Groucho: 00:22

Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. But there is nothing else. Life is an obscure oboe bumming a ride on the omnibus of art. Among the misty corridors of pine, and in those corridors I see figures, strange figures.

AP Strange: 01:04

Welcome back my friends to the AP Strange show. I am your host AP Strange. This is my show and this week's show is brought to you by the abyss. Not much more to say about it. It's the abyss.

AP Strange: 01:22

Try crossing it sometimes. Yeah. That's all I have for this week's imaginary sponsor. That's all that's on the piece of paper. It just simply says the abyss.

AP Strange: 01:32

Okay. Moving on. I have a great great guest for the show tonight. She's somebody that I have been mutuals with on several socials for I guess kind of years now. It's really funny when I think about how long I've been online as a public weirdo and all the fun other strange and fascinating and brilliant people that I've met in the electronosphere or rather whatever you want to call it and this is certainly one of them.

AP Strange: 02:11

She is known as Mavius Lin. She's a writer, an artist, a lecturer. She practices thalima and talks about it on her YouTube channel and she is very well spoken and I've always been very impressed by the way she's able to condense difficult concepts and present them in a very like patient manner in a way that's easier for a lot of people to understand. I've found her to be inspirational in the work doing this and she writes articles that are published and works within online spaces with other authors and creators on a number of projects and really happy to have her here to talk. So welcome to the show, Lynn.

Maevius Lynn: 03:02

Thank you so much. I am honored to be amongst the people you have found in online spaces and to be able to call you a mutual and it's such a joy to be here and discuss one of my favorite things all about the occult magic and Thalema.

AP Strange: 03:17

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you definitely were on the shortlist. I keep saying that to people Thank you. Shortlist is not seeming that short but I mean, when I dreamed up the show I was like, nope, okay there was a quick list of 10 or 15 people and I'm like definitely at some point talk to this person. Awesome.

AP Strange: 03:39

So I guess just for background I was curious I'm sure you get asked this all the time but what was it that drew you to Talima in particular originally and you know was there other magical steps that brought you there or was that just kind of your first you know your initial interest in the occult started with Filima? I'm just curious.

Maevius Lynn: 04:06

Well the initial seed of how I ended up to be an occult weirdo happened as a result of conservative book bans in Florida, where I'm from initially. And being a middle schoolhigh school kid, especially being an introvert and nerd, I was a voracious reader. And I loved reading all kinds of books. In particular, I was interested in reading scientific books about biology, evolution, things of that nature and then, of course, entering into my own personhood. I was having feelings outside of the range as a young person of of what I thought was normal.

Maevius Lynn: 04:48

You know, heterosexuality and all of that. So, I started questioning my sexuality and I wanted to know more about that. So, this this was during an age when the internet wasn't what it is now. So, I just couldn't hop on a search engine and find stuff. So, I turned to the library And the truth of the matter was both my school library at the time and the public libraries I had access to, were getting rid of huge collections of books as a result, again, of conservative policy.

Maevius Lynn: 05:15

So these books that were, you know, removed from the libraries were ones dealing with topics of evolution. They were ones dealing with any kind of LGBT anything including you know, gay characters and so I was like, wow, that's not happening for me. So, the only thing really left were kids books like Clifford, the Big Red Dog, which there's only so many, you know, times you can reread, you know, children's books like that. And then also leftover were really, really dense philosophy books. So I'm talking like, you know, Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, things of that nature.

Maevius Lynn: 05:46

So I was like, well, I guess I'm reading philosophy. So, I just, I, the first thing I got into was existentialism and when I first started reading this stuff as a high schooler, I did not understand what I was reading. So I just kept reading it again and again and again. And I read more books connected to those ideas. And that's really what I spent my young teens doing.

Maevius Lynn: 06:08

I was reading philosophy very heavily, and that dovetailed nicely into things like, you know, you know, morality and politics and eventually the occult. So, I spread my love of the interest and try to get access to more books and resources by creating a little blog online. I believe that was LiveJournal back in the day, as well as Myspace. And through those mediums, I connected with individuals of similar interests. And I think it was those early days I first identified with the term occultist that describe what I was into.

Maevius Lynn: 06:42

You know, it it very quickly goes from like you know, philosophy to, you know, Kabbalah, you know, Hermeticism, things like that. So, that's in that sphere. I connected with some like minded people and that's when I first discovered this person, Alistair Crowley. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. Now, I could not for the life of me get a hold of anything really substantial by Crowley at that time.

Maevius Lynn: 07:07

So, you know, he was on a short list of people I was interested in but I kind of put him aside. You know, I went to college but interestingly enough, despite not studying Crowley intensely back then, my life sort of was very similar to the path Crowley was because my interest in of again philosophy, politics, rhetoric, critical thinking, got my involvement in the free thought movement. So, basically, the free thought movement is this idea of questioning the overarching dogmas of society through rational thought and critical thinking. So, which Crowley was very into as well. So, I did all of that and then, I eventually, you know, got involved in corporate America, sort of lost my way in life.

Maevius Lynn: 07:53

My soul was drained and consumed by simply the the act of living which when you are not living intentionally, that's an easy thing to do. I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that. So, I I with my husk of a being, I returned back to wanting to feel something again and wanting to be human again. I turned to the occult tools and that sort of spiritual realm that I had been neglecting for many years of my life and part of that, I stumbled across well, really rather remembered this idea in Thalima called true will And I'm sure we'll get into this later. But at the heart of the Lima and Alister Crowley's work with the Lima is this idea of discovering your innermost spark of divinity or this this higher self that you're connected to and your your your own unique individual purpose.

Maevius Lynn: 08:52

So, unlike perhaps what I would call old aonic religions like Christianity. So, it's not about you know, aspiring to some external set of values, aspiring to some external dogma to tell you how to be. It's discovering who you are and living according to that. So, I was like, that set of tools is perfect for my aims and I tried it on and it turns out it works. Wasn't overnight, of course.

Maevius Lynn: 09:18

It took many, many years of hard work within the system but I got real results and that sort of dare I say divine connection that that that sort of capturing some kind of divine light in my life and in my experiences I I decided to share that with the world and you know assist any way I can.

AP Strange: 09:42

Yeah and I mean it's kind of funny you talk about a corollary to Crowley's life in your own experience and you know, it's kind of worth mentioning that he came from a very restrictive conservative background as well, being raised within kind of the Plymouth Brethren Church environment, you know. So it seems like there's another corollary there where breaking out of that kind of conservative dogmatic structure you know.

Maevius Lynn: 10:15

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, I guess for, you know, listeners, just to share a little bit more about that. I think you make some good points.

Maevius Lynn: 10:23

So, Alastair Crowley is such a controversial and colorful character throughout history that people love to sort of get into and and he really is. He has a lot going on. But yeah, his background although he does come from wealthy upper class and a privileged background, he also came from a very restrictive one and experienced what I would call religious abuse. So, you know, as part of his punishment growing up, he was locked in solitary confinement and and you know, starved to the point where he almost died actually. So, he escaped that and I think that had a lot of influence on him and and same with growing in such a conservative Christian, I would say bigoted conservative Christian environment of the Plymouth Brethren really had an effect on him and sort of his disdain for I I don't want to say Christianity but yeah, basically Christianity in some of these systems that he viewed oppressing people.

AP Strange: 11:27

Yeah, I mean at the very least he seemed to enjoy being irreverent towards Christians and kind of thumbing his nose at them which is a lot of fun. Sure. There's one book I was reading where it was kind of him having a flame war with JK Chesterton, like editorials and it was just really funny to read because he's basically you know he's just basically thumbing his nose at the guy. Yeah so I mean you did kind of allude to something that I did want to get to where you were talking about the concept of true will because as you point out and as we kind of already mentioned Crowley is kind of a divisive controversial and misunderstood figure in a lot of ways. It's hard to know exactly, so much so that it's hard to know exactly what the real picture was especially if you're on the outside looking in.

AP Strange: 12:34

But even the language that he uses in his writings and that are well known outside of the Lima tends to be misconstrued because people don't really understand what this true will element that you're talking about and when we mentioned will that's built into the credo of do what thou wilt which I think people misrepresent as evidence of Crowley being a libertine and just saying do whatever you want because none of it matters when he's really not what he's saying at all.

Maevius Lynn: 13:10

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So let's get it. I think this is a fantastic discussion first of all and people really do misunderstand this phrase, do with that will.

Maevius Lynn: 13:22

It shall be the whole of the law. This phrase comes out of the central sacred holy text of Thelema. And I guess I should explain what Thelema is. Thelema is the Greek word for will. It's often interpreted as a spiritual philosophy, a religion, you know, a system of mysticism that was you know, kick kicked off by Alister Crowley if you will and the central sacred holy text of the Lima is this thing called the book of the law and the book of the law is a channel text.

Maevius Lynn: 13:54

Meaning, a divine source and you know, people interpret that a lot of different ways. That could be something external to you, you know, an actual manifested spirit or god or something internal, a part of your subconscious. You know, there, again, there's a lot of different ways to interpret this but regardless, this divinely inspired text you know, was channeled through Crowley and Crowley wrote it down but it wasn't Crowley speaking as himself and I know that that's a difficult thing to kind of communicate to people who aren't familiar with the occult. This idea of you know, communicating to gods or spirits or to a part of your consciousness but that's kind of what this is. It's it's a channel text and so within this text is a lot of very difficult to parse language because it's some of it's coded, and it there's just so many deep layers of meaning that when you first read this text without context, you really can't make sense of it.

Maevius Lynn: 14:50

So it's really important to remember that, it takes, in some cases, a lifetime of work just sort of unfolding what this holy text means. And this classic phrase, do what I will, shall be the whole of the law, comes from that channel text. So that phrase, as you said, very nicely, is not a call to do whatever you want. It is not a call to live hedonistically or on your whims. It's actually quite the opposite.

Maevius Lynn: 15:18

It's a restrictive phrase that calls us as individuals to live in accordance with our innermost spark of divine divinity. This this sort of this this like I mentioned this true will. So the so for example, well, there's a lot of ways to go about knowing what your true will is but your true will is not what you just wake up and want to do in the morning. It's this sort of core part of your being as a spiritual entity. Again, people can interpret that a lot of different ways but you know, that's that's one way to understand it.

Maevius Lynn: 15:52

So, it's not going your true will isn't going to shift depending on your mood or your whim in the moment. It's it's something that you must align yourself to. And the way you discover your true will within thalemic mysticism, and it's not the only way, of course, to do so, but the one that Crowley set out as an example for is, a spiritual progression up this thing called the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. And, you can think about the Kabbalistic Tree of Life as, the map of the mind of God or the way of return. So this idea of returning back to this divine light from god itself.

Maevius Lynn: 16:26

As you move up the spiritual progression and part of the spiritual progression in Crowley's system is to obtain knowledge and conversation of your holy guardian angel. Now, of course, and and essentially, this holy guardian angel is going to assist you with this progression up the spiritual path towards the divine light and also help you discover your true will so that you may do it. So, your holy guardian angel can be conceived of as a little spirit angel out there or again, it can be conceived of as a part of your subconscious mind, something of that nature. So the idea is up this, mystical path of thalima should people choose to engage with this great work in the way Crowley laid out, is you you know, fortify yourself spiritually and your your mind and your body so that you can hold that divine light or the divine vessel of your holy guardian angel and you know, on the path you eventually obtain some union mystica or a mystical marriage with your holy guardian angel, a unification with it so that you are in knowledge and conversation with it and through that knowledge, you can then understand your true will better.

Maevius Lynn: 17:46

That's a certain point of the tree of life. Before that point, of course, we get inklings. Some would say of your true will. Some of those inklings can come through the subconscious like your dreams. You know, your your your some of your natural behaviors or things you enjoy or are drawn to.

Maevius Lynn: 18:04

Maybe your holy guardian angel communicating to you or you know, that part of you that wants to express its true will, communicating to other ways But again, there's a system there in place should you wish to engage with it to obtain that. And then once you have that knowledge and conversation, that's when the real fun begins. And you continue up the tree of life, you know, and there's a lot of, ordeals ahead of you, such as was mentioned, this thing called the abyss that you may cross choose to cross through. If and then if you're at that point, you know, you should be crossing the abyss. But yeah, I I think I think that really captures that idea.

Maevius Lynn: 18:46

So, let's let's give a practical example for people. It's like, hey, that's that's a lot of information. What does it actually mean to be living your will and doing what that will? So, here's an example I like to give. So, for example, if I have a career path that's in line with my true will, like I wanted to, you know, be a doctor or a lawyer or a librarian or something that's aligned with, you know, me as a person and my true will.

Maevius Lynn: 19:12

And the next day I have an interview that would help me along this path. So this interview is so important to my true will. But it's the night before I want to relax. I want to have a few drinks. If I were to get drunk the night before this amazing, important interview and wake up the next day, hungover, you know, not looking my best and show up to this interview and blow it.

Maevius Lynn: 19:38

Drinking the night before is not in alignment with my will. What would be in alignment with my will is not to give in to those whims and instead, eat a healthy dinner, drink, you know, stay hydrated, go to bed on time, and wake up on time and be manicured and prepared for the interview. That's doing your true will right there.

AP Strange: 19:59

Yeah, I mean I think of it as partly being principled, having core principles and sticking to them and also kind of a focus on some endpoint and some goal, like a single-minded focus. And I think you put it earlier as intentionality, like having intention with everything that you do in your life toward a stated purpose, know? Absolutely. Right, so that mean that makes a lot of sense to me but I mean there's a hell of a lot in there to unpack. Yeah.

AP Strange: 20:38

But when you're talking about the book of the law as a channel text and how it can be difficult to understand, I mean I think Crowley himself had difficulty understanding it for quite a while, right?

Groucho: 20:48

Oh yeah, there were and there

Maevius Lynn: 20:49

was definitely parts he didn't even understand from that that were left for future magicians and thinkers to uncover.

AP Strange: 20:57

Right and I mean part of that is is the cipher that a lot of people know as the new aion English Kabbalah or the secret cipher of the euphinods these days depending on who you are.

Maevius Lynn: 21:11

And a lot of people feel like you know you'll see a lot of theories out there people who've claimed to you know uncover what that means but I will leave it up to our listeners to decide how they feel about that.

AP Strange: 21:23

Right, right. Well I mean yeah I mean a lot of this stuff is interpretation but I think a lot of it also is pretty clearly stated through Crowley's writings and a lot of people that have done interpretations of them like Israel Regardie or like any of the criticisms you read or the or the people that that kind of sum up the things that he said or channeled you know.

Maevius Lynn: 21:53

Yeah and I I think you make a really good point especially for people just trying to start out. Mean you're just like what do I do? And people like read the book of the law. I think the best thing you can do is read Crowley's commentaries on the book of the law. There's this thing called the laws for all.

Maevius Lynn: 22:07

Unfortunately, it's out of print. I pray for the day it comes back into print. But so, this thing called the laws for all is Crowley's commentaries on it and that's really the text to go to. So actually Crowley says himself on the new comment to the book of the law, you know, decide for yourself what this means to you, but appeal to my writings. And so he means the laws for all essentially, his commentaries.

Maevius Lynn: 22:29

And gosh, that'll put some pieces into place for you there.

AP Strange: 22:34

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, there's a lot of different Well, I mean, the thing with Crowley is that he's so influential that he touches on a lot of different realms of weirdness outside of even just the occult. So there's a lot of people that don't necessarily have any interest in practicing it but want to understand the man and where he's coming from. And it's kind of hard to do that without at least a little bit of fluency in mystical practice and language.

Maevius Lynn: 23:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, even if you don't buy into magic mysticism, the occult hook line and sinker, even if you're just someone who's interested in this stuff, I mean, it's such a fascinating topic and such an interesting lens to view the world. And Crowley really is one of the most influential occultists, especially amongst modern occultists. You really you you regardless of the magic, you know, Wicca, chaos magic, any of these things, Crowley's all over it. Mhmm.

Maevius Lynn: 23:39

And so I'm gonna throw out a book that's in print for people to get into if they're interested in reading more. And I'm gonna actually recommend, The Wiser, Concise Guide to Alastair Crowley by Richard Kaczynski and James Wasserman. This book, again, Wiser, Concise Guide to Alastair Crowley, is a short little thing, but it is packed full of good information, and it's written from a modern perspective for outside people to quickly figure out kind of what is meant by not only Crowley, and his beliefs and philosophies and magic, but also some of the organizations he was involved with, and ran and started. So it's just a really nice little primer.

AP Strange: 24:20

Right, yeah because it is very hard to just get direct answers to some of these questions if you're on the outside and I don't have that context, you know, because I mean that's another thing that I kind of had on my list here to ask you about is that people tend to think of things synonymously like the Lima just means OTO or Oh, yeah. AA or sometimes even Golden Dawn people Sure. Mixed people mix all these things up as though it's one one entity. When we're really talking about different organizations, different groups, and the Lima is the current, right? That's the Yeah.

Maevius Lynn: 25:06

Definitely. That's a really good point. So let's talk about that. So one of the most influential organizations that Crowley joined in his life was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which is a secret society that taught a grab bag of different types of magic philosophies. They really synchronized a lot of different things and were incredibly influential.

Maevius Lynn: 25:28

And honestly, it was a huge influence on Crowley. I mean, the date he initiated into the secret society, he considered his magical birthday the rest of his life in his magical journal. I mean, I just really think I really think that speaks to just how big of a deal it was for Crowley at the time and the rest of his life. So a lot of Crowley's magic is informed by this Golden Dawn stuff. So the Golden Dawn, what happened to that organization?

Maevius Lynn: 25:55

It eventually fell apart completely. And since time, a lot of different people have recreated Golden Dawn organizations. There's a lot out there. You can still join today if you want to experience those initiations. It's not a secret.

Maevius Lynn: 26:08

I have also been initiated into a Golden Dawn order. You know, that was amazing. Being able to participate and see one of these rituals in person, as the initiate and initiator is incredible. You know, a lot a lot of magic there. But anyways, I digress.

Maevius Lynn: 26:27

Then Crowley, went on, to do his own stuff after he left the Golden Dawn, and he started his own offshoot, Golden Dawn, known as the AA. AA does not stand in this case as Alcoholic Synonymous. AA is its own thing, and it refers to the teaching order that Alice Sucrolli made. And this organization was basically a fast track Golden Dawn type stuff. So he thought Golden Dawn taught things too slow.

Maevius Lynn: 26:54

He's like, people people wanna drink from the fire hose. So, here's this thing you can do. So.

AP Strange: 26:59

Well, mean, he did and then, I think that was kind of where he drew ire with other members because he was moving up through the ranks too quickly and people didn't really.

Maevius Lynn: 27:09

Yeah, yeah. He so with so with some other Golden Dawn members, he he formed this group, the AA and the AA also taught these idea these principles of Thelema as well and values. So, that's his Thelemic Teaching Order. It has a one on one student teacher relationship and what was beautiful is there's unbroken lineages of the AA all the way back to Crowley that you can initiate into and join and participate in. Know, these lineages since Crowley, you know, they take on different flavors, different beliefs of the people who have run these organizations and been the heads of them.

Maevius Lynn: 27:46

However, a lot of them can still trace their lineage back to Crowley. For people who that kind of thing is important, there's that. Another organization, the other big one is the OTO or Ordo Templi Orientis. This is a what is officially considered a para Masonic fraternity. So, para Masonic meaning Mason like.

Maevius Lynn: 28:11

So, it's not the Freemasons, but it's along those sort of ideas of teaching through initiations and that kind of fraternal structure. So Crowley did not found the OTO, but he did show up later as an influential member and he sort of, when he was the head of it, restructured it under the law of thalema. So you go through these initiations in sort of learning Philemic concepts, ideas, philosophies, you know, in a Masonic fraternal kind of way and again, that that has existed since Corbally's time as well. You know, there's a lot of history there with the OTO. It's seen some troubles and not but it's again, that's something you can join and be a part of should you choose to do so but again, and this is the important point here.

Maevius Lynn: 28:58

You do not have to join any of these organizations to consider yourself a Thelemite. Thalama is not a closed practice. These organizations exist, to assist magicians should they wish to have that assistance and guidance. A community, is very valuable for some people as well as structured learning that some of these organizations can provide. But the only thing that defines a Thelemites loosely is someone who accepts the book of the law and whatever that means to them, and someone who seeks to know and do their will.

Maevius Lynn: 29:32

So organizations may be a part of that or they may not, it just depends on the individual.

AP Strange: 29:38

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a great way to sum it up. I mean, I think you know listeners at this point are kind of understanding where I'm coming from don't want to hammer the point too much, but there is a danger of oversimplifying when you're talking about someone as complicated as Curaleaf.

Maevius Lynn: 29:55

Absolutely.

AP Strange: 29:59

And so I mean are there any misconceptions about the practice of Thaliama or about Crowley that you find that you run into a lot in in in talking about it publicly?

Maevius Lynn: 30:14

Yeah, I mean, infinite numbers. So, I I guess, you know, I I could choose any number of things to talk about but and I have one in mind but I I guess I want to say before I get into it, you know, recognizing that you know, I within the scope of this podcast episode and any of, you know, short format stuff like YouTube or you know, Instagram reels or that that you really can't get into nuance in these particular like modes of communication. So, your best bet of get really getting into Crowley is to read some of the biographies out there and specifically ones that seek to present the facts to you and don't talk down to you. And are like, hey, here's everything going on with this man and his life and his magical stuff. It's up to you to make up how you feel about that.

Maevius Lynn: 31:06

And I just want to put it out there. I have no interest in apologizing for Crowley. I have no interest in convincing people to like him. My only interest as a magician, a human in this world, is to empower people to think critically and to engage mindfully with their own personal set of morals and values and apply that to how they view history and everything around them. So if you hate Crowley, cool.

Maevius Lynn: 31:29

If you love Crowley, cool. If you don't care, that's cool too. So I'm not going to get into, like, any of the specific, like, controversies or, like, complete fabrications. And I will say for most people who casually get into this stuff, almost everything you will hear about Crowley is complete fiction. And some of the best biographies out there, Israel Regardie wrote a good one, Tobias Chertin, the best one in my opinion, and of course I am biased because I am engaged to the author.

Maevius Lynn: 32:01

Full disclosure, but I absolutely love the book Perderabo by Richard Kacinski. So, if you want a good solid biography, definitely get Perderabo and then, of course, Crowley has his confessions but his confessions stop at a certain point. You know, because a book, his life continues after confessions. So if you want the whole picture of Crowley, that is covered in Perderabo, whereas Alastair Crowley's confessions does not. Okay, so getting into the thing that I think I want to talk about now.

Maevius Lynn: 32:31

And it's this idea that people think Crowley is Thelema Jesus.

AP Strange: 32:37

Yeah. You go.

Maevius Lynn: 32:40

Crowley is not Thelema Jesus. And I understand that a lot of people want to apply a Christian model and framework to everything they encounter. Usually because they're most familiar with that. And so they just like oh here's you know here's the father. You know here's the Holy Spirit.

Maevius Lynn: 32:58

Here's Jesus. Let me just put in plug and play. And it's like okay woah. That's not what's going on here. Crowley was a multifaceted person on this Earth.

Maevius Lynn: 33:08

So, I draw the line and the way I think it's best to understand Crowley's relationship with this new religious movement is that there was Crowley, the prophet, AKA this dude and this who channeled this divine information which in my opinion is a beautifully empowering understanding of humanity and spirituality. I, it's hard to boil down at all of the dude's work and all of these things, all this work he did as a magician throughout his life and channeling these divine, you know, expressions but essentially, there's this idea that you're a divine because of your humanity and not in spite of it and that's incredibly beautiful message but that divine message is separate from Crowley the man. He is just a dude for better or worse and I think you know, he did do he he lived in a way that was both good and bad. He his his language and writings were, I would say, monumentally useful and empowering, especially for people, with an LGBT background, because as a queer man himself, a lot of that shines through his writing and how he talks about spirituality and divine concepts. Whereas, especially during the Victorian era and a lot of these, Golden Dawn folks, you know, did view this sort of stuff from a heterosexual framework and understanding, whereas Crowley kind of shook that up quite a bit.

Maevius Lynn: 34:46

But back to this Crowley, the man versus the prophet discussion. So, you know, people draw that line wherever they want to draw it and I encourage people to, you know, think about that on their own but for me, a lot of the things he did as a person reflected his meat suit person with imperfect imperfection really of him getting into complicated messy relationships. Him having a medical problem which eventually led to drug addiction. You know he was given heroin for asthma and then eventually got addicted to that. I you know, he he had some issues in his writing that were not scientifically sound when we consider scientifically sound today.

Maevius Lynn: 35:36

You know, especially his understanding of like a lot of things. But anyway, the point here, despite my disagreements with Crowley, I think there's some real value to him as a new religious prophet and communicating these ideas but I separate out him just being a faulty human being and I have the ability to condemn him for those things. Like, for example, abandoning some of, you know, his children or some of the women in his life. I think was unhealthy but you know, again, reflected not necessarily a shortcoming, you know, only reserved to Crowley but you know, especially in that context of Victorian aristocracy and how women and children were treated. He was monumental in leagues ahead of his time, and in some cases, even ahead of the times we're currently living in, in our understanding of, you know, the human condition and all of this stuff.

Maevius Lynn: 36:33

But you know, he was at the end of the day still a person. So, I guess this studying Crowley, studying this type of esotericism in in the occult requires big, deep thinking. It requires nuance. And it requires you to think for yourself at the end of the day. And to hold fast to your own morals and values and your own sense of the divine as you parse through this should you decide to wade into it.

AP Strange: 37:07

Yeah, and I think I've had a roundabout kind of back and forth with Crowley as a person, as a historical person and never really knew what to make of him for years and years because my first encounters with the name Alastair Crowley was in just like books on Fortiana unexplained stuff and like weird conspiracy writings online and stuff like that. And to read those you just like, oh, guess this guy was Satan incarnate and tried to start this cult or religion, know, and that's the way they always would frame it. I'd like to think that I was critical enough vegan back then to be like, well, you know, grain of salt, I don't really know what their motivation is in painting in this way. But yeah, I mean that's kind of what I was getting at with like he's a complicated guy in a lot of ways but I mean a lot all historic figures are. Oh yeah.

AP Strange: 38:10

If you make an impact at all you have a lot of different conflicting reasons for doing so and you make a lot of enemies and you make a lot of admirers you know. So

Maevius Lynn: 38:21

Yeah, and I think you bring up some great points and something I was thinking about, and I'm gonna say something slightly unhinged here, is it seems to me, from my modern perspective, one of Crowley's greatest sins was not pretending to be perfect. And in fact, one of his greatest strengths from my perspective as an occultist and esotericist is the dude lived his life with a degree of honesty that is almost unheard of even today. He fully embraced and lived as he was as a person. He, you know, during the Victorian era, you know, you could be arrested and put in jail for being homosexual or having homosexual relations. And Corley's like, no, I'm doing it openly.

Maevius Lynn: 39:09

You know, he very openly took on multiple different lovers of all types of genders and encouraged them to take on other lovers. He very openly participated in kink. What we'd understand is kink today. At at a time you just didn't openly talk about this. So the question is was it just Crowley being crazy during this time and wild?

Maevius Lynn: 39:30

Or was he doing the thing that everyone was doing behind closed doors just honestly? Right. You know, and and and when we come back to the sex magic thing, he's he's almost he's tied very closely to sex magic because he wrote so much about it and talked openly about it but the truth of the matter is, if you look into any of these Golden Dawn people, you know, they had some weird magic going on as in a lot of them practice sex magic as well and kind of weird stuff going on there. Crowley was no different. The difference was was I think his honesty around it and we look at all religions throughout time.

Maevius Lynn: 40:06

I can't think of a single one that is unproblematic. And I could sit here and list examples especially of religious quote unquote prophets. When you look at religious prophets, yes, I am talking about you. Christianity and related Abrahamic religions. Boy, is there some messy problematic stuff there?

Maevius Lynn: 40:28

Profoundly, weird, and disturbing. And then when you consider Crowley in the context of those who came before him, wow, he's like the least problematic person. Honestly, and and not to go off here but that brings up a good point which is where does Thalima fit in the landscape of religions out there? So, I think it's helpful to tell people. At the time, Crowley received the book of the law and channeled this divine text.

Maevius Lynn: 40:57

He was a Buddhist. So there's a lot of Buddhism or reaction to Buddhism in the book of the law and in the Filima. That being said, in the context of like the evolution of religions, Filima is the thing that happens after Islam. So you will see a reinterpretation of a lot of the terminology and symbols found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in Thelima. But the understanding of those just like the understanding of Buddhism is quite different.

Maevius Lynn: 41:28

You know, I could throw off some examples off the top of my head but I just wanted to give people a little extra context as to what Filima is and where it fits as well.

AP Strange: 41:38

Yeah, I mean, it's sort of eclectic in a way in that way, in the way that the Golden Dawn was as well. I mean he knew his stuff when it came to the Abrahamic religions because I mean with as far as the Bible goes, had it almost literally beaten into him. So he was probably, you know, more well versed in that than a of people were. So yeah, and then you add in the Buddhist influence as well, which that's super interesting because the Eastern religion thing is my background is a lot more reading Eastern religious texts.

Maevius Lynn: 42:16

Okay.

AP Strange: 42:17

So when I think of like the higher guardian angel, almost think of it as the Advaita Vedanta version of the Atman, you know, like the higher self.

Maevius Lynn: 42:29

Yeah.

AP Strange: 42:29

A specific kind of higher self that you find in that Vedantic kind of perspective. And I wonder if that's that's you I wonder if he was thinking the same or similarly.

Maevius Lynn: 42:44

Yeah, I I bet he was and the interesting thing about the I'll just throw this out here as well. The Holy Guardian Angel stuff is none of that is actually in the book of the law. So that was sort of like Crowley's mysticism he, like, added afterwards. He's like, oh, here's a way to do it. But, how one goes about this spiritual progression or interacts with that is completely up to you.

Maevius Lynn: 43:04

There's a structure and guardrails in place in a way to understand things. I mean, heck, even the Kabbalistic tree of life, there's like so many different versions out there, ways of conceiving of this this particular divine schematic schematic, right? So, yeah, but since you brought that up, I just want to throw out one example of how different Thalima is. So, in Buddhism, there's this idea of a dukkha or suffering and this idea is that, you know, existence is suffering and Thalima flips that on its head and it say, existence is pure joy. That's right out of the book of the law and so this idea in Thalima is that we incarnate into this existence for the chance of union, for the chance of experiencing joy through union or again, this idea of love under will.

Maevius Lynn: 43:54

And love is the law, love under will from the book of the law. So, again, that is sort of one philemic idea as well that comes out of that book.

AP Strange: 44:02

Right. And I mean, what the this mystical union looks like and what the higher guardian angel is for anyone in particular may appear differently. I was thinking while you were talking about it just like synchronicity isn't it could be an example of communication in that respect you know. And I think it's worth mentioning too that Crowley's kind of obsession around that had to do a lot with the abramelon working right the book of abramelon and I think there's a lot of misconceptions around that as well Yeah. Because again, I was talking about my early introduction to it and I remember somebody that was only kind of sorta into Crowley, like it was kind of like a metal head, but Crowley was awesome.

AP Strange: 44:55

He's like, man, he was on Loch Ness and he was trying to channel angles and demons and make them fight each other and something went wrong. And that's like, I feel like a lot of people have that picture in their head like this Hollywood kind of a dark source or channeling powers he didn't understand and having a blow up in his face when it's really not bad at all.

Maevius Lynn: 45:18

That's so funny. Yeah, let's talk about that. So a lot of people have this sort of conspiracy theory or like this thought around you know, the Billaskin House near Loch Ness that he started the Abermillan working and he never finished it. So, therefore, he ripped a hole in our reality in which things pour out of. I personally, as a magician myself, think that's an absurd thing.

Maevius Lynn: 45:42

So even if you did start it and stopped it, numerous people all around the world are performing this operation or performing various occult operations and not finishing them. In my experience, the the the most common result of any occult work is nothing. You know, you have to work magic works. Let me just put that. But, you know, you have to be very intentional and it's very difficult to get magical results at all in some context.

Maevius Lynn: 46:11

So, especially something as elaborate as Abermelan working, know, I mean, it's like getting all the ingredients and putting them in the kitchen and not cooking. It's like, are you going are are the ingredients just going to spontaneously come together and like cook you a dinner on their own? No, they're not. So, that's kind of what it's like to stop a magical operation. You you know, your your unboiled rice isn't suddenly gonna rip a rip a hole in the fabric of reality.

Maevius Lynn: 46:38

Know, it's just rice. That's kinda

AP Strange: 46:41

You know, there there may be detrimental effects to the person leaving it open ended. I I would I would suspect, but but I yeah. I mean

Maevius Lynn: 46:51

I think there's gonna be all kinds of things that happen, but, like, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's, like, as catastrophic as people would paint it as. Yeah. I I don't know. I I just I have a hard time imagining eldritch horrors coming through, you know, what is equivalent of uncooked rice. I I don't know.

AP Strange: 47:11

Right. But people want that a Hollywood version of it though.

Maevius Lynn: 47:14

Oh I do too. I'm waiting for it to happen.

AP Strange: 47:17

Oh yeah, I would love for that to happen. I think people that actually if any of these people actually read the Abermelon book would be they'll be very disappointed to find out that a lot of it is basically a rabbi giving advice to his son.

Maevius Lynn: 47:34

It's good stuff.

AP Strange: 47:35

And then a whole bunch of magic squares and

Maevius Lynn: 47:38

Oh yeah. Magic squares are great stuff too. Yeah. Well, I was gonna say too for people who are interested in Alastair Crowley's take on this kind of stuff, you can look into something called Liber Samic, and that's Alastair Crowley's way of obtaining knowledge and conversation with the holy guardian angel, whereas the abermelon is, something that predates Crowley. It's a more classic occult way to do that work.

Maevius Lynn: 48:00

But if you're interested in Crowley's, know, check out Librosomic. Give it a shot yourself. And it's it's available on sacredtext.com in its entirety. So I'm not telling you to spend money. Sacredtext.com has some great stuff.

AP Strange: 48:15

Yeah, there's actually quite a bit there. Mean, early on for me where I had no idea how to find these books. That's been around for a long time because I think the first time I ever tried to read Donna Blavatsky was on that site.

Maevius Lynn: 48:30

Oh good stuff.

AP Strange: 48:32

How long is this? How long is this? I can't read that much on a screen.

Maevius Lynn: 48:37

Yeah I definitely relate to I prefer books too.

AP Strange: 48:41

Yeah yeah they can be they can be cumbersome and take up a lot of space but I love love having them so yeah so what do you recommend as far as whether or not it's the Lima how do you recommend people start looking for their own path and finding kind of their will and yeah I mean do you just have any general advice for people whether they want to look into FOLEMA or if they want to find some other kind of practice or grounding in reality to help them move forward?

Maevius Lynn: 49:25

Yeah, I think that's a great question. And it's a question I think about a lot because I have the privilege of doing a lot of talks and workshops, both locally and across the country, but also doing a lot of writing that I'm very blessed that gets published as well as YouTube channel stuff. But I think the best thing anyone can do is listen to themselves. You know if if you feel drawn to something, investigate that. I think there might be a reason why you're drawn in particular to a certain path or idea or concept or religion or spirituality.

Maevius Lynn: 50:02

Investigate that. Don't be afraid of carving your own path through the woods. Sometimes, that is the most valuable one. One that you arrive to on your own. If that happens to be ceremonial magic, I I just as a ceremonial magician myself, I guess I should say in that in this particular context, a lot of people think I'm a witch, and I am not a witch.

Maevius Lynn: 50:28

I don't practice what I consider witchcraft, and I've been initiated several times over as a magician. So that's what I am. I'm a ceremonial magician through and through. And I just think it is such a beautiful, powerful, nourishing path. I think it delivers a divine connection to you and your life in a way that other paths do not.

Maevius Lynn: 50:52

And it has for me, certainly. It it the magic works. The path works. And obviously, within ceremonial magic, there's a lot of different ways to take it. One of the more niche ways is Thelema.

Maevius Lynn: 51:03

I personally was drawn to Thelema because Crowley's writing it, first of all, is so interesting. It's like a layered puzzle, you know, an onion of puzzles to unravel. It's so interesting. But for me also, it was just very inclusive and affirming to me as a queer person myself. And I and I found meaning in a way I didn't in other ceremonial traditions.

Maevius Lynn: 51:29

That being said, for people who find themselves on the ceremonial magic path, please, please, please, remember, this is not a sprint. It's a marathon.

AP Strange: 51:42

Yes.

Maevius Lynn: 51:43

And what do I mean by that? I mean, there is so much cool stuff out there. You will get, should you stick to this path, real results that are you you you will change your entire life, who you are upon discovery of yourself and obtaining self knowledge and spiritual connection in a way you have not before? Well, first of all, be prepared for that. But again, that that's it's not going to happen overnight.

Maevius Lynn: 52:09

It's a lifelong journey. And you are at most risk. First of all, you're not at risk of tearing a hole in the, you know, structured reality but you are at risk of burning out and losing that thread of interest and pursuit. We are tethered to this corporeal form. We have attention spans.

Maevius Lynn: 52:28

We have needs in our life that needs to be met. Housing, food, shelter, you know, medical stuff goes wrong. We have families. We take care of. All of these things will pull your attention away from essentially this great work.

Maevius Lynn: 52:43

Stay stick with it. And remember you're in the you're in it for the long haul. So nourish your interest. Nourish your attention span. Nourish your soul along the way and be kind to yourself.

Maevius Lynn: 52:57

It's a hard path to walk. I heck being alive in this world is a hard path. But should you you want to get into it a little this incarnation a little deeper and do ceremonial magic. It's hard but it's very rewarding. And yeah just be in it for the long haul and don't give up.

AP Strange: 53:16

Yeah that's excellent advice and among the reasons I wanted to have you on is because you are really good at conveying these things and you have kind of an inspirational, I find it inspirational the way that you're able to encourage people rather than I don't know I guess kind of obfuscate it further by making it seem more mysterious or you're never condescending you're not talking down to people about it and I really do appreciate that.

Maevius Lynn: 53:47

You're so kind thank you so much and I really appreciate your fun, unique perspective you bring to all of these topics as well. And you and you have a real knack for explaining things also and and I also want to comment on the second part of that about, you know, condescension. You know, I I don't mean to be inflammatory here but I think for some people, they get into the occult for their ego. They get into ceremony magic to say, look how cool I am. I know all of these things.

Maevius Lynn: 54:16

I can make this very, very complicated. Can someone please notice me and recognize how smart I am? And and perhaps that's a part of the spiritual path we all go through. But, ultimately, your goal is to progress past that. And once you have a part of that divine light and you've grasped a hold of it, it is your responsibility to then share it with the world in a productive, nourishing, helpful way to others.

Maevius Lynn: 54:42

And that and that could look in many many different ways for many different individuals. I'm not condemning one way or the other. You know, I I suppose I'm very blessed and fortunate that that has manifested in me wanting to teach others and inspire others and encourage others because ultimately, I believe in my fellow humans for their divine potential and their potential to be their best selves And this is one way to get there. So I I do all of what I do because of that. But you know that takes a lot of different different ways you know.

Maevius Lynn: 55:12

I think at the end of the day if we were all part of some divine machine shambling across the known universe, not all of us can be the head of that particular divine body. And that's okay. You know, I think it's beautiful that we all are our own unique individuals in this cosmic machine of human humanity and I think I think all of those, you know, expressions deserve to be honored.

AP Strange: 55:42

Yeah, I mean the one of my core principle ideas that I have and I try to stick to it's kind of an anchor that I become unmoored from sometimes I'll admit it but is that if you're not in it for the benefit of all sentient life everywhere then you're not doing it for the right reasons and egoism will torpedo that whole thing real quick. A %. That's my personal take on it and that's kind of how I've always thought and like I said, I'm not perfect. I I my ego gets in the way all the time. I'm still learning.

Maevius Lynn: 56:29

Yeah, same here. I'm I am not you know, this is some kind of divine being. I'm just a person but I I just, yeah, that's a really good caution too. You know? I I do believe that thalima is a beautiful path and a beautiful thing to study and get into, but it's not right for everyone.

Maevius Lynn: 56:46

And I I don't think it would be the right choice for someone who's really interested in a ego driven, hedonistic lifestyle and path. If you walk, if you continue down the path of thalima as is designed, ultimately, there comes a point of you completely, you know, you know, dissolving your ego when you do this step called crossing the abyss and you basically dissolve your personal identity completely. You hand it completely over and you yourself becomes a different person along this path. So, if you're interested in a egoless spiritual path, get into Thelima but if you want to hang on to those to that worldly connection, this may not be for you.

AP Strange: 57:31

Yeah. Good luck. Good luck with that is what I would say.

Maevius Lynn: 57:35

Yeah. Not here. Go somewhere else.

AP Strange: 57:42

Yeah well we have been going for a bit and we're gonna start winding down but I did want to talk a little bit about what your lived experience has been like with the theory and practice as it were. And especially in this technological age that we're in now, because I've often heard it said everybody has all the information in the world at their fingertips, which sort of is true, but you need critical discernment to figure out like to parse the signal from the noise. So kind of, yeah, I mean, feel like your lived experience of it, and forgive me if I'm wrong, has a lot to do with the community and being able to reach people via our current state of technology, whether it's you're early on blogging on LiveJournal or nowadays running a successful YouTube channel. So I didn't know if you wanted to speak to any or all of that. I know it's a little bit muddled the way I put it, but.

Maevius Lynn: 58:57

I think that's a beautiful way to put it and thank you for saying my YouTube channel is successful. That's very kind. I owe that entirely to my audience who, who not only, feeds me ideas but inspires me to keep going with that particular project because I ultimately, I do view, you know, YouTube and all this other stuff as a service to the community. So I guess reflecting as Thalima as a lived practice. Most that's an important point.

Maevius Lynn: 59:28

Most of my life, I've I lived completely anonymously as an occultist. When I talk about being on LiveJournal and you know, all these other early days spaces, I used, I didn't use my face and I used like a pseudonym. So, I was very much anonymous and I didn't crossover. I wasn't really out about being an occultist. That sort of came later.

Maevius Lynn: 59:53

And when I decided I wanted to share my unique perspective on all of this and share my lived experience. Happened a number of reasons. But I made an intentional choice at the very beginning. The truth of the matter is in the world of academia, people who study the occult and publish academic journals on it are looked down on if they are cultists themselves. So, we're we're not naming and shaming here.

Maevius Lynn: 01:00:25

I respect any everyone's choice of path but a lot of your favorite academic publishing publishers and authors and researchers at universities and such. They are an occultist and private but not public. And they do this intentionally because they would not be taken as seriously. Which is a wild proposition, right? Some of the best academics we have on things like Christianity, for example, are Christians.

Maevius Lynn: 01:00:48

So why are we holding different people by different standards? And I've seen this bigotry show up a number of different ways. People say, oh, you're a thalamite. So, of course, you would like thalima. And it's like, well, first of all, I like to imagine, me as a researcher and academic can separate out my own personal beliefs and spiritual path from what I am presenting.

Maevius Lynn: 01:01:13

But, as a practitioner, I bring a special lens and understanding. So much of the occult and esotericism, you know, whether it's secret societies or this system of magic in and of itself, the meaning is lost. Parts of it are just completely lost on people who only study it in books. Whereas me as a practitioner and someone who lives it literally every day. As a as a living practice, I bring a lived experience to my writing and work that some of these purely academic people don't.

Maevius Lynn: 01:01:49

But that being said, again, when I came out, I decided to, I decided intentionally on the path of presenting and sharing myself who I was in my totality, which is an occultist, which is, you know, a Thelemite. And that was a hard decision to make. So many Thelemites, especially, even within the occult world are maligned, misunderstood. But I I I was like, well, I'm just going to be the entirety of myself unapologetically and see where that goes. Maybe hopefully empower people to live unapologetically themselves.

Maevius Lynn: 01:02:24

So, I guess what I'm getting at here is when it comes to me and my lived everything as thelemite, know, that extends to daily practice. There's a lot of things I do ideally every single day. You know, I do I over my main meals of the day, I do this thing called saying, well, I practice a solar adoration on the four stations of the sun called Libra Raschville Helios. I do things monthly, yearly as part of my practice. You know, I'm involved in certain esoteric orders where rituals and initiations take place as well.

Maevius Lynn: 01:03:07

I give talks, lectures, teach all of that good stuff. But it's a really big part of my life and a part of, you know, my spiritual path and I was very blessed to find another thalamite out there and very happily involved in a partnership with another thalamite. So, you know, we're practicing thalamites together and both of us also really love to write academically and otherwise. So, we produce work that way as well. I hope I addressed that.

Maevius Lynn: 01:03:37

I sort of meandered there.

AP Strange: 01:03:39

Yeah, no, I mean I gave you a muddled question and I think you did a great job.

Groucho: 01:03:44

Well, thank you.

AP Strange: 01:03:49

Yeah, I mean it sounds like in almost every way, it's a very enriching experience and it's great to be able to see that in a person and have it presented in the way that you do. So as much as I might gripe about social media and the internet and what it's kind of done to people, YouTube for example is a really good medium for you because it's great to see you and see your enthusiasm when you're speaking about it. I hope to someday be able to get to an actual lecture that you're doing. Oh, thank you. Yeah.

Maevius Lynn: 01:04:36

Yeah. And thank you so much. And I think I think YouTube gives me the opportunity to share some of my thalamic practices and and I'll just put this out here too. Know, it's thalama is not a closed tradition, so you can pick up and try some of our magic, some of our rituals, and see how that feels. And I give not only explanations of various practices, but also real demonstrations of them.

Maevius Lynn: 01:04:59

So, you can watch my videos, know what we're doing, why we're doing it, and then do it yourself. And I think that that's something that was also missing in the wider internet space. So, I have created it and people are like, hey, I learned how to do Libre Rush from you on YouTube. I'm like, oh, that's cool. So that's an option for people.

AP Strange: 01:05:18

Yeah, and like I said, I think that is great and it's kind of a wild age that we're living in now where so much of this stuff used to be so hard to find. There were so many barriers before and there's a lot less of them now, but the barriers are more critical discernment. I guess critical thinking and critical discernment with this stuff. Absolutely. And I guess that's where understanding a little bit about scientific illuminism comes in really handy is being able to parse that out for yourself and make informed judgments.

Maevius Lynn: 01:05:57

Absolutely, the method of science, the aim of religion and I think disinformation is the biggest barrier in this day and age And I I mourn the fact that there's so many people, trying to capitalize off of the recent boom of the occult and esotericism in a way that's profoundly ignorant, and misinformed. You know, it the truth of the matter is, as you say Alastair Crowley, people click on it, it sells. But a lot of, some of the online voices don't know anything about anything. They're just making stuff up or, you know, reading off a Wikipedia and and I'm not sure that that's, I mean, maybe it's entertaining for some people and that's awesome and obviously, they're doing it because it's, they're successful at it but ultimately, I think for the individual involved, it's not very, very valuable. That's my only comment on that.

Maevius Lynn: 01:06:53

I wish everyone could find valuable sources out there.

AP Strange: 01:06:57

Right, well my solace with that is that I think in all occultism that can sometimes be more of a

Groucho: 01:07:04

feature than a bug because

AP Strange: 01:07:06

the wrong people don't end up learning how to do the magics because they don't have the attendance fan to actually find the good stuff.

Maevius Lynn: 01:07:16

Oh yeah, absolutely. That's very true and and and this brings back to the the broader point and and one of my missions for doing a lot of that is is I want to empower people and encourage people to get out well, to see thalima and these occult practices and this path in general as not something relegated to old history books. This isn't a dead thing that happened and no longer happens. It's a living tradition that people are practicing and doing now with incredible value and you can pick it up and do it too and join this beautiful living tradition.

AP Strange: 01:07:52

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. And I think we did cover quite a bit of ground tonight, but this is one burning question I definitely had for you that I wanted to ask you.

Groucho: 01:08:08

Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:08:08

If Alistair Crowley were alive now, which type of social media do you think that he'd be attracted to and using? If he was gonna be like an influencer say or

Maevius Lynn: 01:08:22

How old is Crowley right now in this scenario?

AP Strange: 01:08:26

Oh, geez. Yeah. I mean, guess you could pick a different one for different points in his life.

Maevius Lynn: 01:08:30

Yeah. So if okay. Let's let's go with so if Crowley was young Crowley just joining the Golden Dawn, I guess he would be like college aged. He would probably be on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. Older Crowley would really like Facebook.

AP Strange: 01:08:57

Could be like everybody's boomer uncle on Facebook.

Maevius Lynn: 01:09:01

Yeah. I think and and the interesting thing about Crowley is obviously he did have issues with addiction. I think he would be like depending on his age. Like if he was if he was the of the age to be on TikTok I think he would be addicted to TikTok and like the dopamine rush you get from being controversial on TikTok. And then I think if he's older he would be all about starting useless arguments on Facebook.

AP Strange: 01:09:26

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I think like in the middle there somewhere, my thought has always been kind of harkening back to his little like editorial flame war with Chesterton that I had referred to earlier. I think he would have been a pretty

Groucho: 01:09:41

good Redditor right in the middle there. Oh yeah, Reddit, yeah.

AP Strange: 01:09:45

Think he

Maevius Lynn: 01:09:46

liked Reddit. Because there's a lot of free thought atheist stuff happening on Reddit. So I think he would be drawn to the like, also like a lot of kind of sciency nerd people on Reddit. I think he'd be really into that. But I think he'd be really into the like addictive properties and the attention he would get other places as well.

AP Strange: 01:10:04

Yeah. Yeah. He'd probably be all over the internet. You know? Like.

Maevius Lynn: 01:10:07

Oh yeah. He would be a problem. Yeah. I'd probably block him. I'm like, enough of this dude.

AP Strange: 01:10:16

Yeah. Like, I'll talk to him when I need to talk to him.

Maevius Lynn: 01:10:19

Could you could you imagine a Christian being like, yeah, if Jesus was actually here and on social media, I would block Jesus. Like, that just would Christian would not say that, like, oh, yeah. I would be all the way. No. I I most likely, if Crowley was alive today I mean, he would probably have be slightly different raised in a different context than what he was in the past, but I'm almost entirely convinced I would not like him as a person and I would offend him because of my, I don't know, Taurus, you know, stubbornness.

Maevius Lynn: 01:10:49

And he would kick me out of the AA similar to how he kicked out Austin Osmond's Spare. His his reasoning for kicking out AO Spare was, artists can't be magicians. And, I I think that I would wrestle his Jimmy's in a similar way, and Crowley would kick me out of the AA. And I just wouldn't get along with Crowley. That's my belief

AP Strange: 01:11:15

Well, is so weird because didn't Crowley consider himself a nerdist too?

Maevius Lynn: 01:11:19

Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, you know, Crowley had issues with spare. But, yeah, he Crowley totally thought of himself as an artist, and he's like, I I believe my holy guardian angel wants me to make art. I just don't have the skills. But honestly, people like to say Crowley's art is bad, but it's kind of in line with what people were doing at the time.

Maevius Lynn: 01:11:40

And it and I'm what his people's criticisms of Crowley's art are just like criticisms of, like, popular art movements at the time. But yeah. I anyway, yeah. Crowley totally was out there making some weird paintings. Yeah.

Maevius Lynn: 01:11:55

Disproportionate weird colors in a painting.

AP Strange: 01:11:59

Right. He's not he's not going for realism though. I don't think. Well, I mean, maybe maybe he aspired to that and didn't quite have that skill, but yeah, I mean it's a stylistic thing. There's a stylistic kind of thing going on, yeah.

Maevius Lynn: 01:12:13

That's so funny.

AP Strange: 01:12:15

It is funny. Yeah, I love these little thought experiments because we could probably go on forever with it.

Groucho: 01:12:22

Oh yeah, it's a good one. It's a good one for sure.

AP Strange: 01:12:25

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you could probably apply it to any of the magicians. I could see Yates and Crowley having never ending Twitter argument, but.

Maevius Lynn: 01:12:39

Yeah, Yates would have loved Twitter.

AP Strange: 01:12:41

Right. That's what I think

Maevius Lynn: 01:12:42

about Yates. Yates is still on Twitter. Crowley moved over to Blue Sky. That's what I think about that. Yeah.

AP Strange: 01:13:00

Well, mean, it tracks, it tracks I think.

Maevius Lynn: 01:13:04

I think so too.

AP Strange: 01:13:05

Yeah, all right, well this has been a really fun and enlightening conversation. I think my listeners will think so as well. I've really greatly enjoyed talking to you and I'm so glad you came on the show when I sent you a request to come on because this has been just as much fun as I thought well even more fun than I thought.

Maevius Lynn: 01:13:30

Oh good, Well, likewise, this has been an absolute blast. You're so fun to talk to and fun to follow online as well. What a joy and honor to be here and for people who are interested in more of me, check out my YouTube channel. I'm on social media. I have a Patreon.

Maevius Lynn: 01:13:49

And then I just want to plug really fast. If you want to see me in person, I will be at three different conventions this year traveling across the country. I will be at Mystic South twenty twenty five down Atlanta. I'm giving a talk on the Goddess Babylon. I will be at the Witch Witch Summit in Nevada, which I am giving a workshop on Thelemic magic as well as a talk on the Thoth Tarot.

Maevius Lynn: 01:14:15

And then I will be giving a talk at Noticon on the virtue of doubt. So I and that's in Portland. So hopefully see some of you in person if you desire to do so.

AP Strange: 01:14:26

That's Portland, Oregon? Yes. Yeah. Damn. If it was Portland, Maine, would be really easy for me.

Maevius Lynn: 01:14:32

I wish. I wish. Yeah, hopefully I can get up there at some point.

AP Strange: 01:14:36

Yeah. Do a talk in the Northeast somewhere so I can go see.

Maevius Lynn: 01:14:41

I would love

AP Strange: 01:14:42

do that. Yeah. Alright. Well, like I said, this has been a joy and, thank you so much for coming on.

Maevius Lynn: 01:14:50

Thank you so much.

AP Strange: 01:14:51

Yeah. I'll talk to you soon.