Transcript
Speaker: Hey guys, I don't know what was going on.
Speaker: We had to exit, but welcome to Quantum Witch Cafe.
Speaker: We had to exit and come back.
Speaker: Leave me a message in the chat if everything's okay on your end and you can see us or see me.
Speaker: Marco's not back yet, but can you guys hear me?
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: All right, so we're live now.
Speaker: I'm just making sure that it says it's recording and everything.
Speaker: So maybe I just had to exit and come back.
Speaker: Hello everyone.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Again, please send me a message and everything's okay on your end.
Speaker: You can hear me and everything.
Speaker: That way we know that it's working.
Speaker: It's all good on this end, so this is fine.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: It's recording, so if you don't see it now.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So Julian says she can hear us.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Sorry about that guys.
Speaker: StreamYard has never given me issues.
Speaker: It did right now, but it was an easy fix.
Speaker: We just had to leave and come back.
Speaker: Thanks for your help, Marco.
Speaker: It's like whenever, whenever it doesn't work, you just just reset it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Turn it off.
Speaker: Turn it on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So today, first of all, welcome to Quantum Witch Cafe, which is your safe place to talk about anything strange, UIP, fringe, anything you want really.
Speaker: And, you know, UFOs, UIP if you're fancy, all that stuff.
Speaker: You guys know my passion is great authors.
Speaker: And this year I'm incorporating more.
Speaker: authors of the occult and other fringe topics last year was heavy on UFOs and UAP but um I hope to get a little more diversity this year so with that being said I have Marco Visconti on he is the author of oh you're not going to show she doesn't want to show her boobs guys but if you go to my story um we have the author of Alistair Crowley manual and this is the limit magic for modern times it's a beautiful
Speaker: hardcover thick book and it's gonna and we're gonna have him tell you all about it but before we do that welcome marco thank you so much for taking your time out of the day to come hang out with us well thank you for having me i love doing this this sort of uh introductions to to magic especially you know on stages where usually people don't listen don't know much about magic so i'm very happy to be here
Speaker: I'm very excited.
Speaker: Do you want to tell people, give yourself a brief intro?
Speaker: I like the author to kind of tell people about themselves because I feel like it means more coming from you.
Speaker: Because if I read it, it's going to be from your bio and it's going to be like blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: But if you tell people, it has a little more heart to it.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: So I was born in Rome, Italy, and I spent most of my childhood and adolescence actually moving between Italy and the United States.
Speaker: My father was working there a lot, so that's where I got my weird accent from, a little bit of
Speaker: it's definitely not a british accent like that even if right now i live in london uk and i've been living here for the last 10 years i've been interested in magic uh pretty much my entire life um as a child i was fascinated by mythology um but then again you know we would say well of course that you were born in rome like you got all the mythology there
Speaker: Well, I never really cared much for Roman or Greek mythology.
Speaker: I was really much more into Egyptian and Celtic mythology of all places and all things.
Speaker: That kind of led me on a path where I was already fascinated with the strange, with the
Speaker: Let's say I was not much into football.
Speaker: I was much more into reading books and playing music and then eventually trying to see, OK, can you actually do magic for real?
Speaker: And that happened in the summer of 1990.
Speaker: when I was 12.
Speaker: And I just found out about this strange character called Aleister Crowley in a comic book of all places.
Speaker: And, you know, this guy was interesting to me because, as I said, I was born and bred in Rome.
Speaker: So, you know, Catholic country, kind of a very...
Speaker: was a conservative kind of environment and i didn't like it uh and the fact that there was this guy that was kind of like the wickedest man in the world that kind of sounded cool to me uh of course you know in time i didn't know that uh you could have done many other things and just still you know go against the grain but that's that's the path that i guess chose me instead of me choosing the path i don't know
Speaker: Anyway, long story short, I end up becoming a full blown magician.
Speaker: I sought up initiations into various orders, various groups by the time I was 18 and then 20.
Speaker: And then at the same time, I became a musician, kind of like a decently successful musician in a very, very niche scene, which most of you might have not heard about, which is called the industrial EBM and goth.
Speaker: And, you know, I played all over the board.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I was a little girl.
Speaker: I was kind of doing well, but in a very, very, very tiny scene that kind of doesn't really exist anymore.
Speaker: I mean, goth scene exists again, of course, but it's just like the specific kind of music I was making, which is, I don't know,
Speaker: Depeche Mode meets Prodigy meets Techno kind of existed for a while, but not really anymore.
Speaker: And at the same time, I was also going through all my various initiations, trying to make sense of magic, make sense of what is called the great work.
Speaker: And many years later, I eventually ended up in London, in the UK, where I am right now, and I've been living here for the last 10 years.
Speaker: and i became very much involved in the london lodge of ordo templi orientis or otl which is uh one of the magical orders that was um that pretty much like uh the idea was not was not founded by crawley but crawley became the figurehead of this order eventually and for
Speaker: good part of the last decade, I was very much involved in it, till something happened.
Speaker: And that something happened was, in fact, the Charlotte Bill Unite the Right rally in 2017, where it turned out that a lot of my brethren in OTO were, let's say, involved in very nefarious activities, right?
Speaker: I don't want to get political.
Speaker: I would not get political.
Speaker: But let's say that I could not bear
Speaker: being part of that order anymore.
Speaker: And so I went solo, pretty much.
Speaker: I started organizing my own group here in London, which is still thriving.
Speaker: Then the pandemic hit, right?
Speaker: And what happened there is that I realized that I did have a tool that could help people
Speaker: not maybe if not feeling better but at least making sense of difficult times which were shared by all of us right uh which was the i mean no matter your your beliefs or your ideas uh regarding the the pandemic we were all locked down for a while that's the reality of that and so i realized that you know magic could help people to just you know find something to do and and and that's something to do was
Speaker: getting to know who they are better and getting to know what their strengths are and how they could actually tap into those strengths in order to make sense of a crazy world, right?
Speaker: And so I organized an online community, which was actually quite successful because at the time we had at a peak of almost 300 people there.
Speaker: very very very active uh we had like a mass quite a big like discord server uh we had like live streams eventually like streams like this but done privately and up until three times a week i was there teaching magic pretty much every night again we didn't have any else to do right so that was the the best thing i could um i could do with my time and you know it's interesting because um
Speaker: three years later, almost three years later now, if you think about it, a lot of those people who did that, you know, that went on that path with me, they're still there in the community.
Speaker: They became amazing magicians on their own terms.
Speaker: Some of them went through very...
Speaker: life-changing experiences, and I did with them.
Speaker: My life is very different from what it was before, this experience.
Speaker: Magic is about transformation.
Speaker: If you engage with magic and nothing happens, I had to break it on you, but maybe I haven't done real magic.
Speaker: Magic really means that you engage with transformation.
Speaker: It is alchemical in its core nature.
Speaker: In order to finish this rambling introduction, I like to ramble a lot.
Speaker: So sorry about that.
Speaker: But to finish that one, from all the experience of the online community, which is called Magic Without Tears, the book came out at some point around a year ago.
Speaker: I found out that I had almost 300 pages of material that I already wrote for the classes that I was teaching.
Speaker: And then one of the students of the course, actually of the course of the community, actually suggested me, why don't you edit it and present it to the publisher?
Speaker: And so I did.
Speaker: Here it is.
Speaker: It's now out.
Speaker: It exists.
Speaker: It has a beautiful red cover, which you cannot miss.
Speaker: It's there.
Speaker: It's very in your face.
Speaker: But yeah, this is what came out of it.
Speaker: And to be fair, I'll be very honest with you.
Speaker: I'm very proud of it.
Speaker: It is a book that it's not written for people that already know about Crowley, know about Telemma, or even know about magic, right?
Speaker: I think those people will find something interesting in it.
Speaker: But this book is written for the person doesn't know anything at all.
Speaker: And maybe they might even have some preconceptions about what it is, how you do it.
Speaker: Is it good?
Speaker: Is it bad?
Speaker: And I'm really trying to, in this book, trying to deconstruct it
Speaker: try to speak in the most colloquial and simple language possible, possibly because English is not my mother tongue, so I kind of go very flowery with it.
Speaker: It wouldn't suit me, really.
Speaker: But the idea was really breaking it down, making it clear for...
Speaker: everyone to understand it and also uh kind of setting some expectations um a lot of people i mean let's say we we went we went through a massive magical revival in the last decade right i would say i start seeing uh
Speaker: like the science of this revival right in 2008.
Speaker: So we're talking like 15 years ago.
Speaker: And then, you know, the 2010s where like the boom of, you know, the return of the witchcraft and then the boom of witch talk, the boom of, you know, witches of Instagram, all this thing that kind of brought a new blood in.
Speaker: Like I remembered in the 90s, the show Charmed did, right?
Speaker: And then all the various movies that came out in the 90s, I guess maybe you remember as well.
Speaker: I do, yeah.
Speaker: It was awesome.
Speaker: It was, absolutely.
Speaker: And so, you know, what I realized, though, that a lot of people kind of felt scared of, like, making the jump from what would seem a relatively simple practice.
Speaker: Witchcraft is not simple at all.
Speaker: It can be very, very complex and very engaging, in fact.
Speaker: But somehow, you know, my my type of magic always felt a little bit more obscure and a little bit more complex.
Speaker: And the reality there is that I it's not right.
Speaker: Like if you break it down, if you if you tell people, you know what to expect, how long they must stay with this practice or that practice, everybody can do it right.
Speaker: And in fact, I hope more people will do it because magic can change their lives for the best.
Speaker: I stay home with my kids and my husband was supposed to be here and we had to stay at work because of army stuff.
Speaker: So the army, I'm actually going to have a little bit of a little bit of a background.
Speaker: Just pretend it's a cat trying to get in.
Speaker: It would be cute.
Speaker: That's horrible.
Speaker: But anyways, as I was saying, this book reads like, you know, a lesson, like you could go right into it, not knowing anything and get a lot from it.
Speaker: What's interesting about it is I love how you break, you know, it into parts.
Speaker: where you give an assignment at the end.
Speaker: So a lot of these where you kind of read these books and you're like, now what?
Speaker: Now what do I do with all this information?
Speaker: You're not like left with any of that.
Speaker: So excuse me for one second.
Speaker: Of course, no worries.
Speaker: Big brother versus little brother.
Speaker: an older tale, it's, you know, Cain and Abel, right?
Speaker: I mean, hopefully, anyways.
Speaker: But I love that about the book.
Speaker: And I was taking notes as I was reading it.
Speaker: I actually, you know, I, my magic is very eclectic, because trying to get into like the Lemmic magic in Crowley, it's just so much.
Speaker: And I was never around people that were doing it as well.
Speaker: So it felt kind of like, I didn't have a lot of clarifying
Speaker: people to ask this now i obviously could hop online and find groups or find you know teachers like yourself but when i first got into magic at a young age i didn't have this you know i'm 39 so i had to like find the books physically i couldn't just go like order them as easily you had to order like in a catalog and then ingredients ingredients and you know there was a few magic shops around town but not a lot so this is something where it's very structured and i love that about it
Speaker: And I love that your humor comes through in the writing as well.
Speaker: I'm God's here.
Speaker: I really hope that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then you're like, you kind of laugh to yourself because of the way you write.
Speaker: So I loved at the beginning in the foreword, it was written by Peter Lavenda that he put magic as technology.
Speaker: It uses the tools of consciousness of the senses and the mechanisms of the body and the body-mind interface to cause changes to occur.
Speaker: It is, as Carly said, both a science and an art.
Speaker: That is not a throwaway line.
Speaker: It's actually quite profound in its implications.
Speaker: And you talked about that right now when you were saying it's work.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So to be able to manipulate that energy, you have to be able to step into these different states of mind, right?
Speaker: Or states of existence.
Speaker: Like, you know, I was very lucky to have Peter, which is a long time, I would say, online friend.
Speaker: We never met in real life yet, unfortunately, but we've been talking for many, many years.
Speaker: Of course, I've been like a big fan of his books.
Speaker: I really like his approach to things, which is kind of formed mine, really.
Speaker: And so, you know, when he accepted to do the intro, I mean, he really loved the book.
Speaker: He also really supported me.
Speaker: There were moments where I was like, you know, I'm not going to do this.
Speaker: This is not good.
Speaker: People don't go out, people are going to hate it.
Speaker: And it's like, no, no, you need to do it because you are tapping onto something here.
Speaker: And those words are, I think, very important because the idea that Crowley did define magic in many ways.
Speaker: And I put various ways Crowley defines magic in the book, right?
Speaker: The most famous maybe is like, you know, magic is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with your will.
Speaker: Now, that seems simple, right?
Speaker: But of course, to understand what is will, a will with a capital W, it's not just whatever you want.
Speaker: I mean, there's a big thing in the dilemma.
Speaker: Like, first of all, you have to understand what you want and to understand what you want to understand who you are.
Speaker: And that's a trip on itself, right?
Speaker: Like, first of all, you have to do that.
Speaker: And then, you know, this marriage of science and art
Speaker: It seems like a throwaway line, but it's not because science implies technology, of course.
Speaker: So the fact that you can, all these rituals really are, I mean, you can think of them as yoga posters or yoga stations.
Speaker: Or if you're into martial arts, you can think of them
Speaker: as forms or kata in karate, like, you know, whatever you do in order to go and do the fight, right?
Speaker: Like you first train your body.
Speaker: But then there's the art part.
Speaker: And the art part, I think it's very important because if the science does and the technology does bring, you know, this sort of logical structured approach to it, then you cannot do it without the art.
Speaker: That is without the irrational.
Speaker: without the unexpected without the without the the stroke of the muse and the and and something comes from you know somewhere you do not understand it in fact magic will will force you to allow for this super rational approach to things because without that um which is something that you know we are constantly steeped into that's i would say where all the ideas of the the phenomenon comes from if you want to use like a term that's more
Speaker: coming from the UFO or UAP community.
Speaker: That is super rational.
Speaker: That is art, as I would define.
Speaker: And this marriage, this balancing act, is the role of the magician.
Speaker: now to to draw a parallel right like we go we look at the tarot deck which you know the tarot it's not just um a way to divine the future but maybe it's a way to understand how the universe around and uh and ourselves and our role in it well in the original tarot decks uh the the french tarot decks i'm thinking about them
Speaker: Tarot de Marseille, for instance, the magician is called le battalure, which is a strange term for juggler.
Speaker: And the juggler really is somebody who throws things in the air and then everything is in perfect balance.
Speaker: And that's what the magician is.
Speaker: So, yeah, this book, I think, will teach people to become jugglers, but jugglers of the unconscious and the conscious at the same time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm reading the comment and there's one comment that really nails it.
Speaker: Some of these are represented well in the show Strange Angel.
Speaker: That's Benji.
Speaker: Benji's amazing.
Speaker: Hi, Benji.
Speaker: Hi, everybody.
Speaker: Thank you so much for your patience and for being here.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, I love all the different decks too.
Speaker: You just spoke of the French deck and I just, first of all, the artwork on that deck is just gorgeous and
Speaker: And also the way things are represented in different decks is also so amazing to me and the different symbols that people keep in different ways throughout different decks.
Speaker: But yes, I haven't watched that, Benji.
Speaker: Have you watched Strange Angel?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Not only I watched it, I was one of the people that were consulted for the show.
Speaker: So, Strange Angel is the story of Jack Parsons.
Speaker: Jack Parsons is this fantastic character that if you never heard about him, that's a rabbit hole for you to go into.
Speaker: He was the guy... About him, okay.
Speaker: I'm surprised.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: He was a telemite.
Speaker: He was a magician.
Speaker: And he also was the guy who invented the jet propulsion fuel.
Speaker: So if we went to the moon...
Speaker: I'm not going to debate with people that think we didn't go to the moon.
Speaker: But anyway, the.
Speaker: Yeah, that's another show.
Speaker: We'll do a moon conspiracy show.
Speaker: Like if we fly jet is because Jack Parson, a magician, invented the fuel, the semi-solid fuel.
Speaker: that permit jets to exist now uh the show is very interesting because it's i think it's one of the best representations of the lemma in uh in the mainstream media and in fact it was supposed to go for five seasons he only only stopped at two but uh greg wise which is a very famous british actor and plays the the grand magos so like the the lodge leader in the show um
Speaker: i don't remember the name in the show but it's based on a character a real person was called wilford smith this guy came to ameth lodge in london one day where i was doing the gnostic mass which is a ritual
Speaker: and asked me, because he was supposed to do the same ritual on the show, say, okay, how do I do this?
Speaker: Well, so I had, not just me, me and other people.
Speaker: We had a nice chat with him.
Speaker: He's Emma Thompson's husband.
Speaker: So very, very famous actor.
Speaker: So it was very interesting.
Speaker: I mean, you know, here in London, you did get a lot of
Speaker: celebrities popping by from time to time, Jimmy Page, many others.
Speaker: But the reality is that it was kind of funny to say, okay, right, you have like this famous actor that you've seen in many shows asking you how to be a Thalemic priest in order to be a Thalemic priest on Jack Barton.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: That was fun.
Speaker: How can you even advise that?
Speaker: I'll have to check it out.
Speaker: I'm familiar with Parsons, but I didn't, I'm still out of the loop when it comes to like shows.
Speaker: So I'll have to check that out.
Speaker: But
Speaker: But how do you even do that?
Speaker: I mean, it's kind of like what you did in the book, but they're pretending, right?
Speaker: So, you know, how is it trying to take something and give it to Hollywood that is so sacred to you in a way that's still respectful to like the practice, I guess?
Speaker: So first of all, I would say that there is one thing.
Speaker: for thelemyes.
Speaker: We thelemyes tend to be a little less worried about the sacred in the sense, not because it's not important, but because I think we see the sacred into everything.
Speaker: Magic is the act of life.
Speaker: Everything we do, every willed action is an act of magic.
Speaker: So we're not really worried about people misrepresenting us because they already do.
Speaker: We already think that thelemy is the work of the devil, so that's not a problem.
Speaker: And also the idea is that I think that we really know that the more people actually can see the beauty in these rituals, the more they can actually get drawn to them.
Speaker: Also, it did help that, you know, this show was based on George Pendle's book.
Speaker: And George Pendle has always been very respectful to Thalema.
Speaker: even when he wrote the book in the 2000, I don't remember, 15 years ago, something like that.
Speaker: He was very respectful.
Speaker: He was very interested.
Speaker: It is the best book on Parsons, by the way.
Speaker: There are several.
Speaker: They're all decent, but The Strange Angel is really, really good.
Speaker: And also, when the crew came to Ameth Lodge, they were very respectful.
Speaker: Greg Wise was very respectful.
Speaker: So, you know, in many ways, we were like, you know, we could get people
Speaker: They're going to do it anyway, right?
Speaker: So it's not like they're going to stop them if we say, please don't.
Speaker: Let's hope they do a good job.
Speaker: And I think they did.
Speaker: If you're going to see it, and for those of you who have actually seen it, I think that
Speaker: it's not the same thing.
Speaker: There were some sort of liberties that were being taken.
Speaker: For instance, the rituals in Strange Angel depict actual sex happening during these rituals, whereby in the rituals of the OTO, in the rituals of Telema, 99% of the time the sex is sublimated in the sense that there's only allegories, okay?
Speaker: Whereby, of course, it's Hollywood, they had to put nudity.
Speaker: Oh, of course.
Speaker: Sex, uh...
Speaker: At the same time, Telema doesn't have any problems with nudity.
Speaker: Telema doesn't have any problem with sex.
Speaker: I don't think that anybody should in reality.
Speaker: How do you think you got here?
Speaker: What's your body?
Speaker: The people worried about it are sexualizing it more than the people actually doing the practice.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I think it's... Telema celebrates...
Speaker: life and in all its beauty.
Speaker: Of course, it's paramount that any kind of sexual intercourse should be consensual between adults and that only.
Speaker: That's obvious to me.
Speaker: And should be obvious to anybody with a brain.
Speaker: You know we do because there's people who don't get it.
Speaker: Once you have consenting adults, then yeah, I mean, sex magic is cool.
Speaker: However,
Speaker: um for maybe those of if anybody's listening say okay then i'm gonna go and see a gnostic mass i'm gonna see a lot of sex not really there is it's sublimated is there's allegories only there will be nudity but very tasteful nudity and uh and that's about it yeah there's a lot of glamour that goes into these sorts of scenes on tv and i was so
Speaker: So I watched Sabrina and part of me was like, oh, cool, like it's Sabrina.
Speaker: And I think it's cool.
Speaker: I took it with the dark twist.
Speaker: But then the other part of me is like, here we go.
Speaker: Now the rest of the world is going to think that magic is all about the devil again.
Speaker: And we kind of talked about this a little bit in the beginning and Mitch Horowitz kind of touched on it.
Speaker: And he, I don't know actually if he talked to me about it, but he's written about kind of like the second satanic panic.
Speaker: Oh, I didn't realize that right until I said it.
Speaker: But yeah, so.
Speaker: How, so can you explain what that is?
Speaker: Cause I have some listeners that might not be into magic at all.
Speaker: And I have some, you know, I posted the, the, the picture of the book and all this stuff and automatically getting messages from relatives worried about me talking about the devil.
Speaker: And I'm like, can you kind of, I don't want to say debunk or, or kind of break in actuality, what some of these symbols mean, how they've been misconstrued throughout the media.
Speaker: Like, for example, Baphomet and the pentagram, like people automatically assume like it's for the dark Lord, you know, which.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: You know, because a lot of people are so afraid of that.
Speaker: And you mentioned satanic panic happening again.
Speaker: And can you just.
Speaker: I know that was like four questions in one, but can you run through that, please?
Speaker: I'll try.
Speaker: I'll try to give you like a bird's eye view.
Speaker: I mean, it's a very complex subject, as you can imagine.
Speaker: I think we should start from one point, and that is that
Speaker: There are people out there that really believe that their religion is the only religion that exists or should exist.
Speaker: And they are the only ones who are good, while everything that deviates from their dogma is evil.
Speaker: Now, I'm not naming names because we could get many different religions that all fit into this idea.
Speaker: Even some practitioners do it as well.
Speaker: There's somebody in every group, I guess.
Speaker: In general, Crowley used to say that the devil is the god of those who lost the war, pretty much.
Speaker: much, right?
Speaker: So, you know, in ancient times, if a population was conquered, then those gods would become the devils of the other religion, right?
Speaker: And it's kind of a simplification, but it can give you the idea of how this idea of the satanic panic can even happen.
Speaker: And satanic panic really is a term that stems from the 1980s, because in the 1980s, what happened there is that in the United States and then in the UK mostly, but there was other
Speaker: in other countries as well, there were reports of young children reporting back that they were actually used in horrible ways in satanic rituals.
Speaker: A book came out called Michelle Remembers, and the story was, in fact, of this Michelle's girl that remembered that her parents were part of a satanic cult and they were abusing her.
Speaker: Now, a lot of people lost their livelihoods, their jobs, their lives, basically on these stories that were going around.
Speaker: It has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that
Speaker: These were actually false memories implanted by psychologists that were actually trying to push that idea that I said at the beginning, that their religion was the right religion.
Speaker: They were the good, and everything that was stemming outside of those boundaries was evil.
Speaker: So they were finding ways to combat that.
Speaker: that evil, even if it meant to pretty much use psychology to implant false memories.
Speaker: If anybody is curious about this, you can go on Wikipedia, look for satanic ritual abuse.
Speaker: There's a massively well-sourced article on Wikipedia alone, but then that's where you can start.
Speaker: There's all the proof in the world you need to realize that
Speaker: It's always been a lie.
Speaker: It was something that was used by people with an agenda.
Speaker: An agenda was silencing the difference, silencing the oppressed, silencing everybody who didn't agree with them.
Speaker: There's another twist to that.
Speaker: This is not the first time that happened because historically,
Speaker: SRA or satanic ritual abuse has a precedent and that present is something called blood libel.
Speaker: Now the blood libel hoax or the blood libel, it's something that stems back from the middle ages and up.
Speaker: And this is where the time where Christians and Christian groups used to accuse Jews of killing children and eating children during the
Speaker: their rituals.
Speaker: This is where the Jewish programs happened, this is why the Jewish diaspora happened, because they were all fleeing from Catholic countries because they were accused of killing people, which never happened either.
Speaker: Now,
Speaker: Back to where we are right now, it's the same thing you hear in extreme conspiracy fringes.
Speaker: The idea that there is a secret elite of powerful people that are pulling the strings of the universe, pretty much, and they do that by subjecting the children to terrible, terrible, unspeakable things.
Speaker: Pizzagate, right?
Speaker: I'm thinking about it.
Speaker: Yeah, Pizzagate.
Speaker: Yeah, that was it, right?
Speaker: That was only the same blood libel of the Middle Ages.
Speaker: The same satanic ritual abuse of the 80s repurposed once again, and it's always coming from a conservative, ultra-reactionary, often Christian type of group of people.
Speaker: And they're always trying to push this same agenda, because at the center of this problem is that
Speaker: There are religions that think they should be the only ones.
Speaker: And then there are religious groups, like most neo-pagan groups, or like the Lema, that will say, actually, do what you want.
Speaker: Worship who you want.
Speaker: As long as we live in a functioning society where we're all free and we all are able to live our lives the way we want, between consenting adults without touching the children.
Speaker: we just need to make like a little sign to press like a banner that we just press it and it goes up so people know exactly and i think i think this is very important to to to underline because you know people might misconstrue not just my words but you know every time we discuss it is it is because people kind of like hear things pop out when they're not paying attention exactly
Speaker: I will tell you something like I am I've been very vocal in Telemma in Telemma groups.
Speaker: The idea that Telemma is and should be only for people that are 18 and up, not because anything weird happened in it.
Speaker: Like I said, sex magic is mostly which is a part of the I write about it in the book.
Speaker: It's it's mostly
Speaker: performed via allegories.
Speaker: So there's almost never, and not even touching almost.
Speaker: But the point is that I really believe that the lemma should only be between people like adults, because a children, a child, or even like a teenager, they're still developing their ideas.
Speaker: And, you know,
Speaker: as somebody who was baptized in the Catholic faith against my choice because I was four months old and I didn't want six months old, but I didn't know any better.
Speaker: I really believe that people should have their say if they want to join.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, yeah, it's like it's a whole different type of choice that's made for you.
Speaker: And you're automatic.
Speaker: The second you're born into a house that believes one thing and projects that onto you daily.
Speaker: It's sort of conditioned you in a certain way.
Speaker: And then, you know, some of this is fine.
Speaker: Like some people just meditate all the time and do Zen stuff.
Speaker: And then some people, you know, preach like the good things that are in the Bible that Jesus said, love thy neighbor, that sort of thing.
Speaker: But either way, I feel like, like a baptism is just like, you are this.
Speaker: And they'll go back to say, well, we're saving their soul kind of thing.
Speaker: So it's just like, it's such a complicated thing.
Speaker: And I agree that people need to be able to be old enough to make these decisions because everybody needs to think back to you when they were 18 and what you were thinking.
Speaker: I mean, if you think about it, if you read the Bible, Jesus was baptized when he was 30.
Speaker: So it's like it's like he took his time, right?
Speaker: I mean, of course there's a lot there's a lot to be said there but um just I'm joking but that's the point, right?
Speaker: I really believe that religion or religious choices should be made only by adults even if it's just just about adults or young adults but when you're when you're under 18
Speaker: what do you know about life?
Speaker: I would argue, what do you know about life for a long, up until a year of maybe 40, right?
Speaker: Or 30.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, yeah.
Speaker: Some people, I got married when I was 30, so.
Speaker: Especially now that we live in life where, you know, it took so much longer for, like we did live a period of life where things were kind of simple and easy.
Speaker: I mean, not for everybody, of course, but let's say in the West, right?
Speaker: I mean, I really think that, you know, I'm going to be 45 this year, but I'm like the 35 of my father, right?
Speaker: Because I had a more or less pampered life, with the exception of the last few years, I would say.
Speaker: But apart from that, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: You're right, though.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Are you seeing some of the comments?
Speaker: Is anything interesting?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I think that Carolina Garcia is saying, I'm Catholic and completed confirmation, which is a choice you make as an adult to choose the Catholic path.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Well, it's interesting.
Speaker: You say, Carolina, it happens for you around 18.
Speaker: In Italy, we were forced to go to confirmation at 12.
Speaker: And I discovered Crowley instead.
Speaker: So
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: But I agree with you.
Speaker: Confirmation should happen at 18.
Speaker: And I mean, we can argue that at 18, maybe you're still very young.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're still I mean, you're you're an adult.
Speaker: You're a young adult, but life hasn't had its way with you for most people.
Speaker: Then, of course, there's always exceptions.
Speaker: Anyway, we've been we've been rambling.
Speaker: It's good, though, but we're learning a lot.
Speaker: I like it when somebody with knowledge rambles.
Speaker: It's not like you're rambling and nothing meaningful is coming out.
Speaker: A lot of meaning is coming out of it.
Speaker: So so somebody said earlier that you have the best rambles.
Speaker: Yeah, I do.
Speaker: People on the best rants.
Speaker: So yes, I appreciate the rants.
Speaker: So it was early in the chat.
Speaker: Yeah, I do go for rambles, yeah.
Speaker: I love that the limit magic mixes in all these different things.
Speaker: And the funny thing, not the funny thing, but the interesting thing is that a lot of us who are magically inclined kind of just have the inkling to do this stuff.
Speaker: You do a great meditation here.
Speaker: about going into a tarot card as a visualization.
Speaker: You know, you can give away as much as you would like, but what is, can you explain that to somebody?
Speaker: Like, how does that help somebody go into a liminal state or create something?
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: So first of all, I should, you know, forward this by saying that everything that pertains to visualization can come to you either very simply or you can struggle with it.
Speaker: And this is something that I really didn't realize up until I started teaching these subjects.
Speaker: Because actually one of my best students is Logan, and he suffers of one is called aphantasia.
Speaker: So he cannot really visualize very well.
Speaker: He closes his eyes and there's kind of like blackness.
Speaker: I close my eyes and there's words there.
Speaker: And it's always been like this, right?
Speaker: Still, no matter if you suffer for profentasia or aphantasia, so if you're very good at seeing things with your eyes closed or not, learning to visualize means really learning to sit still
Speaker: in silence and instead of projecting your gaze outward and always looking what's around you trying to project going with your gaze inward try to find what's happening inside of you and you will discover that even if you don't see anything there you will soon start maybe hearing uh and i don't mean hearing with your with your with your ears like hearing feeling all that you know immense world universe that really exists inside of you now
Speaker: In this universe, and this is something that was codified much better than I can ever do by Carl Gustav Jung, the famous psychologist, there are what we call archetypes.
Speaker: There are some ideas that are just shared by all of us that belong to the human species.
Speaker: All of us humans share these archetypes.
Speaker: You can think of them like the mother, the father, the crone, the maiden.
Speaker: uh you can you can think like the vampire the the dragon the unicorn all this is images that are very strong that you kind of always known they exist when you see them as a as a child for the first time there's something that that clicks with you that's kind of more of a memory than something you just learned for the first time now
Speaker: The tarot card, the tarot deck, is based on these archetypes.
Speaker: Everything you see in these cards, in the tarot cards, are representations, symbolic representations of these archetypes.
Speaker: So one of the exercises you find pretty early on in the book is learning how to just get a card in front of you.
Speaker: and first of all try to you know to analyze whatever is there right and this works maybe better for those decks that are very um they're very like rich with imagery like the thought deck from uh alice crowley lady freda harris
Speaker: But in general, like every image heavy deck will do.
Speaker: And the idea is that you just want to, first of all, look at them, look at all the details, then close your eyes and see what happens if you, with your mind's eye, you see yourself stepping into the card.
Speaker: And of course, you should be able to, how do you say, to...
Speaker: to learn how to control your breathing first and these are all exercises that come earlier in the book right control your breathing learning how to have a posture because like you know sitting with the spine erect is important if you have problem you know when you're back that's fine but you can you can lay down as long as you lay down on a on a surface that's kind of like it's not like those beds that go like this like it was very comfy bed you need good spine support you need a good mattress guys
Speaker: exactly the idea is that you want to have your spine erect uh and then you just like control your breathing and the idea is that as you do these two things no matter if you can visualize or not visualize at all it will be easier to wrap your mind around the idea of you know remembering what you saw in the card and then just really like stepping into the card now when you step into the card
Speaker: What happens is that maybe the first time nothing happens, right?
Speaker: The second time nothing happens.
Speaker: If you keep at it though, you will notice that at some point,
Speaker: Those archetypes that are encoded in the card, they will start making themselves present to you.
Speaker: That doesn't mean that you will hear a voice or a spirit will appear in front of you or nothing like this.
Speaker: It means that in your inside inner eye, you will start to get feelings, get emotions, get body sensations out of it.
Speaker: And all of this actually will help you create
Speaker: a series of experiences that will help you getting to know more about who you are.
Speaker: Because as I said, as I told you before we started this, like the tarot really is a set of archetypes that tell you your story, not just the story of who you are right now, but pretty much like the
Speaker: the path you could go on if you ever would decide to go on an initiatory path.
Speaker: And so learning these experiences and learning to interiorize these archetypes will become very useful when then you move on to the next exercises in the book, which can be a little bit more, will feel a little bit more magical, pentagram exercises or hexagram exercises, and then moving on to the telemic magic, which is a little bit more complex.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: It's a fun thing.
Speaker: Yes, for sure.
Speaker: And it's something, interestingly enough, I would do, I've just always been fascinated with cards.
Speaker: As I mentioned to Marco and some other people before, that my grandma used to read cards with a deck of playing cards.
Speaker: And I remember sneaking in one night and I got caught because I was being nosy and she yelled at me to go back in the room.
Speaker: It's none of my business.
Speaker: She was Catholic.
Speaker: She wasn't supposed to be doing that, right?
Speaker: And a lot of my family didn't even know she did that.
Speaker: And before I left from Arizona to Alaska, she was like,
Speaker: She just spilled it all to me like you have these gifts and I wanted to teach you.
Speaker: But, you know, your mom wasn't comfortable with it.
Speaker: And, you know, so but the so I've been fascinated with just holding cards and learning to shuffle them and, you know, getting the first decaturial cards.
Speaker: Like it's easy if you're an imaginative person to step into it.
Speaker: Like you said, some people have to work at it, but it's completely attainable.
Speaker: And you walk people like kind of like baby steps in the book.
Speaker: which is great.
Speaker: And it starts with breath work and it starts with like, it starts with expectations and it starts with breath work.
Speaker: And I love that towards the end of the book, you're like, look, like, like if you're not, you know, you, you are going to have to work because some people will get on, you know, TikTok and be like five steps to manifest ABC, you know?
Speaker: And it's just like, people are wondering why it's not working.
Speaker: You know, you could literally like, you know, and I get like, yes, affirmations.
Speaker: It's kind of like, you have to say these things.
Speaker: You have to visualize, I get it.
Speaker: But there's a little more that goes into it if you really want to transcend within yourself, which sounds crazy to say.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: I think that in the book I say that, you know, learning magic is akin to training and then running a marathon.
Speaker: It's not a sprint.
Speaker: It's a marathon, right?
Speaker: So if you want to have magic work for you, you have to put down the hours for training.
Speaker: And then once you start, you have to keep going because, you know, you will get if you learn stamina and endurance, if you put down that preparatory work, you will get to the end.
Speaker: But it's not a sprint.
Speaker: um i grew up you know i'm thinking about you know really in the 90s and then 2000s there were a lot of this magic well i guess like pretty talk manifestation kind of videos it was about you know like learn invoke belial and become a living god yeah that that's a grift that was there were people not gonna name names but those are people that are there to extract money of you
Speaker: uh i sell courses and books and i will tell you it's long it's boring a lot of times uh it's very exciting at other times but it's really like you the first six months it's it's just a grind right you have to do you have to really really really set yourself to to just it's almost like you know if you ever gone to the gym right and if you've never gone to the gym and you want to lift weights
Speaker: Well, the first few months are going to suck because it's just like you have no strength, you have no conditioning, and everything seems impossible.
Speaker: But then it works, right?
Speaker: Then you see the difference in your body.
Speaker: Your body changes, and you can always start taking more and more weights, and everything gets better.
Speaker: That's exactly the same with magic.
Speaker: There's no shortcuts.
Speaker: That's how it is.
Speaker: I think I'm really bad at selling my courses, but that's it.
Speaker: Well.
Speaker: No, I think that like you said, with anything that is meaningful, it comes with practice and understanding and learning.
Speaker: And you can't just like get this injected into you and then it works, you know, and we're so we're part of the society that's like, I need information in 30 seconds.
Speaker: I need this quickly.
Speaker: I need that quickly.
Speaker: And we've lost the art of slowing down and being present, which is one of the hardest things that you'll do when you start a magical practice.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: committing to something is another thing that we're bad at now.
Speaker: You know, you're committing to these times in the day to do your practice.
Speaker: And I found it interesting that you have these, you know, morning, afternoon, sunset, and then at nighttime, these different poses that you do like to these gods, you know, and it's beautiful because for some reason, inherently, as a little, as a little girl, my grandpa said I would go stand like in the morning and like have my hands out in the sun.
Speaker: He said, it was like,
Speaker: My dad's side is Native American, so he's like, you're like your Indian side.
Speaker: They say it's Indian back in the day.
Speaker: But my dad's Native American, so he's like, you're like your dad's side.
Speaker: So it's interesting that these kind of things go through each people's belief system.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Probably did a great job of just collecting all the greatest parts of some of these belief systems and incorporating it into the dilemma.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: That's exactly what he wanted to do.
Speaker: I would argue that
Speaker: you know maybe a lot of what he was doing a lot of telema might feel appropriative in this day and age because crowley also i mean it wasn't the only one right i mean think of theosophy was doing the same amorc was like you know the american rosicrucians were doing the same um the kybalion you know very famous book don't read the kybalion but you know it was doing the same the point is that benji didn't just say that benji listen me and benji talking about the kybalion
Speaker: I will fight the Kibali until the end.
Speaker: It's not hermetic.
Speaker: It's basically Christian science.
Speaker: It's manifestation.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Well, now I have to reread it with a different lens.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I would say everybody should read it.
Speaker: It's important to read books.
Speaker: Never not read books, but it's not it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: But the point is that, you know, like I would argue that, yeah, a lot of the dilemma will feel appropriate because the reality is that it's great that we're having these discussions in this day and age, right?
Speaker: It's great that, you know, we are going to accept that a lot of this, a lot of our culture as, you know, I'm a white male.
Speaker: I was growing in the West.
Speaker: A lot of my culture was definitely appropriate, imperialistic, colonialistic.
Speaker: It's all true.
Speaker: However,
Speaker: I don't see why we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Speaker: Some people think, you know what, I don't care.
Speaker: I want to I want to throw it out and that's fine.
Speaker: I don't see it because I know it works.
Speaker: And I know that if I show the the correct respect to these terms, I mean, I have a part in the book that I say that, you know, we use Kabbalah with the Q. It's not Jewish mysticism.
Speaker: We should actually remember that there is a real
Speaker: a real very complex system of Bible exegesis, which is the true mystical Kabbalah.
Speaker: If you read The Unfortune, she won't tell you that.
Speaker: Crowley won't tell you that.
Speaker: But I think that in 2023, it's my duty to tell my readers, what we're doing, it's a derivation of something else.
Speaker: We should show respect to every region.
Speaker: But at the same time, it works.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: I'm not going to drop it.
Speaker: Think about how watered down we are as people now.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like there's some people that are like, you know, you can trace your whole lineage.
Speaker: Like my dad's side is, you know, Native American.
Speaker: And it's like to get my car to say, hi, I'm Native American.
Speaker: You know, like people are like we had we we couldn't trace back a certain part.
Speaker: We can only trace back so far because the Spaniards had kind of rearranged things to put it nicely.
Speaker: And we had to have like go back in time essentially to find people that were still alive that still knew my family members in order for us to be accepted as a tribe because we didn't live on the reservation.
Speaker: They migrated to the city.
Speaker: So my family did.
Speaker: So it was it's interesting how people are so angry about cultural appropriation.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I'm not saying that there isn't an argument saying that this should not be done.
Speaker: But at the same time, some of us don't know who we are.
Speaker: You know, so if I'm adopted by somebody and they raised me a certain way, but my lineage doesn't reflect that, like genetically, are you going to tell me no?
Speaker: Or not only that, what if nothing else resonates with you?
Speaker: But, you know, Crowley does or maybe, you know, something else does.
Speaker: So I feel like we have to hold space for those people because shouldn't the greater goal to help people
Speaker: come home into themselves versus this is mine, this is not mine.
Speaker: And also, did anybody talk to the plant spirits if we're allowed to not use these?
Speaker: I mean, I get it.
Speaker: I get it that things have been bastardized and appropriated.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I'm not saying that's not happening.
Speaker: But at the same time, I think that we're all melting to a certain point where it's going to be hard to keep things pure and only this way.
Speaker: And I argue, I don't think, you know, humanity has always grown through syncretism to cultures, you know, meeting and mixing.
Speaker: And I think that's, I mean, maybe that's also why, I mean, that might be my bias, but I think some of the most beautiful people out there are, you know, mixed race because, you know, you get the best of both worlds, to be fair, right?
Speaker: And again, I'm, I don't know, 12 generations Italian, so, you know,
Speaker: i go back to many many years ago so you know i'm definitely i'm definitely not mixed so the point is uh i don't know we're rambling but the point is that you know it's important to to accept that you know a lot of the western exotic tradition and definitely dilemma is syncretic uh
Speaker: It's important to recognize those roots.
Speaker: But then if something works, I'll use it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's my stance at least, right?
Speaker: Let me see here.
Speaker: Something from the comments.
Speaker: Somebody was asking if the kybalion is a new thought.
Speaker: Yes, it is new thought.
Speaker: Don't go.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Prishu, I think you are muted.
Speaker: I said earmuffs met Benji again we're talking about the Kabbalion um there's just so much out there you know um gosh I think a lot about your book you guys just have to get it if you're interested in any of this even if you don't plan plan I'm sorry I'm finding like this cold and kids being sick all this stuff so I probably said super weird today but you should get it if you're curious if the image of Baphomet scares you maybe you need to dig into that because
Speaker: We have been taught things through pop culture and Hollywood and through religious conditioning that we didn't choose to think that something is evil because it's different.
Speaker: So back to my other question, what is Baphomet?
Speaker: What does it represent?
Speaker: What does it meant to represent?
Speaker: I mean, we have it here, right?
Speaker: So Baphomet, this image is a new version of the classic image that was put together, drawn by Eliphas Levy, a French occultist in the mid 1800s.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So first of all, we should say, where does the name Baphomet comes from?
Speaker: We really don't know in the sense that the first traces of this name come from the Templars.
Speaker: When the order of the Temple, the one, you know, like the monastic and knightly order that
Speaker: conquered Jerusalem during the Crusades and then lost Jerusalem and then conquered it again.
Speaker: Anyway, basically spent almost 200 years in Jerusalem, becoming a very wealthy and powerful political entity in those times.
Speaker: They were eventually accused and killed by the King of France and the Pope in 1308.
Speaker: on the on the accusation that they became uh pretty much satanist right again satanic panic once again and during these um the the the confessions that were extracted by torque with torture so you know you can imagine how much of these confessions were real
Speaker: They did admit to idolatry and the fact that they discovered this idol in the Holy Land called Baphomet, and they became worshippers of Baphomet because it was this image that brought them riches and power, etc.
Speaker: Now, a lot of linguists, a lot of historians over the last 1800s have been trying to figure out who was this Baphomet.
Speaker: And the reality is that Baphomet might just be a corruption of Mohammed, right?
Speaker: So the fact that what's really likely is that some Templars or all the Templars became syncretic with the religion of their enemies, the religion of Saladin.
Speaker: Islam, right?
Speaker: And of course, who is the prophet of Islam is Muhammad, which is kind of seen as a very, it's not seen as a god, of course, but it's one of the most revered figures in Islam.
Speaker: Almost like it is the
Speaker: the intermediary with Allah with God and so it is can be it's possible that you know this happened syncretism like we were just discussing right and and it's possible that you know these confessions extracted with torture kind of uh you know the form this name from Muhammad into Mohammed into Baphomet okay
Speaker: Now, fast forward to the 1800s, Eliphas Levi, which is one of the most important fathers of the Western esoteric tradition as we know it right now, he was the writer of the Dogma Rituel de L'Automagie, which is a dogma and ritual of the high magic.
Speaker: Kind of like a precursor to Crowley.
Speaker: Crowley would even say that Eliphaz Levy was his previous incarnation.
Speaker: So basically, he was trying to put together a syncretic system of magic.
Speaker: And he decided to use this name from the Templar history because the Templars were still seen as almost like a mystical order that mixed together religious fervor, military might, and a sort of magical knowledge in order to become successful and powerful for 200 years.
Speaker: And so he decided to use the name Baphomet.
Speaker: And he decided to, once again, create this kind of image, which really is, I'll show you, it is a symbol of the opposites.
Speaker: The two things that come to one, you have a man with breasts,
Speaker: You have the figure of an animal on the body of a man.
Speaker: You have somebody who's seated on earth but has also wings, so he can go where he can fly.
Speaker: And he has these things here written, solve, well, you can see it, solve and coagula.
Speaker: That's Latin.
Speaker: It means to dissolve and to bring it together.
Speaker: Now, this idea, this...
Speaker: this interplay between opposites, this interplay between the highest and the lowest, the man and the animal, the divine and the human, the male and the female.
Speaker: It is alchemy, and alchemy really is the core of magic.
Speaker: It's this science and art of transmutation, of transformation, of bringing together two separate things that become one thing that's bigger of the sum of the two together.
Speaker: OK, that's what Baphomet really is.
Speaker: It's a symbol of the union of the opposites.
Speaker: So beautiful.
Speaker: So beautiful.
Speaker: I've never heard anybody explain it so powerfully and beautifully before, you know, because I've been reading about I've been trying to figure it out, honestly, since I was a little like junior high girl that stumbled upon a satanic Bible.
Speaker: And their store, you know, so it has the image, you know, it has the pentagram with the head.
Speaker: And then of course, I go down the rabbit holes because I love to research things.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: You know, that's something that also, you know, was used by I mean, that that image, right?
Speaker: You know, the head of the baphomet, the head of the goat into the other than to inverted or averse pentagram.
Speaker: Once again, it's a symbol of the polarities, right?
Speaker: Really is a symbol of the highest and the lowest that comes together.
Speaker: It has been used by Anton LaVey in the Church of Satan.
Speaker: It's absolutely true.
Speaker: But it really, it's something that, it's a syncretism.
Speaker: It's something that happened later.
Speaker: And the beautiful thing with symbols is that nobody owns them.
Speaker: They have a life of their own and people can come along and change the meaning of symbols.
Speaker: Think of the swastika.
Speaker: The swastika started as a symbol of the sun.
Speaker: It really is a symbol of the sun still in Hinduism.
Speaker: Unfortunately,
Speaker: We cannot really use it anymore because if you see a swastika, you will think of Nazis.
Speaker: That's how it is.
Speaker: Symbols, unfortunately, can be co-opted.
Speaker: They have their own lives, right?
Speaker: They can change, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: But the core of the God of Mendes, of Baphomet, it really is a symbol of the union of the bestial and the animal, the high and the low, the opposites coming together, dissolving alchemically to form something that's higher than their
Speaker: what they are to do there on their own, right?
Speaker: I can understand that can be a scary symbol, especially if you live, if all you need or if you know your life is maybe some kind of branches of very reactionary Christianity.
Speaker: i can get it um crowley insisted on using this sort of shocking techniques because dilemma really was meant to be um the shock to the system right it really is meant to be something that comes along and kind of gives you a jolt
Speaker: almost like, hey, wake up.
Speaker: It doesn't tell you, you know, if it's not your will to reject Christianity, you don't have to reject Christianity or Judaism or Islam or Hinduism.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It's more about having a jolt, a shock to the system so you can look around yourself and make the decision for yourself.
Speaker: So these symbols or the use of sex in ritual or the use of maybe some sort of like strong imagery really is about that.
Speaker: Hey, wake up.
Speaker: Maybe you don't want to wake up.
Speaker: Well, I'm going to show you a lot of things that are going to make you wake up and maybe make you think about it, right?
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: No, I love that.
Speaker: No, some people need that to kind of to realize that there's more than what we've experienced.
Speaker: You know, it still happens even once you're studying it.
Speaker: There's an interesting question.
Speaker: Mark Rance is saying Baphometis means baptism of wisdom, ancient Greek, I think.
Speaker: Yes, Baphometis really means baptism of wisdom.
Speaker: And it is from that book 1818, Mysterium Baphometum Revelatum.
Speaker: However, it's one.
Speaker: possible etymology.
Speaker: There are many others.
Speaker: I think this is from Burgstahl, if I'm not mistaken, that wrote that book.
Speaker: And it's one of them.
Speaker: The reality is that when you look at it, it kind of sounds good, right?
Speaker: It could be.
Speaker: But there's many others, right?
Speaker: If people are curious, I can actually put there's
Speaker: I did write down all the various things.
Speaker: There's another one that thinks that all the letters are like, basically notaricum.
Speaker: That is, each letter means another word, or you can actually deconstruct the word to make mean anything.
Speaker: Because the reality there is that, at the end of the day,
Speaker: It's a powerful symbol.
Speaker: It's something that makes you think.
Speaker: It's something that leaves you with wonder.
Speaker: And this magic should leave you with wonder, should make you think, go and search for your truth.
Speaker: I'm not saying, you know, do your own research because those things go wrong.
Speaker: But the point is that it's surely you wonder and the will to go and explore these ideas.
Speaker: The book from 1818, it has good ideas.
Speaker: I like him.
Speaker: I like it a lot.
Speaker: But I cannot tell you that that's exactly it.
Speaker: because there are so many other possibilities there.
Speaker: So once again, I will possibly put in the comments of this video a very long, you're going to be bored by that, but a very long article that I wrote on the website of the group I lead where you're going to be bored about the baffle method.
Speaker: You'd be like halfway through.
Speaker: I did put your website in the description.
Speaker: So if anybody's interested in checking that out and you got links to all sorts of amazing articles,
Speaker: I told you I would only keep you for an hour, but I have one more question.
Speaker: Can we do that?
Speaker: Please go ahead.
Speaker: So and I like to ask, like pretty much all authors this that are open minded and write about different different sorts of things that might be deemed controversial out of all the things you've written about or taught.
Speaker: What is the most controversial topic that you have either written about or spoken about ever?
Speaker: So I would say that right now, even talking about, even being public about being a telemite, it's controversial because you're getting a lot of friction from this new wave of satanic panic, right?
Speaker: But I think that the most controversial thing that, I mean, the thing that generated the most friction, I don't know if you want to go there, but it's been everything I wrote about magic and politics, really.
Speaker: i'm not a leftist but i'm an anti-fascist okay very i feel very strongly about that uh and possibly because i'm italian and possibly because i you know in the in the late 90s i was a young goth kid in in rome and uh 90 of my time was was you know
Speaker: was running away from fascists, was trying to beat me to death because, you know, fascism never left Italy.
Speaker: Like, that's something that a lot of people don't realize.
Speaker: But possibly this is why I'm so worried about, you know, whatever is happening in the world right now.
Speaker: So, you know... I'll pay attention.
Speaker: You're human.
Speaker: You should be worried.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that the most controversial is that every time I try to make the point that Telema is political in the sense that it's not left or right.
Speaker: It's not conservative or liberal.
Speaker: A lot of people will try and make the point that Telema should be conservative.
Speaker: Telema should be ultra liberal.
Speaker: I think that Telema should strike the balance in the middle.
Speaker: And that means that as telemites, we should always try to swing that pendulum on the opposite direction, in the sense that if right now we're living in very strong conservative times, then maybe it's time to try and push that pendulum back to the center.
Speaker: But it has to be in the center.
Speaker: If you go into two points of the spectrum, you're not in a good spot.
Speaker: That's the most controversial thing ever.
Speaker: It's not about sex magic.
Speaker: It's not about that.
Speaker: And I will say very openly, I'm going to say it right now that yes, part of my ritual includes sex, includes, you know, anointing my, the holy buffer with specific fluids and ingesting it.
Speaker: That's not the most controversial thing that people ask me about it.
Speaker: It's always when I speak of politics.
Speaker: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: People it's interesting because everybody will say something different, you know, I asked Mitch Horowitz that same question.
Speaker: I was like so surprised he said yes.
Speaker: I'm always nervous to approach authors because my channel is so small.
Speaker: I don't really promote myself.
Speaker: Like I don't know how to promote myself.
Speaker: I'm just doing this so I can agree with it.
Speaker: I think you're doing quite well.
Speaker: You're not that small.
Speaker: Trust me.
Speaker: I just love talking to people.
Speaker: This is kind of like, you know, my step, like I can't talk.
Speaker: My husband's art.
Speaker: He's not into this sort of thing, you know, or he's not in the UFOs.
Speaker: So
Speaker: He just like lets me do my thing and his mom is witchy.
Speaker: So she's like, just let her do her thing, you know?
Speaker: So she tells him, but you know, it's kind of, it's refreshing to talk to other people that are interested in these sorts of topics, especially people like you that have studied this for so long and have been into this for so long.
Speaker: And I think that these, you could see, darn green screen.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The book is definitely worth going into.
Speaker: I plan on, I'm finishing a magical program right now.
Speaker: Um, another book and it's working with Hecate and it's, you know, um, excuse my American accent for butchering every word.
Speaker: That's not American or English, English American.
Speaker: Cause I know I'm, I just cannot say cool words.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Like when you said the French word earlier, I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker: No, Hecate is fine.
Speaker: Hecate is fine.
Speaker: I mean, the reality there is that.
Speaker: It always sounds cooler when somebody has an accent and says, but I do plan on going through the book as a practice because
Speaker: It was the exercises you have in here.
Speaker: I'm not going to give away too many, but it's just, it involves you like when you draw the tree of life and study it and then it involves your body at different times of the day.
Speaker: And I was already burning like, like smudge at these sorts of days because I was just drawn to the sun and it's different positions naturally.
Speaker: So, so check out the book guides, even if you're not like, you know, into a practice.
Speaker: And if you have been studying magic, like I have, but haven't like nailed down one
Speaker: specific kind, I think that this book will kind of help you bring order.
Speaker: But sometimes I just need order.
Speaker: Sometimes I'm all over the place.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, there's my errors, there's my crystals.
Speaker: And then I'm like, oh, there's my, you know, my inherent stuff that I learned.
Speaker: And then I've got this anterior stuff creeping in.
Speaker: I'm like, sometimes I just want to focus on one thing and learn how to grow that way with those different techniques, because maybe that'll take me somewhere, even though it's familiar.
Speaker: It'll take me somewhere I haven't been before within myself or even in the cosmos on accident.
Speaker: You know, so I love I love your approach to this.
Speaker: I have Marcos, you know, his website in the description and there you can find everything about him, all his cool classes he teaches.
Speaker: and you have classes up.
Speaker: Once you teach a class, you have it on there like for like on-demand sort of thing or is that kind of like- Yeah, I mean, basically right now, I restructured it into be everything on demand right there.
Speaker: Basically, if you go to magic.markovisconti.org, you will see a series of options.
Speaker: There are, I think, like three or four one-hour introductory class on Croly and Magic, on Babylon, which is a very important figure in Telemma.
Speaker: One on esoteric Freemasonry.
Speaker: I'm a Freemason as well.
Speaker: I really like it.
Speaker: So I decided, you know, why don't we explain a little bit about what is Freemasonry as well.
Speaker: And then, yes, then there's like something that's a bit...
Speaker: like more like intensive um for instance you have like a one course which is called magic without tears and it's pretty much like over three months it's kind of the book i love that name by the way it always makes me smile
Speaker: It's kind of the book but expanded.
Speaker: And basically, what I did is I ran it the first time between September and December last year.
Speaker: And basically, every week, we would have like a one hour, one hour and a half class online.
Speaker: And then you would have a little bit of work to do.
Speaker: And then the reality that you can join it right now, you can purchase it, and then all the material is recorded.
Speaker: And you can go on your own pace.
Speaker: And then what I'm doing right now, I started like a month ago, this six months exploration of the Thought Tarot, which is the specific tarot deck that Aleister Crowley and Lady Free Diaries created together.
Speaker: most of you will, if you see the image, you recognize it.
Speaker: It's iconic.
Speaker: And what I'm doing here is that it's kind of the same approach, you know, a little bit of lessons, written lessons, and then live streams where I go into pathworking this time, right?
Speaker: Remember when, like, the idea of, like, going into the card?
Speaker: Well, I'm guiding you into each card.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: and so and so basically from that point you you kind of get the card itself teaching what they what the card means and then of course after that you can i i post the script i post the commentary uh and so by the end of basically we just started people can join at any time right yes you know if you join at any time from from since we started like you you're gonna have a little bit of
Speaker: catch up to do.
Speaker: But like I said, everything is recorded.
Speaker: So if you have interest in the Thought Deck or in Tarot in general, join us.
Speaker: This first cohort will keep going every week till July.
Speaker: And then once again, all the material will be ready, recorded, so people can go back to it anytime they want.
Speaker: also whenever you you get one of these classes you also get access to the community uh it's we i run it on mighty networks it's kind of like facebook without the boomers did i say that out loud i think so i'm learning all sorts of things in my age so uh the boomer was one that i learned last year because my teenage neighbor so no boomers straightforward magic
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: I have to give you a compliment, though, about your book.
Speaker: You have a QR code in it that has multimedia files, which is needed because every time I get one of these books, it's like, OK, you're going to do this.
Speaker: And then I'm like, do I need to record myself reading it to me?
Speaker: Or you have to go to the website and you have to buy these things separately.
Speaker: So basically, at the end of the book, there's a QR code or a link.
Speaker: Unfortunately, I'm not going to put it on screen.
Speaker: Obviously.
Speaker: For instance, you could join on the network and see all the... Basically, I recorded all the exercises.
Speaker: So if you're curious about how to pronounce a word or if you're curious about how doing the pentagram ritual, well, there's a video there that will show you in that case what my partner does because I recorded her doing it.
Speaker: But there's another one.
Speaker: That's helpful, though.
Speaker: That's helpful because I remember first reading about that when I was like a teenager in other books.
Speaker: And I was like, what if I do this the wrong way?
Speaker: Like, I get confused.
Speaker: So the videos definitely help.
Speaker: So thank you for that.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So many authors charge extra for that sort of thing.
Speaker: And I think that this is just so good for people.
Speaker: Your book is so good.
Speaker: Like I, the first thing I wasn't there, like, like I wanted to, I wanted to start messaging you so fast.
Speaker: And I was like, no, you're going to have a mom, leave the guy alone.
Speaker: You cannot rave about his book till you have a mom.
Speaker: So it's very generous of you and very helpful to people that this might be 100% new to, or even like me, like I've read it in the past.
Speaker: I was like, this is too much.
Speaker: I have nobody to clarify.
Speaker: So I'm just not going to do it.
Speaker: It's making it.
Speaker: Like what I like about the opportunity to do that is that, you know, you know, that QR code, you know, at the end of the book, you do get access to the network, right?
Speaker: So if you want to ask questions and it's already been happening, right?
Speaker: Because a lot of people have been joining a lot of people in buying the books.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: um people joining us again hey can i ask you a question of course like that's the best way to get a hold of me because yes i'm very active on social media i'm not one of those people that you know you don't know where where they are but you know if the best way if you have a question about magic you got the book you can get for free on the network and you're gonna ask me questions and if i'm not there there are gonna be people part of my community that i mean i can see some of them here in the chat hello logan
Speaker: Thank you for coming.
Speaker: I see a lot of people that I've never seen, so thank you for coming.
Speaker: They will be able to answer the question if I'm not around, but I'm kind of always around.
Speaker: I'm too old to go out anymore, so I'm not terminally online.
Speaker: Thank you so much again for your time and for talking about this.
Speaker: We could have talked about some of these things for a while.
Speaker: She threw a Lego in here.
Speaker: And again, I apologize about the kids, guys.
Speaker: This was not in the plan.
Speaker: But, you know, don't worry.
Speaker: It happened.
Speaker: So luckily, I get to stay home with them and also be able to do this from time to time.
Speaker: And I love doing it during the daytime because I feel like more people engage.
Speaker: And also, you know, but again, with kids, it's like they're going to be screaming.
Speaker: So thank you guys for living through that.
Speaker: Thank you, Marco, for living through that.
Speaker: yelling about lego screaming bloody murder um whatever they're doing out there but go to his website or go to amazon get the book i'm gonna leave my review tonight i don't like leaving the review until after i have the person on because i don't want you to read it and be like like i didn't like that but it's all good i promise um where are you going to be next is there anything else you wanted to mention before we leave
Speaker: So basically, I will be, oh, that's a good question.
Speaker: Like this weekend on Friday, I'm going to be in Leeds up north here in the UK to do this, but live, right?
Speaker: And then there's something else that was supposed to be announced today, but hasn't been announced yet.
Speaker: So I cannot really announce it.
Speaker: But it's another event here in the UK in Leamington Spa, which is, that's interesting, the Lego ritual of the pentagram.
Speaker: OK, that's a good idea.
Speaker: Anyway, there will be an event here in the UK in a month, in one time.
Speaker: I will announce it properly in Leamington Spa.
Speaker: Leamington Spa is the birthplace of Aleister Crowley.
Speaker: So it was going to be nice to bring the book where he was born.
Speaker: And then there's something, you know, I'm trying to make something work for the United States.
Speaker: I haven't been on a plane in so long that I don't even know if I want to be on a plane anymore.
Speaker: But, you know, there's been like this idea of moving, doing some things in the United States, maybe Los Angeles, maybe New York, maybe Chicago.
Speaker: New York.
Speaker: I'm on the email names for something.
Speaker: You have to be selfish.
Speaker: You have to go to the East Coast.
Speaker: If I'm able to do it, I'll try to do East Coast, West Coast, and maybe somewhere in the middle.
Speaker: Maybe two in the middle, up in Chicago and Austin, something like that.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I have ideas.
Speaker: But it's more about... Yeah, it's complicated.
Speaker: But everybody will know when it's ready.
Speaker: Follow him on social media.
Speaker: Go on his website.
Speaker: Follow him everywhere you can.
Speaker: because he's doing all this cool stuff and this book is going to grow and I see like tons of little filmites just popping up around the world because of it and um taking agency in their own life because of it so thank you so much for coming on hang out backstage when I end the broadcast um and we have lots of now we started a lego rant in the chat so yep Hogwarts Legoland I loved it that's like the only Twilight playing with like
Speaker: Legos.
Speaker: Anyways.
Speaker: I think I need to do this Lego series.
Speaker: So Mark is coming out with his old Lego, the Thelemic Temple Lego.
Speaker: I'm just kidding, guys.
Speaker: He's not actually doing that, but he should because we would all buy it.
Speaker: Thank you, everybody, for joining, listening now or later on audio only.
Speaker: Come check out the YouTube.
Speaker: And if you are wanting to listen to this, I am now on Spotify, Google,
Speaker: and apple how did i forget about apple you know but i'm all the things now so i will have this uploaded within the week and yes and i'll see you guys uh for book club which i will post the actual date because i have two things to confirm for that but we're reading uh we are reading earth lights revelation which is about different sorts of lights and how people need their ufos but they might be earth lights and natural causes but then they might not be because that's how ufos are
Speaker: It could even get more confusing the Crowley at times in UFO land.
Speaker: So thank you so much again.
Speaker: I will see you all soon.
Speaker: Have a good night or evening, middle of day, whatever you are.
