Crowley: Qabalah, True Will, and the Holy Guardian Angel with Ian Rees

So, Ian Reese, thanks very much for joining me on Namedics Podcast. We are going to be discussing your book, The Way of Deep Magic, Alistair Crowley, Simon If and the new Aeon, which was published by Aeon Publishers. And a big thank you to them for sending me a review copy. Now this is a book about Crowley, but as per the blurb and as per many of the reviews and I would say it myself, so much that is written about Crowley is sensationalist, sometimes a bit dramatic, often doesn't even realize that it's focusing on the biography. For good reasons, Crowley's biography is exciting and at times ridiculous and it's one of the funnest biographies to read of anyone who's written a biography of him. However, that can often mean you forget that he was an occultist and a magician and he did all this occult stuff and that rarely gets sort of looked at without all the other stuff, shall we say. And so your book pulls, it's really focusing on Crowley's magic, the way he went with the Kabbalah, his relationship to the Holy Guardian, Angel and various other things. So it's very refreshing to see the book. It's a very fun read, it's very accessible and it also focuses on his novels. Which people don't always focus on. So all these sort of aspects of Crowley that don't always get the light they should, shall we say. Ian, tell us a little bit about yourself, what it is you do and the origins of this book. Okay, thanks James. Well, I'm a psychotherapist practicing Neoglastembre, and I've been a psychotherapist for 35 years now really. But I've also been a practicing Kabbalist for over 50 years. I was 18. I came across a guy called Ernest Butler who was a Kabbalist and started studying with him and another guy called Tom Ollum and he was his disciple. And at that time I was a psychologist, I had near trained as a psychotherapist. And so I've had these two threads running through my life really about, if you like, about opeltism, or cultism and psychology and psychothera and psychothera being. Crowley was interested, when I was young I was very interested in Crowley mainly out of the biography, because it was very exciting, very wide, very tuned into the kind of energies of being a young adolescent in South Wales and sort of, you know, and I was born in 1955. So we're talking about the early, we're talking about the early 70s which, you know Swansea in the early 70s was not Khanoby Street. So it was very, very kind of puritanical restrictive world and Crowley appeared. I mean, I was a bit burst of energy and I particularly remember eating his auto high, you know, the confession of Elis to Crowley as this incredibly flamboyant magic and genuinely magical sounding. But my actual practice of magic or the beginning of the practice of magic came through Ernest Butler and specifically how I came across this world was through a magazine that doesn't exist now called "Extranger Mart". Now you put your lot younger than me so you won't have heard of it. It's basically a magazine where people used to sell used cars. Because we're in way back, for back in the 70s, we're back in the world where cultism really wasn't out in the way that it is now. It is a very under the counter hidden kind of world. And I was looking for something and Gator was sort of early 70s, you had that vibe of spirituality. But I didn't gravitate to any of the Eastern traditions particularly. I was looking for something else. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for. And right in the back of this magazine "Extranger Mart" was a advertisement for something called the Aquarian Press which is an occult publishing house. And I duly wrote off to them and they sent me a list of their books. And I was attracted by two books, one written by Ernest Butler called "A Prentist of Magic". And another one called "In a Tradition of Magic" by Gael Bill Gray. Now I was very young, so Ernest's book was a pound cheaper than Bill Gray's. And so I decided I'll buy that one because it's a bit cheaper and the pound was a lot in 1970 and it said a lot for me. And it's sort of interesting really. It was always a hinge point and decision moment that I didn't know about. Because I later got to know Bill as well but he wouldn't have been the right teacher for me because actually having got hold of Ernest's book and which is a very practical book here about working with the Kabbalah which then advised me to buy the unfortunate mystical Kabbalah and work with the meditations and some of the practical exercises he was describing. So I was about 17 when this happened. About a year later I write to Ernest and discover that he is running something called the Helios course for the practical Kabbalah. And which is a teaching course on the Kabbalah. But I sort of had to argue my way into it because I was too young. It was only people of 21 and I was still only 18 at that point. They were kind to me and let me in. Later on this course became the servant of the light school of occult science. But at this stage it was Helios course on a practical Kabbalah linked to a publishing company called Helios Books that used to operate out of Cheltenham. And in a sense that the was helpful to me really. I was very excited by Crowley and trying to read Crowley's books but frankly were beyond me at that stage. Although when you're that young you don't think anything is beyond you. So I wouldn't have known, wouldn't have felt that. But Ernest teaching was very grounded and very kind of practical and it was definitely what I needed. And his approach was very much, okay Crowley's fascinating but leave it until you're much more experienced. My other teacher Tom who worked alongside Ernest. Frankly, he just didn't like Crowley. He kind of, but you know, Tom was very tolerant of whatever places I wanted to travel into really. So I suppose Crowley always was there for me. I would occasionally of the years dip into Crowley and certainly as I was as I became more experienced. I started to understand more about Crowley's actual magic and get less interested in his biography. And in some ways as it was the place I came to and she was to realize that wonderful those biography is the least interesting thing about him. You know, and I feel that today I'm more the more I've re-eutered his works, the more convinced I am that he had the depth of them and the more I get out of them, Crowley. And I suppose that the, what are the things, but the one of the things that stuck with me right at the beginning, even actually in his autobiography, was he talked about the parts of the psyche and the Catholic discourse of my interest in psychology. And he would describe the way different aspects of what we might call his soul as operating at different points. So he would talk about the demon Crowley as being his outer personality. And then he would talk about the part of himself that was the Frata Pradoobaro, therefore I will undo it to the end, who was a sort of minor adept. And then the sense of him that he saw as operating at the deeper levels of the tree. And what he was kind of demonstrating, even in his autobiography, was the sense of the way the different aspects of his soul communicated with each other. And he writes about the capitalistic psychology in a very brief article in a little book called "A Little Less Is About Truth" that he writes towards the end of his life, where he summarized that incredibly beautifully really. But I remember not catching me because it wasn't just studying psychology, but this was a transcendental psychology, a psychology that incorporated what we know about personality formation, but was taking it into deeper and deeper places. And so that was all. So always one of the real, I feel like hooks for me, ever and Crowley, that stayed with me. And I suppose, as I continue to work with Ernest and Man, we know Ernest I had a five, five six years after I first met him, Tom Ollumman, who's, I worked with for 20 odd years, really. So Tom was, again, this really kind of unusual kind of a quiet man, but he was a very steeped in Kovella. But steep, not in a technical sense, in a sense of really helping you look at, well, what is this all about? What, why do we study these things? And we study, and as Tom would have said, we study these things to become more aware, to become more present, to become kinder. And, you know, he was always a good touchstone to me, to me and my life. And Tom, oddly, rather like Crowley, really had this strong belief in this idea of the true will, where you've, where you, where what these things enable us to do is to, if you're like, move beyond the surface sense of a personality, to connect into something through our intuitions, that actually, the early Texas intervis, becoming more and more essentially ourselves, and learning to trust that, and learning to trust the, you know, the, the movement of that, I suppose. So, I mean, I'm intrigued. It's quite something for someone to pick up a used car magazine and want to purchase an occult book. So, did you have a, you're obviously studying psychologists, you said, but did you have a, spiritual, shall we say, intuition, or is there any other spiritual practices for you prior to that? Or just, you saw the advert and thought that looks interesting? Well, I've been, I mean, I was brought up as a, you know, in the South Wales, as an Anglican Christian, and it's a very, you know, very, Christianity was the dominant, you know, dominant belief system, really. My mother was very religious. My father was an atheist. My grandfather's father was quite involved in practicing his own version of yoga, which is, he'd learned from books, so no, I would, but he clearly had an, he clearly had an an interest in something that was a bit different, not that he would ever have talked to me about it. But I, so, I guess, you know, because I was brought up as a Christian, you know, in a way, I did have a sort of, I suppose, a, for a thing of true will, there's a, there's a, there's a nascent spiritual impulse, which couldn't find its home in, in the, in the village, and there was, religion, it was presented to me. So, as, and I suppose, as the, you know, as the sort of, you know, late 60s come along, and sort of in the 70s begin, there is that sense of other possibilities. So, I was sort of drawn to, well, I was looking at something basically real. I mean, it was a, but it's really hard to convey sometimes what it was like in this, because I just was not, you know, there's no internet, there's no, you know, actual, find the antiquity of living in, living in South Wales, not living in the centre of London. You access to information was quite, was quite, was quite poor, so it is a, but I do remember that sense of excitement looking through that magazine and feeling this, you know, that kind of, it sounded interesting and intriguing and a bit exciting. And then, you know, so I started, you know, and the, and also I felt a bit illicit as well, so that was a bit exciting as well, all of you know, which is it, because it was kind of interesting. But yeah, so I suppose there was, I was seeking for something and kind of, and this was, I would, this was, I would kind of present it itself. So, I assume with Butler, you would have been, am I right in thinking Butler wrote the magician who's training on his work? It did. Yeah. So, I would assume with Butler, along with this covalistic training, that was kind of, you were really learning the real sort of thorough foundations of magical practice for blue smoke. And so what had to, I guess, shift all happened for you to, you know, you said that when you first started reading Crowley and the Smirone Experience with Crowley as well, that you, I feel like when you're young, you feel like you're getting something, but actually it's very difficult to put together without a foundation. So, what, if this question makes sense? What sort of had to shift for you, for Crowley's work to suddenly, you know, to, for you to begin to see it in a more productive light, shall we say, something to be able to work with? Well, I think it was that that being drilled in the foundations of, so, you know, and so I guess we would, you know, begin by teaching you, you know, things that first that felt a bit boring, like teaching you relaxation exercises, which caught you into your body, teaching basic visualization exercises, but then doing things like working with a tree of life in the body, like teaching the middle pillar visualizations, and then working with things like the the banishing ritual, the less appendogram and things. And so there, and so basically what you learn really was a foundation in the basic, in the basic skills of occultism. And what that, what that did and what that does, I think, is it starts to connect, connect you up. So, so that sense, so the, there's ever sense that's where we come into ideas like the Holy Guardian Angel, which accesses, I think, is firstly through our intuition, because what, because the effect of these various exercises is to first of all to bring you present into the body, which in the Cap Caballo would melt hoot on the tree of life. And, and when it, as it starts to do that, alone, it starts to anchor you. So, instead of being caught up in, if it's like a world of fantasy or thoughts and, and excited, excited feelings, you feel your, your, your center presence starts to anchor itself. And then when you're working with things like visualization, exercise it, the exercise is involved working with thought and visualization and the, and it also produced different kind of quality of feeling in you. You start to slow down the kind of internal dialogue that keeps you, that keeps your, your confused sense of self-inmotion. And what that does, I think, is then start to, so that's, so then you start to become a bit stiller and a bit more accessible to the promptings, to the promptings of the intuition, which is the beginning voice of the, of the Holy Guardian Angel. And the, at first, and I think, and obviously the thing that really helps with that is actually having a teacher, because it, you know, within an in-isk case, and in Tom's, there are people there who can, you can bounce ideas off and kind of, and, you know, and, I mean, Ernest directed my studies. Tom was my main teacher and that day-to-day teacher in that sense, because Ernest was sort of like directing the whole thing. When I was very much in awe, Ernest, he was this extraordinary figure, and I was just, this kid, really, with Tom, I started, he had a very close first of a relationship with him, and a lot of what Tom did was to keep bringing me down to earth. So, you know, when I was lifting off in fantasy and kind of, and, and, oh, and it's the sort of thing, it's embarrassing when you think about it, because every, every adolescent depression is the dark light of the soul, to be waiting for the, the dawn, you know, the dawning event of, in her consciousness, who as Tom was like, look, you're just feeling a bit low, you know, your girlfriend just packed you in, take, you know, and get over it. So, there was a lot of that, which, which, you know, and gradually, little by little, as he followed the process, he started being up, became accessible to, to, to, to these deeper, ideas, and, and, but moreover, this silent presence of the Holy Guardian Angel, and it's at that point, I think, for me, though I started to really, and I started to understand, Crowley's work differently. You know, so, so then I would start to see, rather, being this exciting, but a bit in penitrible stuff, it started to, in, in form, my sense of, my, sense of understanding. You see Crowley's work is all, all gravitating around the Holy Guardian Angel. Well, it's central to, I think it's central to that, how many do he, obviously, he has his own ways of teaching all kinds of things, but right to that, right as a heart of his work, I think, is this, and is the sense of the, personal creating of foundation, but then, yes, following, working with the Holy Guardian Angel, and the discovery then of the discovery of the true will, but along, but along the wayside, of course, he's recreating the art of magic as well. So could, could we go into these two things, beginning with the Holy Guardian Angel? What is that? How do you understand it? Well, what is interesting, I think, about, and what he says himself about the Holy Guardian Angel, is he says he chose a ridiculous title, probably, quite consciously, so he, he, he, he's a very subtle thinker, Crowley. He, like, so many people say that. No, or he really is really subtle. Because actually, because one of the things that he was concerned about, because at the time when he was writing, there was a lot of teaching about inner masters or inner figures and sort of, and he, and he, in wanting us to explore the deeper dimensions of ourselves, he was very aware of the way in which we can kind of rayify things and kind of, like I am teaching, you know, so, you know, I'm in touch with a great, and he's very aware, I think, of the Theosophical Masters, of the Andesophical Society, who claimed to be the secret governors of the world. So he, so he, so he's describing this kind of process. And he said about it himself, really. He was the one in his own joke. The thing that's always interesting about Curly, and I wear his biography is genuinely interesting, is when he's talking about his own actual, actual exploration. So he was searching for something that, that's, it's interesting really, because he discovers the book of Abraham Mehlens, which is the whole process around discovering the Holy Guardian Angel, which is basically a book of prayer. It's a book of prayer and invocation and it carried out for an extended period of time. And he was looking for something that would be quite grounded, but would focus his attention on the deon, on something deeper than his personality. And it's sort of interesting, really, when people talk about the Abraham Mehl in operation, mainly they talk about counselling demons of the underword, was actually the main focus of it is, is really trying to contact the deeper parts of our own being. But what he, and, but he decided, he, and the book talks about contacting your Holy Guardian Angel. And he thought, "Right, I'm going to use that, because surely nobody's going to take that seriously." That's an idea, right? It's a, it's a placeholder, there's something that's much more mysterious. And so, the, one of the things that he felt he was there on earth to do was to teach human beings about this different dimension of themselves. And we've got all sort of remember with Crowley when he was doing this. Remember that Crowley's dead in 1947. So really we're looking at, you know, we're looking at the sort of early part of the 20th century. At a time when spirituality is very confined, mainly within the kind of major religions. So he's trying to, he, and he is believing in seeing that a different, a different A on, a different set of possibilities is coming into being. And he felt the right of the heart of this was this ability to directly contact the deeper part of ourselves. But he calls the Holy Guardian Angel. And that presence really, he would say that, and it begins by a sense of being able to direct of attention to all something that speaks silently within us. And that leads his own words, if we can listen to it. And so, and, but that depends upon a, that depends upon a capacity to control our minds and our emotions so that we're in a place where we can listen. Now, there are two people who are really influential in his understanding of this. There's a guy called Eckensstein, who is a, I mean, the thing about Crowley was this extraordinary figure. He was a very successful mountaineer. And he was taught by, by this man called Eckensstein, Oscar Skendain, who was an equally, a very unconventional mountaineer. And there's a really important moment in Crowley's life where he'd been practicing the, the rituals of the Order of the Golden Door, which he was, in fact, quite disappointed in. And, and, and feeling that he wasn't getting very far. Eckensstein says to him, "Well, look, if you put down your, your practice of magic, I will teach you to, teach you to control your mind." And he gets, gets preferable series of visualization and concentration exercises that really teach him about the nature of the mind and how to work with the mind. Other major influence he has at this time really is Alan Bennett, who was, was one of his, one of the senior members of the Golden Door. But, and Bennett gets very interested in Buddhism, and if I'd become, eventually, a Buddhist monk can become one of the, one of the people that introduces Buddhism into Britain. And, Bennett also, also teaches him about the, about the nature of the mind. And so, one of the things that you see in Crowley's writings is a profound, I'm not sure why I was interested in it, a profound understanding of the way the, the way the mind works and how to open and, and rituals not, not as external things, but as ways to work with our own inner conditions so that we can bring about, bring about internal change. And that for me, you know, gave his, gave his writing a real sense of depth. And so, when he's talking about the, the Holy Guardian angel, he's talking then about a process where you, where you, if you, if you, imagine, you're, you're psych, the sense by the way of myself as he, and as I, and he would have called him, this is a place he's talking about the demon Crowley, where you're talking about the personality that you know, with all your foibles and history and complications and, and, and one of the things he, he's saying is, well, this is like the tip of a iceberg. There is much more to you than his, than stood. And in, in his novel moon child, he does his power, he does this, he has one of his characters, a character called Simon if, was a sort of idealized Crowley, it was like the master magician, gives us this powerful illustration of, of the relationship between the Holy Guardian angel and the, and this sort of outer self. And he does it by, he has a bowl of water and he has a conical object. And he, he asks the people who are, who he's showing us to, to imagine that the bowl of water is the surface of their consciousness. And to imagine what they would experience, if the cone, if this cone comes down in, comes down into the water. And they say, okay, well, what I would experience is first, through all the dots and then a larger, then a larger circle. And as it goes down, if it goes down straight, I get to experience larger and larger, wider and wider circles. If I put it at an angle, I, I, I, I, I get ellipses one way, I do the other angle ellipses the other way. If it's moved, I get all kinds of strange random shapes. Now, what he is describing there is the sense of the, the, so having established, if you like, the basics of castilling the mind, calming the emotions, being anchored in the body. The descent of the Holy Guardian Angel is a bit like the cone into the pool. So it's a, it's a, you know, it's one thing descending, but it's experienced within time and space as, as different seeming experiences. One moment, experience a dot, then I experience a circle, then a bigger circle, or it's coming randomly, I experience different shapes. And so what he's point, trying to point out by that is actually from the kind of limited place we're looking, the, the Guardian Angel, contacts us through seeming through internal experiences and external experiences. What you're, external experiences, what you would have called synchronicities, meaningful, meaningful coincidences. The internal experiences could be visions or thoughts or feelings or even bodily sensations. But what he asks us to think that they consider is that this is all, is all part of one kind of experience. And in a sense, in a way, once you have the basics kind of covered, one of the things he see, he talks about is that the main task then of the occultist is to really apply yourself to entering into this knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. And one of the things he also says is in order to do this in a kind of a stable way, there may be other things you have to do, you have to kind of, maybe you have to focus your mind a bit more, maybe you have to work with your emotions, maybe you have to strengthen your body, that needs strengthening. And so, and so he, and so Crowley's training of people is always quite individual. in that sense. And what he would also say is the true training arises out of the holy guardian angel that is leading you along the way. And in a sense, he wrote this book, this two books called the Holy Books, so your whole number books call the Holy Books, but two of them are concerned with the nature of the holy guardian angel. And in a sense, he does it in a very poetic, not easy books, because he does it in a very poetic, very kind of profoundly symbolic sort of way, and I've tried in the book to unpack some of those symbols. But what he's describing is a process, and a process that as you start to listen more deeply to that deeper part of yourself, it talks back. So that sense of it being a conversation that brings you into a knowledge of a living relationship between the outer part of yourself and some of the deeper parts of yourself. One of the things he would say is that the very first thing that happens there is the piercing of the veil of the temple, which is in a way this internal dialogue, really, which is the dialogue between the mind, the feelings, and memory, which is basically creates our sense of self and our sense of the world that we live in. And the main function of that, which is really focused around the subviva 'yes' on and the tree of life, which is the foundation of experience, it's the main function is to try and keep everything stable. And but also keeps us limited in its stability. So the effect in a way of once you've established that sense of, like the foundation of the work by working with thoughts, working with emotion, working with visualization, working with body consciousness, then the inviting in of the holy guardian angel starts to disrupt that internal dialogue. So the internal dialogue, because the fact of the internal dialogue is actually screams you off from the deeper levels of yourself and acts a bit like a mirror projecting everything forward into the world. So it's the case where people have no very little insight into themselves and are always projecting their issues out into the world. And whereas as the veil starts to thin, you start to experience yourself as connected to something deeper. And if you can listen to that, that deeper sense, what you have is just like this image of the cone descending into the water, you start to discover more and more about this mysterious something that is in the deeper part of yourself. Is this angel an angel? Is this an autonomous being? I mean, you're a therapist. So, or is the different readings of what this, you know, you mentioned it as an internal part of yourself in the unconscious angel, actual being? Well, both. We probably would have said both, right? And not facetiously, because the, he would, certainly we are looking, one level, we're looking at part of our psychology. We're also looking at the way the universe is and the way, and the, and a part of what we're looking, a part of what we're experiencing, is the something that is, so the angel is not a part of me in my world. It's beyond me. But the very thinking that I have, that is, of me and what's beyond me, is conditioned by my limited sense of awareness. So, what starts to happen as the sort of angel descends into the pool of yesword, as our awareness opens, we come into a sense, a different sense of self from the universe. Now, right at the heart of a lot of his thinking was something he called the star-sponge-vid vision, where he starts to experience the universe as a field of interconnected stars, as is where his famous every man and woman is a star comment comes from. So, the idea that he has is that we're all deeply connected, and connected to everything, and profoundly possessing our own point of view within the collective. So, this question of, is it in me, or is it outside me? The only answer is, well yes, both, yes really, depending on what you're focusing on. So, the only answer there is yes, both. But, so, I'm focusing within me, what I tend to experience is the angel, is this external energy coming into me. If I'm moving up into the sense of the angel, I'm moving into a different state of consciousness, where the categories of me and not me are profoundly kind of altered. And there's a huge debate about this, because when he talks about, when he talks about A-Wars, who is the, would dictates to him the book of the law, sometimes he's talking about A-Wars as an external being, other times he's talking about A-Wars as somewhere being within himself. And it literally is about the point of view he's writing from, at any one point in time. So, you mentioned that the cone is descending into yes or two. And so, how does curly frame this cabalistically? I'm going to assume that there is a lot, as per curly, there's possibly a lot of schism from what we might consider sort of classical cabalist. If there is such a thing, I'm talking to a cabalist expert, so I don't want to. No, no, gothism and cabalist is full of all kinds of schisms and sort of, but yes, he's stuck, but his cabalist is very different from the, he's my call, traditional judic, cabalist, which is much, much more religious. So, now he, I mean, one of the things that's interesting about him, he creates something called a Naples arrangement. It's called a Naples arrangement, because it came to him while he was in Naples. Basically, there's no, no more peeding than that. So, he basically strips down the tree of life to really fundamental principles, where he begins with Ketter, which is the top sphere of the tree, seeing that as the singular point of view. And that singular point of view, which in the book of the law he called Hadith, which is the sort of the arises out of the great, the sense of the star sponge vision, which he calls "nuit" the sense of infinity. And he sees the tree of life in the Naples arrangement really as a manifestation of this one point of view. So, the first sphere is Ketter, which is the singularity, the single point. This point extending itself into a line is Hockmer, which he would see as non-dual kind of will. The Bina, which is the third sphere of the tree of life, becomes the surface, which he would see as a non-dual love, the creation of relationship and shape. This singular, so this vector, this impulse into kind of manifestation, then passes through the prism of the art, which he would see as a mysterious sphere, that transfers the, if you like, the idealized abstractions of these first three spheres into form. So, Hacad, which is the odd gedulo, which is the next sphere, is the solid. So, it has the three coordinates. So, we think we have the singularity at one point, we just the line, then we have the surface, then we have the solid. The bura, between those two, we would have gone across the abyss, right? That's right, that's where the art is the place in the abyss. So, it's the place which is this, is this distinctually, between the non-dual world and the world of duality. So, as we move from the, if you like, the non-dual world, we come into the sense of the solid, or solidity that you have in gedulo, or he said, in gedulo, we have motion. So, in a sense, what appears really in Hacad is space, motion appears, appears in gedulo. These are balanced in tiforet by the reflective point, which is able to work within, which is like the impulse freely of Ketter, which is the impulsive of the, of the solidity. single point of view to become manifest, to start operating within the rounds of time and space, and finding a balance between motion and solidity. So there's too much solidity, there's nothing happens, too much motion, there's instability, and that one thing is can't grow. So as the balance point has reached, what then he says happens is there is a proliferator operation. So you have the point, if you call it the point's idea of bliss, which is the sense of the, it says becomes net suck, the sense of the many possibilities now that start to arise out of the reflective point, the reflective point operating within time and space. Connect if you like to the deep energies of love and will is starting to manifest the many, the many energetic possibilities of existence. This is balanced in a hard, by the point's idea of thought. So this sense of feeling and thought starting, starting to appear, which then starts to then come down into, come down into, into yes odd as the sense of image, the sense of the living image of the human being and the world that the human being is in. So this sense of manifestation that's happening here is both the formation of a person, but also its sense of the world that is around them, and this culminates in Malkoot as the point's idea of itself, which is combined with the idea of the world. Now this he would say is a process that's happening spontaneously all the time in microseconds. So there's a continual kind of dialogue going on, and a lot of his work really is about helping us become conscious of that dialogue. And the, you know, talked about the veil of the temple, which is the first thing that Tiff read, but you mentioned the abyss, which is a much more significant kind of disjuncture. So in order for this to be a fluid kind of dialogue, if you like, you can imagine what's happening is movement from it, first of all from the vast infinity of the multiple points of view, to inhabiting the singular point of view, to operating then in the kind of dimension really of the line and the surface or the, or the kind of the filagnondual will and non-dual low, and then there is a jump really into duality, into opposite working together. So for that dialogue to happen properly, we have to be able not simply to slow down the activity, the activity of thought and feeling and end and memory, but also to be able to surrender the sense of the dual in favour of the non-dual. Now the holy guardian angel is that, is this presence, the guide, guides this conversation. And one of the particular things that happens is a choice point of the abyss where you enter, where you, in order to, if you like, return, if you like, to the true home, to the place where they within the non-dual roots of the other being are, we have to lay down all unknowing, because all unknowing that at that point then is, is so ever skillful it has been, is then a hindrance to entering into this completely different way of, different way of being. And it's this, this is the intrigue point that in your book it was a figure I was surprised to see pop up, which is Ramanar Mahashi. So this seems almost like the shortcut. Yes, totally. One of the things that is interesting, because when I was looking at this whole thing about Kuroli, is that people seem to fall into either they slavishly imitated Kuroli, or they regard Kuroli as the devil, and kind of, because I'm living, you know, living glass to me, I see people who, you know, are buying his books and they're Kuroliites and they would look like, well, they look like they're in mid of Kuroli, but other people will cross themselves if they see his books in a shop, in a shop really. And that's never really been my approach to him. Because Kuroli would have us do is some version of the something called Lieber Samaek, which is his own version of the Lieber, of the Abramilian working. But what he also says is that each person's approach to the the work of the Holy Guardian Angel is their own. And for me that presented itself in the form of a man of Maharshi. And it's because the, you know, I wasn't particularly, you know, because this you know, I've never been, I've never been to that part of India where he was, I don't know, I've been to India, but not, not down to that part of the Havan Shiloh where he comes from. But one of the figures, he's again one of these figures that struck me very, very early on, I came across a book, and I came across that picture that I have put in my book, which really struck me as having this kind of, extraordinary kind of capacity. And so as I started to understand the way in which Ramana's work worked, I was like, well, this is exactly what Kuroli was talking about when he talks about talking about it with, but without very much symbolism with, because Ramana would also talk about prayer, but also the Atma Vachara process. And in a way, in my own kind of work on this, that's what it is. Yeah, that's what really called to me, and sort of, and, and, but, and I particularly wanted to put that in the book, because it's a very different way. And I could have, I could have put Kroli's ritual or the Bessamic, I could have both the Abra-Mail and thing, but I still wanted to do something different rather than to say, look, there are lots of different ways to do this. This is Kroli's only one way, this is the way I did it. There are, it's a, it's, it's very much a personal kind of process. Do you think then that by, by saying that though, that you're also possibly saying that the process of communication with you with one totally guardian angel, whatever that is, is possibly somewhat synonymous with enlightenment. Well, you see, again, we've to be well, it's a principle of these words are so difficult, I'm pretty sure really, so, because if you think of enlightenment as a process, I'd say yes, if you think, if you think of enlightenment as some whizz-bang explosion of consciousness where you're then perfect, well, let's say no, because I, and truthfully, I don't know if I believe in enlightenment as that sort of whizz-bang thing anywhere. You don't believe in a full stop in that process? No, definitely not. I think it's all an unfolding kind of process. Certainly has been that for me, and certainly when I, if I look at Kroli's career and I look at the, when I look at the way he gets more and more interesting, as he gets older and his writing gets more and more interesting and more and more essentialises, he gets older. You don't see any full stop there, he's here deepening under kind of development. And in a certain sense, I think almost the more deeply you go into these things, the more the deeper the possibilities of growth seem to me to be really. So you, if you don't mind me asking, you have condoned, I'm going to assume from that, you have made sort of contact with your HGA, I mean, what, to the extent that you're comfortable doing to, what does that look like? Well, it looks like different things that, in different times. So first of all, it begins by being able to, one of the effects of it is that it's not difficult for me to steal my mind. It's not difficult to listen. It was very difficult for me to do that. I know that happens relatively easily. What also can happen is that the, as I listen to that kind of misdevious kind of presence, it takes me into a much more connected sense of being in the world. So that sense of the world or being opposed to the world or separate from the world, gets very diminished. So the sense of, in a way, as we sit here talking together, the sense of you and me is a separate being, of course we are separate beings, but there's also a sense of the connection of the kind of cross-time space. You're in Norfolk, I'm in Somerset, and here we are, we're in this place of dialogue that includes everything that's physically around us both. And includes the whole of the universe somewhere. And there's something about these, that movement between the universe and the particular, that so much at the heart, the heart of all this. and learning to trust that is almost a central process. So we didn't go into the other side of the two big things you mentioned as Crowley and Cornersdon, which is the true will. So from this, I guess, what is the true will and having discovered yours? Well, the true will, again, is a process. So that's the thing. Again, that's the other thing I think that gets badly misunderstood. You know, and so do people. They are both very definite terms. They are very definite terms. There's a sense. And they, and the one thing, you know, one of these are like Crowley's novel, the Diabie of a Drug Feent. It is that the, that's what this novel where he really explores that the nature of the true will because he's dealing with, because he's dealing with, it's not an exciting novel. It's not even a brilliant read in that sense. Because we start over with these people in the kind of roaring twenties who are into drugs and sex and all kinds of exciting stuff and they end up deciding to be married to each other and the bloke is going to be an aircraft designer and the girl is going to help him. Right? So it looks like the worst form of anti-feminist kind of literature. You could possibly imagine. But what he shows in that book is the difference between the ways in which we can delude ourselves into thinking what our will actually is. And in a certain sense, the aim of the guardian angel, the aim of that process is to guide us into that kind of alignment. So that we are, and in a way, that process is a process of shedding, of shedding external things. You know, we get interested in all kinds of things. But the whole idea of true will is, well, what is essential? What's my essential nature? You know, the, you know, so I come back and say, and if I work with my essential nature, and whatever I do, I am not working against the grain. I'm doing something that ultimately, even if it's difficult, even if nobody likes what I'm doing, I'm working with something that is ultimately fulfilling because I'm not being anything other than who I truly am. And that, I think, is an ongoing exploration. I think you know when you're in it and when you're not in it, because when you're kind of writing another book of the moment, and I absolutely know when I'm on, when I'm sort of connected and when I'm not, because when I'm connected, I'm in a kind of flow. When I'm not, it's like wrestling and anaconda. And my mind's been all over the place and I can't even, then I'm going to give up writing and you know, all kinds of proliferation kind of happens in the mind. But when I can't just recognize that and just have to step away from this goes the book, come back into my self, come back into the stillness, listen to the angel, but then happens is something then starts to realign. And as I, and as I listen to that, I come back into that kind of flow. And in a way, we probably write quite a lot about this in relationship to the path of the dowl. And that's why there's a fair bit in the book as well about dowis philosophy. Because it, because in a sense, when he's really looking, when one of the things he's looking at, when he looks at true will, is looking at something that's, that's will that's kind of supple and intelligent and, and flows with the nature of things. And in a way, that's when, that's why he spent a lot of his time looking at the e-chang and looking at the dattiching and looking at how, you know, how that operates. And Simon if in the book really is, is the example of the dowis magician who was, who doesn't offer any resistance to the universe, flows of the universe and kind of, and who is this really ordinary looking guy around which all kinds of extraordinary things happen, because he's not offering, offering any resistance to the, that kind of deeper flow. That's wise of such importance for you. Oh, completely. And I mean, I guess as per your subtitle, Crowley, Simon F and the new A on going into this new A on, is it, is a, you know, an if character sort of key to going into this new A on which is, and that's right, it's the dawn of the, we're going to the age of Aquarius. Well, he calls it the alien horrors, but you could call it Aquarius that we another way of doing. Which is an age of sort of individual, individual, well, different readings, I guess, but I think all of, I think you're me even commented on this as well. It's called an individual religion unto yourself. So Simon if character would be someone who, both is fine with everything, but also is very much himself. Yes, exactly. Yeah, no, completely that right. So that, so that thing of being at peace with things, but being very much yourself and being, if you like, the living embodiment of the true will. So the, you know, in a way, Simon F character in a novel is very important. And that is in a moonshine novel, you really look, again, he's really looking at different models of magic. And so you've got, you know, the, if you like, the earlier stages, he describes where you're performing very powerful kind of rituals and not to diminish those. They're important training kind of methods, but ultimately you become like Simon if, where they, the magic happens through you and through your, through your alignment with things really. Well, we've covered all this, many of the key bases of your book. Is there anything that you'd like to add about your book that you feel should be added into a conversation? I think all of us where we began to be on this, James, I think that one of the things that I really, I feel sad about is that people don't really read crony. What they do is they, well, that's not being a bit of a read, they read around him. They read around him, they read biographies about him and Simon then will read his autobiography called his autobiography, the Confessions. But people don't really read his actual writings. And in particular, there's some of his writings at the end of his life, the magic without tears, which is his letters of instruction to a woman he was teaching. There's a brilliant introduction to the art of magic. Little assays about truth is absolutely stunning, kind of description of some of the things that we've been talking about. It's writings on the book of Foth, really, and the tarot, and the tarot pack itself he created is, you know, is it kind of extraordinary. I just wish people would, instead of having making their mind about whether he's the Messiah or whether he's a naughty boy, you know, I wish they'd just read him and understand the subtlety of his thought. I was going to ask that where would you advise people to begin with crony in that sense of actually, you know, learning what he's actually on about? Would it be magic without tears? I would be in magic without tears for sure, because that's where he, the magic of my tears is great, because that's where he's got somebody, there's a series of letters between him and this woman who's teaching, so that gives you a kind of an entrance way into his teaching. The other thing I would do is if you get interested is look at the book with Soth, and buy a copy of the book of the Soth's tarot, and just start to work there, because all his, one of the things he does in the design of the tarot, the Soth's tarot, and in his book, is sort of poor pretty much everything into that, and that gives you a sort of a beginning kind of a beginning way in. And then, obviously, what is great up is this magic without tears, and also the book of the law, but they're difficult, right? They're quite, they're really quite difficult. And so that isn't where I would start. I might also suggest that there's less about truth as well, because those are, those are giving you a really good starting point into what I think of as the real of Crowley, rather than the fantasy versions, either positive or negative. Okay. Well, I'll be sure to put links for your book in the description below, but you say you're working on another book, or book. Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, I was in the last book, but everything you have a new, but Crowley, everything I have a new about Crowley, basically. So this is taking it a stage further, and I hope it's simpler, because I'm looking into the, looking into the whole idea of the true will itself, and the idea of the simplicity of something equals the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the deepest part of the, of the human being. And there's a Hebrew word called a noke, which means I am. So I'm looking at, and the, so it's really looking at how to explore I amness. And it hardly links to things like Oman and Maharshi, but, you know, I'm looking at but also into these ideas that Crowley has, or the deep roots, what's underneath all this? And in a certain sense, he's trying to look at the value of the tree of this, but it's just imagine, what would it be like if Simon if wrote a book of magic? I'm not psychic, if I thought that the exalted got a level, but that's the aspiration in some ways I suppose. - Okay, would you do any idea when that will be really? I'm hoping, I got handed into A on end of June, and I hope you get it out of the following spring, so it'll be spring of 27, but Simon. - Hopefully when that's released, I get to talk to you again, but for all the links for everything in the description below. Ian, it's been a great conversation. Thank you. - It's been a lovely pleasure to talk to you James.