith away from
33:27
SPEAKER_01: the opium yeah yeah i don't think he did
33:30
SPEAKER_01: he was still quote unquote renting boys and also buying drugs
33:34
SPEAKER_01: and apparently heroin was taking over his life but cocaine
33:38
SPEAKER_01: was also eroding his nasal cavity oh fun yeah so he was just kind of
33:42
SPEAKER_01: falling apart followers kept coming and learning magic
33:46
SPEAKER_01: in sex but somehow only one man is said to have
33:49
SPEAKER_01: complained about the same-sex rituals that he didn't want to be required
33:52
SPEAKER_01: to do there was a lot of arguing between him
33:55
SPEAKER_01: and he left after a year okay also a man moved himself with his
34:28
SPEAKER_01: it might be dramatized it might not be it might be completely accurate that's wild
34:33
SPEAKER_01: okay but because this was in italy and it was such
34:36
SPEAKER_01: a sensationalized story mussolini heard about it and he deported crowley so
34:41
SPEAKER_01: the commune closed without him oh sorry he tried
34:45
SPEAKER_01: to give up heroin multiple times throughout the rest of his life and for a little
34:48
SPEAKER_01: while he did succeed um he did he did not give up sex with men
34:52
SPEAKER_01: or women he just kept doing that yep
34:54
SPEAKER_01: probably until he died actually I'm sure he did yeah he got syphilis
34:58
SPEAKER_01: from another sex worker at some point he moved to Berlin and
35:01
SPEAKER_01: when he was visiting Lisbon Portugal he faked his own death with the help of friend
35:06
SPEAKER_01: and poet Fernando Pessoa oh okay he returned to Berlin
35:11
SPEAKER_01: a few weeks later still everybody still thought he was dead yeah and he reappeared
35:15
SPEAKER_01: at the opening of his own art exhibition oh surprise surprise
35:20
SPEAKER_01: he had his second nasal surgery because of the cocaine in 1932 to try and fix
35:25
SPEAKER_01: the damage he was still very poor needed money really bad so he sued a bunch of
35:30
SPEAKER_01: the people that he felt had libeled him when they were calling him the satanist
35:34
SPEAKER_01: and all of these other things he was successful for some of them
35:38
SPEAKER_01: but he was still declared bankrupt in 1935 and at that time it was revealed
35:42
SPEAKER_01: that he was spending three times his income
35:44
SPEAKER_00: for years wow yeah he just kept going nothing was going to stop this yeah yeah
35:51
SPEAKER_01: um he developed a friendship with a woman named Deidre and she offered
35:55
SPEAKER_01: to bear his child so his son was born in 1937 and was named Randall
35:59
SPEAKER_01: but Crowley nicknamed him Alistair Ataturk I love how this one's named Randall but
36:04
SPEAKER_01: the other one was like you know Lola Zaza and Randall yes Lola Zaza and Randall
36:12
SPEAKER_01: so going back to the war Crowley was originally interested in Hitler and
36:16
SPEAKER_01: the Nazi party because he thought that Hitler might convert to Thelema
36:19
SPEAKER_01: but it was also speculated enough to believe that he was sort of anti-semitic gross
36:25
SPEAKER_01: so that's why i don't really think that he was a spy i think
36:28
SPEAKER_01: that he may have actually been interested in hitler but hitler and
36:31
SPEAKER_01: the nazis closed down the german chapter of the oto and crowley changed his mind
36:36
SPEAKER_01: and started to call hitler a black magician like a scorned lover right i'm mad
36:42
SPEAKER_01: at you yeah so i he may just have wanted him to
36:47
SPEAKER_01: convert to thalema and get all of the nazis to do it too right exactly
36:51
SPEAKER_01: and thalema features a lot of hindu gods and yoga and a lot of other things
36:55
SPEAKER_01: that appear to be sort of an amalgamation of the many theologies that he learned
36:59
SPEAKER_01: about in his travels but the core law
37:02
SPEAKER_01: of thalema is do what thou wilt okay he basically wanted people to pay attention
37:08
SPEAKER_01: to their own wills and their own thoughts and feelings and just follow them
37:11
SPEAKER_00: which i guess is what he did his whole life right
37:14
SPEAKER_00: which i find really interesting
37:15
SPEAKER_00: because he basically made people do what exactly he wanted them to do
37:19
SPEAKER_01: and he took their money for it right exactly so
37:22
SPEAKER_01: that doesn't make too much sense alistair i think he meant
37:25
SPEAKER_01: to do what alistair wilt yeah that's that's the main thing so moving on to
37:31
SPEAKER_01: the toft deck between 1938 and 1943 crowley and lady frida harris
37:36
SPEAKER_01: and english artists collabed on the toft deck
37:39
SPEAKER_01: he originally intended the deck to be pretty traditional
37:42
SPEAKER_01: but lady frida encouraged him to add in his occult views because especially
37:46
SPEAKER_01: because he was so intense about them right exactly so harris sent crowley
37:51
SPEAKER_01: a regular stipend for the project not the other way around and this was
37:55
SPEAKER_01: because she was using her societal contacts to find financial backers
37:59
SPEAKER_01: for her art projects including the deck she apparently insisted
38:03
SPEAKER_01: on anonymity throughout the project but really liked working for a notorious man
38:07
SPEAKER_01: and he was notorious for sure though she wanted
38:11
SPEAKER_01: to be anonymous Crowley did praise her in the book of Toth but also he called
38:16
SPEAKER_01: in some lawyers to protect his 66% of the project
38:20
SPEAKER_01: so there must have been some tension in there somewhere I love that he had 66% of
38:23
SPEAKER_01: the project I am sure that if he could have he would have had 666%
38:29
SPEAKER_01: in 1940 his asthma worsened again and because Germany was
38:32
SPEAKER_01: where his non-heroin medicine was coming from
38:35
SPEAKER_01: and germany was full of nazis the doctor prescribed him heroin again
38:39
SPEAKER_00: and he again became addicted oh my god you would think that the doctors would learn
38:44
SPEAKER_00: by now i don't think they had another option at the time
38:47
SPEAKER_01: the medication was being made
38:49
SPEAKER_01: in germany that's true heroin was their only go-to here you go
38:53
SPEAKER_01: on december 1st 1947 crowley died at the age of 72 of chronic bronchitis
38:59
SPEAKER_01: that was aggravated by pleurisy which is the inflammation of
39:03
SPEAKER_01: the membrane surrounding the heart and chest cavity
39:06
SPEAKER_01: and myocardial heart muscle degeneration only about 12 people ascended
39:12
SPEAKER_01: at his funeral that's crazy i agree huh okay i thought
39:17
SPEAKER_01: that was interesting yeah also what's really interesting to me is
39:21
SPEAKER_01: that he was cremated and his ashes were sent to carl germer the u.s representative
39:26
SPEAKER_01: of the oto who buried them in his garden in new jersey huh i think that's
39:30
SPEAKER_01: the best fact of this whole thing it's certainly the weirdest i think
39:35
SPEAKER_00: compared to everything else yeah they're like well let's just throw them in
39:40
SPEAKER_01: the vegetable garden there we go you know right you know that seems like Crowley
39:46
SPEAKER_01: to me in my research I was not it wasn't clear if Crowley knew Carl Germer or
39:52
SPEAKER_01: if he had been to New Jersey he traveled so much and he met so many people
39:56
SPEAKER_01: and he had sex with so many people right but it wasn't it wasn't immediately clear
40:00
SPEAKER_01: that like this was a friend of his that he knew and he was sending his ashes to him
40:04
SPEAKER_00: right this could have just been joe schmo that actually just worked for the oto
40:08
SPEAKER_01: in new jersey right he might have just said send this guy a package with my ashes
40:12
SPEAKER_01: in it and tell him to bury it
40:13
SPEAKER_00: in his garden right i mean i believe it anything is believable with this guy
40:20
SPEAKER_00: well this was an intense uh episode today if any of you out there listening have
40:27
SPEAKER_00: a spark from this episode or want to learn more and more about something either
40:31
SPEAKER_00: about maybe going into a deeper dive of thelema itself or maybe
40:35
SPEAKER_00: the golden dawn itself um send us a message let us know what you think
40:39
SPEAKER_00: and we will definitely um take you up on that and that'll be a future episode
40:57
SPEAKER_01: before we leave today we're going to pull a card today we obviously felt called
41:01
SPEAKER_01: to use the toth arrow by sir alistair crowley and lady frida harris as
41:06
SPEAKER_01: a friendly reminder please take what resonates with you and simply leave
41:09
SPEAKER_00: the rest all right crowley what would you like all the listeners to know is there
41:17
SPEAKER_00: a specific card that you feel called to show us today for this
41:31
SPEAKER_00: prince of wands
41:34
SPEAKER_00: this card is interesting it is let me show Laura here how would you
41:40
SPEAKER_01: describe that card I don't know for the first time in my life this is
41:49
SPEAKER_01: well there's
41:50
SPEAKER_01: a tiger and
41:53
SPEAKER_01: a naked human dancing on top of him with a wand in the sun
41:59
SPEAKER_01: and i'm not really sure what symbol is on his head or instead of a head yeah
42:05
SPEAKER_00: and it's like it's got like orange and red right they're like dancing on
42:08
SPEAKER_01: a flame basically and there's also a pillar with a flame
42:12
SPEAKER_00: behind them it is pretty cool well don't you worry we will be posting this on
42:20
SPEAKER_00: the social media the socials if you will so today i'm going in a little bit of
42:26
SPEAKER_00: a different direction normally we read from the book but
42:30
SPEAKER_00: the book has just like a like a small little um you know guideline of what
42:38
SPEAKER_00: the card represents so uh
42:41
SPEAKER_00: i've intuited what the card means instead from crowley
42:47
SPEAKER_00: which is something in you is waking up that will not stay small a creative impulse
42:55
SPEAKER_00: a desire a direction that you've half whispered to yourself
43:00
SPEAKER_00: the princess doesn't ask for permission she asks for movement she invites you
43:09
SPEAKER_00: to shed the old husks of self-doubt or politeness
43:13
SPEAKER_00: that keep your fire contained this is the energy of becoming visible
43:20
SPEAKER_00: of letting your own heat be felt she says
43:26
SPEAKER_00: follow the thing that makes your blood quicken let enthusiasm be your compass
43:34
SPEAKER_00: trust
43:34
SPEAKER_00: the first spark it's the truest one
43:39
SPEAKER_00: if there's a project a conversation a risk or
43:43
SPEAKER_00: a self-expression that you've been circling this card is the green light a wild one
43:50
SPEAKER_00: the one that says run barefoot towards what calls you
43:56
SPEAKER_01: i actually think that's one of
43:57
SPEAKER_01: the most crowley messages we could have possibly pulled out of that deck i agree
44:03
SPEAKER_00: and um and the listeners on your side can't like you guys can't see
44:09
SPEAKER_00: or hear what's going on around us but like since we've been talking
44:12
SPEAKER_00: about crowley things have been moving
44:14
SPEAKER_00: over here interesting things have been happening
44:17
SPEAKER_00: so um he's definitely he's around he's around um
44:24
SPEAKER_00: and uh yeah so that message was for whoever needed to hear it and next time on
44:32
SPEAKER_01: the mystic spiral we'll be exploring the differences between folk magic
44:35
SPEAKER_00: and mainstream magic until then mythlings keep listening and keep your magic soft
44:41
SPEAKER_00: and steady bye for now