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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy

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Speaker 1: Vee Wilson, and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about Alistair

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Speaker 1: Crowley this week. UM uh yeah, so UM. I'm glad

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Speaker 1: that for once, the name Alistair Crowley crossed my path

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Speaker 1: immediately before October. Um, since previously I just never managed

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Speaker 1: to like write him on the little October section of

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Speaker 1: my podcast shortlist. Um. And then I checked with you

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Speaker 1: to make sure that that was not gonna be I

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Speaker 1: was not gonna be stealing a topic that you already

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Speaker 1: had your heart set on doing, because I know sometimes

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Speaker 1: each of us do. And then as I was researching it,

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Speaker 1: number one, my knowledge of him was really minimal and

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Speaker 1: mostly based on things people were scared of in the eighties, right,

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Speaker 1: not like anything that he actually did. Um. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I have more familiarity with some of the things that, uh,

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Speaker 1: that he influenced later, like I know several people who

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Speaker 1: practice wicca like that, and that that is something that

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Speaker 1: like he had an influence on. But I just did

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Speaker 1: not know a bunch about a lot of his other work.

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Speaker 1: And as I was reading about the O t O.

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Speaker 1: I was like, why does this sound so familiar? And

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Speaker 1: then I remembered the podcast Oh No, Ross and Carry,

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Speaker 1: in which Ross and Carry investigate various paranormal stuff, and

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Speaker 1: they did an episode, two episodes actually about the O

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Speaker 1: t O. The first one I think came out of

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Speaker 1: and I'm not sure how much later the second one

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Speaker 1: came out, and I took the opportunity to re listen

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Speaker 1: to those while working on this. And if you would

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Speaker 1: like to hear more about what it's like to, you know,

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Speaker 1: participate in the gnostic math that the O t O does, Um,

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Speaker 1: that is a podcast to listen to you. I don't

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Speaker 1: remember off the top of my head whether whether that

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Speaker 1: show has an explicit tag or not. If you have

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Speaker 1: small I would actually just say it's probably not a

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Speaker 1: children's show. That was how my mom described a lot

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Speaker 1: of these things that she wanted to protect me from.

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Speaker 1: That's not a children's show. I would say. The O

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Speaker 1: t O episode of Owner, Ross and Carey not a

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Speaker 1: children's show. Our episode on Alistair Crowley also probably not

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Speaker 1: a children's show. Uh so yeah, I was like, Oh,

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Speaker 1: that that explains it. That explains why all of these

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Speaker 1: various rituals sound so familiar to me. I heard Ross

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Speaker 1: and Carey talk about them. You have heard them described. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had mentioned because he has been on my list,

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Speaker 1: and I honestly when you were like, are you dead

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Speaker 1: set on doing it? And I said, oh, thank rito,

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Speaker 1: you go do it because there's it's so convoluted complex,

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Speaker 1: and I have read enough about him that I was like,

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Speaker 1: I'm never going to sort this back out. And I

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Speaker 1: just remember telling you the Battle of Life Road is

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Speaker 1: the funniest thing you'll ever read, and you were like,

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Speaker 1: I haven't gotten there yet. Yeah. When you and I

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Speaker 1: were talking about it, I was like, oh, this sounds

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Speaker 1: great for October. And then I was like, Okay, let's

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Speaker 1: let's do a little reading. I could feel that the

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Speaker 1: expression on my face was one of absolute bafflement um

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Speaker 1: the the whole time I was reading stuff, and I

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Speaker 1: kept being like, I don't know if I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be able to sort this out, but I also can't

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Speaker 1: look away from it. So after spending basically an entire

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Speaker 1: day with my eyes kind of wide looking at the

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Speaker 1: various things that I was reading about the Battle of

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Speaker 1: blythe Road and all kinds of different rituals that he

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Speaker 1: was doing, and some of the some of his writing

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Speaker 1: is frankly incomprehensible. I was like, I'm just gonna have

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Speaker 1: to the only way out is through. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: gonna go. So yeah, it's a it's a lot in

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Speaker 1: a tangle. And every time I I mean I said

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Speaker 1: in the episode, every time I thought I had found

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Speaker 1: the strangest thing, I would find a different thing. I

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Speaker 1: found out about him faking his own death or trying

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Speaker 1: to fake his own death. Um, Like the morning that

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Speaker 1: I finished this outline and I was like, here's yet

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Speaker 1: another thing. Um, you know, if the I'm definitely a

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Speaker 1: spy during World War One that was weird, faking his

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Speaker 1: own death was weird. Um, there's all kinds of stuff

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Speaker 1: that we just there's he did so much stuff. There's

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Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff that we just didn't really even

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Speaker 1: mentioned at all. We I I had been wondering because

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Speaker 1: you mentioned his mountaineering expedition that went awry and that

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Speaker 1: he ended up canceling. I have seen some write ups

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Speaker 1: of that, but haven't followed them down the whole. That

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Speaker 1: kind of just suggests that it was either his fault

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Speaker 1: or that he abandoned a bunch of people. But basically

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Speaker 1: he does not come out looking good in all of it.

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Speaker 1: Was that your understanding yet? So, Um, there was a

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Speaker 1: climber and four reporters who were killed in an avalanche.

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Speaker 1: I was not able to find like just a really

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Speaker 1: thorough exploration of all that in the time that I

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Speaker 1: had available. I did find one account that said that

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Speaker 1: he was able to hear them calling for help and

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Speaker 1: didn't do anything about it. But one of the things

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Speaker 1: about mountaineering at that level is that it's inherently dangerous. Um,

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Speaker 1: And sometimes when somebody gets into trouble, if you try

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Speaker 1: to go help them, you are also going to be

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Speaker 1: in trouble. And so it was like I didn't feel

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Speaker 1: like I could sort through that enough to know whether

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Speaker 1: he was just really callous and irresponsible or whether it

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Speaker 1: was the kind of thing where it was like, well,

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Speaker 1: if we try to go get them, we're also going

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Speaker 1: to die. And I don't I don't know the answer

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Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, yeah, Um, I have thoughts and feelings

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Speaker 1: about Alistair Crowley. Um. They on on Oh No, Ross

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Speaker 1: and Carry, they have pretty definite feelings about him. Also,

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Speaker 1: is it that rich kids need stuff to do or

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Speaker 1: this is what their life turns into kind of um uh,

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Speaker 1: their read on him in a lot of ways is

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Speaker 1: just being like just intentionally obscure and kind of laughing

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Speaker 1: at future generations, like I'm just going to write the

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Speaker 1: most ridiculous nonsense and somebody later is gonna have They're

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Speaker 1: gonna spend their lives trying to figure out what I

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Speaker 1: meant by this, because he used a lot of codes

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Speaker 1: and things when when he was writing, and sometimes if

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Speaker 1: you try to read it and you're like, this is

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Speaker 1: not even sentences, I have no idea what this is

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Speaker 1: going to try to be about. I also, frankly remember

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Speaker 1: being between the ages of eighteen and and believing in

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Speaker 1: all kinds of weird stuff that I don't believe in

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Speaker 1: now that I have more experience and maturity under my built.

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Speaker 1: And so even though I never went nearly to any

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Speaker 1: kind of the extent that Alistair Crowley did in any

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Speaker 1: of his mass like mystical stuff, I can see how

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Speaker 1: a bunch of educated young men with access to purportedly

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Speaker 1: mystical documents would believe that they definitely had for real

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Speaker 1: magical powers that could sick a vampire on somebody. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the whole thing is really like Uh, to

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Speaker 1: me very much vibes like people who have only ever

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Speaker 1: had validation in their life, presuming that the things that

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Speaker 1: they believe themselves to be able to do must actually

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Speaker 1: be real because they have never known anything else. Well,

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Speaker 1: and it's also really clear that a whole lot of

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Speaker 1: what he did specifically drew from while simultaneously rejecting his

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Speaker 1: fundamentalist Christian upbringing. Um, Like, a lot of the symbolism

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Speaker 1: he used was directly from the Book of Revelation. A

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Speaker 1: lot of the things that he was talking about, we're

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Speaker 1: connected to a lot of the things that are in

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Speaker 1: the Book of Revelation, which having spent an entire year

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Speaker 1: of Sunday School learning the Book of Revelation, it's a

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Speaker 1: weird book. So uh so, like there's so much of

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Speaker 1: it that, like, it has this whole context of him

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Speaker 1: rejecting his own religious upbringing, also rejecting a lot of

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Speaker 1: the more conservative, more aids that existed at the time. Um,

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Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So it's it's a whole

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Speaker 1: big tangle. I also, I mean again, I sound very dismissive,

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Speaker 1: and I kind of am, but um, I find his

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Speaker 1: story utterly just engaging at every level. But I don't

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Speaker 1: hold a lot of stock in any of his claims. Um,

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Speaker 1: that whole thing with his allegedly being a spy and

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Speaker 1: then facing no repercussions. Yeah, my read is always like,

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Speaker 1: not because he was a spy, because money makes problems

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Speaker 1: go away. I don't know. That's the most least magnanimous

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Speaker 1: read I can have on it. But yeah, yeah, there

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Speaker 1: is a whole book on that, And the whole book

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Speaker 1: on that was like, there's there's finite time that we

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Speaker 1: have to spend on our episodes because we are doing

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Speaker 1: a new episode of the podcast every week. So reading

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Speaker 1: the entire book that was written about whether he was

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Speaker 1: or was not a spy and exploring all that, like

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Speaker 1: that was really beyond my ability, which is lie. Instead,

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Speaker 1: I read some papers by the author of that that

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Speaker 1: seems like a valid plan to me. Yeah, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: a lot um. There's also part of me that lives

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Speaker 1: in such a state of envy. I'm like, imagine thinking

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Speaker 1: you just thinking yourself that important all the time. That

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Speaker 1: must be an amazing headspace to travel it. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: feel like that's a good place to wrap this. I

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Speaker 1: don't have anything of that. Uh yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: It's one of those things where, um, if the sixties

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Speaker 1: counterculture movement had not happened, he would certainly be not

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Speaker 1: nearly as well known today, and at the same time,

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Speaker 1: without his involvement, all kind of like Wicca might exist

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Speaker 1: might not really uh, because like right, that is the trick, right,

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Speaker 1: is that he did believe himself to be so important

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Speaker 1: and did produce so much stuff that untangling what is

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Speaker 1: his messed up understanding of a thing versus the actual

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Speaker 1: legitimate roots of something is really difficulty. Well, and things

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Speaker 1: like like Wicca also have multiple different influences, not just

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Speaker 1: Alistair Crowley. This week we talked about Kostro Finally, he's

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Speaker 1: been on my list for uh seven eight years etly

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Speaker 1: it's uh. It's interesting because one of the reasons that

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Speaker 1: I kept running headlong into this topic and then backing

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Speaker 1: away from it for so long is that it's really

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Speaker 1: hard to determine which tone you want to take when

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Speaker 1: you tell his story, because if you, if you watch,

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Speaker 1: I mean, even people who are very much scholars and

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Speaker 1: historians talk about it, some of them will approach it

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Speaker 1: much more from kind of the sensational stories of him

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Speaker 1: where he claims to be you know, uh, potentially popping

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Speaker 1: around time to witness various events or you know, any

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Speaker 1: of those. So I kept finding myself going, should this

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Speaker 1: be more sensational? Should this be more thrilling? Um? But

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Speaker 1: I think for me, the best way to really look

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Speaker 1: at him was to kind of peel it all back,

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Speaker 1: and like I said, there are details that we couldn't

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Speaker 1: even fit in there because there's a UM. I love

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Speaker 1: that Catherine the Great hated him. I just loved it.

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Speaker 1: I had similar a similar experience I think when trying

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Speaker 1: to work on Alistair Crowley about uh, like what tone

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Speaker 1: do we take with this? And I also liked that

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Speaker 1: Marie shar Marie Handlin it thought he was a Charlottean,

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Speaker 1: not Alistair Crowley Kliostro, although probably those two I do

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Speaker 1: love that two women uh of immense power were like, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure about that. Uh you could scaattle. I

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Speaker 1: had also discovered I did not mention in this episode

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Speaker 1: because it would just be a list of longness. Um.

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Speaker 1: In addition to the Duma work about him, Kliostro shows

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Speaker 1: up everywhere. He shows up on TV and various things.

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Speaker 1: There's even an atom that called count Castle of Kliostro.

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Speaker 1: That's a loop on the third if anybody follows that,

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Speaker 1: and he's, uh, it's it's not exactly him, but it's

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Speaker 1: you know, there's clearly there have been a lot of

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Speaker 1: characters based on Caliostro over the years, and so to

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Speaker 1: pluck all those apart just becomes a list making exercise.

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Speaker 1: So I didn't bother to do that. But if you

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Speaker 1: do an internet search, you're going to find plenty. One

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Speaker 1: of the things I was struck by in doing this

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Speaker 1: research was how we have certainly all of us talked about,

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Speaker 1: I mean as a society, not just on this show.

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Speaker 1: You know that that lure of a group saying I

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Speaker 1: will offer you everything you've ever wanted, and how powerful

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Speaker 1: that can be to get people to really buy into

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Speaker 1: your ideology. And in his case, right, he was offering

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Speaker 1: them everything like eternal life and health, spiritual life and health,

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Speaker 1: and tons of money. Right, We're gonna get the alchemy

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Speaker 1: machine going, and we're just gonna churn out golden diamonds

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Speaker 1: for everybody like it. Just I can see where desperate

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Speaker 1: people would completely glom onto it, even as I sit

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Speaker 1: there and go, oh, why why did you believe in him?

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Speaker 1: We both mentioned that we wanted to talk about what

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Speaker 1: I'm calling but don't believe to be Lorenz's betrayal. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm like that he coerced her into sex work. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: for all that time and generally was doing a bunch

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Speaker 1: of crime. And I'm like, your wife testified against you,

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Speaker 1: you get what you get? Yes, well, and my thing too.

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Speaker 1: That is another thing that is um characterized a little

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Speaker 1: bit differently by different people. Um. I did watch one

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Speaker 1: lecture where the lecture was saying that you know, at

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Speaker 1: that point he probably had syphilis that had advanced to

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Speaker 1: the point that it was affecting his behavior, um, and

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Speaker 1: that he had grown unpredictable, and like she kind of

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Speaker 1: did it to get out of that. And I'm like,

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Speaker 1: she had a lifetime of that, even if he was

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Speaker 1: in his alleged right mind before that, she had a

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Speaker 1: lifetime of madness to live through, like I wouldn't. That's

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Speaker 1: again my take on it, obviously, but yeah, I I

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Speaker 1: literally you know, when I read some early kind of

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Speaker 1: quick the quick biographies that don't go into the fact

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Speaker 1: that he was trafficking her around Europe to gain favor

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Speaker 1: and you know, job postings and whatnot, and they very

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Speaker 1: much are kind of like, oh, and then his wife

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Speaker 1: turned him in, And I'm like, did you not talk

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Speaker 1: about the sex conversion because you're too dainty or is

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Speaker 1: it just too uncomfortable and thus you're not considering it

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Speaker 1: in the danue mall of the story or do you

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Speaker 1: not really know about that or do you not think

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Speaker 1: it's horrible? Yeah? Fourteen. Yes, I know age meant different

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Speaker 1: things at different points in time, but that is still

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Speaker 1: very very young. Yeah, and I would say also still today,

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Speaker 1: Like I can only speak about like the criminal justice

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Speaker 1: in the United States. I don't live anywhere else, but

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Speaker 1: I know that here in the US, the idea that

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Speaker 1: someone having been trafficked and abused, uh, and then eventually

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Speaker 1: enacting some kind of violence on their trafficker and abuser,

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Speaker 1: like that continues to be something that that comes up

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Speaker 1: in court, um with with people not wanting that evidence

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Speaker 1: to be admitted, even though like it's a critical context

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Speaker 1: to all of that. So I feel like this is

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Speaker 1: sort of a variation on that same theme from centuries ago. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it really is. It's like he's the blueprint

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Speaker 1: for every power hungary weasel who just treated people like property, right, Uh,

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Speaker 1: and didn't seem to have any conscience about it, which

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Speaker 1: is very But what's really weird is even in and

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Speaker 1: again some of this is because they were written hundred

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Speaker 1: years ago, but even in the texts where they're pretty

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Speaker 1: frank about what was going on and they do kind

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Speaker 1: of condemn it, they are still like, but he really

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Speaker 1: really loved her, And I'm like, what even if that's true? Boy,

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Speaker 1: do I not care? Well? And it becomes a bigger, right,

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Speaker 1: theoretical question of like what does love mean? And you know,

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Speaker 1: everyone's definition may be different, but mine is, you know,

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Speaker 1: treating someone with respect and when they don't want to

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Speaker 1: do something, you don't coerce them into doing it. That

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Speaker 1: seems like a pretty basic rule to have for someone

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Speaker 1: you love. And she clearly there were lots of instances

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Speaker 1: where he was like, no, you have to do this,

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Speaker 1: you have to do this, it's the only way we're

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Speaker 1: going to get out of this situation, or it's the

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Speaker 1: only way we're going to get any money, or like

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Speaker 1: he put all of the onus on her when she

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Speaker 1: was legitimately again remember raised very very um conservative religious,

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Speaker 1: she was legitimately concerned for her immortal soul, and he

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Speaker 1: was like, no, no, do it, do it? Do it?

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Speaker 1: Do it? Do it? Do it. It's like that's just cruel.

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Speaker 1: So that is not love in my book. Anyway, I

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Speaker 1: have feelings about Keliostro's wife, and I hope someone writes

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Speaker 1: a marvelous play or film about her and her alone

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Speaker 1: from her perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hope buy all

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Speaker 1: the tickets. Sorry, that was it not the funnest. But

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Speaker 1: I will say this, My favorite phrase that we came

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Speaker 1: across was in that quote describing his his seance and

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Speaker 1: just the phrase lustral waters. I wanna, I don't know what.

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Speaker 1: I want to make a cocktail named that. I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but I'm doing something and it's going to be spark

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Speaker 1: light so cool. That's that's my upbeat. Ending to this discussion,

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Speaker 1: Happy Friday. I hope everybody has a good weekend whatever

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Speaker 1: is on your plate. Feel free to drop us a

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Speaker 1: note or a history podcast at I heart radio dot

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Speaker 1: com and we'll see you soon with more episodes. Stuff

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Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit

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