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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: in Cider to hear these programs and many more truly

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Speaker 1: thought provoking shows from Coast to Coast. Now here's a

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Speaker 1: highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeart Radio. How'd

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Speaker 1: you get interested in magic? Um? Well, it was really

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Speaker 1: just something that fell into my lap a little bit

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Speaker 1: in in high school. Um uh. You know, we used

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Speaker 1: to avoid study halls, like to plague into at least

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Speaker 1: of the library we could, you know, somewhat socialize, and

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Speaker 1: there happened to be this you know, odd like you know,

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Speaker 1: semi cheesy time life series book on you know popular

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Speaker 1: you know, superstitious magic and lore and things like that. Um.

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Speaker 1: And for lack of anything else to do, I started

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Speaker 1: kind of going through them. Uh, and I was fascinated.

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Speaker 1: That's that really kind of put the hook in me

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Speaker 1: in figuring, all right, well, what else, what else that

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Speaker 1: was is there out here? I mean, this is kind

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Speaker 1: of a popular treatment of you know, strange and weird

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Speaker 1: events and things like that and magical practices, um, on

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Speaker 1: the whole, like you know, digging up mandrake roots and

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Speaker 1: and things like that. Um. And and that just kind

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Speaker 1: of fascinated me. Uh And so I started looking around

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Speaker 1: as other regional local library uh catalogs to see what

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Speaker 1: I could find. And UM, when I got to college

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Speaker 1: a couple of years later, UM, you know, there there

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Speaker 1: was a more extensive library there. And even though it

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Speaker 1: wasn't particularly a well stocked to cult library, there was

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Speaker 1: maybe a couple of dozen books that were tangential to

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Speaker 1: the topic. And it just kind of blossomed from there

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Speaker 1: as the you know, the early to mid nineties started,

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Speaker 1: um kind of a trend where these they sort of

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Speaker 1: works were more accessible perhaps than they ever had been

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Speaker 1: in the past. You know, when people hear the word magic,

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Speaker 1: they think of the abra cadabra type it's not that

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Speaker 1: isn't no. Um, Well, it's interesting because their their their

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Speaker 1: histories are somewhat intertwined. Um. If you go back to

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Speaker 1: something like Reginald Scott's The Discovery of Witchcraft, it is

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Speaker 1: a book of multiple purposes. Um. He was in you know,

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Speaker 1: in his initial intent was really trying to refute some

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Speaker 1: of the witch hunt in hysteria that was going on

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Speaker 1: in his native England at the time. This was um.

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Speaker 1: But he also talks about jugglers next quote unquote and

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Speaker 1: leger to May and how people um kind of fool

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Speaker 1: the gullible public with a bunch of you know, stage

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Speaker 1: magic tricks what we call today. But he equally speaks

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Speaker 1: to things that are more along the lines of magic

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Speaker 1: as we would think of it in in more of

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Speaker 1: that Western ceremonial tradition, calling the is it dangerous in

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Speaker 1: the wrong hands? That's a great question, um, And I

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Speaker 1: think that's probably true of a lot of things. You know. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, water is a dangerous chemical of inhaled and

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Speaker 1: suitable quantities, right, Um. That I think the real issue

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Speaker 1: with magic. Um. And there are a lot of different

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Speaker 1: camps on this, I guess to answer that you have

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Speaker 1: to ask um, how is it real right? Or is

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Speaker 1: it real at all? Um? And for me, I err

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Speaker 1: on the side of kind of the psychological explanation as

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Speaker 1: opposed to be the more supernatural preternatural explanations, which is

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Speaker 1: to say, there are there is one camp that believes

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Speaker 1: that all of these you know, entities and powers are

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Speaker 1: are true, real and external forces. Where I was I

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Speaker 1: would say that these are true and real internal forces,

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Speaker 1: which is a psychological ones. But even on that route, UM,

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Speaker 1: it's just as easy to become obsessed or to become

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Speaker 1: you know, psychologically unbalanced when you're dealing with aspects of

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Speaker 1: your psychology that you're unprepared to deal with or just

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Speaker 1: um not ready to And you became interested in Alistair

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Speaker 1: Crawley quite a bit too. How did that happen? That

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Speaker 1: was an interesting UM connection. Actually, I had a friend

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Speaker 1: in uh my high school years who we had you know,

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Speaker 1: fell out of touch, and I had started studying magic

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Speaker 1: for it was almost the deck ate at that point

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Speaker 1: when we finally got back in touch and lo and behold,

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Speaker 1: we had this thing in common called magic that we

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Speaker 1: had independently started studying. And I had I knew who

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Speaker 1: Crowley was. Um, I had encouptured some of his work, um,

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Speaker 1: and but knew him more by reputation than by actual

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Speaker 1: you know, any of his actual work. So he he

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Speaker 1: was the one who really kind of just grabbed me

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Speaker 1: by the shoulders and metaphorically speaking and said you need

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Speaker 1: to look at Crowley. Um and said, okay, um. And

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Speaker 1: that's when I really started diving into a lot of

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Speaker 1: his his worked. He is somewhat difficult to approach at first,

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Speaker 1: that he wrote a lot. So you know where do

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Speaker 1: I start right? Um? And it's it's doubly confounded by that.

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Speaker 1: You really need to read a good amount of Crowley

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Speaker 1: to start to understand Crowley himself in his works. What

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Speaker 1: was he evil? Was he evil? Um? What is evil?

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Speaker 1: He got? He had a bad reputation, didn't he? He did,

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Speaker 1: and he loved it, you know, just like bad boys

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Speaker 1: today kind of love their bad boy reputation. Uh. For

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Speaker 1: for me, Crueley's evil reputation was a joke at the

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Speaker 1: expense of of of the general m he you know,

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Speaker 1: he had the the self appointed I guess moniker of

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Speaker 1: the wickedest man in the world, which he had if

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Speaker 1: I recall read in a newspaper about Kaiser Wilhelm and

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Speaker 1: and said, no, that's me just kind of took it

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Speaker 1: on himself. But you know, as a as a bisexual

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Speaker 1: man in in post Victorian England who was preaching you know,

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Speaker 1: individual liberty and sexual freedom. To him, he probably was

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Speaker 1: the anti Christ's that's a good point. But did he

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Speaker 1: I mean, did he cure about people? Yes? I think

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Speaker 1: so very much. UM. And I guess there's there's a

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Speaker 1: capital by people and a lower case um. I think

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Speaker 1: as as many artists did, and I refer to him

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Speaker 1: as such purposely. Uh. He often struggled in his his

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Speaker 1: interpersonal relationships. But his ultimate goal was to have everybody

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Speaker 1: really the UM kind of free of the social and

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Speaker 1: and you know, religious restrictions that have been placed on them, uh,

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Speaker 1: and truly find out who they were and go about

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Speaker 1: doing that thing. Um. That was really the progress and

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Speaker 1: goal of all of his work was that that people

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Speaker 1: would discover really who they truly were outside of the

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Speaker 1: scope of expectation. Now, Salima was the philosophy that Crowley

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Speaker 1: really discovered, didn't he or created? Yes? Um? And And

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Speaker 1: so there's there's definitely references to um Salima that that

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Speaker 1: predate Crawley, you know, as as an idea. UM. You know,

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Speaker 1: the writer Francois robi was was one who you noted

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Speaker 1: a similar sentiment in one of his works. But Salima

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Speaker 1: is really Crueley's I don't not so much brainchild, but

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Speaker 1: it evolved as his philosophy, and it comes from the

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Speaker 1: Greek word will. That's what balima means h. And it

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Speaker 1: really focuses on that that concept to which I was

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Speaker 1: just speaking, which is to say, find out what your

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Speaker 1: quote unquote true will is. What is that thing that

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Speaker 1: you were here put on, put on this earth to

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Speaker 1: do in the scope of the time that you're given

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Speaker 1: to do it? Find out what that thing is and

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Speaker 1: then proceed to do it without hesitation. But it's more

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Speaker 1: of a philosophy than a religion, is not well, I

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Speaker 1: think it's both um. So I you know, I I

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Speaker 1: come from a personal background that wasn't heavily religious. UM.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of people approach the concept of religion

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Speaker 1: UM kind of uh in two ways. Right. Either it's ay,

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Speaker 1: they really kind of jelled with UM the religion they've

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Speaker 1: been brought in brought up with, rather and continue that

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Speaker 1: path um, or they somewhat reject that and kind of

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Speaker 1: seek something out. I think a lot of what we

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Speaker 1: you know, look at as as spiritual seekers arises from

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Speaker 1: um rejecting the religion with which they were initially presented.

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Speaker 1: And you know, therefore they're they're looking for something more now,

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Speaker 1: Uh Salima As a religion, Crowley notes uh in in

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Speaker 1: one of his works that you can call it religion

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Speaker 1: if you will, Um, but I fail to see what

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Speaker 1: good you do so and what you have you do

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Speaker 1: in doing so? Uh? And you've worked a rather quote

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Speaker 1: stupid kind of mischief, which to me is saying you

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Speaker 1: have you've brought along all the baggage of the term.

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Speaker 1: So sure is it a religion? It is? And I

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Speaker 1: truly believe that. Um, they're actually you know Crueley's organization, uh,

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Speaker 1: the O T O, which is uh, you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure we'll get to at some point, but also has

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Speaker 1: a fact section called the e g C. The Ecclesia

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Speaker 1: North Catholica, which is literally the religious arm of the organization.

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Speaker 1: So is it a religion? Yes? Is it a philosophy also? Yes?

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Speaker 1: And with all of this that's going on these days,

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Speaker 1: how do you use it in your everyday life? Calling um, well,

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Speaker 1: if you're if you're doing it right, yeah, you can't

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Speaker 1: not use it really UM as an every way practical

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Speaker 1: application for salima, it's it's making sure that you're doing

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Speaker 1: each and every minute of each and every day. UM.

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Speaker 1: Not what you want necessarily, but what you will. And

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Speaker 1: there's a huge difference. UM. What I want to do

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Speaker 1: is uh kind of fleeting and by the moment, what

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Speaker 1: I will to do is my life's passion. And so

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Speaker 1: going after that and making the steps necessary to achieve

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Speaker 1: those ends, that's that's talima. Do you cast spells on people? No,

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Speaker 1: you don't do that. It's an easy one. But some

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Speaker 1: people who dabble in magic do that, don't they autem Now,

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Speaker 1: the efficacy thereof uh you know is I'm going to

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Speaker 1: leave to the the individuals who do that um sort

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Speaker 1: of work. But to me, the greatest spells we weave

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Speaker 1: are on ourselves, um and in kind of affecting a

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Speaker 1: sense of personal change, because we have the greatest impact

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Speaker 1: on ourselves. Listen to more Coast to Coast a m

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Speaker 1: every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am dot com for more