The most controversial occultist of all time; Chaos Magick News Ep.40 The Michael Bertiaux Special

Okay, get your show voice on. That is definitely not what I was talking about. We are not an ASMR show. I got a—I got a little secret for you. Welcome to—welcome to CMN. There’s a—I’m eating a piece of hard candy right now, and I want you to imagine that you’re—you’re that little piece of hard candy, wedged in my cheek, and I’m going to bite down. I’m going to bite it. I’m going to bite the whole thing. Ah, you’re in pieces. Oh God, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. I like that a lot. I like that. I don’t even know what the hell that was. I don’t know, but you like—you almost clipped the mic, but it was like—it was beautiful. It was just like, “Little piece of…said, stand adamantly firm on the Thunderbolt of the storm until all worlds ignited and into ashes be fall.” A young student, seated on a sphere of Radiance, asked him what he meant by the sacred Maxim. So Theus answered, “When you will awake from this illusion of life, you will be as one with eons of Theus, and you will be one and same.” M-m-m, it shows that everywhere in the Gnostic Continuum, mind is active. The Horon Club tended to be concerned with homosexual magic. The magician assumes the form of the W in the solution of a philosophical problem. Biro stands unique in a spiritual World.

Welcome, welcome everyone. I’m Esid, Miss Day Kennedy, and this is Chaos Magic News, the most routinist, toist, shootinest, vood-doist who-doing this podcast on the occult sphere today. Joining me, as always, is the lowest of the low co-host, Baron of Bad News. How you—how you doing, Baron?

Lest—oh, that’s—oh, that is perfect. Perfect. Oh boy, you—you knocked it out of the park. We should just stop the show here. Yeah, we’re not getting any better than that. We peaked.

Oh, I’m pretty sure people were saying that after episode five.

No, I think they’re just groaning after that. Oh boy.

I’m doing fantastic. I—I’m—I’m kicking it. I’m—I’m psyched. It’s—it’s Saturday. It’s a good time to be alive. It’s a good time to be dead. It’s a good time to be dead and then alive, you know. It’s just whatever. We’re talking about uh—we’re talking about fake Voodoo this week.

Well, we’re talking about more than just fake Voodoo. Talking about fake everything.

Well, you know what? I think—I think this is an appropriate follow-up to the Castaneda special. We have somehow run the gamut here, like—like really. We started with—and, and to be fair, the Lovecraft special was less about Lovecraft and more about what magicians did with it, but it’s still this notion of the interplay between admitted fiction and “quote-unquote” real occultism. And then we have the Carlos Castaneda, which is a—u—once again, the—the—the interplay of truth and falsehood; the notion of, even if you think that Castaneda’s work is entirely bunk, why do you get results? How does that—you know, things like that. And I don’t even think Castaneda’s work is entirely bunk, but we’ll—you know, that’s a—that’s a line that we go—listen to the Castaneda special.

Yeah, exactly. But uh—for this special—oh, actually, and then Grant Morrison too, where Grant Morrison—where was the extensive use of fiction as magic?

Yeah. So, finally, for our 40th episode, we’re going to do someone we’ve hinted at, danced around, did all kinds of—did all kinds of mentions and shout-outs and love and hate for, but we’re talking about—um—I’m trying to think of an appropriate title for him.

Well, I mean, you take your pick. The man’s got a bunch of—of them. Uh, you know what? We’ll just say Mr. Michael P. Bertiaux. Michael P. Bertiaux. Michelle P. Breits. Mikel P. Brein. Anyway, Michael P. Bertiaux is just a—he’s an enigma.

Yep, he’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a large bag of cultural appropriation, or whatever you’d want to say. But I think for our listeners, if you don’t know who he is, man, you’re in for a treat. If you do know who he is, you either immediately shut off, or you’re going, “Oh [ __ ]!” And we are guaranteed to disappoint both parties.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you really like them, you’re going to be mad. If you don’t like them at all, you’re going to be mad. Maybe there’s a couple folks that are—that have our level-headedness.

What can we—what can we say about Michael Bertiaux as a person? I guess biography will start off.

Well, I—I think I have an interesting little thing to go from here, right? Because we have the—we will call it maybe not the official biography blurb, but we have a biography blurb from Fulger Press, if you know who they are. They’re a fine publisher of occult books, including Bertiaux. So, um, let’s just read the little blurb here and go from there. “Michael Bertiaux, author of *The Famed Vodou Gnostic Workbook* and the Hierophant of the Vodou Gnostic Current, is a rare Visionary in modern occult studies. Raised in a liberal Theosophical household, he was drawn to the esoteric and spiritual approach to religion and being from early on. After studying philosophy in New Orleans and having been ordained as a deacon in the Anglican Church, Bertiaux was sent to Haiti in 1963, where he taught philosophy and was in charge of the local Anglican Museum. It was on the magic Island that Bertiaux met his spirituous Rector, Dr. Jean M., who initiated him into the secrets of the Vodou Nois. His close collaboration with Jean Maine, first in Haiti and then later in Chicago, lasted until the Vodou Master’s death in the early 1980s. Returning from Haiti, Bertiaux found the Anglican clergy suspicious of his close ties with the Voodoo sorcerers, and slowly both parties drifted apart, with his church career coming to an end. He accepted an offer from the Theosophical Society to work and lecture at their headquarters in Wheaton, Illinois, outside Chicago. Soon thereafter, Bertiaux changed professions one last time to become a social worker, a career he would pursue until his retirement in the late 1990s. His subsequent move to Chicago would eventually reunite him with his mentor, Jean Mne, who had been exiled from Haiti in the reign of President D—. Bertiaux stands unique in the spiritual World. His system of occultism and Gnosis is unlike any other. Instead of reworking the occult past and clinging to classical theories, he works mainly on Gnostic radionic lines and esoteric creativity, deeply rooted and based in the magical world and traditions of esoteric Vodou, a very elaborate and specialized form of Voodoo taught to Bertiaux by his Haitian master. Bertiaux has managed to introduce a great number of other spiritual currents into his system and thus empowering it even further.”

Let’s—let’s parse out a little bit there.

Yeah, let’s take a little bit here. So this was a man who grew up in a Theosophical household, became part of the Anglican Church, went to Haiti, met somebody who, as far as we can tell, is a real person. When I first read Bertiaux’s stuff, I thought it was a Don Juan. I thought this was a—I thought this dude was made up, because it sounds like it, but it’s like, yeah, I went to Haiti and uh—they—they just introduced me to all the Voodoo stuff. But I mean, pay no attention to that. The Voodoo that Bertiaux exposes bears little resemblance to actual Voodoo that’s practiced over in Haiti, but that’s besides the point. He gets all this Voodoo initiation stuff, goes back to America, changes uh—career paths, becomes a social worker, that sort of thing. But more importantly, while he was doing that, he was still also like writing and doing lectures and forming societies and initiates. And it didn’t even touch on the fact that he has his own branch of the OTO—did it mention that he was in the Coronzon Club?

No, that didn’t even—well, it talks later on in the thing, saying—’cause there’s more to this, but you know, that is—that is probably the most fascinating part of all of this is that Bertiaux claims to have lineage from everyone. Yeah, pretty much everybody, every [ __ ] thing, but specifically this uh—Hector Francois Jean Mne, this Haitian gentleman that he knew, that he met over in Haiti, offensively, who has a sort of OTO, it’s called the OTA, the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua, and it goes along with another little organization called the LCN, which is also French, I believe, right? If I remember, sort of the same—the translation, I think, is the Black Snake or something like that.

Right. Here’s the kicker too. So there’s sort of this OTO that he’s connected with, so that one that indicates that uh—Dr. Jean Mne was—might have—he might have had some kind of Voodoo whatever from being a—a Haiti native. Allegedly, his Voodoo practice comes from his family tradition, but he combines that with the supposed OTO connection, which is—so before—I suppose that’s the interesting thing. And again, we—we, to the best of our knowledge, this was a real person. So before Bertiaux even gets his initiation, this—before he even gets to the—he even gets the Voodoo stuff, it’s filtered through somebody who has combined Voodoo with Western tradition stuff. So it’s like, oh, and actually uh—do you, if you remember the Castaneda special, the Weirdling article that we were reading basically makes the case that that’s possibly—if Don Juan were a real person, it makes the case that like perhaps it’s actually uh—a case of Don Juan’s supposed teachers also had Western influence. Pretty out there speculation, but we can at least say with uh—Dr. Jean Mne, this is somebody who was already combining uh—indigenous, Native whatever, and—and that’s the thing. Voodoo is already heavily syncretized, so for somebody who grew up in that and was immersed in it, it might have really been nothing—might have really been nada to just be like, yeah, of course I’m going to combine the other spooky woooo with the spooky woooo I already have. That’s what—that’s kind of like—that’s a common practice.

Well, here’s a little bit on the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua from uh—someone that I genuinely love, uh—Peter Robert Koic, who is probably most well-known for writing a series of books called *The OTO Phenomenon*, where he has spent exhaustive amounts of time and research tracing the OTO back to its pre-Origins, its Masonic connections, and all the sorts of offshoots that have developed since then, and for the most part kind of just calls people out on their [ __ ].

Well, there’s a lot of it to go around.

Oh yeah, there’s plenty. It’s not—but here’s a little segment from his website called uh—“OTO, Templi Orientis Antiqua, a Gnostic Inflation.” Very first paragraph: “The reader should bear in mind that there is almost no documentary evidence regarding the history of the OTA. There’s absolutely no traces of L.F. Jean M. or his Gnostic Church Memphis Misraim, or his OTO version in any of the old French Gnostic periodicals. Apparently, the history of the OTA and its tangle of related organizations was developed by Mark Lully or Mark LLY, Michael P. Bertiaux, and Manuel C. Lamparter, and perhaps Kenneth Grant in the late 60s. Bertiaux admitted to me that his draft history was written based on notes by Mark Lilly. These notes are said to have been lost since then. The following article is a reconstruction of the OTA’s self-styled draft history, available in the articles by Bertiaux and Lamparter, *The Occult Digest*, Volume 3, yada yada.” Without spending too much time going through the whole of this—Gerald Encausse (Papus) was born in Spain. Jules Doinel founded the Gnostic Church. Uh—Doinel consecrated Inou in as a bishop, and then John Yarker, who was the head of the Rite of Memphis Misraim, which is where the OTO comes from, dies supposedly, and Caseu inherits the title. So now we get to Lucian Francois Jean Man. So, not Hector Francois Jean Manne, the person that we were talking about—this is a different one. Is that a common name, or are they related?

You—I believe they are related. So like, daddy—yeah.

All right. So it goes from him to—to Hector. Yeah, and there’s a lot of in-between here about people setting things up and so on and so forth, and there’s even a connection to the Fraternitas Lucis Hermetica, which if you don’t know, that’s P.B. Randolph.

Oh, okay. Yeah, P.B. Randolph, noted occultist, African-American um—person that gets brought up a lot as the origin of much of the OTO sex magic. Interesting stuff. So once Papus, you know, and Caseu dies, apparently the split in the OTO becomes the Royce-approved connections and then Jean M’s, which is just kind of going on in Haiti, I suppose. So it’s the idea of like there’s the uh—the proper descent and then this thing. Right? But of course, keep in mind, as we’ve said earlier, this is all just what Bertiaux and Mark Ly and all these people are saying is going on.

So when does Crowley even come into the picture?

Well, after all of this, when he—this is when he gets connected to Royce. That’s the big—that’s the big question, right?

Right, that’s—that’s the thing. So what Bertiaux, of all people, is claiming his descent of uh—the OT, ’cause—’cause Hector more or less turns it over to him, blah blah blah—he—he’s the—the OTA guy. Bertiaux is actually claiming that his OTO lineage predates Crowley’s assumption of it, I guess, whatever you call it. How [ __ ] wild is that? And this is like—and you got to remember that uh—Bertiaux is—what—doing this in the 70s.

60s.

Okay. So, but still, that’s like—Crowley’s been dead for—for decades now. Bertiaux himself is born in the 30s, and Crowley died in the 40s. That’s what I’m saying. So—so, but meanwhile his teacher is like—and I guess it’s like—it’s not—it’s not totally absurd, but to think about how firmly the OTO is established as—as the Thelema, and then also Bertiaux’s writings on Thelema—

Well, yeah, it’s actually interesting, isn’t the Thelema, right? From another article that Koic wrote, you actually—we have the date that the OTA supposedly accepted the Law of Thelema. That’s bizarre. Which, you know, again, think about it, ’cause it’s—that’s what happened to the OTO. The OTO starts as just a sort of Masonic compendium. It doesn’t accept the Law of Thelema until well after—that’s really—okay, that’s very odd.

So okay, just to simplify it to make sure everyone’s with us now—John Yarker dies, and this—and Papus, this guy gets both the head of the OTO and the head of the uh—EGC, the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. After they die, it splits between Theodore Reuss, who is the big OTO guy that everyone knows that eventually leads to Crowley taking over, and this other—the official story—yeah, the official—and then this completely spinoff—well, probably not even Haitian, probably, but it—it makes it to Haiti, I suppose. It’s Parisian, but—well, that John is Haitian. Yeah. Hey everyone, it’s once again time for addendums. For the sake of clarity, in a conversation involving the OTO, John Yarker was the head of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis Misraim and a regular Freemasonic organization. This is often called the mother organization of the Ordo Templi Orientis. The back and forth between this is a little bit confusing, but essentially John Yarker, who had already kind of been kicked out of regular masonry, as far as we can tell, gave a charter for the Ancient Primitive Rite of Memphis Misraim and the Scottish Rite to Theodore Reuss. Theodore Reuss would then go on to use that and break it down from its larger degrees into an n-degree academic Masonic order that would be the origins of the Ordo Templi Orientis. At the time of Yarker’s death, Encausse was made the head of the Ancient Primitive Rite of Memphis Misraim, and Caseu had been given the 10th degree in OTO and head of the French or Parisian OTO segment essentially by Theodore Reuss before the death of Yarker. This was allegedly given to Lucian Johan Man, the father of Hector Jean Man, and taken to—to the West Indies. This is where the split between the Theodore Reuss-led and the Hector Jean M.-led OTO allegedly comes from. Other sources will say that Theodore Reuss was made the head of the Rite of Memphis Misraim upon the death of Yarker, but this is all sort of a weird back and forth because essentially there was no OTO and there was no Memphis Misraim, right? There were just sort of people claiming to have the right to perform these rights, right? Speaking of which, the EGC, the Gnostic Catholic Church, its connection to both the Rite of Memphis Misraim and OTO seems to be related to Theodore Reuss giving degrees and positions in the Rite of Memphis Misraim to members of the EGC, including Gerard Encausse and Caseu, who is also well-connected to Martinism, and we don’t have time to even talk about any of that. For all intents and purposes, this seems to lead to Theodore Reuss claiming a position of power within said church that he clearly didn’t have, or at least positions that Reuss didn’t have, as far as Apostolic succession, whatever that would mean in the confines of a church that was started in 1890. What you need to really understand the connections here is pretty simple: despite any sort of lineage that Bertiaux and the OTA is claiming, there is no documentation or reason to believe that any of these connections are real, just as the OTO’s connection to the Rite of Memphis Misraim and the Gnostic Catholic Church is dubious and questionable. And even John Yarker giving Reuss the charters for the Scottish Rite and the Rite of Memphis Misraim is dubious because John Yarker himself had been kicked out of masonry by the Supreme Council anyway. So all of this is based on people trading papers and possibly buying and selling them, and none of it really matters. It’s all [ __ ].

All right, if that’s made things more confusing, then sorry. Sry, it’s going to be more confusing than that. Jean Mne, as—as we see, leads to more children that keep kind of picking up the slack till we get to Hector F. Francois, which is—and Bertiaux’s teacher. And for whatever reason, Hector Jean Mne runs into an Anglican missionary, more or less, and just goes, “Hey, I’m going to—I’m going to let me show you some stuff,” and then makes that guy the head after—after a while. And granted, they—you know, they hang on. We got the info here, right? Bertiaux is born, he goes to Haiti, eventually he gets made a bishop in the Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis, which is this other split off of the Gnostic Catholic Church that we have going on. And from there, Bertiaux, at a train station, meets Mark Lly. Bertiaux, at the time, is the president of the local Theosophical Society and he’s teaching astrology. So Mark Lly is where we get the other little organization here that we have been uh—alluding to—the LCN.

No, no. The LCN was created by Jean M. and just sort of associated with the OTA as well. They’re kind of the same thing as the OTA, and then he ceremonially separated them, even though they’re still very much in close communion. Okay, but no, this is where the Coronzon Club comes from.

Oh, that’s the connection. Okay, yeah, right, right. So to simplify the Coronzon Club, because boy is it a complicated mess sometimes—well, we talked about the Coronzon Club briefly in the Crybaby Thelema Hour. Just C.F. Russell made a shortcut for all these people. It’s like, “Listen, listen, listen, you don’t need to do all of this nonsense. I’m going to give you—I’m going to give you the 34th degree of masonry and I’m going to give you like—you know what? For you, 12th grade. They—you didn’t even know that was the thing, but like, you know, there you go. Go!” I’m not going to talk smack about Russell’s Coronzon Club. I think it’s very interesting. I like the idea of somebody who is just going around and like propagating the express lane of occultism. Yeah, it’s very interesting. And you know—and Russell wrote awesome stuff. The world depends on you, boy. Yeah, Russell—Russell’s a fascinating figure. But by this time, the Coronzon Club had had a bit of a falling out. It actually splits into about four or five different groups, depending—the one that Mark Lly was associated with has absolutely nothing to do with Russell by this point. In fact, they’re not even reading Crowley or A∴A∴ or Russell or anybody. Just the name was really cool. What—what tends to be happening is that a bunch of guys that they found from like the local gyms are meeting naked in places and talking about like Theosophy stuff. Bertiaux was not very positive about it, despite the fact that he would join and he would take on this Mark Lly to the OTA and the Gnostic—um—um—the—the EGS. And also, from what we hear later, apparently he was pretty big on being naked though, so like—well, I mean, maybe the naked part wasn’t what—maybe that’s what got him in the door. He was like, “What you’re doing, huh?” He said, “Excuse me, sir, I couldn’t help but noticing that lovely overcoat you have at this bus stop.”

Now that we—we—we broached the—the—the Gordian knot of the various descent and uh—lineages that we’ve claimed so—so far, for those that are keeping score at home, Bertiaux claims that his teacher was a native Haitian who practiced Voodoo, who also combined it with stuff from the Western tradition via um—the Gnostic, you know, like Gnostic churches and uh—the pre-Crowley OTO, but also it becomes post-Crowley OTO somewhere along the line because they accepted the uh—the Law of Thelema. So you’ve got Voodoo, Gnosticism, Thelema, all claiming like actual traditions and initiation and like so and so laid hands on so and so, that sort of thing. All right, not like they just picked this up and ran with it. Bertiaux is saying he’s got like, you know, he—he got the—he got the cred. He has the papers. And then also it goes even further into like the pre-post-Crowley and stuff, because there is a three-times-removed branch of the Coronzon Club involved as well.

Yeah, and it—it only gets more complicated from there, because there’s a long string of people, you know, giving the laying of hands and initiating so and so into this and so and so into that, and people claiming to have representation or being like an authorized representative of this current and that current in this organization, and it’s mostly just kind of nonsense.

Yeah, yeah. And then we have—and I—I won’t—I won’t explicitly say where this goes on the timeline, but it’s an important thing to note because his name already came up once. If it wasn’t for another OTO offshoot and its prominent leader, we probably wouldn’t know a damn thing about Bertiaux, because Kenneth Grant, being the type of person he was, he seemed—I’m not sure how he does it. Mention—did you find anything that mentioned like how those two hooked up?

I think just by being general weirdos in the occult sphere. Game recognized game. But they basically—they hook up in—in Kenneth Grant, because you can read—you can read uh—the—the—the Typhonian Trilogy’s, and he mentions—he mentions Bertiaux. He mentions—he mentions the LCN. He mentions the OTA. He—he—Dr.—he name-drops this stuff. It’s like he has footnotes. There’s Bertiaux’s artwork. Work—and that’s a thing we haven’t even touched on—is the man’s prolific amount of uh—paintings and all sorts of stuff. His artwork ends up in Kenneth Grant’s books at certain points. And Kenneth Grant had a wife who was an amazing artist, and he was like, “No, let me get the caveman. Let me get the guy that looked like he was putting the acrylics in his mouth and spitting.” I say that like I—I—I’m actually very fond of his art, but it’s a—it’s a—it’s a real raw, primitive sort of art style. And then like, Steffi Grant is just like, “Oh my God, you’re actually—you practiced—you’re Auntie Allen Iverson!” Ultimately, Kenneth Grant is uh—part of the—the propagation of this man’s uh—let’s call it what it is: fame. His notoriety is driven largely because another guy who is well-known for being super, you know, you could argue brilliant, you could argue fascinating, interesting, you could also argue convoluted, weird and unnecessary, but that’s Kenneth Grant. And Bertiaux, really—it was probably a lot of game recognized game. Grant and Bertiaux are held up as two cut from the same cloth, as it were. I mean, there’s a lot of jokes where it’s like, if you took a drink every time you didn’t understand something in a Bertiaux or Grant book, you’d be dead from alcohol poisoning by the fourth page.

Yeah, right. But the parts that you can wrap your head around, you know—and it’s not that they’re completely obtuse or they—or entirely gobbledygook, but they both have a writing style that just crams so much into so little space, and it doesn’t—they don’t always fill in the blanks for you. We should probably add the third person in here, and this is someone that we would probably—we might do a special on them way down the line, but the Holy Trinity of this sort of era of post-Crowley weird Thelemic mysticism, right, is Kenneth Grant, Michael Bertiaux, and Maggie Engels, who everyone knows better as Nema.

Yeah, yeah. I believe Nema also gets name-dropped a lot in Grant’s work.

Well, these are the three people that have all committed themselves to the—the post-Aeon of Horus idea, maybe not specifically all like the Aeon of Ma’at, but all of them have that in some capacity. Yeah. And then—and at the—at the very least, these are all three—three uh—authors, occultists that re-contextualize the Aeon of Horus, you know. Bertiaux talks about the ether and current and stuff like that, or the—the Theophysics and things like of that nature, which um—you can fit them into the—the—the strictly cranked uh—Thelemic ideas. It’s stuff that uh—that—that it doesn’t fly if you were to just go to the—the—if there is such thing as a run-of-the-mill uh—OTO, I guess. If you went to the Gites and wanted to talk to them, they—they—I’m not saying they like tar and feather you, but they’d be like, “That’s some funky [ __ ].”

Yeah. Well, I think that is not sanctioned. I think the important thing to note with Bertiaux is that he is very much in the same vein as a Kenneth Grant. He’s someone that is writing very dense, very complicated, and at times very obtuse—opaque—yeah, there’s a good word—opaque writings that are based on ideas cobbled together from not just Crowley, but a wide breadth of occult tradition. And not only that, but uh—but also stuff that they—they made up. Yeah, stuff that they made up. Things that are of their own invention. And it’s—it’s the thing of—they are indicative of that era that leads into chaos magic.

Oh, very much so. Well, think about it like this: when *The Gnostic Vodou Workbook*, Bertiaux’s first major published work, was published, it was 1988. Yeah, which means chaos magic had been a thing. *Liber Null* had been out for what—seven years, something like that?

79 is when *Liber* comes out. 87 is when it says it’s originally published, but I don’t think that’s actually right.

Well, in the same vein though, Bertiaux had been writing things for—well—well before the—the book was actually published. Anyway, but keep in mind that this is the era, you know, in this—so at the bare minimum, they came out right next to each other, but I swear to God there’s something about like *Liber* and *Psychonaut* um—getting really like—p—the first actual printing of that was like earlier than that, but either way, the point is is that it was definitely in that era where we were trying to get past the um—the stuffy robe ceremonial tradition, you know, and—and while Bertiaux definitely loved him some ceremonial stuffy robe stuff, he wasn’t so much on the idea of clinging to a long-story tradition. He was much more interested in wild fringe innovation, but then saying that it came from a long line of stuff, right?

Yeah, that was—that’s probably the one thing that—that uh—little biography that we read at the beginning there got right. It’s very much that what Bertiaux is trying to do is build interesting innovations and not just repeating the same sort of like, okay, well, this is what Levi said, this is what Agrippa said, this is what the old Voodoo tradition people will tell you. Instead, he would—but—and I guess maybe that’s the—that’s the other end of it. And—and we—we should also get out in front of it too, is that the—the big issue is that this is like a—a white Midwesterner trying to…

Talk to you about Voodoo, and it's dubious where he really got it, and it's dubious what Hector Jean Manne was really about, that sort of thing. Because if you were to try to talk—that's why we talked about, you know, theot Minnesota Voodoo. Yeah, that's the joke, you know, is that this is it. This is not Voodoo. It might use some of the words, and it might follow a smidge of the ideas, but it is it is it's practically night and day. And once you add in all of the Western magic components of it, it's it's it's something else. There's no need; there's like the the fact that it keeps saying "Voodoo" is superfluous. It doesn't need to be there. There was—if Birdio had taken that one word out, I feel like a lot of people wouldn't have uh, they wouldn't bristle quite so much. And well, but he also uses a lot of the idea, you know, the the concept of the families, Gade Lea, all these things, you know. And there's there again, there there are very much aspects of real Voodoo that are central to this sort of working, but they are so syncretized into everything else that it's it's not—so it's somehow taking—it's taking oil and water, and you made it—but like, if you add enough stuff, oil and water can mix, because now it's a cake. You're better than me. I was going to make it—I was going to say it's like you you added oil and water and you made mayo, but oh, oh well, that works too. No, what it really is is you put oil on the water and you lit the oil on fire, so now no one can get at it.

Yeah, never shall they be separated. Yeah, so maybe a little meandering, but that is a pretty firm step into the biography of who this guy is and where things start. It requires going back to before Crowly had the O.T., so it's quite a jump back. But then the but then it's also the funny thing of like, there is no documentation to prove that any of that is John Hector John M—, who again, as far as we can tell, is a real person, cuz people that are not Birdio like talk to him and met him. There are photos of him. Yeah, there are pictures, you know, that sort of thing. That's more than Castaneda had, so like he was a real guy. So part of me wonders how much of this did Birdio legitimately think that he had an actual—in—was like, you know, at—what was Birdio at some point taken in by somebody who was maybe more charismatic and knowledgeable that was claiming they had an actual lineage to something, and he just ran with it? Or do you think maybe somewhere along the line he realized this guy's full of [ __ ]? But I kind of like him because they—as far as I know—there's no falling out between these guys. No Johan Manne dies—from what I've known—ironically, who has the who has the the the longstanding uh lovely uh teacher-student relationship—the two people that are accused of being crazy hustlers. All the the legit magician of of, you know, particularly of O.T.A.—"You're my magic baby, but now I hate you; uh, you stole my book, we're going to fight over this, you know, this—that you're you're not legitimate, we're kicking you out. What the [ __ ] is the Quran on the hell away from me, Russ? Yeah, I'm going to threaten you with legal action," all that stuff. And then meanwhile, the fake O.T.A.—it's just two guys and like, yeah, "Oh, we we do all these séances together, and we talk about radionics, and we do these classes, and also uh, you know, Legba's there, Legba's involved. D is that cool? There's scorpions and spiders everywhere, you know, we're having a we're dope—we're doing dope ass [ __ ], and my teacher dies and he leaves me the order and I carry on the tradition." It's like it's wild that never happens.

I suppose just to lay it out there a little bit, because we've obviously talked about the O.T.A. hating each other, getting rid of their own members, saying that you're not a you're not a [ __ ] you know, O.T., you're not a grade nine anymore, you're not a grade 11, get the [ __ ] out of here, you're not a you're um, you know, Grant Kenneth Grant being like, "Hey, I'm the head of the O.C. in England," and Carl Germer being like, "The [ __ ] you are," yeah, and Marcel O.T.A. being like, "I'm the head of the O.T.," like, "No, you're not," you know, they're just continually—think—so what did what did Birdio think of uh the O.T.A.—uh, that was from Atlantis. I know that comes up. Yeah, it it it very much from Atlantis, but yeah, that was the—for those of you that don't know, there was a time when every magical order traced the roots back to Egypt, because we didn't know how to translate hieroglyphics, so we just made up [ __ ] about Egypt. And then we figured—we started being able to to learn meaningful things about Egypt, so we had to go back further to like Samaria, you know. That's why Cleye's like the—we reclaiming the Samaran tradition, and that—then we found out enough about Samaria to be like, "Oh man, The Descent of Ishtar isn't what we thought it was." So some people got around that by like just saying fake places, that's like my the Lamian time war or uh, we go back to the the fictional city of of that one Greek guy that nobody cares about. You know, again, I think it's I think the the parallel between Grant and Birdio here is kind of interesting, because Grant claimed that the Lama itself was part of a greater Draconian tradition that he traced back to Egypt and so on, which is interesting because it's like a essentially a fake tradition, but it goes back so far and is so kind of amorphous that you can't you don't you don't have to point at people and be like, "That's my guy," whereas Birdio is like, "Yes, this is all very real. It goes all the way back to real people, I swear, and I got it from the notes of a guy who was not the primary student of the guy that taught me all this stuff." That's another thing—he said he got it from Mark. Yeah, he said he got—again, that's just Khig making the claim there, so who [ __ ] knows. And that's another part too is—but I I I trust Co Khig more than I trust a lot of these people, cuz he doesn't seem to have anything to gain from this other than being like, "Isn't the O.T.A. funny?" Yeah, and and the O.T.A. is really funny, guys. It is funny. It's really cool, but it's also really funny—very funny. And I I think for us at least, you know, our—and we'll get into more of our personal opinions later, but for us it really doesn't matter that it's fake—not even in the slightest. It doesn't matter that it's fake anymore than uh than Kenneth Grant's, you know, O.T.A. Draconian tradition is fake, any more than the Cthulhu [ __ ] [ __ ] being—and that's the other thing is that uh, well, it's Pride Month too, so uh, it's important that we talk about the trans-Yogic current that goes to—that's a terrible joke, I'm sorry. No, I have a worse one though, because one of the big developments in the O.T.A. is um Michael Birdio's development of post-Nth Degree workings. Um, for those of you who don't know and didn't hear the Thama episode, the O.T.A. has a big degree system where you go from first degree all the way to ninth, and then there's a technically a 10th and 11th degree, but the 10th is just sort of a technical one, and the 11th degree has had a whole host of issues involving people and legitimacy. Um, but the long and short of it is it's all kind of getting you prepared to teach you how to do sex magic, with the ninth degree being the big secret of "Yo, you can do magic by [ __ ], and ain't that wild." And what's lovely about that is that you got to go through all of this stuff before that, but with chaos magic, that's step one. But then the 11th degree is, of course, um anal sex, yeah, because—and that's Crowley's—the thing that Crowley hangs his hat on is that he made the 11th degree, that's—and uh, maybe if you listen to the last episode where we talked about karate chopping somebody's spirit out of them, that's what he—that's how he did it to Victor Neuburg. I'm pretty sure that is what he is talking about when he talked about displacing Victor Neuburg's spirit and making him write poetry. At any—that was at least one of the incidents. At any rate, um, Birdio had this to say on the subject: "Right, as you may or may not know, we did mention Patrick King in the Thama crybaby episode, right? I'm not sure we did. I think we did. I'm pretty sure we did, but if we didn't, just so you know, Patrick King, member of the O.T.A. after its reconstruction by Grady McMurry and others, went to Grady McMurry and said, 'Hey, we have all this stuff that Crowley said about the 11th degree, but we don't have anything actually in the system.' Oh, you did mention this, so, 'Hey, can I go do the 11th degree?' And he was like, 'Sure, why not? I don't have—nothing—I don't have a dog in that fight.' And then after McMurry died, things were not all right there. But the point being Birdio, who not only taught the 11th degree in the O.T.A. and other places, but an increasingly forward system going up to like I think the 15th degree or something like that, again following in the footsteps of uh of C.F. Russell, yeah, just adding all sorts of stuff—Birdio said the KHF had no authority to give the 11th degree as he never got it from A.'.A.'. or anybody. That is him saying that Grady McMurry could not give anyone the 11th degree because he did not get it, which McMurry responded to: 'The question has arisen as to whether or not Crowley ever made any homosexual advances to me. The answer is no. Happy Pride Month!'" It's just—in the context, it's pretty funny. Well, well, you have to keep that in mind, because that's a very real thing in the O.T.A.—fake or real—the use of sexual acts as a piece of initiation, and that's something that you have to address and have to be—it has to be known that this was what they were doing. That was the that was the idea that like—not only was it skeevy, but like that was the idea of like—that was what you were supposed to do. Like you had a magic teacher, and it's was like, eventually he's gonna [ __ ] me in the ass, yeah. Uh, which—just when you—when you say stuff like that, like if you hear things like that even with the context of like sexual magic and stuff, it really does make you go, "This was an elaborate way to to to [ __ ] people."

[Music] And we're we're going to get into that, and just—I feel like we're saying that a lot lately—like, "We're going to get into that in a minute. We're going to get into that in a minute." Well, just didd didd didd hey didd didd. Um, but my last little bit on Birdio's opinions of the O.T.A., so and I quote: "We are not a history club or a nostalgia buffs coffee shop. We are out for sheer power and Good Times. [ __ ] the goody-goody worship of the goddess [ __ ]. In her face, I say! Konan. The purpose of the Konan Club is to destroy the O.T.A. and to make sodomized mutes out of its members." I think he didn't like him. Well, and it it also goes to the the the Kenneth Grants, the the Michael Birdios, and then to another extent, the the Peter Carrolls of of occultism, right? The the people that saw where occultism was—particularly where the Western tradition was—and was like, "All right, um, this is whack. This is not helping. This is not getting me where I want. What what works? How are we going to break from this?" And I will say a brief aside here—it's funny to me because if you find videos of Michael Birdio, he is like this—I won't say sweet, but he is this—he is this very placid old man who is like showing you his paintings and just sort of talking. He doesn't even look at the camera sometimes. He's just sort of, "Oh, well, and uh, this is the the trans-Yogic Golem that I have painted." It sounds really bad. Young Birdio—he looks like your [ __ ] grandpa. But apparently young Birdio said "sodomized mutes." Yeah, what the [ __ ]? He he really reminds me of like George Lucas in interviews, yes, like cuz he—you can tell he's just kind of this like nerdy dude talking about stuff that is super specific and important to him. But I will say, "We are out for pure power and good times"—that is some cha—that's like one of the most Chaotic [ __ ] things I've ever heard. It's also the most delirious [ __ ] I've ever heard. You know, that's some—that's some very real [ __ ] right there. That is like, "We're out for power and good times." Like that's—n—right there, dude. What? And that—well, cuz that seems like the cry of, you know, uh, "results be your proof," you know, you know, like that—"nothing is true, everything is permitted," that sort of—it it has that punch to it. It's like, what are you—what is magic about? It's about doing the work to get a desired result, you know, you—what do you want to make happen? If your entire idea of magic turns into a series of steps on a staircase that lead up to some kind of nice spiritual realization, you're a mystic, and uh, there's that—there's a place for that. But sometimes you need that pure unadulterated—"I'm going to do something to make the neighbor dog's head pop off because it keeps [ __ ] barking." Yeah. Well, it's an it it is a a drastically and dramatically underrated part of magic, especially these days, because you tend to get those two camps. And in fact, you listener people who are in the Discord and stuff—I I have divided you already in my head into these two categories. There are those of us that are interested in making our lives easier and just getting the things we want by doing magic, and then there are those of us that are very like spiritually minded and get the feel-good's and stuff. And I'm not saying either of those are wrong—well, I think often what you'll find is people that oscillate between those two, you know. It's very easy to uh it's very easy to want to reach sort of a a spiritual uh peak and and try to find the Oneness when things are going well in your life, and then like some [ __ ] [ __ ] up, and then you knuckle down and you're like, "A, I'm back on my [ __ ]. Fire off a sigil." Right, right, right, right. And I I feel like ultimately what all of our problem is is that we need to a—we need a lot more of what Michael Birdio there is talking about, at least in that regard, right? Yeah, we need power, and we need good [Music] times. All of that said, if you had the impression that we think like Birdio is like a goofy clown or something, you're completely wrong. We genuinely think that Michael Birdio is probably one of, if not the most interesting magician that is still alive today.

That's true. Yeah, he's still kicking. You can email him. I almost—I thought about emailing him, but then like—I know what the next section is. I would like to have this episode reach him or somebody that could talk to him, and then we'll talk to him afterwards. Listeners, send this to Michael Birdio. He's in Chicago too. I heard you was talking [ __ ], and then he's—he shows up with—he shows up with his wizard staff and just hits it on the ground—my [ __ ] walls fall over. I'm out for power and good times, bucko. Yeah, but legitimately, I think Birdio is probably one of the greats, and that can be a that—that can mean different things to a lot of people, but I think in terms of the work that he presents, he's he is—he's definitely up there with Kenneth Grant, and we think very highly of Kenneth Grant. He's definitely up there with people like Spare, in terms of like obscure but deeply relevant to Modern occultism. There's always the things you can point to of like, "Midwesterner doing Voodoo, not knowing what the hell he's on about," but when you can take the work at face value and say, "What are the elements that are being presented? What are the practices that are being described?" And then doing stuff with them—they might seem bizarre—they they're not always—it's not quite as as easy as uh, you know, pulling up one of the one of the papers from old A.'.A.'. or O.T.A. type stuff where it says like, "All right, make this sign and do this," but some—so sometimes they're a little harder to wrap your head around, but they're they're fascinating. Say it's harder stuff than like Leo Reno. Well, yeah, and but I would say with the caveat of like, "It's not always harder because it's more complicated. Sometimes it's harder because it it takes certain things"—either with the intention that Birdio thought that people were going to like flock to him as students and he'd be able to explain it, or he just assumed you knew what he meant. Well, but that's that's kind of a—I think that's a positive thing. I I don't necessarily think it's a negative thing—at least, I think there's a certain—there's a certain level of of—well, it's the um—I mean, it's the old Alan thing about a good teacher in the West is someone that makes it very easy for you to understand and do, and a good teacher in the East is someone that makes you figure it the [ __ ] out.

Sure, sure. Yeah, and yeah, and and it's not—I'm not being like, "Oh man, he should have written like a step-by-step." I'm just saying sometimes you'll read something that he's—he's written—it's like, "Man, this seems really interesting. I'm not 100% I'm doing it right." Well, yeah, and then sometimes there's—he'll say, "Oh yeah, and there's information here in the appendix." Like, "No, it's not—it ain't [ __ ] liar, just write to me at this address that I haven't lived at in 10 years [ __ ]." So so legitimately, we we think highly of him. I think he's fascinating. I I mentioned my Christmas gift last year was uh a copy of Ontological Graffiti, and I'm I'm [ __ ] through the moon about it. I I I pick it up and just sort of flip through the art sometimes, and it's just—it's it's fascinating. It's not—I'm not a person that ever feels like a a book I've got is like, "Oh, there's power radiating off of this," but like—really, no—wow, it's a book. It's a book, Holmes. You know what's got power? If I smack you upside the head with it, and this is a very heavy book, so like it's powerful. Sorry, I'm just—I'm just the complete opposite. I think that even like nonspooky books—most of my book—most of—you have way more books than me too. I think—no, no, no—the contents of the book have power. The physical—the physical book—like, you know, I I've never I've never been one that's hung up on the idea of—I—a physical copy of something—I need it in my brain. Okay, I I guess that—but I still—I don't know, maybe getting—maybe getting the first three parts of Z's Z kind of changed me on that, because I hold those books and I feel like, "Holy [ __ ]." Yeah. I used to have $400—I can't even talk [ __ ]. I look at my tattoos and go, "Man, I used to have all this money." Me with a cheese grater going, "Can I return this?" Or a mandolin—one clean slice—just hand it back to—so anyway, as we've—we've sort of gone through—Birdio clearly doesn't like the O.T.A., so what we've got is—Birdio is kind of a clown. Birdio is kind of awesome, but now it's time for Birdio's kind of awful. Yeah, maybe so. Do we—where do you want to go first? Do you want to talk about your thing first, or do you want to read this little Patrick King quote first? Well, we did mention Kenneth Grant, so for everybody who knows Kenneth Grant, this quote might offer a subtle distinction between them, right? So so this is Patrick King again. Yeah, this is Patrick King, the head of the—right of SHZ—the 11th degree in the O.T.A.—tragic tragic figure in some ways. He wrote a diary of his workings of the 11th degree called Libra Kadash. You can find it online, and not only does it show some very interesting records of sexual magic, but also gives us some fascinating insights into both Phma at the time and things that can be used to shed some light on cultism today. So this quote—another insight into the mystery of the unfolding of the aons—in every era, the esoteric gnosis is that which will in time become the exoteric doctrine of the succeeding epic. I think that was supposed to be Epoch anyway. Thus, in the Aon of Isis, the world life was conceived as a gift from the great mother, nourishment being drawn directly and exclusively from her. The secret of the high priesthood of the period was simply that the intervention of the father was indeed not only part of it but essential to the continuation of life. When the secret—such as it was—is at last out of the bag, then we have have the Advent of the worship of Osiris—sl—the father God. The type of Womanhood is trampled back into the Earth, but the actual secret of their gnosis has now been succeeded by another. The old hidden Mystery—now the property of the common people who accept manifest formula as the word of the truth. The new secret then is not merely that sex has a connection to the bearing of children—the old Aon practice of virgins lying under a full moon and so become with—has long been considered rank Superstition, but that sex can be used towards other goals. Note the taboo against its use even in the pursuit of any sort of pleasure—TI—the devil. So in one form or another, it was sexual magic that was the true key to the O.T.A. high councils, therefore bidden in occult truth. O.T.—Templi Orientis—guarded this mystery at the turn of the century, and it was this Brotherhood which was transformed by Thelema and the child god Horus, which reveals it today. The old gnosis is out of the bag. Sex magic books adorning the shelves of our present everyday intelligencia. We thus have at present several sex cults coming into being, all claiming to hold and to reveal this ancient and forbidden fruit to the world. Advertise secret schools of inner only—no outer types allowed—please. Mysteries of sexuality clubs for people who like to think of themselves as magicians as well as sexually liberated star-type individuals. First-rate top-class esoteric ones—if there is such a thing—they are all—it—you know where it's at, baby. Occult societies—of course, they are all—of course, they are all the true Children of the Light, the first of the new era, not like those hung-up old gappers who—the long dead and long gone—turned-on type of the sort—like whatever they were anyways. The O.T.A. of Kenneth Grant no doubt tops the list of this sort of organization. Nonsubtly, the Frantic freakouts of the Franco-Haitian O.T.A.—the desperate wing of the same phenomena. I would place this one distinction between the two aforementioned societies: Grant believes in what he is doing and has turned a good mind to the rehashing of a dead era's magic, while our Mr. Birdio has actually seen through the whole thing and now spends all of his time selling anything he thinks people will pay for. It is the worst sort of Rose Croix racketeering, really. Man, Patrick, that was a lot. I hate that he's funnier than us. Oh yeah, Patrick King's [ __ ] hilarious. Oh man, damn, that—that is some—that is high-level [ __ ] talking. Oh my God, that's [ __ ], but it's a brilliant—"All we got is hey diddle didd"—it's a brilliant insight, but at the same time, it points to what other people at the time thought Birdio was doing—they thought he was a hustler. Yeah, and that's the thing—it's like—I'm not even going to go as far to say that that—that that's gospel. It's very funny, but cuz—but it—the idea of like referring to the the Typhonian O.T.A. is sexually liberated—Grant was a bigot. Yeah, Grant was afraid of doing it in the butt, and Birdio was uh was like, "I'm B it. Yeah, get over here, I'll make you—" Well, getting into the next piece, we're going to talk about—but that's the thing is that his—the—and that's still the perception for a lot—when I made the joke earlier, it's like, "You're either going to hate this, or you're—we're going to make sure this episode leaves nobody happy," but that's the perception by a lot of people is that this was a—at best—Birdio is a is a a raving idiot; at worst, he's a he's a malicious hustler—like he knows this is nonsense and he's pedaling it because you're going to buy it, you know, that sort of thing. It's like, you know, "Write write your questions on the back of a $20 bill and send it to me." But at the—I guess suppose at the same time, you know, that's—that's every occult teacher. When we thought, "Man, I thought dragons were really cool, Mr. Kelly," you know, uh, we we we basically bailed him out saying like, "Is that—is that worth it? Is—is regurgitated Crowley with a dragon motif worth it? Is regurgitated Crowley with uh with a Voodoo motif worth it?" And I wouldn't say that Birdio is actually just regurgitated Crowley, but still—the the other dicey thing—there's more than one source for these types of allegations and talks, but I'm using one primarily from—I believe it's called Spirit Core. It seems to just be a a blog—Core Spirit—my bad—um, and it's attributed to a Frater Barabus. Yeah, Frater Barabus. But it is um a a sort of firsthand account of my experiences with Michael Birdio. It says a lot of what you'd already expect of like dubious accreditations and lineage and the the overt attempts to syncretize anything and everything that they could get their hands on just to just—just to put it in there. Birdio being someone who courted controversy, so they probably—Birdio probably leaned into the idea of like, "Oh, it's a white guy Voodoo thing." He's like, "Yeah, well, it got people talking." It says a lot of what we've said, where it's like Birdio probably wouldn't have been known anywhere if it wasn't for the fact that Kenneth Grant latched on to him and and elevated him in the same way that Spare—as cool as Spare seems to be—a lot of you probably wouldn't know—would know about Spare. Yeah, Kenneth Grant went out of his way to to get Spare—not just talk about Spare, but get his his stuff republished and put out there. But this person talks about the firsthand account of basically like going to Birdio when he was doing lectures, and he would do lectures and then like—you—you know, somebody does a lecture, somebody does some kind of performance, and what do they do now? They're sitting at the table with their with their stuff for sale, you know. You go buy their book or talk—you talk to them for a second, and then Birdio would use those things not only as like a source of income but also as the means to get students or or at the very least occult connections of like, "Hey, come here," and Birdio seems—from the from these accounts—Birdio's jam was getting around people, getting tore up, drinking a lot, and uh like gossiping about occultism. And that's kind of like—yeah, yeah, what we do—a lot of gossip and and [ __ ] talk on this show. That's—we talk about other people. Oh, no, but that seemed to be the thing that he was really into. He liked to tout the fact that he was like—

I'm I'm friends with Kenneth Grant, probably because that was like the highest person up that chain. I mean, I guess maybe if he had known Grady, he'd have talked about that, I suppose. But well, he clearly hated Grady, which is fine; you can understand that, maybe because Grady didn't care for him. You know, if he had said, "You can be 11th degree," who knows? He said, "All 11th-year degree, it starts there with like sort of things of like," you know, Birdio, like to drink a lot and it says things like he wore ill-fitting clothes and kind of looked like, like a slob. He was just a, a sort of flabby, hairy dude, things like that, which is like, you know, whatever; that's not that's not a crime. But uh, I mean, I'm I'm 6'5" and got a a six-pack, so I can't relate, but you know, there's nothing wrong, no, but there's nothing, you know, that that's not a a big issue, I suppose.

But they do make the distinction that it's like, it's weird because in rituals he'd be wearing like satin vestments and looking, you know, dressed to the nines. And then like you'd be hanging out at his his uh, you'd be hanging out in his apartment where everything is slathered with fake Voodoo paintings and occult objects and a skull on the desk and things and all sorts of crazy stuff. And then he's in like a shirt that's too tight, that's missing a button, you know, that sort of thing.

But the bigger issue is that this person, this Frighter Barabus, threw a little bit of back and forth along with a another with their who they say like, "This was my magical teacher who was also homies with Birdio." Basically, they're like, "Hey, yeah, you want to get initiated into whatever?" And it's like, "Yeah, I I would love to be initiated by you, Mr. Birdio, Sir." And it turns into what they describe as, "I was stripped naked, presented to all these Loas and spirits, and then had a large goblet of Wild Turkey." I think they said like it was like a third of the bottle in a goblet, so like, you know, big huge pimp cup, whatever. I don't know. Basically, the the initiation amounts to: they were naked, presented to the Loas and Spirits, uh, made to drink a third of a bottle of Wild Turkey in a big goblet, and then Birdio, who was also naked, hopped on top of me, pinned me down, and tried to make out with me, and I was just really, really not into it at all. And it seems to be that the shame, and it's I just wasn't into it, and I didn't feel like being violated by this person. And it seems to be that that was Birdio's MO. They even mentioned that to be initiated as a bishop in the the LNC or or whatever LCN, yeah, sorry, I keep saying LNC, but the LCN—it was an inside joke with a couple of them and a couple of people because it was like it meant that somebody [ __ ] you in the ass. It was the idea that Birdio was a a an esoteric diddler, a yeah, a mean-spirited, manipulative, egotistical jerk right off the bat and then a a perverse, if not rapist, at the be—well, I guess, you know, uh, if not an outright violent rapist of like forcing himself on people, used his esoteric teachings as justification or means to manipulate someone into giving sexual favors. And there's just there's just no excuse for that; there's just nothing you can do to put a good face on that.

And this is one person's word on the situation, and but it isn't the only one. Yeah, it's not the only one, and it's not an uncommon thing of the time either. Well, it's not an uncommon thing of now. Right, right, right. The the I guess you could say what you want about the internet making occultism accessible for people who like shouldn't who should not, but at the bare minimum it's like, at least now like if you can just download some PDFs and you can buy a robe off of Amazon, you don't have to have somebody [ __ ] uh mashing your parts just to learn something. In probably, you know, in fact, I won't even qualify it; I will not discredit the idea that sexual interaction can lead to esoteric insight and initiation of some kind. I mean, Sex Magic works, right? Yeah. I personally think that if that is going to be the thing that happens in an initiation ritual, you should probably tell the person in some kind of capacity. I I I would really, and they don't explicitly say like, oh, they didn't tell me what was going on or whatever, but they they just mentioned that like overall it felt like a violation, and they just weren't [ __ ] into it. And they did everything they could to keep this person from to to keep Birdio from actually, you know, having sex with them. It's, you know, it was an unpleasant experience; they weren't happy about it, but they don't describe it as like, "I was traumatized and this was awful." It was just like, "This was creepy and sleazy, and I wasn't about it." So good for this person, at least they were able to maintain themselves and that sort of thing.

Yeah, what that to me, what that says is that they didn't know explicitly that's what was coming. Well, yeah, cuz if you knew then you'd either be like, "Why would you fight it if you agreed to it?" You if you knew it was happening, you would have been like, you might have known, right? I guess. And that's the thing, maybe it was just a thing of like, "There's hey, there's sexual elements to this," and they were like, "No, I'm for it," and then in the moment it was like, "No, I am not, never mind, I don't like his mustache touching mine," yeah, that sort of thing. But either way, it's it's very, and then they describe like the fact it's like it was very obvious I was fighting Birdio, but like everybody else just sort of let it go. And it was because Birdio was hot [ __ ], and uh, and even to the point of like, well, every I'm sure everybody else was getting also getting sexually assaulted because they wanted Birdio super magic blessings. Right, right, right. And they even make the concession that Birdio, it's like, "This isn't somebody who says, 'Oh, Magic was a sham to sleep with me,' or Birdio doesn't have any good doesn't know anything about the occult." They're like, "It's just that Birdio used the fact that they were uh a a prominent occultist with a lot of crazy ideas as a means to get people who would be willing sexual participants in his spooky woo-woo [ __ ]."

Well [ __ ], I do that; I I go, I have a magic podcast, baby. You want to go back to my place? Yeah, but that's you're saying that to your fiance, and she's like, "I don't listen to your podcast." She's like, "What do you mean, go back to your place? I don't listen to it; I have no idea what you're talking about. Will you take the garbage out, please?" Hey, baby, you want to listen to my podcast? All right, so all no all right, so all the unpleasantries of all the societ—what did Birdio actually give us then? Uh, a great a great great great fly swatter. The these things are, this could take out a family of roaches, like you know, that thing where you where you flick on the lights and all the roaches scatter. If you were like the get a friend quick enough, you'd get them all. Get a friend, right? They flick the light; you hurl the book the minute you the minute they come on, and you will get 90% of the roaches. Yeah, you no bug bomb needed. It's even more effective if you don't use the digital [Laughter] version. Okay, but seriously, seriously, the has written a lot. Yeah, but we're going to focus on the most famous work and then the one we like, the one that is literally in my hands right now. So we've already mentioned it several times here: the Gnostic Voodoo Workbook. It's actually, I believe it's the Voodoo Gnostic, but it's like Gnostic—it it it feels like talk tick instead of tick-tock. Gnostic Voodoo sounds like it makes sense; Vodun Gnostic does not. The Vodun Gnostic Workbook, that's the name; that's the actual name of it. My understanding that came from Birdio himself when he gave me the 11th degree. No, uh, but like uh, I it was something I I'd seen him type out. I believe there's a there because there's a like a revised and Expanded Edition, stuff like that. But and then there's videos of him talking about it, but the this book came out because Birdio was supposed to be giving like a weeklong workshop type thing where he was going to go over some meaningful subjects of the Voodoo Gnostic current, Lucky Hoodoos, and things like that, more or less. What happened was that the workshop seemed like it was going to be a sure thing, and then it fell through, and he was left with all of these notes, send ideas and exercises and like, "Oh, I was going to talk about this," and somebody Flo the idea of was like, "Well, why don't you turn it why don't you take this and make a book? You know, we can get it published." And he compiled the content of this Workshop into a book, and it illustrates a a couple of different things. It it comes across more like a series of essays or somewhat interrelated modules, but they don't really connect. Like there's the Grimoire Gayday; there's the opening part, which is the idea of the Lucky Hoodoos, which to this day I still think is really it's really well written. In the idea that it's full of these sort of positive affirmations and pretty basic exercises that are effective. If you didn't know anything about magic and you just read the the first 50 pages, you would have stuff that you could toy with for weeks, and it would probably do a lot for you. There's a self-initiation right of introducing yourself to the Lucky Hoodoo Spirits. There's an explanation on like how to pick up numbers for like running the ponies and stuff like that. There's a thing there's a there's money magic in there. Yeah, this is this is oddly enough a a great beginner book. In fact, I would say it's probably one of the best, at least for the at least for like the first 50 pages. Well, no, well, that's what I think because it it does it gives you just enough to be not only fascinated and interested in occultism if you've never dealt with it before, but it gives you enough to be confident in yourself that way. When you get out of the first section and you know, in fact, even the Grimoire Gay is probably basic enough that you can kind of work it for yourself. But once you get into like part two, like the Gnostic energies part, that's where things start to get really kind of weird and back and forth. But by that time you should have been doing enough of this stuff that you're like, "Never mind, no, no, no, I got this; I can figure this [ __ ] out." And it and it really does involve everything. It starts with the Lucky Hoodoo Spirits, which are the spirits of Atlanteans and the spirits of the Dead, you the great spirits under the under the earth and the great magicians of the water and how you can use them to get like money, get money, and and it's very basic kind of magic setup. It's like quarters magic; it's like, "Hey, get candles that are different colors and like them, you know, put them in different directions, like them, make a little prayer to the the the spirits; maybe you make like a magic square," and he goes into excruciating detail of how to make a magic square. Oh, yeah, and then even describes the the technological elements of all of these things, stuff like that. But then as you go on, then you go into the the Grimoire Gay, which is like there's the three Gayes, but they're all one Gayday, and there it's the it's related to the Christ archetype and then also uh it introduces the concepts of the various Loa and how they can be used. He describes the astral time machine, which uh shows up in the Invisible—it doesn't show up in that form, but you can see the influence. But the one thing that does show up is the Zerin, which I talked about previously, the Zeru are and the Invisibles, and that's how I found Birdio in the first place. I was like, "The infamous Spider Loa." Yep, the spiders uh Spider, scorpion, crustacean, whatever; there's a they're described, but they're described primarily as spiders. And the the Gnostic Voodoo, there's just other people that add on to them. I still think they're fascinating; I've like I said, I've done work; I've had successes with them. It and it describes the the the uses of of sexual radio activities to feed these spirits and also um the sort of interplay, the exchange of like, you know, these these there's a spirit there or a Loa for everything you could possibly want to do; you just and they're they're eager, the spirits are eager to work with you; you just have to hold up your end of the bargain. And that can be as simple as, you know, lighting some candles, saying a prayer, and offering a little bit of your energy energies up, and it can be as complicated as uh a you know, an eight-directional mandala that you have to that and understanding the SpaceTime Continuum, things like that. And then it it it tries to illustrate a a cosmology of uh not only how the the three Gayes express themselves in uh in different ways, how it's like, you know, it it describes Baron Samedi as an expression of these three that is complemented by Lundi, and then the the Morasa, which is that's an actual Voodoo thing, but it gets sort of cobbled—it's it's it's a little odd. Well, like so much of it, you know, because Legba, Gade, um various others that are mentioned in the list of Loa, these are all Loa that are actually very popular and known in the Haitian Voodoo tradition. Birdio interpreted in a way that is so singular and apart from them. Yeah, so his syncretism of them is uh and again a little a little opaque, a little hard to read sometimes, but once you get your hand once you get your head around it, there's a lot of neat things that can happen with it. And again, we're we're the that's, you know, this is we're talking like the first 50 pages, and this thing's, you know, 300 plus. But then it goes into, you know, uh drawing down planetary energies and the proper vibrations of different planets and how those relate to uh different forms of sexual intercourse because their sexual radio activities are used in different ways. And then also uh I believe an a very interesting thing that I don't I don't really I can't think of other systems that really talk about this much other than like Eastern systems, and even then they don't go quite in this way is—well, I suppose there's sort of astrological elements to this too, but it describes the hot points throughout the body.

Oh, yeah, the point shod. Yeah, and I I I'm avoiding the French because I don't feel like butchering a language that I don't speak. I'm good; that's kind of my thing on this show. But yeah, these hot points, which are, you know, let's call them what they are: they're occult centers that have correspondences with various spirits and and Loa, and it's the idea of uh by initiating yourself either by sending Birdio $20 and letting and and letting him make out with you or uh by self-initiation. He does mention the idea of making contact with the Loa through meditation, and they can inform you of how to uh properly initiate yourself, that sort of thing. But the idea of finding the the corresponding body parts with these Loa, and and I I do really like there there's a quote in there that is like, "You have the ultimate occult tool; it's your body," and I that's a really nice one. I like I it's related to the I I'm see here's the thing; my natural reaction is to pronounce it Ohas, but I'm pretty sure I guess it's OAS, the OAS, yeah, which he describes as the ultimate Magical Force of the physical body and the physical manifestation, and it's sort of synonymous with like Sexual Energy, but also not in the same way that nothing is everything is everything in this sort of thing. Right, right. And then hell, we can go and because and we could pluck out different things like the I I think the the hot points is an interesting one because the idea of uh in the East you'd have something that was at a kind like a chakra, you know, where you're installing the deity into a point in yourself. So it's the by reaching the initiation and finding the spot or at least the point and things like that. And then that also further relates to uh the sort of different planes or uh as he's described them, ontic spheres, which are uh magical and imaginational or or sorry, magical and imaginal. In fact, hey, here's a little quote just because I had also just pulled up something something on the the atic Spheres in the mystical metaphysics of the Zoroastrian Gnostics and Sufis: "There is the world of archetypal images, Mundus Archetypus Imaginalis, which is between the world of sense perception and the world of the abstract Essences or ideas in the mind of God. In some of my other work, I referred to this realm as the atic sphere, for it is being. However, this world fits the imaginations of the magician so perfectly that what the magician seeks to explore or seeks to find out, whatever he does, it is all there in this Mundus Archetypus Imaginalis. Thus, the magician is able to show by means of this metaphysics what is the most fantastic is also the most objective," which relates to a lot of, you know, Kenneth Grant, the the imagination or image-making quality is the most important of the magician, or William Blake, as the imagination is a divine faculty. He specifically mentions Carl Jung's idea of active imagination fitting with this idea, or Chris Chan, where the idea of it's all everything. Michael Birdio and Chris Chan, they're like, "This, my son, I can imagine a a Sonic and a Pikachu hybrid, so you know, that's just that's my that's in the atic sphere, man; it's right there; it's all real and out there in the dimensions." Whatever the I can't remember what the hell my Chris Chan lore is—I'm just gonna find that thing of him going like, "Whatever, we all cast spells; lots of us have cursed people." Anyway, that's already so much to chew, and it's like these are just—it's not that they're completely unrelated, but there's not like a steady flow, because then we go into like the Zan currents of the idea of these sort of celestial planetary forces that are sort of uh related to the Aon of Horus and and Thoth and things like that and how those those planetary Powers need to be uh placed in Union with the Earthly spirits of Thea and things like that. And then he talks radionics and Shinto and this and that and uh the Meon, the Meon, which is in fact, you know, what [ __ ] it because I can't describe the Meon any better than he does, so we're going to put the little clip of him talking about the Meon right here: "For the Mayon, of course, is the opposite of being; it's a Greek word, Mayon. But it's interesting that if you look at a very good Biblical dictionary and encyclopedia, it's also a name of an agent Canaanite City in Palestine, which was inhabited by worshippers of the goddess Ishtar in one of her manifestations. And it's very important for us to see not only the category of nonbeing as otherness but in many ways as a threatening breakthrough into our own Consciousness from our own Id or unconscious levels of mind. The Mayon, therefore, is otherness and can be could or or I should say frequently is something different when you have two or more things combined. Are you confused just a bit?" And then and it's it's all slammed into this absolute to and it's it's one of those that if you like it, you like it can do a lot; it can give you—sometimes it's cool to just flip through and look at look at some of it without reading it as a whole and just get sort of inspired a little bit. Um, I I've gone back and forth; when I first read it, it was it was I just didn't give a [ __ ]; it was like, "Man, what the [ __ ] is this dreck?"

Well, I mean, tell you what, like here's just I think this is probably the perfect encapsulation of it in my mind, right? This is a book that it it's what, like 600, almost 700 pages? Sure, there are equal parts simple Robert Anton Wilson type ex uh exercises for you to perform; there are breakdowns of systems of numerology and language, and then there are things like the Artist as magician and the artist of deity, the work of Hiroki Fuda. I told you to stop talking about Japanese pro wrestling; you're trying to sneak it in. Well, I'm just saying like this is a man—this book, this sensibly a workbook, something that and at least for both—this is not I hate to say it; this is not a workbook; all this is not a this is not a course that you get through through; this is a collection of uh of of very far-out-there Fringe ideas that loop together and double back on each other in strange ways. It's not like it's just throwing [ __ ] into a book, but this isn't like a point A to point B progression at all. No, yeah, and the the there's four different sections of it, and to be honest, like they're all connected within the sections of course, but he could have split this up into several different books, and it probably would have it might have been more digestible for the average person. Part of me wonders because this was his first real work, maybe he just say like, "I better put everything in here because I might not ever get to write another one; maybe I'll be dead before I get another one, so let's just get it all out there."

But overall, the Vodun Gnostic Workbook is it's better than Liber Null in certain ways because Liber Null and specifically like Liber K and stuff like that, kind of things like, you know, these they give you a path to follow, and when you come out the other side, then you can kind of do whatever you want, whereas the Voodoo Gnostic Workbook lays at your feet so many Fantastic ideas, so so much that once you get through it, you're already so far gone; it really is a wild ride. And you could pick one chapter out of it and probably have something that would keep you busy for an extended period. And you know, we we already said it; I I really do think that the the the best part of the book is really right in like the first 50 50 pages or so because I it'll lay out like these all this these family of Loas and all these things like that, and if you do the work, what's it'll be neat because like other go other uh other ghosts and spirits will pop up, and you'll be able to fit them into these families or or maybe one of them will say like, "No, I'm a totally different thing," but then also you can go you can go hunting for these CU—they all got names, so at the bare minimum you got somewhere to start with of like, "All right, let me go see what the transvections are about." I I'm partial towards the last section of the book because he goes deep into the the ideas of the atic sphere, and that's again; that's where you get like the the magician is an artist and think that stuff's very fascinating. Yeah, but that's all stuff for nerds. I want to be a we spider. So talking the second book now, there's and and let's keep in mind there's what six six books between this and—I'm just tossing out a number, honestly; it's all too [ __ ] many. Yeah, this man has written all kinds. What's even Wilder to me is that he has like esoteric chandlery works, you know, he's got like, you know, Book of the Law, Crowley type [ __ ] that has just never been published. You see quotes of it all throughout his books, but it's like you have to you got to go talk to Michael Birdio and get the get the laying of hands and the touching of butt to get the magic books, I guess. Here's the the the one that I want to talk about is the one we mentioned previously, Ontological Graffiti, because it's in a way this feels like his Opus; this is like his his like especially the version I've got because it's huge; it's got all this artwork crammed into it, and this man does like I said, very raw sort of primitive art, but it's really if it's your jam, it's your jam. I really think this thing is great, and it's just full of all of these very disparate ideas of like it starts off talking about Sophia and relating things back again to like ancient Egypt type magic stuff like that, and then like there's a chapter about the Great God Pan and then how that relates to uh a ritual that is laid out to make people into vampires, and then uh there's future spirits, but that's that's uh those are all really neat. Let's talk about the transpersonal Id and how you can uh do a better form of therapy through radionics, but also we need to talk about the APR Melon rituals, and it's again, it's one of those things that I feel—here's an entire like 20 pages that is me talking to a spirit during a séance. Yeah, and it's a lot of these are like, "Hey, here's just the here just the minutes of uh the various séances and spiritualism activities we were doing of like Q&As with ghosts." We talked to Crowley's ex-wife; I'm not even kidding; that's an actual part. Hold on, hold on, for the sake of argument, tell me when to stop. Bam. All right, right here. We're in the middle of a séance where it's laying out how this sort of Neo-spiritualism is at the root of uh of modern Gnosticism, which uh I guess makes sense, but it's it's a ghost explaining how talking to ghosts is a very important part. The big good Angel of Voodoo—that's that was a word I had to read. Those are certainly words; those are certainly words, and you can put them in whatever combination you want. At the bare minimum it's uh and I I won't pretend that I've gotten through the entirety of this thing because I've just I've had other stuff I've been trying to read. Perhaps Birdio is not somebody who is meant to be fully understood or made into a historical footnote. Is it is is not this is not a history club or a Nostalgia tour, but if you want to find things that maybe it won't give maybe not power but certainly uh inspiration in good times, one of the best things you can do is just dive head first until you either you can't stomach it or you find something that's so off-the-wall you like, "I got to go try this." Um, I I got a Birdio quote that I think um sums up my feelings on the subject. Sure. "Each magician must determine for himself his own grimoire, but this is only possible after such a person has advanced very far in the magical disciplines. He must be able to translate himself literally into a grimoire; he must be able to make a grimoire as his own image in the same way we understand the Bible says that God made man in his own image; all other magical work fails unless we are able to use this principle." In hindsight, while editing this, I remembered another quote that I definitely should have gone with instead of the one I read you, so I'm going to give it to you here right now: "My intention is not to carry on the same work continuously or have others do this; this is a point missed by many readers of the workbook. Instead, I do exactly what Hector did for me; I show individual occultists how to solve problems and construct pictures of their own universe. I am giving you materials for books to write yourself." If that doesn't drill home the point we're getting at, I don't know what else will. I think what Birdio is giving you more than anything is the grounds and the ability to create your own system. Birdio doesn't want you—I mean, maybe he does; maybe he's just trying to be a

Huster here. But what I think, at his best, what Birdio wants you to do is read his books and develop these systems, and then go make your own [ __ ]. Birdio wants you to look at the fantastic, the imaginative, the creative in the absolutely groundbreaking and earth-shattering things that he's created, and to tell you that, yeah, you can do this too, buddy. Get to it. And the ones that suck at it, then you can just keep doing your Voodoo all day, I guess. Yeah, and I, I think the proper inspiration that you can get from people like Kenneth Grant, from people like Michael Birdio, and from people like Castaneda and Lovecraft and Morrison—you know, everyone we've done a special on—is that these are people that are not giving you a new world. You know, they are not saying, "Here is the way that you're going to be from now on." I, I think if, if you, if you're doing, just go become a Christian or some [ __ ], that's what you want. Yeah, sure. But instead, what they do is that they're, they're offering these, these new vistas, these, these new images and ideas and symbols and things like that that are coming out from a, a deep—whether it's, we took this from Lovecraft and we recontextualized it, or we're showing you techniques that can break the, the, the automatic apprehension of the world and, and find new ways to, to change your perception so that you can find something that you haven't seen or, or, uh, experienced before—or delving deep into your own personal creative, uh, your own personal creative energies and pulling something out. I guess there's the Jung quote about like, "People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul," because, you know, and, and the, the, the end of that quote is, "because people don't think that anything good can come from them." But maybe people like Birdio and their works show that we all have a cosmos inside of us that we can pull out. You know, we, you get some parts from, you get some parts from other people, you mix them together, you find something new, and you, you build something that can stand on its own that is, and it's can be as wild and crazy as you can think it's, and in fact, the universe itself is, is probably wild and stranger than you can think, so you might as well go, you might as well go for it.

Now, whether that means, uh, trying to get past all of the hokey nonsense and getting to the core of what you think like an effective magic practice is, or whether it's, uh, really immersing yourself in a, a, a deeply personal invented magical, uh, way of going about things, I can't say. But I do still, regardless of his, you know, the, the cultural appropriation, the complete misrepresentation of Voodoo, the, the false lineages and the, the overall gross behavior, I, I still think there's a lot of really cool stuff you can get out of Birdio's work. Am I missing anything you think?

No, I agree entirely. I think we're very much on the, on the same wavelength here. I think what, what Birdio is good for, and what all the people we've talked about in these specials, and most of what we're talking about on the show, are always about is that same old drum that I go back to over and over again: disclosing new and fantastic ways of being, new understandings of being, and more so than anyone, I think Birdio—if you truly, if you truly take some time to look at what Birdio is giving you—you can't help but come away from that with this fantastic sense of not only finding, not only having new ways of being revealed to you, but being an active creative part, part of that, and I think that's what's most important about Birdio. [ __ ] the goofiness of whether or not the OTO is real, and if that, the if he's doing something right or wrong with Voodoo, you know, whether or not he kissed that dude on the mouth or not—just [ __ ] all of that. The important part of Birdio is that if you really look at it, if you really go through these ideas that he's presenting, if you do the work that he's laying out to you, you're going to come away with something that is so fundamentally different inside of you, and if that hasn't been your goal with magic, then God damn it, it should have been.

And well, the, the last thing I can say is that we have still barely scratched the surface on all of the things that Birdio has talked about, and I'm not summarizing 650 pages. Go buy the book, go read the book. Yeah, but, uh, I said, I guess, uh, is there anything, is there any particular methods or things like that that Birdio had that you find particularly useful? That like, it's like, "Oh man, this was like a really, this was a really great thing that I wish I had done sooner, or I had known sooner."

I just think his approach to being able to simultaneously combine so many disparate ideas into something that's coherent is what I found most useful. I like the way he talks about the ego and the id and the transpersonal id and the transpersonal, the transcendent ego, like all of those sorts of aspects, and then also talking about, like, "Well, yeah, but also it's like closing your eyes and connecting with the atic sphere and pulling in the, the entirety of the cosmos through, uh, through your meditation." Just like those sorts of random things just feels so simple yet so inexhaustible.

Yeah, yeah. I feel that. I feel that. What about you? You, you already know, like, personally, I'm, I'm an artsy guy. I won't say that I'm super talented, but I really enjoy making art.

Stop being humble. There are people that are much better than me. I'm much, I think I'm much closer to, uh, Birdio's hairy caveman art than I am to, uh, somebody like a Stephie Grant. But I, especially in *Ontological Graffiti*, the name itself comes from that sort of relation of, uh, this divinely inspired art as, uh, the, the symbols and the, the showing the, the map—it's, it's the -graphy for these new spiritual avenues—and to the point where he even discusses these paintings as the, the portals into sacred and, and spiritual and magical, um, zones or whatever. And just the way he talks about it in this book really did a lot for me. And I've noticed that the longer I've been involved in magic, I've, I've gone a lot from, uh, trying to find something that fit the motif that I was going for in, in terms of symbolism or artwork or whatever, and now I, I make a lot of my stuff, my, my, I, I'm staring at not one, not two, but at least, uh, at least five different pieces of art that are on or right next to my, my working altar, which is right across the room. So that's a, maybe that's a really easy one, but I've, I've always found the, the relationship of art and magic to be, art is magic, and, and magic is an art, I guess. And Birdio, at, if not filtered, not always edited, the very, very best, or, uh, curated in ways that are, I've, to illustrating an idea, but this sort of raw creative force that he's got can, uh, really get you going. And I think that if you allow yourself to tap into that kind of like raw creative force, it's like, art, your, your art doesn't have to be good, it has to be, uh, significant to you, at least. It may, you know, nobody else, doesn't have to mean [ __ ] to anybody else, but if you can tap into it and, and pull out something from within, then you know you, you, you will find that you have created a very useful, very useful tool for your practice.

Yeah, I agree entirely. I, I also have a soft spot for Birdio because, like, like Birdio, I too am a heavily philosophically minded individual. You know, B, you know, I didn't, I held back so much hyper on the [ __ ], but that [ __ ], talking about atic spheres, beings in the world, all sorts of [ __ ], it is, you can tell this man, man has read Heidegger, Hegel, just all sorts of people all the time.

It's amazing.

Yeah, exactly. I, I'll put this in there for the dorks, they love it. And you see, and I have a soft spot for him too because I too am a, a, a fake Voodoo man. And you too can be a fake Voodoo person if you sign up to our Patreon.

I said, "Make me a Voodoo man," but the Voodoo man just kept Voodoing.

All right. Well, with that, this has been Chaos Magic News, the only podcast that can trace its lineage all the way back to the original Haitian Outo. If you too would like to be a big fake huster, or possibly get hustled, you could always go to chaosmagicnews.com, where we'll find the, the occasional article, links to the pod, and links to our illustrious, ever-present interview series with, uh, exciting people like Michael Birdio. If you send him this episode and he wants to talk to us. But if you can't get that, then of course you could go find some spicy memes over on the social medias. We're on pretty much every single one of them: Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Facebook—it's all @chaosmagicnews. And if you want a more personal experience with us, you could check out the Chaos Magic News Discord, where, um, do we want to do the, sorry, do we want to do the housekeeping announcements? We were going to propose some interesting changes to things around here, but we've decided against it, so we just ignore all of this, and we're going to tell you you should go join the Patreon if you want more of us, cuz what else are you going to get? Exclusive content from us, unedited, full barrel coming right at your face. I feel like there should be a joke about that, but I, I couldn't possibly think what, what to do.

Yeah, I can't think of jokes about things going in your face at all.

Oh well, I guess it's a very serious topic. You also help support the objectively best occult podcast on the internet today. And if you just needed one more reason to join that Patreon, well, you would also get your name read.

Oh, can I, can I read them this time?

Yeah, if you want.

Okay. Where's the, hold on, send me the, give me the list. I don't, oh God, give me the list. I don't have the list. What, you, so, oh, what, you, you were gonna, what, read it later? I do it by memory.

No, here you go.

Awesome, awesome. All right, thank you OBS, thank you Andrea WK, thank you Pope Loki Sader the 23rd LLC, thank you Local, thank you Liz, thank you Cosos 93, thank you Alexander, thank you Coco, thank you Cursed Te, thank you Theodor, thank you Venus Christ, thank you Accolyte One of the Ice Magic Meditation Society, thank you DD Destruction, thank you Tangy Darling, thank you Sil, thank you Michael Trov, thank you Bearded Vegan, thank you Cece, and thank you Toel. And also thank you to the Lavender Ghost and Tommy Kelly who have joined in the time since we recorded this episode. That's right, you are all just the absolute best. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna, I'm going to send a Voodoo Loa to go kiss you on the forehead, every single one of you, and, uh, we, we look forward to seeing you in the next episode. We look forward to reading your name next time, listener. Ah, there you go, that's the one. Well, I guess with all of that said, you want the last word? You, you've earned it.

You've taken way too long.

Too bad. Come on, come on, come on, come on.

No, I got a good one. I got a good one. We're not an, we're not an academic sewing circle, we are not some kind of magical hugbox, we are concerned with podcasting and good times, and the rest of you guys, you're going to be like some, some sodomized, uh, some sodomized—no, talkie people. How about that? The [ __ ] was that, isn't mute like a bad term now? All right, everyone, thanks for listening. We will see you next time. So much [Music] bye-bye.

Can you like move your mic just like a little bit closer to you?

I jumped the gun. I'm sorry. Can you just move your, but slap there. [Music]