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Aleister Crowley: Blowhard Narcissist? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and that makes
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: this stuff you should know? And Chuck Chuck Chuck. Yes.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Before we get started, I feel like we should say
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: something to some of the newcomers who haven't quite figured
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: out our vibe yet. When there's a couple, the two
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: we'll call them the twins when we say stuff you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: should know. We even said this on Jeopardy. By the way.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: When we say stuff you should know, we're not saying like,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: why don't you already know this? Stuff? You should know this.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We're saying, this is so interesting. We we want to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: share this with you. We think you should know this,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: so we want to tell you about it. That's the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: purpose of the title of the episode of the podcast.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: We should call it in this tone, exactly, here's something
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you should know. Guy's okay, it's trying to get that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: out of the way. I love that. Do you feel
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: like there's been confusion. I feel like it's been confusion
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for thirteen years among some people. I think some people
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: are actually offended by it, Like who these guys think
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: they are telling me what I should know, didn't you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: think of Yeah? And it was apparently imperfect because you know,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I had an alternate title back then, what was yours?
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Do you have something you should know? Guys, I'm going
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to try and do my best to couch my disdain
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: for today's topic. Well, I think you already missed that mission. Uh.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: It's about Alistair and there's a lot of just you know,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: someone like him was very divisive. You could go to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: any uh internet board and read a little bit about
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: this dude and you will still see so much divisiveness. Uh.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of conflicting information, including right before
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: we recorded recorded I said something about Crowley and he
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: said I heard it was Crowley. Yeah, So like, uh,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but I just you know, I'm gonna go ahead and
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: get this out of the way. We'll we'll do an
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: overview of this guy. But I found him to be
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: above all narcissistic, one of the most self aggrandizing, misogynistic,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: manipulating users of others who didn't really have anything interesting
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to say or add to the good of human kind. Wow,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, and yet this was your pick. What
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: made you decide to want to do one on on
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Mr Crowley. Crowley, I didn't know anything that much about him,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: so now I do, and now I can have my
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: own informed opinion. But if you go on these message boards,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: you'll find people that say what I said. We'll find
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: people that say the man was pure evil and you know,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah of that train. I don't think he was.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I think he was. Uh. And then other people who
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: are like, he's my hero. Yeah. I think in the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: people who uh he is he is a hero too,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: are also not so like disillusion that they're like, no,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: he was great in every way. They're like, he was misunderstood.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: And he also was often his own worst enemy is
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: usually how they kind of defended. Because it doesn't matter
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: whether he was a hero to you, the most evil
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: person in the world. He was frequently called the most
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: wicked man in the world or just a total a
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: hole who didn't contribute anything. Um, he was a jerk,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: everyone can. Everyone agrees. That's the one thing everyone agrees on,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: that he was a total jerk. Well, I think that's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: where the narcissism is something that really triggers me in particular,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So that just kept popping up over and over, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I just kept saying, who does this guy think he is?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: You must have had a really hard time during the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: narcissist epic epidemic of the two thousand odds. What was that?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Don't you remember? It was like a whole psychology moving
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: through this para psychologist basically tried to make their career
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: by trying to prove that there was an entire generation
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of narcissists that have been raised and now every the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: world was about to be ruined, and general was right,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: but it was, you know, pop psychology. What generation was it?
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I guess millennials is what they were who they were
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: talking about, which is kind of mean because that was
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: at the time everybody's picking on millennials for just about everything.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: And then these two come in and we're like, yeah,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and get this, they're also narcissists. I don't know about that,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: but I think in Crowley Crowley's case, uh, there's a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: narcissistem that's sisum, that's uh a narcissiystem. Actually I said
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it right, This kind of off the charts, like there's
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: a self importance that it self importance really bugs me too.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So intertwined someone who really thinks they have a lot
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to say. Uh. I mean, you can tell by how
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: much this guy wrote, like overwriting, I have so much
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to say, write fifty books and like read any of
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: this stuff and it's just like kill me. Okay, So
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: all right, so I'm gonna park all that to the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: side and beat totally neutral from here on. Now. Well,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I don't think you have to be, but I do
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: think we should explain why this guy would even be
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: worth a podcast episode. Then, um, part of let's just
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: say who he is first, because everyone who doesn't know
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Ozzy Osbourne is like, who even is this jerk? Okay,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: So even if you don't even if you're not familiar
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: with Ozzy Osbourne, which stop this podcast right now and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: go familiarize yourself with the body of work of Ozzy Osbourne.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Start with come Back, and then go back to the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Black Sabbath, right Um, Like, even if you're not familiar
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: with that, you probably have seen a picture of Alistair Crowley.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: The picture the basically the picture where he looks like
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: he's doing the Olan Mills pose, like Hey, I'm just
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: hanging out around the barnyard feeling good right now, but
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he's actually performing a magic ritual oppose um a form
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I think is what they were called. Uh, everybody's seen
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: that picture, right, I think so, I mean you probably
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have probably seen it. Didn't know
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: that's who that was even, right? And even if you
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: haven't seen that picture and you still haven't heard of
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Alistair Crowley, if you're a Beatles fan, if you are
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a fan of new age stuff, Uh, if you like crystals,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: if you buy people candles with their birthday horoscope on
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: them because you think it's actually going to influence their year,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you can thank Alistair Crowley because he was basically the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: center point for all of that stuff coming about in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the West, the idea of occultism, mysticism um, spirituality outside
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of Christianity, Judaism, and even islam um. That the fact
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: that it's present in Europe and America today is almost
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: exclusively through his efforts and work. Yeah, I mean, I
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: will say this, The only reason he's noteworthy is because
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: he did what he did when he did it. Uh.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: In the eighties, if you would turn on Jerry Springer
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: on on any day, you would see eight Alistair Crowley
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: sitting on stage. But this guy was doing it, you know,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: very early on in the nineteen hundreds throughout the early
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: twentieth century when that kind of stuff, like that's why
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: he got so much press was because he was doing
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: things that you dare not speak of it at a
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: time when people weren't doing these things, or at least
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: out loud. Even today still people are like, this guy
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: was really over the top and bounds in a lot
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: of ways. Like you said, there's some people in the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: message boards who still are like he was evil. They're
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: still scared of him. Uh. And this guy has been
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: dead for sixties seventy years, and even when he was alive,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: he really wasn't all that menacing. I mean, um, like
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: he tried to be. But if you just stopped and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: we're like, what are you doing and really kind of
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: took yourself out of his his little realm, you might
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: even laugh at him. Depending on the situation. Yeah, I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: know you would, all right. So let's I guess start
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: at the beginning and what kind of breeze through his childhood,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: which was formative for sure. Uh. He was born in
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five in England. Uh, he's he's a british
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  Speaker 1: Man and he was born into a wealthy family. His
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: family were Brewers, they brewed ale and but we're very,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: very religious, and this was a big, big deal because
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: they were members of a of a religious group called
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a Christian group called the Brethren, which was sort of
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: just Christianity on steroids as far as uh, you know,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: saying things like sex was bad and sinning was bad, uh,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: to the point where it reversed him. It had the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: opposite effect. Yeah, not only was like sex bad, like
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that's bread and butter Christian stuff. This was like, um,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: like you didn't sign the lease I saw, or you
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: didn't like take out life insurance because it suggested that
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: you didn't have full faith that Jesus was about to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: come back any day now, like you didn't plan for
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the future. You also didn't take medicine and that ended
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: up killing his father, Alistair Crowley's father Um, who developed
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: cancer and that apparently was a treatable condition at the time,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: which kind of surprised me. Although they were probably just
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: gonna cut his tongue out, that was it, But rather
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: where they really is that what they were gonna do?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I mean when they say cancer of the tongue and surgery,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: than what else could it mean? Okay, sure, so Um,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the Brethren that of which he was a member, apparently
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: they were an equal egalitarian group. They all kind of
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: got together and like, we don't think you should do that.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: We think that it kind of shows a lack of
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: faith in Jesus. And he was like, Okay, I'm just
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: gonna roll the dice and see what happens. And he died. Um.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And that apparently really soured Alistair Crowley on Christianity because
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: he really looked up to his father one. But I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: think he also really fully bought like the Brethren as well. Um,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and this was a huge like jarring um crash into
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: a wall. Yeah, you know, it left him with a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: lot of money when he would become an adult, I think. Uh,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: and the Grabster helped us out with this one. I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: think he said it was about two million bucks in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: today's money, so a lot of money, but as we
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: will see, certainly not enough to last a lifetime even
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: back then, at least the way he burned through it. Definitely,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: it's amazing it lasted as long as it did. Really. Yeah,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it made me wonder how much drugs cost back then,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: because he bought a lot of them. Yeah, but he
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: could just go down to the local chemist or you know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: um pharmacy and buy him over the counter. So they
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: were relatively cheap, I guess I would guess. So, yeah, alright,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: chemist doesn't try to tax you. Yeah, everyone knows pharmaceuticals
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: are super cheap. Uh. So he was left with his mom,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: who you know, by all accounts, they didn't have the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: best relationship. Um. She was also super religious. I think
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: ed dug up in one biography that he sort of
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: treated her as if she were the help uh in
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: one of the servants, and she in fact referred to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: him as the Beast, which was from the Book of Revelations,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: in a name that he would later I think he
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: kind of keep on using for himself. Yeah, And I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: saw that she was I saw both that she was
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: jokingly calling him that in a way but also just
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: chiding him for his bad behavior, or that she was
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a very, very pious person, and that she would not
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: have called him the Beast unless she was like genuinely
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: disgrace and and um abhorred by his behavior, you know
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: what I mean, Like she she wouldn't have used that lightly.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure I'm gonna go with that. The
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: second interpretation because it's it's scarier. Uh. So then he
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: eventually makes his way to Cambridge in he didn't graduate,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: but this was where he really kind of started getting
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: interested in two things that would define the rest of
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: his life. Uh, the occult and sex. Yeah, for sure,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: that's where his his life Countries is typical going to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: college stuff, you know, sort of um, and and he
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was also he got into some other stuff that we
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: don't have to get into it much, but he he
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was a mass or not like a grand master, but
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: he was a really good chess player for a while
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: then the grand master from what I saw, like if
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: he had pursued it, yeah, yeah, like he was considering
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a profession like of chess. But he also was a
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: noteworthy mountaineer. Um. He was in the party that attempted
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: the first British attempt on K two. Ever it was unsuccessful,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: but they ended up breaking a record of of living
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: at twenty thousand feet longer than anybody else. Like, he
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: was a serious mountaineer for a very long time. But
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: as he just kind of got a little older, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: especially as he got a little further into like magic
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and sex in particular, he just kind of lost as
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: much interest, like those were his life's passions, and all
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: of a sudden he's like, I think I'd rather have
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: sex of every single kind I can possibly think of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: than than climb a mountain. And he still climbed some mountains,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and there were some huge issues that came out of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that pursuit and at times, but um, like you said,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: more than anything, he directed his life towards magic and sex.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: He says, I think I'd rather climb sexual mountains sexual right, Um, well,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: should we take a break already? I think we should. Okay, Well,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: then you just answered your own question. You begged the
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: question in the best sense of that term. All right,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: We're gonna take a little break here. I'm gonna collect
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: myself and we'll talk more about sex magic right after this.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I think before we talk about sex magic, can we
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about his poetry. Sure? Um, he
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was a writer, and like we said, he wrote up
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to about fifty books, and some of these were collected
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: and published just from stuff he had written along the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: way after his death. But he felt like he had
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a lot to say to the world. Wrote a lot
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: of erotic poetry. The first collection was called White Stains,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: under the pseudonym Archibald Bishop. I don't have to work
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: too hard to figure out what that means. I mean,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it's so juvenile, it's hilarious a lot. Did you ever
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: read did you read any of his poetry? No? I
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: mean I saw like clips and snippets of it, and
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: just just from reading so much stuff about how how
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: not great it was, I was like, I'm not reading this.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna read it. In fact, I can't read
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: it on the air because it's a family friendly show.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: All of them start there once was a man from Nantucket. Uh,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: there once was a narcissist from Nantucket. But there's a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: poem I would encourage our readers of age to go
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: look up. And if you're not of age, don't do it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: If you're listening with your kid right now, distract him briefly.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: But it's a poem called Celia Farts c E l
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I A P H A r T S no no
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: f A r T s uh. And it's just a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: great example. And I'm sure he had more, you know,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I guess legitimate poetry than this. But reading Celia Farts
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: really soured me on what I felt like he thought
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: he had to say to the world. Well, yeah, that's
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the thing. I think one of the things is is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: like it'd be I see what you're saying. It's a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: little bit um wow. Uh yeah, yeah I did. There's
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: a Pinterest post that has it. It's like the first
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: thing that comes up, so you don't even have to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: really click in anywhere. But but I think one of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: the things that's so off putting about him is he's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: like a Victorian, maybe an Edwardian, a Regency era, but
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he's like of that era. He's using words like farts
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and like it just keeps getting worse than that poem,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and it's just like so it's just so like crude today,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Like if somebody published that stuff today, you'd be like,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: this is crude and lowbrow. But somebody from the era
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: doing it makes it exponentially worse for some reason. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I think that that is exactly what he was into. Yeah, well,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: he certainly loved to push buttons. Uh. He rejected Christianity
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: so forcefully that he decided, not only am I not
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: into it, but I want to be the opposite of it.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I think that the only problem with sin are the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: hang ups that people put on it and that to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: be truly happy, you should just send sin sin and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I'm really good at it. And so that's what I'm
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: gonna do with my life. Yeah, and that this is
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: what he did. And he did um he, like I said,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: like any basically any sex act you can think of.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I did not see any accusations of bestiality, which really
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: surprised me. Did oh you did? Okay? Did did you
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: get the impression that he actually did that, because I
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: again would be surprised if he hadn't you know, met
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: a donkey or two in his time? Saw that I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: saw And we'll get to this his time when he
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: was living in his slum commune in Italy. Things got
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: really weird there. And of course I don't think we
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: even said why. There's a lot of conflicting information he
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: You can never tell when he was being straight or
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: writing the truth, and you can never tell when someone
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: had when he had made an enemy and they were
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: writing something not true to make him look even worse.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: It's really hard to parse out the truth. But I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: did see stuff about uh, not him committing a sexual
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: act with an animal, but forcing a woman uh to
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: with a goat. Okay, And that I mean That's the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: thing is it is plausible. And the reason why is
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: because he really did have a lot of sways, right,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: he added a lot. He had enough sway over his acolytes,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: gearing like his peak that he could have gotten something
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: like that accomplished, if he'd really set his mind to it.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: It's entirely possible. It did happen. He was into some
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: really freaky stuff, but like you said, you can't really
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: tell what was made up by his enemies. And he
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: had almost nothing but enemies. He had people who just
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: had just met him and were under a spell, and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: enemies which were people who had known him for longer
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: than a couple of years. That was basically his his world.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Like he didn't have friends necessarily, actually not even necessarily.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: He didn't have friends. He had people who were under
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a spell or had had just come out from under
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: a spell. Yeah, And that I think that's one of
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the things too, that really helped to reinforce how I
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: feel about him, is that, um, well, first of all,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: anyone who doesn't have old friends, you got to investigate
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that a little further, I think. But sure things happen
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: in life, but in his case, I think the fact
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: that he was. I think had he given the opportunity,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: he would have started a massive money making religion allah
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard. But it's seems like he could never
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: attract more than a handful of people at a time.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that's for a reason, Yes, personality based reason.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I think the proof is in the pudding. He set
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: out to create a huge, massive religion that would change
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: the world. That was his goal, as we see, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: just it didn't happen. And he also died um without
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: money even though he had money, despite you know, like
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: actually trying to perform magic rictuals to attract money. So like, yeah,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: he his intent was there. But the thing to me,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the thing to me that makes him legit in some way,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: is that he was still performing rituals, still performing magic
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: um to the end, Like he never gave up on it,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: even though like it didn't bring him the fame and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the fortune and it didn't change the world that he wanted,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Like he dedicated, truly dedicated his life to that. Yeah,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think he was a charlatan. I do think
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that he bought into this garbage himself, so you know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: he was authentic, definitely. I think that's actually what I
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: was trying to say, So, should we go to Stockholm? Yeah,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I think we should go to Stockholm because, um, that
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: is where his one of his first mystical experiences happened,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: or that's the way he described it at least. Yeah,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and it was am I reading this right and that
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: this mystical experience basically was a result of having homosexual
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: intercourse for the first time. Yeah, gay sex, Okay, good
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: for him. And hey, I want to be clear, I'm
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: not knocking in anyone's kink because he had a lot
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: of them. Not I'm not knocking that at all. What
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: someone does in the bedroom is like, that's fine, and
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: that's great. I support all of that. But I think
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: his self importance of like having to detail and write
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: about it all as a guide book for others. Uh,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: just it is. It was a real turn off for me. So, um,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the reason that he was detailing this stuff and writing
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a guide book for others using things like sex. Um.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And by the way, once he was like, oh, actually
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I'm bisexual. Like for the rest of his life he um.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: He had relationships with men and women, and there was
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: one man in particular, Jerome paul It, that he later
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: said he really regretted breaking off his relationship with because
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: paul It wasn't into the occult. But he wrote that, Um,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: with paul It, he had achieved ideal intimacy, which the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Greeks considered the greatest glory of manhood and the most
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: precious prize of life. So that's how he described one
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of his his relationships with a man. Yeah. Um, and
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that really says a lot for somebody who didn't necessarily
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: consider himself bisexual. I think he more than anything considered
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: himself straight. He just had, like you know, gay sex
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: from time to time when the when it suited him.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And sometimes some of those acolytes, like you said, he
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: had no more than a few people around him, sometimes
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it was all men. And if you were an acolyte
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of his, not only were you helping him perform magic rituals,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you were helping him perform sex magic too. And um,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: who knows where that was going to go. But very often,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: more often than not, it was degrading. He used sexual
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: degradation as a way, like a path, like a magic ritual,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: but also it was to show power and dominance over
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: his acolytes as well. Yeah, and for some reason, and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: again like if you look at the S and M
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: community that it didn't feel like that to me, because
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: if that's your kink, that's fine too. This felt more
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: like a manipulative user of people than any particular sexual kink.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Or maybe he was born at a time where I
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, he certainly lived in a time
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: where none of this was acceptable. Homosexuality was illegal uh
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in England at the time, So I don't know. I'm
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: trying to try to frame it at in the at
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the time and place and try and be a little
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: bit more understanding what I mean. I from stuff I saw,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and like reports from some of his acolytes, he he
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: seemed to like truly get pleasure from this stuff. Oh,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he did, so, I don't I don't know
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: if it was just like a means to an end,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: like I think he was really immersed in it personally
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: as well. I think so. But it seems like every
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: time he was challenged as not the uh that that
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: he was done with someone once he had used them up,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: including his wife, which you know we'll get to in
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a minute. But um, just I guess we should quickly
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: mention he did have other career paths he could have taken.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: We mentioned the chess. Uh, he did go to Russia
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to um to learn the business of diplomatic services, which
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: is something he chose at Cambridge. But um he none
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: of this stuff interested in him. I think once he
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: went down the path of the occult and uh, these
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: sexual you know, you know, orgies at times that he
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: would get involved in, he was like, this is it
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: for me? Yeah, I'm living my best life. I'm out there, Jerry,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and I'm loving every minute of it. Very nice that
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: didn't think of Signfeld references. So um, so he he
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: winds up his time at Cambridge and he's basically comes
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: out of it like completely devoted to the occult, even
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: more devoted to sex, figuring out ways to combine those
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: two things. He's still mountaineering from time to time. He's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a he considers himself a poet. Um. But he also
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: he continued, he was a poet before he read Celia parts.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: But he also one of the other things about him
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I saw it described as he was a magician, and
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: he considered himself a genuine magician. And he presented himself
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: as a genuine magician, not an illusion. It's not a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: stage magician, somebody who actually could could bend reality using
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: his will based on rituals and spells and incantations and
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: communicating with people from or beings from other other spiritual planes.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Right magic, right, And he apparently was the one who
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: added the K at the end, which was an old,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: old spelling of magic. But he did that to differentiate
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the two, right. But he didn't invent the K, he
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: just brought it back. Yeah, he revised From what I saw. Uh,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: he was obsessed with books, not only reading. Uh. He
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: had wall to wall books in his apartment. Um. But
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: like I said, writing Uh, ed dug up a scholar
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: that that suggested he might have what's called grandma mania,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: which is a pathological obsession with writing and to never
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: be satisfied and to just keep writing, starting new things
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: before you're finished, that kind of thing. So that might
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: be possible, right. Um. So one of the other things
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: that he was really good at was traveling, like he
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: could just go somewhere like he I saw him described
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: as like utterly without inhibition, whether it was with sex
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: um or whether it was like, oh let's go see
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: how they do things in Burma. Uh. And as when
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: he went from place to place, he picked up things
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: he would feel he would find like the occult and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: esoteric traditions and religious traditions, even mainstream religious traditions of
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: these places, and would figure out how, you know, certain
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: parts of them fit in with his own his own
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: view of the occult and his own practices with magic
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and um. He did that by by just touring the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: world for long periods of time, which is something people
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: did back then anyway, right, Like you know, if you
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: went to Europe, you stayed there for like two years
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: because it took so long to get there and back. Right.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: But he even for his time, he was he was
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a very seasoned traveler. Yeah, And like you said, it's
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: really one of the important facts of his life because
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: what he would end up doing is creating his own uh.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I guess, I guess you would call it a religion Salima.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: But Salima was based on all of these travels and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: everything he picked up. He'd There were a couple of
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: secret society occult societies he joined along the way, uh
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and then eventually ran a foul love. One was called
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn UH and one
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: was called the Ordo Temple orientis uh the O T O.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: And it seems like in both of these groups, and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: these were you know, years apart, so it wasn't like,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I think seven and nine years apart he joined these
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: both times. It seemed like he tried to run the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: show when he got involved and rewrite their stuff to
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: suit his needs. And what he was doing though, was
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: was really trying to create his own jam uh and
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: kind of using up these order you know, religious orders
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: along the way. Yeah. And um, I saw just a
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: little side thing real quick, Chuck. I saw that he
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: once had a vampire sicked on him by William Butler Yates,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the poet. Yeah, they were there were enemies within the
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: uh what was it called the first one the Golden
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the Order of the Golden Dawn. Yeah, and like uh,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Yates considered himself a white witch, and he very clearly
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: had decided that, um, that Crowley was a black witch
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: or a black magician, I should say. And um so
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: for for Yates and the other people in the Golden
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Dawn who were opposed to Crowley, they considered like him
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: dangerous and like he couldn't learn some of these these
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: mysteries because he would unleash the stuff on humanity and
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: basically start a reign of evil here on earth. So
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Yates six sicked the vampire on him for like nine nights,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: all right, he that he just went up a notch
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: in my book? Then who Yates? No? Oh really, because
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: why do you hate Yates even more than you hate
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Alistair Crowley? No? No, I love Yates, but to have
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: to be able to say that, Hey, you know, one
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: time WB Yates sick the vampire on for nine days.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: For not days? He just he just earned a little,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: a little point in the Chuck world. I'm glad we
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: talked about that. Then, Uh, for a while he lived
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: for a pretty long while. He bought this house on
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Lochness called the pronounced the bull Skin House or bulls Skin,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: uh not bull skin. This house became a little more
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: famous in the nineteen seventies when Jimmy Page bought it
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: of led Zeppelin because he was fairly obsessed with Crowley
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: for a while, although by all accounts, Page did not
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: spend much time there. It was in very bad condition
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: and he kind of took one look at it and
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: was like, somebody should fix his place up, And he
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: assigned a guy to live there and just never really
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: went back. But um, he did live there for a while,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: and he owned the house for kind of a long time.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: It was one of it was one of the only
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: places he would stay for any length of time. Basically, yeah,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: bull Skin reminds me of Archibald Bishop for some reason.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't sound right like another student then
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: would be dr bull Skin right. One of the ways
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: that he brought people under his influence, to even people
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: who opposed him, was by using his wealth. Um, he
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't above using drugs. He he was surrounded by people
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: who were using drugs, and some of them had happened
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: upon like habits, habits like heroin or cocaine habits. He
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: would he would find people who had you know, power
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: or status in some of these orders and would be like, Hey,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: how about I give you some of that heroine you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: crave so much, an unlimited supply. How's that sound? Go
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: ahead and initiate me into this inner circle. Um, he would.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: He would use stuff like that. Like you said, he
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: was one of the greatest manipulators of his age, for sure,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: But in doing so, what he was doing was he
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't just doing it to get power. His ambition wasn't
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: just to become the head of the Golden Dawn or
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the head of the O t O. He wanted to
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: learn as many secrets as he could, just like when
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: he was traveling in the East, Uh and he was
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: picking up you know, yoga um or he was picking
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: up mysticism from Egypt. Like he wanted to learn their secrets,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: to figure out the stuff that actually worked. That was
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: his goal. That was his ultimate goal. Okay um. So
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I mentioned a wife. In nineteen o three, he married
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Rose Edith Kelly uh and they were really really really
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: into each other. She was uh got very into what
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: he was into. Uh. They went to Cairo on their
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: honeymoon in nineteen o four and by all accounts, it
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: was a life changing experience where they were both channeling
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Egyptian gods. And this is where he through channeling Egyptian gods,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: so says him, Um wrote his big sort of bible
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: called the Book of the Law, which would become the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: basis for Thalma. Uh. And he says he was, you know,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: like I said, channeling uh a being called I was,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, I was. That's how I heard it
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: from everything, okay uh. And so you know this is
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: where he has his He's had awakenings before, but this
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: is where he came up with his dianetics. Basically, yeah,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: I saw I was continued on like for years and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: years and years. Is basically a guardian angel for him
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and whatever acolytes he had serving him at the time,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Like they would call on I wast for protection sometimes.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So he was like a kind of a lifelong guardian
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: for um, for Crowley, at least to Crowley and his
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: his followers. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean he
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: talked a lot about guardian angels. UM. He had a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: two daughters, uh, and then towards the end of his
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: life had a son who has an interesting story that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: we should probably do a short stuff on um. But
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: in nineteen o five they had Lilith, who was her
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: first daughter. She died and I saw different things here.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: She died of typhoid in Burma. But I saw that
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: he had basically kind of abandoned his wife at this
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: point and she couldn't really care for her herself because
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: of her alcoholism, and he blamed her death on her. Uh.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know how true that is, But they would
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: eventually have a second daughter named Lola, Zaza who you
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: found one of the greatest pictures of any human of
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: all time on the internet. It is so cool, man,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: that kid looks like just a genuinely cool, freaky it girl,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Well, she's wearing a goat,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: so we should just preface that for people who were
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: triggered by wearing animal hides. And she's wearing more than
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: a hide, it's a hide and a head. Yeah, yeah,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I think that was a good idea yea. Um. But
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: so her sister's name, her full name, sister lilith Um,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: who proceeded her and died as a baby, was nu
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: eat ma ah ha thor Hectate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I'm in hotep. Yeah, just went by Lilith for short, Yes,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: and she had very sadly a very short life. Yeah yeah,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: so I saw that too. That um, even though Crowley
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: had abandoned his wife and infant baby in China and
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: they were making their way back and she died in Burma,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: that he still blamed He blamed Rose for the baby's death,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like like fully took zero responsibility for it. And that
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: was a frequent um uh, like a common thing that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: happened that he did during his life to like things tragedy,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: sometimes life ending tragedy would would befall people around him
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: because of him and his decisions, and he just would
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: not accept responsibility for that kind of stuff. Yeah, one
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: of the reasons he uh was eventually ostracized from the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: mountaineering community, which um was a pretty small community at
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: the time. UH. He reportedly was on a trip with
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: some people um got into a fight with them while
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: they were on the trip because he wanted to control
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: how it went down, and they he splintered off from them.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: There was an avalanche and they were all basically buried
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and like crying for help, And as the story goes,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: he was nearby drinking tea and like didn't do anything
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: to help them, and they died. And then the word
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: got out and everyone was like, I don't want to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: climb with this guy anymore. Yeah. I think he even
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: wrote like an article about the expedition in the Daily
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Mail and used it to blame everybody but himself for it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: That sounds about right, Yeah, I mean he really was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: person at all and actually was a bad person in
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways. To Yeah, he had um Rose
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: institutionalized eventually for alcoholism. Um, I don't know. I didn't
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: hear about his son, um, and I don't know what
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: his relationship with was with his daughter Lola. Um, they
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: just kind of fade out of the story and he
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: just kind of continues on, which probably says about everything
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: you need to know. Yeah, well, let's do a short
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: stuff on his son, because it was there was way
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: more to this story than I could really comprehend for this,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: But he had a son late late in life who
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: eventually was a part of the I think British military
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: and tried to overthrow the government, who died in the
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: two thousand's. I think he died in two thousand and six.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: So um, this was like way late in his life.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, let's let's maybe follow up on that. So
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: you want to take another break and then just come
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: back and hit a few more high points and then
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: talk about his his idea of what magic was. Sure, Okay,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: We're going to do that, everybody, And don't worry, we
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: will talk about sex magic eventually. Okay, So you said
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: that he ended up joining a second group, the O
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: t O. Prior to that, he tried his hand at
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: founding his own secret occult group. The A A, which
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: from pretty much every source I saw stood for astrom
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: argentine um, which means silver star, so is the Order
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: of the Silver Star. Basically, Yeah, it's A with a
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: little symbol than A and a little symbol m um.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: And as as after, the O t O, which was
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: an established group, approached him because apparently he was publishing
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: secrets um of the O t O. But that sued,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: He did get sued, but from from basically all accounts,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: he he really had not exposed their secrets knowingly. He
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: had stumbled upon the stuff stuff himself through his own
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: rituals and practice, and they they found out that he
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: had accidentally done this, that he hadn't he'd figured it
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: out himself, and he said, oh, well, you're immediately like
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: a high ranking O t O official and we're going
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: to initiate you now. Um, because anybody who stumbled on
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: their secrets themselves just automatically became a member. And so
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: he was very proud of that and happy about that.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: And of course the O t O kind of went
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: different ways with him because it was Alistair Crowley after all, um,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and he started pursuing other stuff too. Yeah, and we
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: should point out to that when he was sued by
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: his rival from the Golden On for publishing secrets. He
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: won that lawsuit, so he he didn't lose it. Um,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he pursued other things. There's uh this longstanding
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: story that he uh tried to and he definitely tried
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: to become a spy for Britain during the Wars, but uh,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: he was always rebuffed unless you believe that he really
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: really was a spy, and he was so on the
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: down low that that information never really came out. Um,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: but by all accounts, he tried to be a spy
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: during the Wars in England. Always said thank you, but
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: no thank you. Then he went to work for the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Germans for a little while. And this is where he
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: gets a little confusing. He because he claimed he was
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: trying to write as a writer. He was trying to
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: write stuff about the Germans. It was so preposterous that
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it would have helped the Allies. But but who knows, Yeah, um,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: who knows. He is kind of up for debate whether
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: he was actually a secret agent or not. For sure,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Probably well, I don't know. I guess
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: it could be settled that those things are probably those
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: documents are still around somewhere if they exist, you know. Um.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: So he after World War Two, Um, he ended up
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: going back to England. He remember, he traveled the world.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: He did. He traveled across the Sahara into into Tangier,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I think on foot. He traveled from the Pyrenees down
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to Gibraltar on foot. Um. He did time in Mexico, Japan, India,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: did a lot of mountain climbing. So he did tons
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: of traveling. But I guess towards the end of his life,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: as it was winding down a little bit, he he
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: wanted to be closer to home. He had a lifelong
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: case of bronchitis. UM. So we moved back to England
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: and a doctor prescribed him heroin and uh he right,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: He's like, oh yeah, well friends. But I don't know
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: if he had successfully kept himself from becoming addicted to
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: it before or not, But this time it got its
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: hooks in him and he spent the last several years
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of his life addicted to heroin. Like heavily addicted to
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: heroin UM and ended up dying I believe in nineteen seven, Yes,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: basically broke in a boarding house yeah, alright, so maybe
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: we should talk, uh, finally about sex magic. Finally, sex magic.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I mean you're going to say that I can't proceeding
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: that all that proceeding this is all a big part
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: of it. But I did mention his stay in Italy. Uh,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: these were three big years in his life. Is when
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: he lived at a um ed calls it a small
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: estate in Sicily, but it was really a pretty rundown,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: ramshackle farmhouse down the middle of nowhere. Uh. And this
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: is what he called his church. This is the Abbey
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of uh Salima. And it was squalid and it was gross,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: and he had h This is where things he did,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the worst of the worst, even by his standards, when
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it came to these rituals. And this is where animal
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: sacrifice may or may not have happened, blood ritual may
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: or may not have happened. Ingesting all kinds of human
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: excrement may or may not happen. Um, it was you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: these were the dark days, or I guess, as far
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: as he's concerned, the best days, right, the salad days. Maybe.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: So sex magic. I don't want to give sex magic
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: bad name because a lot of people practice sex magic
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of wide variety of sex magic
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and even the stuff A lot of the stuff that
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Alistair Crowley, you know, um performed was just kind of like, oh,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: that's it, okay, Um, that's that seems fine. It wasn't
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: necessarily degrading or debasing, It didn't necessarily involve sacrifice or
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: anything like that. They're frequently multiple people involved. Um. But
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: it's like in all of it was in the service
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: of like entering a higher plane, communicating with other beings
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: u um and figuring out, you know, what worked best
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and what what didn't work um. But what sex magic
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: and sex magic seems to have been pretty much the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: basis of all of his rituals. Did you get that
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: impression to like, pretty much all of the magic he
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: did was sex magic to some degree or another, right, Yeah,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: And that that's one of the sort of issues I
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: have with him, is it seemed like most of it
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: revolved around getting people to do sexual acts they wouldn't
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: have ordinarily done. Um. So again, the purpose of all
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: of it, as far as he was saying, was to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to figure out what else is out there and to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: basically use magic too to to communicate with higher planes
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and to get that knowledge and to basically bring it
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: back here on earth to create a more just and
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: equitable society under Thalamic law. Right. That was That's what
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: his stated point was. That's what his point was. He
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: wrote very detailed graphic manuals that were very precise about
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: every sex act you can think of, Uh, to be
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: you know, part of his Theleamic religion, and he sort
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: of believed that he was onto something with magic being
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: what he thought was the middle ground between science and religion.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: He thought religion was seemingly thought religion was way too constrictive, uh,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: and kind of got in between people in and attaining
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: spiritual enlightenment. Uh. He it seemed like he thought science
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: was too rigid. I would argue that he probably thought
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: science was too caught up in facts and things like that,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: where he wanted to be a little more loosey goosey
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: with it. And so he thought he sort of had
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the perfect middle road there with magic with the c K. Yeah,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. He would use experimentation and trial
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: and error to figure out the best way, the most
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: effective ritual magic. Right. Uh, it seems that you know,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: and this is one of those deals where ed even
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: it's out he was sort of a man of his
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: time and his attitudes towards other races. Uh. He did
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: express racist and anti Semitic attitudes at times, um, but
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: maybe no worse than other people did at the time.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: That doesn't excuse it, obviously, but as far as just
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: sort of putting him in a time and place. But
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: you know, he also traveled all over the world and
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: experience all different types of cultures, and I don't think
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: did so with disdain, right. Um. We talked also Chuck
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: about um uh Salima and the the law of Salima um,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and there's a very famous like passage from it. Well,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: there's really just kind of three laws for Thalima. But
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the one that that people um cite most frequently and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: is actually, I guess inscribed on the vinyl of led
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin's third album, appropriately called led Zeppelin three. Um, it's uh,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: it's do what thou wilt shall be the whole of
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the law. Yes, And if there's ever been a string
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: of words more right for misinterpretation, it is that one. Yeah.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people say he's basically saying, uh,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: there are no consequences, just do whatever you want and uh,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: which is um. And we should point out he he
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: was never a Satanist. He was called that at times,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and I think when people think of Alistair Crowley, probably
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: because of Azzi and Um, people think he was a Satanist,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: but he never was. And he kind of used that
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a little bit to get some attention, but he was
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: never into Satanism. Um. But the reason I mentioned that
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: is uh to do with that quote, like apparently he
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: did not mean it that way, like you can just
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: do whatever you want as long as you're making yourself
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: happy and uh, go not with God, but go with yourself. Well,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: what I saw was that he's saying do without wilt,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: meaning like your purpose in life is the purpose in life,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: like figuring out what your purposes and applying your full
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: self to it. Is Is it that that's the whole
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: of the law. That's that's what that that meant to him? Um.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: He also said the law love is the law love
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: under will, meaning like to to find love and to
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: be a loving person under like. Secondary to the idea
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: that figuring out what your purpose in life is um.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: So then loving loving your purpose and learning to love
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: by carrying out your purpose. And then um thou hast
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: no right, but do thy will, which means just you
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: really should be doing those first two. Yeah, so um,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: those that that was like the law of Thalima. But
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: like like you're saying, like he's frequently considered a Satanist
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: even though he never was, and like the people are
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: like he didn't have any regard for consequences and he
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: kind of didn't. But that's not really what that Thalie
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: mc law was saying. So he was very much misinterpreted
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: and reinterpreted, um, and that especially started I think he died.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: He was very very no notorious while he was alive, um,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: but when he died, not many people showed up. The
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: papers covered it. But then that was seven. He just
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: kind of, um fell out of public consciousness from what
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I understand, until nineteen sixties seven when he made a
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: surprise cameo on the cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Club Band album. Yes, the very famous album cover with
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a which was a collage of many many famous people
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and Alistair Crowley was right in there. Apparently John Lennon
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: um enjoyed his writings, as did Jimmy Page and Timothy
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Leary and you know his influence was was pretty great
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: in what would end up being sort of the the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: hippie uh experimental drug culture of the nineteen sixties. Uh.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: They would invoke Alister Crowley's name here and there for sure. Uh. So,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: you know, for someone who UH would probably not be
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: a blip on the radar today, Uh, he had a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: lot of lasting influence and still does. And the apparently
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: also the New Age movement that really started to blossom
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: in the eighties and has been kind of revived today.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Seventies and eighties, I should say, UH found his roots
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: in the fifties, and those people were directly influenced by Crowley.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Crowley's followers. UM. So he was very much the father
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: of the modern New Age movement and all of its
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: preoccupation with occultism and mysticism. And you mentioned um the
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: you mentioned how had he had he had a chance
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: to be like al Ron Hubbard, he would have grabbed it.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: And I agree with you, I think he would have.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: But there's apparently a story that even the scientologists confirmed,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: but they they interpreted it differently, UM, that l Ron
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Hubbard was actually UH an acolyte, a follower of um
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: of Alistair Crowley's immediate air. So like who they founded
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the agap A Lodge, and Ron Hubbard was there performing
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: magic with another guy, Jack Parsons, who founded the Jet
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Propulsion Lab, who was a big time Crowley acolyte um.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: And the scientologists say l Ron Hubbard was there trying
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to destroy this this church from the inside. But a
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: lot of people say no, this is actually where all
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: round Hubbard started to get his ideas for scientology, and
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: and that's where it grew from, was from Crowley's influence.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: You could draw some parallels, that's for sure. Yeah, one
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: or two. So that's it. How do you feel like,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: did you take a bath? Yeah? I'm with you. I
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: kind of do too. Um, okay, well we made it
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: through Alistair Crowley everybody. And since Chuck said he needs
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to take a bath and I agree, it's time for
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: a listener mail. I'm gonna call this repping at the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is from Evan
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and Kaylee. Evan Weaver from Harrisonburg, Virginia sophomore James Madison
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: University and his girlfriend Kaylee Wagner went to the Rock
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame and he says this on
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: our way there, we re listened to the Rock and
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame podcast to build the anticipation once there,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: and when we finished looking through all the exhibits, we
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: found ourselves at a station where we could design custom
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: band logos and print stickers. Kaylee and I decided to
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: make some of these stickers based on our favorite band
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: names from the podcast. Awesome uh. They print two copies
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: of the sticker, one to take home, another two place
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: on the walls of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Needless to say, if you ever visit there and find
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: stickers with the band names Worm, Burden and Itch Scratch Cycle,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. You know who put them there? Yeah, Evan
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: and Kayley. That is huge. We need to get this
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: to be a thing that Evan and Kayley started. Every
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: visitor needs to do this. Attention stuff you should know listeners,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: including the New Twins. If you ever go to the
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will you follow in
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Evan and Kayley's footsteps for us? It would be awesome. Yeah.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Our goal is to one day take over the real
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: band names. There so many stuff you should know, faith,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: that would be wonderful. See, that's a great exhibit that's
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: way better than you know. Jimmy Pages mailbox from bowl
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Skin House behind plexiglass. You know. Oh, I so wish
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: that was there. It maybe it maybe that's where I
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: got my post. So thanks a lot, Evan and Kaylee,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: not just for the email, but for starting what we
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: can only hope is a Stuff you Should Know tradition
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: to last for years and years and years. Uh. And
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: if you want to be like Evan and Kaylee and
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: start a new tradition, or even if you just want
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to get in touch and say hi, you can email
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: us too at stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
• 51:48
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• 51:51
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• 51:53
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• 51:56
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