Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
Mark Gagnon
Aleister Crowley, the wickedest man in the world. Imagine you're 11 years old and your own mother looks at you and calls you the beast from the book of Revelation. Not as like a joke, not playing around. She genuinely believes that her son might be the literal Antichrist walking around their home. That's how Edward Alexander Crowley's story begins. And honestly, it explains a lot about what comes next. You may have heard of this guy. You know, you probably heard him in Ozzy Osbourne songs or you rock and roll lore. But his real story is all the more fascinating. And today we go through everything. Where he's from, what he believes, and why he is so popular amongst occultists around the world. So sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday Wardro. Discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango Skims, Princess Polly, and Madewell. It's easy too, with free shipping and free returns in store order pickup and more. Shop today in stores online@nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app. What's up, people? And welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gagnon and welcome to my tent, where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world. From all times, as always, I'm joined by the very handsome six five and bustling muscles Christos. How are you, Christos? What's going on? So let's begin our study of Aleister Crowley. I heard about this guy when I was just a kid. My mom would talk to me about Aleister Crowley and be like, yeah, he was very evil. He's a very evil man. He was a Satanist and he was an occultist, and he would do all sorts of evil things. And I didn't really know anything else about him, to be honest. I never really dug into it. It just, like, didn't really affect my life. All I knew, like, as a kid was that he talked to demons that maybe were aliens, which we'll get to in a second. And he was in like, some rock and roll songs, and that's basically it. But like I said, the actual details of his life are far more interesting. So let's go back. October 12, 1875, in Leamington Spa, England. This guy, Little Edward. I feel like that's how Trump would say it. Little Edward grew up in basically a cult. His parents weren't just Christians, technically. They'd probably identify as Christians, but they were members of the Plymouth Brethren. Think fire and brimstone, you're gonna go to hell forever and burn for eternity. Cranked up to 11. No dancing, no movies, no theater, no plays, no novels, no fun, basically. His father, old Edward Senior, was a traveling preacher who spent his days warning people about damnation. The family, you know, they basically just, like, lived and breathed this apocalyptic Christianity, the kind where you're constantly waiting for the world to end at any given moment and kind of secretly hoping that it happens soon. But here's the thing about strict religious households is that they make sluts, right? I mean, like, everyone that I know, that's like just a sexual deviant group in a very repressive religious home except myself. I actually, come to think of it, I don't even think my. My childhood was that repressed. Like, it wasn't. Like, it was very religious. My mom would take us to church all the time, but, like, there was no repression. Like, we talked about whatever. Like, we had fun. Like when I turned 16, when my dad went to, like, a club and, like, had a good time and the whole family was there, we got a table, you know what I mean? So, like, it wasn't repressed in that, in, like, the traditional sense, but it was very religious. But when things are repressed, it gets, you know, haywire, right? The tighter the leash, the harder they pull, as they say. So young Edward, he started to rebel. And when I mean rebel, I mean like literally the craziest rebellion you could imagine. His father died when he was 11, which only made things worse for young, you know, Aleister Crowley. And by age 14, he was deliberately breaking every religious rule that he could think of. His mother, Emily, would find him experimenting with what he called impure thoughts and generally acted like, you know, the opposite of everything that she had tried to teach him. He'd masturbate while thinking about religious images, curse during prayers, and do basically anything to horrify his, you know, hyper religious mother. When she called him the Beast, he didn't cry or apologize or do anything. He almost embraced it and wore it like this badge of honor. His mother doubled down on the religious intensity, convinced that Satan was literally, like, possessing her kid. And the more she pushed, pushed religion, the harder he pushed back. So by the time he reached his late teens, Edward had decided that Christianity wasn't just wrong, but it was actively harmful. He started calling his mother a brainless bigot to her face and announced that he was changing his name. From now on, he would be Aleister Crowley. Spelled with a theatrical ei because it looked more mysterious and Celtic. It was his first real act of self creation, right, Turning himself into someone completely different from the Brethren boy that his parents tried to raise him to be. So by 1895, Alistair headed to Trinity College College in Cambridge, ostensibly to study philosophy. But Cambridge in the 1890s was where young men went to discover themselves and Crowley got into all sorts of shit. He dove headfirst into poetry, writing about, you know, graphic sexuality and blasphemy and everything that his mother would have just hated. And he even explored his sexuality not only with women, but with men too, which could actually get you thrown into prison in Victorian England. But more importantly, he discovered the occult. It started with books. Crowley was always a big reader. And once he got his hands on works about magic and mysticism, esoteric philosophy, he couldn't stop. He devoured everything from medieval grim wars to contemporary works on spiritualism. He read about ancient Egyptian mysteries, Hindu Tantra, even, you know, Buddhist meditation techniques. And this wasn't just academic curiosity. Crowley genuinely believed that hidden knowledge existed, and he was determined to find it. So at Cambridge, he also realized that he had a gift, not just for writing, but for making jaws drop. I mean, this boy was a full time jaw dropper. He wrote a collection of erotic poems called White Stains that was so explicit, no mainstream publisher would touch it literally. We're talking about detailed descriptions of literally every sexual act imaginable mixed with religious blasphemy and, you know, all sorts of debauchery. And the poems weren't just dirty, they were spiritually dirty treated sex. You know, treating sex is like the sacred act that could connect you to the divine. Basically, you know, what we'll get into later is sex magic. He had to publish it privately and anonymously, but it circulated underground and established his reputation as someone willing to cross all the lines. So by 1898, Crowley had left Cambridge without a degree, but with something a little more valuable. A mission, a clear sense of purpose. He saw religion as fake, morality as a cage and normal life as dull. But what he really wanted was this truth, the spiritual truth, the kind that he thought, you know, Christianity had buried under guilt and rules. And that's when he discovered the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This was a secret society that promised to teach genuine magical techniques. If you, you know, watched our episode on secret societies, you probably remember these guys. Founded in 1888, the Golden dawn was where London's occult elite gathered to study ceremonial magic. But not just that alchemy mysticism members included poets like W.B. yeats, authors like Arthur Mackin, and other various intellectuals who believed that ancient wisdom could be rediscovered through study and ritual practice. So Crowley joined in 1898, just 10 years after it had formed, and he threw himself into the work. But if you thought this was just some regular old culture, you'd be wrong. The golden dawn taught a complex system of correspondences between colors, numbers, Hebrew letters, astrological, Astrological symbols, magical opera, like all sorts of crazy stuff. And the students progressed through grades, learning increasingly advanced techniques for what they called spiritual development. Crowley mastered the material pretty quickly, but he also started pushing boundaries once again that made other members uncomfortable. The problem was that Crowley treated magic like an extreme sport, where other golden dawn members approached rituals with respect and reverence. Crowley just went full throttle, going crazy and like, experimenting with drugs during the ceremonies and incorporating sexual elements that horrified the other magicians and all sorts of stuff. And the breaking point came in the 1900s, specifically 1900. Crowley had advanced quickly through the Golden Dawn's grading system. But when he tried to initiate himself into the highest level without proper authorization, the order's leaders had had enough. They kicked him out for being too chaotic, too experimental, and frankly, just too weird for the group of, you know, these proper Victorian occultists. But being kicked from the golden dawn didn't slow him down. Now he was free to develop his own approach to magic without really anyone telling him what to do. He started traveling and mixing, like, Eastern philosophies with Western occultism and combinations that no one had ever tried. He studied yoga in India and practiced Buddhism and learned about Taoism and Taoist alchemy in China. But he wasn't trying to find himself. Crowley was learning techniques, building towards something bigger. He also started to experiment seriously with drugs as, like, a spiritual tool. So at the time, opium, hash, cocaine, mescaline, all these substances were somewhat prevalent. I mean, I wouldn't say widespread, but you could find them, and it could alter your consciousness in a pretty significant way. And Crowley tried it in combination with magical rituals. He kept detailed reports of these experiments, treating his own mind as a lab for exploring these altered states of consciousness decades before psychedelic research actually became respectable. And all of this led to the spring of 19, when Crowley was in Cairo with his wife Rose. They were honeymooning. But Crowley just, you know, being Crowley, he'd also arranged to perform magical rituals in the King's chamber of the Great Pyramid. At this time, it was much easier to get access to, you know, these giant artifacts. So Rose, who normally, normally Showed, you know, little interest in her husband's little, you know, occult hobby, started acting strangely. She began talking about Horus, the ancient Egyptian God, insisting that he was trying to communicate something important. And Crowley was skeptical at first, Right. Rose didn't know anything about Egyptian mythology. But when she led him to a Cairo museum and pointed to a specific Stela numbered 666, which, you know, Crowley almost took as, like a cosmic joke about his little nickname, that is when he started to pay attention. Rose told him that Horace wanted him to prepare for a revelation and that he should sit in his hotel room at noon for three consecutive days to receive a message. And what happened next changed everything. April 8th, 9th, and 10th. In 1904, Crowley sat in his Cairo hotel room and claimed to receive a dictation from a preternatural intelligence calling itself awas. This wasn't a gentle spiritual whisper either. According to Crowley, Iwas spoke in a clear, authoritative voice that seemed to come from just over his left shoulder. The entity dictated exactly 220 verses over three days, creating the text that Crowley would call the Book of law. The book claimed a new spiritual age had begun. The eon of Horus. It would replace Christianity's focus on guilt and self denial with a new idea, with the central tenet being, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Not do whatever you want in a hedonistic sense, but discover your true will and follow it regardless of people. Whatever people say, the book proclaimed that every person was like a star, a unique cosmic entity with its own perfect orbit that shouldn't be deflected by others. You know, moral systems. And Crowley spent the rest of his life trying to understand what his spiritual message really meant. That's when he created a new belief system called Thelema. A Greek word, means will, and it was basically a complete religion of philosophy built around the book of law. Unlike Christianity, which teaches people to deny themselves and serve God, Thelma flipped the idea. It told people to figure out who they truly are and then fully live that truth. Instead of treating the body as something sinful, Thelema saw physical life as something holy. And rather than following rules from the outside sources like, you know, churches or leaders or pastors or gurus, Thelemites were expected to become their own source of truth and guidance. So by 1905, Crowley had developed a theory that would have made his Plymouth brethren mother die of shock. Probably. He believed that sexual climax was the most powerful magical force available to human beings. From his perspective, at the moment of orgasm, you are completely present, your ego dissolves, and you experience something that feels transcendent. For someone convinced that consciousness could be expanded through ritual, this seemed like the obvious place to start experimenting. But this wasn't just about having, like, a good time and calling it spiritual. Crowley approached sex magic with the same systematic intensity he brought to everything else. He started to, you know, incorporate bodily fluids like, you know, semen and vaginal secretions and blood all into his magical rituals, believing that these contained concentrated life force that could power these supernatural operations. It's also worth mentioning, when I say magic, I'm not talking about, like, stage magic or, like, card tricks. I'm talking about people that claim to actually have magical abilities, often spelled ending in ck. This is the type of magic that, you know, Crowley was interested. Not trickery, but truly these types of rituals that would try to bring some type of supernatural force. And he would perform these elaborate ceremonies where sexual acts became offerings to these Egyptian gods, with every climax, you know, carefully directed towards these magical goals. And his lovers weren't just partners. They became what he called scarlet women, named after the whore of Babylon from, you know, revelation. In Crowley's theology, these women embodied divine chaos and creative destruction. They were goddesses incarnate. Having sex with them was literally communing with the sacred feminine Rose, his wife, the first scarlet woman. But Crowley being Crowley, of course, monogamy wasn't going to contain his spiritual ambitions for a long time. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you own a small business, or maybe you work for a small business, and I am about to make your life so much easier. Let's say, hypothetically, you own a little, you know, furniture business, right? And you're struggling to keep track of the raw materials, the production schedule, invoicing clients, all that stuff. Well, that's why I want to tell you about Odoo. Okay? Because with Odoo, it's an all in one business platform that streamlines everything. Now, you have inventory management, you have manufacturing, you have accounting apps that will make everything so simple. So now if you have a small business, you can monitor the inventory in real time, schedule productions calls more effectively, and you can send invoices automatically, all from one platform. Plus, you get a customized CRM to track sales leads and follow up with potential clients, boosting your closing rates. Back in the day, you'd probably have to get, you know, some, you know, Ivy League operator business person that's, you know, able to make everything happen for you. But now with Odoo, it cuts it all out. And I'm sure you're thinking, okay, if this is going to make my life easier, give me more free time to spend with my friends, family and playing softball and make me more money. It must be crazy expensive. This is the good news. Listeners of this program are going to get a 14 day free trial. That's right. You get two weeks with Odoo completely for free when you go to odoo.com camp. That's right, odoo.com use the promo code camp and you will get 14 days for free just to try it out, see if you like it. If it's not for you, you don't need it. All right. But Odoo is going to make your life so much easier. Everything you need, all in one place. Save time, make more money. Let's get back to the show. Hey there travelers. Kaley Cuoco here. Sorry to interrupt your music. Great artist, BT Dub. Wouldn't you rather be there to hear it live? With Priceline, you can get out of your dreams and into your dream concert. They've got millions of travel deals to get you to that festival, gig, rave, sound bath or sonic experience you've been dreaming of. Download the Priceline app today and you can save up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights. So don't just dream about that trip. Book it with Priceline. Go to your happy price. Priceline. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more. Each scarlet woman brought different energies to his magical work. There was Lila Waddell, a violinist who could improvise music during rituals and helped with Crowley's poems. Mary Desti, who helped him decode the numerical mysteries hidden in the book of law. And Jeannie Robert Foster, a journalist who actually documented their experiments. And these weren't random hookups. Crowley genuinely believed that each one was chosen by these supernatural forces to help him unlock these levels of reality. Now remember, the sex wasn't separate from the magic. It was the magic. Crowley would design these elaborate ceremonies where, you know, these sexual positions corresponded with different planets and their influence and the timing of climax aligned with the astrological events and every fluid was collected and used in these follow up Rituals. It was this whole thing, right? He kept these detailed diaries regarding, you know, basically everything that happened and basically everything that happened, you know, spiritually and physically, because he believed that the two were inseparable. So by 1912, Crowley's experiments caught the attention of Theodore Rus, the head of the German occult organization called the Ordo Templi Orientis, also known as oto. Ruus had heard rumors about Crowley's sex magic techniques and was convinced that he had independently rediscovered ancient secrets that the OTO claimed to preserve. He initiated Crowley into the order and eventually made him the head of the British branch. And this was perfect for Crowley, a group he could take over and mold to fit his own ideas. The OTO had started out kind of like a. Like a, almost like a mystical or like a more mystical version of Freemasonry full of these, you know, rituals and ranks you had to move through. But once Crowley was in charge, he pushed it way further. He rewrote the rituals to include real sex acts, treating them as these tools for magic. What used to be symbolic ceremonies became actual physical rituals meant to create real power. And at the top of Crowley's version of the oto, things got even more intense. He introduced what he called the Supreme Secret, a specific sexual technique that, according to him, could create powerful magical energy and lead to these even greater supernatural results. And this wasn't just talk. He gave detailed instructions on how to use, you know, masturbation, oral sex, intercourse, and all, you know, different forms of sexual activity as actual prayer or, like, spiritual practice. And it wasn't optional. Members were expected to try these methods and report back what happened. Crowley believed that he was bringing back something ancient that Christianity tried to get rid of. And he thought the early Christians had purposely buried these ideas of sex magic, which, you know, led to centuries of shame and repression around it. In his view, sex wasn't sinful. It was spiritual. His OTO rituals were meant to fix the divide between body and soul and by, you know, making people think that the bedroom was almost like a temple and that, you know, every climax was a connection with the divine. But this is not the craziest part. Crowley's strangest and possibly most important magical experiment came in 1918 during his time in New York. It was called the Amalantra, or the Amalantra working. This was a series of rituals he designed to make contact with non human intelligence. He did this by using a mix of sex, magic, psychedelic states, and ceremonial invocations. Crowley intentionally aimed to open a doorway between these worlds. And according to him it worked or something came through and that something was Lamb. L A M. And the weird part is when Crowley sketched Lamb based off of what he saw during the rituals, this is what he drew. Now what's strange about this image on the screen is that it kind of resembles like a, like a Gray, what people describe like an alien as. But what's interesting is that this was done in 1918. The earliest depictions of the Grays that we sort of know come post World War II. They come really with the abduction of Benny and Barney Hill. And that, that is really when this idea of like these, you know, big headed, you know, big eyed alien things really comes into the fold. And so the idea that he would draw this in 1918 stands out as, you know, a pretty strange, a strange way to describe this non human intelligence that he spoke with. So again, you can see this oversized head, you know, you got these strange sort of eyes, this small mouth and nose. And Again, this was 1918, decades before Roswell, you know, Betty and Barney hill in the 1960s, before aliens or ET or Spielberg, any of these people actually put these ideas into the cultural zeitgeist. And Crowley didn't call Lamb an alien, right? He called it a preternatural intelligence, his words, something that existed outside of normal reality, acting as a gatekeeper between dimensions. Maybe even, you know, when people take DMT and they go into a different place, they see machine elves. There's a thing you often hear people describe these little like gobliny type creatures. Maybe they look like that as well. Well, who knows? So he again calls Lamb this sort of gatekeeper that exists between, you know, these, these, these dimensions. It's the same way he described Iwas the being that he encountered in Cairo that actually gave him the, you know, the book of law. So according to his journals, Lamb communicated telepathically and gave him cryptic messages, you know, about consciousness time, the structure of reality itself. Crowley believed that Lamb stood at the threshold between worlds and that by engaging with you, you could reach even stranger entities. So fast forward to modern times. Some UFO researchers think that this was the start of it all. The first documented contact with whatever's been abducting people showing up on radars, going through bedroom windows, sucking up cows. The idea that Crowley through his experiment opened a portal that was never fully closed. Even Crowley seemed to think that he had tapped into something major. He created a group called the Cult of Lamb to continue the work and spent years trying to chart what he called the tunnels of set invisible routes between dimensions that beings Like Lamb could travel. Now, was Lamb an alien? A demon? Just a figment of, you know, Crowley's drug fueled imagination? No one knows. But the image he left behind and the sort of strange parallels to the modern abduction stories that we hear make it one of the most haunting chapters in occult history. So by 1918, Crowley had pushed magic further than pretty much anyone before him. He wasn't just messing around with spells. He built an entire belief system around sexual freedom, contacting other entities, breaking through the limits of consciousness. He had gone from just being some rebellious poet with a grudge against his upbringing to being a legit magical practitioner, mapping out ideas that wouldn't hit mainstream psychology or spiritual circles for decades. And at this point, he had followers all over the world, experimenting with the same stuff, trying to reach the same places. Whether people thought he was a genius or a crazy person, Crowley was exploring territory that no one else dared to touch. But Crowley wasn't just turning heads in the occult world. Other people were starting to notice too. His pro German writings during World War I had made him a target back in Britain. His sex magic was freaking out polite society. And his drug use was getting harder to ignore. The guy who claimed that he could talk to alien intelligence was now on the radar of governments and journalists who thought he might be dangerous or, you know, at least just completely unhinged. And all of that pressure didn't stop him at all. If anything, it pushed him into the next chapter of his life. Founding the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily, a place where his philosophy of do what thou wilt would be putting to the ultimate test and nearly tear everything apart. So by 1914, Crowley had created enemies in multiple continents. And World War I was about to give him the perfect opportunity to make even more. When the war broke out, Crowley happened to be in New York. Officially stuck there because the conflict. But in reality, he was kind of enjoying the chaos. Instead of doing what most people expected. You know, heading home to support Britain, he did something that shocked even the people who already hated him. He started writing pro German propaganda for American readers. The articles bashed the British Empire as corrupt and praised German efficiency and making arguments that to some looked like treason. But here's where it gets interesting. A lot of intelligence historians now believe he was actually working as a British double agent the entire time. The theory is that MI6, or British naval Intelligence recruited him precisely because he already had a shady reputation. I mean, who would ever expect, you know, the wickedest man in the world of being a loyal spy, right? His pro German Articles were so over the top ridiculous that some believe that they were meant to undermine German propaganda by making it look foolish. If that's true, you know, then Crowley wasn't just stirring the pot, he was weaponizing his own Persona to troll or dissuade an entire nation. Right. If you think about it, you know, this guy, the wickedest man ever, this crazy guy that's doing drugs, talking to people, if he likes Germany, then, you know, I can't be, you know, I can't be a supporter of Germany. It's kind of smart. Now, sure, the, you know, evidence is mostly circumstantial, but it's interesting to engage with. Crowley had ties to British intelligence through his old Cambridge connections. And the articles he wrote were filled with subtle mistakes and like these weird exaggerations that made them come off more like parody in a way. And the biggest clue, after the war, nothing happened to him. No charges, no trial, not even like a slap on the wrist or like a, like a fine nothing. Either they were incredibly forgiving, I doubt, or they knew exactly what he was up to the entire time. So by 1920, Crowley was ready for his next experiment. He developed a complete philosophical system in Thelema, tested radical magical techniques through the oto, and survived this wartime controversy that would have, you know, destroyed anyone else. Now he wanted to create a living lab where his ideas could be practiced without interference from society. And he found the spot. This is in Sicily, a villa called Santa Barbara that he renamed the Abbey of, of Thelema. And the abbey wasn't just some house. It was Crowley's attempt at a utopian community fully built around this idea or this motto. Do what thou wilt. The people who lived there weren't just roommates. They were part of an experiment in radical freedom. They followed their desires without guilt or moral rules, and performed daily magical rituals and treated everything from eating to sex to meditation as a part of this spiritual path. And the place looked like it. I mean, Crowley painted the walls with wild murals, gods, goddesses, sexual scenes, occult symbols, all sorts of stuff and, you know, a full blown visual map of his belief splashed across all the rooms. Life at the abbey was all about what Crowley called the great work. Basically figuring out who you truly are and growing into that. But this wasn't just some vague spiritual idea. Crowley had put together intense rituals that were meant to take people to the edge of their physical and mental limits. The morning ritual was called the Liber Resh and required residents to greet the sun at dawn by facing east, raising their arms and reciting, hail unto thee who art Ra in thy rising, even unto thee, who art raw in thy strength. Evening rituals were more intense. Inspired by ancient Egyptian practices, people gathered in a dimly lit room where Crowley, dressed in robes and headpieces, led the ceremony. He called on gods like Babylon and chaos while couples had sex and others chanted, believing that energy would be created and this could bring this spiritual force into the room. And the most shocking ritual was the Mass of the Phoenix, where participants would make small cuts on their arms, their chest with sacred knives, collecting the blood in these ceremonial cups. And they'd mix this blood with wine and drink it while reciting, I am the Lord of Thebes, and I, the inspired fourth speaker of Mentu for me unveils the veiled sky, the self slain ankh AF na Khonsu. The idea was that blood contains a life force that could be consumed and basically get this magical power. It's basically being a vampire disguised as, like, a religious ceremony. And when you read the text or when you're reading even, like, the, you know, the incantations or the rituals, you're just a little bit like, is this, like, Renaissance Fair? Like, it feels a little Game of Thrones, right? You're kind of reading. You're like, all right. But he took this completely seriously, and maybe it works again. I don't know. I never talked to an alien. He did. Crowley, he also, you know, instituted what he called the Gnostic Mass, which was a parody of Catholic communion, where the, you know, Eucharist was replaced with cakes made from bodily secretions, and the priest and priestess would engage in sexual intercourse at the altar with their combined fluids mixed in small cakes that the congregation members would then consume as a sacrament drug. Rituals followed the same pattern. Participants wouldn't just smoke hash recreationally. They'd fast for days, consume precise, measured doses, well, invoking specific Egyptian deities, then spend hours in darkened rooms recording their visions in these magical diaries. Crowley believed that different substances opened pathways to different spiritual realms. So he'd combine multiple drugs and cocktails designed to produce the specific type of mystical experience. Then there's the ritual that everyone had to go through. Newcomers would be blindfolded, stripped naked, and led through a series of chambers where they'd experience this simulated death and rebirth. They drink bitter potions that induce vomiting, submit to being tied up and symbolically tortured, and swear oaths of absolute obedience. To Crowley, this wasn't for abuse. It was the newcomer to shed his old life and be reborn. Or at least that's what Crowley said. But the abbey's most intense practice was what Crowley called crossing the abyss, a symbolic ritual meant to shatter the ego and reveal a person's true will. It wasn't just meditation or incense. Some participants underwent days of isolation, fasting mind altering substances to break down their sense of self. The goal was spiritual rebirth through ego death. But not everyone came out the same. Some were never really quite right ever again afterwards. And there were rumors of permanent psychological damage for those who weren't ready. It was during one of these extreme blood rituals that tragedy struck. In February 1923, Raoul Loveday, a young Oxford student who'd arrived with his wife Betty Mae, participated in a ceremony where participants cut themselves and drank each other's blood from a shared bowl. The bowl hadn't been properly sterilized between uses. And within days, Loveday was suffering from acute enteritis, a severe intestinal infection that his drug weakened immune system couldn't fight off. So within weeks, Loveday was dead. The exact cause was disputed, but the combination of poor sanitation, drug use, and the physical stress of intensive practices had clearly weakened his system beyond recovery. His last words, according to witnesses, were a delirious repetition of magical formulas that Crowley had taught him. Betty Mae, his wife, devastated and furious, fled Sicily and went straight to the British press with stories that made the abbey sound like, you know, this combination between, like a brothel and a death cult and a drug den. She described the blood rituals and sexual ceremonies involving multiple partners and the drug orgies that lasted days. And the tabloids just went crazy. I mean, they were running headlines about the man we'd like to hang and a cannibal at large. And the media, to be honest, they blew the story out of proportion. And it worked in Crowley's favor. I mean, papers all over Europe ran with these claims of satanic rituals and sacrifices and demons. And Crowley became famous. I mean, for all the wrong reasons. But he didn't care, right? Parents warned their kids about him, governments kept tabs on him, and even other cultists started backing away from his now infamous reputation. And the final blow came from an unlikely source. Benito Mussolini. Yes, that Mussolini. What's up, guys? We need to talk skincare. That's right. If you've ever heard me on flagrant or even on this show, I have talked about my love for beef tallow. Yes. I'm not talking about some, you know, lab made sludge with 39 syllables and A. A bunch of chemicals and stuff. I'm talking about good old fashioned beef tallow. Just. Yes, it's cow fat. I Know, it sounds crazy, but there's a reason that people have used this for thousands of years. This is the moisturizer that your ancestors used before, you know, big lotion and chemicals and pharma companies came and messed it all up with seed oil scams and chemical cocktails. All right? Tallow has been used for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians walking through the desert, they put on beef tallow to make their skin look good and feel good and not crack and actually hold up in the elements. Greeks and Romans, they used it to heal wounds and keep their skin from looking, you know, like papyrus. And even your great, great grandma, she probably used it. I don't know. And here's the great thing with beef tallow. It's got a bunch of, you know, fat soluble, you know, vitamins A, D, E, and K. And it actually mimics your skin's natural oils because it comes from a living thing. That means your body recognizes and says, oh, yeah, this is good stuff, and you don't have some crazy reaction. And, you know, not like the $90 serums that smell like eucalyptus or whatever. I use it, my wife steals it, my baby uses it. Everyone in the family looks good and feels good with the power of beef tallow. So right before bed, I literally just take, like a little finger full, wipe it in my hands and rub it on my face. And you kind of spread it in evenly. It comes in a bunch of great flavors. It smells amazing. And when I wake up, I feel moisturized and refreshed. And if you're interested, you can go now and get the best beef tallow on the market. I'll be honest, all beef tallow is basically the same. You know, it all is great stuff. It's all very natural. This one is natural, just like the rest. But this one is 30 off. When you go to evil Goods. That's right. When you go to evil Goods, you subscribe. Just click the link at the top of the video description or go to evilgoods.com camp. Do it for your skin. Do it for the cow. Do it for your ancestors. All right, let's get back to the show. Roll baller. Alonzo Ball for buzz balls. Ready to go. Cocktails take 12. Buzz balls just dropped their biggest blue balls. Script says biggies blue balls. Lonzo, take 13. Blue balls just dropped their biggest buzz balls. Let's try a vocal exercise. Buzz balls, Biggies, blue balls. Buzz balls, biggies, blue balls. Big balls. Just drop. Get blue balls. This season with buzz balls, please, you're responsibly buzz Balls available in spirit, wine and malt. 50% alcohol by volume. Buzz Ball, Tennessee, Carrollton, Texas. Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications, kids learn to earn, save, and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money. With guardrails in place, Try Greenlight risk free today@greenlight.com Spotify as he worked to tighten his grip on Italy, Mussolini wanted to appear morally strong. And having a British occultist running this drug fueled sex commune where people die in Sicily didn't really help his whole vibe, right? So by April 1923, the government gave Crowley 24 hours to get out of Italy for good. And Crowley didn't fight back. He was like, yeah, you got me. He packed his few remaining possessions and departed Sicily, leaving behind his cult, or whatever you want to call it. And now, kicked out of Italy and unwelcome across Europe, Crowley entered the last chapter of his life as this sort of occult magic exile. Years of heavy drug use were catching up to him, and, you know, his finances were a mess and his name was too toxic for any normal job. But even as his life fell apart, his ideas started to take on a life of their own. So by his final years, Crowley poured what was left of himself into writing and producing some of his most influential work. At this point, he was broke, addicted to heroin, yet still writing books that occultists use today. His daily routine was a mix between addiction and productivity. He'd start the day with heroin, you know, just to stop the Shakespeare, then used a little bit of cocaine just to kind of focus and write for a few hours. And then in the afternoon, he would, you know, maybe be using like, opium or hash to spark up mystical ideas, followed by slightly more heroin in the evening to dull the pain. And then this cycle went on daily and weekly and monthly and yearly. And he documented it all in his magical diary, treating his drug use like. Like a personal, you know, experiment. This is when he wrote some of the most powerful and disturbing books like Magic without Tears and the Book of Thoth, which contain insights into consciousness and reality that wouldn't be matched by, you know, a lot of academic researchers even for a long time. But alongside the deep insights were the signs of decline. I mean, everything from paranoid rants about these imagined enemies and delusions of Persecution and, and the kind of warped thinking that comes from years of spending, you know, time convinced that you're in direct contact with these otherworldly beings. It seemed like Crowley was losing it. What's remarkable is that even in this deteriorated state, Crowley was attracting new followers who would carry on his ideas into completely unexpected territory. I mean one of the most significant was a young American rocket scientist named Jack Parsons. He discovered Crowley's work in the 1930s and became convinced that magical rituals could literally contact alien intelligence. And Parsons wasn't just dabbling in the cult, he was a serious scientist. Like that was his job. He helped pioneer rocket propulsions at Caltech, co founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and developed solid fuel tech that NASA still relies on today. But outside the lab, he was an all in Crowley occultist. At night he would host these elaborate, you know, thelemic rituals at his Pasadena mansion, mixing you know, the science with full blown occult practices. I mean, here's a picture of him holding a flashlight. So I mean if that isn't, if that isn't, you know, just a full on indicator of who this guy was. Yeah, Jack Parsons, the famed, you know, thelemite, the Crowley follower. Yeah, the link between, you know, these rocket scientists and occultism sounds kind of weird, but to Parsons it made a ton of sense. Rockets broke free from Earth's gravity magic breaks free from the limits of the mind. They both are pushing boundaries outwards, you know, dealing with these powerful unpredictable forces. And both demanded a lot of precision and a lot of guts. For Parsons, there was no contradiction in, you know, crunching fuel formulas by day and then sub summoning these Egyptian gods by night. It was all the same quest. Stuck in London and low on cash. Crowley was thrilled to have this wealthy American follower like Parsons sending him money. And they actually kept in close contact. Crowley dished out detailed magical instructions and Parsons would write with some updates in his experiments, maybe a little bit of cash. And to Crowley, Parsons was basically a remote lab. Someone who could try out these costly rituals that Crowley was too broke or worn out to do himself. So by 1945, Parsons decided to attempt Crowley's most ambitious magical operation. This was the Babylon. Working a series of rituals designed to summon the scarlet woman prophesied in the book of the law. This wasn't just about contacting, you know, the spiritual woman. Parsons believed he could literally incarnate the goddess Babylon in human form, creating a divine being who would, you know, usher in Crowley's new eon. For this operation, Parsons recruited an assistant who would become one of the most controversial figures in the 20th century. This assistant, his name was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. At the time, Hubbard was just a struggling science fiction writer with an interest in the occult, but he threw himself into Parsons magical work. Together they performed weeks of intensive sexual magical rituals Using techniques that Crowley had developed during his years in the abbey. The Babylon working was a series of intense, you know, rituals where Parsons and Hubbard try to summon a goddess using sex and symbolism and altered states, all the things that Crowley had taught them. And they set up rooms with Egyptian style decorations and performed long invocations and used sex as a tool to build the energy that they believed was needed. Parsons believed the ritual worked when he met Marjorie Cameron, a red haired artist who to him, perfectly embodied, you know, this wild, divine energy he had been trying to summon, I mean, this horny motherfucker. He became convinced that she was the one, that she was the, you know, the scarlet woman that he was looking for. And their relationship quickly turned into this intense romance and spiritual worship. But back in England, Crowley was skeptical of the whole thing, Right? He couldn't help, you know, being curious about these bold claims that he was hearing. But, you know, Crowley's over here being like, yo, did you. Did a giant piece of smoke and a woman come out of like a closet or something? He's like, no, no, I met this girl on the train. He's like, dude, that's not. Can you focus? I'm trying to perform magic. And Parson's like, dude, I'd met this baddie. This absolute joint. So the Babylon working didn't end the way that anyone really expected. So Hubbard took off with a large sum of Parsons money and his girlfriend, leaving Parsons not only broke, but single. And there was something even stranger. Some theorists believe that the rituals Parsons and Hubbard performed didn't just mess with their personal lives. They maybe or literally opened a doorway, a portal, they claim, that let extraterrestrial entities start interacting with humans more often. Whether that's wild speculation or not, one thing is clear. That the late 1940s was the start of modern UFO culture. And strangely enough, many of those early alien encounter stories sound a lot like the visions and experiences Crowley had been writing about for years. Beings of light and symbols and messages from beyond. Crowley's influence was also spreading through less obvious channels. His idea about, you know, expanding consciousness and exploring altered states started showing up in early psychedelic research. Right? You have thinkers like Aldous Huxley, who was experimenting with mescaline in ways that echoed Crowley's magical experiences. Almost exactly at the same time, intelligence agencies were working quietly and studying his techniques too. Not for spirituality, but for their own potential and psychological warfare, interrogation and mind control. Think about the operations such as MK Ultra, which would use LSD in the attempt to mind control people, to do things against their will. So once again, Crowley's legacy was slipping into science, culture, and even espionage. I believe the song Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne is about this infamous man. One and the same. Crowley had died on December 1, 1947, in a rundown boarding house in Hastings, England. According to those that were there, his final words were, I am perplexed. After 72 years chasing the hidden truths of the universe through magic, drugs, sex, rituals, all that, even he wasn't sure what it all added up to. His funeral turned into one final scandal. The British press expected a quiet burial, a final chance to, you know, bury the man and his legacy. But Crowley's followers had other plans. They wanted a public ceremony, reading aloud from the Book of Law and performing thelemic rituals right over his coffin. And death was just the beginning of Crowley's real influence. I mean, within decades, his face would appear on, you know, the most famous cover in rock history. You know, sergeant Pepper's if we can pull that up. His philosophy would inspire countercultural movements across the globe. And his magical techniques would be studied by everyone from NASA to pop stars seeking creative inspiration. So Crowley dies in 47, but his name does not die with him. By the 1960s, counterculture was like rocket fuel for Crowley's posthumous, you know, reputation. Suddenly, a generation of young people that was, you know, rejecting the conventional religious experience started experimenting with psychedelic drugs and embracing sexual liberation. What does this sound like? Sounds a little bit like Aleister Crowley. And they basically began doing everything that Crowley had been preaching since 1904. His motto, do as thou wilt, became the unofficial slogan for the hippie movement in the 60s, even though most of the kids chanting it had no idea where it came from. But the real breakthrough came when rock musicians started discovering his work. These weren't casual fans. Major artists became genuinely obsessed with Crowley's magical philosophy and started to incorporate it into their music and Personas. I mean, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin was probably the most serious Crowley devotee in rock history. In 1970, Page actually bought Crowley's former mansion, the Bull Skyne House on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland. This wasn't just, you know, a celebrity real estate purchase. Page was convinced that the house retained magical energy, energy from Crowley's rituals, and wanted to tap into that power. For his own creative work, he filled the place with Crowley's books, magical artifacts, and even some of the original furnishings from Crowley's home. Page didn't just live in Crowley's house. He studied his magical system seriously enough, you know, to influence Led Zeppelin's music. The band's mysterious symbols, including Jimmy Page's personal sigil that appears on Led Zeppelin's fourth studio album, were derived directly from Crowley's magical writings. And if we can get an image here of a. Of the zoso symbol. When Paige played guitar solos that seemed to channel otherworldly energy, he genuinely believed that he was using techniques that Crowley had developed for contacting these supernatural forces. So on the back of this album, even on the T shirt that I wear on a regular basis, my favorite Led Zeppelin shirt, it has this symbol, this zoso symbol. And it is arguably the most controversial symbol of the entire Zeppelin anthology. And one of the theories, you know, it was found in the book The Collective Works, Volume 1 by Aleister Crowley, when a symbol was found that closely resembled the logo on one of Jimmy's pages. Jimmy Page never explained what the symbol was, and the only one he told was Robert Plant, who later forgot the meaning. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you are a grown child, yes, you're a giant man child, and you just love stuff in your face. And all the sugary cereals you ate when you were a kid, when you're just a fat little 8 year old, you would sit down on your couch and you would just eat these. These sugary cereals. And nowadays, if you try to do that, like I have, you feel terrible. You go, oh, yeah, my blood pressure is rising. I do get a hangover from eating these cereals that I ate when I was a child. And that's what I want to talk to you about. Magic Spoon, this thing right here, freshly opened because I was just engorging myself. Magic Spoon is all the flavors that you love that come from your favorite nostalgic cereals. Flavors like fruity cocoa, frosted. Do those sound familiar to you? Because legally, I can't say what they are, but those are the flavors that Magic Spoon has. And here's what's amazing about Magic Spoon. It's the same taste. It's all the flavor packed into every bite from those childhood cereals. But 13 grams of protein, 0 grams of sugar, and 4 grams of net carbs. Yeah, imagine that. 13 grams of protein. This is protein packed cereal. So instead of being a little fat kid, you can sit down on Sunday morning watching cartoons and get freaking jacked. Yeah, you'll look like Ronnie Coleman or something. You keep on crushing these, you're gonna be diesel as hell. So instead of being a little fat boy, you can be a giant strong man but still keep your same habits of just sitting down and watching your cartoons. And for the listeners of this program, if you go to magicspoon.com camp, that's right, magicspoon.com camp C A M P, you're gonna get $5 off your next order. Five whole dollars. You can save and apply to therapy for figuring out your disgusting twisted childhood of stuff in your face with processed sugars and red dye 40 and stuff like that. But with Magic Spoon, you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. It's all good. 13 grams of protein, none of the sugar, 4 grams of carbs. Get it today, Magic Spoon on Amazon or at your nearest grocery store. Or you can go to magicspoon.com campcamp for $5 off. Now let's get back to the show. You fatty. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone. Paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just 15amonth. Of course, if you enjoy over overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment of 45 for 3 month plan equivalent to 15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com this episode is brought to you by Pluto TV. Summer of Cinema is here and Pluto TV is exploding with thousands of of free movies. Feel the explosive action all summer long with movies like Gladiator, Beverly Hills Cop, Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol, Good Burger, Stealth, Four Brothers and Star Trek. Bring the action with you and stream for free on all your favorite devices. Pluto tv Stream now, pay never. Stream now at Pluto tv. But the moment that truly pushed Crowley into the mainstream, you know, of pop culture came in 1967 when the Beatles when the Beatles featured his face on the iconic cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, one of the great albums of all time. And there he is, second from the left on the very top row, surrounded by other cultural icons the band wanted to honor. Paul McCartney later explained that they chose people who had shaped their worldview. And Crowley's rebellious philosophy about breaking free from societal norms clearly struck a chord. It was a subtle nod, but one that introduced millions to the great beast without ever saying a word. Now think for a second. The most popular band in history put the face of the wickedest man in the world on their most famous album cover. Teenagers who had never heard of occultism or Thelma were certainly were suddenly, you know, staring at Crowley's image every time they played their favorite record. David Bowie, as a matter of fact, took it farther than most. He didn't just reference Crowley, he tapped into his ideas. Things like transformation, identity, treating life as this type of art project where, you know, these are fundamental ideas central to both men with characters like Ziggy Stardust and then, you know, Thin White Duke. Bowie constantly reinvents himself, almost like Crowley's magical Personas. For Bowie, it wasn't just about image. It was using this Persona as a way to explore and reshape reality. Ozzy Osbourne, like I had mentioned before, he leaned into the shock value. His song Mr. Crowley played upon the spooky, mysterious vibe and helped cement Crowley's place in rock mythology. And even Iron Maiden gave him nods and songs about, you know, mysticism and the occult. Punk bands like, you know, they enjoyed his anti authoritarian energy and rock artists were more into the depth of his philosophy. Crowley's influence shows up all over music, just in different ways. Sometimes as, you know, a rebellious icon, other times as a symbol of creative freedom. But Crowley's influence was far beyond music. His ideas about consciousness were at the same time influencing academic research in the psychology and neuroscience. Scientists studied altered states of consciousness were rediscovering techniques that Crowley had been doing since 1890. Specifically, researchers in creativity in peak performance found that his methods for achieving, you know, a magical consciousness that he writes about in many of his books was wildly similar to what academics would call in modern times. The flow state. And the human potential of the 1970s and 80s, you could argue, was, you know, borrowing heavily from some of Crowley's techniques, often without acknowledgment. Right. I mean like rebirth therapy and a bunch of different new age practices used the same psychological methods that Crowley had developed for his magical initiations. The idea that you could completely transform your personality through, you know, these intensive experiential workshops came from his magical curriculum. And the Internet age has only expanded Crowley's reach. I mean, online communities focused on chaos, magic and art and self transformation ideas often treat him like, you know, a foundational figure. His books are easy to find online and his rituals and the techniques get shared in forums, Reddit threads, YouTube breakdowns, all sorts of stuff. And they continue to kind of spread and evolve a lot of his messages, for better or for worse. What started as this underground philosophy now goes through digital spaces and remixes Crowley's work for this entire new generation. And his legacy is, you know, messy and polarizing. But to be honest with you, that's kind of what he wanted, right? Like that's like the whole point. He is chaos. He's the wickedest man to ever live his own, you know, his own terms, breaking, you know, ground on all these different things of magic and psychedelics and sexual liberation. This was all part of his plan in some way, right? He wanted people to view him as this sort of spooky occult figure and love him or hate him, you can't ignore him. That's the point. Crowley cracked something open in western culture that never closed, whether it was a portal to aliens or just his ideas about, you know, freedom and self expression. Do what you will, not what society tells you. This core idea of Thelma slipped into everything from the 60s onward, you know, from rock and roll albums to occult circles to self help books. So, you know, the kid dubbed the beast by his mom became just that, maybe Satan, maybe something weirder. And even people who've never heard his name before are still, in a way, affected by his influence. I don't know, seems like magic if you ask me. So there you have it. That is the life of Aleister Crowley. Now, if you are an occultist or someone that's fascinated by the occult, I would love to know, did I miss anything? Was there anything that we got wrong? And if you're just a casual observer of the strange and weird and you like to dive into these weird rabbit holes, what did you think? What did you find about Crowley's work and how he kind of predicted the social fabric of the 1960s? He really called it out and knew exactly what was going to happen. And in a way, he was right. Was that just a lucky guess? Could he see the writing on the wall? Or did he get influence from some type of outside prophetic force? These are questions that I don't have the answers to, but maybe you do. So drop them in. I'll be reading all of them. And once again, we do this every single week. I would love for you guys to join me in my tent to explore the weirdest, strangest, darkest stories from around the world, from all times. And without further ado, I will see you next time. Thank you for camping with us. Peace be with you. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon or religion camp, I have great news because we are dropping History Camp. That's right. This is the channel. We're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history. Right. You probably know about Benjamin Franklin, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla, interesting figures from history and you probably learned about in school and they were pretty boring, but not here. Now, as you know, I was raised back in conspiracy theorist, so I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous, influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you, but these episodes will be dropping as well. Just go ahead and give us a high rating because it really helps the show.