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That's allbrds dot com. Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain smith. For the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into the show. In last week's episode, The Spaces That Linger, we journeyed to the grounds of Bleskan House on the banks of Lochnets in the Highlands of Scotland. Although the house was long been the subject of dark intrigue, it is perhaps best known for its
association with author and occultist Alister Crowley. The house had been selected by Crowley as the perfect place to conduct a magic ritual known as the Abramelon Operation The operation is, in principle, a spell to make contact with one's guardian angel, one that also requires calling forth the demons known as the Twelve Kings of Hell. The invocation required an ascetic concentration,
which was to last an obligatory six months. Failure to adhere to the correct time frame could some believed leave a gateway open for the demons to escape. Crowley is thought to have begun the ritual in the Easter of nineteen hundred, but famously left it incomplete. Four years later, Crowley would finally make contact with his guardian angel. It was an event that would change his life forever, and one that has established Crowley in legend far beyond any
of his peers. After breaking off the ritual, Crowley spent some time in Paris with his friend Samuel Mathers, only for their relationship to ultimately turn sour. He returned to Scotland and became friendly with a young painter known as Gerald Kelly. Kelly would later be known as Sir Gerald Kelly, President of the Royal Academy. After spending some time with Kelly at his family home in Strathpeffer in Scotland, Crowley met and became close to Gerald's sister, Rose Kelly, a
widower now betrothed unhappily to another man. In a characteristically impulsive gesture, Crowley suggested she married him to ward off the unwanted suitor. The pair eloped the following day, on August the twelfth, nineteen o three. Despite the apparent flippancy of the gesture, it would seem that Crowley, a man who had always been enthralled to his own heightened sense
of sexuality, felt a growing magnetism between them. Reveling in the scandalous behavior, Crowley and Rose returned to Boleskin House before embarking on an extended honeymoon to Cairo, and it is there that the story takes a peculiar turn. After arriving in Cairo, in what had become a feature of Crowley's life, Alister adopted the pseudonym Prince Choya Khan. The pair took up residence in an apartment which Crowley had
had partially converted to mimic an Egyptian temple. They told all who cared to listen that they had been granted the rank of prince and princess by an unnamed Eastern sultan. At some time, Crowley attempted a ritual for the benefit of Rose, who was by this point pregnant with Crowley's first child. The operation, known as the Bornless Ritual, is the liliminary invocation to the ars Goetia, which in turn forms the first book of the infamous Lesser Key of Solomon.
The book, also known as the Lemegaton, was compiled anonymously sometime in the seventeenth century and is considered a primary text of demonology, with the ars Goetier detailing no less than seventy two demons for invocation. It is not clear exactly what Crowley had intended with the ritual, though some suggest he had grown impatient with his new wife and had taken to teasing her with his magic obsession. However, after a short bout of chanting, Rose began acting strangely.
She had fallen into some kind of trance and had started to mutter something, They are waiting for you, she said. The irritated Crowley, who at this point, despite years of trying, had never actually made contact with any of the spirits he had tried to invoke, demanded to know who Rose was talking to. It was the ancient Egyptian god Horace, she replied, she told Crowley he had offended the god.
An incredulous Crowley took Rose immediately to the nearby Bulak Museum now known as the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities to identify the deity she claimed to be in communication with, Arriving shortly after at the museum, Rose proceeded to lead Crowley past a number of holy and ancient Egyptian artifacts before finally coming to a stop in front of an intricately decorated piece of wood known as a steely. More precisely, it was the Steely of Revealing and dated from around
six hundred and eighty BC. Sure Enough, the beautiful piece of funerary art on the right hand side depicts a recently deceased priest making an offering to the falcon headed god Ra Harakhti, an amalgamation of the Sun god Ra and Horace. Rose, at least to Crowley's mind, seemed to be telling the truth. Crowley was convinced further when he looked down to find the exhibition number of the artifact. The number was six six six six sixty six, as many will know, is equated with the number of the
beast as depicted in the Book of Revelation. The number has become synonymous with the Antichrist and Satan and all their dark and evil connotations. To Crowley, however, it meant something a little different. It was Crowley's mother who first labeled him the Beast, presumably in reaction to a young Crowley's burgeoning rejection of the family's puritanical beliefs. To Crowley, it was a label that he would gleefully come to embrace.
To some, it was evidence of Crowley's innate wickedness, but for others it spoke of nothing more than his refusal to accept what he saw as the arbitrary labels and morals of the Christian faith. The Moniker served ultimately as a symbol of Crowley's core belief, a belief that was soon to be articulated in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself, To make time for
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to communicate with Horace. On April the eighth, nineteen o four, Crowley commenced a new ritual, now under the guidance of Rose. A short time later, he heard a voice that seemed to be coming from behind his shoulder. Crowley later claimed the voice belonged to an entity known as I was who present entered itself as none other than Crowley's own guardian Angel, the same entity with which he had been
trying to communicate in Bleskin House. I was told Crowley that he was the messenger of Horace, and instructed Alister to be ready at twelve noon every day for the next three days in order to receive his word sure enough. Over the course of the next three days, I was as believed to have returned to speak to Crowley, who in turn wrote down every word that he received. When the three days were over, Crowley had before him the
document that would become his true legacy. The book was titled lieber l Vell Legis or the Book of the Law. Regardless of your belief or its true provenance, the text is a fascinating document which sets out Crowley's ideas for a brand new religion that he would later come to
call Theeleama, which is still followed and practiced today. As the author Colin Wilson points out, there is nothing particularly original about the text, comparing it as he does, to the far Superior Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, as well as pointing out its clear indebtedness to the philosophy of Nietzsche. However, it does suggest that Crowley was
more than the brainless charlatan his detractors would have him be. Certainly, for Crowley at least, the text was nothing less than the Bible for his new religion, an attempt to obliterate the reigning monotheistic religions and usher in a new epoch for man, one based on liberation without restriction, and one that above all implored people to follow their own path.
It is a philosophy perhaps best summed up by the book's most famous line, do what thou wilt should be the whole of the law, a basic idea that is often greatly misunderstood as the justification of selfish or immoral behavior, a situation or the more ironic, since what Crowley ultimately preached was the complete control of life for one's self, and not to have it defined by what other people
might project onto it. In the years that followed on from the Cairo trip, it is fair to say that Crowley lived a fairly colorful life, the extent to which will not be done justice in the time we have here. Suffice to say there are plenty of books and documentaries out there for anyone interested in finding out more about his life. It is also fair to say that much of his life was shrouded in controversy, and to many
some of it will seem unpalatable sadistic. Even his voracious commitment to the practice of sex magic and the insanely chaotic attempt to form a Thelema community on the island of Sicily are just two aspects that come to mind. But for me, it all comes back to the Book of the Law. Whether you believe that Crowley was blessed with genuine magic powers or not, and there are many who do, there is something deeply profound at the heart
of his belief that speaks to us all. For Crowley, magic was really just an expression of the power of human will. That anybody, in a sense could conduct magic, providing they had a sufficient control of their own will. In two thousand and four, Karla Hoff, lead economist of the World Bank, and Priyanka Pandy of Pennsylvania University conducted an extraordinary experiment for the World Bank titled Belief Systems
and Durable Inequalities, an Experimental investigation of Indian cast. The experiment asked three hundred and twenty one low cast and three twenty one high cast male junior high school students to perform a number of maze solving tasks under economic incentives. What the examiners found was nothing short of remarkable. When the individual's cast was not publicly announced, there were no
cast differences in performance. However, when the test subject was required to publicly announce their cast, the number of mazes solved by low cast boys dropped by a dramatic twenty
five percent. In other words, when the lower cast individuals were freed from the stigma or the label with which the surrounding environment and society had forced on them, they performed exactly the same as their higher cast appears, it's hard not to see this as a vindication of Crowley's beliefs, a glaring example of how often people can be made to feel they can only be the thing that they have been told they can be at the risk of
sounding glib. Is a reminder that for me, no religion, political party, media outlet, or social movement is the arbiter of what is and what isn't right. A reminder that we should never be afraid to be who we want to be in spite of how we feel the world
might want us to be. Crowley's do what Thou Wilt is a cry to look beyond social convention and the narrow definitions with which others might attempt to define us, encouraging each of us to exercise our right to determine who we are or should be on our own terms. If this series has been about anything in particular, it is to question what the truth really is. That the truth, and in a sense, the world can and will be manipulated.
And I don't say this because I want to encourage it necessarily, but rather to encourage people to remain vigilant, to question everything, and not just to believe what you are told, and above all to fight for your truth, because whoever controls that story controls you. But I must stress this is not a denigration of expertise or an attempt to encourage the scourge of anti intellectualism that has
been creeping into our society. If that later's report dismissing climate change is funded by a major petroleum conglomerate, you might want to think twice before quoting it to your friends. And when politicians start telling you to ignore the experts, it's worth considering just who might have the strongest ulterior motive. While writing this, I was reminded of a speech by the Sublime author David Foster Wallace that I believe has
parallels with some of what Crowley represented. The speech, which I urge anyone who hasn't heard it seek out online, is Foster Wallace's commencement speech to students of Kenyon College in Ohio in the United States. His message reminds us to value the totally obvious every day, even in the smallest of ways, to try to see all perspectives, and
to exercise control over what we think. It is a reminder that we have the power to choose what we pay attention to, and it is for us and us only to choose how we construct meaning from our experiences. As Foster Wallace says, if you really learn how to think, how to pay attention, then you'll know you have other options.
It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred on fire with the same force that lit the stars, love fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down, not that that mystical stuff is necessarily true. The only thing That is capital t true is that you get to decide how you're going to see it. That is true freedom. You get to decide what has meaning and
what doesn't. In short, you might say that true freedom is complete attention and awareness. For surely the alternative is unconsciousness. And yet there are, of course some who believe that the unconscious is the true consciousness. But that is another story. This episode concludes the first season of Unexplained, marking the final chapter in our present journey into the strange and mysterious.
I will be back later in the year with a brand new season where I'll be attempting something a little more ambitious, so please look out online for announcements about that. I one to once again thank each and every one of you who has found the time to listen to the show for rating and reviewing, and especially or your incredible messages of support. Thank you. All elements of Unexplained
are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to take care of yourself. To make time for you, Tell a doc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back
to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app, or visit teledoc dot com. Forward slash Unexplained Podcast today to get started. That's teladoc dot com slash Unexplained Podcast