The True Story of Aleister Crowley

Depending on whom you ask, Aleister Crowley was: a genius, a conman, a criminal, a philosopher, a prophet, the greatest magician of the modern age, or all of the above. But what was he really like? In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the strange saga of 'the Great Beast' ... and ask whether his ceremonial magick actually worked.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
What are you doing that they can't with you? They
called me Bed.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
We're joined as always with our super producer Max the
Free Train Williams. Most importantly, you are you.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
As above, so below shout out to the great Beast
six six six.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Depending on who.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
You ask, Alistair Crowley is a lot of things.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
Six six six.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Did you ever think about that, guys, right? The sign
of the Beast? Now?

Speaker 4 (01:06):
I think at this point all of us longtime conspiracy
realists are very familiar with the character the real guy
known as Alistair Crowley. So depending on who you ask,
and depending on when in history you ask, Crowley will
be described as either a genius, a con man, the

(01:29):
great one of the greatest magicians, a drug addict, a womanizer,
a criminal, phenomenal philosopher, or maybe all of those things
at once.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Ben I don't often hear him described as a trust
fund kid, just probably even closer to reality, a bit of.

Speaker 5 (01:47):
A trustafarian, guys. I gotta know, though, what do you
think ai Ozzi.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Thinks about mister Crowley?

Speaker 5 (01:52):
Mister Crowley, hmmm, I don't know how I feel about Aiozzi.
But that's a discussion for a Strange News episode coming
up later this week, available wherever.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
You get podcasts, And we're getting into Crowley today. He
has inspired characters in countless works of fiction as well
as real life practitioners of what is called magic, with
a k at the end, who was he really? Did
his magic actually work? What was his scarlet lady? We're

(02:24):
going to get to all of that, but before we do,
we have to let you know some very exciting news.
We are back on the High Seas from October two
to seventh with Virgin Voyages. We'd love for you to
join us.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
Hanging out with our scarlet lady on the high Seas.
What is it, Matt, Scarlet Scarlet Night, spooky night of
revelry and red clothing.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh yes, it's a wonderful party. The entire ship comes
alive in red and scarlet and you must wear scarlet.
So if you are coming aboard. Remember to bring your
red outfit.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yes, bring your red pants.

Speaker 5 (02:59):
And I was told by our very lovely British handler,
I guess you'd call him from Virgin that pants in
the UK are not the same as pants in the US.

Speaker 4 (03:07):
That is absolutely true, and we did discover that, and
we're going to discover more stuff on the Virgin Voyages
Stuff cruise. It's not just going to be us, folks.
We are joined with Josh and Chuck from Stuff you
Should Know, as well as our friends Annie and Sam
from Stuff Mom Never told you and hopefully will be

(03:30):
joined by you.

Speaker 5 (03:31):
And shout out to Josh and Chuck who apparently have
been shouting us out on Stuff you Should Know. Recently
we got an email from a lovely listener who said
that they told him to come our way.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
So thanks Josh and Chuck, Well thank you in person. Yes, yeah,
thanks big bros. And shout out to you Felipe, thank
you so much for hanging out with us. We cannot
wait to get into the originator of the Scarlet Lady,
or at least the profit thereof. We're going to take
a break for a quick word from our sponsors and

(04:02):
we're going to learn more about Aleister Crowley, and we're
going to figure out whether his magic with a K
actually works.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Here are the facts. First off, the guy is not
born named Alistair.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
His real name is Eddie.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
He's born Edward Alexander Crowley on October twelfth. It's eighteen
seventy five. He is at a place called his birth,
at a place called get this, Royal Leamington Spa in England.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Is this a day spa or was this a medspa?
What kind of spa are we talking about it? Are
they using spa like the way they use pants, different, like.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
The way like the way people used to say gymnasium
in a very different TONI yeah, this is the thing. No,
our buddy Eddie is born into the upper crust. He
is never going to have to work a day in
his life should he choose not to work. His father

(05:04):
is heir to a brewing dynasty, and his father is
also never hurting for money. So Eddie's father, proudly Senior,
is seeking meaning in religion. He becomes a member of
a fundamentalist, very strict religious denomination called the Plymouth Brethren.

(05:27):
They're still kind of around today, and Alistair didn't jibe
with us. He never really liked the idea of dogma
that he was not controlling, So pretty early in life,
this guy, like a lot of kids, says, hey, Christianity
may not be for me. This made him what some

(05:48):
people have called a patron saint of edgedlords. He was
that classic stereotype of a kid in undergrad who says, well,
I have some opinions about God, but he's very smart.
He makes it to Trinity College in eighteen ninety five.

(06:08):
That's where he starts calling himself Alistair.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Well.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
I think it's worth mentioning too that that patron saying
of edge lord thing I mean, really does track into
the present day with a lot of like you know,
young rambunctious, edgy teens enjoying reading the work of Alistair
Crowley and making a big show of it.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
I would just say, I think, as you're saying, Ben,
that is a very common experience anytime you grow up
in a very fundamentalist version of reality. No matter what
that version of fundamentalism is you have, if you're a
thinking person, you have reactions to it because you see
inherent hypocrisy in any rigid system, right, you see the

(06:48):
cracks in all of the containers of the thoughts that
you're supposed to have, and you look for something new,
And in this case it totally makes sense. Right, we're
talking about the eighteen hundreds. We're talking about a time
of rigidity, I think, in thought. But you're also talking
about folks who are looking to new, often Eastern versions

(07:11):
of religion and spiritualism. Right, this is a ripe time
for that kind of thinking.

Speaker 4 (07:18):
Yeah, Now, calling yourself a different name or making an
edgy spelling of your name might seem performative for a
lot of people, but we have to realize that many
many kids then as now do this, as they do
acquire a different name in higher education, because it's part
of finding their identity free from what their parents imposed

(07:41):
upon them. Their parents impose their wills upon them, right,
and what is the greatest magic imposing one's will on reality?
At least that's what Crowley ultimately concludes. He was known
to be good at chess. He was also known to
be erudite in his conversations about any manner of things,

(08:04):
but unlike most people in England, or most people in
higher education at that point, to be honest, probably didn't
actually have to do anything. He didn't have to have
a degree because he didn't need a job. So he
drops out of Trinity in eighteen ninety eight and he

(08:25):
uses his again massive inheritance to fund frequent travel across
the world Egypt, India, the United States. He gets kicked
out of Italy at some point, and he also bankrolls
the publication of his works, so he doesn't go to
like a talent agent. He doesn't need to beg a

(08:48):
publishing house or an editor for approval. He just says,
I have all the money. I am going to publish
a collection of poetry. It is get this title Nsage
Poetry by Edgelord Poetry, just so for anyone who's read
the book. His first work is Jeptha and Other Mysteries,

(09:09):
lyrical and dramatic. He publishes this in eighteen ninety eight.
The same head drops off, you know, not everything is
for everyone. No, I don't know if I'm the demographic,
but I have read it.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Maybe we do it like a maybe do a dramatic reading.

Speaker 5 (09:27):
In the Blind Hour of Madness in its might, When
the Red Star, I don't know, man kind of disagreeing,
When the Red Star of Tyranny was highest, when baleful
watchfires scared the witless night, and kings mocked freedom as
she wept, thou diest, when priest craft it's a good word,

(09:47):
snarled at thought. I crushed thee quite that's good stuff.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
I don't know. I'm curious. I'd like to read more.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Yes, and you can read Jeptha and other Mysteries lyrical
and dramatic for free online. This is the beginning of
a pattern for this guy Eddie, now called Alistair.

Speaker 5 (10:08):
I mean, I'm curious to what you think about this
ben like, I mean, with all that travel and he
seems to be going to kind of ancient seats of
various cultures and civilizations, He's doing a bit of collecting
at this point, right, kind of picking and choosing pieces
of different cultures and religions and vibes to kind of
ultimately assemble sort of his own pantheon of beliefs.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Pretty American, right, I guess that.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Add me some avocado of Buddhism to a little bit
pray love, I get some barbaricoa of of Eastern thought.
This is also by the same by the same year.
This is when he joins an outfit we've talked about
in a previous episode the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawns right, an organization derived from the Rose Crucians. This

(10:58):
all happened by the time he was twenty five, and
I want to go back to a point made earlier.
This might sound unusual for us here in twenty twenty six,
but we have to realize it's a pretty common move
for a lot of what we can call religious skeptics
in the eighteen hundreds. They're burned by dogma, They're disillusioned

(11:21):
by the existing spiritual status quo. So scads of young
thinkers are searching for alternative ways to explain and encounter reality.
Crowley is a lot of things, but he is by
no means unique in this regard. He's a smart dude,
but he's also I don't know if I can say

(11:41):
this on Netflix. He's also kind of a dick.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
I think he can say it on Netflix. Okay, Well,
have you seen the filth that they have on Netflix?

Speaker 4 (11:48):
I think right, Crowley would probably love Netflix as long
as he could get a show on there. He's manipulative,
he's abrasive and false.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Not filth. It's all high class, high quality content, and
I do bring that.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
And above all, he is ambitious.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Right right.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
I mean, you know, he's well spoken, he's rich, he's ambitious.
He seems to have a craving for attention. It's almost
like he's perfectly set up to become some kind of
cult leader.

Speaker 4 (12:19):
Yeah, like so many people before him and after him,
he was not satisfied to play the role of audience
or regular worshiper in any pre existing religious system. He
wanted to be special, like you said, Noel, he wanted
to build a spiritual pyramid with himself as close to

(12:41):
the top as possible. Christianity is a deal breaker for him, So,
as far as we can tell, he didn't see much
value in declaring himself the return of Jesus Christ that
had already been done countless times by the moment he
gets on the scene. If you believe his official story, folks,

(13:03):
Fate intervened on his honeymoon in Egypt, and Fate agreed
with him and said, you, buddy, you're important.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
You're my special guy. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Take us over to nineteen four, on one of his
three trips to Egypt.

Speaker 3 (13:18):
For sure.

Speaker 5 (13:18):
In nineteen oh four, the freshly wedded Crowley and his
bride Rose Rose Rose Crustian visited Egypt on honeymoon. Like
you said, Ben, there he at least he claimed to
have encountered an intangible discarnate, as he called it in

(13:39):
the words he uses, specifically, a holy Guardian. It's sort
of like the vision that Homelander had in The Boys.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, it's weird how people have these visions that say, hey,
I'm coming to tell you you are the most important one.
Nobody has a vision that says, hey, it's me I Was,
the Holy Guardian Angel Dispartnet. Yeah, and your job is
to Your job is just to look out for when

(14:10):
you turn thirty five there will be a Toyota Corolla
making an illegal right hand turn and you've got to
jump in front of that car.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Yeah. It will change, It will steer the course of
history and civilization as we know it. I stop short, guys,
it's Holy Guardian Angel by the name of I Was,
which sounds like a brand of like a Kia or
something like that.

Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, AI w A S S. I Was dictates secret
knowledge to our buddy Alistair and this comes to him
in the form of a prose poem later published as
the Book of the Law by far and by far
and away Crowley's most popular work. It contains his most

(14:57):
famous declaration or ia wass, his most famou miss declaration,
do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Speaker 5 (15:05):
And I always personally get that one misconstrued with Anton
Levey and the Church of Satan, because that is sort
of their vibe as well.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yes, absolutely, and this is you know, not to disparage iwas,
but this is not necessarily an original thought from the
Holy Guardian Angel.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
It is, in fact.

Speaker 4 (15:27):
A sentiment that comes to us from a French author
three hundred years before Francois Rabier's. This doesn't bother Alistair
or Eddie at all. Instead, he believes that the Book
of the Law is like the Commandments of Moses. This

(15:48):
is the basis for his new overarching goal, a religion.
He calls it Thelema or Theleima. It's based on the
Greek word for will, and other people are into it,
especially guys. We talked about the Oto for a second,
oh we must, yeah. So over in Germany there's a
mystic group called the Ordo Timple Orientis. We've talked about

(16:12):
them in the past. They pre date proudly.

Speaker 5 (16:17):
They did what he's up to, right, Yeah, basically yeah,
they basically take on his word as gospel.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
What are they into before they get into.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
Curious as well?

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Just creepy stuff, you know what I mean, just having
fun hanging temple stuff.

Speaker 5 (16:32):
Yeah, temple stuff around, you know, I mean, is it
is it like a Knight's templar this type of situe?

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Is it another secret order?

Speaker 5 (16:41):
Similar to the Mystic Dawn, which is by the way,
I didn't didn't even bring this up. That is easily
my favorite name in secret mystic orders.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
It's a pretty good one, The Hermetic Order of the
Golden Dawn. That's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
OTO is founded in like eighteen ninety five, but if
you read their internal logic, you're going to see that
they they will argue for a great deal of precedent beforehand.
So this happens a lot with alternative belief systems in

(17:15):
this period of time. People are saying, hey, it sounds
like we just made this up, but actually it's very
old and you've never been to Egypt, so you just
have to take our word for it. The OTO is
a whole story with Crowley. We fast forward a few years.
It's nineteen oh seven, and Crowley says, Okay, these Oto folks,

(17:41):
these Hemetic Dawn Order, golden people, they're fine, but I
want to make my own religion I get. So he
founds an order that he calls a A. The initials
apparently stand for the Latin words silver star are At

(18:01):
least that's what people say.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, isn't it weird that specific symbol with three dots
forming a triangle. It's a. It's a symbol that's used
in coding. It's used in mathematics, it's used in type
of symbolism, syllogism. I forget how to say it. It's
a stand in for the concept of therefore. So if

(18:25):
you use it, you could in a good example would
be x plus one equals ten. This therefore sign x
equals nine. And you can also use it in a term.
This is the example you can find on Wikipedia. Everybody,
you congratulations to Matt for finding in a Wikipedia All
gods are immortal. Zeus is a god. Therefore Zeus is immortal.

(18:50):
So it's interesting when you look at it and you think,
perhaps it means a therefore, a therefore something else, or
does it just mean sivil? I mean it's a I
would love to actually have had a conversation with him
about that, like, what do you what is your actual
meaning behind this, these symbols that you're deciding to put

(19:11):
in the name of your thing, which for a guy
who is a part of all of these organizations where
symbols are perhaps the most important thing with the deeper
meaning you can find within a simple thing you could
draw or write. Yeah, and just I wonder if it
means something even more than I'm comprehending in the moment
of researching it.

Speaker 4 (19:32):
I like that you're mentioning syllogism there, and I do
appreciate exactly what you're nailing, which is, grammatically speaking, that
symbol is like a therefore, a therefore, and there's nothing
after that, so it is I agree.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
It is fascinating he's leaving that path open in some
kind of way that I currently don't understand, because a
therefore a makes sense to me as a enclosed system, right,
But just taking it back and wondering just all the
ripping off of rebel a here with this concept of
do what thou wilst shall be the whole of the law.

(20:11):
I keep thinking about this as we're going through learning
about his background, learning about these orders he's been a
part of, and just thinking about the selfishness somehow, or
the self centeredness that is represented by a lot of
this stuff.

Speaker 5 (20:24):
Selfish at the very least, right, I mean, like for
him and also just anybody that kind of follows these
particular tenants, it's almost nihilistic kind.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
I think for him, the great magic is marketing and
ego to be.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
So honest, exactly so ultimately with this, with all this
seemingly deep meaning right behind all this stuff, He's trying
to get at somebody who wants to make it about
themselves somehow. But I don't fully understand. I can't, I
can't comprehend all of it yet. But let's keep going.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yeah, yeah, let's keep going.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
And so a lot of us in the audience tonight,
maybe the more cynical amongst us, will say, making everything
about yourself, gosh, that's stereotypically American.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
And you're right.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
So it comes as no surprise that during World War One,
Crowley did move to the United States. After World War One,
he goes to Italy, he goes to Sicily. He converts
a house a Bando, into a sanctuary that he called
the Abbey of the Lima and during this time he

(21:31):
also writes he writes a story called the Diary of
a Drug Fiend. It's nineteen twenty two.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
That's the one that always popps to me in my
angsty youth for.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Whatever reason, dude, the Italian place is a nut story.
And I hope we had talked about that a little
bit more in here and just what went down there
and why he chose that place, and again it all
goes back to the freaking rebel ai writer person from earlier.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
But the opium guy into opium.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
He was into all of it, okay, Like if he
were here now, first off, I'd tell him to leave
my house. But also if you had the weirdest drug
you can imagine, adrina chrome or something, he would say, yeah,
that's part of my religion.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
He would just eat a loose pill he found on
the floor.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
He's a loose pill Guyah.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
For one thing we have to mention during this whole
World War one time is that Crowley had money right
from inheriting things down the line from his forefathers. And
one of the things he would always do when he
needed a little extra scratch or he was down on
money is write and contribute writing to places as a

(22:45):
freelance writer. Essentially, one of the things he did during
World War One in the years before he moves to
Italy is write for a paper, a newspaper called The Fatherland,
which was highly pro during World War One, and he
was writing it within the United States about how great
Germany is and what they're doing, and you know, extolling

(23:08):
some of the things that are happening in Germany. Remember
this is World War One, isn't It isn't quite the
Nazi version of Germany where we think about.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
But if you go back and learn that it's the
beginnings of that uber Mensch kind of mentality, I would think.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
There is stuff that you can read in there that
is highly interesting, very strange and off putting, but it
is just worth imagining. Maybe he is just writing this.
I don't know him, I don't know his life, but
maybe he is writing these things just to get some money.
Maybe he's writing them for other reasons. I don't fully

(23:48):
have that information. I don't think we do, just because
we don't. We don't have that insight from him. But
you can see you can't find some of the writing,
and you can make your own judgments and off.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
This period, while he is writing for very anti British publication,
and while he is publishing Diary of a Drug Fiend,
he is acquiring as a charming person, many friends, many
followers or disciples, and not a few enemies. He actually

(24:21):
beefs up with Yates, who came into a conversation we
had offline just yesterday, I think. So question is why
does he get expelled from Italy. It happens due to
the death of a young follower in Sicily, allegedly after

(24:41):
participating in some of his very salacious magical rituals. And
this is something the British press treats his red meat.
They start calling him the wickedest man in the world.
He is kicked out of Italy in nineteen twenty three,

(25:02):
which technically means he joined another notorious order, the Order
of PNNG persona non grata. So shout out to everybody
who gets kicked out of countries.

Speaker 5 (25:14):
And you can't really say this stuff isn't good for
his image. This isn't like exactly bad pr for a
guy that wants to be seen as some sort of
mystical weirdo.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
You know, there's stuff, there's reasons he got kicked out, right,
Are you going to get into that later, like what
happened there in Sicily?

Speaker 5 (25:33):
Yeah, I'd love to dig in a little bit to
what these salacious accusations were.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
He set it up kind of like a commune where
there would be all kinds of rituals that had to
be done if you were going to live there. There
were a lot of influential later on famous people that
rolled through and lived there for a time. A lot
of people would leave because a part of the order
was that you had to engage in same sex sex

(25:58):
acts that a lot of people you know, were not
comfortable with when they first went there were allegedly, at
least according to several witnesses, sex acts with animals. A
lot of animal sacrifice that we're going to get into
to make specific offerings essentially types of what would food

(26:19):
and sacrificial cakes and stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Well, he was kind of made an example of by
the way.

Speaker 5 (26:25):
I mean, like Mussolini's government was very anti this sort
of you know, shenanigans and under that, you know, his
fascist regime, it was very very focused on the idea
of public morals, and so he definitely made an example
out of Crowley, especially since a lot of this sensational

(26:46):
stuff was was being reported in the British press and
was getting some attention, and so I think it was
definitely a matter of Mussolini kind of projecting this moral authority.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
One of the primary reasons he got kicked out is
because there was a man who moved there with him
his wife. His wife absolutely hated Croley, hated all the
stuff that they had to do to live there, but
he was all about it and he would do anything
Crawley told him to do. And one of the things
he had to do was drink water that was contained
like it was just dirty, nasty water, and he had
to drink it and he ended up getting a liver

(27:16):
infection and dying. And then the wife told the story.
But then all the presses that got that story are
believing the version of an angry wife about, you know,
her husband who died. And we don't know if that
story is fully true or if it's partly made up
to sensationalize it some to make it seem like these

(27:38):
guys are even worse than they are.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
We just don't know.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
And we do know for a fact that yes, Eddie
Aleister Crowley is expelled from Italy. He does become a
member of P and G. Shout out to everybody. So
he also just to get to get to the juice here,
get to the chicken. He exhausts his inheritance in the

(28:04):
typical dissipated aristocratic fashion. You know, drugs, why lovers, and travel.
He moves back to England in the early nineteen thirties.
One of his last notable publications, because again he's a
very prolific guy, is the Book of Thoth Thhot and

(28:27):
there this is interesting, folks. There he interprets or co
creates a new tarot card deck called the thoughth And
He has done this in collaboration with an artist named
Frida Harris. If you enjoyed our previous episode on tarot cards,
we do recommend checking out Prowley's take on the system.

(28:52):
He unfortunately does not die wealthy and worshiped. He dies
in a boarding house number one, nineteen forty seven. He
is impoverished. Right, he has wandered his inheritance. He is
obscure outside of certain esoteric circles. After his death, he

(29:13):
becomes a figure of fascination and popular culture, and he
remains so today even in twenty twenty six. What made
him so controversial? What did he actually believe versus what
he said he believed preps? Most importantly, guys, I'm wondering
whether any of his magic actually worked. Let's say we

(29:36):
take a break for a word from our sponsors, then
get into it. Here's where it gets crazy. All right,
we got guys, We got to talk about the magic
with a K versus magic with justice C.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
At the end, well, what's the difference?

Speaker 5 (29:57):
Well, Matt, that is the question, Magic with just to
see versus magic with a C. K. Crowley was all
about branding. He really wanted to differentiate the types of
things that he purported to be able to conjure and
practice from more run of the mill illusion like things
like sleight of hand press, the digitation stage magic used

(30:21):
for entertainment purposes. He did not want to be associated
with that kind of stuff. What he was doing was different.
In his book Magic Book four, he defined these arts
as follows the science and art of causing change to
occur in conformity.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
With will to impose oneself upon reality. And you know,
for the casual outsider. Crowley's most controversial practices are what
we call sex magic and this is a little Easter
egg for me and the boys. Folks, Noel, can I
get you to seeing that red hot chili peppers clip

(31:04):
one more time?

Speaker 3 (31:05):
Well it's blood sugar baby, she ha has it. Sex magics.
It tickles me so yeah, sex magic.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
He describes it as oh, sorry, sorry, there's also blood
sugar crazy sex.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Magic important please please yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
In nineteen twelve, he is describing something he calls a
roto comatose lucidity in the Here's the way it works. Okay,
this is per Crowley, this is not per us. You
have one main character, which we can call a ritualist seer,

(31:44):
and then you have several aids, usually of the opposite sex,
but not always who participates in these rituals. Outlined by Crowley,
the aids for the ritualists are going to repeatedly seek
to sexually arouse and then exhaust the practitioner, who is

(32:05):
generally going to be a passive recipient of attention. Originally,
Prowley said, you shouldn't have an orgasm, this should not
lead to climax. Later practitioners surprise not as opposed, and
Prowley is like.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Isn't that the very definition of being an edge? Edge
very much so. The definition.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
Yeah, Prowley is pretty open about, especially for his time,
about what sorts of stimulation could be used. He said, physical, psychological,
you know, talk dirty to me about the hidden God.
You can use well, I called it paraphernalia, but honestly
sex toys and then a ton of drugs and the aids.

(32:53):
The reason there are multiple aids for the reasoning here
is that they work in shifts, so if one of
them gets tired out, another can step in and the
ritual continues. Eventually your practitioner sinks into a sleep like
state because they're just so exhausted from all the passive banging.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Passive banging. That's a new one. I love it. It's
the new one. Right. The second is like tantric kind
of stuff. Is that the same thing? Right? The snow burn.
The idea here is.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
That the these various types of simulation are meant to
be a pleasurable avenue toward greater knowledge. Right, if anybody
remembers the film Martyr, the belief there is that through
torture one can attain a greater understanding of the universe.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
I believe there's a remake, but the original French one
is preparily. Yeah, now it's it's not for the faint
of heart. It's part of that kind of new extreme
French cinema, and it does do an incredibly adapt job
at portraying the most extreme version of these types of
like you know, getting the secret, the secret answers, you know,

(34:17):
finding the mysteries of the universe through coming edging into death.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Basically it's what they're doing.

Speaker 4 (34:23):
Yeah, yeah, check out also flat liners check out. Also, Uh,
don't forget vibes.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Don't thank you man, that mean so much. Yeah, don't
forget vibes and shut out.

Speaker 5 (34:37):
Yeah, recently heard a pretty chilling little detail about eyeswad
shut something to do with the last scene. How it
kind of gives it a whole new spin as to
like this cult kind of I don't want to spoil anything,
but if you're into it and you've seen the film,
do do look it up. There's a detail about these
men that appear in the last scene walking with the
child of Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise's character.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Also see the Epstein Files.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
Yeah, at least what's that what's available? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
It also reminds me of Maynard from Toole, who said, yes,
I've done heavy drugs to attain a state of altered consciousness,
and now I meditate because you can choose any number
of paths to arrive at this realization.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
Homeboys had some pretty problematic accusations Maynard as far as
like kind of this sort of sex magic type stuff
but with underaged groupies. And I don't remember if I
told you guys. I had a friend who told me
this great story about running into Maynard and like, for
whatever reason, they shot a bottle rocket at him and
he just looked at it on the ground and the

(35:39):
fuse went out and he just looks up and he goes,
I put it out with my mind.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Man, Oh you told me about that. I don't know
just he is.

Speaker 5 (35:47):
I think he fancies himself or fancied anyway himself at
Alistair Crowley type, as.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
Lord Prowley certainly did. And his passage to these inner truths,
these magical realizations, was not through torture. It was through hedonism.
So the second phase of your typical sex magic ritual
is the aids will try to get the ritualist almost

(36:14):
But to your point in all about edging not quite
awake through you guessed it more sexual stimulation, you get
to that liminal space between wakefulness and the sleeping world,
and then rinsom repeat at the third phase of the ritual.
This is where the ritualist, the main character, communes with

(36:39):
higher powers, witnesses mystical events, receives revelations. Probably was also
very careful to state that exhaustion may not be necessary
for one who is bodily pure. I'm telling you, guys,
he's a creepy dude.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
It does sound similar to the concept of a dream
or someone who is right at that edge of your
body working as hard as it can to maintain all
the primary systems while you're conscious that all the mechanisms
needed for you to be aware of your surroundings, you know,

(37:19):
like when all that's shutting down because your body can't
handle anything else. I mean, it feels very one and
the same to that to me, where you can actually
begin to maybe have visions or hear voices, or experience
a dream more as though it is reality than in
the dream state.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Imagine a runner's high after a lot of sex and
a lot of drugs. Right you come to you're back
to the waking world. Your final step is to immediately
convey or write down everything that you have witnessed, experienced,
or been told in this state. Probably also says when

(37:59):
men conduct the ritual, all right, there's not appropriate for everybody.
So if you got your kids listening tonight, folks, just
fast forward. Crowley said that any uh semen produced by
orgasm has to be consumed by the ritualists and the participants.

(38:20):
It's possibly their version of the eucharistic host. Uh the
so called cake of light?

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yuck? Are these are those magic cakes you were talking about,
Matt especially?

Speaker 5 (38:32):
Okay, jeez, have these these these cult leaders? Sex is
always part of the equation. Sex is the sacrament. It's
almost as though they're just in it for the sex.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, some creepy stuff. Well, there are accusations and you know,
some writings about things like Cockerrell blood being important for
the Cake of Light in preparation for things like that.
They're like ritual sacrifice of animals and chickens in this case,
and other animals as well as human blood sometimes is

(39:07):
being used in things. And again, when you're when you've
got somebody like Crawley writing the stuff down telling everybody,
oh yeah, well you gotta eat sorry, if if somebody
shoots you gotta eat it, whoops it? Hmmm, I don't
even know. It's just so disgusting to imagine a person

(39:33):
who somehow has these rather demented thoughts and then is
convincing others around them that this is the way, This
is the way, guys, and then others are willing to
just do it.

Speaker 4 (39:45):
Yeah, folks, I'd like to I'd like to share the
recipe at least described by Proudly on his own. This
will give us a sense of is his edge lordiness,
or his ambition or the fact that he wants to
be seen as a wicked dude. This is directly again

(40:09):
from our buddy Alistair. He says, for perfume, mix meal
and honey and thick leavings of red wine, then oil
of abramelon and olive oil, and afterwards soften and smooth
down with rich fresh blood.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
The best blood is of the moon monthly.

Speaker 4 (40:27):
Then the fresh blood of a child, a dropping from
the host of heaven, then of animals, then of the
priest or of the worshippers, last of some beast, no
matter what. So he gets pretty specific. He also, yeah,
people actually did it. The cake of light is a

(40:48):
real thing that happened and probably happens still.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Some creepy, insane dude is telling you, well, we should
get mensur blood and seemen, put it in a thing
baga with some abrellamine and olive oil. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:02):
I can see, just yeah, I can see how already
folksing Prowley's time would look at skance at this, And
we're definitely looking at skance at it now. Even though
it's a religious system. If you practice it and you're
not hurting other people, do what thou wilt. But it's
pretty scandalous stuff.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
But it's saying to take blood from someone you know,
and and then a child is the second best, go yourself.
We need to run this guy out of Italy.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
Yeah, not a good dude, not in my opinion.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Yeah, and we know there are other magical rights in
a similar.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Genre. You could say one is.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Performed by these aids using oral stimulation only to quote
exhaust the ritualist seer end quote.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
And the goal is, at least the.

Speaker 4 (41:59):
Way probably put it is to transfer the power of
the ritualist to the aids. So he's explaining this to
his followers, I can only imagine he's probably pretty manipulative
and horny at the time.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
He says, look, if you I'm divided about.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
The way to say this, so I'll just say it bluntly.
He is telling these people, Look, if you blow me
long enough and you exhaust me, it's actually really good
for you because then you will have some of my
magical insights, knowledge and abilities.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Come on, man, is that not grooming? Oh? All of it.

Speaker 5 (42:44):
I mean you said it from the start, and even
with the philosophy, it's all so incredibly self serving, specifically
for this individual, not just folks who follow, you know,
in his beliefs. I mean, this is very clearly a
guy that just wants to like have people worship him
and you know, have unlimited sex with unlimited partners, you

(43:07):
know his terms.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
It's just this whole ego thing can really run away
with itself, can it It really can?

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (43:13):
Freight train, free train, tennessee, palell, it might be time
for an eye roll, sound c whatever that sounds.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
Like, Oh brother, there it is.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
For a great many of us in the audience, skeptics
both then and now would look around with some sand,
with some validity, and say this is all malarkey, This
cruey Crowley guy is just make it up reasons to
rationalize these long debauched, drug fueled orgies. And Crowley did

(43:49):
not find this controversy off putting at all. He courted it,
he worshiped it, he graved it. Maybe that was his
real magic, imposing his methodlogy self created upon the world
at large.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
He certainly had a pretty high opinion of himself.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Well, maybe his will is the concept right as he's
using his will to make everyone recoil enough to question
the things that they put their faith and belief in.
Maybe that was his whole point by being that insane,
by doing that many disgusting things and getting others to
do them, is to get everybody else who would find

(44:27):
him abhorrent, to find their own cracks. And the thing
that he found I don't know's I don't even like
that that came out of my mouth, said most of
the ritualists.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
And maybe you know, he goes back to the idea
was always very transparent about the concept of true will
being an ultimate superpower. To your earlier note there about
ad Todd leave Noel. What if we take a break
for a word from our sponsors and we get into

(45:00):
some of the controversies because you know, you can already
see how this is having us clutch our pearls and
bag our badgers in.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
Twenty twenty six.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
So what did people say when Crowley was doing these
things in his own time? We'd like to go to
our alma matter how stuff works. They speak with a
cultural anthropologist at the University of Buffalo, a very smart

(45:31):
man named Phil Stevens, and guys, I think Phil Stevens
sums up probably so perfectly in this quotation.

Speaker 5 (45:42):
Yes, he really gets to the heart of the man
when he says a lot of what he did was
designed to be shocking, especially the sexual license that he took.
Crowley knew very well that he was riling people. He
did that intentionally. He was intentionally a moral He was
taking lot of risks for the sexual variations, but it

(46:02):
was all part of his ego. And you mentioned Anton
Leavey been. Another guy who really looked to Crowley and
Levey as inspiration is Marilyn Manson, who was also, you know,
just known for being overtly shocking for the sake of
shocking you know, the audience, you know, specifically parents and stuff,

(46:26):
and becoming like this like very casting himself as a
similarly evil and amoral man. And as we also know
that was not just an act. You know, Marilyn Manson
has some pretty horrific accusations about stuff that he did
with various partners, involving correct involving restraining them against their will,

(46:48):
and doing all kinds of forced sexual acts very similar
to the kind of stuff that Crowley would have gotten
up to.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
So, and we all know your real name is Brian,
That's right, Brian Warner.

Speaker 3 (47:00):
So he has made fun of you, and you are like,
I'll show you, I'll show you, I'll show them all.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
Also shout out to Alice Cooper on a wholesome note.
I love this conversation in Wayne's world.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Yeah, this conversation in Wayne's world.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
Also apparently a regular volunteer at various soup kitchens and
shelters around the LA area, and an avid golfer and
a great example of a dude that took these theatrics
and use them for entertainment and shock purposes, but didn't
didn't take him home with him.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
He's just so, he's so awesome, He's wholesome.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
I'm embarrassed to talk about one of my favorite life shows.
I've ever seen so much fun.

Speaker 5 (47:40):
Crazy set pieces has a guillotine, he wheels out on
stage and decapitates himself.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
I mean, just a good time.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
There were good times in the press around Alistair Crowley
because there were these wild rumors spreading. Some people said
this guy's just seemed cannibalism, he's doing human sacrifice. Those
claims were never proven, but this did lead the English
press to pull him quote the wickedest man in the world,

(48:11):
and the public would often hear about this guy in
newspaper hit pieces. There's a article that gets quoted pretty
often from nineteen twenty three, an outfit called John Bull.
It was titled A Man We'd like to hang. It's
published around the same time Crowley gets p and G

(48:33):
in Italy.

Speaker 5 (48:34):
You know, he's loving this attention. So he is idiot,
the most wicked man in the world. Yeah, hell yeah,
an accomplished you know.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
We'll give you the first paragraph of this one, the
of the miss Aleister Crowley, who has been expelled from Italy,
proposes to turn to this country. He is not wanted here.
We do not want a man of his record on
British soul. Apart from anything else, he is a beast
whose disloyalty is only exceeded by his impudence.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
I almost said impotence.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
That part would have made him angry. Yeah, he is
as you said, No, he is courting this controversy. It's
a scratch behind his ears. He loves it.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
It's more attention. It's helping selve the books.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Let's remember that there were rumors there at the place
in Italy because of the communal nature of the living
situation there. You had adults, you had children, You had
a ton of cats and dogs that would just come
in and out of the building. There were rumors that
the children who were educated there on premises they didn't

(49:49):
like go to a school. At least according to the
folks who were there and observed the place, the children
would often be present at the sex rituals. That doesn't
mean there were taking part, but they would often be
there observing these insane sexual rituals that we have described
to you. And just imagine that existing somewhere in your

(50:12):
neighborhood and knowing that that was happening. You know, what
do you think what would be your reaction knowing that
that was occurring, or believing at least that that's occurring.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Hmm, yeah, coupled with again rumors of cannibalism, sacrifice, child abuse,
as we said, also allegations of devil worship and out
and out theistic Satanism. So shout out to anybody who
practices Church of Satan kind of things. We're well aware

(50:44):
of the difference between that and theistic Satanism, which argues
that yes, a God exists, Yes a devil is real,
Yes the devil is bad, and you should team up.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
With the devil.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
He gets accused of this stuff all the time, and
even now the OTO is attempting to clarify misunderstandings about
the guy in tabloid press of his day. They're also
attempting to repair his reputation, such as it is. They
call him a systematic and scientific explorer of religious practices,

(51:22):
techniques and doctrines. So he's kind of going through the
buffet of spiritual thought and he's picking up what he likes,
they say, quote as such. He Prowley performed devotional exercises
to Satan, as well as to Jesus Christ and the
Virgin Mary, to various deities from the Egyptian and Hindu pantheons,

(51:46):
to Jehovah, as well as to Allah and to the
divine personifications that are unique to the system of his
own religion. So they're saying, look, you guys are missing
the larger point. This is not about, you know, the
binary good and evil of Christian religion. This is about interpretation,

(52:09):
and the larger point is to impose one's will upon
the universe. They also, I don't know about this guy's
They say, the physical aspect of the sex is not
the end goal. They say it's just the gateway that
probably discovered to a higher level of understanding. I don't

(52:29):
know what do you guys think, because I feel like
he's grooming people.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, dude, it feels like big talk for a dude
who attempted to kick Heroin and couldn't do it, even
when he went to Paris to go to this fancy
schmancy retreat thing and he still couldn't kick Heroin. Oh really,
I thought you were like kind of a godlike bro.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
You can't means your will on yourself.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
My guy, he's a.

Speaker 5 (52:55):
Classic hedonist, you know. I mean, with the drugs and
the sex and the need for attention and all of
that stuff. I mean, it's it's it's kind of it's
it's almost cliche, like how transparent all of these grifts are.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
It's one of those guys that would try and intimidate
you with their words, right and and their actions.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
He's kind of a tweeby looking guy by the way. Yeah, like, yeah,
a little bit of a squirt.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
You know, but if he actually threatened you, you could
probably take him, no matter who you are.

Speaker 5 (53:27):
Like when Homelander loses his powers, mm hmm, he needs that.
It's the only thing that keeps him tough is having
this area of of power, you know, and the masculinity
and uh and control.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
But once you strip all that away, he's just he's
just a little guy.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
I wanted to point out too that a lot of
people think about the Ozzy Osbourne song mister Crowley, and
since you know, Ozzi's got all this reputation from Black
Sabbath as being, you know, a devil worshiper, being somehow
involved in the occult. I didn't realize this myself, honestly,
but mister Crowley is an absolutely criticism of Alistair currently
for all the things that we're talking about, you know,

(54:05):
kind of talking about how he was a fraud and
a grifter and trying to take advantage of people and
didn't really stand for anything.

Speaker 4 (54:13):
And it's interesting what you guys are saying because we
know he had a voracious appetite for all kinds of drugs,
like I mentioned earlier, of course heroin, how sheih cocaine, Okay,
pretty much anything he could get his hands on. I
want to go to this point though, because even today

(54:33):
that you will find historians who speculate that Alistair may
have been involved in actual homicide. The Purse of the
King tut speculation is fascinating and please check it out.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. We have
to get to a bit of speculation that I hope

(54:54):
fascinates all of us. I've been deep in this one, guys,
the idea that Aleister Crowley spiritual window dressing aside was
also a spy before getting the details. Initial reactions, let's
hear it. It's giving epstein. I don't doubt it. I

(55:15):
mean it's the self serving This certainly tracks. You know,
he's in it for himself.

Speaker 5 (55:19):
He's gonna take whatever opportunities he can to double cross
and you know, get some sort of have something over
on people. I mean, that's just the kind of energy
this guy's putting out. I wouldn't surprise me. I'd love
to hear more about it, though.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Yeah, like the personality disorders that you might associate with
someone who wants to be a spy, I could see
some of that, the holier than now kind of thing
that that tracks with some of that stuff, But I
don't know. I mean, there are a list of folks
who were well known who ended up going through the

(55:52):
place in Italy, who were actually pretty well known. So
I can imagine if you've got folks that are interested
in him, and he's trying, people are coming to him,
maybe you would want to have that person as someone
who's you know.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
An asset. Well, that's why the Epstein thing is just so,
it just rings true. You know, he was the perfect
person to sort of head up these like honeypot operations
for the rich and powerful who also tend to you know,
not all but want to get up to some hedonistic shenanigans.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Let me sell you a door.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
All right, This sounds bonkers at first, but let's really
think about it. Right, based on what we know from
this past episode, based on the research we have done,
we can build a profile. Our profile is an upper
class kid at Trenity College and Cambridge, is notorious for

(56:47):
being a ground zero for spies and creating spies and
turning people into spies. He's got all the right connections.
He travels widely right, which is somewhat rare at that time.
He's also, to your point, Matt, involved in esoteric circles that,
through their communications, can bypass official channels, official institutions. He

(57:14):
also has notably I want to be careful with this
and respectful for his time. He has notably deviant sexual tendencies,
which means that if you are trying to turn someone
into an asset or get them to work for you,
you have a you have a kill switch. This is
a person that can be easily controlled, you would think.

(57:38):
His personality profile also indicates a loan game for importance
and a yearn to know secrets.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
So the guys.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
The more we think about it, the stranger it seems
that Alistair would not be involved with intelligence on some level.
He has all the makings of an ideal draft pick,
just like when the CIA is looking at LDS missionaries.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Sounds like he should be a center. That's what I'm hearing.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
There we go.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Oh, also, we'll get to this in strange news, but
shout out to Delaware for letting corporations vote. That is
breaking has mild on Wednesday, May twenty seventh.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
Five, all, I've had personhood for so long. I mean,
it's only just now they're finally getting the right to vote.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
All of the perks, none of the responsibilities. We got
to go to New Dawn they say this. There's an
excellent article in New Dawn that strongly argues Prowley was
associated with British Intelligence, maybe some other intel outfits. It
says throughout his career, Crowley maintained some kind of connection

(58:51):
with one or another aspect of British intelligence, most notably
the Admiralty's Naval intelligence branch. Is by no means exceptional.
Many of his associates in the occult realm, among them
Everard Fielding, Theodore Royce, hansheinz Ouers, and Maxwell Knight also

(59:12):
had links to one spy agency or another. Here's the thing, though, guys,
this dude talks all the time right about himself, he
self Abiggins, but he never explicitly talks about details of
any alleged intel or espionage work. He just sort of,

(59:33):
you know, scatters the bread problems in his autobiographical writing.
Was he do we think that he was maybe embellishing
and adding to his own mystery, or do we think
there was something there.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
That is a thing. This story about how I worked
for the CIA, or I was a secret FBI person,
or I was a secret MI sixter person experiences personally
with somebody like Wayne Williams, who has endless stories about
how he was working for the CIA back in the

(01:00:09):
late seventies. And that's why all of this other stuff
is not allowed to be known, and it's super secret
and you can't know. But I was doing stuff and
I got reasons that I can't tell you because CIA related, and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
You can't prove I didn't do it right.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Well, yeah, Or just someone attempting to come off as
though they may work for an intelligence agency to somehow
intimidate you or make you feel as though anything you
say to me could be dangerous, or anything I learned
from you could be dangerous. There are people out there
that will do this. You might find them at a
local bar. Just try and use this as an one

(01:00:46):
upsmanship kind of big self aggrandizing thing to make themselves
appear bigger and more important.

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
We've seen this, yeah, I mean, what are we to
make of Crowley's reference to the eighteen ninety nine conspiracy
to start a rebellion in Spain and restore Don Carlos,
the Second to the country's throne. This is something Alistair
talked about or wrote about, and he also said one

(01:01:16):
day he would reveal the full story. He died without
doing so. As far as we could tell, he.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Was writing propaganda for the Fatherland, right. I mean, this
guy is trained in how to write words, he is
arguably pretty good at it, and he has studied these
things that would maybe lend you or someone else to
believe that he has some kind of connections like this.

(01:01:44):
I'm not trying to disprove it, Ben in any way.
I just mean this guy could be attempting to further
get over on somebody using this as a tactic.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
I'm still on the fence about it as well, dude.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
I Mean, one thing that stands out to all of us, hopefully,
is that it is odd and anomalous where a man
so obsessed with popularizing himself and gaining attention. It's so
weird that he wouldn't immediately proently about his exploits. But
I guess we have to also remember the UK has

(01:02:19):
the Official Secrets Act, which is very rigid, very much
non negotiable, and has serious consequences. So if a sense
of patriotism is not enough to keep Alistair from blabbing
to the press, maybe the danger of legal action or imprisonment,

(01:02:39):
maybe that's.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
What did it for him.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
If we go back to Oh, I forgot to mention
the author of this New Dawn article is a journalist
named Richard Spence, and Richard Spence is putting me more
into the asset camp. Here we have a full quote.
It's pretty long, but I think it's worth hearing in full.

(01:03:04):
Noel or Matt, could you do the honors?

Speaker 2 (01:03:06):
I first stumbled upon Crowley's intelligence angle while researching British
espionage activities in World War One New York. More out
of curiosity than anything else. I retrieved a small file
from the records of the US Army's Military Intelligence Division,
or MID. What immediately jumped out was a September nineteen
eighteen report from the MID officer at West Point, New York.

(01:03:29):
In this, he noted that as a result of his
investigation of a strange Englishman who had been camping out
on nearby ESPUs Island, he discovered that the subject, one
Alistair Crowley, was an employee of the British government on
official business, of which the British Consul New York City
has full cognizance. That's really interesting to me, against something

(01:03:53):
that he would just come up with.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
And I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
But he's saying, yeah, they know about it, Yeah, they know, Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:03:59):
More of a Also, if m I D confirmed it,
then logically that means they would have spoken with the console.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Perhaps, let's see moreover quote, the British government was fully
aware of the fact that Crowley was connected with German
propaganda and had received money for writing anti British articles.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
He's playing both sides.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
The man has no loyalties, can't trust the spy.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
Yeah. Well again, like.

Speaker 5 (01:04:26):
I'm just saying, all his tracks with his personality. I mean,
I don't know if this is true, but it certainly
seems like the kind of thing he'd be good at
because of his lack of morals and loyalties and allegiances,
you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
It's weird that he didn't talk about it more if
he had real substance to what he was allegedly doing.

Speaker 5 (01:04:49):
He was a talker. He loved to talk himself up
in brag. So yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
It's making me think more about some of his travels,
like Algier and.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Places.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, okay, I think we can conclude
that he was in some way connected with the intel
apparatus of the time, but maybe probably not to the
degree he alluded to. It's just it's an interesting thing.
It's a subject of fascination. And please check out our

(01:05:29):
episode was Epstein a Spy if you'd like, if.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
You'd like to explore more things in that genre.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Well, okay, so I'm thinking more and more about this
inflated ego thing that Cry obviously suffered from. And then
I'm thinking about other folks in popular culture and in
power at this very moment as we record, and how
easily manipulated it appears at least that folks suffering from
a massive ego trip are right. If you are so

(01:06:01):
self serving and believing in yourself smelling the old fart thing,
then others coming through and continuing to m hmm. Perhaps
you could get turned really quickly and easily with the
tiniest of bribes, a draft pick.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
Yeah, of course this guy. Of course you would want
this guy in certain niche uh, in certain niche activities.

Speaker 5 (01:06:30):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:06:32):
The thing that we don't know for now is whether
Crowley's magic actually worked magic with a K. It's a
tricky one because we do have a lot of actual
magic practitioners in the crowd tonight who are following various philosophies,
belief systems, schools of thought. We know people who practice

(01:06:55):
rituals like those of Crowley, and they are often misunderstood.
They're often vilified. We believe, I think we all believe
we can agree with one thing. You can do whatever
you want so long as you're not hurting others in
the process. So with that in mind, I think he

(01:07:16):
genuinely believed that his rituals, whether discovered or invented, provided
him higher level insights into reality. Because again, we know
that science eschews the idea of magic or spirits altogether.
But various substances and meditative practices and physical experiences can

(01:07:41):
lead to altered states of consciousness, and those changes can
be physically measured in your brain's activity. So I don't know, guys,
it's an interesting person, but I think his main magic
was marketing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Being a mysterious, creepy weirdo. And I guess enough people
were just like, that's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
Was he mysterious? I don't know. He wanted to be.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
He thought he was. He thought he was mysterious. Well,
I mean, look at his stuff. That's what it's all about.
It's it's confusing, it's strange. He's talking about different gods
that nobody's aware of. I was looking at how he
described the scarlet woman and then some of the specifically

(01:08:32):
some of the women who followed him and became, you know,
his scarlet woman. He would like anoint a follower slash
lover as his scarlet woman for a time, and then
would switch out people when he grew whatever tired of
them or whatever his personal thing was that he was
dealing with, and just how he describes I don't know,

(01:08:55):
it might be worth reading really quickly. This is this
is one of his writings. Don't know that I can
fully cite it here. It's from men in Hedenborg White
Proximal Authority. The Changing role of Leah Hersig and Aleister
Crowley's Thelema between nineteen nineteen and nineteen thirty. And I'm

(01:09:15):
not gonna read the whole thing, you can check this out,
but read writings that Croley made about the Scarlet Woman
and these horrible things that he required of the Scarlet Woman,
and it reminds me a whole lot of the concept
of the Horror of Babylon that is described a lot,
and that imagery and symbolism of is displayed a ton

(01:09:38):
in popular culture, and it's displayed as this concept of
something that needs to that is both attainable and something that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:46):
You should do.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
It's aspirational to embody the things that are described both
in this Scarlet Woman thing and in the Horror of Babylon.
And it's creepy to me that our popular culture is
so similar to the way he is describing this stuff. Guys,
Like I think about music videos that we've been watching

(01:10:08):
for decades. I think about very specific imagery and symbolism
that's out there on album covers, that's out there, you know.
I'm thinking about music and popular culture mostly, guys. But
it's really creepy, how debaucherous, and ultimately this with the

(01:10:30):
male gaze version of femininity. At what's on display here.
I'll just read a tiny part here. Let the scarlet
woman beware. If pity and compassion and tenderness visit her heart,
if she leave my work to toy with old sweetness,
then shall my vengeance be known. I will slay her child,

(01:10:51):
I will alienate her heart. I will cast her out
from men as a shrieking and despised harlot. Shall she
crawl through the dusk wet streets and die cold and
and hungered. But let her raise herself in pride, let
her follow me in my way, let her work the
work of wickedness. Let her kill her heart, let her

(01:11:11):
be loud and adulterous, let her be covered with jewels
and rich garments, and let her be shameless before all men.

Speaker 3 (01:11:19):
That's his ideal, and that's his like fantasy girl.

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Yeah, but it's also what's being represented, as you know,
a thing can all the world.

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
He's cultivating his own fantasy world and all of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Man, But think about that imagery and how much that's
represented in popular culture, Like, really think about that being
shameless before all men.

Speaker 5 (01:11:44):
Oh no, you described it perfectly with the whole male
gaze thing of it. I mean, he's absolutely commanding that
and creating a prototype for this sort of Inceell school
shooter kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
Type, you know. I mean, it's yeah, it's it's wild.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
These are excellent points. This is definitely stuff to think about.
You know, we can agree that Crowley is a self
made myth of a man very much on purpose, very
very far from perfect. That's understating it. He definitely never
had a problem with de seat nor embellishment. He did,

(01:12:19):
I guess he genuinely seemed to believe that he had
stumbled upon some hidden truce of the universe with as
you guys are say, a very male gaze perspective. I
just keep going back to it. His greatest magic, if
magic exists, is this marketing. He is immortal searching for meaning,
and when he wasn't satisfied with meaning, we could argue

(01:12:41):
that he created that meaning. And we'd love to hear
your thoughts on this, especially if you have, you know,
to the degree you're comfortable sharing, have engaged in rituals
or practices somehow influenced by alistair. What was your experience, like,
what do your fellow conspiracy realist need to understand about
these systems. Was there any stuff proudly himself didn't want

(01:13:06):
us to know. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
You can find us on the line. You can call
us on the phone. You can send us an email.

Speaker 5 (01:13:13):
You sure can find us online at the handle Conspiracy
Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on you know your
favorite social media platform. And there's other ways too.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Yes, you can call our number. It is one eight
three three st d WYTK. When you call in, it's
a voicemail system. Please leave a name, give a cool
name to yourself and you might end up on one
of our listener mail episodes that show up in our
podcast feed. If you have ever visited the house in Cevalu,

(01:13:44):
why don't you tell us about it? There are tons
of pictures of folks just hanging out there because apparently
you can still get to it. It's just dilapidated and
like completely destroyed, so don't go to it. But if
you have been, we'd love to hear those stories. If
you want to send us an email.

Speaker 4 (01:13:58):
We are the entities that we read each piece of
correspondence we receive.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
Be well aware, yet's unafraid.

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
Sometimes the void writes back. If you're looking for music
that could inspire further investigations into the life of Alistair Crowley,
do check out The Law by Abs Soul and write
to us for a random fact. We'll see you out
here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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