IBC130 Marco Visconti

Author, musician and occultist Marco Visconti joins us in the faded splendour of the Gilman Hotel. We talk Kings Cross, Karel Theol, Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Grant, HPL's dreams, Black Stars in Dim Carcosa, the algorithm, occulture, and the failure of social media.
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Innsmouth Literary Festival

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SPEAKER_04 0:11

Welcome to Innsmouth Stranger.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Greetings, travellers, and thanks very much for joining us for our hundred and thirtieth excursion. Or is it an incursion? I'm not sure. Anyway, we're in Innsmouth, and we are in the faded splendour of the Gilman Hotel, of course, where every room has running water, usually down the walls. And we have an esteemed guest joining us today. I'm one of your hosts, Rob Poynton.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

And I'm the other one, Tim Mendys. Yes, and uh just before we mount the stairs and avoid the Oh god, if you're right with me now. And and avoid the evil glare of the man on the reception.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

We uh just have a few news items, don't we? Yes, well, I just wanted to mention obviously we're not far off Innsmouth Literary Festival 26 now. About a month to go, and we have just confirmed that Phantasmagoria, the horror magazine, will be launching a special edition on the day. A special Innsmouth edition with new cover art from renowned fantasy artist Les Edwards, who is of course one of the guests of honour, and a number of new stories, including So I'm Told, by uh Trevor Kennedy, the editor, a new Innsmouth story from Ramsay Campbell. How about that? Yes, yes. So looking forward to that. And of course, as well as all that, we've got all our usual other oddly moist activities going on. Authors, artists, traders, and gaming as well. And uh Innsmouth After Dark, which is going to be in the North End Club this year, which is it's a sort of a cross between uh Phoenix Knights and Royston Vasy. It's got an atmosphere, let's put it like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

It's very, very Innsmouth. I I yeah, it's definitely I'm pretty sure the owners have the look, if you know what I mean. But yeah, we've got some great acts confirmed for that. We've got uh Mr. Simon Sartori doing his high reciprocity project. Uh we've got CJ Hooper, our master of Eldritch ceremonies, and we are gonna be treated to a reading by audiobook narrator Malk Williams. So, yeah, it's gonna be a fun-filled and exciting evening, and there will be lots of uh Shogoths all peculiar on tap. So, yeah, toddl along after the festival.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Don't forget the meat raffle. Oh, the meat raffle! Yes, we're actually having a meat raffle. I'm gonna say no more about it than that.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Mystery meat raffle.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Alright, let's uh let's head on upstairs to room 428 and welcome today's guest. Here we are, it's a big insmouth welcome to author, musician, occultist, Marco Visconti. Hey Marco, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Uh well, thank you, Rob and Tim, for the invitation. Uh getting here was a little bit uh tricky, I must say, but uh you know, despite the strange uh crowd gathering outside the Gilman, I was able to find my room and I'm very happy to be here with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Excellent. It's uh sometimes getting in is difficult, getting out is even more difficult. But uh yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

I I I got the feeling, I got the feeling. But you know what? We'll we'll we'll just see what happens, right? We'll we'll just see where the the afternoon takes us.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

First visit to Winsmouth, is it?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

It is indeed my first visit to Innsmouth. I I've heard about it, of course, I read about it, uh, but I never visited. They always told me that unless you had a very specific uh you know uh you know markers, it would be better not to just visit because you know, like apparently the the locals are a bit um slimy. But you know so far, so far, it seems uh it seems so good. I I don't I I don't see what's the problem, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Just just remember that the trouser press next to the door has a handy little lock on it if you need to take it off and put it on the door because uh after dark it can get a little bit interesting.

SPEAKER_03 4:19

I mean it it's it's it's like you know, um on a holiday in at night, I don't know, in this in central central London, I think, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

I suppose or King's Cross IT. Exactly. Oh god.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

I mean King's Cross in the 90s gives me some fat for that feedback.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

That's what we that's what we were talking about. Yeah, yeah. It's one of those where you have to take a door wedge.

SPEAKER_03 4:45

You know, you know, like it's funny because I do have a very, very, very interesting memory of actually well, it wasn't the nineties, what 2002? So, you know, like we were still in the in the 21st century already, but uh I remember like coming to London on uh I think it was I wasn't doing a DJ set or something, and uh of course you know I had to uh I had I did my complete run of all the the various you know um occult bookshops because you know being in Rome at the time we we didn't really have anything close to what you have here in London. Of course, I'm based in London right now, but um so you know you you go there, you do your DJ set, and then you come back to your hotel at four in the morning, and you and I hear in King's Cross and I hear um like a bang, like like like um uh a pistol going out. It's like okay, that's something something is happening outside. Uh then again, if if you go there, if you go there these days, it's uh completely gentrified. It looks like uh it's completely different, right? Which is both good and bad. I mean, we lost all the eldritch uh strangeness that once was uh you know was seeping from uh from everywhere. Uh I mean London still has those places, I would say, uh which is why I mean I I love living here despite being crushed by gentrification.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? Because we're also saying that Soho in those places, it's not the Soho of our youth. Oh no, Madame Jojo's and all those kind of places.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

No, absolutely, it's all it's all gone. I mean, I like I said, I I still love it, I still love going there. Um I always loved London as a as in I was born and raised in Rome, and most most people would think it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and it is. Uh, but you know, for me, I you know, growing in the shadow of the Colosseum didn't mean anything because I mean it I it's it's what I remember, right? It's it's been ingrained in my in my experience since the very so for me it was always about you know moving into the the dark Victorian alleyways of London. Like and that that that is that is like the the the aesthetic that I'm still completely obsessed with right now. I'm living um south of London, near Greenwich, in uh in an old um what do you say um military hospital that's been completely renovated. Oh nice uh it's good and so you know, like it's just like I love brilliant. I I love that I love that aesthetic.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

So if we can go back to the very start then, and could you tell us how you first got into weird fiction and Lovecraft in particular? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Um we have to go back to the summer of 1990, and it's just interesting because every time I do these these interviews and this podcast, is either for Lovecraft or related material or for Crowley-related material, which are the two things that I've been writing about. But both of them have their beginnings in the same summer of 1990. Uh, I was 12 at the time, and uh for a variety of reasons I had to spend pretty much the entire summer on my own. There was um, you know, like uh there had been like um uh a close relative that just died suddenly, and so my mom and my dad was were always out of the house, and I was spending a lot of time on my own reading. And uh I would that would be the summer that I would discover uh HP Lovecraft. Because at the time Mondadori, which is a very famous, one of the biggest uh publishers in Italy, uh they started um publishing the entire uh run of his novel, of his stories uh in uh in four volumes, you know, divided by time, starting from the and so it was four volumes, I still have them somewhere. Uh anyway, like four volumes, right? From the from 1898, 1895, something like that, up until he died, right? So and and that they were just like they had just been released like the year before. So I remember finding the first, and I was completely taken by the cover. The covers of those were done by this incredible artist, an Italian-Swiss artist called Carol Thall. And they're stunning, they're unique. I mean, like if you if you don't know about him, just look for Carol with the K. Carol Thol T-H-O-L-E. And the guy was something, like, and so uh I I guess you can see. I mean, if you if you Google them, you can see them, and pretty much like I already can see the the four that were chosen by you know by Mundadori to be the the covers of that. So anyway, I was like, okay, this is this is something I have to read, and of course, being Lovecraft, you know, it was uh it grabbed me and it never let me go, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Seems to come to most of us at about the same age, it's an interesting thing, isn't it? Talking about 12, 13, that kind of time it gets you.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yeah, I I I I you that now that you mention it, um, yeah, a lot of other people that I know that are into him and he is you know in the mythos. It's yeah, it starts possibly because it, you know, the mythos seeps into the mind of the adolescents better than anything else. Because it's the moment where you know when with your mind with imagination is the most fertile, and of course, your own body is going through a lot of changes, which is kind of like a very uh uh you know, a very uh poignant theme for everything of Kraftian. And so, you know, maybe that's uh that that's how we're maybe we're being I don't know, we're being um changed by by the Mythos as we grow up. I don't know. I it definitely it was it was definitely the case for me, like I can tell you that.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, yeah, it's a very very similar story with like McGrath, like one of those readers digests books of ghost stories and the weird. Yeah. And the willows was in it, and uh Lovecraft's story, I think it was the outsider, and that was it.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

I was hooked. It's interesting because again, like the same summer, uh I would also discover Auggern and Blackwood and and you know Hoggson and all the other, but thanks to Lovecraft, because of course, you know, like I was I was already like a super nerdy kid, and then uh you know I I read everything, and then of course you got to do supernatural horror literature, and you start reading all these other names, and I was like, okay. Uh and again, it was very uh was very serendipitous to for me because it that summer or the previous one 89, 90, something like that, it's when uh all these uh authors were you know were published in new translations in Italian. So for me I was like that's that's perfect time, right? Uh and um it's interesting because like uh I think I I seem to recall that the the editions I have remained the editions for a good like 30 years. Only recently, you know, new editions came out with new translations, but and of course a lot of like new let's say translation made for more modern sensibilities. Uh and I guess you'll you both know what I'm talking about, right? Or at least you know with with some with some you know footnotes uh that that of course were not there by the time I was reading them in the 90s, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, it was never really mentioned back then, was it, particularly before that? No, no, no, no, no. So through that was you you you say uh Crowley was about the same time. My own part of Crowley was kind of through HPL, but more through Robert Anton Wilson, because it was like HPL then into Robert Anton Wilson, all that thing. But also at the time I was very heavily involved in Chinese martial arts and associated practices, and Crowley, of course, translated Yi Ching, Dao De Jing, spent time in China. So there's a lot of Venn diagram stuff going on in all this, I feel a lot of crossovers.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

It it's fair like I think it does because I think they I mean I I I'm pretty pretty much convinced uh that both HP Lovecroft and Alester Crowley tapped on similar concepts, and of course, as we know, Lovecroft was a complete skeptic, a materialist. Uh he was absolutely certain that everything was you know all mag magic and all supernatural was bunk, but still he spent his entire life kind of decoding these messages he was getting from dreams, so for where dreams were his subconscious, you know, up for debate, but still, whereby Crowley was no like he he he was a true believer, and the and then some, right? Uh but I do believe I I do personally believe I you know uh having spent the last what 30, oh god, I'm old, 38 years, 37 years. It's been a while. Oh god, I don't want to think about that. Uh having spent a long time you know reading them both, um I'm I'm absolutely convinced that they were tapping on similar energies, you know. Um you can use the uh the term egregor if you want, which is this this term we use in uh in magical studies and magical philosophy, which comes from Greek agregor, which really means like um let's say uh uh a thought form, like you know, like an aggregate of ideas that eventually become more almost like solid, quote unquote. Uh, but of course we're talking in solid in the world of ideas, and then it almost like starts having a life of its own. Um so yeah, I mean that that's where where I where I stand right now. And of course, you know, over the years I have um I tried at least to see if there was any sort of ontological reality in uh in whatever Lovecraft was writing by accessing these thought forms, these egregors, uh, via magical means. Um and of course, you know, over the years I ended up becoming a good friend with a certain guy called Peter Levenda that wrote a certain book, wrote it, like uh let's say helped uh helped uh putting in the word a certain book called uh the Simon Necronomicon, and the rest is history, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yes, and this is lens to your latest book, Black Stars in Dim Carcosa, The Necronomicon Field Notes.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Black Stars in Dim Carcosa is um the name of this book I wrote over the over like several years, but then I first coalesced into uh a four-part uh was it four part or six part? I don't remember. It's four part, four-part um lessons series with Peter Levenda that we uh we ran from the the two of February the 2nd of February uh 2025, then for four weeks, maybe six weeks, I don't remember, sometime. Uh and of course the second of February, it's in bulk, it's it's it's um it's a date that happens a lot in in Lovecraft. All the dates, you know, whenever you see me doing something online, you know, look at the date. You can find some reference, some some some reference, you know, uh hidden somewhere. But you know, like we we did this because uh so one thing that I've been really hell-bent on doing in the last several years is to try and make uh the study of magic more accessible to everyone. And to do so, I realized that I had to try and put together systems that are completely different from the way that magic has been thought and shared for the last 150 to 100 years. That is not a magical order, not a witch coven, not something where you know you you just join and then you swear hots and then kind of become a can become very quickly, can become culty, and oftentimes it does. Sure. And this is mostly because I I went through all these experiences, and most of them were very negative, and most of them were taught to me as like you know, it's this is just not working anymore, right? This system of the of the magical order doesn't work anymore, but you can still, you know, use the technology we have nowadays, the internet and the the Zoom and everything else, yeah, to to gather similar people with similar interests and share uh at least the very basics. Like, of course, there will always be an element of uh praxis, physical praxis that cannot be replicated online. Uh and and I I don't think it will ever be, but at least you know, sharing the basis, sharing the general ideas, um it can be done. And of course, you know, I start having these ideas exactly as the pandemic kicked, so it's six years ago already, and of course, that that in fact helped me because you know, in the moment where everybody was online, uh we all had a lot more time, and we we were able, like I was able to gather around me a big community of like-minded folk that want to study this. And then I realized that well, there's also another strand that can of this magical uh philosophy that really goes deep into uh whatever um Lovecraft wrote about, and that has been in fact shared with the world by my friend Peter Lovenda, and he wrote several books. Uh Stairway to Heaven uh is I think the one that you know lays the foundation, and so we did a cool we did a course together in 2024, and then the next one was in fact the Simon Economicon, because the Simon Economicon at its core, and that's what this is one of the main uh arguments in my book Black Stars in Dim Carcosa, it's um it's a system of celestial ascent, so it's a system of progressive initiation that allows the human to strip away the veil of humanity and become closer to God. I'm simplifying, uh, but it uses a very specific framework, and that specific framework is at first that faux Sumerian Babylonian um framework that you find in the Simon Economicon. But then when you go deeper, then it's when you find the true Lovecraftian um layer, right? And again, it's it's all it's all about understanding that these are all layers of a system of initiation that is encoded, and it's almost like the birthright of humanity itself. And so again, we did this course together, great success. And then from the course, I had every time I do a course, I I I ended up with literally like thousands of pages of notes and and diagrams and and whatever. So I go, you know what, let's put it together in a book. And uh this I I decided that I wanted it out as soon as possible. Uh, and so I didn't I didn't um seek uh you know traditional publishing for this one. I wrote two books about Alester Crowley and and its magic that have been traditionally published but published by Watkins, and now uh you know Watkins has been um acquired by Red Wheel Visor, so now I'm I'm even on a bigger publisher now. So those books exist in traditional publishing, you can find them in bookshops everywhere. But I always found that you know I need I wanted to get this thing out as soon as possible, and I wanted to get it out without um a publisher telling me, oh, well, you know, this is maybe not very marketable, because that's another thing, right? Like, you know, when when you go for tra when you go for traditional publishing, uh yeah, I mean, like they they it's great because you have you have no no overheads and and and most of all you have access to distribution, like you know, you your book you can find your book in bookshops, which is very important still to this day, even more, uh even if we have Amazon and whatnot, right? But I didn't want to to to you know the the the editor to tell me, well, you know, you cannot really write about having sex with you know gods. I'm gonna do it my I'm gonna do it myself. And so and so yeah, I learned how to uh typeset. Uh I got this program called Vellum, which is the gold one of the gold standards for for typesetting. I learned how to do it. Uh, I think it turned out very nicely. And uh I I can't I am I am I can do graphics, very basic graphics, but uh I think the cover of it came out nicely as well. And then you know on the 2nd of February 2026, again, one year later, uh the the book was out and it's been it's been successful. Like I think I'm almost sold already 1,000 copies of it, which you know for for something yeah, self-publishing with no promotion whatsoever. Um one thing that you do when you self-publish via KDP, which is you know Amazon's uh proprietary self-publishing platform, which is very good, by the way. Like it's it's really well done. Uh, you also have access to Amazon um advertising, which I tried it, it does help a lot to get your book more out, but but it's really expensive. Like it's it really is expensive. Like, like the point is that like if you if you really have if you have a very, very strong um project, project, and you're willing to invest maybe up up towards the five grand, then you get a lot back, like not not immediately, but you get your five grand and then a lot more on top, pretty much. Because there are the idea is that like they have it's almost like magic, like these algorithms really are able to put the book in front of the person that is ready to click buy, pretty much. So, anyway, this is the story of of Black Stars, and uh it's uh it's out now if uh if anybody is curious. Uh of course I'll I'll bring some copies in uh uh in September. In a month from now.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Already already a month from now, it's great. ILF, yes, you'll be able to sign copies for our guests and visitors. I was thinking the algorithms and everything else. That's almost like its own magical occult system now, isn't it? It's an Eldritch horror. It's impenetrable, it seems.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Yeah. Good question. There's been a lot of debate over the years in Occult In Occult scene about technosis, technomagic, like technomancy. And the reality, technomancy, right? The reality is that from my understanding, there's nothing, nothing of what I would call magical proper. It's just that it's very, it's very well crafted technology. And it's based on data points, right? Like the over the course of the years, uh the last 20 years or so since Google first surfaced, we willfully uh gave them all our data points. And when you have billions of people doing that, I mean that's how they they created like what we call AI, which is not true, artificial intelligence, is large language models, right? Because but they they would when you have all those data points, yeah. I mean, maybe it becomes very kind of undistinguishable from what I would call magic, but it does lack what I would call the soul. I would the tether to the divine. You cannot create anything new, it but it can get you what you need in the right moment.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Yeah, so uh like magic, I find is a it's a key of finding the the words of power, the correct words, because if you don't have them in your blood, then it works absolutely. It doesn't get the right people, you know.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

It's uh in many ways, yeah, in many ways, it's you know, finding the the correct SEO or search engine optimization for whatever you're trying to sell, it it is it is a skill, undeniable. I can't deny and and that's also like where we're saying like this is how you you end up spending um a boatload of money because if you want to optimize for each word, like for instance for black stars, I had to optimize for HP Lovecraft, an old iteration of HP Lovecraft. So our P Lovecraft or H Philips Lovecraft, yeah, yeah, uh HP Lovecraft and then Necronomicon, the Necronomicon. Except it's it's like you and you end up, and then you have to exclude all the things you don't want because maybe you don't want this book to come in front of the person who's looking for the Kakosa, the metal band, right? Yeah, maybe you do, but maybe you don't. It's it's it's uh and and and when you end up you end up spending too much money. So no, I'm not promoting it actively right now. So thank you guys for inviting me here to have the chance to uh then again. Will we be able to leave the Gilman? We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

We don't know. A friend of mine actually did an experiment with um, we were both with the same independent publisher, and he decided he was gonna go down the Amazon ads route, and he worked out that if if you but I think he just got like some inheritance or something, so he had a bit of money to play with, and he figured out that if you spent money up to a certain threshold, it wouldn't do it would get you nowhere, absolutely nowhere. And there was a distinct point. I can't remember the number it was what figure it was, but it was like there was a distinct moment.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

I I I I think it it it depends, it depends from project to project, and it depends, you know, whatever you're selling, but you you're right. I I had the same I have the same evidence as well. Like up and for my case, I had to spend on upwards five grand, which you know, like it I mean the the book has made that and a little bit more already because of almost 1,000 copies sold. Uh and of course this is another thing, you know. Whenever you self-publish, you can you can you get more money out of whatever whatever book is sold, but all my you know the my books that are uh traditionally published, I made one pound per copy sold. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter how much you pay, doesn't matter where you buy it, I get that's right. That's it, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Even if you self-publish and I I go through Ingram's Ingram Spark, who then distribute to Amazon. So by the time I've paid print costs and Amazon have taken there, but yeah, on a 12-pound book, I'll maybe make £150 or two quid or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Yeah, a couple of quid usually, in it.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Yeah, I was thinking, I was thinking of you know getting on Ingram Spark as well to get Black Stars um distributed in bookshops. But then again, like so far, uh I have this partnership with Watkins Books in London. They buy they buy the book, they buy the book, it sells well. As soon as it's finished, I send them more copies. So uh, you know, it it would be nice. Maybe, maybe I should then again maybe this book could find its way to Barnes and Nobots in the States, right? Yeah, because again, uh there there is a very big um you know audience for Everetting Lovecraftian, a lot bigger than for Everetting Crawley Crawley.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I don't like well there there's a fascinating sort of crossover between these two characters, if I can call them that. I mean, in in some ways, they both have become characters outside of their own.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

They have become characters, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

And uh I just wanted to mention Kenneth Grant recently, because I found out something this morning that I was I was just doing a bit of research. Kenneth Grant, one of the things he said was was similar to what to what you said before. Lovecraft was channeling. He wasn't creating, he was channeling, and obviously he took aspects of the mythos and put those into his uh into his system. Uh I found out that Kenneth Grant was born in a place called Ilford, uh just on the edge of East London, where I largely grew up. And I found he went to a grammar school in Ilford. Well, there's only one grammar school in Ilford, and I went to that as well. I went to the same school as Kenneth Grant. Fuck nice nice.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

I never I never met him in person, but I did share uh letters with him 20 odd years ago, um more, like 25 years ago, because for a while I was engaged in translating uh his books into Italian, and I did the translation for Against the Light. Um, and so you know, like I I was I was sending him you know questions and whatnot because uh Kenneth Grant is one of those uh authors, magical philosophers, magicians of the 20th century that are truly um unique, right? Like it's it's very hard to understand what is on what he is on about, unless you first of all you have a very good backdrop in whatever Crowley was on about, whatever you know Tantra is about, uh and then uh of course Lovecraft, right? Because um uh Kenagrand was really trying to synthesize these three strands into his magical philosophy that it's known as Tifonian Gnosis or Tifonian dilemma, right? Um and I always like to say that if you want to have a very good vibe of what this Tifian Gnosis is all about, you should read against the light. And uh I you know I I only it came to my understanding only because I was translating in Italian and I was able to access him, you know, via letter. This is I mean emails was a thing, but you had to write letters to this guy, right? Same same with Michael Berthiot, which is a girl, a person that I am and ended up knowing, and and uh I ended up studying with him in in Chicago. But you know, the of truly old school, like you you had to to to type uh and and print and send and wait. And they would they would always they would always always uh write you back. Like you you know that you send out a letter uh to Kenneth Grant, two weeks later, tops, you would you would have his letter, like he would write you back. So you know, like it's this idea of it's it's very like very love crafting, right? The idea that you see you sit down and you write letters, um, which of course we don't do anymore. I mean, I wasn't doing it anymore, I haven't done it ever since, right? Like ever since um I I had these two epistolary uh correspondences, but anyway, like against the light really gives you the idea of what the Tiffonian nose is all about because it is about really dreaming of all other realities and moving across time and space through those dreamscapes, which is Lovecraft, right? It's what happens to uh to Carter in uh whenever whenever he goes to visit Kadat and whenever he goes to visit you know the the dream world. It's that that that's that's exactly what happens to him. And to be fair, um the idea of you know dream control and dream incubation, which is something that I speak about in Black Stars Indium Carcosa, it's one of the main magical techniques that you can derive from uh a mythos-infused praxis.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

But well, a lot of Lovecraft's bad ideas actually came from his dream, so that uh that kind of attracts, it goes comes full circle, really.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

I mean, and and this is the and this is what you know Kenneth Grant on the point he was he was making, right? Like he uh Kenneth was saying that you know it doesn't matter if Lovecraft was you know in his public face, in his waking world, it was a staunch materialist, it doesn't matter because whenever you dream, you go into this include into into you move away from the waking world, you enter the you enter the dream, like you enter the the dream quest for a known cadat, really. And there, there you you get other ideas. There you live live other lives and you have different personas, and uh some maybe are similar to you, and some are you know full of tentacles and other strange strange appendages appendages, right? The fun ones, the fun ones, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

So is it a case then that we in effect we we dream our own reality, we create our own gods, or is is this something we often talk about where you have these encounters in Lovecraft with uh beings from other dimensions? We are trying to look at something in a three or four-dimensional sense that exists in ten dimensions, and we always say it's like the blind, four blind men in a dark room describing an elephant by touch, you know. So is this a case of we access an aspect of some higher reality in a way that uh suits us, you know, if that makes sense?

SPEAKER_03 32:12

I don't think it's uh I don't think there's any dichotomy, right? I don't think it's either or. I think there's all these things at once and and then some. Like from we leave we live in a in a four-dimensional reality. We have the our three physical dimensions and time, right? That's where and we are we are locked into them. Like as soon as I mean, uh uh as long as we live and we have like we we are tethered to this uh three dimensions plus three dimensions plus one, right? Like and in fact, this is how we perceive reality cause and effect, past that becomes the future, and we always live into this fleeting, you know, uh singular time moment time uh present time moment that constantly escapes us because where it is, it was there, but it's gone now. So it's so where is it, right? But whenever we sleep, we uh literally we transcend that uh that almost like that cage, and we go other places, and in those other places, sometimes we go play in places where we create, yeah, and then in then whatever is there, it's something we created, but then those entities can can also can still talk back to us, and maybe you know, maybe they talk back to us because they're part of our subconscious, or maybe because you know we created something that eventually became outside, completely outside of us, but still we can have an interaction with them. From time to time, we got to places where we've been dreamed by something else, right? Uh the idea whenever you whenever you dis whenever you discuss the idea of multidimensionality, uh that is one of the main con the main points of my entire module system, like whatever I've been working with forever, right? And that is that we only can perceive as far as our senses allow us. And so the idea of even like we we we can get the glimpse of other realities, but we we should not not even try to latch our rational mind around it because it will never get there, right? So instead, what we can do is that we can um trick the rational mind through ritual and through trance, through use of drugs or use of sex in a ritualized way, uh or we can do that by inviting communion with with entities from from those other dimensions that by virtue of contact can allow us to have those glimpses. Again, that's exactly what Lovecraft, what happens to Lovecraft um characters, usually in a terrible way, because Lovecraft was completely um disgusted and afraid of this contact. Like he like he but which is to me is always interesting because like at the same time, one of his biggest um passions in life was astronomy, right? So he was always looking for whatever was out there, but it was almost like but it was also a complete, I did say, um, xenophobe. So he was scared of anything that would come back. I was like, so this man was like this storm of contradictions, right? Like he wanted like he wanted the he wanted the xenophilia, but was a xenophobe.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Like on a cosmic level, what does it matter? What sort of food your neighbor eats? Exactly. Strange, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 35:28

Yeah, I mean, but then again, like he was also like somebody that was obsessed with the idea of you know mating with his other realities, but then he never, I mean, of course he was married once with Sonia Green, but did he ever consume the marriage? We don't know. Was he possibly gay and he could not uh could not say it? We don't know, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Isn't there a letter from somebody, two of the other members of the circle talking about it? And Sonia described his love making as adequate.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Yes, yeah, possibly, yes, yes, yeah, you're right, you're you're right. So so they so yeah, then again, uh that doesn't let's see. It's it's not it's not a it's not a great it's not a glowing recommendation, yeah, yeah. If if if if my partner ever tells me that my love making is adequate, I'm gonna be not be happy.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

That was like that cat advert a little while ago. Yeah, oh I I love my little kitty, and the cat looks back and says, You're adequate. Exactly, I remember that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so if if we are in that situation, yeah, and I mean the Lovecraft quote is we live on our little island of ignorance, and we weren't meant to go very far. And if we do, we come back screaming into the light, sort of thing. Um, so are there dangers in any of this? Um I I I could speak to certain experiences of myself where you feel like you've got in touch with something that definitely is outside of yourself and sometimes it's not friendly. I think there is danger, yes.

SPEAKER_03 37:01

Um, and that is why one that seeks this type of connections and relationships, and I call them relationships because they can become full full-fledged relationships. I'm not saying like romantic relationships, even if sometimes they could become romantic relationships, but just relationships, like like we with your fellow man, right? Just that you with your with your fellow creature. Um, but those relationships can be dangerous, which is why you you must prepare for that contact. The way I describe this is that whenever we think of uh known human intelligence, as which is a term that has become so popular in recent years, you know, in the disclosure movement, uh all this all this um talk about NHI, what we used to call UFOs or aliens, now are NHIs, known human intelligence, because the everybody's starting to latch out the idea that maybe it's not green man on a on a spaceship, maybe it's something else, right? Uh but the point is that, like in in my experience and just not just my experience, so I can tell you of my direct experience, but also you know the the literature um agrees with me, these known human experience uh intelligences be we can classify them as demons, angels, uh gods, spirits, whatever, usually all of them without and without um much um difference, they almost like they vibrate at frequencies much much higher or lower than ours, which creates a sort of like um residual um how do you say radiation field. Okay, and so getting in touch with them will be dangerous by by virtue that you you we are made of different things, and it's almost like matter and antimatter that theoretically, if antimatter even exists, I mean it's a theory, it's not proven, but theoretically, if you bring matter and antimatter together, boom, everything it's gone because you cannot put it. It's the same thing, like these these entities were even if they have uh even we can't interact with them the way we're interacting right now, they're made of something that would react badly, quote unquote, with us. But there are techniques that we can use to shield ourselves in order to get into this uh these uh um uh relationships. And once you do that, then you're safe, right? It in this is exactly what I'm describing really is the the circle of the magician. Right. Like if you if you close your mind and you think about the magical grimoire, like the the most stunning and most enduring image that surely comes into your mind is the circle of the art, right? Is you you you write you you you you write down uh with your chalk like a circle, and then the spirit cannot come in. Well, that circle really is, I mean, you can do it ritualistically by you know really like you know drawing something on the ground in front of you and you stepping in the center, but in fact, that that uh circle, it is well, uh I like the term body of light, but it's just a term like many others. Like there's been you can call it aura, you can call it whatever you want, right? And that circle and that body of light, that aura, is created and it is um you know tended to by all a series of very different practices, some of them became very, very popular and very mainstream. Pranayama, like which is one of the eight limbs of yoga, and is the control of breath. And of course, uh, you know, in in my first book, the Lester Cruli Manual, I give a very simplified uh explanation of what pranayama really is because my first book is really for everybody. It's a book that I wrote for the person that he finds the book on a pile and says, Oh, this is cool, and has no knowledge whatsoever, but then he can get something done right away. Of course, pranayama is not just about you know being aware of your breath, you have to do certain techniques, etc. etc. But the idea is that like you start with that, and that is that is the first technique that starts building that body of light, that circle around you. And then there's many more many others. Now, back if you think about the the Simon Necronomicon, so and sorry if our listeners, if I'm going place to place, let me know if it's too much. But if we go back to the Simon Necronomicon, um the gatewalking practice of the Simon Necronomicon, like this idea of like this seven months ritual, which is very ritualistic, very well um it really has the feel of magic because you know you have to prepare and you have to say certain names, and you have to find the right moon uh and you have to use the search of the right incenses and whatnot. And every month you do it invoking, sorry, not invoking, conjuring, really, um, one of the seven um gods of of Sumer, you know. Uh well, what you're really doing is basically you are creating a seven-layer circle, body of light, because eventually, only once you've done that, then you can enter the the gate of Ganzir and and find the the others, right? Because that is the moment when then you're ready. Like you have, of course, at that point you have the strength of Marduk and the 50 names of Marduk, which we all know this is not exactly what it's the real Sumerian uh religion was all about. Uh, again, the the seminar, it's it's really a very good reconstruction of this traditional celestial ascent uh praxis that is meant for you for us humans to build our vessel and then be ready to go into the stars, and with a little bit of Sumerian Babylonian and then Lovecraftian vibes on top, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

But I I think you find when you look across all the different traditions wherever they're from, they're remarkably similar in structure. You know, you to go back to the Chinese, you can get into the five elements and then the the hexagrams of the Yi Qing, and this relates to that very much like the Kabbalah.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

You know, this direction is this colour and relates to like you we humans are have been uh very consistent when we try to create systems of of what what Peter Levenda first called, when then I call as well. Uh Celestial scent. It's almost like we are uh we're manufactured that way, right? We're programmed in a sense. In many ways, you can say that, right? Like, yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, uh when you hear these things, and then you get all the conspiracy theories. Oh, you know, we've been we've we've been like, and I can see David Ike here, right? Oh no, like the the the Anunnaki. Well, the Anunagi, right? We're talking about them. Yeah, that's who they are.

SPEAKER_02 43:40

Yeah, yeah. You can still see him on Wogan.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Yeah, it's Wogan, wasn't it? Then the serpent people come into it and yeah, all the rest. And yeah, invented by Robert E. Howard. Yes. There's um I don't know if you read it, Gary Lackman's book, uh is it Um Turn Off Your Mind, the The Dark Side of the Sixties goes into a lot of that stuff. I know I haven't read I haven't read that one, but uh he he usually usually writes good stuff. So it is it is very and and touched upon my childhood and teenage years in in a very what felt like a very personal way because all the books he lists from Robert Howard and Target. Yeah, I've I've got that. I've got the Colin Wilson. Yeah, I've got that.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

I was just gonna say Colin Wilson and all that. Yeah, yeah. The occult by Colin Wilson was uh yeah, was groundbreaking. It was it was it was it was already an old book when I when I started like you know uh messing with the with the occult in the 90s, but I read it, of course, because he also because think about it, like up until up until the last decade, we didn't have much. There's been there's been this explosion of magical interest in the last 10 years. I think it's dying now. I think it's it's going uh um you know seriously going underground again, maybe for the best, because no but nobody needs another 10 years of witch talk. But um, but yeah, like like up until a decade ago, we didn't have many books, right? Like it we we had uh good good titles, but we were still going back to I mean even before Cohen Wilson. I mean, Colin Wilson was still considered like a novelty, like a new a new voice, and it's from the 70s, like 50 years ago, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Well, I I think in some ways the late 60s into the 70s was the first modern wave where the occult really it seeped into common culture. I mean, the kids' programs we had at the time, Tarot, the tomorrow people, even uh elements of Doctor Who, Children of the Stones. Um, kids TV back then was terrifying. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03 45:38

We didn't have that in Italy, unfortunately, but we had a lot of um uh also like magical realism in literature. So like something was CV, and then again it was when they started translating uh Lovecraft, really, that that was like this, which was late 80s, mid 80s to to late 80s, and then my when I when I when I found it in the early 90s, that was the moment, but yeah, you know, when I when I moved to London uh 15 years ago, I started discovering old like children on the stones, etc. So I was like, Oh wow, like oh Sapphire and Steel, all these things like the well uh this the TV in the 70s and the 80s in this country was weird.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Oh, it's awesome, it was great stuff, yeah. And it was quite common. I remember my my parents, or they were into Ouija and all that kind of thing, and the and the bookshelves like you said readers digest, and it was a history of black magic and Dennis Wheeling. This was all quite mainstream back then, you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Well, house parties, they'd get the fondue set and the Ouija board out, wouldn't they? It was it was a thing for house parties, it was really quite bizarre.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Yeah, I remember my mum and dad's parties were Ouija board and we and the kids were set upstairs, and yeah, again, odd weird shit going on. Ah, that'd be nice. Is it any wonder we turned out the way we did? Really? Yeah, absolutely. So with these um quite complex structures and rituals and everything else, I I don't want to mischaracterize any particular group, but would it be fair to say that that type of occultist generally leads towards the more authoritarian side of things? If I can put it that way.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Oh, I see where you're going with this. Uh uh so um the answer is yes, with a caveat. Um over the the what I called occulture, which really is a modern construct that is you know popular culture culture that is uh in um infused by occult uh uh ideas, culture is not far right leaning per se. Okay, you know, as you were saying, it's something that you know stems from the from the hippie movements of the 60s, Robert Anton Wilson, Terrence McKenna, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, so David Bowie, right? All these things. Pretty much what Gary Lackman writes about, right? Like so culture doesn't go uh authoritarian right wing. Unfortunately, everything that came to before does. And that I mean everything. Um Theosophy, the Golden Done, Rosicrucianism, uh, Alester Crowley, the unfortune, they were all, even when they were uh on the you know, they were like Alester Crowley, like very um iconical figures and very like controversial figures for the time. Their politics were were leaning conservative, were leaning uh um uh right wing, right? And so authoritarian. Um I can tell you my experience, my direct experience, and that is the the years that I spent in Ordotempi Orientis or OTO, uh, which is one of the magical organizations that Alester Crowley founded, inherited in the case of the OTO, he inherited it from because the OTO starts in the early 1900s as a pan-Masonic group uh founded in Germany, and pan-Masonic basically they were these were Freemasons that discovered Tantra and yoga and wanted to introduce Tantra and yoga to to Masonic rituals, which is really weird. Uh, I'm I'm I'm currently a Freemason, so I can tell you it's really weird. I don't know how that would work, but it they they tried, and then eventually um Theodor Reuce, which was the the leader, the German, the the worldwide leader of German, uh got to know Alester Crowley and and brought him bring him on board, and Crowley makes you know the OTO makes it Thalemic, right? For our listeners, we should really quickly say also what is Thilemma. Thilemma is a magical mystical philosophy and new religion that was received by channeling uh by Alester Crowley and his first wife Rose Kelly in Cairo in 1904. They received like a fundamental text called the Liberal Villegis or the Book of the Law. And and you know, to cut long story short, many years later, uh Crowley decides to him that would be his his uh lifetime goal to establish the the religion and the system of dilemma. And so, whenever if somebody suggests him to become um to take the reign of a very of a kind of an established Masonic group at a time where Freemaser is very popular and it's really like it's really able to get the rich and the famous and the powerful uh in into his ranks, uh Crowley said, yeah, let's go, let's go with it. Um so in my experience in the OTO, I can tell you that being hierarchical, it also tends to go very authoritarian. Another caveat here in the UK, most people who are still members of the OTO are not right wing. Okay, they are they're mostly uh people that that that wouldn't know how to hurt cats. So it it's it's just like uh it's just a group of uh of people that still want to believe that you know saying things, uh you know, like chanting uh Hebrew Hebrew words that they don't understand will do something. It's a bit of a cosplay group, and this is kind of the reality of the OTO everywhere, unfortunately. Right. Uh however, in Italy, in Poland, especially in the United States, there is a huge component of right-wing and authoritarian uh folks in it, right? Um, this is the reason why uh I left in 2018, I resigned, I uh I wrote about it uh at length. I'm not gonna bother you with all the details, that's not about it, because the reality is that in general, magical groups that are you know that that find their um their ground on the Western esoteric tradition uh tradition as we understand it, they tend to be authoritarian, they tend to be more right-wing. This is more so, though, for those groups that really try to present themselves as the good guys. I'm thinking Rosicrucianism, I'm thinking certain more esoteric strands of Freemasonry, not so much United Grown Lodge of England, you know, UGLE, which is the Freemasons that you find right in the there. There's two articles, one in the Metro and one in the Financial Times. Right now, the UGLE, which is the Freemasonry I belong to, it really is um it's a fraternity of uh based on charity, pretty much. Okay, the the the the the how do you say like the the mystical side has been almost completely obliterated in order for for it to keep functioning as a as a as a charity, pretty much. Okay. And I know that I'm gonna maybe I'm gonna sound a little bit a little bit like um disillusioned, but that's the reality of it, right? Like if you the the there's no real the there's not really like a Freemasonry that's esoteric anymore in this country.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Is that kind of the equivalent in a way of like the Church of England versus perhaps Russian Orthodox or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

Exactly. You you you you nailed you nailed it very well, in fact. To be fair, um, there's a lot of um uh like clergy of the Church of England, which are also members of UGL Freemasonry. Because yeah, in many ways, in in reach, in ideas, in ideals, uh they're very similar. And you're right, like you know, then when you look at the difference between Church of England and uh Russian Orthodox or even Catholics, uh, that you see the difference there. But they're they're like when we go back to our um esoteric groups, uh for like pretty much everybody I know that still belong to one or another um you know evolutions of the Golden Dawn, they're all very much right-wingers, right? And uh when you when you look at Rosie Christian's group, Martinists, uh all again, like not so much like the OTO or Crowley, that's you know, they always uh always have this the stigma of being like the bad guy. The real bad guys are found in the in the ones that go around you know with with big flags and uh and and big templar garbs, which you know, like from time to time it's almost like um uh reality likes to uh reproduce itself at all all its layers, very much, right? And so yeah, in many ways, this is like I said, why why I'm I'm not involved in groups anymore. I mean, I'm still a member of DAA, our Gentil Masterum, but that is because it really is um it the AA really works as um student disciple uh relationship, kind of like the Jedi's and the Sith, if you want to think. It's kind of like it's kind of like that. Maybe maybe more like the Sith than the Jedi, because the Jedi did have like an order and whatnot. Like the the A, the A really is like you know, master and disciple, which is like the rule of two of the Siths, right? Anyway, um you can get an idea of where where they got that idea, possibly. Um but but but everything, everything else, like if I I lost I lost faith in uh in the order um format long ago. I mean it's been all it's been almost 10 years, uh eight years that I've been uh out of the OTO. And so, you know, like for me you always end up with people that care too much about hierarchy and too much about the power that counts with hierarchy. And for me, that's when you lose control of yourself and you lose the um you lose the focus on what should be very important, which is spiritual evolution. I mean, uh if you want if you want that, you can join whatever else.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Yeah, there's there's uh plenty to choose from. Yeah, I I just wondered if like the the chaos magic movement was uh sort of kickback against that. When did that start? So late 70s, early 80s kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 55:56

Late seven so the chaos magic starts in the late 70s with Peter J. Caro, which recently just passed, and Ray Sherwin, and uh and then you know the second generation was uh Phil Hein and several others, right? Um to this day Phil Phil Hein doesn't consider himself a chaos magician anymore, is is very well um uh versed in anything tantra, anything eastern. So, and of course, you know, one of the one of the one of the famous uh let's say big scandals in in chaos magic territory, which was in the 80s, is what we call like the the ice magic wars, which is between Peter Karl and his Frater U D, which is um a German magician called by the name of Ralph Ralf Techtmeier, which I is is on is on my Facebook, very nice chap. Uh and if you if you uh ask Ralph, it's like this never happened. This was just like Peter Carl's delusions that he'd been writing for years about, and it's all about the fact that you know the the Illuminatus of Terra Illuminates of Taneteros, which was this chaos magic magic group that was coalesced around Peter Carroll, started to become very structured and very hierarchical and very ordered. So you want to be like chaotic, but then you become incredibly ordered. Yeah. Then again, you know, uh Pete Carroll was a known Tory, uh supporter of Brexit, uh uh yada yada yada. I mean, um I met I met him once in Glastonbury many years ago. Um very interesting character, definitely one of those who change the way we understand magic in the Western as in the Western world. But again, somebody that for somebody that was very hell-bent on chaos, he really cared about his hierarchy, really cared about his structure, and he definitely voted that way in the in the ballot box.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

So I mean that's quite Lovecraftian again, isn't it? Really, as we were saying.

SPEAKER_03 57:59

Lovecraft writing about strange things, all these things, and and and uh and then fancying himself uh as an Edwardian gentleman and an high Tory. Well, I mean Crowley, same, right? Crowley called himself an high Tory, which is exactly what uh uh Lovecraft fancied himself as. Like, so it's almost like you're almost like you know, like a conservative, but you know, the the the the con the good conservative, like the conservative that looks uh after the the the morals and the well-being of society, etc. etc. etc. Which you know, there's nothing wrong about it. I think that I mean given the world we live in today, we could use uh we could use a better society, but then again, uh if if the price is I don't know xenophobia or racism or bigotry of any kind, then maybe maybe we need to recalibrate everything, right? And and have and have a better a better solution. Maybe you know getting rid of capitalism would be the first one. But then again, I'm not I don't think I'm gonna we're gonna see it in our uh in our lifetimes. And then again, we've just spent a lot of time spending talking about Amazon and how to exactly and how to and how and how to find tune.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

We're all tied up in it, right? You cannot escape it. You're in this environment.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

I would say though, I I think I think that the fact that we do have these discussions, even in an environment like this, right? Possibly because we're about to be eaten by the fish people outside, I don't know. But even in an environment like this, like these discussions were not common 10 years ago. Definitely were not common even five, six years ago when I started doing podcasts. I think that you know collectively as a as a society, we we all we all are feeling the reality. And so maybe if we even if we don't have a solution, I don't certainly don't have a solution. Um I it's it's good that we talk about it because you know maybe you you can start generating critical mass, and I don't know, maybe uh Shubanigarat can listen to us and come and eat us all.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

That would be I think we've got Nail Atep on the other side who definitely runs social media, and maybe I'm convinced, I'm convinced.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

It's uh that's something I wanted to ask you because you touched on the internet earlier, and I saw a post you made fairly recently uh about the internet and YouTube specifically, like people, the the ritual side of it on the YouTube. How how has that changed things? And and is it is it diluting stuff? Is it uh moving it away from the core tenants of what uh you think should things how things should be?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:38

I really believe that we the social media has failed us completely, right? Uh I think and I again look look at how uh the paradox of us discussing it through a social media platform and then putting it out for people on social media to consume it, right? But I I I've been I've been on the internet since the 90s again. Uh in 1995, I got my first computer, a compact computer, that came with a uh uh 56k uh modem. So and ever since I've been on the internet, so it's been 30 years of why ruined my life anyway. Uh but that means that that means that for the longest time I was a very strong proponent of it, right? Because um in the 90s I was on BBSs, I was on Irknet, and I was on Barbelit, one of the first magical forums. I was on AltMagic, Alt.magic on Usenet. Uh I and you know, like I I got my I was finally through the internet being able to expand my interest in something that at up until that point was limited to whatever I could get in Italy. Even if I could read English, I could not get anything out of it. I could read English because I grew up, you know, between here in the States, uh, etc. etc. etc. Right. So the internet helped me there, and then in the 2000s, the internet helped me because I got my first um my band got signed because uh we were doing very well on mp3.com, which is something that's like I think about it. I remember exactly, right? So so and and then you know I I was a very early um user of MySpace, and then I was very user of forums, and then when Facebook came along and Instagram came along, and then YouTube came along, I've done it all, right? So for the longest time I really thought, you know, social media is great, and then something broke desperately. And now now I really think that social media actively hindering our ability to think and to actually get more proper information. And so whenever we go into the study of esoterica, it's uh almost impossible now to distinguish the the wheat from the chaff. It's so easy to put out all sorts of disinformation, and most of the times people that do that they are themselves unaware of it, but they they just think since since we are locked into this um almost like the this hamster wheel of having to churn out content again and again. I'm thinking about you know people much younger than me, in their 20s or even younger. They just they're just locked into this thing and they they are they don't know how ignorant they are, but they are confident and and they and they keep generating immense amount of this information. I'm not gonna name name because I learned to be more I'm getting too old for being called politics. But I will just say that there one of the biggest YouTube TikTok channels dedicated to the lemma is a young woman in her now, she must be in her mid-20s, but when she started off, she was in her very in her late twentiens, that she's been doing videos non-stop for six years, they're all absolute garbage. She she has no idea what she's talking about, she's just reading from Wikipedia. Oftentimes she uh she blatantly say wrong things, but it's been six years that she does it with the absolute conviction, and uh she has the looks, yeah, yeah, which of course helps a lot on anything that's you know video based. She's got the looks, she has the conviction, and she has the utter ignorance of knowing her own ignorance. That's it. How do you you you will never be able to undo the damage that this has this person has done? Because and I I mean I mean I'm I'm I'm very uh willing to believe she doesn't know she she's being artful and she's doing because she and and this she's she's just one. Um one of the reasons why I don't do many podcasts anymore, this is one of you I do, because the few podcast, the few esoteric podcasts that are left, not only maybe are all you know tied to let's say people with politics that don't really gel with mine, but also like people that just don't care about getting out good information, they just need the content, they need the they need to put out a podcast episode every week because if you don't do it, and and so you get you get you know a good name and then 25 insane individuals like blasting out uh whatever. And and so, you know, like back to that, I think I remember the post. I it it's it's really hard. Um, and I don't have again, I don't have a solution. I do believe we are very close to see the complete collapse of social media, um, you know, between the dead internet theory and the Hascore doctoral, uh very cleverly defined, you know, the in shitification process. It's everywhere. Um, one of the few platforms that were still somehow safe, uh Substack, which is of course because it's more of a like it's a written written platform, so you have to put a little bit more effort in it. it's f it's falling as well because of course now it's all about you know everything is written by AI yes but is it really so let's put let's put like this tool that tells us what is written by AI by an AI company so every time you scan you by the time you scan it not only it gives you seven say seven times out of ten it gives you false positive but you're also feeding them your it's it's insane it it's and it's everywhere like this right um I for a while I I I try to make YouTube work because you know I have two two of my friends you know it's Dr. Andrew Puck and Dr. Justin Zulec they have massively big YouTube channels uh and and again they all told me Mark you the only secret of youtube is doing it constantly you don't you want you want to do at least two videos uh a month but then you know every time I try I get almost no traction unless I write I I do something that is controversial like so or or it's all about you know let's this let's let's discuss about like one of the one of the my videos that did did very very good was about talking about the the Antichrist and Peter Thiel which you know like that's something I am qualified to talk about because you know the antichrist is a big figure in dilemma so let's let's discuss that right but it's not that I can I can manufacture uh like a fake uh uh controversy every two weeks just to get I I don't like it I don't want to do that every time every every time I do I did a video about I don't know like I I did a pretty decent video about the um what is the great work 3,000 views right the other one 20 000 views we're we're still talking about miserable views right because again um also you know when you spoke speak about magic and the like you you're not you know the platform does not uh it's not incentivized to put you out to the public because of course they they they make their money by selling the the ads and so who which ads can you sell on me talking about girls you're not selling makeup and hair product and oh exactly right so yeah but they this is the same across the board in the martial arts world the people who are the most successful are the ones who put up this is shit this won't work this is deadly or clips basically laughing at people falling over or doing shit cater or something if you put out good solid information 500 views if you're lucky it's all it's all about the clickbait isn't it it's all like that it's and it it it got worse it got worse well someone told me recently you have to capture the viewer in the first second of your video if I'm doing a 15 minute video the first second is me going hello maybe whip me a top off hello that that is the reason you know why why videos don't have like um an intro intro anymore or why videos don't have an outro anymore I don't know if you see like very successful video they they they cut abruptly because the idea is that if you if you if you do a coda where you say okay well thank you I'll see you next week people leave and so the algorithm sees people leaving the last 10 seconds all the videos failed yeah it's insane it's insane and I and I and you know like there was a moment where I was like you know I really needed to market me a lot to market whenever I do a lot because you know I was beginning and I needed I I was doing a lot more online courses and I was like you know I you gotta do it you gotta do it now I've been basically I've been mostly uh focused on writing I have various writing projects uh that I'm working on at the moment and and there will be more more um courses coming down the line but and so you know there would be again me doing some videos on live streams because you gotta you gotta do that but the reality is like if I don't need to market myself all the time I'm I'd rather not do it because you know I like uh I think that these videos are shit like you know I think that me me like starting hi so the the the great the great work is uh you know discovering yourself and now now now we're gonna talk because again in the in those first five seconds you have to tell you what the video is gonna be about it's shit it's terrible uh storytelling you don't you don't want to do that but apparently that it it works like this and I'm like no I so back to your question yeah I just wonder if we had that sort of Robert Anton Wilson idea I think Leary as well of the singularity where you know knowledge doubles every so many years and it doubles and doubles and doubles and I I think I think they predicted it's gonna be by 2015 or something we're gonna reach this point of ultimate knowledge yeah but it it's almost like that is happening but with the internet it's kind of uh folding in on itself almost I think it's folding on its I mean I I do believe that something weird has happened in 2012 uh and this is not like the Maya you know long account when they switched the CERN thing on that's that's yeah turned it on well it the the the the the CERN turned on in 2012 yeah exact exactly exactly uh but I I I I've been I've been um I've seen the word change in weird ways ever since right um again I I don't have I mean this is just me like vibes right I don't have any real data about it but yeah every time somebody asks me like you know do you think things change I think yeah so in 2012 things kinda changed and and you know got worse and worse every year um at the same time uh I don't know why I have this completely irrational vibe feeling again that we've we've done like it's it's coming to a moment relatively soon in our lifetimes but not not in 20 years now in the next few years where things are gonna even themselves out again. Again if you ask me how literally there's been dreams but so so you can say they're vibes right we'll we we in we will see in two years two years two three years times if if I was right or not I hope so because I was like the last last year too much maybe the whole climate thing is gonna force a change you know because how how long can you all die possibly we all die exactly that's all glory in it you know okay so have you got anything lined up at the moment you can talk about any new projects so yes um I for the first time in a very long time I don't have anything to sell which is which is great right however um if anybody who is uh listening to this is curious about what I do uh my website is uh markovisconti.org and there you find con links to all my books and links to all my courses I have over like 10 courses of various length and various complexity that try to again give the person who has no knowledge at all about what magic is the way we understand and practice magic in the Western world uh in the contemporary western world I should say um you know those courses were put together over the last six years to you know for you to kick start your way into a magical practice um I have just completed my first novel and I am currently looking for literary agents uh to present it because you know whoever read it told me you should not self-publish this this could have some potential so we shall see uh fingers crossed uh but I'm not gonna say anything else about it uh I will just say that there might be something that the listeners of this podcast might be interested in ah nice nice nice very interesting but then again like I said like I don't I don't know when when it will be out if it will be out we shall see um the point I'd say like if if in one year time I nobody wanted to uh to represent it I'll put it out myself because I think it's a story that I want I want people to read because I think it's a good story. But at the same time those who read it say this this might have potential so try try uh try to go to do the the to do it the right way the first time and then I am um I am in talks with Red Wheel Visor which is my new publisher for Everton Crowley uh to pretty much like uh write and publish the final book of my Crowley trilogy um it was always meant to be three books because the first book which is the Alexa Crowley manual is meant to give you the absolute foundations uh the second book Alexa Crowley's Mysticism which it was out last December um was about you know the the intermediate step and the concept of the knowledge and conversation with Hogardian angel and then this book which should be titled Babylon Unveiled it's about the experience of Babylon it's about the experience of Koronzun and it's about the experience of the abyss that is basically everything that pertains to the grade of the master of the temple in the AA system or if we want to see uh from the perspective of the three grades of the book of the law the first book was about the man of earth the second book is about the lover and the third book whenever it will be out uh and written actually uh will be about the hermit um i did i i already received um like uh a proposal a contract proposal we're negotiating we shall see i i hope i'll be able to announce it pretty soon but anyway anyway it will be it will be out in late 2027 early 2028 even so uh that's about it I think yes excellent final question then to wrap up uh what is it that draws you in particular to Lovecraft and what do you think is the secret of his uh increasing popularity really because uh it just seems to be growing year on year. I think that Lovecraft gives everybody permission to face their monsters and invite their monsters into their lives and possibly become friends with them. That's what happened to me. Like uh Lovecraft gave me the opportunity to make sure that I shouldn't fear my dreams even if it was like you know horrible things happen in dreams I'm like no no I liked it. I think that you know what by the time you read Randolph Carter stories you realize that you know the the the Lang Plateau and Nero Latot might be scary and the old gods might be scary but there's also so much many more beautiful things to explore and you know that is really like the gates of dreams are open to everybody. So everybody can just go there reach out for these realities and invite them in their lives.

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As to why it's becoming more and more popular and like its popularity keeps on growing it's guess because the the the world is becoming crazier that's that's the answer right the the more the more the world gets crazier the more Nyrolot is very happy and um so by the way that is Nyarlatot like and and this are this is a show but I don't know if you go that's a that's a very uh very nice tattoo there and I think if uh you do get any problems tonight just flash that tattoo and I'll you'll you'll be accepted yeah I mean uh that did when I came out came in like they were like saying strange like uh strange words and strange chants but they looked at my um and they let me pass without problems it's like Insmouth is it's becoming a haven you know that's how strange things are getting exactly exactly well thank you thank you for having me and I will see you in just one month right yes we'll see you in oddly moist bedford we're gonna hop back on the uh I hear Joe Sargent is pulling up on the bus outside now of course uh as you know you get to stay here and sample the joys of Insmouth after dark but thanks very much for coming in Marco it's been a pleasure talking to you indeed indeed yeah if you hear scratching at the door you know where the lock on the trouser press is there we go I I shall do so I shall do so thank you so much guys okay thanks very much for joining us today folks uh now you may notice our scheduling is a little bit different at the moment because we've we've got a little break coming up over the summer because both of us are going to be extremely busy organising the ILF and uh Tim's touring with his band as well. So we're gonna be putting out a couple of weekly episodes for the Innsmouth Book Club and Strange Shadows will be returning with season five in September. So do keep an eye out for that when we're back. We are going to have at least one more episode before a break. I believe we've got Mr John Hulahan coming in next time sir we do we do indeed yes it's gonna well is it his third his third visit to Windsmouth he must love it. I think it is he must like it he can't stay away he'll be growing gills yeah yeah you'll be growing gills yeah we're gonna be looking at gaming the mistos so video games RPGs all that kind of good stuff I'm looking forward to that yes always a good chat with John okay and as always thanks to everyone who has signed up for the Patreon if you'd like to join our merry band and help us extend our tentacles across the globe do check out the Patreon page when you sign up you get access to bonus content for the Innsmouth Book Club and Strange Shadows. You get a quarterly copy of Innsmouth News PDF and of course free entry to the Innsmouth Literary Festival thanks again to Marco thanks for joining us again today folks we'll see you next time it's goodbye from me Rob Poyton and it's goodbye from me Tim Mendys